• wren@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    52
    ·
    3 months ago

    when talking to my parents, if I say “community” instead of “communism,” or “nobody deserves to starve” instead of “free food”, and “help vulnerable people” instead of “benefits” and “everyone deserves to feel safe from harm” instead of XYZ - everyone wholeheartedly agrees!

    But if I let them go off on a tangent without guiding them, then they’re “anti woke” even though they don’t know what woke means

    • Sweetpeaches69@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      Some of us Americans are so hopelessly fucking stupid. Kudos to you; I’d have blown up at them and never spoken to them again at some point.

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      I love socialism but what is with North American kid’s love for communism? I assume you guys love the idea of it but you must know that the idea of communism relies on humans not being selfish and humans willingness to share the wealth and power which is not a reality. I say this as someone who has lived and grown up under an oppressive, communist regime, not just as someone who romanticizes it.

      • Zacryon@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        3 months ago

        Communism is an idea. Just as capitalism is.

        What fucked up things people do with that is an entirely different problem.

        You can have an oppressive communist regime. You can also have an oppressive capitalistic regime. Both could be really good and beneficial for everyone.

        Heck, even a dictatorship could be a good governing system given a wise and benevolent dictator who has the best of all in their mind.

        The problem with all of these economic, governmental and societal systems are humans. All of those systems require a specific set of properties from humans in order to work well. The problem is, that not all humans meet those requirements. There is no system which takes humans as they are, with all their good qualities and all of their faults, to get the best out of humanity for humanity.

        From an engineering perspective, this is really stupid. But it’s immensely difficult as well. There are no simple solutions to the complexity of humans and their interactions. Which is why systems with self-correcting mechanisms might have an advantage. For example, democracies. However, those too have many pitfalls to address.

        Point is, communism is not inherently bad. It can be good, if no one exploits it. Even capitalism can be good, if no one is greedy and exploits others. There’s a lot of ifs. Improve the system or change it. Whatever might be better. But I don’t think it’s as simple as blaming it all on one core idea of a system itself, rather than to look how badly it was implemented.

        • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          3 months ago

          Again, on paper. The moment you put together a communist government with humans involved, those same communist champions will give in greed and selfishness and “everyone is equal, except for me cause I help run things so I should get a bit extra and so should my family and relatives and friends” and so on. Again, communism is great on paper but has it ever worked as it was intended? Ever?

      • wren@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        sorry, my mistake, I totally meant to say I value “community” not “communism” ;)

        (also, I’m not North American!)

        • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          3 months ago

          Ok, but why are you putting Cuba’s issues at the feet of the u.s? I get it, I mean Americans destroyed my country and killed my people by funding one side of a proxy war on my country, but the Russians funded the other. But I still blame my country’s leaders for giving in and for being bought. I blame Cuban leaders for the shit show that Cuba became.

          Anyways, I’m not Cuban, but I grew up in a place where communists were every bit as brutal and violent as you get. So I have an aversion to a communist government, despite the good ideas it puts forth on paper.