Aotearoa / New Zealand

Not even to defend Mao, but the “X bajillion dead” numbers come from the black book of communism, which is an extremely dodgy source with really dubious ways to get the highest possible number.

It’s an ideological project that deliberately ignores people dying from hunger in countries exploited by the West (millions per year) to pretend that China under Mao was objectively the worst country ever.

That’s not to say that he’s defensible (I honestly don’t care if he is), but rather that your basis for that specific criticism is literal propaganda published for the benefit of Western moneyed interests.

You're forgetting, they defederated us 😆

I see them out in the wilds of Lemmy every so often, and while their behaviour is a lot better that it was when they showed up here, they're constantly trying to drag their shitty politics into everything.

One example was a classic "what's something you learned embarrassingly late" post, and Hexbears were posting BS like "politicians have our best interests at heart", plus a few other bad takes.

Even on their best behaviour, they're annoying.