Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AutomataKittay]

Well, use your own nation's flag and symbols, or whatever your simple friend holds up as anti-communist ideals.  I was just using the US because it's been such a bitter enemy of communism in the past.  The point is, it sounds like your friend is more of a knee-jerk reactor than someone who thinks things through, so you can probably make him do a 180 if you hit him with some powerful surface symbolism.

Or alternatively, magma him! Uh, wait, no, that's for nobles.

I've gotten a few people's attention by talking about how I take care of my dwarves and keeps them out of trouble, I suppose the friend won't listen anyway unless the dwarves are trying to mug each other over that one fancy sock everyone just had to have and they're all in tattered rags because they can't afford anything. Capitalism HOOOO

Come to think, I had that problem a few times in 40d. I rather like this communal model and I can be a nice Big Brother to take care of them, it's pretty easy to go from extreme scarity of early founding to post-industrial utopia in a few years.

It can be pretty hard to drop the reflexive knee-jerk when it comes with such past, though, and even harder for those that's actually lived through it.

[Kerbalrocketry]

"communism is the idea of a free society with no division or alienation, where the people are free from oppression and scarcity. A communist society would have no governments, countries, or class divisions."

So logically your friends world order would have;
Many Governors with unlimited powers over the people, where their is high resource scarcity and oppression, and where birth/race determine your social standing with large gaps between these Classes with no hope of somebody born into one being able to gain entry to a higher one.
Which basically describes the USSR, food for thought really.

Your friend has made the same mistake as Stalin, what he thinks is communism is basically the complete opposite and is what's today called "Stalinism", which pretty much any one with half a brain thinks is one of the worst things next to Feudalism and Racism.

[tahujdt]

Feudalism was actually fairly enlightened for its time, especially post-Magna Carta. Still was pretty bad, though.

This game uses the communist model because theoretical communism is the easiest to model. At the other end of the spectrum, capitalism is really really hard to model. (This is why most attempts to manipulate the whole market, usually made by a government, fail miserably.) For that matter, I can see how a capitalist dwarf market would most likely fail miserably, either through insufficiencies in the model or excessive player meddling. Simulated capitalism would probably have the same penchant for failure without the penchant for success.

Either way, DF is not really a game about economy. Logistics, maybe, but not economy.

[kaenneth]

Just mod 'Goblins' into 'Commies'

Now the goal of the game is to defeat the Communists!

[weenog]

Just mod 'Goblins' into 'Commies'

Now the goal of the game is to defeat the Communists!

Imagine the ragegasm when kidnapped/liberated dwarfs turn up as part of Commie invasion forces.

[PatriotSaint]

Hmm... don't get why he thought it was communism, considering there's gonna be a full-fledged capitalist economy implemented soon (though he probably doesn't know that)

Besides, at this point there isn't really any actual government; right now it's more like the "undesirables" are sent there to die, which explains why so many cheesemakers and beekeepers keep arriving.  :/

[PatriotSaint]

And about the difference between the "label" and "content" of Communism, there is no content.

It's not that communism has never existed, it's that Communism in Theory is different from Communism in Practice, the same way finding a way to survive without food or water for a month without warning in Theory vs. Practice.

Communism (in practice) only works on the smallest scales, when it gets any bigger it falls hard, and before it falls it manages to execute a few million people.

[kaenneth]

A Dwarf Fortress is basically a 'B' Ark.

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham

[PatriotSaint]

A Dwarf Fortress is basically a 'B' Ark.

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham

I don't really follow or know much about Hitchhiker lore, so as I was reading the article all I was thinking was "wut iz dis" the whole time.  xD

[lue]

Once the economy is implemented in DF, I hope you could turn it off for when you don't want to deal with the headache of a full-blown capitalist economy. I'd think the most natural place for such an option would be on the embark screen (unless Toady wants to handle sudden and abrupt switches between models during a fort's operation).

Slightly more on-topic, I think everything I could have said has been already. It's a shame though; not only did he not give the game much of a fair chance, but he only correctly knows part of Communism (the economic part which allowed him to identify the system, but not the social part, which is less "totalitarian dictatorship" than "highly improbable utopian dream").

Thinking about it, DF is closer to socialism than communism: an economic policy shares some of the wealth, but everyone still owns stuff, and a government holding the civilization together.

(Apologies if I've severely misused some terms here; been a while since I've looked closely at styles of governing and the like.)

[AutomataKittay]

Once the economy is implemented in DF, I hope you could turn it off for when you don't want to deal with the headache of a full-blown capitalist economy. I'd think the most natural place for such an option would be on the embark screen (unless Toady wants to handle sudden and abrupt switches between models during a fort's operation).

There're a switch for it in d_init.txt, I've used it in 40d. Though I think it's only internal fortress economy, but that should take care of most woes.

[tahujdt]

A Dwarf Fortress is basically a 'B' Ark.

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham

I LOLed at this.

[Pancakes]

Damn reds!

[Loud Whispers]

The one thing we can learn from this is that DF needs sickles.

[MrWillsauce]

The one thing we can learn from this is that DF needs sickles.

Farming is for humans. Real dwarven communists wield two hammers. The proletariat will rise and bludgeon you all to death! Twice!