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  • [–] 61 points 2 months ago (79 children)

    Yes there was advancement for women’s rights

    I’m not trying to have a go at you personally, but this is something I see from anti-communists and it drives me up a wall. The way it’s just casually handwaved away that former socialist countries had significantly better rights for one half of the entire population, and it gets relegated to a footnote. It shows just how more work still needs to be done to respect women’s rights. Even if these counties accomplished nothing else, the fact that they actually successfully addressed the needs and rights of HALF the population is a monumental achievement. In the GDR a woman could divorce her husband on her initiative while at the same time in the FRG a woman needed her husband’s permission to work outside the home. This should not be waived off as “yeah yeah I guess women had rights but you couldn’t find a good pair of blue jeans”.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago (55 children)

    Evil is a moral idea, not a material process. That's my point.

    Either way, I have an interest in defending points that were actually made, not the horrendous fantasy you made up, nor the idealism you are spouting. Nobody is making you do this, you have every opportunity to approach the conversation from a point of good-faith, but instead you have shifted goalposts and made quasi-fascist points surrounding culture.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (33 children)

    Morals are not the same as material processes. Simply saying "evil" as a reason for something is not a scientific answer for the behavior of societies.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (24 children)

    there is no legitimate social sciences.

    Stemlords should be forced to study social sciences.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (22 children)

    Sorry I just think you dismissing anthropology, archaeology, economics, geography, history, linguistics, psychology, sociology, political science and more as entirely illegitimate would likely be fixed by you having a background in them off which to speak instead of spewing nonsense.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (19 children)

    Those are social sciences there isn’t however a social science.

    That's great but you said:

    "there is no legitimate social sciences."

    Also this is nonsense like saying there is no physics because when it comes to study it's broken into subfields.

    As for the rest of your nonsense all science is, is:

    A systematic method or body of knowledge in a given area.

    Psychology is absolutely a science. As for history you're probably right that in and of itself it is not a science but it is a core part of much of the rest of the social science fields, this however doesn't do much to further your argument that the social sciences as a field are illegitimate.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (15 children)

    Wow abelism from a debatelord never seen that before. Apologies that my grammar isn't perfect in my fourth language your majesty I'll try do better in the future /s

    The fact is you're wrong and are simply trying to find anything you can to weasel out of facing that fact that the field of social science is real, it's subfields are legitimate and you have nothing but vibes and misunderstandings behind your thought to try hold up some vague heir of superiority you feel.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Daft when used as a pejorative (a stand in for calling someone crazy or deranged) absolutely is.

    Again simply because the field is yet to be completed doesn't make it illegitimate. Physics has yet to be unified, math has yet to be completed yet they remain science. You are severely uninformed and again I implore you to do some self reflection and actually engage with the science and scientific community. You are not as intelligent as you think and clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    It doesn’t solely mean crazy or deranged, it can also mean plain stupid. Take a crack at which I meant. Similarly that still doesn’t make it ableist bud.

    Yes it does bud. You are a an albeist asshole and should be ashamed of yourself.

    That’s absolutely your implication hence the word imply.

    But it wasn't it was a straw man not even in the same area of thought of anything I said.

    It’s not, there’s natural science, social sciences and humanities.

    I wish I could be as confident as you in just saying shit it really is a skill for the privileged.

    Pot

    See the difference between us is I have interacted with and contributed to the scientific community through my PhD and time as a researcher at a university whereas you given everything I've seen most likely didn't make it past mandatory schooling. You reek of YouTube university educated stemlord.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Why is social science not legitimate?

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  • [–] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (13 children)

    I’m kind of tired of talking to you because as I stated before, you don’t want to discuss or be open, you just want to be right and state the USSR is the best or something.

    Whatever, Cowbee has been very open and responsive and all you do is talk in circles, misinterpret Cowbee's posts in bad faith and then be insulting.

    Okay looking at your posts in your profile, you're someone who hates Russia A LOT, calls DPRK the "Kim regime" and China "China's single party" like it's a horrible evil dictatorship.

