Print

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

Definitely yes.

Technically yes.

Technically no.

Definitely no.

Uncertain.

Other.

Don't care.

[Zrk2]

That's a pretty offensive blanket statement, dude.

Also, I have a couple communist friends, and all they ever talk about is how fat-cat assholes are profiting off their labor. So basically they feel the same way about capitalism as you do about communism.

It's pretty funny when you think about it.

Yes I appreciate the irony of people who ascribe to different ideaologies all making the same complaints against others. Oh the pathos! Shall we continue the discussion then?

[Nikov]

I love people ducking behind 'I'm offended' when they subscribe to an idea of world revolution and class warfare.

[fqllve]

I love people ducking behind 'I'm offended' when they subscribe to an idea of world revolution and class warfare.

Uh, I'm not a communist. I'm apolitical. I subscribe to the idea that I will have to read 300% more books than I already have to be qualified to make political judgments.

Yes I appreciate the irony of people who ascribe to different ideaologies all making the same complaints against others. Oh the pathos! Shall we continue the discussion then?

By all means.

[Zrk2]

Uh, I'm not a communist. I'm apolitical. I subscribe to the idea that I will have to read 300% more books than I already have to be qualified to make political judgments.

Ah, the cult of moral greyness. Instead of "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I propose "Judge, and prepare to be judged."

Think about it, in school (where I still am) they complain about the 'bystanders enabling the bullies,' yet they are merely not judging. You should judge every action you encounter and act in response to them, therefore acting in a way constantly guided by your morals, meaning you will act in a more moral way due to it.

[fqllve]

Firstly, morality is different from political theory. The two overlap, sure, and one has to have an understand of ethics to have any real understanding of politics, but ethics is something we have to have.

Secondly, I'm not advocating fence-sitting. What I'm advocating is knowing I am not educated enough to form any sensible positions on the subject so reserving judgment until I'm at least remotely qualified.

Of course I have a morality, and of course I act consistently with that morality. I'm not the type of person to sit by and watch bullying, but I am the type of person who keeps his mouth shut on something he knows he's clueless about. Politics is a quagmire that I'm not ready to get involved in yet. And there are way too many books on linguistics I have to read before I can even consider touching economics.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Obviously i was referring to the wind when I said "Same with windmills."

Yes, but it was funnier to interpret it the other way.

Secondly, you claim to endorse equal rights, yet you argue for fewer rights for the rich, meaning your arguement is contradictory, and therefore invalid.

I never made such a claim, nor did I argue for fewer rights for anyone. I pointed out that communism doesn't call for a dictatorship, but a "tyranny of the working class", with the aim of facilitating the transition to an anarchist state. That's a rather silly idea because a) lol anarchism, and b) the working class wouldn't speak with one voice, and hence the process would be fraught with division and infighting (much like the USSR, which naturally perverted the idea because the most violent faction just killed off the others, and then proceeded to itself get hijacked by the most psychotic member of its upper echelons).

Thirdly, no philosophy will ever work in the real world because people will always act in an immoral manner. Therefore some government controls will always be necessary.

That's... basically what I said, though I wasn't so cynical about it. Most people will act in accordance with the mores of their society. Some won't. If one does not have the means to force others to behave fairly, as is the case with most of the population, one requires a higher authority to enforce justice. The problems enter into the picture when the corrupt are powerful enough to pervert that authority, and either cause it to cast a blind eye on their own breaches of conduct, or to cause it to strike out at behaviors that cause no injustice out of personal hatred or insanity.

Communism is doomed to fail because it is self defeating. No system that argues for enslaving the productive to allow the lazy to mope around could ever succeed.

That's... the exact opposite of communism. In fact, I believe what you're describing right there is pure capitalism. Communism is, quite literally, "hey, the workers should own the machines they use, and the land they use, and use their labor to help everyone else (including other workers, obviously), so everyone's taken care of and no asshole can live in luxury while leaching off those who actually work and lording it over them" (in other words, anarchism), it just includes some preceding stuff theorizing about how one would go about transforming the brutal hyper-capitalist hellholes of the nineteenth century into anarchist utopias.

I will mention Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a bad author, a horrible person, and an even worse person to base your political standpoint off of. Even libertarian cranks denounce her.

[Criptfeind]

Sir Pseudonymous, are you fighting for or against communism?

[Zrk2]

I will mention Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a bad author, a horrible person, and an even worse person to base your political standpoint off of. Even libertarian cranks denounce her.

Exactly as I predicted. Perhaps we could look at her philosophy and not degenerate into a flamewar?

[x2yzh9]

Obviously i was referring to the wind when I said "Same with windmills."

Secondly, you claim to endorse equal rights, yet you argue for fewer rights for the rich, meaning your arguement is contradictory, and therefore invalid.

Thirdly, no philosophy will ever work in the real world because people will always act in an immoral manner. Therefore some government controls will always be necessary.

Communism is doomed to fail because it is self defeating. No system that argues for enslaving the productive to allow the lazy to mope around could ever succeed. I have had this argument so many times before. You will never see reason, I will mention Ayn Rand, flamewars will ensue, and Nikov and Realmfighter will go homoerotic on us.

The End

Equal-as great as; the same as (often fol. by to  or with ): The velocity of sound is not equal to that of light.

1)So, with that in mind, we are saying equal. The poor would GAIN things, the rich would lose things. They balance eachother out-Are you just reading what you want to?

2)Hurr durr anarchy

3)Now that is when the principles of the government in question come into play. Do they have a welfare system or likewise? You may receive the same amount of things, but you must work for it. No work, no food, no electricity, nothing. Simply because of the fact that you must input labor to receive goods or productivity. When they say 'fruits of your labor' it can be meant in a literal sense, too. You do no labor, you receive no fruits.

