Your wiki link for inequality has China ranked 98, not 71, putting it much closer to the USA at 107.

I'm not sure if you understand how a ranked list works: you can invert the ranking order and the relative difference is identical. Whether you say China is 98 and USA 107 (a difference of 9) or you say China is 71 and the USA is 62 (a difference of 9), the relative difference is the same (it's 9). The only difference is how you interpret which is better, which I didn't do. My point was they're similar and middling in the ranking.

Also notably, the Gini index has a very long list of nominally “capitalist” countries ahead of China, which meet your criteria for a sustained fight against inequality and taking care of the poor.

This is irrelevant to the point I was making. My point wasn't that China is uniquely positioned with low income inequality. My point was twofold: it is middling in its rankings (i.e., not the most unequal), and it's decreasing. The fact that it's steadily decreasing is directly related to the point I made about the CPC truly working for the people to solve the real problems they're facing: they identified a problem, identified some causal factors, discussed the importance of fixing it, made plans of how to fix it, are implementing those plans, and make reports on the progress of those plans. You'll also notice that those capitalist countries which have less income inequality than China have more government intervention in the market (i.e., tempering the "free market") in part because the issue doesn't address itself in a capitalist system, and intervention has to be taken to address the problem. This is what China is doing, too: their income inequality problem isn't magically going away on its own free will, it is going away because of government intervention in the economy.

Forgive me as you’ve written quite a bit here but this seems to be the only concrete policy to discuss vis-a-vis capitalist vs communist systems. The rest is subjective language about “working for the people”. Every politician gets up on stage and talks about how they’re fighting hard to give people better lives. No one really gives those statements any credit.

The difference is that Western politicians rely on selling a promise and not delivering. Yes, they get up on stage and talk, and then do nothing. With the CPC, they actually show results. They make plans and publish them, they implement them, and they publish update reports that show whether or not they stuck to what they said they would do. This is not another situation with empty promises; if it was, they either wouldn't publish update reports or the update reports would show that they aren't doing what they said they would. You're confusing form and function: both CPC and Western politicians make promises, but the Western politicians do not deliver and the CPC does. There's a reason CPC support in China is so high, and it's because the party truly works for and benefits the people; if it were empty promises that never benefited the people, they wouldn't have so much support for the party.

(Edit: I was wrong in the direction I had sorted when I wrote this comment initially. I have removed the now irrelevant part. My point still stands: the two countries I compared are similar, and China is middling in it's ranking; inverting the sort order doesn't make the countries less similar, and since they're middling, inverting the sort order means they're still middling. I didn't make a claim that one was better than the other).

That's the United States of America.

Me too. The exact same app. I rarely open the play store with other app stores existing but good lord this is bad.

Seems a bit silly to decide that “capitalism” is the majority contributor to climate change when the country that produces the most greenhouse gases is only “pretty capitalist” doesn’t it? If capitalism is the major contributor, why don’t more capitalist country produce more greenhouse gases?

That's not necessarily the case. The pollution comes from where manufacturing is, not necessarily where consumption is. The demand is coming from capitalist countries.

Edit: To account for this, we can look at per-capita consumption-based emissions (thanks to @boonhet@lemm.ee for the data link).

There's a new propaganda department at the Pentagon that's just been re-formed, the "Perception Management" office,

“Perception management” came to prominence during the Reagan administration[^1], which used the term to describe its propaganda efforts. [...] On March 1, 2022, the Pentagon established a new office with similar goals to the one once deemed too controversial to remain open. [...] its responsibilities include overseeing and coordinating the various counter-disinformation efforts being conducted by the military, which can include the U.S.’s own propaganda abroad.

In case you think the name is of no import, the Department of Defense's own official dictionary defines "perception management" as

[a]ctions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning.

Let's look at a definition of "propaganda",

A concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people.

That looks about 100% on the nose, doesn't it?

They have a history of producing propaganda and misinformation (with the excuse being "to counter enemy disinformation"[^2]), and they weren't shy talking about it,

The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. [...] The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly three years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under intense criticism, closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion. [...] Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles. [...] However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred."

Mind you, I've only touched on some of their work in the very recent past. There's an even larger body of evidence of the USA's use of propaganda in the slightly more distant past. I only gave the Wikipedia page on propaganda in the United States a brief skim, but it at least touches on (and links out to) some of the big picture items; of note,

In the United States, propaganda is spread by both government and media entities.

[^1]: "In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita. (Source) [^2]: https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/28/the-victory-of-perception-management/

Gotta keep in mind this is a ban on ‘state devices and networks.’

Yea in this case I think it's entirely reasonable. I don't think any (Ad)Tech software should be allowed on state devices or networks. It's a security concern whether it's a company in the USA or a foreign company gathering every ounce of data it can hoover up.

People aren’t going hungry in capitalist countries.

Are you kidding? People go hungry constantly in capitalist countries, it's just perhaps people you are told not to care about.

• Homeless people routinely go hungry.
• Disabled people routinely go hungry.
• Low-income people routinely go hungry.
• With the sociopathic demonization of free lunch programs for kids in schools, children routinely go hungry.

Food bank usage has soared, which doesn't solve the problem, but simply temporarily alleviates it for those who have access to food banks. Many places don't have food banks accessible, and if you don't have transportation, getting to the nearest is not always feasible.

I have first-hand experience of going hungry, being in a capitalist country. To pretend it doesn't happen is to be blind and ignorant.

We’re giving them our older model stuff from the 90s. Compare that to the mothballed museum pieces Russia is rolling out.

Think about this for a moment. The USA is using its older stuff first.

You look at what Russia is using and you think it's old or not as advanced. Why aren't you making the logical conclusion (which is backed by evidence if you look) that Russia is doing the exact same thing as the USA?

Why is the USA's use of old weaponry simply that--use of old weaponry--but Russia's use of old weaponry is...something else? Corruption? Incompetence? Whatever other excuse you want to come up with?

It's safe to assume that Russia knows that the USA and other countries are going to send older reserves of weapons first. So it's not unreasonable for Russia to not use more than is necessary and bring in their newest and best weaponry.

Lead was used way past discovering it was dangerous, and is still used enough to cause problems in specific populations. Just like cigarettes. If there is a large moneymaking industry and it suddenly comes to light that what it is producing is dangerous, they have a lot of motivation to put money behind keeping that knowledge from getting out or, when it does, keep it from affecting law. They lobby/bribe, they abuse the legal system, whatever they can to avoid going under. As such, it's not safe to assume that something is not dangerous simply because it hasn't been banned.

I'm just going to repeat myself: it is literally not any better if it's a backup versus the primary system. Read my comment.

Edit to add: When do you use a backup? When things have gone very wrong. That is precisely when reliance on this system is the most dangerous.

That's not reassuring in the least. Even if it's a backup or secondary system, if Starlink and the USA can cut service at will, it's disadvantageous for Japan's military to use it. This isn't just reliance on foreign technology in the form of chips or other hardware, this is reliance on a foreign for-profit company owned by a megalomaniac billionaire who has made threats to cut service before when it suited him. This system subordinates Japanese (military) autonomy to external entities that not only aren't obligated to act in Japan's best interest, but have no way of being held responsible when they act against Japan's interests.

Based on some of your other comments you come off as completely oblivious to the geopolitical history of the region.

YOU invading a sovereign nation

I'm almost certain the person you replied to is not on the front line on behalf of the RF, and I'm even more certain they had no say in the decision to invade.