Do you not think you’re able to improve and do better by others? If you do, don’t you think others are human as well and can also do so? If you don’t, don’t you think you should be more ashamed about it?

This kind of misanthropy is either pointless doomerism or telling on yourself.

I think it might be Pathologic/Pathologic 2.

capitalism

I’m honestly most baffled by the idea that the USA has 5 or 10 year plans.

I don’t think they have any mental illness that makes them this way. It’s just self-interest.

Undocumented migrants can’t vote

“My source is that I’m incredibly racist.”

they’ve even got patrols to intimidate Australia

Good, lmao.

Would love to see the context of the davel interaction

It’s the Ukraine war.

“It’s Russia’s fault that America Germany is bad.”

Whenever I hear Americans say this, I mentally translate it to Honest English by replacing whatever comes in the position of the noun with “untermenschen”.

I have to police the entire thread for any kind of ableism, including comments made after I made that comment and not in response to me, and I have to spend my limited energy to call out every single person I see, otherwise I’m faking caring? Do I understand your point correctly?

Undocumented migrants can’t vote and a lot of the Americans who voted for this explicitly are not the ones being hurt by it.

The only Donald I support for president is Duck.

Every world leader is envious of the power Putin and Jinping wield.

Americans such as yourself seem unable or unwilling to face the fact that their country is fundamentally built to enforce the will of a small, powerful class (the bourgeois) over the masses. Their empire rules the whole world and yet it always has to be someone else’s fault when the bad things they do to everyone else come home.

Jinping is his given name, by the way. You meant to say Xi.

My concern is that in a global crisis like the complete collapse of the US, China and others would take the opportunity to expand in a similar fashion.

I personally think this is largely a hypothetical at this point. As you say, the BRI isn’t really the same as the historical colonialism/imperialism we’re discussing and I haven’t really seen anything from China that indicates that they have a desire to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. If anything, they’re often (rightfully, sometimes) accused of not interfering enough internationally against US influence.

I would argue that there is not a substantive material difference between imperialism since the 1900s and Rome. Each replacement empire brings new spins on the same formulas. The US empire isn’t much different at this point than feudal empires of the past, just with monopolies instead of aristocracy.

I would argue there are substantial important differences. Imperialism is different in both form and function than colonialism and neither are the same as the Roman empire. A notable thing about (Western) Rome as an example, though, is that its collapse did not immediately lead to a different empire taking over all its territories. I guess it can be argued that the “barbarian kingdoms” tried, but they failed. The Western Roman Empire faded away and was never unified again.

I think you’re right and we just have a disagreement on the inevitability of empire and the speed at which it would happen. Thank you for discussing, though! /genuine

This user is banned from Hexbear for claiming it’s run by “transzionists.” They uphold Bad Empanada

Thanks, that’s enough of a reason for me to not want to reply to them any further.

but exploitation in Africa is not primarily being done by the US currently so I wouldn’t expect to see massive shakeups there.

Debatable, the US is involved a lot in Africa. So are the Europeans, of course, as well as “Israel” and the gulf monarchies, but all of these are propped up to varying degrees by the American world order (except perhaps the French, but their empire is fading as we speak).

I’m not sure if you meant to imply that China was the primary exploiter of Africa (and I don’t want to assume you were saying that), but if so I disagree with the assertion that any degree of Chinese exploitation which might exist compares with what I’ve described in my previous paragraph (these countries routinely openly topple governments and start/support wars and genocides in Africa for their own benefit - in Sudan being the most well-known current example but not even close to the only one).

I would say that I am extrapolating from basically all of human history rather than doomerism, but I suppose that is a matter of perspective.

I think “all of human history” is a bit of a thought-terminating cliche in this case. Many things throughout history have been aesthetically similar (and in some ways functionally similar), but the material basis and therefore specific mechanisms were different. Imperialism in the financial capital sense (as in Lenin’s description) is a very recent thing, historically speaking (perhaps the past few centuries, approximately).

Ban them for blatant ableism, too. The trolling was already ableist (deliberately communicating in a way intended to cause confusion, disproportionately affecting ND users but of course also incredibly shitty to NT users), but the comment you’re replying to made it blatant.

No. You don’t seem very bright, so I’m not surprised you don’t understand I’m treating you with the seriousness you deserve.

Not content with deliberately communicating in a confusing and hostile manner and refusing to clarify or stop when asked, you’ve now progressed to overt ableism in using “not very bright” as an insult and implying someone not understanding your deliberately incomprehensible method of communication is “not very bright”.