I hate doing these quote-heavy replies but yeesh, please forgive my lack of narrative structure:
Now, why oh why does the Skull Famine not have relevancy on the political climate? That’s exactly my point.
Oh lookit, another version of what your point was. No, other famines aren’t depoliticized - they’re just not particularly relevant to modern discourse. That isn’t the same thing.
Just a small remark:
Hey look, documenting methodology! I heartily approve!
Funny to me that you hadn’t seen any of this before
What? It’s one paper in an obscure journal and another in a random magazine. Why would I have seen either of them before? Do you mean the discussion of this topic or… what?
Especially now that sensibilities with Ukraine are high, I wonder, why is it that similar studies but regarding the impact of capitalism in Ukraine aren’t constantly discussed? […] Given your original dismiss when I talked of drug abuse, organized crime, suicide rates, malnutrition and preventable disease, I doubt it.
Did you even read either of the papers you linked? Hell, even Cockshott’s pretty rough paper has a couple sections devoted to why this isn’t a straightforward conclusion, and things like drug abuse and alcoholism started prior to the dissolution of the soviet union as a result of policies like Khrushchev’s attempt to implement prohibition. Neoliberal ideas were pervasive sure, but it’s not like they were inflicted on the USSR by singularly outside forces - the post-stalin neoliberal movement was aggressively suppressed explicitly because of it’s popularity, which was due to a whole multitude of factors (doubtlessly the CIA fondly wishes to be included in that list) but the concepts absolutely were developed from within the country as well as from without.
Cool, but I addressed that already. I already gave you the Brazil example.
You made a completely unsupported claim, provided sources for an entirely unrelated claim, now you’re again attempting to assert that first claim is true without providing any sources while insisting the second claim matters. Come on man you said this was easy. Hell, one of your own previous sources provides an astoundingly solid explanation of why your position (that a doubling of life expectancy in the 30s is notable) is pretty spurious.
Comparative economics and demographic statistics can be correlated to pretty much anything, like you’re doing here. Without actual substance to back you up it’s meaningless. You can’t just wave the magic statistics wand, point at a single graph and then draw whatever conclusions you like and then hope to maintain any shred of credibility when you’re challenged and fail to have anything of substance to back up your claims.
I hate doing these quote-heavy replies but yeesh, please forgive my lack of narrative structure:
Oh lookit, another version of what your point was. No, other famines aren’t depoliticized - they’re just not particularly relevant to modern discourse. That isn’t the same thing.
Hey look, documenting methodology! I heartily approve!
What? It’s one paper in an obscure journal and another in a random magazine. Why would I have seen either of them before? Do you mean the discussion of this topic or… what?
Did you even read either of the papers you linked? Hell, even Cockshott’s pretty rough paper has a couple sections devoted to why this isn’t a straightforward conclusion, and things like drug abuse and alcoholism started prior to the dissolution of the soviet union as a result of policies like Khrushchev’s attempt to implement prohibition. Neoliberal ideas were pervasive sure, but it’s not like they were inflicted on the USSR by singularly outside forces - the post-stalin neoliberal movement was aggressively suppressed explicitly because of it’s popularity, which was due to a whole multitude of factors (doubtlessly the CIA fondly wishes to be included in that list) but the concepts absolutely were developed from within the country as well as from without.
You made a completely unsupported claim, provided sources for an entirely unrelated claim, now you’re again attempting to assert that first claim is true without providing any sources while insisting the second claim matters. Come on man you said this was easy. Hell, one of your own previous sources provides an astoundingly solid explanation of why your position (that a doubling of life expectancy in the 30s is notable) is pretty spurious.
Comparative economics and demographic statistics can be correlated to pretty much anything, like you’re doing here. Without actual substance to back you up it’s meaningless. You can’t just wave the magic statistics wand, point at a single graph and then draw whatever conclusions you like and then hope to maintain any shred of credibility when you’re challenged and fail to have anything of substance to back up your claims.