For instance, I have an aunt who is definitely MAGA, and is flirting with Q-Anon ideas. However, she has pretty good views on the environment and animal rights. For instance, after travelling to Ecuador, she donates to some Ecuadorian land trust run by locals. However, if you start talking to her about the border or gender, she goes full Orbán.

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
        ·
        1 year ago

        It does far, far more than monitor for spies.

        I agree with you that in a world where any state has an intelligence agency, every state needs its own intelligence agency.

        I am not even coming close to defending the CIA, but its possible that the enemy of my enemy is not actually always a great way to run a society.

        • BeamBrain [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Wow, it's too bad China doesn't have access to your brilliant insights, the poor ignorant fools

    • optissima@lemmy.ml
      ·
      1 year ago

      my brother is a tankie

      Team up and deprogram your dad, then knife fight in the backyard later 👍

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        They already teamed up and made me homeless.

        Anyway, its not possible to deprogram my Dad. Tried for years. He's never wrong you see, because what about this unrelated complex topic he has no understanding of? He is a master of gish gallop and rhetorical trickery, and when he actually does obviously lose an argument he just laughs.

        Tankie brother? Maybe possible to deprogram, but it would be pointless. He is massively neurotic, depressed and highly manipulative. Also very anti social.

        Never took any of my advice relating to my decade of experience in the tech industry, never listened to what i was saying about econ or poli sci until a youtuber he watches told him about it, despite my degrees in econ and poli sci. And then he would either gaslight me and tell him that i did not actually tell him what i told him 6 months ago, or he would have a depressive breakdown and need my forgiveness and support everyday for 2 months.

        I /could/ easily beat him in a knife fight, but at this point I am content for him to live the rest of his life knowing what he did to me and being a neurotic guilt ridden mess about it, while I sleep soundly on the other side of the county, never speaking to him again.

        • BelieveRevolt [he/him]
          ·
          1 year ago

          never listened to what i was saying about econ or poli sci until a youtuber he watches told him about it, despite my degrees in econ and poli sci

          lol, please be doing a bit right now.

          • vexikron@lemmy.zip
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Fascinating how all you are capable of saying in response to that whole comment is to think I am doing a bit when I mention I have two degrees.

            No, its not a bit.

            I seriously doubt anyone here in a chapo reddit could actually make a meaningful economic or political argument at this point.

            oh sorry did I say reddit? I couldn't tell I wasn't on it what with the utter lack of meaningful or interesting discussion, and preponderance of memey edgy troll posters.

            As usual, the cosplaying tankies in a 'leftist' community are amazingly hostile and disrespectful to anyone who says they are an anarchist.

            I had been able to post for a week or so on another chapo reddit /until/ it became unable to avoid the astounding hypocrisy and wilful blindness that online MLs have regarding the horrible things done by authoritarian societies in the name of communism.

            Good riddance to you idiot trolls.

            Its baffling to me that chapo communities are nearly entirely ML edgelords. The chapo crew never suck off and worship Chinese Style 'Communism', but for some reason seemingly all online chapo communities are based around this principle.

            • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
              ·
              1 year ago

              The chapo crew never suck off and worship Chinese Style 'Communism',

              pretty sure the "President Xi, Please! ☢️" emoji is a direct reference to an endlessly repeated bit from the podcast, but sure, go off

            • Zoift [he/him]
              ·
              1 year ago

              oh sorry did I say reddit? I couldn't tell

              Motherfucker that was the most reddit post possible

            • Venus [she/her]
              ·
              1 year ago

              I've read like an hour of economic theory in my life and I guarantee you I have a stronger understanding of economics than you do. Your econ degree is a certification that you have spent many hours being mislead lol

            • BelieveRevolt [he/him]
              ·
              1 year ago

              Fascinating how all you are capable of saying in response to that whole comment is to think I am doing a bit when I mention I have two degrees.

              https://piped.video/watch?v=e-k-v7i-QeI

              Also, new copypasta just dropped.

            • yoink [she/her]
              ·
              1 year ago

              you've been banned from multiple large comms here, what are you still doing around lmao

              • BelieveRevolt [he/him]
                ·
                1 year ago

                I didn't realize they were the person who posted the comment that's the last item in their modlog, should've been banned just for how bad that was.

            • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              unable to avoid the astounding hypocrisy and wilful blindness that online MLs have regarding the horrible things done by authoritarian societies in the name of communism.

              Weird, I would have figured your poli sci degree would have taught you about the Red Scare and all the shady things the CIA did, still here you are parroting the same propaganda from the 50s.

              oh sorry did I say reddit? berdly-smug

              Damn, can't imagine why your family doesn't like you lmao, especially when you use ablest slurs to refer to them and fantasize about stabbing your obviously majorly depressed bro. (Who wouldn't be depressed lol).

              And people think this is a bit because you're the exact kind of clueless neo-lib pretending to be leftist that we parody.

            • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
              ·
              1 year ago

              oh sorry did I say reddit? I couldn't tell I wasn't on it what with the utter lack of meaningful or interesting discussion, and preponderance of memey edgy troll posters.

              Tagline?

            • grazing7264 [they/them, comrade/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              I had been able to post for a week or so on another chapo reddit /until/ it became unable to avoid the astounding hypocrisy and wilful blindness that online MLs have regarding the horrible things done by authoritarian societies in the name of communism.

              Name one

              I can feel the white noise radiating from here

              You have no idea what that word means

              Just pure orientalism and white chauvinism drowning out your thoughts like cataracts

        • RyanGosling [none/use name]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Never took any of my advice relating to my decade of experience in the tech industry, never listened to what i was saying about econ or poli sci until a youtuber he watches told him about it, despite my degrees in econ and poli sci.

          Based

        • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
          ·
          1 year ago

          Never took any of my advice relating to my decade of experience in the tech industry, never listened to what i was saying about econ or poli sci

          Starting to think there's another side to this story

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
        ·
        1 year ago

        He is a friendless neurotic depressed drug addict who unironically still loves South Park and Rick and Morty. He still plays every Pokemon game that comes out despite being in his 30s, is terrified, literally terrified of any game with direct online contact with another player, oh right, and lied to T Mobile to engage the parental control mode on my phone and stalk me in his car and on foot, and then lied about doing that to the rest of my family.

        Its fitting for a tankie to spy on his brother and lie about it though, so points for being true to form.

    • iByteABit [comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I get what you're saying about the anarchists, but I have to point out that anarchism is a threat both to capitalist and socialist states from definition. They don't have to be supressed for no reason, but if they're organised and planning to do actual revolutionary action then a state has to supress them as with any other inside threat. Socialism is still a nessecary intermediate step to communism that requires a state to defend the interests of the working class until the classes fade away and a supressing mechanism such as a state would probably be unneeded at that point.

      As of China, I'll say that westerners are surveilled to an insane degree in the US and to a lesser degree in Europe too. I don't like being surveilled in either case, but this is also not an inherent aspect of socialism as opposed to capitalism, it's an inherent aspect of the state.

      • vexikron@lemmy.zip
        ·
        1 year ago

        I agree with you that the logic of a state necessitates its survival over any principles it purports to uphold.

        And yes, of course Western societies have terrible surveillance apparatuses as well.

        Kind of all goes back to the whole 'being critical of the concept of a state because it always has to maintain its own stability and existence over all other objectives' thing.