"Chinese style communism" is just capitalism with the intention of converting over to communism later, in direct accordance with the theories of Marx. He predicted that poor countries could not jump in as communist countries, because they just redistribute poverty (which is exactly how it played out each time it was tried). He stated that a country must embrace capitalism first, in order to generate great wealth, and then once the forces of production were great enough the workers would all realize they don't need bosses anymore and just naturally transition over to communism.

China is currently capitalist now as a temporary step to becoming communist once they have established enough material wealth.

And anyway, it's awful. They push their people to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, saying that everyone must compete and produce ferociously in order to build the material wealth they need so that some future generation can enjoy the communist utopia. Young people see clearly that they can work themselves to death and still won't be able to afford a house, car, family, etc., hence the whole "lying flat" trend that has the CCP all worried.

China has only been using this model for something like 50 years (before that it was pure communism and was responsible for mass starvation with death tolls in the tens of millions). So, it is very unclear whether or not this will work at all, and where it is right now looks pretty bad.

Incidentally, the only recorded event (that I know of) of a wealthy country attempting to convert to communism was Czechoslovakia, and it didn't produce the expected utopia. It just lead them straight into poverty.

I am more than happy to let China be the pioneers on this one, so we can watch and see how it goes from a safe distance.

But still far too much.

Buildings still need to be built, and its hard work. So is building and maintaining sewer lines, power lines, cell phone networks etc.

Food is still grown by human farmers. A few farmers can make a whole lot of food, but those farmers have to work hard to do it. The same goes for everything else farmed or derived from livestock.

The factories that produce all our consumer trinkets still need a lot of human operators.

The list goes on and on.

Even if we did cease all overproduction and re-organize labor to make only what we need (presumably with extra saved up for emergencies), there would be far too much human labor required for it to be accomplished without paying the laborers in proportion to their effort and the rarity of their skill set. Asking them to put up with that "for the greater good" will result in the exact same consequences we consistently see when we try this (which is to say, failure, starvation, and violence).

So long as having the things that everybody needs requires that a whole lot of people work hard, we can't have communism. It will just create widespread poverty like it has every other time it was tried, because it contradicts basic human psychology too strongly.

AFTER we have the level of labor automation that everyone is afraid of, where basically everything is done by robots and there are only enough jobs (of any kind) for only a tiny fraction of the population, something like communism might be sustainable. And even that is a maybe (we have zero examples of this from which to draw a conclusion, so all we can do is speculate).

85% of the meat packing industry in the US is owned by four multinational megacorps:

Tyson Foods (U.S.-owned)
Cargill (U.S.-owned)
JBS (Brazilian-owned)
National Beef (Brazilian-owned)

They are very obviously operating as a cartel. They have faced legal action to this effect, though nothing with real teeth.

I don't really see why McDonald's is relevant since they don't produce the beef, they are a buyer of it. Be that as it may, cartel behavior is harmful to the economy and is an inevitable result whenever the market is dominated by a small number of players like this. It is just outright obvious to all of them that collusion is more profitable than competition, at that point.

Any capitalist economy must rely on government intervention to break these up and/or regulate them. Capitalism collapses under the weight of anti competitive forces otherwise.
 

Testing can be done under conditions that make cheating impractically hard. It just takes a little effort on the part of those giving the tests.

What's the alternative? Completely subjective grades that are assigned to the students by their teachers?

(That was meant to be rhetorical, since that is obviously even more worthless).

Given the economic opportunities that grades open up, I don't think it is fair to say "they are only cheating themselves." They are cheating others out of work and/or scholarship money, too.

I think it may be evidence that Amazon has a shitty corporate culture that squeezes every penny it can out its employees.

Corruption can happen anywhere, but it's more likely to happen in totalitarian cultures where people feel like the system is rigged anyway. That's why countries like Russia and China have corruption problems. But I suspect the same feelings of me vs. the system occur in a capitalist enterprise like Amazon where employees are governed by dystopian, rigid, computerized metrics.

Microsoft should be sued into oblivion for the amount of e-waste it created from perfectly good machines that were not compatible with its latest OS, after it ended official support for its prior OS.

So, why DO people buy Apple? They know it is more expensive. Clearly, they believe they are getting something that is worth that price.

Apple goes to great efforts to protect user privacy. Some of what they do might just be promises and/or lies, but that is still better than the alternatives available, that openly spy on everything they can and sell it to whoever wants to buy it. For people who have the money to afford Apple products, it's worth it.

Of course there are free open source solutions that protect privacy, but they require greater tech knowledge to use and have more compatibility issues (there are always a group of Linux users that get all bent out of shape when someone says this. Too bad. I use Linux a lot and I am very familiar with the issues that crop up that the Linux community likes to pretend don't crop up).

There's also the matter of user experience. When I use windows 11, I fell pushed-around and limited. When I use MacOS, I feel obeyed and empowered. Your mileage may vary, but this was enough for me to buy Apple.

I hate windows enough that my gaming rig runs Linux. I love Apple enough that my "everything serious" machine runs MacOS. Even with these price hikes, I will still go Apple over Windows any day of the week, should I need another machine for any purpose other than gaming.

