30 Of The Best “Did It Hurt?” Memes That Are Trending On Twitter

And your archival research says that the USSR was prosperous how exactly?

Well if we look at living standards on collective farms for example, people had better access to education that provided social mobility, such as tractor driving courses, electricity was being introduced into villages, manufactured goods were becoming more accessible and were frequently given out as rewards for hard work ( particularly bikes and phonographs). Collective farmers had the opportunity to visit health resorts, the network of rural doctors and birthing houses was expanded. Collective farm women were given mandatory maternity leave and farms built nurseries to help working mums. During the busy season temporary cafeterias stepped in to provide food again freeing up women from household duties and women were allowed to occupy positions of power and divorce their husbands quicker. You could also just google me and read my work. Most of it is available for free as open access.

Free education is a great achievement. However, there is still a massive difference in the quality of life and economic growth for the US and the USSR. Then there's also Stalin coming along. And the Berlin Wall.

You do know the Berlin wall had nothing to do with Stalin and wasn't in the USSR right?

Of course, I do. It does have something to do with the USSR, though. Notably the fact that East Berliners were leaving.

BERLIN IS NOT AND NEVER WAS PART OF THE USSR. And if you think the Berlin wall was built primarily because people were leaving , not as part of international tensions the US was escalating you have a poor grasp on history

Berlin was ruled by the USSR. And it is true that the quality of life in Eastern Europe (run by the USSR) was much worse than the quality of life in the US. Of course, the Nazis did play a large role in this, but the US played a large role as well.

The DDR did have its own government as did other satellite nations. It's like saying West Germany was "ruled" by the US, which is deeply simplistic to the point of being untrue. The standard of living, as well as the number of political parties allowed, land ownership rules and tolerance of religion among other important things varied significantly between states. And again you are missing the fact that most of these countries had been underdeveloped prewar and then were decimated by the war.

I apologize. You are right, East Germany wasn't ruled by the USSR. However, the two are still very closely tied. The American Marshall Plan helped Western Europe recover from the Nazis and was much more successful than what the Soviets attempted.

What about gulags? GULAG is an acronym that encompassed a lot more than camp life including infrastructure planning and if we are speaking about camps even at their height the majority of inmates were convicted criminals not political positions. As for what suggests the USSR was prospering you can find information on standard of living, such as an increase of living space per person, increased educational opportunities, increased access to consumer goods, health care etc. The big blip is WWII and as I said Nazis burning through your country does tend to do that

"the majority of inmates were convicted criminals" And the crimes they were convicted of were nothing more than digging up a potato, protesting when the state confiscated the last of their property, begging for food, etc. "you can find information on standard of living, such as an increase of living space per person, increased educational opportunities, increased access to consumer goods, health care etc." 1: I need your source for this. 2: American Capitalism lead to much more growth and prosperity than what the Soviets achieved, and that is assuming they actually achieved anything.

And you seem to consistently ignore the fact the US didn't have to rebuild after WWII and ignoring the impact of the Great Depression in the 1930s or differentiated outcomes based on race.

That is true, the Soviet Union did get screwed over in WWII. But it is still a lie that the USSR was more prosperous than America, or that communism is better than free-market capitalism.

I don't think I ever said the USSR was more prosperous than the US. And it would depend on the time period. In the 1930s the USSR did have significantly higher economic growth than the US ( See above mentioned Great Depression) In other periods it would depend on which markers of prosperity you use and what demographics you looked фею

Thank you for this discussion, then.

