RE: U.S. Sanctions are to Blame for Venezuela's Increased Poverty and Chaos, Not 'Socialism'
The crashing of the price of oil has had a totally disastrous effect on the Venezuelan economy by wiping out their export revenues. As Venezuela has never been even remotely close to any sort of self-sufficiency, this has understandably had a massively catastrophic effect on social well-being in the country.
The simple fact is that you don't need American sanctions to explain the economic collapse of Venezuela while the definitely have made it worse.
At least 20 people died as a result of the US cyberwarfare attack that left Venezuela without electricity this last week.
Have you read @lanzjoseg's comment on this? He made some pretty strong counterarguments to your claims? Why don't you address them? You sound off like a passionate anti US government crusader. You are talking about Venezuela. Why do you not address arguments put forward by informed Venezuelans?
Hubris is a silly conceit, and humility is both underrated and enables reason to better provide factual bases for understanding reality. Believing you are competent to make such judgments when you demonstrably do not have salient facts necessary to base such judgments on reveals much about you, and nothing at all about Venezuela. If you want to be seen as reasonable, you should consider only making statements with factual basis.
According @lanzjoseg, the plant hydroelectric plant in question that, according to you, fell under a cyber attack by the USA, did not have any digital equipment. Why do you not address that and the other points he made?
While oil price has, as I previously stated, undeniably impacted Venezuela's income, how much impact is impossible to extricate from the excessive noise that obscures that specific signal. We can't know how much prior economic interference already had impacted Venezuela prior to price affects, nor if such interference abated after oil prices exerted their influence - which could practically eliminate the actual effect of oil price changes, if such intereference was severe enough.
Without actual data WE CAN'T KNOW. Assertions are therefore nothing more than opinions based on assumptions, and have no basis in provable data and relevant facts.
As to the assertions your friend is making absent actual data to separate signal from noise, they can only be just what I have indicated: assumptions, and since data to support them is not available, they cannot be anything more.
As an American, I do not dispute that I vehemently oppose my authority being usurped to murder people around the world, surveil Americans without lawful justification, or any number of crimes against humanity that are provably laid at the feet of the USG. I don't think that makes me un-American. Instead I note that the statements of the founders of this country, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence which they composed to institute it, and the inherent rights and sovereign authority of natural persons endowed by virtue of their actual existence with those rights, are the very essence of America, and those are things which I support unreservedly, not only for me, my family, friends, community and nation, but for all people everywhere, in all times, and under any circumstances.
Lastly, do your own research. The Guri dam was controlled via PLCs which aren't particularly sophisticated and are practically ubiquitous in such facilities. If your friend asserts that pre-1950s tech was used to build the dam and was never upgraded, I must seriously question his integrity.