> Socialism makes every other person a potential enemy and a potential victim. Resources are scarce. People come to hate one another. You're taking a look at countries that have implemented 'socialism' and ended up with what amounts to dictatorships. Do you really think that Communism as envisioned by Karl Marx included someone like Stalin, or the corrupt officials that inhabited governments in the Eastern Bloc? For…
Do you think that the life, as envisioned by children, who want to eat only ice cream when they grow up, includes scurvy, diabetes and other effects of such a diet?
So your response is to ban ice-cream forever and eat nothing but salads instead?
Because, you know, that's the analogous response to banning all socialism and social-democracy forever just because the Soviet Union didn't turn out well.
I'm from Prague and I was always baffled by this. How does the smiling thing work? In what situations do you smile? For example, if you're walking on street, do you eye-contact people going in the opposite direction and smile at them?
You don't make eye contact with everyone you walk by, no. But if you do happen to make eye contact, you typically smile - and it would be a little awkward if you didn't. I think there's a difference between a polite smile of acknowledgement and a smile give to someone that you already know well, however.
I'm in Vienna, Austria (not far from Prague, but generally considered to be part of western Europe) and if a stranger smiled at me for no apparent reason I'd think that she/he is into me, high on drugs or trying to sell me something.
I'm from Prague and I was always baffled by this. How does the smiling thing work? In what situations do you smile? For example, if you're walking on street, do you eye-contact people going in the opposite direction and smile at them?
>For example, if you're walking on street, do you eye-contact people going in the opposite direction and smile at them? At least in the States, yes. It's how you show you're not about to go for their throat with a knife.
Very interesting, so it's a mechanism to differentiate between neutral/friendly and enemy.
Do you think that the life, as envisioned by children, who want to eat only ice cream when they grow up, includes scurvy, diabetes and other effects of such a diet?
> Do you think that the life, as envisioned by children, who want to eat only ice cream when they grow up, includes scurvy, diabetes and other effects of such a diet? Do you think that people are automata, and any attempt to build a system with X attributes necesarrily also has Y attributes, in the automatic way that eating only sugar leads to diabetes? Just because there was an attempt to build X (socialism for exam…
Yes they will. The premise is flawed. Socialism (US term) or social-democracy (Euro term) can work in a democratic society but communism is flawed from the start.
Putting everything in one communal basket and expecting people to behave is a recipe for disaster. Don't make a system which works only when people do not make mistakes or are only driven by their purest feelings.
Hi, I'm from Lithuania, where people are smiling (or not smiling) in the exact same way as described in the article. I can assure you that teeth has absolutely nothing to do with this. Same goes for your missing muscle theory, absolute nonsense. It seems like you think people are way more conscious about smiling than they really are. I could not care less about my tooth when "deciding" whether to smile or not. It's n…
I just mention tooth like interesting side factor. Surely it's not the main reason, but may be a consequence supporting the reason. And surely there is no nations that, holding their smiles just because of their tooth not glowing in the dark. Maybe you confused with the mentioning teeth by itself, but its normal for cultural anthropology to try taking physiology, language, healthcare e.t.c as a whole if it giving any…
What do you mean "on request"? Because if someone asked me to fake a smile I would not even try to look sincere either. Deficient practice in imitation can be considered when a person actually wants to look like he's smiling sincerely, but for us it is the opposite. And we don't "suppress" smile - we do not feel any need to smile for random strangers. Unless you want to look offensive. Especially fake smile. Fake smile is mostly used by people who want something from you and are willing to be very annoying about it - usually want something bad to sell or somehow screw you over. I have no idea why are you coming up with those ridiculous theories about reflexes when there are very good reasons not to smile and not to fake smile to random people, and to smile to friends.
As a European I find it interesting how Americans have started to completely misusing the term 'socialism' especially over the last couple of years. Even those who don't fit the die-hard right-wing profile seem to have started calling any kind of social welfare 'socialsm' without realising what actual socialism looks like.
To me, what's surprising is the contrary: that people call communism "socialism". While here in France, our Socialist Party (in power right now) has always been far from communism. It feels strange to me to call social welfare anything other than socialism. Maybe it's just a case of French socialisme and English socialism being false friends.
It's because most communist parties in the Eastern Block were initially (or even always) called socialist parties. And many Eastern Block countries were named "socialist republics".
> A Russian friend of mine explained that it's sort of inappropriate to go around smiling, esp for males. This is very true. If a male is smiling, it means he is showing his submission and in turn is subconsciously treated by other males as a lower level male. The exact system of hierarchy signs exists in chimps. For me it seems like russians together with some other cultures managed to save this body language compon…
Why are you assuming that we can not tell the difference between smiles? There's a huge gradation of social behavior w.r.t smiles and other social cues that we use in the west. For us, raised in the culture, it is trivially easy to tell the difference between, say, the smile of a shopkeeper in greeting, the smile of an enemy, the smile of a shopkeeper after asking after your parent (they slightly know you), the smile…
So it's just the same things expressed differently, just like different body language.
I served a Mormon mission in eastern Ukraine (not Russia, but very Soviet), which meant I went from one day being surrounded by Americans to walking around the streets of eastern Ukraine trying to talk with everyone I met on the street (a decidedly non-Ukrainian thing to do). One day while we were walking the sun came out for just a minute - a fairly rare occurrence during a Ukrainian winter, and I walked around the…
You mean people in America don't feel this way about street preachers? Even the kind that walks around with a sign and shouts REPENT! and all? > I could give a $100 bill to a cashier at the grocery store without getting in trouble. You mean you literally handed her a 100 dollar bill? That's not her fault, you should exchange your money. Imagine someone trying to pay with hrivnas in 7-11.
>You mean people in America don't feel this way about street preachers? Even the kind that walks around with a sign and shouts REPENT! and all?
Yes of course we/they do. Street preachers are obnoxious as all hell, especially for people with preexisting religious beliefs.
> Also, this is probably the last thing that comes to mind about Russians in general. For the most part, they are notoriously individualistic. You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way. Russians may look individualistic if you don't know them well, but actually in Russia close friends and family means much more then in US.
> You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way. No, I meant individualistic in a "mostly devoid of the sense of social responsibility" way. In fact, it's a common meme in Russia to lament the lack of a sense of unity pervasive in the culture (the closeness of family/friends notwithstanding) .
In this definition yes, modern Russian people are individualists. But in sense
> Extreme cold and very dark days tend to bring people together
That is in the sense of small close group they are more collectivists than many of western countries.