It is nice, but nobody except celebrities and super rich people can afford any of these apartments.
It’s easy to create nice things for extremely rich people, the real challenge in Milan is to provide aesthetically pleasing and environmentally sustainable buildings and neighbourhoods for the 99%.
Inability to release 1.0 of any software is driven by indecision and/or a lack of confidence in the stability of your product. Nothing more. If you’re decisive about meaningful features on realistic milestones and confident that you have a stable system, there is no reason to not 1.0.
I disagree. They were such a great door into escapism and friendship for me, a standard guy from a small town in Italy with no metal friends at all until the internet came about.
Forums in particular provided the opportunity of meeting people with very different backgrounds sharing similar music tastes, and it was also fun to argue about silly things like what is true and not true metal and getting banned by mods.
I built amazing memories of road trips together, motorcycles, seeing bands and meeting each other somewhere basically every weekend.
Not to say that what you experienced is not true, but it’s not the case for every forum out there for sure.
Also, what made metalheads special was their status as a total outcasts of society, of course we were very much an insular culture. I miss the group spirit, the “family” side of all of this amazing subculture.
May be a good rule for what determines how someone can enjoy things like small groups is how physical it is. For me, MA was an online-only thing I found through my love of metal, almost no one I knew loved metal, most who listened to rock-ish music at all loved the *-core brand of music (which was popular in the late 00s) which I specifically didn't like. In terms of chances to actually branch out and see bands (and perhaps meet other metal heads at the time) I couldn't as I a) couldn't drive and b) lived in America in the bible belt.
Finding randoms who become actual meatspace friends probably makes it a little better, if anything, it lessens how insular you are when you have to be actually outside with others who aren't part of your group.
> I don't understand audacity of people who are trying to dictate to real estate owners what they can and can't do with their property
I don't understand this argument. If you live in the middle of a desert or if you own an entire building in the suburbs, sure, do what you want, that's what it's allowed in those places.
But if you own a flat in the middle of a very densely populated city, with rules, where even buying a home is regulated and taxed because society wants that, then this argument doesn't hold. You literally can't do what you want with your property. In Europe at least we have regional building regulations, town taxes to pay for garbage we produce, natural disasters dictating how things are built, and we even have specific rules for each building where your flat is located in. For example in my flat I can't have BBQs on the balcony where other people might do their laundry, or I can't smoke in the elevator, etc, etc... basic rules and compromises for basic societal well-being. It's very far from being able to do whatever we want.
Great quote. It applies to pretty much any profession that isn't pure art. Knowing how it works in medical and research fields, it would be a great analogy for that too.
So many parallels with the Italian software industry. Plagued by low pay, clerical work and system integrators monopolising the entire industry for decades.
I also see cloud computing and Silicon Valley glamour as the turning point for the industry.
While in some places Communism has definitely been responsible for atrocities, in many countries (especially Western Europe, Asia and South America) Communist parties have been on the frontline of liberation movements, indigenous rights, human rights, workers’ conditions, etc.
That’s why for many Communism != atrocities.
100% this. Socialist and communist critiques of our current and historical modes of production identify some systemic issues. It's worth engaging with those critiques more deeply than "communism bad!"
Oh, no doubt they had lots of bright "promise" exemplified by the fists of virile men and fecund women reaching the mountain top having vanquished capitalist evil, triumphantly raising the hammer and sickle and little Ivan joins in the parade...
But it was all illusion and never delivered. They always ended in oppression, regression and failed experiments (social, economic, environmental, etc.)
I think there's a healthy discussion to be had about, for instance Cuba. Yes, poverty is still high but sanctions are still oppressive. They have higher literacy rates than Canada or the US, they have solid medical care, and they've started from a much, much worse position. Similar story with Vietnam. There's a discussion to be had about where they started, where they are now, and what happened in the interim.
To be clear, I'm not saying these countries have done no wrong. They aren't shining beacons, but it is worth examining them in a thoughtful way. It's not like the US (where I live) is a shining beacon either.
Also, I'd argue there are degrees and varieties of both socialism and communism. Is Mondragon socialist? Is Sweden? Is France? What about small council communism and Anarcho communism?
There may be some aspects of life and society where social cooperation helps in certain realms under some circumstances (Kibbutz too?). Exporting medical expertise for Cuba at least then was an "in" for subversion into other countries. That said, two observations. One Cuba was hugely subsidized by the CCCP and still traded with lots of Europe, they were not isolated. Second, all else suffered --it's like time stood still in all other aspects of society, infrastructure, economy, etc.
I think it's totally fair to hold up Cuba against, for instance, Costa Rica or Panama. Both those countries receive substantial subsidies from the US.
I think one could argue that Cuba is not out of line with its peers and might actually be ahead in some ways. It's not perfect, but regionally it's doing pretty alright from what I can tell.
