I wonder if they even had to purchase the film rights to those books separately, or if they came included in the deal.

When you need multiple attempts to replicate something that’s existed for decades… maybe what you’re trying to do doesn’t work!

Imagine trying to vibe design something complex.

the South China Morning Post - a propaganda outlet in China operating under the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship regime - is more critical about the Chinese bond market that Reuters

When the SCMP praises something China does, it’s evidence of censorship. When it’s critical? You guessed it, also evidence of censorship.

During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.

-Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds

Or cut off a supposed ally trying to talk you into starting (at least) a regional war.

It’s not a dilemma at all. If they do it, they’re either complicit or too cowardly to refuse an illegal order.

We’ll talk about material conditions until we’re blue in the face, and then when material conditions change it becomes “well people are only receptive to this because it’s hitting their wallets!”

No shit! That’s the whole leftist argument! Material conditions drive politics more than ideology!

So you can milk him

Vagueposting? In this economy?

I could be a billionaire if someone gives me a billion dollars

Bullshit

Today it’s worth $0

Ha great point.

For minor personal computing, “eh it partially works OK” is extremely annoying, but maybe worth it if it’s dirt cheap. For anything more complex or important, that level of unreliability is an enormous net negative no matter how low the cost.

“Those poor repressed Chinese people don’t even know what Tank Man is”

They care about the economy and being racist; this is just a contradiction in their belief system.

I’m not saying this should be reflexively opposed. I’m saying that if a movement is accepting help from some of the worst people in the world, that movement deserves a great deal of skepticism.

Who here is just pro-revolution independent of context? Violence is a tactic, not an end unto itself.

If your revolution is being propped up by fascist state that wants nothing more than to kill a bunch of your fellow citizens and steal your oil, there are some serious open questions about what your revolution seeks to achieve, and for whom.

https://www.semafor.com/article/01/03/2026/new-york-times-washington-post-held-off-on-reporting-venezuela-raid

A tweet that’s purely a take quoting a tweet that makes a “walking it back” claim without quoting a statement or anything? I’m supposed to take this at face value?

If there’s a real criticism here, let’s see what the guy actually said.

When a socialist society needed to develop its economy enough to maintain internal support and survive against external aggression.

China endured its Century of Humiliation and then a genocidal occupation during WWII. The communists then had to win their civil war, only to immediately face U.S. aggression on their doorstep in Korea, plus hostile U.S. bases all over Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. In 1950 it was a poor, largely pre-industrial country with urgent, existential problems. How quickly were they supposed to build utopia?

Do you think repeating what I said is insightful?