With regard to the situation with Guaido in Venezuela, isn't it true that the 2013 Venezuelan presidential election had a voter turnout of 79% and was extremely close? Whereas the 2018 election only had a voter turnout of 45% and Maduro was re-elected amidst widespread allegations of corruption and fraud. And for the upcoming 2024 election, multiple opposition candidates have been barred from running against Maduro.

Since 2010, Venezuela has been suffering a socioeconomic crisis under Nicolás Maduro and briefly under his predecessor Hugo Chávez as rampant crime, hyperinflation and shortages diminish the quality of life.[6][7] As a result of discontent with the government, the opposition was elected to hold the majority in the National Assembly for the first time since 1999 following the 2015 parliamentary election.[8] After the election, the lame duck National Assembly—with a pro-government majority—filled the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the highest court in Venezuela, with Maduro allies. The tribunal stripped three opposition lawmakers of their National Assembly seats in early 2016, citing alleged "irregularities" in their elections, thereby preventing an opposition supermajority which would have been able to challenge President Maduro.

The tribunal approved several actions by Maduro and granted him more powers in 2017.[8] As protests mounted against Maduro, he called for a constituent assembly that would draft a new constitution to replace the 1999 Venezuela Constitution created under Chávez. Many countries considered these actions a bid by Maduro to stay in power indefinitely,[11] and over 40 countries stated that they would not recognize the 2017 Constituent National Assembly (ANC). The Democratic Unity Roundtable—the opposition to the incumbent ruling party—boycotted the election, saying that the ANC was "a trick to keep [the incumbent ruling party] in power".[14] Since the opposition did not participate in the election, the incumbent Great Patriotic Pole, dominated by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, won almost all seats in the assembly by default.[15] On 8 August 2017, the ANC declared itself to be the government branch with supreme power in Venezuela, banning the opposition-led National Assembly from performing actions that would interfere with the assembly while continuing to pass measures in "support and solidarity" with President Maduro, effectively stripping the National Assembly of all its powers.

And I understand that you're not supporting Maduro. But if the US is trying to support free and fair elections which Maduro is suppressing, than they are essentially doing the opposite of supporting a fascist coup. I unfortunately don't have time to unpack each of your scenarios.

You're not wrong in saying that the US has frequently intervened in Latin America for the past 200 years, right up until the present. But intervening to protect democracy is very different from intervening to support fascism, and failing to distinguish between the two is bordering on misinformation.

Think of it this way, if it weren't the US intervening, it'd be another foreign power. And the US primarily intervenes just to keep capitalism flowing, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Panama has done quite well as a result of the US intervening and building the Canal. And Latin America has largely avoided genocides and wars of the scale that we have seen in other developing countries in Asia and Africa.

It has nothing to do with subjugation, it's just preference. I prefer to spend time with my family, I'm not subjugating other people by doing so.

But in the context of a corporate oligarchy where my absurd wealth means that my family is unfairly enriched to the detriment of the workers that I employ, it becomes subjugation. It's not humans, it's the socioeconomic system that exists that is causing all of this suffering and needs to be supplanted.

Doesn't your paper you linked imply it isn't so obvious?

Yeah sure, in the absence of any other data.

If you refuse to acknowledge that people like people similar to themselves, you're not being honest with yourself, let alone me.

What is the systemic problem/problematic behavior that you are trying to solve? You clearly believe that white men are especially discriminatory towards other groups, which isn't crazy, although I disagree. But are you so naive to think that if we replaced the powerful white men with powerful hispanic women (or any other combination of race and gender), racial and gender-based discrimination would suddenly end? I'm just pointing out the inconvenient truth that the system would still be biased and unfair, just with different winners and losers.

In my view, the fact that some white men are biased for or against certain groups is completely insignificant and irrelevant to solving the problems that society faces today. It's the fundamental structure of the economic and political system that naturally results in the few individuals at the top of the hierarchy expressing a large degree of control and domination over the rest of the society.

In that case, I suggest you shut down the community. At this point the core userbase and mods have moved to another location and this community only serves to confuse noobs and casuals.

I don't blame you for not wanting to research the veracity of pedo claims, but this is within your control as admins. If you have a community that is unmoderated and frequently taking up admin time and resources, simply shut it down.

Uhhh... slaves didn't get paid at all.

Allowing people to immigrate into a developed country, make way more money than they would at home, get put up in company housing, and send the majority of the money back to their families seems like a pretty good deal for all parties.

Blocked 🚫

I'll never return, regardless of what Reddit does, but I don't blame you for your position.

I'd just say don't give up yet, I think we have a pretty large chunk of people sitting on the sidelines temporarily, waiting to see if Lemmy actually becomes what it aspires to be.

Also I don't mean to be rude, but it would be nice if Tildes users just came to Lemmy and helped us build here. I'm sure many Tildes users use Lemmy anyways. Tildes is just way too small (like 10% the size of Lemmy) and even if it did take off, it would probably turn out the same way as reddit. But that's just like, my opinion, man.

Yes, as we know, the notability of national accomplishments diminishes as a function of time... other nations would never consider being proud of anything their ancestors accomplished before they were born. Lmao

If you don't have enough things to be proud of as an American, which nationality would be good enough to meet your standards?

Very strange argument. It seems like you're bad at those games and created some elaborate theory to rationalize it. Class based games require just as much, if not more, skill than non-class based games. As the number of classes increases, the total amount of knowledge required and variety of techniques available also tends to increase.

Professional players do optimize the fun out of a game, but that's totally unrelated to the point you were trying to make.

I don't believe in free will, so I suppose we have reached a stalemate. In my mind, one's religion or favorite color is no more of a choice than sexual orientation. But I understand that most people would disagree with that perspective, and trying to convince you that free will doesn't exist is beyond the scope of this discussion.

This has been a highly informative discussion about eating ass, and I want to thank you for your contribution.

May I suggest that the depravity of eating a stranger's ass is a large part of what makes it such a widespread meme? A significant portion of the internet relates heavily to being a degenerate coomer, and thus memes which emphasize this aspect tend to be well-received.

As my late grandfather always said, "Eat ass till you pass"

El Psy Kongroo! Nice name 😉