I hate how this race to the bottom makes China look better and better each year. Fucking China! Good job assholes! The US is getting dangerously close to becoming just as bad… Well, except for the about to be fucking poor like Russia part.

Also European here. And just to bring some more up to date examples.

My colleague bought a nice big flat some 5 odd years ago. If he wanted to buy the exact same thing today, he literally wouldn’t be able to afford it, not even with much worse terms. For the same money he’d need to move to some small dinky house in the countryside.

My aunt bought a flat 7 years ago for almost 1.5 million CZK, and then 2 years later one for 2 mil. Today, they’re both worth at least 10 each.

Income has not grown like that in the past decade. These are arguably successful people that literally wouldn’t be able to recreate their success today, only a few years later. Shit’s going down hill and it’s going down hill fast.

So for me and my GF, buying a house is a pipe dream. We just about manage renting our current flat, which is already cheap, we both earn comfortably above average and she even works overtime often enough. Buying a house or having a child are literally crippling decisions.

The trans aliens ofc.

I very much hate christmas. Having a specific day to give everyone something is stupid. We already have everything we want (that’s not too expensive to be a gift), and even if there’s something special, christmas ruins it by being expected. In my family we finally managed to drop the charade after grandma died. Sadly, gonna be celebrating christmas with my GF’s family, and so far I’ve been unsuccessful in making them understand that I don’t want shit from them.

Christmas is just a giant collection of obligations that leaves us all worse off. Like getting and advent calendar, everyone gets mad when I skip days, just because I don’t care about Christmas. In my country we also have 3 days where all stores are closed for it. Great shit…

Oh awesome, can’t wait to explain how I got a porn site email.

The US has no extradition treaty with China (or similar). So that would likely fall under spying and the “coercing a New Jersey man wanted by Beijing into returning to China” part is very much a major step over the line.

Edit: Also jeez people, he’s just asking relatively reasonable questions form ignorance, stop tearing him a new one! Being wrong shouldn’t immediately be cause for such backslash.

That’s the kinda logic used to defend the upper class. “What did he really do?” Hyper focusing on specifics, rather than the actual act.

Acting as a foreign agent, directly operating under the orders of a foreign government under the jurisdiction of a sovereign country is a bit of a no go. No matter if it’s China or not. We here in Europe have similar events with American spies every dozen years (and Russian and Chinese too ofc).

The stuff you mention about handing out valid Chinese IDs is mostly irrelevant flavor text. It’s iffy maily because it was an unofficial station in the eyes of the US. Official embassies fulfill such roles too without issue.

This is always a clash when I end up talking to my parents. My home country is slowly falling apart economically and they’re completely fucking blind to it. Especially ironic cus one of em is a fucking portfolio manager.

Like when I even mention that affording anything it getting worse and worse each year, while the rich consistently break income records, they derail the discussion by saying like “but don’t you have it great tho” (I earn well above average and still feel the pressure, THAT’S THE POINT) or mention that some rich assholes renovated some random castle and that without him it would juts be a ruin and that’s sad or some shit.

And we aren’t even getting that political yet. Just saying “hey mom, my future be looking unsustainable”.

Omfg, it finally dawned on me. The reason the stocks when up when Trump got elected. These fucking ghouls really see any excuse to increase prices as a win. Jesus fucking christ… There’s no stop until enough people will literally drop dead.

How’s this news? That’s literally what MAGA was selling the entire time. The so called “Temporary Hardships”. They promised and they’re going to deliver some economic hardships, that was the sales pitch and people voted for it. Anybody shocked is just not paying attention.

Not voting. If we combine harris and non voters we get a similar number to the poll. Of course that’s a major simplification, but it still has something.

Shortage of bus drivers solved by a fleet of regular drivers. Lol. I’m at a lose for words at how badly managed the US is.

School in general is wasted on kids. No kid cares about history or god forbid chemistry. You know who does? The person who just became an adult and is about to FUCKING GRADUATE! I only remember the last year and a half of school, because I was actually old enough to care and process that shit. Everything prior was just needless torture.

Aye, it’s curious how one’s upbringing affects their hearing. The Americans I interacted with can’t tell the Czech P and B apart. Which I find fucking weird as mixing them up in Czech results in absolute gibberish. Probably similar to how TH and F sound the same to me.

Syria is quite a long ways from China. Makes me wonder how serious they are. Then again, such operations aren’t a foreign concept in the middle east, so what do I know?

Do you really enjoy throwing out meaningless quips? I’m genuinely curious since I don’t see any engagement, but a surprising amount of replies.

I mean my hand has touched way more disgusting things and yet I still eat with it. Seems a little too silly.

That’s not how science works. For anything to have value it needs peer review. In the case of history that means additional accounts by other people (ideally with different backgrounds) and ideally physical evidence like documents and other archeological finds. This is especially important in history, as every single piece of evidence is faulty due to distortion through bias. A single primary source all alone is literally worth shit. The last book provides multiple lengthy accounts from different primary sources and so at least meets the minimum requirement for not being immediately throw out.

Blackshirts also literally mentions some of the authoritarian issues I mentioned that you denied. The fact that in some cases it failed to properly adress the needs of the people due to abuse of power and how the structure it self accidently encouraged selfish self defeating behavior. I just added comments about party members basically being a separate class (because of the unrivaled abuse of power you refuse to dispute, while providing a book also mentioning it), while the book debunks western propaganda.

You can say I misunderstand communist theory, that’s a valid criticism. But saying you refuse to engage because my understanding of history is false is dogmatic bullshit. Saying I’m unwilling to change my mind is rich when you literally just say I’m wrong, give me a book largely discussing a different topic (western propaganda and fascism) and then refuse to provide examples for your own claims. While my claims are dubious third hand accounts at best, you somehow managed to stoop below me.

The first two books are theory with random anecdotes with the same citation count as my shit. If that constitutes history, than so does the Bible.

Tho I apologize for lumping then all together as the last book is actually somewhat more interesting (like actually having fucking citations). It rightfully outlines western propaganda, highlights what good happened in the USSR and what bad in the west. Tho if you actually read the thing, you’d notice IT’S JUST AS CIRTICAL OF THE SOVIET UNION! Read it your self! It mostly defends the USSR from western propaganda, but it doesn’t do the same mistake you did and just deny the structural issues. Sadly it doesn’t say much, as it is very much focused on critiquing the west (like the first 50%), so I kinda just dismissed it at first.

Also you completely skipped my request to provide a single example for your previous claim, sad.

Yes… I was saying the theory doesn’t match the situation on the ground. And the links you gave are all theory, which I at no point argued about.

The “separate class” I mentioned was also less of a theory reference, and more of a reality on the ground. Party members are treated differently. My grandpa was a party member back in the western block and had privileges regular folk didn’t. Like traveling around the globe and importing foreign “imperialist” goods seemingly at will. My mom stood out with his gifts, like wearing jeans.

Also you say they have accountability with stuff like recall elections, but I’d like to invite you to provide an example of this actually happening. Like genuinely, I can’t find any. All I find is officials being ousted by other officials, never by regular everyday people. As an example of completely dodging consequences, I’d mention that soviet countries and China both tried becoming leading grain exporters while their populations fucking starved, and people complaining were just labeled liars and thieves!

Which reminds me of a saying we used to have: “Kdo nekrade, okrádá rodinu” or “Who doesn’t steal, is stealing from their family”. A very different context from the one above, but it paints a pretty vivid picture, so I think it’s still worth sharing.