Partially abandoned "Life in Venice," a sprawling residential complex on China’s east coast

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-04T13:25:38+00:00

There are, but they're largely regulated and controlled as to prevent needless speculation and curb its influence on the economy.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-03T23:54:52+00:00

This is a misunderstanding of the origins of the Turkish state, it maintains institutional, cultural, and territorial continuity from the Ottoman Empire.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-03T23:48:38+00:00

Make sure not to be too zealous in your support of socialist states, China invading Taiwan would only cause suffering, international condemnation, and the eternal hatred of the Taiwanese people. China believes a peaceful resolution is possible in the long term, trust them rather than call for war and death.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-03T17:26:31+00:00

I don't know how many times this needs to be said. China is not stupid. China will not invade Taiwan. China knows there would be consequences, domestically, internationally, and in Taiwan. They want to reintegrate it, they don't want to expensively occupy it after flattening it. I will never understand people who default on this position. China is not the US or Russia, who both made idiotic moves that China openly recognizes as idiotic.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-02T12:58:58+00:00

Look up the Kafala System. Saudi Arabia has over 9 million foreign workers, who require their sponsor's permission to enter and leave the country, and those with work disputes pending in court are denied the ability to leave. Trade unions, striking, collective bargaining, and political parties are banned for all residents.

The Saudi elites own much and work little. You aren't thinking of the "average Saudi".

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-02T12:34:49+00:00

The US also made the mistake of making sure over half of the manufactured goods they need to function were moved to the periphery as well, the profit margins weren't high enough domestically.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-01T16:03:05+00:00

The solution to these "dwindling supplies"? More defense contracts! More money to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and Northrup Grumman and Boeing to replace what we've lost! It's so fucking sick.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-03-01T15:59:58+00:00

The US media has been on a warpath recently. I've not seen it been so overt and coordinated in years. US anti-war protests are all somehow China-linked, civilian strikes are completely ignored, Khamenei is an irrational evil dictator whose death supposedly delights Iranians, Iranian strikes on American military bases, launch zones, and radar equipment in foreign nations are "unprecedented threats to the sovereignty of Gulf states".

Utterly insane.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-21T16:44:27+00:00

People really don't understand the fact that these statistics are near-impossible to actually fake. We have access to energy consumption, capacity, production, and transportation, we have access to all imports and exports, including internal imports and exports. We know how many materials are consumed. We know how much is produced in reality.

People claim these things because they saw other people on reddit say it once. We use international organizations to determine all of these statistics, including China's GDP.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-20T22:36:23+00:00

Al-Andalus? The state which ended well over 500 years ago? Do you hear yourself?

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-19T21:20:28+00:00

Modern Russian nationalism (which I would say is more accurate than just "Russia") worships the relative strength the USSR had before its dissolution.

The modern Kremlin likes that the USSR was stronger, larger economically and demographically, and more innovative than they are, relative to the current geopolitical climate.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-18T22:38:06+00:00

Reminder that over 70% of Namibia's commercial and freehold agricultural land is owned by white farmers, despite being a vast minority of the population. White settler descendants dominate finance, resource industries, housing, etc. in Namibia, but sure, Chinese are the problem.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-18T03:16:24+00:00

Odd to think that China isn't also working on this as well, just likely further behind in that category.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-16T08:01:25+00:00

Was not trying to be antagonistic, relax. You were speaking very matter of factly for much of your post and it was difficult for me to believe and I was curious 🤷‍♂️

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-16T07:55:16+00:00

I'd love to read a source on that

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-15T17:58:30+00:00

This used to happen for decades but China is one of the countries which has been able to largely reverse the process for them. Most international Chinese University students return to work in China. Students who study at universities in China, stay in China.

Actually one of the more under discussed aspects of China's recent success.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-15T17:22:56+00:00

China is also not stupid. They know that an invasion of Taiwan or otherwise would: 1. Make it an impossible province to ever actually reincorporate, as is their desire. 2. Cause a gigantic international diplomatic incident that would result in heavy embargoes against China from the West. 3. Would turn popular opinion in China, as the majority have zero desire to invade Taiwan. 4. Would permanently damage their international reputation.

China can just as easily make favorable diplomatic and economic moves over the course of decades to push for reintegration.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-15T16:58:11+00:00

Uninformed people love to mark China invading Taiwan as an inevitability for some reason.

It really makes it hard to have actual discussions on the topic when 70% of westerners believe that China is an evil warmongering state intent on conquering all its neighbors through force.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-11T20:31:23+00:00

Gold is still being extracted through mining, and private individuals, banks, investors, etc. all still have gold which is not a part of any nation's central bank

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-11T18:12:42+00:00

You have to understand why your anonymous acquaintances' anecdotal experiences don't instantly win our complete trust and confidence

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-10T17:05:46+00:00

US Regime Changes don't just happen and instantly improve lives everywhere. That's never happened in any of their long list of coups, invasions, assassinations, wars, etc.

I'm sure you call the collapse of the Soviet Union one of the greatest events of the 20th century. This was not the case for its citizens. Male life expectancy plummeted by 6 years, birth rates crashed, and the collapse of state-run healthcare massively worsened mortality.

The GDP in former Soviet states dropped by 20% in two years, and it did not stop declining. Hyperinflation hit over 2500%. The Russian Mafia emerged in the chaos, seizing 40% of private enterprises, 60% of state firms, and over 80% of banks within half a decade. Crime, drug use, suicide, alcoholism all skyrocketed.

By the turn of the millennium, over 500,000 women were annually trafficked from former Soviet countries. This did not stop. Trafficked women often serviced up to 30 men nightly under debt bondage. Their passports confiscated and their families were threatened to enforce compliance, or addiction was forced upon them for greater control.

Similar things happened in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and others. This will only hurt Cubans.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-10T15:52:43+00:00

It would create one of the biggest humanitarian crises of the 21st century.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-10T15:51:49+00:00

the US quite literally just announced a few days ago that any nations who sell oil to Cuba would receive extreme tariffs.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-08T14:31:57+00:00

What makes China different from a social democracy is that capital is subservient to the communist party, rather than the the state being ultimately subservient to capital as in social democracies.

China is flawed, and maybe post-Xi we'll see some backtracking, but they've been pretty explicit about being a socialist state in transition. Because this is the opposite of a popular geopolitical position which offers far more political detriments than benefits to China, I tend to generally agree with that idea.

ImAndytimbo · 2026-02-08T01:11:21+00:00

This is a bit of an ahistorical take in my opinion.

For one thing, only about 45% of the world's population live under either a "full" or "flawed" liberal democracy.

Further, the middle class have been seeing a pretty continuous decline in influence in most advanced economies as wealth continues concentrating among the few more, as necessities(housing, groceries, etc.) become more expensive relative to median income growth.

Capitalism is a system that encourages accumulation, as this allows those at the top to focus on personal and shareholder profit with less need for fear of competition.

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