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Comment by lugged | Hacker News Reader

Considering the US education system is already hell bent on turning out communists I don't really see how China could do anything worse.

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I mean the trope of colleges turning people into leftist hippie communists is older than my parents.

But K-12 in the US tries to hammer so much “so misleading it might as well be false” pro-America propaganda during exactly the age that kids are generally rebelling against anything authority tells them that’s it’s not all that surprising that during a major economic downturn that’s only benefiting those with capital that people would start to have a distaste for the system that produced this mess.

> that’s only benefiting those with capital

The irony of this is telling. I have to assume you are unvaccinated, and unaware that you are being publicly critical of the government.

There’s something wild about being so liberal that people assume you’re conservative. I’m very much vaccinated and also upset that our government left the out most vulnerable people with $1400 and a thumbs up, fucked over out healthcare workers, pushed people back to work rather than give any meaningful assistance and put everyone at risk, did basically nothing to control housing costs all while the stock market posted record returns for already wealthy capital holders.

Once you get far left or right enough there's not much difference for those in the middle. Both sides want to destroy their way of life.

I didn’t assume you were conservative.

I just think it’s weird to attribute the things you are complaining about to ‘capitalism’, and that if you are going to make such broad statements, then it’s weird to claim there are no benefits to those ‘without capital’ when there plainly are.

I happen to also be critical of most of the things you are criticizing. Blaming ‘capitalism’ doesn’t seem to offer anything. The word has become interchangeable with ‘the bogeyman’.

In a lot of ways I don’t think that’s a totally unfair assessment. But “fuck capitalism” has become somewhat of a rallying phrase for people who are upset at a number of economic problems and their non-solutions that are largely underpinned by the mostly individualistic but fundamentally capitalist way of thinking that is both wildly held in the US in general but specifically held among those in power who are personally unaffected by the systems they create.

> underpinned by the mostly individualistic but fundamentally capitalist way of thinking that is both wildly held in the US in general but specifically held among those in power who are personally unaffected by the systems they create

I largely disagree with the first half of this, and agree with the second half. I think ‘individualism’ is a chimera and not a cause.

I do agree that Americans are generally more suspicious of the state than people in most other countries, but that’s to be expected given both the founding and history of the country, and the experiences of minorities.

On the other hand, the disconnectedness of those in power and the lack of solutions is definitely evident.

My dislike of ‘anti-capitalism’ is that is just a complaint, but without any solutions.

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