“Is there anything more depressing than communist architecture?”
“Mass homelessness.”
In the morning 10 comments. Now 110.
Let’s see who is the debatelord vibe basing facts against cowbee…
He has the patience of a saint. We should all aspire to ground our views as thoroughly as him and to be as charitable when explaining our reasoning to others.
Seeing Cowbee around after joining Lemmy has reinforced my belief that I’m doing the right thing by being ruthlessly patient and positive with others. That dude’s awesome, he recommended me, a total stranger, some introductory ML literature (and I haven’t had the time to read it yet…), which I’m sure he gets questions about very often.
(If you see this, Cowbee, thanks again! I’d love to chat some after I’m done reading what you’ve provided me. :) )
I highly recommend the recent Deprogram podcast (ep #248) where they go into a discussion of the daily life experiences of people in socialist countries. Hakim’s father lived in the USSR and Yugo, living in a the former Yugoslavia, has a ton of anecdotal experiences from family and friends.
Thank you for sharing, this seems interesting
I have a friend in China that pays around 3500rmb a year (incl electric, heating, ac, internet) for a place in a mid tier Chinese city. It’s a 10 minute walk from a metro, fairly new, and she prepaid two years of rent working a gig job at minimum wage for 2 months. Her girlfriend also works minimum wage and they said they aren’t even employed right now and they saved some money up from their sporadic gig jobs and are now taking a 2 year vacation because they just wanted to chill, I guess. They send me cute lesbian pictures of them on the beach somewhat regularly. They say no one bothers them about being queer, though their families are still in a somewhat hilarious feud over who should take on whose name. They don’t pay any taxes, they are exempt due to a wage cutoff.
I’m sure everyone here has it cheaper! 🤡 China is a capitalist nightmare don’t you know?
People online, and especially newspapers, always act like China is having a gig nightmare, and that everyone is stuck in unemployment hell. But they obviously don’t see the totality of the economy, they are just looking at one number or another. A large number of unemployed people can be good because that can be a long period of personal, consensual downtime from work. So many newspapers were also reporting what you just posted as a brutal bust in the housing market ripping wealth away from millions of Chinese. But they do not understand the context of the economy whatsoever. A house isn’t an investment, and its something that takes up such a little part of someone’s total wealth in China that they do not care if the prices keep going down. You can pay off a big 80k rmb house in the countryside in about 3.3 years of minimum wage work, and by countryside I mean a rural/suburb area, you still have access to a fast train to the local big city. You typically pay nothing for the land the house is on, its free when allotted by the collective lands comittee, so you’re pretty incentivized to set up your own house by ordering a prebuilt one to be shipped there or paying builders to do it. Or if you really wanted to save money, you can hook up a fancy yurt to the free electric and sewage lines and grow your own food, this style of life is so cheap and easy to maintain in China that it really isn’t even worth mentioning the numbers. I talked to a trans lady that did that.
This sort of life being possible in China makes me desire immigration to non-major city areas over there. I only have concerns of freedom of information and access to the greater internet- censorship on a national firewall level is something I’m simply not able to tolerate.
IMPORTANT: I am an American with a public education, and have no real knowledge of what life’s like there in terms of freedoms. I’ve just heard things.
Would you mind going into a bit of detail about how accessing the greater internet works over there? That is, if you know anything. I think I am correct in assuming you are not currently residing there. Would love another’s take on this.
The big issue with immigrating directly to China is that you will only be allowed to stay in their higher tier cities afaik, this is because of the Hukou system which treats every region of China like its own country with visa restrictions, essentially. Its great for preserving cultures but not so great if you like to travel a lot. So its unlikely that you could take advantage of the collective lands rules as a foreigner unless you married into a family in an area with collective lands. You can obviously visit any region of China but visas/hukou do have limits if you try to go for residency.
