Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

idk in general but I got some earbuds made by Sennheiser and they were the best damn earbud headphones I ever had. Seems like they make good gear in general.

[Orange Wizard]

Sennheiser stuff is really good. One of those rare cases where you're actually paying for quality and not brand names.

[Aklyon]

I'd prefer ear clip ones if I could find any, or if the ones I find aren't breaking after a yearish. But for now, Sades headset because it was fairly cheap.

[itisnotlogical]

I have a Logitech headset, because I needed a microphone and that was the nicest-looking pair that I could afford at Walmart.

They actually sound fairly good for $30 headphones, and the microphone is decent. The cord is about ten million feet long though, so I end up tripping over it and getting it caught on things.

[Bouchart]

My cheap $10 Sony headphones work fine, though part of the plastic broke off and it is held together with tape.

I'd never spend much on headphones or earbuds since they tend to break in weird ways, at least for me.  The sound quality is good enough for what I do.

[Flying Dice]

I'm WTFing a bit at the phrase "democratic dictatorship".

It's a bit of Marxist dialect. Essentially, it means that the proletariat class have a monopoly on political power, or "dictatorship".

Mm, it's a fun trick of language. It is simultaneously democratic and dictatorial, because the proletariat class isn't universally inclusive. Democracy in that the proletariat (being the "real" people) rule themselves and a dictatorship in that the proletariat also exercises absolute authority over those who aren't among their number, with the practical addition of the government actually being done by the party leadership for the party leadership more than anything else once things have settled down.

The old saw of college socialists is about how the pure vision of Marx was spoiled by corrupt party officials, but the whole structure rests on class-based discrimination. It's just that most people don't think of themselves as bourgeoisie--they identify (rightly or wrongly) with oppressed workers and soldiers rather than factory owners or landholders. You can bet your boots that the kulaks didn't think that things were very democratic after the revolution.

My saw is separating communism from socialism

I agree with you about the inherent issue with the party leadership serving themselves and that the system was flawed.  That being said, holy shit did Stalin ruin everything and I can see the temptation to point the finger at the transition between him and Lenin as when the corruption hit full swing.  I saw this lovely chart about Lenin's closest advisers who would have had a claim to potentially take control of the party; there were >30, and the only 2 that outlived Stalin did so because they fled the country.

It doesn't matter much at this point because communism as such doesn't truly exist any more as more than an unfollowed ideology. The PRC's not there any more, Cuba's a socialist republic, and the USSR is kaput. Most other states with far-left wings (much like universities with far-left students and staff) have socialists and soc-dems. Even in communist literature and documentation it's inconsistent usage at best. A whole lot of the real far-leftists got murdered (or in more "civilized" countries sometimes merely had their lives ruined) during the Cold War, leaving socialists and soc-dems as the far-left fringe in various places (respectively).

Oh, I certainly agree that Stalin not being at the helm would have resulted in a world an order of magnitude less shit (if not more). Lenin wrote a rather interesting series of letters close to his death, one of which was (summarized) essentially "Don't let that fucker Stalin succeed me, he'll fuck it all up!" 'Course, he said the same thing about everyone in position to take up the reins, and the closest to a good candidate they got became unavailable by way of ice-pick applied to brain.

It's not even that Stalin was directly corrupt, though. He was paranoid and domineering, and his leadership style created an atmosphere where corruption and inefficiency were preferred behaviors for those looking to get ahead. As well as, ya know, murdering millions of people.

[TempAcc]

Eh, Lenin himself kind of sucked pretty bad, too? I mean, he openly defended the death of anyone who stood in the party's ways (read: his way) and had some really funny ideas about sociology and economy in that shiny bald head of his. Its not like Stalin was specially evil, in fact, he was mostly kind of an oaf that absorbed the party's higher circles ideology and instructions, then became too powerful and ended up messing everyone's shit up with incompetence and malicious intent. At least Lenin wasn't dumb enough to believe that communism would last in the long run, and actualy worked to implement state capitalism in Russia, which is a far more stable but equally vulnerable to corruption.

Of course, many people when hearing this will go "but the red army was scary!". Yes, the red army was scary, but due to the military leaders that commanded it and the determination of its soldiers. Stalin made several hilariously dumb choices whenever he was in direct command, specially regarding logistics (sending tanks to the front lines without planning proper fuel/supply lines, leaving those in the back, etc). In fact, I can somewhat reasonably say that if it wasn't for Stalins overall inefficiency, the soviety union/russia would've been far more succesful before finally collapsing.

[aenri]

...

....

...

My saw is separating communism from socialism

I agree with you about the inherent issue with the party leadership serving themselves and that the system was flawed.  That being said, holy shit did Stalin ruin everything and I can see the temptation to point the finger at the transition between him and Lenin as when the corruption hit full swing.  I saw this lovely chart about Lenin's closest advisers who would have had a claim to potentially take control of the party; there were >30, and the only 2 that outlived Stalin did so because they fled the country.

That's the old "revolution devours its own children" adage. Communism or socialism as either political or economical system is unsustainable and belongs rightfully to history books.
I had enough of life in "real socialism" as it was called here, as transitional stage to communism, and I wouldn't wish that even on my enemy.

[TempAcc]

Also this^
Pretty much anyone who lived (or lives) in countries with strong communist/socialist leanings and policies and isn't benefitting directly from its inherently corrupt system can tell you that, yea, it sucks pretty bad for anyone who's not on the government's side and/or is poor.

[hector13]

Is there something inherently corrupt about socialism and/or communism?

[NJW2000]

Erm, yea, what about countries with socialist leanings like the Northern European ones? They do occassionally seem to have, like, the best living standards in the world for actual countries, some of 'em, iirc?

[Akura]

My cheap $10 Sony headphones work fine, though part of the plastic broke off and it is held together with tape.

I got you beat. Mine where only $5-$6, have been in use for at least two years, still work great. Also, the band is made of metal, not plastic.

Seriously, my headphones are currently the best-working piece of my computer. Something is wrong with the motherboard...

[Arx]

Mine were ~$18, have worked fine for over two years despite constantly dropping them, jerking the cord, and shoving them in my bag. The mic broke a while ago (I sound like a robot through it, it's fantastic), but I rarely use that anyway. They also give me lovely sound, although it's not pro level (my dad has a couple of pairs of headphones that are, they're wonderful on the odd occasion I borrow them from him).

I got them by walking into a tiny tech shop (literally a counter and two guys. Everything was behind the counter because there was no floor) and asking one of the guys for a pair of headphones that'd give nice sound and not break the bank.

[i2amroy]

I got them by walking into a tiny tech shop (literally a counter and two guys. Everything was behind the counter because there was no floor) and asking one of the guys for a pair of headphones that'd give nice sound and not break the bank.

How do you walk into a shop that has no floor?!?

(#ArxConfirmedAsMutant )

[Baffler]

The argument could easily be made that the USSR would not have been nearly as shit if literally every other country on Earth didn't have it out for them.