The 90s? Yeltsin was about as Western friendly as he could realistically be, and even Putin originally wanted to join NATO early on in his presidency but was turned down.

Tornados, nukes going off, teeth falling out.

The SNES through PS2 days were the golden era of JRPGs imo. FF4-FF10 plus FF tactics are all legendary titles I’d highly recommend even in spite of their age. When I played the FF10 remaster sometime ago I was blown away by how fleshed out and complete it felt compared how most games today. I never owned a Switch however so there is no doubt a lot of good recent JRPGs out there I missed like the Fire Emblem games and such.

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Capitalists paywalling their own propaganda, some problems really do fix themselves.

There is a political sim/visual novel type game I’ve been playing called Suzerain where you have the option to investigate and arrest capitalist oligarchs, and if you do it ends up reducing gang violence because it turns out the oligarchs were propping up and arming the gangs.

I worked in a plastic factory for a few days…yeah it was absolutely soul crushing. I was placed onto a machine where the speed required to keep up with the bottles felt like a sadistic prank, and the shifts where 12 hours long. I was left on it by myself my first day being on it and it got to a point where all the bottles where falling off the machine because I couldn’t. Then the lady in charge came over and told I’d be sent to that office if it happened again.

On top of that, the place was filled with plastic fumes and particle and didn’t provide any breathing masks that I saw. Another lady there told her husband got fired because he got cancer and they want didn’t want the liability.

Yeah, not the best experience.

Ehh I’m not really sure I’m following the gambling comparison. Common sense for most people is that gambling addictions are bad because it actively drains massive amounts of money out of people’s bank accounts, not because slot machines waste people’s time. Addictions are just problem amplifiers rather then problems in of themselves.

I don’t want no gubbermint taking my guns.

And that’s a good thing thankfully, it would be pretty alarming if there were.

Manufacturing will come back to the US, it’s just that it will come back in the form of T-shirt and happy meal toy factories rather than Tech/Machinery factories like they expected.

The US’s usual Democratic™ allies are really not happy about the tariffs it seems.

Respectfully, I don’t think telling people that want to generate images of Darth Vader riding a Sloth that they can’t because it doesn’t qualify as true art would be the path forward. AI art will lead to decline a traditional art talent, yes, but I think the massive increase in accessibility and convenience to the masses still easily make it a net positive overall. AI art existing doesn’t totally prevent people from still being to able create art traditionally, while an AI art ban would for the people who enjoy using AI art.

The only major issue I personally see with it are the fakes/deepfakes. The quality is still pretty subpar right now yes but that’s something that will get better over time, just like computer graphics have over the last few decades. Being against AI art just because it’s easy seems like a rather reactionary take to me, Marxists shouldn’t be in favor of intentionally gatekeeping things behind innate ability or years of expensive study.

As for the deal with artists, ideally there should be a fine distinction between personal and commercial use that empowers indie artists while holding large corporations accountable for theft.

So everything that matters basically, China already largely shifted away from low level manufacturing.

It really just comes down to two very simple things:

1. While Putin/Russia certainly aren’t socialist, they at least don’t actively try to scrub away and bury every last remnant of their socialist past, which is more than can be said for certain other eastern European countries. Likewise, they have shown real willingness to cooperate and provide valuable support to other actual socialist nations like Cuba and the DPRK.

2. Russia isn’t the dominant Imperialist power, the US and it’s European buddies are. Expecting a socialist revolution to happen anytime in the near future in the imperial core as things currently stand is naive at best, the rest of the world must lift themselves up on their own first. If Russia falls, it’s easy mode for the West to continue dominating the rest of the world, China for all it’s merits can’t take on the entirety of the West by itself.

Respect, if there is one country that could benefit from workers taking control it’s South Korea.

Strange how ardent anticommunists often tend to be into things such as defending or downplaying European colonialism.

The upside is that a McDonalds in China doesn’t sell the same unhealthy garbage as a McDonalds in America does, the downside is that they are still a massive eyesore that I’d rather not see in a socialist country if it can be helped.

A good book perhaps for anyone aspiring to become a nano-dictator at home or in the workplace.