Comments by "1midnightfish" (@1midnightfish) on "Do young Russians want the USSR back?" video.

@caiolima1-s9c Yes. It's literally one of the best-known facts about the soviet union
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@marchvertochko0056 No need to have lived there - as I said (do read the comments you reply to BEFORE you reply to them) it is something literally the whole world has known about the soviet union, for decades, and it's been confirmed again and again by many people who did live there, and lived to tell the tale
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"it does work for the chosen self elected few at the top": yup, just like capitalism. Let's keep trying to come up with something better!
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@tocu9808 The freedom to speak out against the status quo isn't as strongly connected to the economic model as many people seem to think... lots of people aren't free in capitalist countries, and I don't mean "free to oppress others / incite hatred / all that", I mean free to live decent lives and challenge the status quo. It's just that these societies are better at covering it up. Or they export the oppression: one of many examples is the huge choice of clothes and other goods we have in the global West, made by people in countries where child labour is the norm and trade unionists get arrested for trying to improve appalling working conditions. Capitalism is literally a fundamentalist philosophy, in that it doesn't accept viable alternatives to itself, and until we all start viewing it as such, we have no chance to even approach a solution that works better for people and planet.
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Thanks to you too for continuing to prove my point 😊
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@paulheald3099 Some people's knee-jerk defensive responses to the slightest criticism of capitalism are honestly amusing to me, maybe because I've never believed in either soviet communism nor capitalism as the "end of history". I do not value buildings more than I value people's lives, since it's people who design, make and use buildings, not the other way round: who cares if a country's buildings are tall, shiny and beautiful if countless people live in inescapable misery in their shadows? I'm wondering if you've heard of the Grenfell fire: in June 2017, in what is the probably the richest area in one of the richest cities in the world - London - 72 people died and hundreds more were traumatised and made homeless when a social housing tower block went up in flames. It had been done up cheaply with flammable material used in many other residential buildings all over the country, which are now deemed unsafe. Fire safety measures were inadequate, and the residents' complaints had been repeatedly dismissed by the relevant authorities. So much for capitalism. Capitalism really doesn't work much better than soviet communism ever did: it's just shinier on the outside, just like Grenfell Tower was before it burned. Settling for the - temporarily - lesser evil is just not good enough, we need to stop worshipping capitalism just like we want people to stop worshipping communism, and keep looking for alternatives that are genuinely better than both.
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@gaoxiaen1 I am not an apologist for soviet communism, so what you're writing doesn't upset (or surprise me: I know). For decades, the blatant failings of soviet communism have been used to deflect attention from the failings of capitalism and as long as we contribute to this, we will never have anything better than what we have. Something like the Grenfell fire should simply not have happened in a country like the UK - and the only reason it's still talked about, and the extent of the corruption, incompetence and prejudice that led to it have not been completely covered up, is the persistence of the survivors and their supporters, who will not rest until everyone responsible is held accountable. I am now waiting for someone to prove my point by replying that "at least those people haven't been thrown into a gulag for speaking out against the government"...
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@victorhopper6774 Thanks for demonstrating the knee-jerk defensiveness I was talking about. Interesting how you say that I have "have no clue the difference" when there's no indication in any of my comments in this thread that I consider capitalism and communism to be the same. Or that you would bring a choice of cars to prove your point. I'm not in the habit of copying and pasting my comments all over the place but I can only refer you to the end of one of my previous comments here: "Settling for the - temporarily - lesser evil is just not good enough, we need to stop worshipping capitalism just like we want people to stop worshipping communism, and keep looking for alternatives that are genuinely better than both" If we accept capitalism (or indeed any philosophy) as the end of history, we are doomed.
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@pacmanc8103 It looks to me that some people feel unsettled when others refuse to worship capitalism as the only possible way for humans to exist, and express this opinion in public forums. I'm beginning to think that some of the comments in this thread, yours included, are reacting more to that unsettled feeling than to what I'm actually saying. These reactions only prove that these things need to be said again and again.
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@jamesleate 😊
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Essentialist trolling from @caiolima1-s9c ... or just lazy?
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There is no country in the world where everyone starts with exactly the same resources and possibilities. Your "everybody for themselves" philosophy only tells us that you're comfortable with people living and dying all around you in appalling conditions with no chance to improve their lives, as long as it's not you or anyone you care about. I literally cannot wrap my head around the grotesque hardships that US citizens experience due to the lack of free universal healthcare, and that's just one example. The soviet experiment clearly didn't work - to put it mildly. That doesn't justify accepting its polar opposite as the only alternative. How about we put our oversized frontal cortexes to work and come up with something better? And by "better" I mean something that works for everyone on the planet and the planet itself.
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@victorhopper6774 I know from several first-hand accounts that many Americans have become destitute because of medical bills and have trouble affording medication. You guys literally have to pay for an ambulance to take you to hospital. Your system is indefensible.
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