an example of a communist government of a major country that hasn’t devolved quickly into a dictatorship

I’m not feeling rage or hysteria, but I find a number of issues with this “test” that could easily cause frustration with anyone who has major criticisms of capitalism. My response is long not because of some irrational anger, but because things are complex and nuanced.

You consider yourself to be “fairly progressive”? I’m going to give you an analogy. It’s not great, but it hits on a few major issues relevant to your “test”. Imagine a MAGA fan asked you in 2026 to “name a thriving woke government agency” or “a government agency that still advocates for DEI” to make a point about your ideals. How does that sound to you?

First, you’d like argue that the term “woke” and “DEI” means different things to different people. That the term has been transformed into some deranged negatively charged approximation used as almost a slur colloquially. The same is true for “communist/ism” and “socialist/ism”. The current US “powers that be” have taken ownership of terms originally used by progressives. Woke was an “eyes open” state of awareness of the systemic racism baked into society. Now it is often considered “naively believing that forced equality makes things better”. DEI was an attempt to correct these systemic issues by encouraging or even enforcing diversity in groups of people who make decisions and influence decisions. Now it, and I’d argue “Affirmative Action” as well, is starting to mean a movement to “give power/opportunity to people because they are minorities whether or not they are sufficiently qualified”. Understand, I’m not in agreement with the transformation of these terms or the sentiment of the new “meanings” but I see them being used in the US in this manner more often. This makes every conversation confusing if you want to have a legitimate discussion of the ideas. It doesn’t help that the terms socialism and communism were never concrete terms to begin with.

Second, you’d be aware that there is literally a powerful force actively attempting to purge the original concepts of “woke” and “DEI” from government agencies. The current administration is working very hard to sabotage any agencies that recognize inequality or try to diversify. The administration has likely broken the law in its efforts to oust any agency leadership who promote these concepts. The administration wants to make the lives of any workers who agree with those concepts very difficult. Any agencies that are based on those core concepts are being spun down or turned into shells that somehow still have a name that implies they haven’t changed but in reality their leadership is working to ensure that the agency now serves the opposite function.

That’s what it is like being openly socialist or communist in today’s world. Everything bad is “socialist” or “communist” - it has been since the revolution in Russia. People have a knee jerk reaction on hearing those words. It’s strongly associated with North Korea, Stalin, and the CCP. Endless stories of violent authoritarianism, surveillance states, and the suppression of free speech. Tons of media - Animal Farm, 1984. As an aside, consider the violent suppression of climate or pro Palestine protesters, or the use of surveillance technology to spy on citizens… in capitalist nations.

Back to my point - if you are advocating for socialism, the West will work diligently to prop up existing capitalist leadership to prevent your success, possibly even help them rig elections. Propaganda will be spread among your population. If you manage to get elected, expect to be labeled extremist or even terrorist. Expect embargos, sanctions, and other economic warfare. Expect actual terrorists funded by the West to attempt to sabotage your nation. Expect or attempt to perform coups. Lobbyists would be throwing money you desperately need at your nation if it would just capitulate. Yes, even citizens might work against you because they are quite wealthy and powerful and your going to upset that. Or maybe honest citizens who’ve heard capitalism is great and socialism is bad and they don’t want to live in a bad nation. What’s the most effect method to survive a situation like that? You are under siege, paranoid, distrustful, woefully outmatched. Use your authority to defend your ideals and your hold on the government, sell out and become corrupt, or get squeezed out by a political opponent (or ally, trust noone) that is working for and funded by the West looking to restore their influence over your nation. Now you have a dictatorship.

I’m in no way defending this situation, but what mechanisms would prevent this?

Forgive me, but as someone in the US I’ve had almost daily shower thoughts that, to my surprise, often end with me spouting the same thing that conservatives used to say (empty words, in hindsight).

How can we empower a government to check/modify itself to self correct when it becomes corrupt without the government having the ability to use those same powers to falsely check/modify itself to be more corrupt under the guise of removing corruption when the government itself is actually corrupt.