There are some loopholes to getting Chinese citizenship, you can move to for example Taiwan or Hong Kong, get residency / citizenship in those places, and then the mainland would consider you a citizen by proxy. But usually if you’re moving from one region to another you can only live in the higher tier cities. You can read a little more about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou
Its great for preserving cultures but not so great if you like to travel a lot.
Possibly but that wasn’t the intent of the Hukou system. It’s goal was the prevention of massive slums forming on the borders of the majority cities during rapid modernisation (which in turn leads to rapid urbanisation). There is currently massive hukou reform ongoing such as restrictions effectively being lifted for cities under 3 million population.
Thanks a lot! This is invaluable to know and look into before I ever begin to seriously considering uprooting my life. I wouldn’t mind going through the paces to attain a life I find desirable, but it depends on how prohibitive things are if the time comes to make decisions like this.
Also are you in USA? Afaik there are new rules for Canada that are more lenient
Yep, USA. Part of my potential plans were to go to Canada first, though, for their better relationship with other countries!
I got permission to talk about the feud! Traditionally in this region, the wife of a husband would go live in the husband’s family’s house and help take care of the house and his family, usually indefinitely. Nowadays, everyone can afford a cheap apartment so usually a certain time each year (usually Chinese New Year and a couple of other holidays) wives go live in the husband’s family’s house during the celebrations and are a part of the husband’s clan, then they go back to their own apartment afterward. Basically, both extended families of this lesbian couple are really salty and wanna double dip on having their kid and the wife stay in their house so they can have two extra women around to gossip and clean with around the holidays lol. They really don’t want to share! They’ve floated a lot of ideas but have come to a stalemate on the matter, I’m really curious how it’ll resolve when they get “married” (as much as you can be legally in China rn, anyways, which is basically American-style civil partnerships with joint bank accounts prior to Obergefell). The antics each clan gets up to to try to impress them to join is getting really hilarious, they keep bribing them with gifts (flowers, food, money, cute dresses) all the time, its gotten to be a competition for some of the old grandmas with nothing to do. My friend says this is a little stressful. They really don’t want to disappoint either family because they’ve been so nice.
mid tier Chinese city
Which one?
3500rmb a year
That seems insanely cheap, did you miss a zero in there? I’ve seen nice apartments for 2-3K rmb/mo in T2 cities, per year seems crazy.
I’ll ask if I can mention the location, I didn’t say specifically for privacy reasons. Its possible the specific region she is in subsidizes the housing for low income people, idk the specific logistics of how she came to that price. She did mention they don’t live in a city center but it didn’t matter because it had train access.
Downvoters are all landlords
Unironically I love logging on and seeing which meme (it’s always a meme) is to become a battleground for the next three days
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I see something in the commentary I can’t exactly define. It’s probably bigger than a single word can encompass. Regardless of how revolutionary and forward thinking the leaders of a polity are they are still leading groups and individuals who have their own cultural beliefs, of which their positions would be inherently antithetical towards revolutionary ideas–if they were not the revolution would have occurred earlier. There’s a cultural threshold that must be passed before revolutionary activities can occur, but that threshold may be with a minority of people who can enable those activities to start. They will still be leading a majority who simply do not care intellectually. Most people do not give a thought towards the economic system they live under.
A white-class who materially benefits from a black-class’ oppression will be racist towards that class regardless of what the leading mouthpieces say, especially if that benefit has been enforced throughout many generations. “Equality feels like suppression to the privileged.” When a strong revolutionary polity enters a territory they–by definition–are fought against. It’s intellectually lazy to call this push-back the “suppression” of religion–ethnicity, sexuality or any other category–by the revolutionaries.
Revolutionaries were on the correct lines. One cannot attack the revolution’s failings on the actions of uninterested participants or more accurately: counter-revolutionary actors. The communists were more socially progressive than the capitalists. That’s a fact not up for debate. Communists are more socially progressive than capitalists.
