Communism is like the sun. It is the natural order and everyone gets as much light as they need

Whereas with a flashlight you can point it at any part of the room you want and illuminate it, but the room as a whole isn't as bright.

Many of my flashlights (I own 3, not trying to brag) are brighter than my ceiling lights by a huge margin and quite easily illuminate a whole room. This analogy only really "works" if you're talking about a maglight from the 90s.

China built an extensive high-speed rail network. But it consistently loses money.

Literally a week ago (China State Railway Group includes high-speed rail as well):

Source: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3276871/chinas-railway-operator-brings-gravy-train-posting-profits-and-lowering-debt-ratios

Also, companies like Amazon and Uber made huge losses for YEARS, so they could increase market share and eventually use their size to incur massive profits later.

That last one especially is insane. “They only focused on short term profit, but also they built a major infrastructure network in that time, but it’s functional instead of profitable so that’s bad actually.”. Just complete whiplash.

That last one got me laughing like J Jonah Jameson

It is shit here but you should actually love it being shit because it is shit because if our librul democracy where you can choose between the polite imperialist right and the rude imperialist right. And because of that our shitty stuff is better than their good stuff.

Whereas with a flashlight you can point it at any part of the room you want and illuminate it, but the room as a whole isn't as bright.

If you take a decently bright flashlight and put it on the floor pointing up, it pretty much lights the whole room. Even a phone’s flash does a decent job at it.

In particular, democratic republics are more stable due to having transitions of power happen peacefully, regularly, and frequently, which helps reduce corruption and, ideally, prevents leaders from being too disconnected from the people they govern.

And how is that working out in practice?

The difference between democracy and dictatorship is like a ceiling light versus a flashlight. The ceiling light won't shine evenly everywhere in a crowded room, some places might get less light and some places might be too obstructed to get any light at all, but all in all the room is brighter. Whereas with a flashlight you can point it at any part of the room you want and illuminate it, but the room as a whole isn't as bright.

Once again failing to understand theory.

democratic republics are more stable

And yet every election cycle you have to trot out how the bad candidate is a "threat to democracy" and today's election is the "most important of our lifetime".

Then there's also the issue of culture war that the bourgeois media and political class weaponizes, pitting worker against worker. The rhetoric is then directly responsible for violence and polticial instability of you so-called "stable" liberalism.

Ah yes, very stable.

As opposed to playing the long game

In particular, democratic republics are more stable due to having transitions of power happen peacefully, regularly, and frequently, which helps reduce corruption and, ideally, prevents leaders from being too disconnected from the people they govern.

This is pretty funny because I’ve seen brainwormed westerners write about how China is incredibly safe and stable, but because it’s ultra authoritarian so everyone is monitored and people are too scared to act out

The difference between democracy and dictatorship is like a ceiling light versus a flashlight. The ceiling light won't shine evenly everywhere in a crowded room, some places might get less light and some places might be too obstructed to get any light at all, but all in all the room is brighter. Whereas with a flashlight you can point it at any part of the room you want and illuminate it, but the room as a whole isn't as bright.

I can feel my political understanding get better already. In taking this analogy seriously, I have come to understand that democracies ... uh ... huh. What is even the point here?

Activating my lib-O-vision, I interpret this as saying that democracy leads to less efficient decision making due to the overhead of including everyone (the bit about some parts getting less light and some none at all) but everyone ultimately benefits (the entire room being brighter). Dictatorship has more efficient decision making because it's only one person calling the shots (the place the flashlight is pointed gets very illuminated), but only a small part of the room (the dictator's favored) gets illuminated by the person holding the flashlight (the dictator).