You are conflating two different problems here imo - Choosing one but not (mostly equally harmful) another thing to restrict, and government banning something as a way of restricting freedom Regarding first one - I don’t are a problem here, everything else can be addressed after this one, but even if it’s not, it’s still a net positive, I don’t understand your argument here naming this policy bad because it doesn’t do all or nothing Regarding ban as a restriction of freedom - banning something just lies on the far scale of taxing something - i.e. the more you tax something, the less people can afford it (tax is always passed onto consumer), so at some point only rich people can afford to smoke which is even worse than ban imo There’s a benefit in additional money from taxes, sure, but tobacco is already taxed quite a lot so this is nothing revolutionary, and the more taxes on something the less revenue from it at some point (considering that less and less people can afford it) Banning it from the certain age and not for everyone is obviously to not make existing smokers suffer and make younger population healthier Some things just should be banned, like murder for example, when there’s no benefit from that thing to anyone at all You would agree that products with lead or coke in in should stay banned and not be sold, right?

Going 35 vs going 30 on collision increases chances for pedestrians to die by up to two times btw

Yeah such an American take lol

In EU I would be glad that anyone going over speed limit is fined, even 1kmph, these rules are there so drivers don’t kill pedestrians. If someone is afraid to be fined for going 1kmph over limit, just slow down a bit

Problem is “why now”, but also comparison to username field is not really valid - username is actually useful, what’s the point of birth date apart from age verification? You need some kind of username to converse to fellow engineers, birth date is completely unnecessary for that

Not arguing for or against the gulag point but this graph doesn’t prove anything apart from the fact that in 40s-50s there were medical advancements that reduced mortality rate of prisoners (duh) Proof that works here would be number of prisoners in gulag per capita for example (which would paint completely different picture btw)

One argument I heard about him throughout the years is that he is just afraid of retaliation so he dogwhistles instead but in this day and age nobody who is actually a nazi or conspiracist hiding it anymore and they are not getting any repercussions…

I wouldn’t assume that he supports any of the book content just from having it on the bookshelf. You are not a nazi for having Mein Kampf on the bookshelf (worst example I can think of and it would be uncomfortable at most). If all you have on bookshelf is nazi/conspiracy propaganda though then it’s another topic

Not sure why is he lunatic, but he definitely apologised for and acknowledged what he’s done multiple times

You are just privileged idealist disappointed in your own system so you try to latch on something completely opposite in order to belong somewhere. I have experienced living under one of those systems and fleeing it to one of the “West Bad!” countries. I am both envious that you didn’t have to go through this and pitying you that eventually you will be disappointed in your new “Good Country” choice

Polls in authoritarian countries are notoriously more positive about own countries than in democratic ones due to insane amount of propaganda (yes, even compared to US). In which next country do we di polls next - Russia or North Korea?

Not sure about OP, but I think that yes, end goal should be banning alcohol consumption completely.

It’s more nuanced that that - he definitely doesn’t want USSR back in terms of economical or political system as is, but he does want to bring back USSR in the name (to get legacy and accomplishments association) and get the same consolidated power to build the totalitarian oligarchy somewhat similar to USSR, but without some checks and balances that were still present even in USSR

I believe Singapore is liberal authoritarian, many of the original policies are progressive even to this day

Valve also said they are not willing to sell hardware at a loss so there is that

If you pay attention to what Russia does internally and externally, Russia fulfills every one of those requirements except the last one (because they can’t, but they would be very happy too)

Honestly can’t tell if it’s satire

That’s an interesting topic btw - what is the way for any dictatorship to work well for everyone’s benefit in theory? If it’s dictatorship of the wise, would smartest people get put into place with absolute power? Is it an expectation that people currently in power pass power voluntarily to wiser people? Would there be a framework that determines wisest people and it would be decided upon by the popular consensus? Isn’t it technically still a democracy if people trust in the framework/system that governs how smartest people are decided upon?