    So basically you were in fact arguing in bad faith from the start while having your bias influences by your fascist, chauvinistic white supremacy. A fucking liberal.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    The simple fact was that across the soviet justice system, conditions were both enormously better than the Tsarist system, and comparatively better than the majority of capitalist countries, especially if we count western concentration camps in the colonies that Hitler later recreated in Europe. I believe in prison abolition in the long run, but I'm also a communist, I view history as a process and not as a static snapshot. The soviets deliberately tried to make a more humane system, and did so, even if they would be seen as backwards today.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    No, the major difference between the Tsarist system and the socialist system was that aristocrats and capitalists were in control of the Tsarist system, while the working classes were in charge of the socialist system. Saying that "dissidents were punished under both" ignores that that means workers and peasants were by far the biggest victim in the Tsarist system, while aristocrats, semi-slavers called kulaks, and capitalists were the biggest victims in the USSR.

    I can criticize the USSR for its genuine shortcomings more effectively than you can, because I put the USSR into its actual historical context, rather than treating it as a static snapshot that exists outside of history. I never said every prison in the west was worse than every prison in the USSR. I said the justice system in the USSR was better than the justice systems in the west on average. This is the actual comparison being made, not the ridiculous strawman.

    Bringing it back to culture rather than material conditions, and erasing it from its historical context, is nothing but quasi-fascism. I don't think you are intentionally relying on fascist rhetoric, but fascism is the path idealism and metaphysics leads down, which is why taking a scientific approach to history is critical.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 months ago

    Misogyny is massive. Half the population was liberated from lives of utter dependence on and vulnerability at the hands of the other. Allowed to do stuff like leave abusive marriages and testify against their husbands and shit but it's "Yes yes they got some rights".

    It's one of the most significant liberations in human history god damn it. My own grandmother's life was transformed from one of illiterate servitude to one where she could keep her own apartment and do technical work (and get recognition and respect for doing so, not condemnation!).

    She was just one among millions. millions!

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  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (50 children)

    The claim I gave was that the Soviet Union was historically progressive compared to peer capitalist countries. I never said they were progressive compared to modern western countries when it comes to queer rights, and when it comes to women's rights, worker's rights, and more, the Soviet Union was more progressive than the US is today. You are shifting the goalpost to the idea that I said the Soviet Union was flawless even by modern standards, which I never said.

    Further, you again try to draw a direct line from a socialist federation of countries to the horrendously reactionary states that replaced them. There is no material basis for this, otherwise the Tsarist system would have continued culturally into the Soviet system. They clearly did not, the Soviet Union was enormously progressive compared to the Tsarist system, just like the modern reactionary states are far more reactionary than the Soviet Union was.

    You have no leg to stand on.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (47 children)

    And my point to this is how these are viewed today. In post soviet countries LGBTIA+ is completely repressed, it is literally dangerous to be queer in some places not even openly queer, just queer.

    lol, lmao even

    How is a state that is now capitalist and reactionary the fault of USSR? This happened because of the absence of it! Do you liberals not have object permanence??

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago* (45 children)

    Nobody said the USSR shifted to be pro-queer. What was stated was that the USSR was consistently less anti-queer than the west, which is thanks to their overall higher levels of social progressivism. You either misread unintentionally, or are deliberately taking a bad-faith stance. I like to think it's the former, but only you can answer that.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Sweden still considered Homosexuality as a mental illness and was a country that practiced eugenics far into the 70s

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

    Ideas do not exist independently of their material conditions. By shifting from an analysis of material conditions and the social relations that spring from them to one of "culture," you are placing ideas outside of their context in material reality, and moving to the realm of supernatural thinking. In other words, this is pure idealism and is anti-scientific. Idealism has more in common with fascism than it does with socialism, so I really do think you should be careful. Fascists use the "culture" argument to argue against immigration, in favor of colonialism, etc.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    You aren't viewing the whole picture, though. You're abstracting the Soviet Union from its historical context and measuring it against standards of an entirely different historical era. Further, again, you are placing far too much of an emphasis on culture while treating it as though it exists independent from the society and the social relations compelled by it. This is an idealist argument, not a materialist one.

    Here's a simple exercise: why did women's rights dramatically expand upon the implementation of socialism?

