𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠

ICBMs are spaceflight rockets, imo it’s best to count them. The US hasn’t had such large accidents with ICBMs, mostly minor ones.

Even if we exclude those it’s not true. The US has sent significantly more people into space than the Soviets did, so NASAs accident rate was lower (hence safer), even if the absolute number of deaths was higher.

The Nedelin disaster claimed more lives than NASA did over its entire existence.

This is a very typically American point of view, which tends to lump a lot of people together as “liberal” despite this internationally not being the norm at all.

Here’s a definition of liberalism:

Liberalism is a political philosophy and ideology that emphasizes individual rights, liberties, and limited government. It promotes ideas like free markets, free trade, and social equality, while often advocating for a strong emphasis on individual autonomy and civil liberties.

Note specifically how it says individual rights. The idea with liberalism is that if everyone is similarly unrestrained by the government, and has the same civil liberties, there is an even playing field in which individuals can personally grow and excel. This neatly links together with the liberal belief in a free market, free trade, etc…

A strict liberal idealogy will also adopt several progressive policies w.r.t. civil liberties, like gay rights (as this causes social equality -> level playing field for competition). But liberalism is still a strictly capitalist idealogy, with a strong emphasis on the free market and free trade.

Generally, this individualistic approach to rights is considered socially progressive and economically right-wing. And we see that this is the case in most countries around the world, e.g. Australia’s liberal party or the Dutch VVD. The Dutch VVD is a good example to look at here, they are considered very firmly right-wing, but their party platform most closely matches to that of the DNC. In the US, the two major parties are both righg-wing, one is a moderately progressive right-wing party (with some left-wingers in there, but they aren’t very influential w.r.t. party policy because it’s such a small minority) and the other is a conservative/authoritarian right-wing party.

Because both parties sit firmly on the right of the spectrum, they’ve come to distinguish themselves on social policy rather than economic policy. They’ve remapped the progressive-conservative axis on the left-right axis and called it a day. But in most countries, these axes are very much distinct. Here’s the “political compass” for the Netherlands for example:

Note how there are only two fairly fringe parties to the right of the VVD. Also it’s interesting to note here that the PVV (the “far-right” party with the bird symbol near the bottom) isn’t even all that far right. Their economic policies aren’t actually all that focused on free market dynamics, and they do promote certain social policies. But their hardline immigration stance pushes them very firmly in the conservative camp. And although there’s certainly a correlation between left-progressive and right-conservative, there are still major differences between the parties along this diagonal axis.

Generally, actual left-wing people (be they progressive or conservative) don’t like being lumped in with liberals, because they don’t focus on as much on individual freedom but rather on collective freedom and on policies that benefit the collective. Hence their insistence on actually looking at the full political spectrum rather than the simplified/reducted version of it.

You’re not wrong that people in the US tend to call liberals “left-wing”, but it’s a very reductive, American perspective not shared by political scientists or the rest of the world.

It’s so hard to even conceptualize if it would be better. A few common divisions would be, but is it easier than a decimal system? Would switching to one ever not feel weird if you previously learnt the decimal system?

It’s real. Batman #98.

No abnormal finding in them tiddies

The whole exploitation bit they’ll get, but they don’t associate that with the academic concept of capitalism, but rather with all kinds of power structures that have existed far longer than capitalism.

I really think you’re too optimistic in the average person’s ability to define these terms correctly.

I think you’d be surprised how poor the general state of education is… I think it’s also in part why left-wing politicians lately are failing to get traction with the lower-educated. They speak in a way that doesn’t resonate, and that’s in part because they’re working with different assumptions and definitions.

It’s what people like Trump do understand very well, he speaks like they speak to each other. As a result, even if they don’t fully follow along, it makes more sense to them.

I don’t survey people on the street, but they likely would be closer to the definition accepted in academia than the mere buying and selling of goods.

I think that’s optimistic. The average persons understanding of these concepts is very limited. They’d most likely call ancient Rome “capitalist”, because “they’re not communist”.

That’s the average persons understanding. There’s capitalism and there’s communism, and communism is when you own nothing and everyone is poor and capitalism is everything not-communism. It’s deeply disappointing but that’s what you’re up against.

So when an intellectual person says “capitalism is human nature”, it means something completely different from when an average person says it. To both the 400-years argument won’t make sense.

An intellectual will argue that it naturally came about, so it must be human nature for it to arise so prominently. An average person will laugh in your face “because Rome wasn’t communist”. Neither is correct in their own way, but they’re also not going to be convinced by the 400 years argument. One doesn’t believe you, the other doesn’t care.

Historical examples of proto-socialism or communal living would be a stronger counterpoint imo. Not because it’s more correct in a theoretical sense, but because it more directly challenges the core of the opposing sides argument.

Proton edited and deleted some of their responses because it made them look even worse. You can find one here: https://archive.ph/quYyb

Complete delusion believing Trump will “stand up for the little guy”. The GOP is the party that gutted net neutrality after all. They had the Chevron doctrime overturned. The Thiel-Musk funded party standing up for “little tech”? Please.

The CEO tried to spin it off as “missing context” but the responses show he’s either completely delusional, has been comatose for the past two decades or is just pro-Trump. I can’t look inside his head, but his tacit endorsement of the party actively dismantling US democracy is not something that can really “lack context”.

Proton, the company, has donated to liberal parties. The CEO seems to be a bit more of the “libertarian” type, that doesn’t seem to mind everything the GOP did in the past years.

The company seems fine but I think they’re referring to the pro-Trump comments the CEO made.