Having looked at the words and code specifically in reference here, I think it’s a copy and paste job from another local function (the local piefed.social retention rules)

Also, the context here is automatic federation of communities - right? It’s not a keyword filter in the sense that you’re referring to.

It can be and is disabled by other instances.

We’ve been building up the Pacific Fleet since the Bush 43 administration. War with China was the plan for PNAC prior to 9/11. And the Trump admin is flush with China Hawks.

Okay, so? You do realise that China has changed a lot since then. Again: This is a nuclear power with over double the USAs population. What exactly do you imagine the war goals here are?

PPP is a great place to start. Taiwanese cost of living has been climbing since Trump 1 while China has kept itself stable.

Can I see your data points here?

Basics - food, housing, transportation, education, health care - that Taiwan domestic policies privatized during the boom years have come back to eat their lunch in the lean years. Flat wages, rising debt, you do the math.

Still no data points.

You see the same problems across the Pacific Rim capitalist colony states. Everyone from Japan to India has been pinched by supply chain failures and venture capital excess. Taiwan’s not unique in this regard (honestly doing a lot better than most of their peers). But the check always comes due.

Even if this is true, why would the Taiwanese want to become absorbed into a one-party state?

What legislation is planned that will somehow roll back LGBT rights in Taiwan to be equivalent to the PRC?

Your source did not compare homelessness and poverty rates in China as compared to Taiwan.

You understand Taiwan is by far more liberal on LGBT rights than China, right? When did China legalise same-sex marriage? Or any of the rights granted to LGBT people in China?

Do you think LGBT people in Sweden or Canada would prefer the social and legal situation of LGBT rights and expression in China as compared to their countries?

Also, where is your data that homelessness is more prominent in China than Taiwan?

Moreover, do you think journalists, activists in Taiwan, etc want to live under a one-party state where all dissent against the CCP is curated?

Sorry, again, you unironically think that the USA is going to attack China? A nuclear power with over double the USAs population?

The point here is that you aren’t even comparing it to China. What are the metrics and standards of living in Taiwan as compared to China?

Do you imagine Taiwanese LGBT people want to live under CCP rule?

Where is your evidence that Americans are trying to use Taiwan as a base for regime change? How would this even work?

And your analysis on Taiwans housing prices and rent could be literally any major city in any major western country on earth. It does not demonstrate widespread poverty across Taiwan.

Only you guys seem to think this.

China’s overall end-goal is specifically to annex Taiwan. Taiwanese people do not want this. What would you call this?

Have they? Why is Taiwanese standard of living so low?

Is it? Based on what? What data are you referring to?

It was revealed to him in a dream.

And where did you gather any of this? You think Rimu’s sole and only motivation for Piefed is that and nothing else?

So how is Rimu a cryptofash?

Look, obviously I’m not going to humour this deliberately playing dumb. You know what the difference is.

I will not stop. The question remains unanswered: What’s the difference? Would it be justiified for France to notice that Wallonia hasn’t held a referendum on joining them, invade and then hold their own referendum there?

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

And I’ve repeatedly replied that the post-2014 referendums held by the Luhansk’s People’s Republic and Donetsk Republic don’t represent everyone in the Donbass. Is that the referendum you are referring to here?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Donbas_status_referendums

Are you referring to these?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

That’s not my perspective.

The one you had to be repeatedly told happened before the Russian invasion.

No, I knew that happened. I just didn’t think you genuinely thought a referendum that took place in a pocket of the Donbass area was somehow binding on the entire population of the Donbass. Apparently I was wrong.

Ok, I’ll start doing it to. What do you mean? I clearly gave you an answer. As I have mostly. What do you think “giving an answer” means? And what do you think “usual” means?

No, you’ve hardly provided any answers.

You didn’t even know what year it took place in before this conversation

As I said: No, I knew that happened. I just didn’t think you genuinely thought a referendum that took place in a pocket of the Donbass area was somehow binding on the entire population of the Donbass. Apparently I was wrong.

You also clearly don’t realize that they aren’t part of Donbas.

No. I’ve pointed out that Russia also held sham referendums in the Kherson and the Zap oblasts. That even if the Donbass referendums prior to 2022 in the 2014-22 republics were somehow meaningful - that wouldn’t somehow bind Kherson and the Zap oblasts. Russia also claims them too. What does the Donbass have to do with them? All you do when I bring them up is say that they’re irrelevant, for some reason.

Nope. Anyone can go back and read what you said.

No, it was not. That was not ever my position.

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

As I said: I’m well aware of the referendums that the breakaway states conducted. I don’t see how they’re especially authoritative for the reasons I’ve already provided.

So no, you don’t recognize the conflict of interest.

Not what I asked you: Do you have any credible evidence that a majority of people from the Donbass wanted to leave?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

That’s not what I asked you. You seem to have a binary view on all referendums. So do you reject or accept them all?

You can’t do both.

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

As I said: I’m well aware of the referendums that the breakaway states conducted. I don’t see how they’re especially authoritative for the reasons I’ve already provided.

Look, obviously I’m not going to humour this deliberately playing dumb. You know what the difference is.

No, I do not. I will not stop. The question remains unanswered: What’s the difference? Would it be justiified for France to notice that Wallonia hasn’t held a referendum on joining them, invade and then hold their own referendum there?

