I hate doing these quote-heavy replies but yeesh, please forgive my lack of narrative structure:

Now, why oh why does the Skull Famine not have relevancy on the political climate? That’s exactly my point.

Oh lookit, another version of what your point was. No, other famines aren’t depoliticized - they’re just not particularly relevant to modern discourse.

Just a small remark:

Hey look, documenting methodology! I heartily approve!

Funny to me that you hadn’t seen any of this before

What? It’s one paper in an obscure journal. Why would

Especially now that sensibilities with Ukraine are high, I wonder, why is it that similar studies but regarding the impact of capitalism in Ukraine aren’t constantly discussed? […] Given your original dismiss when I talked of drug abuse, organized crime, suicide rates, malnutrition and preventable disease, I doubt it.

Did you even read either of the papers you linked? Hell, even Cockshott’s pretty rough paper has a couple sections devoted to why this isn’t a straightforward conclusion, and things like alcoholism started prior to the dissolution of the soviet union as a result of things like Khrushchev’s attempt to implement prohibition. Neoliberal ideas were pervasive sure, but it’s not like they were inflicted on the USSR by outside forces - the post-stalin neoliberal movement was aggressively suppressed explicitly because of it’s popularity, which was due to a whole multitude of factors (doubtlessly the CIA fondly wishes to be included in that list)

Cool, but I addressed that already. I already gave you the Brazil example.

You made a completely unsupported claim, provided sources for an entirely unrelated claim, now you’re again attempting to assert that first claim is true without providing any sources while insisting the second claim matters. Come on man you said this was easy. Hell, one of your own previous sources provides an astoundingly solid explanation of why your position (that a doubling of life expectancy in the 30s is notable) is pretty spurious.

Comparative economics can be matched to pretty much anything, like you’re doing here. Without actual substance to back you up it’s meaningless. You can’t just wave the magic statistics wand, point at a single graph and then draw whatever conclusions you like and then hope to maintain any shred of credibility when challenged. You’re just making this up to try and force your conclusion through, and it’s getting sad.