• masquenox@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The US military is the single largest polluter organisation on the planet - do tell me how we can’t blame capitalism again?

    And just for your information - that other gigantic capitalist country you falsely believe isn’t capitalist? Guess what? It’s capitalist.

    • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      China is the number one greenhouse gas contributor, Russia is near the top of the list as well. Fuck off tankies.

      • FluffyPotato@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Those 2 are literally capitalist countries. Also tankies are the ones who commonly say China is not capitalist.

            • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              What makes me think that two countries that have never identified as capitalist and have never been identified as capitalist anywhere except for this crazy ass community where you just go ahead and label anything you don’t like simply as “capitalism”? Oh I don’t know, just a hunch I guess!

              • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                Well if you think ‘because they say so’ is reason enough there’s not really any further to go here I don’t think. I was hoping you’d have a more interesting answer about how the economy is structured or how resources are distributed. It looks more like an authoritarian flavour of capitalism to me but I’m no politics expert so I only have a layman’s view, more than happy to be corrected.

                • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  Dude, the reason you think they’re capitalist is because someone on Lemmy said so, I’m not going to put effort into correcting something that didn’t have evidence behind it to begin with. I’m not going to sit here and try to prove a negative to correct your layman’s view, that’s not how conversation works.

                  • mr_pichon@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    They have private companies and a market economy, how is that a communist economy exactly ?

                    If your only argument for saying they’re communist is because they said so, then you must also believe that north korea is a democracy right ?

              • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                What makes me think that two countries that have never identified as capitalist

                The DPRK “identifies” as “democratic” - so by your logic you should just swallow that hook, line and sinker, too, eh?

                have never been identified as capitalist anywhere except

                Oh, boy… are you in for a surprise - Lenin himself dubbed the fledgling USSR as “state capitalist”.

                Nothing new about it, Clyde.

                Every one of your arguments have been blown out of the water with next-to zero effort… and yet you still pretend you’re in the game.

      • boonhet@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        If you think those 2 are communist countries, you’re stuck in the last century. Let me give you some news. The Soviet Union collapsed and gave way to a capitalist oligarchy. China realized that capitalism is profitable and brings them tons of money from the west. I have no idea why tankies still simp those countries as communist (wait, I do actually - because tankies never had any principles of their own, they just wanted to be anti-west).

        There is one country that needs to kickstart change for it to have any effect, it’s the US. Not only does it pollute the most per capita, it’s a huge market. My tiny ass country with fuel prices already being twice as much in the US, can raise fuel prices even more, but that won’t affect global demand. Americans no longer getting fuel for essentially free, would actually affect global demand.

        • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Yes, of course, because political systems are binary and there’s only capitalism and communism lmao

          • boonhet@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            There’s plenty of systems that mix both, but Russia and China aren’t actually good examples. They’re pretty capitalist.

            If you want a better example of mixing capitalism with socialism, you can take a look at something like the Nordic countries, where there are tons of social services and safety nets, but there’s still a very strong (just regulated) free market.

            • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              There’s plenty of systems that mix both, but Russia and China aren’t actually good examples. They’re pretty capitalist.

              State companies and state-connected companies own more than half of each one’s economy. More than in Nordic countries.

              • agarorn@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                Do you belive that in a communist country everything is owned by the state? If so, I urge you to look up communism again.

              • boonhet@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Because capitalism with state protection is not capitalism I guess.

                In each, we’re talking about capitalism with the caveat that the owners of the country want a kickback too, and in return local capitalists are protected from foreign capitalists. Vladimir Putin owns Russia, the CCP owns China. In neither case does capital belong to “the people” as a whole.

                • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  1 year ago

                  Yes, it’s not. I mean, for Marxists it is, because Marx describes something similar specifically to XIX century Germany with state-supported enormous trusts, influential aristocracy, and so on. Which is for obvious reason of living there, just not very relevant, because real economists use the term differently.

                  In neither case does capital belong to “the people” as a whole.

                  Well, CCP is not different from CPSU in this case.

            • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              Seems a bit silly to decide that “capitalism” is the majority contributor to climate change when the country that produces the most greenhouse gases is only “pretty capitalist” doesn’t it? If capitalism is the major contributor, why don’t more capitalist country produce more greenhouse gases?

              I never set out to argue that capitalism doesn’t exist in countries that aren’t primarily capitalist.

              • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Seems a bit silly to decide that “capitalism” is the majority contributor to climate change when the country that produces the most greenhouse gases is only “pretty capitalist” doesn’t it? If capitalism is the major contributor, why don’t more capitalist country produce more greenhouse gases?

                That’s not necessarily the case. The pollution comes from where manufacturing is, not necessarily where consumption is. The demand is coming from capitalist countries.

                Edit: To account for this, we can look at per-capita consumption-based emissions (thanks to @boonhet@lemm.ee for the data link).

              • boonhet@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                The country that produces the most greenhouse gases is doing so to satisfy the demands of private industry that’s producing goods for private profit. What part of that is not capitalism?

                Also the country that produces the most per capita, is arguably the most capitalist country, the USA.

                • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  While I agree that per capita emissions is a useful metric, perhaps even more useful than raw emissions numbers, where are you getting that the USA has the highest production per capita?

                  This table shows data from 2018 so things change, but the per capita emissions would have had to double in five years to put the USA on top.

                  If you look at the non-per capita numbers, the USA is the second largest emitter behind China (using data from 2018).

                  • boonhet@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    Good point, I was a bit inaccurate with my last comment.

                    If you look at the non-per capita consumption based emissions and divide that by the amount of people, you’ll find that Americans consume way more per capita.

                    China has the bigger (even per capita) number in terms of production, but they export a lot of what they produce, whereas Americans get all their shit from China and can then claim China has the worse emissions.

                    Here’s a map showing consumption-based emissions per capita, you can see that the US has a number twice as big as China’s.

      • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        China is the number one

        Sooo… a capitalist state?

        Russia is near the top

        Sooo… another capitalist state?

        Fuck off tankies.

        You don’t know what a tankie is, do you?

        I knew it was a bad day when we allowed liberals access to that word.

          • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            You walked blindly into this argument with absolutely zero understanding of the subject matter at hand, didn’t you?

            • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              Users are attributing climate change to “capitalism” with no evidence or reasoning to back it up. You’ve made assertions that countries that political experts don’t consider primarily capitalist countries are actually capitalist countries with no evidence to back them up. I don’t have to waste my time disproving your flaky nonsense, calling it out is good enough for me.

              And what part of this conversation makes you feel like the intelligent subject matter expert here? The part where you said liberals shouldn’t use certain words? Keep it up bud, appreciate you helping me decide which communities to filter out here.

              • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Users are attributing climate change to “capitalism”

                Lol! It’s aliens, right? Climate change is caused by aliens? Is that your angle here?

                I don’t have to waste my time

                I agree… you don’t have to flail blindly and ignorantly because you don’t have a clue what you are talking about. You can get a clue any time you feel like.

                • Steeve@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  Yes of course, the only two super specific variables that exist, capitalism and aliens.

                  Would you waste your time talking to you?

                  • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    Your claims are so ridiculous I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to start whining about aliens or the earth being flat.

                    Like I said… you don’t have to flail blindly and ignorantly. You can come back to reality any time you feel like.

          • ghost_laptop@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Do you think a tankie would say China is a capitalist nation? Liberalism really is worse than brain cancer. They are either an anarchist or some other shit, you just see the names of the enemies of the empire and scream, you poor ignorant Gringo.

    • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Also, non-capitalist countries tend to be low emitters because they are failed countries whose people live in miserable poverty.

    • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The US military is the world’s largest socialist organization. Universal health care, pensions, free college and job training, free housing…

      • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The US military is the world’s largest socialist organization.

        Oh, do please explain to us how worker ownership of the means of production works in the US military.

        Wait, don’t answer yet… I quickly have to get some popcorn. This is going to be good.

          • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Taxes

            Taxes? That’s how the working class owns the means of production in the US military?

            Am I talking to a damn chatbot here? It sure as hell sounds like it.

            • Aesthesiaphilia@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Yeah, think of it like a corporation. Instead of shares, you have votes and taxes.

              Everyone in the military can vote on the actions of that military. Although, so can everyone not in the military. And the number of votes don’t correspond to how many shares you can buy, because it’s more equal than capitalism.

              • masquenox@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Oh… in that case, I’d like some proof that people in the US voted to invade Iraq and Afghanistan back in 2003.

                Shouldn’t be too difficult for a “very stable genius” like you, eh?