gcheliotis

Because stating that people are biased for beauty and youth and western, predominantly white media are biased for whiteness, is like saying that the sky is blue. It adds nothing and detracts from the story, which is more about the excessive drinking culture in youth, backpacking, thrill-seeking, Southeast Asia, and a host more closely related topics. Noticing that the faces on the BBC heading are pretty blonde girls and making an issue of it is anything but deep. It is the most superficial thing you could notice and comment on, bordering on creepy, because you reduce a story to “pretty blondes”. If and when you suspect that an important story is buried because its protagonists are not conventionally attractive or because of their race or gender identity, then do bring it up. Then you are helping elevate people whose stories perhaps should be told and heard more widely.

Possibly. But why does this need to be said? How is it relevant here? What does it offer?

F

It’s weird. But I also remember how many were quick to point to Russia for blowing up a pipeline and much later it turned out Russia had nothing to do with it.

The Baltics have nothing to do with Yugoslavia or the Ottoman Empire. This surprised me too and I have no ready explanation.

Exactly. Extremely small population and short duration (just one year’s data) means even a small number of murders in a given year will easily bump it up.

Knowledge and unconditional love should do the trick 🤞I have found that the men most prone to this are men with a chronic lack of love and self-esteem.

I am not sure that technology alone is to blame. But I have been thinking for a while now that recommendation algorithms should be open, scrutinized, and regulated even.

I think you’re spot on.

Omg 800,000 people (presumably mostly young men) signed up for that bullshit? Have we failed so many that they will seek help with the top douchebag himself?

Thank you for the exchange, however I can see that you are mostly interested in educating me and I am not interested in such an imbalanced exchange. I have been through all this before, when the USSR and its fall were still very relevant topics. Also, as already discussed, I am not as passionate about this as you are. I guess we will both see where China is headed. I agree that markets do not cease under socialism, in fact I do not think they will ever cease to exist completely, people will continue to trade and barter at some scale and I think that is ok.

Hey thanks for making the effort. You are clearly more passionate about this than I am. And you clearly consider today’s China a case of “existing socialism”. I do not. And I’m surprised that a number of people still do. Indeed the Trotskyist left and other related currents in the West have always had to deal with the paradox of advocating communism while at the same time opposing most if not all regimes that claimed to be communist. On the other hand more traditional communists - some would call them Stalinists if we’re using labels - who would advocate for regimes that many considered oppressive and were happy to see fall (including everyone who considered such regimes to be a degeneration of the original revolutionary potential). Personally I don’t feel I have a big stake in this. I am more and more thinking that these are experiments that largely failed no matter how you look at it, and hope to see new movements that will update their repertoire, learn from the failings, and succeed better. I am not sure what form or shape such movements will take. But am also not betting on capitalism not leading to the destruction of the world sooner or later. When I sometimes appear to defend China it is because I do not think that western-style capitalism and liberal democracy are the only ways that capitalism can function.