• 3 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 15th, 2023

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  • Happy to see that this conversation is so amicable. I really love the whole climate here on Lemmy.

    Communism cannot be defined by what the state tells you, as communism is, by definition, a stateless society. Depending on what kind of communist or socialist you ask, you’ll get answers on what the difference between the two is that vary from “they’re interchangable terms” to “socialism is the stage of society that eventually will become communism, which will happen when the state, money, and class withers away.”

    Anarchism, specifically anarcho-communism, sees the end goal as the same as communists. A society in which no classes, money, or state exists. The difference is that Marxists tend to believe in a necessary interim period, normally referred to as socialism, before communism can be achieved. Anarchists believe communism can be achieved directly by simple behaving as communists now, and fighting for a revolution for communism directly.

    These are all generalizations, and I’d you ask 11 communists… et cetera.

    As someone else said, the issue most people point to when critiquing communist philosophies is central planning. Specifically central planning done in some nefarious way by a shadowy unelected government. It’s worth noting that places like the USSR, Cuba, et cetera, democracy was increased after their revolutions. It may not be what some would want out of a democracy, but it was more democratic than what came before. Central planning, too, isn’t exclusive to communist/socialist ideology. Walmart, Amazon, and plenty of other retailers run massive centrally planned economies that rival the size of many nations. It’s an incredibly efficient way to run an economy, and with proper democratic control of the government, oversight, and a focus on what the actual needs of the people are over the profits of a corporation, or the welfare of an elite few, those models could prove to be able to end hunger, homelessness, and all manner of societal ills. Or we can use them to make sure the Walton family can buy extra mega yachts or bookman can go to outer space. Societal priorities are all that need to shift.






  • Edit: my network is being just, like, absolute crap. I don’t know why it posted multiple times. Such is the life of rural America, living with a 4g hotspot for home internet. Lol. Apologies!

    I’m a sort of hodge podge of different traditions, philosophies and religions, and this is absolutely my view. In Hinduism, one of the reasons humans are at the “top” of the reincarnation cycle is because we have the intellect to understand things like karma, and are able to achieve liberation through that understanding. In my view, while we may be the only ones able to achieve liberation, we are also the only ones building up negative karma. It’s a double edged sword. Animals, plants, bacteria, they don’t do wrong things, they don’t engage in wrong thinking. They act on impulse, on intuition, on instinct, and as such, they’re pure spirited. Humans on the other hand are capable of evil, and as such we are the only species on earth that must struggle towards divinity. We just also happen to be the only species that can understand the nature of divinity. You don’t think the universe be like it is but it do, y’know?


  • That’s not how radiation exposure works. The types of mutations in DNA it causes is generally things like cancer, not birth defects that transfer into future generations. In order for the number of fingers human-wide to change, there would need to be a specific mutation for that, and that mutation would have to be beneficial enough that the 11+ or 9- fingered folks would be more likely to breed than us 10 fingered folks.

    On top of that, while base 10 is convenient because of our fingers, it’s unlikely to change due to how ingrained it is in our culture at this point. It’s also hardly the only system we’ve used. The Babylonians used a base 60. Many cultures have used base 12. Base 12 is actually very convenient for our fingers already.

    Hold your left thumb against the first segment of your left pinky and count 1, move up one segment, count two. Count each of the segments on your left fingers. You’re now at 12. Move your right thumb to the first segment on your right pinky, and then start over on your left. Each time you count 12 on the left, move your right thumb up one. You can now count to 144 on your fingers.