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago

    The economic basis of capitalism also reinforces the nuclear family, as you can treat domestic labor as unpaid labor for recreating the paid labor of the male worker. Socialism brought with it profound cultural changes as well as economic changes that put the Soviets ahead of the west, despite the west being capitalist for longer than Russia was.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (34 children)

    The soviet union does not exist today. The soviet union's treatment of homosexuals was far more leniant than western countries in general, which coincides with being enormously socially progressive when it comes to ethnicity and gender as well. Nobody is arguing that the soviet union of the 1930s was progressive when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community if compared to the US today, but such a comparison is ludicrous to begin with.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (14 children)

    Work camps

    You mean prison. Work camp is nonsense used to demonise non western countries as barbaric (and often used in an attempt to evoke images of the nazi extermination machine even when they are not at all the same). Also what was progressive in the 40s 50s and 60s would be regressive by today's standard yet that doesn't mean it wasn't progressive for the time.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    Almost like progressive for it's time doesn't mean progressivenand perfect for eternity ?!?!?! Please read what people are saying before responding.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Whene did anyone say anything like that?

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  • [–] 14 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    The USSR was more progressive than the west at the time, that doesn't mean the west wasn't progressive at all or the the USSR was the only one? Are you sure you can read?

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago* (4 children)

    Your initial comment was stupid.

    "The USSR was way more progressive on racial equality, women's rights, workplace rights, anticolonialism etc but also they weren't perfect and thus can be equated with the west who were still actively engaging in colonialism, genocide, slavery, segregation etc" it's ridiculous. The USSR was one of the most progressive forces of the time the fact the west had minimal progression at the same time does not make them comparable.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago

    Okay that was actuality a great marketing campaign for Doomdays, I'm already hating the villain so much right now, I'm so fucking ready to see Thor and the gang beating Doom to death.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago*

    It's worth noting that the USSR ended the Gulag system in the 1960s while capitalist countries like the united states continue to use prison as a means for cheap (practically unpaid) forced labor. Soviet prisoners were also paid comparable wages to free workers not only out of principle but so they would not be severely disadvantaged once out of prison.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (16 children)

    Soviet prisons were generally more progressive than western prisons, especially considering western countries were largely colonial powers (and are now neocolonial powers). Soviets even viewed handcuffs as barbaric and paid prisoners wages comparable to outside wages, the compulsion for work was out of a belief that work itself is good. They didn't treat prison labor the same way the US does today, for pennies a day.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Oh shit, nice homophobia. Mask off for you? Either way, yes, the soviet prisons were progressive compared to western peers, especially considering they weren't committing genocide around the world like the west was. Read Russian Justice.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago (14 children)

    Jesus christ take the cock out of you’re mouth.

    Nice homophobia bigot. Go fuck yourself.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    Still homophobic to say shit like that asshole again go fuck yourself.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    "I can't argue back at all because my arguments are shit and relies on strawmanning and making shit up!"

    Fucking debatebros, you're all terrible

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago*

    It feels like you are struggling to understand historical events and entities as parts of historical processes. Yes the USSR did stuff we look back at and go, wow that was fucked up huh. That's to be expected as we have historically progressed from the point they were at. The USSR wasn't gonna undo centuries of social conditioning in a decade, that was not feasible. You can't thanos snap homophobia from existence by royal decree. I would have loved if the Soviet Union spawned into existence with all the values I have today but it didn't. It was birthed with all the prejudices of working people in Czarist Russia and had to eat away at them over time. Not only this, it came about in a world of prejudices and was consistently surrounded by them. They weren't going to have an ideological epiphany that severely broke from their tradition and world culture for no reason.

    You're doing historical anachronism

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  • [–] 31 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    Don't forget how the West rewarded Alan Turing for his contributions during WW2 by castrating him for being gay. Or how the west linked homosexuality with pedophilia.

    Or a bigger example being Ronald Reagan letting AIDS run rampant in the LGBTQ+ community?

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago

    Yep, even with the homophobia of the early Soviet Union, they were generally at or near the top when it comes to queer rights in their peer countries. That's both depressing to think about, and also indicative of their own progressive nature as they sit in their historical context.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago

    Yep, they weren't great by any stretch, but the cartoonish idea that queer people were executed in the streets is horrendously false. Meanwhile, Turing was chemically castrated and driven to suicide despite being a hero, simply because he was gay.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Just wait until you find out about what the US was doing in East and Southeast Asia at the time. There isn't a single criticism you can make of the USSR that the West wasn't doing bigger and more savagely.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Is it? Because it's the same point I made, yet you seem to be arguing against it.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago

    Human rights can only be measured against their historical context with any degree of validity. Our human rights today across the globe will be considered horrendously barbaric compared to a century from now. Placing the soviet union in its historical context makes it unambiguously an enormously progressive project.

    As for being all over the thread, that's neither here nor there. The points are the points.

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