They/She, Nonbinary Trans girl, late 20s

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • There’s another comment in this discussion that talks about how the closest Chinese word for “people’s republic” is 民主 and means government which works for the benefit of the people. So their definition includes a benevolent dictator.

    I mean, I guess? I don’t know enough Mandarin to speak on that.

    And that seems to align with what you’ve said too. Sure, there may be commissions for gauging the interests of the people. There may be co-ops. But ultimately the CCP holds all power. They can dissolve the commissions if they want to. They can take over the co-ops if they want to. If the people make demands or raise complaints, the CCP can just ignore them.

    I think China is unquestionably lucky that the CCP does seem to actually care about the people. But this amount of authoritarianism does not seem to work as well in many other countries.

    Look, I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m just answering your questions, and explaining to you what those institutions look like in China. You’re more than welcome to do your own research and come to your own conclusion, but I think you should go into it with a sense of curiosity about the world, rather than trying to get in sick dunks on the internet.

    the CCP does seem to actually care about the people

    And look, I have my qualms about China’s system too. But they eliminated absolute poverty. Tf are you talking about?

    And if you genuinely think that what North Korea has right now is the best they can do for their people (even despite the turmoil caused by other countries), then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

    I mean, the DPRK’s ongoing 20x10 regional development policy is using its new influx of Chinese and Russian capital to improve economic development and living standards outside of Pyongyang. So that’s certainly an improvement.

    But that can only to so far when the Korean war never ended. If you actually care about the wellbeing of the Korean peninsula, you’d want the war to end, the US to leave and lift all sanctions, and for there to be an internationally mediated peace negotiation that would decide what peaceful future between North and South Korea might look like. Perhaps an EU style arrangement with open borders between the two countries, and shared economic interests, while each gets to retain their respective political and economic systems, as they see fit.

    I’m an ardent socialist. I think the cult of personality around the Kim’s is weird and unhelpful. But my opinion is meaningless in the face of the material reasons why that personality cult exists, and the material solutions that need to be implemented in order to bring peace and prosperity to the Korean peninsula.


  • This makes zero sense. If power is concentrated, then it doesn’t represent workers interests. If it represented all workers interests, then power would be diffused.

    The person you’re responding to’s description is slightly wrong. A “People’s Republic” defines a Socialist state who’s government is made up of an alliance of parties, rather than a single communist party, and that United front government might have parties intended to represent sections of the national bourgeoisie. So there’s a nominal Power sharing element here.

    That said, I’m not sure how it logically follows that a state which represents the interests of workers must therefore be decentralized in some way? These places often end up with centralized political systems (though the list of States OP gave is full of a whole lot of variety in their institutions and political cultures), because of outside influence.

    The DPRK is like that because some white guys drew a line across a country, and them bombed it until pilots complained there were no more targets to bomb, and civilians began living in caves. The DPRK (and the ROK for that matter lbr) has been something of a basket case ever since. But that’s because power centralization is a response to material conditions, not a result of what someone named the country.

    How are these one-party governments, gauging the interests of their workers? How are they doing this without democracy and voting? Afaik these countries don’t even ask their citizens for feedback

    People’s Democracies are defined by the presence of multi-party systems, like I explained earlier. Though these secondary, non-Socialist, parties have greater or lesser degrees of importance depending on what country we’re discussing.

    That said, there are all kinds of institutions by which a people’s democracy gauges the interests and feedback of the workers and other represented classes.

    I’m going to talk about China, even though it wasn’t referenced in the OP, because it’s a People’s Republic, and I can speak to its institutions with the most confidence:

    One way class interests are gauged by the state is through the party system. This doesn’t matter so much in the primary legislature, the National People’s Congress, because the allied parties have a small fraction of the seats, but the NPC is historically a rubber stamp for the much more vibrant, body, The Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (where the communist party only has 97 seats out of 2,169), where various sectors of society are represented, including parties, ethic and religious groups, organisations in the arts and sciences, mass organizations that represent women or young people, trade unions, etc.

    In all state owned enterprises as well as in large parts of the private sector, there are a network of Workers Congresses which allow workers to engage in firm management.

    There are also Party Committees in many workplaces, where the communist party itself plays a role in firm governance. These institutions make sure private companies follow the five year plans set out by the state.

    There are also trade unions, which represent workers interests in other ways, and have representation in government.

    There are also an extensive amount of Worker, Consumer, and Agricultural Cooperatives in China you might find this interesting, as it speaks to your concerns about decentralization. Between State Owned Enterprises, and the private sector that the state is always trying to reign in, co-ops straddle the line between these, by being worker owner and run firms, more independent of state power, and not beholden to the interests of capital like a private corporation.

    People are often (sometimes rightly) critical of the privatization of the Reform and Opening up period. But that capital inflow has allowed China to turn around and invest in a domestic cooperative sector that rivals private capital. Huawei is the largest telecoms company in the world, for instance, and it is a worker co-op.

    So there are lots of ways that’s workers interests are guaged and turned into an economic plan that will benefit them. Obviously, these institutions have been more or less effective at different times, or in different parts of the country. And a the Chinese system isn’t universal (The DPRK or former East Germany looked a fair bit different to this. While modern Vietnam or Laos modeled a lot of their own reforms off of China), but hopefully it gives you some insight.












  • In this particular instance, I don’t have many suggestions other than, maybe change the saturation?

    To give an example, the rainbow pride flag has always looked muddy to me;

    But I recently saw a colorblind friendly version that, to my eyes anyway, looks really good. I can much more easily distinguish the stripes in this one:

    I don’t know the exact mechanics of how these are different. But maybe there’s a lesson here about colorblind friendly stats representation?



  • Don’t know if I’d call myself a furry, but I did go to a convention with some friends awhile back, for the experience.

    My big takeaway can kinda be summed up with, “Punk’s not dead, they just all became furries”. It was a very radically inclusive space, there were tons of openly queer people, lots of very political accessories (Anarchy A or Hammer and Sickle patches, keffiyehs, one person had a hand painted tshirt that said “Death before Detransition”, etc.), and there was a very DIY, countercultural vibe to the whole thing. At one point I talked to a Skunk about his collection of old PC sound cards.

    It was super cool! I’d go again