Rents should be abolished. It’s a tax and I do wonder why taxes are still in use by national-governments today. They’re inefficient and create absolutely needless friction and dissent amongst payers. Money has long left the bounds of reality. Of a nation state to issue money, but then tack back a small fraction due to cultural-legacy, should it not be ridiculed? Likewise the ill effects of landlords has been well documented economically: their patronage is solely for the oppressive effects on you–the worker.
My rent is 1.5% of my income. I’m good.
Rich kid or living under a bridge?
Basically a bridge. Super rural, middle of nowhere.
“I’ve got mine, fuck everyone else”
I didnt say to fuck everyone else. I consider myself super lucky and the housing market it totally fucked and needs fixing. I didnt mean it like that, that’s my bad.
You didn’t use those words but anyone with a functioning brain knows that is exactly what you meant
Mine is 0%.
Mortgage otoh is 15%. Dont feel good about that because of my tax rate
Oh yeah I should have accounted for taxes and utilities. I’m probably about the same at 15%. Dunno why I felt lead to talk out of my ass.
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The fact that you seriously think that people were not paid in the USSR is extremely silly.
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Oh you’re someone who thinks communists work for free or something lol
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Cartoon person with cartoon opinions
Is it too scary?
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It was a socialist state - on the way to communism atleast until khruschev took power
You lot really believe anything you’re told, Jesus Christ you’re all hopeless.
When’s China gonna get rid of it’s power?
When’s China gonna get rid of it’s power?
This is the result of someone who has not once even grazed the same room as someone engaging with theory not to mind engaging with it themselves trying to have a gotcha moment.
What are you talking about getting rid of “power” that is absolutely 100% not the communist stance. Communists don’t even advocate for the abolition of government but for the withering of the state which is a separate apparatus that exists fused with the government in class society.
For me personally I dont even consider china socialist.
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source: Dr. Epstien Netanyahu, tel aviv research center
WHY are supposed anarchists always so pro-capitalist and pro-fascist??
Every time you lot will listen fiercely to what Amerika has to say about its enemies and you religiously believe it hard. Why?
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: left unityThat’s not a rule here. Don’t waste our time reporting things that aren’t breaking any rules.
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The only source for this about Beria is a guy named Simon Sebag Montefiore. He’s famous for 4 things:
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Being a loud and proud anti-communist
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Being best friends with Ghislaine Maxwell
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Being in the Epstein Files
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Lying about having access to unreleased Soviet Archives
Now maybe it’s true but given the source it’s not exactly someone I’d take at their word.
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Robin Shepard
Have a linknid like to see what he cites (I’m not optimistic given his history though he held fellowships with a number of leading think tanks in the United States and Europe including the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States).
Amy Knight
A link so I can check their citation would again be greatly appreciated (however again I’m not optimistic given their toes to the American “think-tank” circuit).
But not being optimistic is no reason not to check. I just have a feeling they likely cite who I think they do (or possibly they don’t cite at all) but we’ll see.
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The forever-relevant:
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holy fuck
Typical .ml bait but I’ll bite.
You can get similar conditions for a fairly similar price right now. Current monthly rent of 2 bedroom apt in regional slav city (1m population) is about €200. Any .ml users wanna move in? USSR ideation is very very welcome
And what’s the income in these cities? How much is said 200 of the average inhabitants income?
(Hint, more than 5% and often these regional cities dont exactly have great employment prospects due to shock therapy nuking whatever industry the city was built around)
State sources claim 760€(on 03.26 by rosstat). But it’s a good point to start asking more questions when the claim looks too good to be true – just as it is with the OP’s meme
So 25%
Also:
The average rent in the USSR around 1970 was 2–3% of the average urban family budget. This compares to an average of 20–25% before the Revolution, and 25–30% in the USA in 1970.24
Albert, Szymanski. Human Rights in the Soviet Union. Zed Books. 1984. Chapter 5
Your preoccupation with incomes and percentages makes you look anti-revolution and maybe even capitalist, comrade. For people like you, glorious fatherhood has special completely free of charge housing facilities!
