A couple things I'll say here:

1) You are absolutely entitled to do whatever you want. Post in the thread, don't post in the thread, spend time being informed about your political views, be blithely ignorant but still spout off endless opinions about things. We have all flavors in this thread. You are right that you should feel free to do whatever you want.

2) Part 1 being said, and I have explained this very thing to Mets, not all opinions are created equal. Anyone can have an opinion or think whatever they want. But what you should not do is expect that your opinion should receive respect purely because it is an opinion. For instance, you are totally free to never do research or be informed. Feel free to do that. But then do not be upset when your uninformed opinion is regarded as such. And yes, the "fact that you don't spend time to do research" does mean more than you don't care to do that. It means your opinion is uninformed. I feel like this should not be controversial.

What I am saying, again, is that there is a difference between being uninformed versus being willing to spend an indefinite amount of time refuting your specific points. You are confusing an unwillingness to engage with you on specific points or topics with a general unwillingness to be informed. Those two things are not the same.

Sure, you can call it whatever makes you feel comfortable

So you are correct in that you are perfectly within your rights to dismiss me as uninformed because I have bought into the western corporate government media industrial complex or whatever precisely it is that you believe about this, but therein lies the inherent limitation in the real world viability of intellectual purists when it comes to political systems. I’m probably in the top 10% or so in this country who would be most receptive to some parts of your arguments, but by staking out an absolutist position and being convinced that you are absolutely right about all of it makes me want to tune out even the parts I do agree with because it’s not worth the grief. The entire strain of this conversation clearly indicates that you believe your opinions to be The Truth and that they are provable and documented and that anyone who disagrees is either ignorant, misinformed, brainwashed, or some other similar thing and that’s not really a position from which constructive dialogs take place

Are you always this condescendingly smug or is it just something you’ve pulled out for me?

It’s entirely possible that I have thoughts and knowledge that I don’t type out for you either because I don’t want to argue about it or because I feel that my position is so obviously superior to yours in a real world context that I think it’s a waste of time to do so. Pulling a bunch of information about Cuba and the former Soviet Union would significantly bolster my argument, but it would change precisely zero about the way you see the world and would only serve as evidence to you that I have bought into some false narrative about the inherent superiority of the capitalist system so again - what is my benefit in doing that?

Please don't ever leave.

Not always, but probably about 90% of the time.

I mean this is a decent thesis on why no one should ever talk about politics ever. If that is the idea you are trying to proffer, fine. But I do not but into this "you have your opinion, I have mine, who knows which is right" bs you seem to be trying to pedal.

I do not believe what I believe because its an opinion or because I find it jives with my sensibilities. I believe what I believe because it is true.

Also this is sort of a weird alice-in-wonderland type approach to take. Sure, anyone in this thread could be hiding stuff in their brain and not sharing it with the thread. But I assume you understand why everyone else can only operate on the basis of what actually makes it into the thread, right?

/end thread

This is complete nonsense and nowhere near what I’m saying

If this thread was the entirety of the universe this would be indisputably correct

Last I checked that’s not quite the case lol

So since we’ve obviously ended the part of this conversation that could (very very generously) be considered productive with the “I believe what I believe because it’s true” comment I’ll try my best to stick with obnoxious quips and one liners from here on out

You are misunderstanding the cause-effect chain here. I dismissed you as uninformed because of some of the things you said that made it clear you were uninformed. For instance, your point about how socialism clearly has not answer for global warming "because China". That shows to me

1) you are uninformed about how sustainable Cuba's economy is
2) you are uninformed about the way an economy industrializes and the environmental impact it may have when it transitions from having 1.5 billion people living as farmers to becoming industrialized city dwellers

(that is just one example of some of the stuff you said). So I think you are uninformed because you demonstrated yourself to be so.

The idea that your ideology, shaped by western propaganda, contributes to this uninformed view was merely my speculation at WHY you are uninformed.

This may be true, but my guess is no. People that are receptive to a change in the status quo and an overhaul to the economic system are usually not people that are benefiting from it. Usually it is going to be the people that are, instead, being crushed by it. So like, you know, people rotting in prison or working 60 hours a week at minimum wage jobs, or indigenous people fighting for their right to exist, or people being murdered in the street by cops, etc. Does that describe you?

ftr this is the same ridiculous argument that people who voted for Trump made by saying that it was the fault of progressives that he got elected for, you know, not letting them be racist etc. If you are not willing to listen to good ideas that you claim you are "in the top 10% most receptive" to because the ideas are not catered to your liberal sensibilities, then what is more likely is those views are not something you would ever be convinced by.

Not all of my opinions. But some of them yes. I mean, ask yourself this:

if you were talking with Mets about global warming, trickle down economics, or women's right to have an abortion, how would you feel about your opinions compared to his? Would you believe that you knew the right answer or would you think it was "just a matter of opinion"?

I am merely saying I can only go by what you type in the thread. If you have more in your head that you are choosing not to share then that is your choice. But I can hardly guess at what this hidden information may be.

Yeah I mean I may have phrased it poorly, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. I feel like you think it is weird that I believe my view to be the truth. What else would I believe it to be, then?

Communists and Libertarians

I’m starting to feel like you are deliberately misinterpreting this but I’ll bite one more time

I have neither the time nor the desire to debate from first principles through history the fundamental questions of a capitalist versus a communist system with historical citations and GDP figures and competing sources and accusations of bias and false narratives for ever and ever amen. This doesn’t mean that I’m uninformed, and this doesn’t mean that I’m saying one opinion is the same as the other, just that I do not think the value proposition in sharing everything I know and researching citations for things to share and all the other rigamarole involved in that is a worthwhile use of time just because you believe you know the truth. Since I know with pretty close to 100% certainty I’m not changing your mind on these things I’m mostly doing what I’m doing in part for my own benefit and in part for the rest of the audience but very little for you, since it’s nothing but an intellectual exercise to you.

For fun I googled and found this


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File...per_capita.png

*shrug*

Similar chart for Cuba with more ambiguous results

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econ...-Caribbean.png

A few thoughts on global warming:

How is it that most of all the people who should be able to recognize a propaganda campaign fail to see how global warming has been shoved down our throats by the establishment for the last 20+ years?

Countless dollars spent promoting research, conferences, the nations of the world getting together for climate conferences. All of the TV networks turning green, etc. Is it really the belief that the people or 'the science' that is the driving force behind all the money?

I wonder how it is that they can know that the ruling class only care about themselves yet somehow on the one issue of global warming it is different.

All of the premises that are driving your conclusions are bad. That's why.

1) global warming has not been shoved down our throats, quite the opposite. For how dramatic of a situation we find ourselves in, it is, relatively speaking, barely getting any attention
2) countless dollars have not been spent promotion research etc, far less money has been spent than necessary
3) a huge sum of money has been spent by fossil fuel corporations and other mega-rich people to fight global warming research, awareness, and initiatives

I envision a morose figure with a drawn cloak scowling both contemptuously and pitiously at all passers...

Hypothetically speaking, lets say I conceded to you the contention that the GDP in Cuba was less than the DR and the GDP of the USSR was lower than the US and some other Western European countries. What do you feel it means?