I always imagined that it was due to a higher level of computer literacy amongst the consumer population. An hour after a corpo releases a new piece of tech under a subscription model, the software has been cracked and pirated all over the net.
Exactly this. we try to prevent cyberattacks as much as we can, but at a certain point, they’re impossible to perfectly defend against without also totally locking down our users and making it impossible for them to do their jobs. so then the game becomes one of containing the amount of damage an attack can do.
Security is restriction. our job is to balance our users’ ability to perform their jobs with acceptable levels of risk.
As an IT guy, I’d love to give software devs full admin rights to their computer to troubleshoot and install anything as they see fit, it would save me a lot of time out of my day. But I can’t trust everyone in the organization not to click suspicious links or open obvious phishing emails that invite ransomware into the organization that can sink a company overnight.
I talked to some friends after the debate who claim to be independent and they said they still thought they both were terrible. I don’t understand how anyone could equate Harris with Trump, especially after Jan 6
Here’s a short list of key policies and initiatives associated with Kamala Harris:
Healthcare: Advocates for expanding access to affordable healthcare, including support for the Affordable Care Act and efforts to lower prescription drug prices.
Climate Change: Supports aggressive action on climate change, including rejoining the Paris Agreement and investing in clean energy jobs.
Criminal Justice Reform: Focuses on reforming the criminal justice system, including ending mass incarceration, addressing racial disparities, and promoting police accountability.
Economic Equality: Promotes policies aimed at reducing income inequality, such as raising the minimum wage, supporting small businesses, and investing in education and job training.
Immigration Reform: Advocates for comprehensive immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and protecting DACA recipients.
Gun Control: Supports measures to reduce gun violence, including universal background checks and banning assault weapons.
Women’s Rights: Champions reproductive rights and policies aimed at addressing gender-based violence and discrimination.
Here’s trumps policies: https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
The crux of my issue with the soviet system is that the highest echelons of the government had no oversight and were in no way beholden to the people at the lowest echelons. You’re right that democracy is a sliding scale, and I think a good form of government will allow dissenting opinions to take hold if they reflect the will of the people. I think it is very telling that you can have a communist party in the Kaiser’s germany, but not have a liberal/democratic party in Lenin’s Russia.
After some more digging, I conscede that you’re right on this point. I misremember that. they were not forced to participate.
I think political systems affect development, although geography plays a big role in that as well. How a country uses its available resources is predominantly determined by its economic and political system.
They gave you a ballet with only a party member candidate on it which you’d simply drop in the ballet box in front of everyone, and if you wanted to vote for an independent, you had to go behind a curtain and write it in.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union
“However, in practice, before 1989, voters could vote against candidates preselected by the Communist Party only by spoiling their ballots, whereas votes for the party candidates could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot.”
I wouldn’t call that democratic in nature.
I’m comparing political systems, not nations. If we’re talking about the WW1 era, then I’d say the soviets still had it worse as they went through a war, invasion, then a civil war, and famine and consequent brutal dictatorship. But the germans made it out quite well off, given they basically started the war with their unequal treaties and rapid militarization. Despite this, the treaty of Versailles was relatively lenient compared to what happened Austria-hungry.
It was not democratic. It was a single party system in which the party selected a candidate, (after some research I learned this part is false), and the populace was forced to vote for said candidate under threat of imprisonment.
If the people wanted to oust a candidate they didn’t like, they’d have to coordinate with everyone in secret to cooperatively abstain from voting for the candidate so he would lose his job and the party would select a new candidate.
I think the germans working under codetermination have it a bit better than any soviet ever did under their workers’ unions. the missing ingredient being a democratic representative government in place of an authoritarian single party system.
Workers as the owners?
Apparently, not so in the soviet union: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unions_in_the_Soviet_Union
But there is a similar (but not identical) concept currently being implemented in Germany. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
The people in this thread calling for AI overlords to take over for our governments and leaders dont understand that AI is trained to mimic human speech and behavior, not improve on it.
You hit the nail on the head, the issue with communism is not freeloarders or lack of incentives, it’s the fact that any form of hierarchy will create a power imbalance, and there will always be people who try to take advantage of it to better themselves and their friends at the expense of everyone else.
The Ukrainian army should just drop leaflets written in Korean that say “defect and we will feed you” I’m sure they’d all drop their weapons and run across no man’s land.