Panama and Costa Rica are pretty protective (usually foreigners get actual seconds, unless they are rich), but if not, if a Cuban had a choice between staying in Cuba or moving to Panama, if I were that Cuban, I would take Panama. On the other hand it's a fair critique, LatAm has a history of being run by strongmen and run poorly, with some exceptions. However, that includes the Castro brothers.
Given the choice between Cuba and anywhere else, most Cubans would without a doubt choose anywhere else. Why else would so many choose to risk death trying to escape their country on overcrowded ramshackle boats? Literally hundreds of Cuban refugees are picked up by border patrol every single month in Miami and the surrounding areas.
Also, it’s not clear whether you meant to say the Castro brothers are included in strongmen or exceptions, but I assume it’s strongmen.
Cuba doesn't have solid medical care. They suppress free speech brutally. Che and Castro were viciously anti-gay. You can't get anything in the stores there, very much like Soviet era shopping. It's a fucking hell hole by Western standards.
The Che was a sadist not all too different from the nazi character in schindlers list who ‘hunts prisoners’ for fun. I don’t know how college students can wear his t-shirt alongside Bob Marley. Or even more ironic a BLM (the movement not the bureau) activist wearing his iconography. Maybe that can be chalked up to capitalism doing its thing…
He saw the poverty and exploitation of LatAm by the US and others and decided to do something about it after the CIA assassinated Arbenz. He was pivotal in overthrowing Batista, an autocratic despot.
He later served in several government programs, and wrote a memoir about motorcycles.
He was eventually executed without trial by Bolivian special forces backed by the CIA.
But college kids probably don't know that much about the flip side of his character. Plenty of stories suggest he enjoyed killing - he certainly had no concerns about executions. He wrote some pretty racist stuff in his early life.
I'm guessing by your username we're on opposite ends of the socialism thing. Don't care! I love your willingness to take evidence as it stands. Believe me, as a stout USA patriot and free market enthusiast, I do not shrink from the weaknesses of my positions either. For example, you're dead right (ahem) about the CIA. Sincere thanks for joining the discourse.
I think blind adherence to a doctrine is a big problem. I love talking about this stuff. And I want it to be approachable, reasoned, and something that someone might go, "well, I don't agree with you, but you aren't just a surface level ideologue".
Hahaha. Well, you see how quickly I'm vilified here! I'm not sure I'd be that excited about exposing myself to the wider internet. :D
I do try to respond to comments here with genuine answers and discourse, but the downvotes here lead me to believe a podcast would likely result in a lot of disinterest or angry mail headed my way.
I mean, he's quoted by a revolutionary publication as saying:
“We don’t need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.”
“We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation.”
Unfortunately, he appears not to have been assiduous in taking notes as Stalin was, so hard evidence, so far, is spotty.
Cuba severely restricts the ability of its citizens to leave the country. That right there tells you volumes about how good it actually is for the people.
And no, Sweden and France aren't socialist, since they still have private ownership of capital. Capitalism doesn't magically become socialism if you increase the taxes high enough.
Do you know much about France? Almost all large enterprises in France are partly state owned (Total being the notable exception). Although they also have private ownership, it would be extremely hard for say Air France or Orange or Credit Agricole to pursue a course of action in direct opposition to what the government, the civil service, and other large interests wanted.
This may not be text-book socialism but it is quite different from capitalism as practiced in the United States.
Vietnam is actually a very free economy that is all about free enterprise. It's very common there to make a living doing all kinds of street hustles. the government doesn't like to shut them down. Pretty typical for a developing country. Sure they are Communist but that's just a name.
> Yes, poverty is still high but sanctions are still oppressive.
Which sanctions exactly? Surely a communist country doesn't need free trade, that's a capitalist concept and Marx was against it.
> They have higher literacy rates than Canada
This shows you the value of literacy as a metric. North Korea also has high literacy, it's not a reason to prefer living there to Canada.
> It's not like the US (where I live) is a shining beacon either.
The amount of people trying to immigrate to the US vs any other country contradicts this.
> What about small council communism and Anarcho communism?
Masturbatory terms dreamed up by people who don't want to understand economics because it deals with real tradeoffs, whereas politics is about promising the impossible while ignoring economics and history. Anarchism and communism are opposites.
And both council communism and Anarcho communism have long histories of communities actually practicing them. From gift economies in smaller indigenous communities to explicitly anarchocommunist zones in Korea and Spain in the 20s and 30s.
Anarchism is not the opposite of communism. It's the opposite of Stalinist communism, for sure. But anarchism is about the removal of unnecessary and unjust hierarchies. That's not in opposition with "and we should take care of everyone without a profit motive".
One could argue (and in fact, many scholars have) that the open source development model of Linux or other large systems are anarchocommunist in nature.