I suppose the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics gives us a reason to posit something similar to "alternate realities." Published physicists who have studied the evidence in much greater depth than I have, and understand the math much better than I do, take this seriously. Were it not for them, I would dismiss it as junk science.

But even if we posit many worlds, the theory doesn't predict any means by which taking drugs would cause one to see things that reside in these completely decohered branches, let alone ones that decohered so long ago that evolution took a completely different path, producing tiny people.

I also suspect that humans bodies that are as small as rats wouldn't actually function properly, as the design would produce mechanical failures given normal human proportions. The brain wouldn't be able to contain nearly as many neurons either, meaning that these "people" would not be capable of speech or abstract thought (or really much more than rats or similar-sized animals are capable of).

The idea continues to be wildly implausible, even under the many-worlds hypothesis.

It's not "every" human brain. It's just "most" human brains.

Be that as it may, you might consider asking Gemini such a question. Of course, answers from AI aren't guaranteed to be accurate, but answers from random posters on Slashdot come with even less of a guarantee.

But here, let me save you the effort by posting Gemini's reply:

While researchers are still isolating the exact chemical compound inside Lanmaoa asiatica—which is unique and unrelated to classical psilocybin "magic mushrooms"—neuroscience and psychiatry offer a fascinating framework for why a chemical can cause such a highly specific, repeatable flaw in human perception.

1. The Disruption of "Size Constancy"
To understand why the people are tiny, we look at a neurological concept called size constancy. Your brain continuously performs complex mathematics to ensure that when a friend walks away from you, you perceive them as moving further away, rather than physically shrinking—even though the actual image hitting your retina is getting smaller. This relies on a highly calibrated feedback loop between the primary visual cortex (V1), which processes raw shapes, and the visual association cortices, which interpret depth, distance, and context. When a toxin disrupts this communication channel, it causes a specific sensory distortion called micropsia. If the brain tries to project an object or a memory into the visual field while the size-constancy machinery is offline, the object defaults to a drastically scaled-down size (often measured at exactly 1 to 2 centimeters by patients).

2. The Brain's "Pareidolia" and Object-Recognition Hardware
Why does the brain specifically manufacture human figures instead of just shrinking the existing room? Human brains possess hyper-specialized, dedicated neural architecture designed to recognize faces and bodies, primarily located in the fusiform face area (FFA) and the extrastriate body area (EBA). This hardware is so sensitive that it causes pareidolia—making us see faces in electrical outlets or burnt toast. When a psychoactive compound overstimulates or uncouples these specific regions, the visual system begins firing "spontaneously." Because these circuits are hardwired exclusively to process human attributes, the hallucination cannot be an abstract geometric pattern. The brain is forced to piece together the chaotic neural static using its strongest, most deeply ingrained template: the human form.

3. The "Release Phenomenon" (Deafferentation)
Lilliputian hallucinations are not exclusive to mushrooms; they are also the hallmark of Charles Bonnet Syndrome (where people losing their eyesight see tiny people) and certain stages of Parkinson’s disease. The leading neurological theory for both is the release phenomenon: Under normal conditions, a steady stream of real-world data from your eyes acts as an "inhibitory" brake, keeping your visual association cortices from running wild. If a toxin suddenly blocks or alters this sensory input, the brain's internal dream-generation software is "released" from its brakes. Left to its own devices, the visual cortex starts pulling random information from memory and projecting it into the physical room. Because the interactive physics engine of the brain is still online, 97% of these hallucinations interact realistically with the environment—marching across actual tables or ducking under tablecloths.

The Neuro-Chemical Frontier: Classical psychedelics like psilocybin primarily bind to serotonin $5\text{-HT}_{2\text{A}}$ receptors, causing geometric distortions and emotional shifts. Because Lanmaoa asiatica causes a clinical syndrome completely distinct from a typical psilocybin trip, scientists believe its active compound targets entirely different pathways—likely involving acetylcholine or gabaergic networks, which directly control attention, reality-monitoring, and visual gating.

Is there any other evidence of their existence, such as missing food or other supplies that would be consistent with ongoing need, not to mention unexplained pollution, etc?

No.

Do multiple people report seeing the same people in the same spot at the same time when they take these mushrooms together, under controlled conditions where they cannot hear each other's descriptions?

No.

While we have no logical way to disprove the existence of alternate realities, there is also no good reason to posit their existence, especially when we can objectively determine that these mushrooms are hallucinogens, which are known to produce false sense data. You are free to believe in whatever crazy nonsense you like, but don't try to act like there is any sound philosophical or scientific basis for such belief.

Downplaying Godwin's law is literally Hitler.

Coursework should make zero difference in a student's grade. It is there for practice and for the student to get feedback from the teacher.

A test like the SAT test should BE the degree. It is an objective test of competence, and that is what we should be using to judge candidates. The grades that schools give out are highly subjective judgments that include a lot of bias (depending on the teacher) and so aren't reliable.

As I understand, people who are in your first category (earnest desire to avoid crime in the future) find that nobody trusts them. Their criminal history follows them around so jobs are unavailable to them, promotions are unavailable, etc. This creates the very economic conditions that drive them right back into crime.

I don't know how much this actually happens, it's just a plausible narrative that I read about a while back.