Basically, how can we create or maintain an organization that is empowered to do “good” when “good” can be made subjective? Or, how do we make what we consider “good” to be objective so that power can’t be corrupted?

All I can come up with is a better informed population and democracy, but that’s a tall order these days.

They people who most vocally claim it is for use against a tyrannical government are happy that their government is abusing their black and brown neighbors.

Now what?

Now you get to ignorantly blame progressives for what was, ultimately, a Democrat policy failure. Bonus - doing so drives a wedge between Democrats! Yay! Good job!

Now how about you do something fucking constructive.

For me, it’s hard to say one or the other is worse. It might depend on circumstances. Is someone making a false claim of rape worse than someone raping someone, or worse than a child rapist, serial rapist, etc? In damage collectively done to all victims, quite possibly. However, the intention of the false witness isn’t usually to delegitimize the claims of other victims. It’s usually shortsited and desperate - a desire to avoid social consequences or to punish the accused. I suspect such false claims are also more common among a younger, naive, immature population. It’s fucked up and selfish, surely. As fucked up as feeling you have the right to use another person’s body for your own physical pleasure or to assert dominance or whatever shit goes through a rapists mind? I don’t know.

Frankly, I’ve never been the victim or perpetrator of either crime, nor have I even been in a situation where either crossed my mind. All I’m qualified to say is that I wish neither crimes would happen to anyone.

This is maybe not what some would consider great advice but “you aren’t ready for a relationship” isn’t really fair. As you said:

But how do I get matured?

For me, a vital part of growing as a person has been experiencing the messiness of life. Failing and learning.

I’ve known the situation you described - planning things with someone you have a real interest in, someone who seemed interested in spending time with you. Placing high importance on the event in your mind only to have the event fall apart because it wasn’t a priority for them. Feeling upset and even jealous. I told her I was upset that she blew me off. It did not go well and she lost interest. That’s not to say this will happen to you, but my experience helped teach me to regulate my interest and my expectations because I didn’t want that to happen again. I also became more mature.

Yes, you should try to find a few friends if you don’t have any. Making new ones is hard but it’s important. I’m not exactly neutotypical and socializing is not something I enjoy most of the time. Still, it’s something that has been valuable to me. It’s kind of like a lower stakes relationship. You like them and care about them - you want to be helpful, do right by them, etc. If you feel clueless about interpersonal relationships you should make friends.

When my previous long-term relationship ended, she was very social and her friend group had become my friend group. I’d only had a few of my own friends and they had moved away or we’d been growing apart. When things ended, I needed to find new friends so I know how hard it can be. I recommend you find something you enjoy, offline if you can, and do that thing with people who also like to do that thing. For me it was board games, video games, TTRPGs, climbing, and hiking. I don’t love all those things but I can get enough enjoyment out of them for it to be worth expending the social energy maybe twice a week, if I had the energy for it. Eventually, after doing this for a few years (while I was in my mid 30s), I found a few people I got along with pretty well. They are now my friends. As a plus, doing things with them is less socially draining and keeps me socially active to a degree.

Regarding romantic relationships, you’ll need be the judge of whether or not you are ready. I think it’s fair to give it a try as long as you can handle failure in a healthy way and don’t have abusive tendencies. Obviously, every single one of my past relationships didn’t work out and I don’t think there was a single one of them where I could not have done better. They fucking hurt like hell but that pain taught me a lot about relationships and about myself. It felt like the end of the world, but it wasn’t. No amount of advice or self reflection would have taught me those important lessons without the experience and the pain of losing the love of someone I cared so much about. As long as you can learn from your failure - forge yourself into a better person - I think you can be ready.

I’ve been in a romantic relationship now for several years. My previous relationship was longer but like all of my other relationships, the failure and lessons learned helped me to recognize and improve on some of my flaws. It also helped me to to better understand and communicate my own needs and priorities. It all helped to create a healthier foundation for my current relationship.

