JayDee

Wow, this seems very good. Honestly almost feels targeting for me lol. Glad I'm not the only one dealing with this kind of baggage.

Talking out both sides of its mouth is a very powerful for a state. You can preach all kinds of hard-to-deliver forms of freedom and liberty, and then you deliver just enough that the hegemony feels satisfied and then you can stop bothering.

That trick is getting harder what with all the smart phones and websites making it easier and easier to see through the facade. You can still crush whistleblowers without much issue, though. And if you flood the web with all kinds of things, people won't know what to believe!

360° of pockets -> 360° of rock spin.

Your friend would have to give a shit about one's freedom of speech, though if they have no issue with how Russia and China handle those issues, they likely already think that a state suppressing it's peoples' ability to protest is sometimes good.

It's also a red flag that they would say "whatever Russia and China does, it's certainly not worse than what Capitalist nations do". We all agree that what Capitalist imperialism does is fucked up beyond measure. Russia and China did/do things that were/are unacceptably fucked up, and saying 'still better than capitalism' is a smokescreen to skirt around an objective conversation about how terrible those actions taken still are.

You're friend's a tankie. They're likely already down the pipeline. How you handle them IRL is up to you, but I personally would not continue interacting with them, for my own mental health.

Kind of a suicide move. Like, they let the mass murderer in, so you're letting everyone die to spite them.

We know that project 2025 is essentially a complete dismantling of democracy, so what the hell do they think they'll get out of letting it happen? Aside from getting lined up against a wall?

I don't know what you mean by that. Violence is always an option, and is quite often a solution. It's never the optimal solution, but quite often a perfect solution does not exist. You're competing with violence - violence is the control, and if you can't come up with a solution better than it in time, people will opt for it.

You've missed what I'm talking about. As you see a drop in the amount of free time, you see people enjoying life less, and having poorer views on existence overall. It means having to choose between social life, hobbies, and other pursuits - the things we humans actually live for. Because of this, couples actively choose not to bring children into the world.

In Japan, Long hours are expected as a demonstration of work ethic. On top of that, workers are also expected to hang out with their coworkers after work.

China has been famous for having the '996' work culture, where the expectation is that you work from 9am to 9pm six days a week. Having worked a 12-hour shift for 5 years, you have little energy or time to do anything aside from rest. They're currently trying to end this culture, which would do the most help for their citizens finally having time to do more than just recouperate for their next work cycle.

The US is also starting to see a decline in birth rates. Everything we do here costs money and requires you to drive, which also costs money in fuel and vehicle maintenance. On top of that, we have not been seeing pay increases that keep up with inflation. More and more people are needing to work potentially 2-3 jobs to stay afloat. These are the conditions leading to many Americans choosing to not have children.

To summarize, if the only outcome for your child you see is being a wage slave, you are much less likely to want to bring a child into the world. If we want to see things change, every citizen of a country needs a significant increase in free time without having to sacrifice compensation that will still support them.

Yes, but the issues facing many countries with declining populations is the extreme lack of free time outside of work to actually pursue relationships and other forms of self-realization.

I am not stating that maternity benefits shouldn't be done, I'm saying that maternity benefits are not going to increase countries' declining populations. The issue is not just with taking care of the child, it's with everything before and after as well, and maternity benefits only impacts the portion during child rearing.

It doesn't really matter what incentives you give for maternity leave if people do not feel that childhood and adult life are worthwhile experiences.

How much better at swimming are you than your peers?

This meme is from ages ago innit? I think I saw this shit in 2008. And yet, no jpg.

This could've been a Shadow the Hedgehog meme. Could've been.