Help, I can't convince people who have more direct experience than me that they are wrong

The thing is that it’s not even really “socialism” that the Chinese guy is is complaining about here. He’s complaining about the authoritarian aspects of the Mainland Chinese government, which is not the same as socialism. And the fact that the tankie can’t understand that is just… I don’t even know what to do with it at this point.
- The CCP's authoritarianism stems in part from their attempt to implement the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The concept itself is pretty weird.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat
  
  But it was never that, from the instant Mao gained any real hold on power in China. He subsumed the entire movement, and fundamentally corrupted it, in much the same way that Stalin did.
  
  Notably, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't meant to be an actual dictatorship. Marx saw feudalism as the dictatorship of the aristocracy, capitalism as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, so by analogy socialism (or the prelude to it, at least) would be the dictatorship of the proletariat—rule by the people for the people. It's not meant to be a dictatorship in the way we use that term today.
  
  The dictatorship of the proletariat is just democracy. It's just the people getting to govern themselves instead of a select Elite few. There's really nothing weird about it, the weird thing is thinking that a small closed-knit group of authoritarian Elites can ever implement the dictatorship of the proletariat because by definition they are not the proletariat.

the region where Hong Kong is
Can't even just say Hong Kong? Does that make us sound too independent or what?
- It is kind of sad since Hong Kong hasn't really been independent for years
- Maybe they meant Canton?
  
  Wouldn't they just say Shenzen then? That's also a huge city many people know, and it's on the mainland.
- Mentioning Hong Kong means that China is weak
- The socialist seapeoples are socialists too.

An actually communist society where everybody has equal influence would be a direct democracy.
Authoritarianism is the enemy of the communist utopia the creators of the ideology dreamed about.
- Communism has the same problems as the Free Market.
  It doesn't prevent selfish people from fucking it up completely for everyone else.
  
  Ok grandpa let's get you your pills.
  The commies are gone, we won the red sca~ i mean marketplace of ideas
- Authoritarianism is the enemy of the communist utopia the creators of the ideology dreamed about.
  Can you give an example of this? I'm curious
  
  The inspiration of Communism came from the idea of Utopian Socialism, which is the free, equal, classless, moneyless utopian society that is the end goal of Communism.
  An authoritarian state controlled by a dictator, like the ones .ml tankes worship, can never be classless, free, or equal.
  
  This framing is irrelevant.
- direct democracy
  That's one way it could be done. It could also be a republic or a parliamentary system.
  Direct democracies suck.
  
  Has there ever even been a direct democracy?
  We could easily do it today with an app, but historically i don't think it's been done.
- Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaah direct democracy is pretty awful too. The problem there is that most of the people have no understanding of what they're voting on. You don't want every single person voting on every single issue, unless you want a society that's bogged down in details and backwards. What you want is to find experts that actually understand a subject, and appoint those experts to deal with the issue. Which, in theory, was what we had with various gov't agencies, before the systematic defunding of them. E.g., you can't rationally expect the average person to understand all the ins and outs of climate science/collapse, or what policies/steps are required to prevent it (minimize it at this point).
  But the problem with that is that you can easily end up with a bureaucracy that doesn't answer to anyone at all. Which, if they're actually all experts in their given area, and genuinely working for the best public outcomes, isn't bad, but can seem bad. And if they're not experts, then it's actually bad.
  
  What exactly is the basis for your argument? Sounds like US defaultism
  
  Take a moment and realize that "tyrrany of the majority" is literal propaganda to make stupid people throw away their freedoms and embrace a tyrannical minority.
  You shouldn't repeat Capitalist propaganda, it has no substance
  Human beings are perfectly capable of being their own masters.
- Communism doesn't "work" with anything but totalitarianism
  
  Totalitarian planned economies exist today, they're called "Walmart" and "Amazon". You think they'd stop functioning if people had more of a say and didn't have to piss in bottles anymore?
  
  Lazy propaganda
  
  Share the crack.

