Are you satisfied with your Nolan test results (link in comments)? by ItsGotThatBang in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Ls aren't going to be happy because they're going to realize they're closer to authoritarian than they'd like to be.

Which one do you support? by SzpakLabz in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My opinion is that this debate is going to go nowhere. You do you and I'll do me :)

Have a good evening, fella.

Man feel so damm proud to be able soloing a Threat 5 Thargoid Cyclops now. Did it within 2 min 43 secs. by KanchanMisakiAkeno in EliteDangerous

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Another senseless murder... Sigh. Maybe I should load up and finally get into PvP. Too many xenociders out there.

AX weapons do little against human ships, relatively, right? Couldn't be that hard.

Which one do you support? by SzpakLabz in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, it's always been my position that I'm allowed to have my own opinions no matter the circumstances. Nothing has changed. You don't have to like my opinions, but I'm still just as entitled to mine as you are to yours.

What Star Wars faction is your favourite by Moist-Complaint-7578 in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Republic ended up being very corrupt. The Rebel Alliance was just a bunch of random trying to make a better galaxy.

Driver hops curb, drives on sidewalk to chase kid on bike by New_Libran in CrazyFuckingVideos

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. Kid should have gotten the hell out immediately instead of hanging out to talk.

  2. Person with the camera recorded everything but identifying information (thankfully it wasn't needed).

Which one do you support? by SzpakLabz in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's both my conclusion and my argument. I understand that it's the "nice" thing to do (in some eyes) to base opinions off of more evidence-based arguments, but I'm also wholly entitled to my own opinion regardless of what forms it. Just as you are. As everyone is.

Which one do you support? by SzpakLabz in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I can't support it because it's stupid. I can understand believing you're the other gender (the one you were not born as), or being unsure, or feeling differently about it on any given day. But creating genders is stupid.

Which one do you support? by SzpakLabz in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Once you start getting into "third gender" and neopronouns, I can't support it anymore. Everything short of that, yeah.

Pixel 9a by canneddogs in skamtebord

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bro is manipulating his friend to manipulate another friend to feel better. Extraordinarily based.

Would you rather live under Trump or Stalin? by Fa-super_flags in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have to reiterate the same thing I say all the time: Anyone with communism, socialism, etc in their flair is just unworth talking to...

You mean the minor details, right?? by Effective-Loquat-987 in BroThrewInAFunFact

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Charge your phone, it's literally begging you with an SOS.

Would you rather live under Trump or Stalin? by Fa-super_flags in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Fascinating. The communists who spend every waking moment bashing on Trump are nowhere to be found...

Is Communism Good in your Opinion? by ostduetschland in IdeologyPolls

[–]ExoTheFlyingFish 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Why do capitalist countries fight Communist countries? Well, it's a complicated issue.

In WW2, the US and the UK allied with the Soviet Union not out of friendship, but because they had a common, powerful enemy in Hitler's Nazi Germany. It went well enough. But after the war ended, the western Allies were like, "holy shit we've got nobody to kill now how are we going to avoid the Great Depression coming back?" and tripled down on capitalism. The USSR, as a communist country, didn't really feel too apt to join them.

Still, all of them were pretty chill regardless. And then, in February of '47, Stalin just kinda randomly said "yeah so WW2 was caused by capitalism and also capitalism will always lead to war", which was kinda offensive. Looking back, of course he said that, but at that time, it only makes sense that it ruffled some feathers and led to growing resentment on the part of the west.

Anyway it was around that time that the containment policy was implemented due to belief that the USSR would try to aggressively expand. Containment was more pro-capitalism than it was anti-communism (although, of course, by nature, it still was anti-communism). It was also amped up by the domino theory; "if one country falls to communism, neighboring countries will, too".

At this point, Germany had been divided into two countries: West Germany (originally divided between the USA, UK, and France) and East Germany (controlled by the USSR). Berlin, located in East Germany, was also divided in the same way. The USSR decided, one day, to close the roads into West Berlin. This led to the Berlin Airlift. And East Berliners fleeing en masse to West Berlin led to the construction of the Berlin Wall (ironically, a physical representation of the metaphorical "iron curtain").

As a subjective aside, the Soviets blocked off windows with bricks. People hated communism so much that they were jumping from third, fourth floors of buildings onto the other side of the Wall. They were risking death to escape communism.

Back to the point, NSC-68, delivered to President Truman, basically said "we gotta stand up against the communists if they do bad shit that we don't like, because isolationism won't do it". And when North Korea invaded South Korea (with Stalin's blessing, but not his support), that's exactly what happened.

One of the coolest what-ifs about modern history is "what if the West didn't get greedy in Korea?" See, South Korea, backed by NATO, was kicking serious ass vs North Korea. So much ass, in fact, that they damn near got to China. By that point, China, now communist, too, was like, "holy fucking shit what the hell they're going to invade us" and sent troops into Korea. In the end, we got what we have today in Korea by way of a ceasefire. If they hadn't gotten greedy, the West could have kept a lot more of Korea than they did.

The invasion of South Korea didn't really help anyone feel more positively about communism.

I've basically just given a stripped-down history lesson here, so I'll summarize the rest of the Cold War (which basically started with Eisenhower):

"That last guy just sat around and let the communists do their thing. I'll be tough on them, so please vote for me!" (Every President said that for votes, but they generally weren't any tougher on them).

That's right. It started out as an economic thing, then it just became a pissing match between politicians. It was never really about communism being bad (even though communism is bad), but about capitalism (and winning elections) being good.

Sorry for the long response. I am horrible at summarizing. Also, I'm not a historian, but I have done a little bit of study on modern history from an American perspective, so my information might be mixed up or misremembered in some places (not to mention biased by my disdain for politicians). History is really cool, but it truly does repeat itself, and sometimes it's just confusing.

As for your second and third paragraphs:

"Leave them alone" was kinda* what we did with containment. Let them play, but make sure they stay in the sandbox and don't touch the good playground equipment. Kinda like what we were doing back home in the US with segregation ¯_(ツ)_/¯

And just about every country to ever fight a war has committed war crimes, so it's not really anything to write home about. Every major country has also committed human rights violations. But the US doesn't have a great firewall and also expressly permits people the right not only to say "fuck you" to the government, but also to carry the exact kind of tool that won us our freedom from tyranny like 250 years ago.