You’re not local so you wouldn’t know. The leaders hailed dekulakization as landlord removal but it was really just about anyone who was well off through their own family’s labor too. And political opponents obviously. It was a dark time and we still mourn all the lives lost to the labor camps.

Mexico never oppressed America like this. There’s been conflicts, but the US was never forcefully occupied by Mexico.

Mate, I’m Estonian. Get the fuck out of here with any soviet praise.

The soviet way was to have the elites be rich, while deporting regular people with too many cows in their barn to Siberia. They were doing pretty much what ICE is doing in the US right now - complain that your neighbour is a kulak, and they get removed. Only in the US it’s “complain that your neighbour is MS-13, and they get removed”. Plus the 5 year economic plans brought with them lovely things like the Holodomor.

China is going to have the most billionaires of any nation in probably less than a decade. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” is just capitalism with actual oversight. Truth is, their government, particularly the court system, actually sides with corporations more than people. Try criticizing a major corporation and you’re fucked. Not even just Chinese corporations. You can’t criticize fucking Tesla in China.

If you want an actual example of the success of communism, there’s always Cuba. They’re blockaded by pretty much everyone, and yet have a pretty good standard of living. Better healthcare than many European nations, let alone the US. They may be poor, but that’s more the US’s fault than Cuba’s own.

Why not India? Tough to say

i.e. you don’t have a serious analysis.

Do you?

So why don’t they have South-Korean style development?

Are Chaebols a good thing now?

Why did China develop and industrialize while India didn’t? Why didn’t the same process as in China take place in Indonesia or Philippines or Bangladesh or Pakistan, all of them capitalist countries

China mixes and matches capitalism with state capitalism and socialism. They use subsidies to squash overseas competition, that’s why you can get things for basically free, shipping included, from Aliexpress. China has almost as many billionaires as the US - and is going to overtake them soon enough.

They’re smart in utilizing protectionism too. It’s way harder for western companies to sell things to the Chinese than Chinese companies to sell things to the west. For an example, Volkswagen sells cars through joint ventures with Chinese companies. They can’t just have a western-owned company selling the cars.

Why not India? Tough to say. For one reason or another, China became the factory of the world. Since then, they’ve made a lot of smart decisions to both profit from it as much as possible, and retain their status (just look at Shenzhen. There’s no alternative in the world). The other countries you mentioned could never have the economies of scale that China does. India is the only one that theoretically could.

That’s what I’ve heard as well. Unfortunately not a lot of authentic Thai restaurants here in Estonia. Will be sure to try one when I see a promising place and have an evening I’m prepared to spend in agonizing pain.

which is why all poverty alleviation in the past half a century comes from China, which took 800 million people out of poverty and extreme poverty.

Uhhh China has been embracing capitalism for a few decades now, sorry to say.

Problem with the “global south”, on the local level, is not even capitalism vs socialism. It’s corruption. The corruption of course stems from the poverty. When the leaders of your country come from poverty, had to gain power by force, and suddenly have access to resources… They do tend to abuse their access.

Yes, a functional socialist leadership is the best way forward for any of these countries, but even a well regulated capitalist system would be better than the leaders just selling their country to a bunch of corporations to increase their own wealth.

Stepson. Not a born royal, nor one that the royal family accepts as one of their own. Nobody seems to like him.

That’s more like it. In Estonian we call it “hapukurk” or “sour cucumber” which implies fermented too. You can have all kinds of different flavours too. I’ve never made them myself (yet) but my mom usually adds garlic cloves, blackcurrant leaves and dill, all from her garden of course. It’s delicious.

So what would you consider spicy now?

Uh… Whatever you say, that’s not really a thing this side of the ocean. We use a lot of different things in pickles - never have I seen anyone use HFCS. Not even in store bought pickles.

I tried Fanta in the US and it was disgusting compared to the European version. If the corn syrup is what causes that and they also put it in pickles where you come from, I understand why you might prefer the salt type. But I assure you, even store bought vinegar pickles are way superior to salt pickles here.

You’ve never had the good stuff then. Salt brine based is boring.

Remember how corporations are people? Well, bots can be human if you pay enough.

Yea, but I’m not eating them for health reasons and the brine ones suck lol

Usually vinegar where I come from. Wayyyy better

That’s my theory. They’ll pump out a few cookie cutter games on the existing IPs, but relatively little creativity is going to be allowed. It’s all for gamepass.

They’ve been touting Gamepass as the xbox seller for a long time now. Several years since they gave up on competing using exclusives if you ask me.

I’m starting to like the specs more than previous gens. At this rate, I might buy the 7 or 8 - 6 still seems like a downgrade from my current phone in some respects and I don’t NEED a new phone anytime soon.

They probably realized that they’re better off paying 3rd party devs to put their games on gamepass than developing their own games.

Lots of modern cars have electric power steering. Many of them have lane keep assist.

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

Man I had existential dread at like 3 or 4 when I started wondering what happens after death and what the meaning of this existence is if it’s limited to one lifetime… I’m not even bullshitting.