As a transbian, fuck no it isnt, that is liberal bullshit. Marriage is a patriarchal institution.

Oh, the country where after ww2 a waffen ss tattoo would get you in.

Are you really suggesting the DPRK is worse than Qatar? Lmao.

Only the US will kill 20 percent of a population, establish a right wing military dictatorship in the south, and paint the democratic and progressive north as an evil regime worse than an absolute monarchy.

excellent protection of indigenous culture

Lmao, this is like saying the US has excellent protection of indigenous culture.

Recognized or not, it is a independent political, economical, and cultural entity from China. Calling it part of China is just unhelpful burocracy.

Except for the part that they claim they are part of China, are strongly economically coupled with China, and are full of Chinese people, sure.

I'd argue you're just describing vulgar idealist(as opposed to materialism, not cynicism) philosophy.

What I meant was that if we didn't have it to start with, things would've likely still developed albeit much more slowly.

I dont think we will ever know, but Im not sure I agree. I dont know what the landscape would look like without relying on open source and patent theft. A lot of the stuff would probably not be financially viable.

I work in software development. Almost all modern architecture would collapse without the open source ecosystem.

:gulp:

I have no formal training in philosophy maybe I need to read less philosophy if philosophy undergrads aren't being exposed to it

suppose you could make an argument that a non-communist dialectical materialist is also a Marxist

That's my argument

though I’ve never seen it used that way in practice.

Sometimes capitalists spout marxist shit and it is recorded. Marxist capitalists are the worst because they have an understanding of the contradictions their counterparts dont. More commonly there are non communist Marxists in philosophy.

I agree that almost all Marxists are communists, I just felt your initial response was a simplification that lost more meaning in the simplification than it necessarily needed to.

No, marxism is a lense through which to analyze capitalism. It isnt communist by itself, although marx was a communist.

How is saying Stalin wasn't a great guy either denying the holocaust?

You aren't saying that though, you are saying that they killed an equivalent amount of people. You're morally equating them. Also even the CIA didn't consider stalin a dictator in their since declassified internal documents, treating him as one is another way you were taught to equate the USSR with nazi Germany.

Yes ofc, but a big percentage of the deportated people were Jewish. They killed two thirds of the European Jewish population.

I know, that isn't the only group they targeted though. I was simply correcting an inaccuracy in what you said.

No:

Sorry, I thought it was high hundreds of thousands but it was actually a million. My mistake. Still, that is in no way similar to killing upwards of 35 million people in the name of bigotry.

Life expectancy https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41294-021-00169-w

Oh yea, like if you are religious you are a threat to the state and therefore you are unfit for basically any leading role, or your property might be confiscated and you might be sent of to Siberia ?

Anti religion is needlessly antagonistic but also wasn't enforced like you are suggesting: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/11/13.htm

Lines for food namely bread and if the stars aligned meat.

According to the anti-communist cia their nutrition was in many ways better

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R000601440024-5.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwijl7ChsciBAxXug4kEHS2ZCCAQFnoECBgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw06QRMVGCOurHDUtg96SRq0

Also breadlines are common under capitalism.

Big amount of corruption ?

Yes, theft from the public has definitely decreased since the the collapse. /s

Mandatory conscription to the military (and the corruption there too) ?

There are plenty of countries that do that after they lose around 20 percent of their population in a brutal war. Like Vietnam, for example.

Iron curtain ?

You mean the one the west put up? https://news.stanford.edu/2019/12/26/stalin-not-want-iron-curtain-descend/

Free speech and freedom of expression ?

Western countries have more sophisticated censorship and media apparatuses I give you that. Speak out in a real way though and look what happens to people like Fred Hampton.