If we're at anecdotes I know people from former Communist countries and their experience were worse than that, with many deaths within the family intellectuals

If we're at anecdotes I know people from former Communist countries and their experience were worse than that, with many deaths within the family intellectuals in one case. As a result they tend to be staunch pro-capitalists, to a fault. Under tyrannical regimes some people manage to live fairly reasonably well while many suffer. I don't doubt that but it doesn't invalidate a clear general trend. During a long time under a capitalist regime academia was a refuge of smart and freethinking people. The "real socialism" sounds like a "true scotsman" fallacy. Why wouldn't you apply the same standard and consider that the time academia was working prerry well in capitalist countries was "true capitalism" and the current state of failing academia (to a degree) is a symptom of a "false", degenerate form of capitalism? I think your comment can be interpreted in different ways, but if I was to go with the more measured version I think you should agree with Godelski's points more. In particular there isn't even really one example of a communist country that evolved with the political stability that democracies did. I'm not sure that if such a thing had happened, it wouldn't have devolved with the same bureaucratic tendencies --which goes back to my first point: given the level or brutal instability metric hacking could not arise.