See this is where a decade of experience in research helps. The fact is the majority of convicts in the late 1930s were not in the GULAG for theft but for labor violations and personal property was guaranteed in the 1936 constitution, with the Soviet state actually prosecuting leaders who illegally seized property. I have covered some of that in an article on Expulsion that was published this year in Europe Asia studies and I have a book chapter in the works coming out through Toronto dealing with taxation and local officials being prosecuted for illegally seizing property. As for the standards of living if you want to look at the 1930s you could look at Kotkin's Magnetic Mountain or Sheila Fitzpatrick's "Everyday Stalinism". If you are interested in post war, Artemy Khalinovsky has a good book out on development projects and increasing standards of Living in Central Asia and Aaron Hale Dorrel looks specifically at the role of agriculture in improving living standards in "Corn Crusade"

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You would rather live under Mao than in the US? Under capitalism, life expectancy has been up, access to food and water is increasing, science and technology is advancing, poverty rates are decreasing, deaths from famine are way down, child mortality is down, and deaths from preventable diseases are down. For the first time in forever, more Americans are dying from OBESITY than starvation! Think about that!

Because healthy food has become an unafforable luxury? I don't see that as an improvement

Why do you think food is unaffordable? Getting fat proves the opposite is occuring. Anyways, what about all my other points?

I said healthy food. There is a reason organic markets like Whole foods get called "Whole Paycheck". I suggest you look at the impact of food deserts and actually read what I write instead of what you assume I wrote.

Where's the proof that healthy foods are unaffordable? Anyway, I do apologize for my mistake.

It literally took 3 seconds of googling. Here is an article about the UK https://theconversation.com/3-billion-people-cannot-afford-a-healthy-diet-160139, here's one from the US https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4509496&page=1

Any amount of high-calorie food, easily available, is a great accomplishment in my book. Compare this where they don't have food at all, healthy or unhealthy. Anyways, what about my other points? EDIT: Vegetables cost roughly the same in the US and in Europe. It's only that junk food is so much cheaper here.

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They are now tenured professors. That's what 'easy' means.

Oh you are crazy if you think being a professor is easy. And tenure track jobs are disappearing like mad.

Setting your own schedule, getting Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer breaks, working only a few days a week (at minimum), etc. Sounds easy to me.

WOW. First profs don't set their own schedule, the university scheduling department does. And there is a lot of work that goes into being a professor that is outside the classroom, such as researching materials, creating lessons, putting all that material on the electronic learning platform, researching, writing editing, grading literally hundreds of papers, committee work etc. And normal countries offer citizens about a month's paid vacation in most jobs.

"WOW. First profs don't set their own schedule, the university scheduling department does" Outside of classes and meetings, they do set their own schedule. "And there is a lot of work that goes into being a professor that is outside the classroom, such as researching materials, creating lessons, putting all that material on the electronic learning platform, researching, writing editing, grading literally hundreds of papers, committee work, etc. " I'm saying that at the absolute minimum, they don't have to work much.

Um again no we don't. There are a lot of departmental events, scheduled office hours , committees you have to be on etc. And I love how you ignore literally everything I said about the out of classroom load.

Research isn't required after tenure. Grading and writing are necessary, but is still a tiny amount of work for someone who makes 100k. Yes, those are set by the department, but aren't very common.

AHAHAHAHA!!! Research is TOTALLY required for tenure. You have to have a minimum number of publications and in journals or database indexes of sufficient rank, which are either long term projects ( it takes 2-3 years from submission to publishing) or pay to play and very expensive. And I don't know where your friend teaches for 100K but that is NOT the average tenured prof's salary and if they live in work in someplace like California, that's actually not a lot of money

"AHAHAHAHA!!! Research is TOTALLY required for tenure." Of course. It is necessary and is a key component in getting your tenure. However, AFTER tenure, research is a choice and isn't required. 100k is still massive, considering you don't have to work that much compared to other professions.

I know plenty of people who HAVE worked hard and ended up hugely successful because of it. So yes, to say NO correlation between hard work and success under capitalism is a pure bullshit platitude. As is we're all "screwed" unless we're "born into wealth". The level of hyperbole in this place is so ridiculous

When that happened it was because they didn't work smart. Who thinks they're going to get rich with a degree in art history. And, again I know people who worked their butts off getting their PhDs, and now have it easy.