Oh I see, you’re doing the shitlib thing of pretending to be a Red Alert character and confusing it for biting satire instead of the slav minstrel show it is.
Do an impression of someone from the DPRK next, I’d love to see how funny it is. You’re like the next Sacha Baren Cohen dude.
Man, I actually wanted to go visit DPRK but it’s seems like an unpopular (hence expensive) destination. A couple of friends went there and said it is like asian Belarus. Which is ehhh idk kinda underwhelming… But maybe one day!
Work hard and keep your head down and you too may one day have a good enough FICO score to purchase a plane ticket, citizen.
Your preoccupation with incomes and percentages makes you look anti-revolution and maybe even capitalist
Math is capitalist now? Since when???
.ml account with 5k comments asking about kulaks
Oh no, bro, I don’t have as much free time as you do
You were the one who claimed that most people reliably live with 5% or less of their income going to housing expenses.
But it’s a good point to start asking more questions when the claim looks too good to be true – just as it is with the OP’s meme
The only question you asked was, “does anyone want to move in to a living situation completely dissimilar to the one described in the OP (which effectively no longer exists, contrary to the point I was trying to make)? Didn’t think so 😏”
Bruh, the meme is a frame of western modern movie with western actors glamorizing the past, palatable version of which never actually existed. It is a propagandist solution for the global housing crisis
It’s “Make X Great Again” from the other end of the horseshoe
Idk how to engage with this populist twisted media in direct good faith argument. At the very least, my joke gives more information to those struggling with housing to seek out better opportunities
Yeah man verifiable data that happens to be reflected in one movie is exactly the same as psychosexual nostalgia for a 1950s coke commercial America that never existed. Everything anyone earnestly believes in is all equally stupid regardless of what it is, there is no alternative to the tepid slow death liberalism.
The official average salary is a half-truth (hence a russian saying: if my boss eats meat and I eat cabbage, on average we eat golubtsi), most people in the regions are living on 30000 RUB a month or so. It may still be better than the US because you get public transit and thus don’t really need a car but it’s still not good. Capitalism ruins everything.
China is a more enticing proposition but it’s very difficult/impossible for a foreigner to get a permanent residence permit.
China is a more enticing proposition but it’s very difficult/impossible for a foreigner to get a permanent residence permit.
There is apparently a trick, you can apply for permanent residence in Taiwan. Since Taiwan is considered part of China, the mainland also will support Taiwan’s permanent residency rules and will give you permanent residency on the mainland (in tier 1 cities only afaik).
“Oh, you like communism? Well how about paying almost nothing in rent, huh? Living in some hell where people agree with you? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
i’d do anything to get the fuck out of america. i can be a software engineer and firefighter anywhere. my wife can paint anywhere. but i’m disgusted at my country’s behavior on the world stage, and locally, and how The Jungle is a god damned documentary.
That would be so nice. A single bedroom apartment where I live is like $700 in the city, $600 out of the city. For context, that is 50% of my salary and I work full time in a job that requires a college degree. And it is applied.
Here we go again
Which eastern Europeans? Certainly not the ones that saw their life metrics shoot up immediately after centuries of feudal serfdom. Or did you mean the deposed petty aristocrats and Holocaust collaborators?
The labels should be swapped.
It is overwhelmingly the western 12 year-olds that complain about praise for communism/communist revolutions.Also, let’s not pretend as if Eastern Europeans were oppressed by the Warsaw Pact, unlike how NATO treats the vast majority of the world.
Examples?
.ml, hexbear, etc.
sorry, I meant give examples on how bad communism was :)
I’m almost 40
Meanwhile people who lived in eastern europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF0JdAim6Pc
i love this picture, it’s right before the men get sent down into the radioactive nuclear power plant that’s nearly about to wipe out all life on the planet because of the soviet unions communist corruption and incompetence👍
Lmfao you are insane
wipe out all life on the planet
I really would love to know where you guys hallucinate this shit