People who pretend to be victims upset me almost as much as people who victimize others (they are not equal, but it is still so fucked up). Victims have a rough enough time already being taken seriously. It doesn’t take more than a few false positives to completely take the air out of legitimate accusations from victims. I wish there was some way to solve this problem.

Mainstream and not unionized.

Apologies, no. My point wasn’t to minimize your reference. My point was to emphasize that things are actually worse. I suspect we may find ourselves in a mix of pre-reconstruction America and a fascist dictatorship.

This is a bucket of five alarm fires. My parents said “We’ve been here before and we’ll get through this too.” but that was month ago. I thought it was naive then and it’s willfully ignorant now.

Congress is behind him and the Supreme Court is pretty much here to run interference. Hell, lawsuits at this point are just an opportunity for the Supreme Court to say “Fuck precedent, fuck progress, let’s roll back the clock.”

If the government violated your civil rights, you yourself have to take them to court yourself to stop them from doing it. It won’t stop the from doing it to your neighbor, they’d need to sue the government on their own. If you win, you the courts can just decide you are a special case and nothing changes. What’s the point of civil rights if you have to personally sue the government to stop them from violating them?

If only a little gerrymandering were the only thing “here” consisted of.

There needs to be legal and political repercussions for politicians lying or misrepresenting the truth. Doesn’t matter if they didn’t mean to, then they should’ve done better research.

Political repercussions? Absolutely. Legal repercussions, without a need to demonstrate that the lack of truth was intentional? Answer me this: If there were legal repercussions for lying, would the current administration be able use it to substantially burden and damage politicians that stand in it’s way? What would prevent them from doing that? How can we ensure that it isn’t used to enforce the often referenced concept of a “Ministry of Truth” in a dystopian future not unlike this one?

I just don’t think people can handle the responsibility of formally bestowing that kind of power on a government and then ensuring it is filled with people who will not use it for their own ends.

For the last decade I’ve had my faith in humanity shattered inch by inch, ignored scandal by ignored scandal. I kept thinking “Oh, this, this must open their eyes to what’s really happening. There is no way they can ignore such a obvious disconnect with truth and reality!” Ten years later, and I’m watching the Supreme Court dismantle a century or more of legal progress. I’m watching Congress gut funding to programs that our most disenfranchised fellow citizens rely on to survive, enrich the wealthiest citizens, and create a gestapo of loyal racist shitbags. I’m watching both political parties attack the protest of a genocide by an allied country.

The most upset I’ve seen the country at Trump is right now. Why? Not because anything I already mentioned. It’s because even though Trump was Epstein’s best friend for a long time… and even though last time Trump was president he let Epstein die while under close watch… we’re just absolutely shocked that Trump is now claiming the documentation Epstein was keeping on all the friends and clients he helped rape children isn’t worth pursuing and doesn’t even exist.

No. I don’t think we can handle the responsibility of empowering people the police the truth. I don’t know how to even get us to the point where we can know what’s true anymore.

Edit: Scratch that last bit. I think the answer is to severely limit wealth and power. If you are rich and powerful enough, you can define what is fact and what is true. That needs to be prevented. Tax the excess, or fucking burn it - I don’t care at this point.

We don’t have to fall into pits of objective truth. If you say something, be perfectly explicit about what is a factual statement and what is your opinion.

All three branches of the US government have been captured by people for whom truth is literally whatever they need it to be in the moment. Thinktanks can vomit up bullshit research to support whatever is necessary, at least delaying resolution and casting doubt on even the most credible, well sourced facts. The media is spineless or complicit.

Or face penalties when your bunk is debunked.

Fucking lol. When you make the laws, control the courts, and have the resources for multi-billion dollar lawsuits debunking is going to take a while, if it ever happens. We’ll see if even the Epstein files get swept under the rug like everything else so far.

Science has already tread the path of “attempting to find truth through the consensus of doubts”. No need to try and trailblaze.

