When in human history did conquerers not also take slaves from those they conquered?

As far as I understand, the practice goes back to the Akkadian empire. I’m not saying taking slaves is good or natural. The thing I see as problematic from your assertion; is that slavery was at any time in human history a form of progress. I don’t see any reason to make such concessions to the right.

If they want to paint themselves in apologia for slavery, we should mock them for it.

(Edit: Which to your credit, is what your meme is doing.)

Neoliberalism was born in Chile Neoliberalism will die in Chile!

I’m not saying the article doesn’t make some good points. But, much of it is self-contradictory. It says in the beginning of the article that we can rule out progressive appeals to voters as it was the more moderate voters that stayed home. By the end of the article its saying democrats need to appeal to voters by telling them how they will materially improve the lives of working people.

Focusing on how politics can improve lives of working people materially is literally a progressive appeal.

Population: Chengdu over 20 million vs. under 3 million in Toronto.

The maps above also seem to be differently scaled.

Also, the fact that Chengdu’s metro has developed fast in the past decades, as compared to Canada that has developed steadily in the past century, is not really the gotcha OP seems to imply it is.

That said, it’s perfectly possible that public transport in Toronto leaves much to be desired - without pointlessly comparing it to Chengdu.

All that is true, but the point I made stands. Public transit is better in China and that’s a fair thing to point out.

If you’re upset that China has better public transit, the proper response is to advocate for better public transit. Not to whine that you’re being compared to countries that have better public transit.

Public transit is in fact better in China. In fact public transit in China is considered some of the best in the world at this point. Pointing out a particular ways in which a communist country is better than most capitalist countries is informationally valuable, and vice versa. That’s called a nuanced understanding of the differences.

You asserting things can’t be better in China is pointlessly political. Some things are better in China, some things are worse.

Westerners are so propagandized they’ll literally argue with a map.

Supply and demand. How many default fruits have you seen? They’re rare.

Wow, a broken clock that is still always right!

For Apple and other phone manufacturers battery replacements is a point where they can pressure people to upgrade. China has developed a new battery tech with about twice the capacity of standard lithium batteries. When that becomes standard in phones they want people ro be used to the idea of buying half the phone for the same price. Personally, I would prefer 2 day battery life on a full charge if there is a new technology that doubles battery capacity. At best Apple is likely to to keep that in the ‘Pro’ phones until there are $300 android phones with the technology.

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Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

I would agree no country is perfect with regards to being completely anti-imperialist. All nation-states have an interest in building empire.

Having said that just because we live in a world that incentives competition between nation-states, that does not mean the world as is, is inevitable or eternal. Just because an ideal doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean it’s not an ideal worth striving for. Things can change and it is worth striving towards a world with better human relations.

Having said that, some examples of more positive relations do exist.

One could point to the international healthcare initiatives from Cuba as a positive example of non-imperialist relations to aspire towards.

While China is far from perfect, they have made small positive steps with the Belt and Road Initiative by offering better terms to developing countries than historical international investments initiatives such as the IMF and the World Bank. If leaders in western liberal democracies want to compete with China and offer developing countries terms with even better environmental and labor standards for mining operations or otherwise; I view that as an unmitigated win for human relations.

Unfortunately, from where I’m sitting, it seems like leaders in western liberal democracies are more interested in competing with China in military terms rather than in labor or environmental terms.

The secret is you gotta get ‘em in the freezer before they go soggy.

They tried being slightly less evil and their shareholders sued them.

YSK: This is a community not a subreddit.

Counter-counter-point: Greta is a story of violence against a pretty white girl which all else being equal would normally mean big media attention in western media. But it isn’t getting much attention because it doesn’t play into the interests of the western corpo-state.

Contrast the coverage of what happened to Greta to the recent shooting of the Israeli diplomats.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=F7-V9ImpGJE

Just you wait, 11 more of those and it will be a sternly worded letter. 16 of those and they’ll receive a demerit, then they’ll really be regretting their choices. You don’t even want to know what happens if they receive 7 demerits.

The Weimar Republic was the most educated place in the world before WWII. Education certainly can help but its not a panacea.

Nintendo DMCA this project in 3… 2… [/s]

Pleonexia

2 economist walking in the woods.

Economist 1 says to economists 2: I’ll give you $100 if you let me kick you in the balls.

Economist 2 says “sure”

Then economist 1 kicks economists 2 in the balls and gives him $100.

They continue walking and see a big pile of shit.

Economist 2 says to economist 1: I’ll give you $100 if you eat that pile of shit.

Economist 1 says “sure”, eats the pile of shit and economists 2 gives economists 1 his $100 back.

They continue walking, eventually economist 2 asks “What was the point of what we just did?”

Economist 1 responds “We just increased GDP by $200.”

That does sound like Luigi, always willing to lend a helping hand.