Finland has mandatory civil service. Vast majority of men have done at least a brief period of military service.

This would be much more about skill maintenance than “learning to shoot”

People who are experts in the subject.

Propegandists thrive by trying to convince people that they can’t trust anyone, because it makes foolish people believe that every voice carries equal merit.

What value is a summary when you fully acknowledge that you can not trust it for accuracy?

Yeah but that would make for an even shittier comic.

Jimmy Buffett

It depends on the jurisdiction.

In Alberta, Canada, for example, employers will hire programmers from two distinct pools of educational streams: Computer Scientists and Software Engineers.

CS programs are governed by the faculties of science, software engineers by the schools of engineering.

The software engineers take the same oaths or whatever and belong to the same organization as the other engineers (in Alberta, APEGA) and are subject the same organizational requirements to be able to describe themselves as engineers. They can have the designation revoked the same way a civil engineer could.

Practically speaking, as someone who works with both, I don’t see a meaningful difference in the actual work produced by grads of either stream. But at least in my jurisdiction the types of arguments being made don’t really hold because it is a regulated professional designation.

I’ll take you at your word that these are the 3 things that you’re most uncomfortable with.

I sincerely hope that these are the three most problematic things, because if true, China really would be nearly a utopia, and I sincerely want such a place to exist.

Considering the 2nd point came with the precondition that you think it’s a problem that is solving itself, and the third is that China isn’t projecting its power enough globally, there is only one outstanding issue for the proletariat being that the economy isn’t centrally planned enough.

With full sincerity I guess if this is your biggest gripe, I don’t know how I reconcile that personally with China’s current and historical trend of net negative migration.

It’s probably clear to you by now, but I am not an expert on China, but I am absorbing and am curious of your perspective.

To me, it appears like with such a rosy view but negative net migration, there must be a reason that statistically speaking, more people would rather leave the system than join it. In the same way that we can hypothesize the existence of a celestial body we haven’t directly observed by it’s gravitational effects on what we know, I wonder why we see net negative migration if there are essentially by your view no material unaddressed issues for the working class?

And I genuinely am asking this question in good faith. I’ll accept with respect any answer you give. In your view is it a global smear campaign that holds people back from migrating or something? Are the people who leave being seduced by false promises? Do you live in China, and if not, what’s holding you back?

Because I’ll say, you and I could comisserate extensively on the failings of western capitalism. I could easily lay out 50 significant issues with the societal organization of most western capitalist democracies. I’m sure you could too. That you only really see one significant unaddressed issue, regardless of if I agree with it, is compelling.

This is the most concise rebuttal and I think you’ve highlighted well where the root of the perceived discord lies.

If one accepts that the CPC represents the working class, then the critique of the unfair comparison via the meme would be viewed as legitimate.

If one contests the original assertion, then it does not. To them, Xi memeing a CEO would look to them more like Musk offing Altman.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying, then… But I agree that we’re just bouncing off supporting arguments rather than directly defending or refuting a central thesis.

My understanding of your point was that western critisms of China are either at best misinformed, but in general the result of trying to preserve the idea that “the west is in front, so everyone else must be behind”.

I fundamentally reject this specific formulation because the result of that formulation is that there exists no valid criticism of China.

So, let’s just settle this: what would you say is the most uncomfortablely valid criticism of China?

Western leftists literally never shut up about the Nordic countries so I must flatly reject the premise that the justification is the preservation some vestigial notion of Manifest Destiny

And then the second pillar of why any ml argument falls apart: the insistence that any concerns about how china operates implies that the speaker of those concerns is defending Western status quo.

I can envision a more perfect system than China, and guess what, it isn’t anything close to western capitalism. I’ll even go so far as to say that in terms of absolute delta, China may already be closer. Creating a false dichotomy, however, in which it is argued any criticism or concern about China is actually a veiled attempt to maintain the status quo of western capitalism is ridiculous.

I mean, look at the overwhelming response to the murder of that CEO. Can we not accept that this is at the very least a significant criticism of the USAs runaway capitalist system? Does that imply an overwhelming desire for a Chinese-styled government? No? Somehow it appears to be empirically the case that people can express criticism against a system without existing in some binary state which implies full throated support of exactly 1 alternative that’s been constructed as part of this false dichotomy that ml users live and die by.

This is where I think the conversations always break down on ml.

You fervently assert things like a 95% approval rating while selectively ignoring the “social credit” system that punishes people who don’t approve. You use large party employment to justify some kind of perfect overlap between the proletariat and the government. Where do you think the real decision making is done? Do you think it isn’t a tiny fraction of party elite? How would you view these things through the lens of manufactured consent?

I don’t think it’s any better in a western capitalist system, but I’m not going to deceive myself into thinking that china is running fundamentally differently than any western oligarchy.

My point is you had no point. You responded to a FANTASTIC explanation of the difference by splitting hairs on what by your definition qualifies as a class.

Instead of addressing the argument, you just threw a semantics argument, which I maintain is the terminally online version of pocket sand.

Might be betraying my age here, but do you remember when GST was 7%? EXACTLY the same thing happened.

GST breaks strictly pad the revenues of business AT THE COST of funds to the public purse. Does a fat fucking zero to the wallets of consumers.

I guess this is why I was confused. The comment you were replying to was saying the justification for impor/exports existing simultaneously was based on the geographical (aka logistical) efficiencies of moving different products to different facilities with different needs.

You appeared to me to be rejecting that justification.

I’m trying to understand your line of thinking and it seems to necessitate accepting that oil isn’t moving between inputs and outputs at the most cost effective way, which would necessitate oil and gas companies intentionally working in a way that isn’t about maximizing profit.

Am I misunderstanding your premise in such a way that I’m inappropriately needing to bake that in?

I’m not from the US

The world is burning. Now. With the justice systems you’re alluding to.

“If you act like Assad you’ll end up like Assad”, they said to the guys who ended Assad for being Assad.