• whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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    3 hours ago
    1. I am 49
    2. My friends are older and younger but the messaging is the same
    3. USSR fell in 1991
    4. Who are you to define “meaningful”?
    • 挂路灯人@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

      Ok so you were 14 when the USSR fell and 8 when Gorbachev came to power. You were a child. At that age you simply don’t have the depth or breath of experience for it to be meaningful. Same as 14 or 8 year olds now don’t have the experience to really have wider political input. If you haven’t worked, had to get a house, engaged with the state using your “experience” to derive conclusions about it is nonsense. Not to say younger people can’t have opinions but they simply can’t defer to experience as generally they lack it but this can be substituted with study, statistics etc.

      Edit:

      Also again you were 8 when Gorbachev came to power and everything was going to shit you have 0 experience of the pre Gorbachev era. Appealing to personal experience to draw conclusions about that is even more nonsense.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        Lol I’m Canadian I’m talking about my friends with the real world experience growing up in the bloc.

        And to throw is back how old are you? What is your experience? Pray tell what makes you an expert?

        • 挂路灯人@lemmy.ml
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          1 hour ago

          how old are you?

          Mid-30’s

          What is your experience

          Personal experience with the USSR? None. But I never claimed to have any. Otherwise experience: I’m Chinese originally rural but through scholarships I was put in the position to be able to earn a PhD and 2 masters and now live in a city. But this really has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I never claimed to have personal experience of the USSR.

          Pray tell what makes you an expert?

          I wouldn’t call myself an expert but I’ve read many studies and books about the USSR as well as my second masters being in Marxist Theory so I would call myself relatively informed.

          All of this is however a dodge that has nothing to do with the point at hand which is that appealing to experience when in reality you have effectively 0 makes no sense. If you’ve never worked or engaged with any facets of the state appealing to experience to draw general conclusions about it is plainly ridiculous.

    • Tomorrow_Farewell@lemmy.ml
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      3 hours ago

      Not the person whom you asked, but

      Who are you to define “meaningful”?

      To get a good view on the matter, it would require having worked and having gone through a process of getting new housing both before Gorbachyov and after the fall of the USSR. Something tells me that people who earn, say, 30 000 or so rubles (or an analogous sum) per month today were in a much better spot back before Gorbachyov.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        I won’t disagree but you’re (intentionally?) shifting goalposts.

        As already stated and the easiest example is I’ve been told by multiple friends about waiting in the bread line for their parents for hours. As a North American imagine having to wait for the state to give you your bread for the day and having to wait 6 hours in line to get it. Is this really what people want to glaze?

        This is also ignoring the rampant corruption that also existed in the USSR at the time too. You could argue it was more corrupt than we have in North America now.