rocket_dragon

Russel Brand is now a far right Christian YouTuber.

You made some good points, I concede I was being overly reductive. I think you made a great summary of it.

I edited my previous comment to reflect how you changed my mind.

Civilization predates Capitalism by a few hundred thousand years. Capitalism did not create civilization.

And capitalism is better than systems we had before, like feudalism and slavery. We critiqued and revolted and improved on those, and we can do better than capitalism too.

Capitalism is not the worst we can do, but it's not the best either.

To answer this question seriously, Bill Gates has held back computing by stealing other people's work and ideas and using Embrace Extend and Extinguish.

If Bill Gates had no existed, arguably open source computing and hardware would be even more advanced than what we have now. Windows has been a net detriment to society.

I think it's hard to argue that the USSR wasn't a military dictatorship under Stalin. The USSR was hyper-nationalist and relied heavily on extensive police and military forces that used excessive violence to keep dissenters in line.

The USSR wasn't pursuing an ethno-state like Germany, but neither is the Galactic Empire. You might argue that despite the Galactic Empire being diverse in species, notably only white human men served as officers and leaders and dominated the military, but I'm not sure that's an intentional world-building decision rather than that's just how films in 1977 were made. I'm not yet aware if the USSR was known for being gender and race inclusive in its government or military structure either.

If I have the time and motivation when I'm home I'll rip the relevant portion of the commentary and upload.

Apprehensive of the horde of hungry poors looking at them and deciding that Bentley owners are back on the menu.

Very convenient of you to mentally gymnastics the explanation of how it's my fault that other people cannot engage in critical media analysis.

The Viet Cong are not the only rebels to have ever existed, the USSR is well known to use excessive military force against its own rebels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Soviet_Union

The USSR was also a fascist dictatorship, the actual bureaucratic structure of the Galactic Empire much more closely resembles the USSR.

Edit: good points were made, it's overly reductive to call the USSR a facist dictatorship

Return of the Jedi special edition commentary.

Believe it or not, Lucas is capable of finding both positives and negatives about both the US and the USSR.

Most of the aesthetic of Empire architecture is inspired by brutalist Soviet architecture, and ceremony for the Emperor's arrival was inspired by October Revolution Day military parades.

No critical analysis of Star Wars has happened in this thread yet.