Volpe

That's a pretty good point. They were essentially both puppets of the large powers, and the war pretty much a proxy war.

But that makes the POWs change of attitude less brainwashy and more 'informed' in my opinion.

> Most are only concerned with propping up their families and embezzling enough money to send their kids to a nice school abroad that doesn't suck.

You've just described "people in power" world wide. It isn't unique to communism, or china.

A huge amount of their economy is state owned[0]

That alone is a tenant of marxism. I'm not particularly interested in "true scotsman" style argument regarding is China 'really communist', as you can easily make the case that the U.S isn't technically a democracy, but it doesn't get us anywhere. It's just an argument of semantics.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_State-owned_enterprises...

Are you suggesting that an alliance (between nations) is equivalent to the United Nations?

... I'm not sure how that differs/contradicts/contributes to anything said thus far. Did you have anything to add?

This is over simplistic and wrong. Mao used purging to get rid of others building power within the party. It had nothing to do with whether they were Communist (many good communists were purged).

Sane points: Education, Health, both improved under communist rule.

It's a bit of a false dichotomy (as I tried to explain earliar).

It isn't capitalism vs communism. Capitalism is a form of economy, communism is form of government. The mix of those, I believe china call it: "Socialism with chinese characteristics".

The fact primary industry and exports are state owned is a big tick for: Communism. That's true, regardless what you see living there.

(People making money and doing business is not anti-communism, it is where the money goes that makes it "communist").

Isn't the famous Deng quote: It doesn't matter what color the cat is, as long as it catches the mouse.

Capitalism is part of the progression to communism. You have to have generated capital in order to distribute it. Marx saw communism as a progression from capitalism, not a genesis form of government in and of itself.

China had the unfortunate luck of being left in ruins when it becoming "Communist". Deng rebooted the whole thing, it remains to be seen whether they will continue communism into the future. To call it "capitalism" is a bit rich (no pun), given all major industries are owned by the government (the people).

The 50s they also brought health care to vast majority of the population. The 60s they increased literacy across the country by simplifying the language, and standardising education.

Should we both just keep cherry picking information to paint our own narrative, or admit this isn't a black and white subject?

History is written by the victors.

North korea didn't believe the UN/US (i.e. Non-koreans) should be deciding the fate of their country. (I am in no way defending the current North Korean regime).

I completely understand a sovereign nation attacking a 'puppet state' in order to unify it.

(to respond to the grand parent as well) If the Russians were 'boycotting' the UN, then it wasn't the UN, it was just "The Allies".

Okay, so Mao could be argued to be a bad idea, but there was and has been a lot of communism since Mao.

Could you say the same for Deng Xiaoping (also a communist)?

I thought america WAS the aggressor? (Korea isn't really near the US), and it was quite apparent the US wanted satellite states near russia/china, to potentially launch further attacks.

Also did the communists do a bad job in china? That is at most controversial... not "brain washed".

That's a blog, from 2008, with no citations itself, and no claim of original research. So essentially it's opinion. It is confusing correlation with causation. Westernisation brought "cancer diagnosis" with it. So of course cancer rates increased, because before they "just died", then they "died of cancer". The rate of cancer didn't change, the rate of diagnosed cancer did.

Your body needs sugar (through various sources like carbs, or protein)... so sure if you cutout sugar, you won't get cancer (because you will die of malnutrition).

I'm not sure what "industrialised oil" is... how does it differ from regular oil? What about it in particular that makes it carcinogenic?

Jobs also didn't have cancer until he was an adult... are you suggesting he had some how set his body up into a condition ripe for cancer to develop? That implies that if you've ever tried "industrialized food" (in your entire life) it's already over for you, so don't worry about it.

What about children born with cancer? Is that because of their mothers diet (or their mothers diet when their mother was a child herself)? Simply by following your reasoning I've just ruled out a HUGE proportion of the population who don't have to worry, because the damage is already done.

