What is better? to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?

Fortitude is a cardinal virtue so don’t count yourself off that saint list yet

Zapatista

They explicitly reject being labeled as anarchists. They also have in recent years become more vertical and “statist” in their organisational structure:

This is you:

The entire point of the post is that statists cannot accurately assess anarchism because it would require accepting that the western world is not better than what came before. And the assumption that it is is just cultural hegemony.~~

The author is telling anarchists that you can’t convince statists that anarchism is a good idea because they do not respect things that don’t adhere to western imperial values.

Entirely skipping over the fact the largest and most successful socialist experiment thus far is China. Or the experience of the DPRK leading to it’s formation of a socialist state from the original people’s committees. You have a clear issue with viewing things with a Eurocentric lense.

Yes success is success.

And my words deserve better than skimming.

Given your clear eurocentric views on socialism and your Reddit tier demeanor is this really true?

Statists measure success based on the state

“Brickists measure success based on the trowel”. — person dogmatically against building houses out of bricks.

The state is a tool not something you measure success off of. Success is measured off of material results (poverty alleviation, progress towards abolition of feudalism/capitalism, class power, etc.)

It seemed wildly poor form to gift tobacco obviously.

Culture clash will do that tobacco is still a huge part of Chinese tradition and life but it is changing with each year the rate of smoking decreasing as younger people are less and less interested. Basically none of the younger guys at my work smoke and smoking was never really big amongst women.

The gift thing is that apparently tobacco is considered a respectful and universal gift

High quality (premium) cigarettes are THE gift especially for major events (usually weddings). 中华, 南京, 黄鹤楼, 芙蓉王 being some of the most popular brands. I would genuinely not believe someone if they said they went to a wedding or similar event in China and weren’t offered/gifted at least one pack.

Edit: Other gifts are common too red packets, premium alcohol, fruit, premium tea and others but cigarettes are definitely one of the most common.

The 2024 Chinese CDC Tobacco survey findings:

Current Smoking Rate: The current smoking rate among people aged 15 and above in China is 23.2%, with men (43.9%) higher than women (1.8%), and rural areas (24.9%) higher than urban areas (20.9%). Compared to 2022, the current smoking rate has decreased by 0.9 percentage points, with a decrease of 1.4 percentage points for men and 2.1 percentage points for urban areas. (Figures 1-3)

Tobacco Control Information Promotion: 63.9% of respondents had seen tobacco control information in the past 30 days, with males (65.9%) higher than females (61.6%), urban areas (68.0%) higher than rural areas (60.6%), and the 15-24 age group (78.2%) higher than other age groups. The proportion of respondents who had seen tobacco control information online in the past 30 days was 40.1%, an increase of 5.1 percentage points compared to 2022. Urban areas (43.4%) were higher than rural areas (37.6%), and the 15-24 age group (64.6%) was higher than other age groups. (Figures 4-5)

And more interesting info in the full pdf:

The Findings PDF

Everyone wants to be seen as an expert, but many don’t want to put in the effort to even graze the surface of knowing a topic.

Nice try

???

I tried being polite and this was your response

wipe that stupid fucking MAGA grin off your face while you’re ‘owning the liberals’. Do you want to try again?

And now you’re calling me an asshole? Wow.

You’re also just plain wrong in a few areas,

I’m sure you’d think so but you also seem to lack any connection to reality so that’s not particularly surprising.

finally managed to push through some reform doesn’t change the fact he was not able to for years, despite a concerted effort

The reforms were instituted in 2015? In 2015, China amended the Advertising Law to prohibit the distribution of tobacco advertising, while also initiating waves of tobacco control media campaigns. President Xi became president in 2013. 2 years. It took 2 years from him becoming president to this reform becoming law. Why are you doubling down so hard when you clearly are wrong? Did you not bother to read the link?

Also not to mind in 2013 there were already crackdowns on the tobacco industry. 评领导干部公共场所带头禁烟：为中国控烟行动破冰

Edit:

Another one from 2014 this time.

2014 total ban on smoking anywhere on school grounds and an increase on education put towards the harms of smoking

It’s fake 牡丹 don’t make packs with Marx on them. Also China tobacco is state owned.

Ok might be my fault for expecting a complete fucking moron such as yourself to have even a basic grasp of political economy that’s my bad.

The hegemonic ideology of the US-led Western order is liberalism: capitalism, private ownership, wage labour and individual property rights. Republicans and Democrats (“liberals” and conservatives) are all at their core supporters of the same system, liberalism (or liberal capitalism). “Liberal” does not simply mean “Democrat,” no matter how badly American political vocabulary has rotted your brain.

Trump was not imposed on an otherwise healthy America by sinister foreigners. He emerged from American capitalism’s own decay and serves the American ruling class (the owners not the people).

For decades, the West displaced capitalism’s worst contradictions onto the periphery through unequal exchange, cheap labour, debt, sanctions, coups and war. Imperial profits allowed the ruling class to purchase relative stability at home while workers and resources abroad absorbed the worst exploitation.

That arrangement is weakening. Western dominance is being challenged, productive power is shifting, and the US can no longer export crisis as effectively as before. So capital intensifies extraction at home: stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, collapsing public services, debt, precarity, militarised policing and political repression. The methods perfected abroad return inward.

Fascism is simply capitalism in crisis. It redirects class anger away from capital and toward immigrants, minorities, foreign enemies and the left, while promising national renewal without altering ownership or ruling-class power. Trump is not an alien infection but simply the American product of this process.

You’re closer to MAGA then I am to you. I hope one day you can move beyond your infantile understanding of politics but given how you have effectively a negative understanding it will be a long road.

What a completely illiterate read of what I said.

Trump is a symptom of a decaying system he was not imposed upon it by outside forces. He very clearly works for and with the ruling class of the decaying system. The fact you want to put your fingers in your ears and shut your eyes to the reality is your problem. There’s plenty to discuss just not about this obfuscation you are so dedicated in pushing instead of addressing the core of the issue.

Trump is more American than lifted pickups and school shootings. He very obviously works for the American ruling class. This idea that he’s some evil imposed on you by the evil easteners as opposed to the symptom of the rot of the decaying liberal capitalist system is pure liberal cope.

Most likely because it’s fake/an edit. They’re allegedly 牡丹 and I’ve seen many of their boxes but never even heard of one like this (I could be wrong but I’m 90% confident)

It’s cigarettes. The text at the bottom of the box:

本公司提示

吸烟有害健康

请勿在禁烟场所吸烟

(Our company reminds you:

Smoking is harmful to your health.

Please do not smoke in non-smoking areas.)

1941: RussiansSoviets are orcs, they will do human wave attacks and lose

1945: Noooo

Something something first as tragedy second as farce.