Print

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

[KittyTac]

Still, modern-day Russia is less oppressive than Stalinist Russia, as one example. There are fewer totalitarian regimes now than in the last century, in any case. I wasn't joking about that.

Now, can we put this thread back on its rails before Toady has to intervene?

[Yoink]

Okay, well, can you see how "less oppressive than Stalinist Russia" is a bit of a weak argument? I understand that you don't personally feel threatened by your government due to your lack of the gays, spicy memes or criminal intentions, but this is basically saying "Meh, it was worse back in those days, let's just let 'em keep doing what they do."

Also the argument I was responding to was that they are "hardly getting more oppressive," not "they aren't the absolute worst governments ever to exist".

Plus, those old tyrannical regimes lacked all this juicy modern technology we are inundated with these days. Can you imagine a totalitarian government with current tech-levels at its disposal?! Wait, that might be the plot of 1984...
Hell, it's hard not to become some sort of dystopia when you have a billion and one ways of keeping tabs on your citizens. There need to be more city-building games that focus on this aspect...


Edit: just saw your edit. Sure, if you wanna.
I'm not trying to be "heated" or anything, just making idle conversation. It has been a bit of a derail already, though.

[KittyTac]

My point is that in my opinion, the current governments are not oppressive enough to warrant destruction. But I respect your opinion, even though most people would not go along with it.

[Loud Whispers]

Here's the shtick: the new governments would be exactly the same (if not worse) than the ones that came before them. There's nothing stopping them from becoming oppressive again.

I completely agree with this argumentation; the English civil war, the French Revolution, the Communist Revolutions, the Arab spring, each revolutionary "defence" of liberty replaced the old regime with a far more fearsome one, with an interim period of lawlessness mired in the country being carved up by strongmen. Yet there is a difference between being a revolutionary agitator, constructive towards a reformed system and simply being complacent

[Baffler]

The goal of a revolution, at least in the initial stages, is less often "stop the government from fucking over x number of people per year" and more often "stop the government from fucking over ANY number of US," us being whoever you please. If you're never winning under the current regime and never will, the only reason not to try to change it is fear of immediate consequences. And that only goes so far.

[Reelya]

I think colonial rebellions are often the exception to the above rules.

The likely reason is that in an internal civil war it can come down to neighbor vs neighbor, you get schisms and it's easy to get rid of a lot of otherwise useful people by defining them as supporters of the wrong group. So you end up with the people who actually know how to run anything killing each other off and massive distrust.

In a colonial revolution it's more easy to discern clear sides in the conflict, so the talent pool of people who could actually run things isn't so busy killing each other and pointing the finger of blame. This is more indicative of the American revolution or the Indian struggle for independence.

[Loud Whispers]

I think colonial rebellions are often the exception to the above rules.

The likely reason is that in an internal civil war it can come down to neighbor vs neighbor, you get schisms and it's easy to get rid of a lot of otherwise useful people by defining them as supporters of the wrong group. So you end up with the people who actually know how to run anything killing each other off and massive distrust.

In a colonial revolution it's more easy to discern clear sides in the conflict, so the talent pool of people who could actually run things isn't so busy killing each other and pointing the finger of blame. This is more indicative of the American revolution or the Indian struggle for independence.

I'd say it's less the revolution you should worry about and more the immediate post-revolution world you should be concerned about. As in all the prior examples I listed and even the colonial ones, everything's peachy for as long as there's an obvious common enemy. In England the parliamentarian factions fell apart in religious and political infighting upon the execution of the King, in France it was the Girondins & Montagnards, in Russia it was the Bolsheviks & Mensheviks e.t.c.

Post-colonial revolutions aren't all that much different in that regard. Throughout Africa you had cases where the victorious revolutionary forces in Zimbabwe targeted African farmers, or Uganda's de-Indianisation. Even countries like Malaysia and India where the transfer of power was conducted with fairly good national unity & optimism ended with race wars and sectarian conflict, which resulted in the Pakistan-India split and the Malaysia-Singapore split.

Revolutions in general are a poor way to conduct politics; they tend to encourage a winner takes all approach

*EDIT
The American Revolution is perhaps a notable exception, ACW notwithstanding

[Lord Shonus]

The problem with revolutions is that people who have the ability and knowledge to participate in government rarely find it necessary to rebel- either they're part of the ruling class, and thus more likely to be rebelled against, or the system has enough citizen participation that revolution is not needed to solve the problem in the first place. So the people rise up, take power, and then realize that they have no idea whatsoever what to do with the reins they've just seized.

Besides that, once the war is won, the leaders of the revolution start to realize that they are now the top dogs in the kennel. Now that there's nobody strong enough to tell them "no", they can start getting back at old rivals, undercut new rivals, or even indulge in vices that were heretofore forbidden to them.

This usually results in an extremely incompetent new government, and one that lacks the internal cohesion to survive long enough to figure out what the hell they're doing. Even when you're dealing with somebody like Simón Bolívar that has the prestige to hold things together, that person's influence rarely outlives them, and is thus not enough to offset the issue.

The primary exception to this is colonies that were already mostly self-governing, and thus were simply promoting the colonial government to a national one. The most famous example of this is the American Revolution, but most other British colonies were able to transition well to independence for the same reason.

[MrRoboto75]

Just go the French way.  Behead people until something happens.

[hector13]

People wet themselves with blood?

[bloop_bleep]

Here's the shtick: the new governments would be exactly the same (if not worse) than the ones that came before them. There's nothing stopping them from becoming oppressive again.

...How do you figure?
If there was some cataclysmic event that destroyed a government, I doubt whoever's left picking through the remains is going to somehow form a new, identical government just as powerful from what they can salvage.

It is well known that governments formed out of chaos are very likely to be oppressive and totalitarian. Democracy comes from gradual, incremental improvement, not starting over from a blank slate like you suggest.

[Yoink]

Just a note, I was never promoting the idea of revolution... "revolution" implies a bunchacunce trying to seize power from the existing rulers, 'cause they're convinced they have better ideas on how things should be run.
Generally they suck even harder than whoever was in charge before.

Here's the shtick: the new governments would be exactly the same (if not worse) than the ones that came before them. There's nothing stopping them from becoming oppressive again.

...How do you figure?
If there was some cataclysmic event that destroyed a government, I doubt whoever's left picking through the remains is going to somehow form a new, identical government just as powerful from what they can salvage.

It is well known that governments formed out of chaos are very likely to be oppressive and totalitarian. Democracy comes from gradual, incremental improvement, not starting over from a blank slate like you suggest.

Democracy is massively overrated.
The least shit example of democracy I've seen was that practised by the Orfus pirates of the Greater Teeth, and we all know how that ended up.


Actual, new WTF that I came in here for just now: fished a coffee sachet out of the tub at the office I'm at, opened it, started pouring the coffee into my cup only to realise its consistency and appearance was wrong... very wrong.
It looked more like cocoa powder. A closer look at the sachet itself told me it's expiry date was in January... last year. O.o

That powdery texture it had was apparently mould.

[Loud Whispers]

Drowning a rubber chicken

[pisskop]

omg thats just epic

[MrRoboto75]

Drowning a rubber chicken

Suspected terrorist succumbs to brutal waterboarding (2002, colorized)