Ah yes, science has managed to blaze a trail right through the bullshit and convinced the the US that we really need to counteract or at least prepare for climate change, right? We’re doing… something… right? We’re not just hitting the gas for short term profits, right? Right?

There is a very real danger of having “lies” be a convenient, established tool to eliminate political opponents. Admittedly, these fucking fascists are perfectly willing to blaze their own authoritarian trail, regardless of precedent, and just find some bullshit reason to revoke your citizenship and ship you off to some gulag without due process. 'murica.

Those with power are only looking to make their own truth. Thinktank research. Controlling the news media. Controlling social media. Hell, even trying to dictate reality via prompt engineering and then purposely reducing the quality of search results to encourage people to rely on biased chatbots.

The fascists understand how to poison the well. They understand how to play the system. They know they can manipulate their base. They know they can manipulate their opponents by appealing to their better nature then taking advantage of any good faith granted by them.

The US is different now. It’s fucked up beyond anything I could have imagined even a year ago. I don’t think standing up for truth and bringing credible sources means anything anymore.

Lol, I let it auto-complete the last word and didn’t look twice.

I have shower thoughts like this. Unfortunately, every single one ends with doomerism. Where do we find objective truth? Who determines what is true? I used to think humans were decent and smart enough to figure it out. Republicans have proven that to be naivete.

AI will likely not be taking many jobs - it’s continuing to be unreliable for most circumstances.

That’s not to say all circumstances. Regardless, the industries that use it heavily will likely destroy themselves. Having people doing that work is how you prepare them to do the more difficult work that AI is even more unlikely to succeed at… so you are starving yourself of a workforce for the more important jobs in your industry. The pool of people with X years of experience will shrink to nothing, and they won’t be willing to hide newbies.

Fuck off, troll.

I voted for her because but I guarantee the vast, overwhelming majority of people you are trying to trigger didn’t think she was worse. What stopped them was having her and the Democratic party she represents ignore the will of their base on issues as fundamental as fucking genocide.

I see it as a failure to understand game theory. However, I respect someone that is having a gun held to their head and being told to do something instinctively responding “fuck you” and refusing to do it, or doing the opposite to send a message. Unfortunately, the they are one in a hundred million and those they are trying to send a message to are too busy tonguing the assholes of wealthy Zionist donors to hear anything but their own marching orders.

I switched from Manjaro to Bazzite on my gaming PC. I don’t have time to read changelogs.

Things went fantastically so I put Kinoite on my laptop. I do a lot more random shit on the laptop so it’s a bit more complicated but so far so good. Atomic distros take getting used to but it still feels less stressful than coming back to my computer after a few days and digging through like 100+ package updates and eventually saying “Fuck it” and just updating blindly.

yes, those are the fall guys. that’s in the interests of the capitalists, that you only hear that part, friend. the red vs blue culture war is theater.

Yes and no. There are legitimate, progressive leftists that don’t suckle on the billionaire teat and don’t serve capitalist interests on the blue team.

Also, not relevant. If you care about justice for those on Epstein’s client list then those who were willing to hide it need to be named and suffer consequences. Then you make it come up again and do the same thing regardless of whoever obstructs it again, red or blue. Do it until justice is served. Name and shame them afterwards, don’t let the world forget.

Odd. I could have sworn I was responding to someone else entirely.

I fully believe that even the stuff that the left focuses on is actually encouraged by the right because it’s the most in your face contentious stuff

Can you give a more specific example or two of some grating behavior or contentious claims/statements that demonstrate this problem?

mixed with “don’t communicate with the right they’re Hitler’s all of them”

While I don’t believe the right is all Hitlers, are we able to agree that at least some small subset of them and of their leadership have truly disturbing ideals and goals that could fairly be compared to those of Nazis?

How do you address individuals who support those people - whether knowingly or in ignorance - without upsetting them, offending them, or putting them on the defensive?