Purely anecdotal but… the 3 stupidest people I’ve ever met online were all from .world - and there seems to be a propensity for deleting comments that go against their world view. Only knowingly interacted with one .ml poster and they were perfectly decent.

Argue bad. Discuss good.

Unless melanin levels play a part in the story (Huck Finn, Mockingbird etc) then there’s no reason to even think about it. Describe to me how the following character looks: they go by the name Jordan and work in a Japanese restaurant in Cape Town. Everybody will picture someone different…

A mute point or a moot point? You have (accidentally?) made a language pun there.

For the record the word Libertarian has a different meaning in the US to that used in the rest of the world.

That’s incredibly grim and it disturbs me - whilst I do (kind of) see where you’re coming from. I’m not gonna try and give you counselling or advice. I’m neither qualified nor know anything much about you to do that. I sincerely hope that in a decade or so a happier you looks back on the immediate future (as it is now) and just takes a deep breath and puts it down to another blip in humanity’s long and winding road. That would be nice.

You don’t. If you’re even entertaining the thought that there is more to learn than what you already know you are displaying intelligence. Stupid people “know” they’re NOT stupid and intelligent people constantly question their own intelligence. This is why a grown adult with the reading age of a 12yr old can spend twenty minutes online and become the world’s foremost authority on… 5G, vaccines, international geo politics, chemtrails, why the Nazi party were “ackshully” socialist etc. etc.

That’s incredible - thanks. The idea of the ultimate endgame of capitalistic monopolies looking suspiciously like communism always confused me as it seemed they were just doing the communist legwork before the state intervenes. I’ll probably have a go at section 2, Engels / DiaMat, fairly soon.

Thanks. I’m passingly familiar with Lenin and the New Economic Policy but I’d like to better understand the key differences to Marx’s Communist theory that it had/s. Also, without wanting to be controversial, a good piece about China. Is it Marxist / Communist or not - or is it more complicated than that?

Any particular theory you have in mind, if you don’t mind me asking?

I don’t know… revel in the fact that you are living (so far) through an event that could be epoch defining? Not everybody gets a front seat to history. That’s, uh, about all I’ve got for now. Sorry.

You are more than welcome to choose from one of the pre-prepared opinions that we have on offer here… no need to bring anything new to the table and confuse such an obviously binary subject.

I know. It’s weird just how good the UK’s social housing was. There was a great belief that the housing estates you built had a direct effect on the people who lived there. Compare that with some of the US’s efforts - that demolished place in St. Louis, O’block in Chicago etc. Different worlds. Eventually the UK government switched to inner city high rises (“streets in the sky”) and social results were… mixed, to say the least. Throw a lot of poor, disenfranchised, non native, non related people in a closed building and, shock horror, negative results were had. Colour me surprised.

Funnily enough the council-built housing in the UK is generally of a very high structural and architectural quality. I am currently sitting in a 100+ years old council property that is still eminently habitable. Only four houses of the 125 that were built here have been demolished. All others are currently inhabited. It all began at the end of WW1:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_Walters_Report

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Taikonauts are Chinese. All three words, Cosmo, Astro, Taiko - naut describe the same job; it just depends what agency certified you as to what you get called.

I don’t know. I live in one of the many western democracies that have maybe six or seven relatively normal parties to vote for; as well as a few more to the edges of the political spectrum. I think this question only applies to people in the US.

“He always was a bit of a… reader when he was young.” said with such utter contempt and disgust; like it was a terrible thing.

It does look like a Mini at first glance.

I’m not from the US but we do have FPtP here. I propose that all political positions should be filled in a manner similar to selecting a jury. Grab a bunch of citizens at random, do some vetting, install those that pass into the various positions. Three year limit. All major national policy votes taken via a (digital, on your phone) referendum. I strongly believe the only way to save politics is to remove “professional politicians” from the mix.