Do you have any academic sources on the subject?

I think you are going to need to provide some citations.

Which tribes/societies? What is their cancer rate? What are they not consuming that we are? (who are we?)

Wasn't steve jobs a complete freak with food consumption? (i.e. he didn't eat industrialised crap)...

I did. Was just pointing it out as "THE" solution (rather than "A" solution), for all things. In an attempt to be slightly absurd, and slightly humorous.

Seems I failed at that.

Which science, and history are you referring to?

Australia and Canada have pretty good prosperity and have a number of things he is advocating for (in the US).

US economy... while it's HUGE, would you call it prosperous?

> There probably is a way to "monetize" the Diablo community more successfully

I think this is a solved problem: Player contributed Hats.

Can you show me a "almost no benefit" vaccine that has "significant risks" that is currently in use?

> Here I hear a lot of pro-vaccine chest pounding.

You say that as you pound your chest about "informed opinion" without providing any information... so it's just (uninformed) opinion (right now).

> The command to wear padded running shoes, for instance.

Physio's I've spoken to describe the pros and cons of both (barefoot, and padded) and let me decide. What command are you referring to?

> ... Not like that's unusual with Chinese companies ...

So you did want to get all anti-chinese here. Your statement would have been just as valid without the 'chinese' qualification.

It's pretty specific to support services... I don't see how this is even contentious.

Who uses the term "startup" anyway? (in a business context)

An undergraduate math education is more than enough to teach the current high school math curriculum.

From my point of view though, if my statement above is true, that is very sad. As I don't think it should be. The math curriculum is horribly deficient. But software doesn't seem to be the answer to fixing the curriculum.

Umm... what about non "Transcendental Meditation"? Or are you just finding one perceived misuse and applying it to everything? (Does skepdic.com have an entry on that particular fallacy?)

> Like the author said, you can't teach teaching.

Yes you can. I mean sure there is an explanatory gap with things like empathy and identifying scaffolding opportunities. But that just means you can't teach ALL of teaching with a book, experience and guidance is also required.

> I'm talking about a digital tutor with infinite patience...

One that can empathise with a students particular background/learning style and understand what might work to convey a novel concept better?

> People say you need real teachers, you need the human touch, but if the average teacher sucks (and they do), then I'd rather be taught by software.

It's not about the human touch. It's about empathy, and expert diagnosis of learning conditions, which the worst teacher does a better job of than the best computer/software. Just because most of our teachers suck doesn't mean software is the better solution. Better teachers are the solution, perhaps that is better education for teachers, or perhaps it's more communication from the realm of pedegogy down to the teaching curriculum that teachers are taught from.

Software can assist teachers, and can even replace certain aspects of teaching. But you will leave a lot of students behind if you try to replace teachers completely.

This isn't true.

Adobe's suite isn't just 'user experience'. It's functionality.

Show me an open source alternative to Premiere, or After Effects, or even easier: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Edge.

I bet for any open source alternative you find, I can show you a huge set of features that everyone uses, that it doesn't have.

It's Personas all the way down... ?

Oh well.. you have a blog to backup what your are saying... pro-meditation "quacks" have been told! Internet: 1 Meditation: 0

I think you have to pause and reflect for a minute when you say things like: "I can't believe so many intelligent people are fooled by it". Maybe they aren't the ones being foolish... ?

Yeah but it's good for your "I don't care cause I'm an awesome hacker" cred if you swear, and get angry at everything.

I'm going to upvote dodyg cause he's so fucking awesome!

Regardless, it should be measured on per capita, and China are WAY a head. So you are arguing to measure different countries in different ways. This seems inherently unfair.

I don't think you can think of "The Taliban" as a single coherrent group that have a "policy" on torturing american soldiers.

When Abu Ghraib was publicised, a lot of moderate taliban would have become radicalised. That seems rather logical to me.

Is soylent healthy?

I think the point is, China isn't the one that needs to reduce, it is the US.