131–140 of 324 posts
Odd how nobody ever builds a balloon to fly towards the communist utopias.
One guy did use a plane to land in Red Square. Remember him?
Definitely a "character", even if medically sound enough to stand trial.
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Depends on the form of authoritarian. The two of the richest countries on a GDP PPP basis are Lichtenstein and Singapore, also some of the most free economically, yet they could probably be described as benevolent authoritarian systems. Dubai further behind, although some similar points. It seems authoritarians that know how to use their authority to force the populace to accept (some forms of) freedom can perform be…
If you're a bus driver in Singapore denied the right to protest, strike, and otherwise organize for better pay and conditions, you might feel a bit different about how free Singapore is economically.
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So turn back the clock to when Hildegard von Bingen was only one of many extremely powerful and influential abbesses that were polymaths and prolific artists and writers and educators of women in Europe? I’ve never understood this mentality that people who read and watched handmaids tale, caused some done kind of weird obsession built on a literal fiction story, a made up story… especially since the reality is not on…
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The havoc that finding out your family and friends spied on you for benefits, can not be overstated. How deeply anti social and lonely such a divided and conquered socialist utopian society is can not be expressed in words, and yet it can. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesbeauftragter_f%C3%BCr_di...
Nowadays we don't even need family and friends to spy on you for benefits; websites and apps do it for advertising revenue.
Disney made a movie about this called Night Crossing in the early 1980s. More recently, there's a 2018 German movie about it called Balloon. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7125774
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+1 to this! I wonder if some of the horror in it (the constant threat of the Stasi and its implications) translates well to non-German audiences. In case you're wondering about Germany's strict privacy laws - this is part of why they exist.
> Germany's strict privacy laws Not anymore.
Disney made a movie about this called Night Crossing in the early 1980s. More recently, there's a 2018 German movie about it called Balloon. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7125774
I watched Night Crossing in my german class in high school. I remember it being intense.
There is actually gunfire in it and a teenager dies in the beginning but it still feels less intense due to the 80s pace IMO.
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Yeah I'd be curious into how they acquired so much money
What I've read about the GDR is that money was rarely the problem. You couldn't spend the money if what you wanted to buy was simply not available (except maybe in "Intershops" where you needed to pay in Western currency, that was in fact very expensive). It really was a different system.
Odd how nobody ever builds a balloon to fly towards the communist utopias.
One guy did use a plane to land in Red Square. Remember him?
PS: He was dumb as hell too of course, and it was only due to incredible laxness of the air force that he was never shot down.
Odd how nobody ever builds a balloon to fly towards the communist utopias.
However there is a spectrum between it. I don't think either extreme is great, neither American unrestricted capitalism nor full-on communism. A balance of both is needed. I was a lot happier in the 80s when Holland was a lot more socialist. Less things to worry about, a safety net, cheap housing and schooling, still the ability to run your own business if you really wanted to. We had a great combination.
However the VVD neoliberals (who idolize America) have destroyed it over the last decades and there are so many huge problems now because they always went for the quick fix.
With full-on capitalism you get lots of disenfranchised people angry at not having any upward mobility, corporations just dump all over the citizens, and differences in wealth get insanely high. With full-on communism you end up with a surveillance hellscape and inhumane processes. The secret sauce is in between IMO.