Unrelated to the thread, but I find unmotivated disagreement (expressed with downvotes) also poisonous. I think it would be interesting to allow downvotes only in combination with a "downvote comment" expressing the reason of the disagreement.
I'd prefer to live in Switzerland. More economic and social freedom. Neither Russia nor China have too much social or economic freedom so honestly I just think the comparison doesn't make sense. Sure, someone at some point claimed Russia tried liberalism/democracy, but it was a lie, it was never tried. There's less scarcity now that in Soviet times, for sure, but it's still a crony government with no freedom of expression, which is kind of similar to China. However there's way less freedom in China probably.
I guess this unpopular yet factual opinion is shocking to some people: I am watching the downvotes pile in with a bag of popcorn.
It's quite weird just after reading the karma whoring article yesterday!! But I stand by my opinion.