So, in short, you do not support the right of self determination for the people of Donbas.

I reject that Russia is credibly representing the self-determination of the people of the Donbas, Zap Oblast or Kherson by holding sham elections in territory they don’t even entirely control. What about those who fled those areas?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

So you unironicaly believe that someone must believe that any referendum ever, regardless of context, regardless of voting methods, regardless of conduct should be accepted or all rejected?

That I must believe that the Quebec referendums in Canada are on the same credibilty level of the Austrian Anschluss?

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

You mean the referendum held in an area 1/4 the overall size of the Donbass? Where most people from the Donbass couldn’t vote? That referendum?

For the obvious reasons you’re well aware of. If you keep doing this, I’m going to start doing it too, so don’t complain about it when I do.

So no ability to answer. As usual.

I have repeatedly told you that the referendum was before the invasion. I can only assume that you pretending otherwise is just another instance of you deliberately wasting time.

You do realise that (1) that referendum only took place in a small pocket of the Donbas.

Nor that does that, even if somehow representative, account for the citizens of the Zap or Kherson oblasts.

Ironically though, that means all of your arguments now apply to Ukraine. Hmm, yes, were people permitted to publicly campaign for leaving Ukraine? Oh wait, never mind; Ukraine just declared the whole referendum illegal. Oops

Why would Ukraine acknowledge and legitimise a referendum held by occupying powers who forcibly took land from them?

No. That was not your logic. Once again, you can’t even remember your own position.

Yes, it was.

What about the immediate and obvious conflict of interest from the country that controls the region refusing to recognize their desire to leave?

Absolutely. But do you have any credible evidence that a majority of people from the Donbass wanted to leave? Or in Kherson or in the Zap oblast?

Better system than your “referendums are only legitimate if they agree with what I want” perspective.

So you do, what, reject or accept all referendums do you?

You still haven’t given me a single reason to accept the Russian referendums held in 2022 in occupied Donbass/Kherson/Zap as fairly conducted.

No, it was not.

The OP claimed, or strongly suggested that China is more democratic than the west. This seems farcical given the points I raised.

I also bought up their poor journalistic and political freedoms.

And yes, that is my point.

Make me. You can’t.

I will never stop replying.

The point is that Iran or Palestine or China, or whoever being unjust targets of US/western imperialism or bad faith allegations or genocide doesn’t automatically make their societies egalitarian or democratic. Both things can be true.

Because obviously you do actually know what the difference is, and are just trying to waste time.

No, I do not. There’s no difference here. The question remains unanswered: What’s the difference? Would it be justiified for France to notice that Wallonia hasn’t held a referendum on joining them, invade and then hold their own referendum there?

And now they don’t. So why should they still have to be the one overseeing the referendum?

Why should a referendum take place at all? Should military conquest be legitimised by sham elections? Why should I trust that Russia would hold a free and fair referendum here?

Of course, we’ve already gathered you pick and choose on this matter.

So all proposed referendums are equal, in your mind? The 1938 Anschluss was completely fair, was it?

You know, you can support the principles of self-determination (and the referendums that usually accompany that) whilst also acknowledging that referendums can also be used by revanchist or expansionist state actors as a tool to legitimise their conquest.

No, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Whether it is “surprising” has zero bearing on the point at hand and you’re only bringing it up to waste time and dodge the point.

Is it not a reasonable response? Would you not expect a state to reject another country invading and occupying their territory and then trying to legitimise it through a referendum?

And what point am I dodging?

This is all completely irrelevant nitpicking, and you know it.

How is this irrelevant, and nitpicking?

Sounds like you don’t actually believe in people’s right to self determination at all.

How do you determine whether or not an election is rigged or held with severe conduct issues, from your perspective?

Seems to me that given hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, most of them likely pro-Ukraine had fled Kherson, the Zap Oblast and portions of the Donbass - that any election there would be illegitimate on those grounds. But what about the timescale? Were people openly permitted in those regions to publicly campaign in favour of remaining in Ukraine? Were there any debates?

Here’s a question for you: why should the PRC trust any referendum that the RoC does that suggests the people of Taiwan don’t want reunification?

There’s election results and opinion polls over decades in Taiwan that consistently show the people there do not want to “reunify” with the PRC. But above all else, you present your position as unfalsifiable. How do you determine how a people’s will should be shown?

Sounds like you only support referendums you agree with the outcomes of. Not to mention you’re ignoring the referendums that took place before the Russian invasion.

You mean the referendums that only took place in 1/4 of the Donbass?

Moreover, when did I say that? I already told you that it’s likely that given the demography of Crimea, that they would vote to rejoin Russia. It’s less clear in the donbass and given that Russia is hardly a nation that does honest electioneering, I don’t really trust the validity of their referendums (nevermind the issues too with an invading power organising the referendum that would legalise their takeover).

That was your logic, dumbass. You can’t even remember your own claimed position anymore

So when do you respect self-determination then?

My logic is that a region should decide if it wants to join another country or not, or become independent, and not a neighbouring country that historical grievances over it breaking off. There’s an immediate and obvious conflict of interest when a larger neighbour invades and occupies a portion of another country and then immediately holds a hastily designed referendum. Are you implying that every single referendum, no matter how it emerges - the result is automatically above board and should always be respected?