I don't like how they go around trying to convert people. They are honestly a lot like evangelicals.
- they are like linux users who are trying to convince people to join the evil.
- basically consevatives, they sound alike, talk alike, and believe alike.

It's no wonder they suck at "converting" people, they know nothing about how socialism works. Nevermind the fact that they see it as "converting" rather than just having an open discussion, I can almost guarantee these people will immediately swing around the "no actually soviet union was based" or "nono you dont understand, china was mega based they needed to starve out the population" in a discussion once they lose their patience. If you ever get a chance to talk to these people irl, try to have a convo about a stateless society. I can speak from personal experience, when you bring that up, their mind goes blank, and they will start to sound less like a communist and more like a right-winger.
These are the people that give socialism a bad rep.
- For them “socialism” is binary. Either it’s rampant authoritarian dystopia or modern capitalism.
  They reject nuance and the varying levels of social policy that can be applied even to capitalist styles of governing.

I wonder why extremists hate liberals so much. They all talk of liberals with such disdain.
- Liberalism is the old establishment. They want an extreme alternative to that. So of cause they do that.
- Liberals are capitalists first and foremost. Profit over human rights every time.
  
  Who isn't profit over human rights every time?
- Its actually quite simple. Fascism is not a bug of capitalism, but a feature. If theres an economic crisis capitalism tends to swing against marginalised groups in order to stop the working class from revolting against their true oppressors. If you finally want to defeat fascism you have to defeat capitalism.
  
  cause all non capitalist, especially countries have been the best countries in the world to live in, with best freedom indexes, most civil rights, happiest people and no mass murders, tortures, deaths rapes etc at all.
  Just dont look at any real facts or history. Only consume propaganda from authoritarians.
- It's because they've written off the populists as worthless and instead focus on the PMC liberals who are prioritizing DEI over class. Liberals see themselves as being closer to the capitalists than the filthy poors.
  The truth: populists are way easier to convert than liberals because their class interests are the same as yours. They've been told lefties have dumb priorities but if you come in saying "jobs and families matter more than bathroom drama" they're going to give you a chance.
  
  Bathroom drama is a thing that the right wing populists made up out of thin air.
- Capitalism in crisis leads to right wing populist fascism and it is the liberals via the ratchet effect that give rise to authoritarian control for the capitalist class. Just wait. The liberals are too busy making investments in AI to bother with our silly rights. And you'll see Trump will win a third term if he lives long enough. I mean, if you have framework, historical knowledge and you've paid attention long enough, you see the same reoccurring patterns. America is an imperialist nation and fascists are the useful idiots of empire. You know, we'll see how this goes. Eventually, you know, it'll get real enough for you to wake up and smell the coffee. If you're comfortable, you won't probably see it from... the tankies point of view. Oh, also. The United States supported Hitler during World War II. Tell me I'm wrong. https://ohdbks.overdrive.com/ohdbks-clermont/content/media/3778967 Hitlers American friends
  
  That's a long way to say "just read theory bro"
  
  You're absolutely right yet for some reason everyone here hates it.
- To be fair liberals are on average dumbasses who lack any sort of imagination of anything ever being better.
  
  That's a really broad brush you got there. You can replace "liberals" with "people" here and be correct.
  Even the term "liberal" is broad. Do you mean the modern political left, as in Democrats in the US? Or do you mean the original definition of liberalism, which was what the US was founded on?
  
  What about progressive liberalism?

The tankie would easily be able to convince their friend if they said China is never going to convert to communism, but communism was tried by lots of indigenous tribes and it worked great.
- Tankie is not an anarchist....
  
  Well there's the problem!

It seems like they both agreed that there is no middle ground/compromise so they’ve got that going for them.

I cheerfully install kitchen cabinets made by cheerful Vietnamese communists and then I tell the homeowners that they have helped to support a Marxist regime that was once oppressed by capitalist Americans.

"Direct" "Raised in America"
- do you have an alt?
- Weird username
  
  Nah, I get it.