Does anyone know if Sputnik News has an RSS feed? I tried looking before but couldn't find it for my news reader.
Literally every fully communist society has been a shit hole throughout history. It simply doesn’t equate to good living conditions. It’s why there have been so many revolutions in communist countries, it gives people nothing of value apart from literally not dying, and even then, not really.
It is not true that communist societies have been shit holes throughout history. Socialist states also have higher approval ratings by their own people, who say that their governments better serve their needs and desires.
One trap you're falling in to is comparing the internal conditions of a socialist country to the internal conditions of completely unrelated (often capitalist) countries. The reason this is a trap is because the correct analysis compares the timeline of the conditions within the country. Put another way: you need to compare how much a socialist framework improved the lives of the citizens of the country from how they were before. If you compare the lives of people in a country that has only had its people out of poverty for a decade, compared to one that has had most of its people out of poverty for a century, you're going to come to faulty conclusions. If you compare citizens across countries at a fixed point in time, you're bound to discount (as you have) the massive improvements in quailty of life socialist projects have brought. Socialist projects have brought more people out of poverty, in a shorter amount of time, than any system before or since. Another aspect of this "trap" is that you're comparing modern living standards in capitalist countries to historic living standards in socialist countries. They didn't have iPhones in the USSR, but that doesn't mean they were worse off, it just means that the iPhone wasn't around then.
Another trap you're falling in to is comparing those at the top in capitalist countries, with the everyday person in a socialist country. If you look at the lives of the top 1% in a capitalist country, and compare that to a generic life in a socialist country, you'd (falsely) conclude that the capitalist country offers a better life. What you're failing to account for is the massive inequality, and the lives of the people at the bottom of the capitalist hierarchy. You can't comend a system that lets the bottom 95% do so poorly that they look bad even by "socialist" standards, just because the top 5% is doing better than the "socialist" standards. I'd rather a society in which 100% of people are provided for and have their needs met, but can't own private planes, several yachts, a dozen houses, and a handful of lawmakers, than one in which you can have those luxuries but only if you're one of a select few, at the expense of the rest of the people.
You're also just fabricating the notion that there was "nothing to do" or that there was "nothing of value apart from not dying". Free time was abundant; economic scarcity didn't prevent people from seeking out entertainment; there was a stronger social fabric because there was not a strictly upheld hierarchy; there were opportunities to pursue arts and education (and not just to make your employer able to extract more value from you).
One significant thing you're ignoring, and this I really do think is quite significant, is the trajectory of a capitalist and a socialist system. In a socialist system, you're starting from a low point and successively making improvements to people's lives; there may be temporary stagnation but there shouldn't be regression and, if that did happen, it would not be permanent. On the other hand, in a capitalist system, people's lives are not improving: the trajectory of a capitalist system is increased inequality, increased poverty, increased death due to poor care and starvation, etc. Extrapolating out each system to the future shows that only one is stable and caters to the needs and desires of its people, and the other is doomed to implode on itself.
They're lucky their content is high quality because god damn the pre-roll and inline ads are always absolute fucking garbage. I know the show host doesn't control what ads the network uses, but they've literlly had USA military recruiting ads on their show, which is peak irony.
I've set my podcast player to skip the first X seconds to get past the pre-roll, and my finger is trained to skip-forward through the ads, but some automated system would make life a lot easier (and listening to Behind the Bastards more enjoyable).
Not just a rapist, a child rapist.
I haven’t watched it yet, but Solaris is widely regarded as a great movie.
It is one of my absolute favorite films. It is an extremely slow burn and very long, but thoroughly enjoyable. It touches on a lot of realy important themes and does so thoughtfully. I highly suggest everyone watch it if they have the chance.
One of the absolute best films ever made, and indeed in my top 3 I've ever seen, is also a Soviet film produced in 1985 by Mosfilm (who produced Solaris), called Come and See.
Indeed. One of the best films ever produced, Come and See from 1985, was produced by Mosfilm. There's seemingly some confusion where expensive must mean quality, and it can't be quality unless it's expensive. That's utter nonsense: the highest grossing movies are bullshit propaganda Marvel movies that have no lasting value; and some of the best and most lasting films, such as Come and See, made "only" $21M at the box office and so would be considered a flop.
Profit motive in entertainment kills creativity, because creativity (as risk) is potentially costly, and not guaranteed money. Profit motive finds a profitable "script" (see the Marvel franchise) and just prints it in a thousand different fonts and calls it a thousand successful films.
That's the United States of America.
no one will open a business if they make $0
In the current system you're right, but only because to make $0 you yourself won't be able to survive.
To suggest that profit motive must exist to want to start a business though is not valid. Think of all the big name "inventors" of the past couple centuries: yes they were being paid enough to live, but what motivated their invention and discovery was genuine passion for knowledge and invention. I'd start a business that made $0 if I was producing a product I thought was cool and meaningful. In fact, not being tied to a profit motive would let me experiment with more unusual ideas for goods and services.
If you pay people enough to survive and entertain themselves, it doesn't magically turn everyone into a braindead consumer (ironically, that's what the current system does). If you pay people enough to not have to worry about survival, they can be creative and explore the landscape of ideas, leading to novel discovery and inventions.
From what I've read of theory (and from what AES states have done in the past), the state funds entertainment and cultural development. There was a lot of film that came out of the USSR for example that was funded by the Ministry of Culture I believe. There is a full acknowledgement of people's desire for entertainment and culture as part of the definition of living a good life, and when the government's true desire is to improve the lives of its people, it must allocate resources to cultural development[^1].
It's also worth noting that while movies and the like are indeed rather costly, a large portion of the cost of blockbuster movies comes from the disgusting sums paid to the few stars at the top of the call sheet. These costs would disappear and producing such media would automatically be a less costly endeavor than it is now.
[^1]: I'm going to paste some of my notes from Roland Boer's Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners: At the Nineteenth Congress of the CPC in 2017, Xi Jinping pointed out that while socialism with Chinese characteristics has made major developments, a new principal contradiction emerged 'between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life'. In terms of the people's needs, these move from material and cultural needs to the need for a better life, which encapsulates material, cultural, political, public, and environmental life. Attention has been paid specifically to resolving this contradiction.
Oh that's interesting. That makes sense. Like I said I'm using the Kindle 4 from 2011 and it has a slightly different form factor and no way to use a magnetic case.
Do you not see the chicken-or-egg situation here? They're more unhealthy because of bad healthcare. That (bad) healthcare is more expensive because they're more unhealthy.
Moreover, much of the reason the healthcare is so expensive is because of insurance overhead, for-profit middlemen (including hospitals, private equity owning doctors offices, etc), massive prescription medication markups because people can't go without medication, and other inefficiencies in the system. Even with an unhealthy population, it doesn't need to be nearly as expensive as it is.