Now, Communism argues for equality of everyone if they participate in the project and ideal. Communist countries are as able if not more-so than capitalist countries. Look at Russia in WWII and the advancement of Russia since it employed communism! It went from large rural country to large super-power!

He's probably just sad about his poll results.

Frankly, any economic or political ideology is a pretty shitty ultimate goal. I say we focus on surviving the sun's death and then go from there.

Nah, it's pretty even. I'm fairly certain lots of Americans are going "NO NOT COMMUNISM" and closing the window.

And you don't understand Marxist communism.

QFT

[fqllve]

I will mention Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a bad author, a horrible person, and an even worse person to base your political standpoint off of. Even libertarian cranks denounce her.

Exactly as I predicted. Perhaps we could look at her philosophy and not degenerate into a flamewar?

Sure, I'm reading the Fountainhead right now.

Why does she spend time describing the beautiful granite cliff face and lake on page one only to have Roark talk about consuming all of it on page two? Does she want us to think he's an asshole for willingly cannibalizing his own peaceful spot or does she just not see why that would bother anyone?

Also, isn't Roark totally a Mary Sue? It's painfully obvious Rand wants to bone him. "His face was like a law of nature." lol

The prose isn't bad though.

e: I do kinda side with him over the Dean. But he's a little extreme in his utilitarianism for even me.

[Zrk2]

Of course he is a Mary Sue, he is supposed to be her idea of a perfect man.

Russia only won WW2 because it was huge, cold and Germany was over extended and unequalized for it as well as fighting on two fronts. Then they just threw men at them

[fqllve]

I know. I just think that line is funny.

I actually was hoping you could explain the cliff-face part because it really bothered me and I don't get it. Sure Roark is leaving the school, he will never come to that spot again, but does he think there isn't anyone else worthy of experiencing that place or does Rand feel like all the earth is for man to consume? Is this situation at all made clear by her philosophy?

[Zrk2]

I have not read the Fountainhead in a long time so I am not sure. He probably feels that all of society is undeserving of the spot because they do not live according to his morals, and therefore do not deserve it, meaning he would develop it to deprive them of it. Also she felt that humans should develop all the earth so long as it was in their best interest. She wrote it in the 40s and set that scene in the 20s (?) and so the idea that conserving it would be a good idea was totally off the radar for her.

[The Transcendent Tyrant]

I never said I did, in fact I'm pretty sure I've said otherwise. In fact I don't really understand any political system which is why I've avoided arguing the merits of them and instead focused on utopianism.

What exactly did I say about Marxism that was incorrect?

Marxist communism isn't REALLY a political system. It's more the concept of a natural evolution from a capitalist society to one of, essentially, organised anarchism.

To quote Wikipedia: "In Marxist theory, communism is a specific stage of historical development that inevitably emerges from the development of the productive forces that leads to a superabundance of material wealth, allowing for distribution based on need and social relations based on freely-associated individuals."

Every single possible dream of every person (or at least every socially acceptable dream) leads to the concept of Marxist communism. The idea that there is so much wealth in the world that there is no need for it to be situated amongst the few.

I love people ducking behind 'I'm offended' when they subscribe to an idea of world revolution and class warfare.

I love people who make snide remarks instead of actually contributing to a discussion.

It's barely one step above "TL;DR".

Secondly, you claim to endorse equal rights, yet you argue for fewer rights for the rich, meaning your arguement is contradictory, and therefore invalid.

The idea is that the rich contribute as proportionately as they control wealth.

Higher taxes on more expensive things means that they give more money percentage wise but it's equal with the amount of money the people that can afford those things generally have. Hence the idea of "mansion tax". People who can afford to spend over one million pounds on a house deserve to pay a higher tax because they generally have a paygrade much higher than your Average Joe. By which I mean ridiculously larger in such a way that your normal taxation methods don't work.

Communism is doomed to fail because it is self defeating. No system that argues for enslaving the productive to allow the lazy to mope around could ever succeed.

Except that's not the concept at all. The idea is that people contribute in the things they want to and are capable of. Instead of being forced into terrible jobs because they aren't able to afford an education or something like that, people are able to attend places of learning for free to learn whatever skills they want and can do. (Sadly generally not the case in England nowadays due to FUCKING COSTS FOR UNIS, but whatever.)

It's meant to increase productivity, not decrease it.

For the unemployed who are not in education or training, give them enough to live on but not enough to thrive on. It's an easily sustainable system.

I have had this argument so many times before. You will never see reason, I will mention Ayn Rand, flamewars will ensue, and Nikov and Realmfighter will go homoerotic on us.

Oh, come on, man. Do you really believe that bullcrap? Even Ayn Rand didn't believe that bullcrap. She wrote the books, for one, and she lost out on a large amount of her royalties because she wanted to put stuff in the books that the publishers wanted to cut, for two, and for three she was just a crazy, shitty writer kinda like L. Ron Hubbard but more irritating and whiny.

Not to mention the Roark bullcrap. I bet she was masturbating whilst writing that book seriously.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Sir Pseudonymous, are you fighting for or against communism?

Neither and both. I am defending the concept against blatant falsehoods, but reject it because I reject its goal of anarchism as infeasible, because that's just going back to square one socially, only with the technology to rapidly accelerate it into the worst parts of cultural development, and because even in the short term, while it was still functioning as best it could, it would inherently sabotage the technological advancement so necessary to the singularity and post-scarcity economics through decentralization and the logistical clusterfuck that would result from trying to operate a modern society without power structures to handle organization.

I will mention Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a bad author, a horrible person, and an even worse person to base your political standpoint off of. Even libertarian cranks denounce her.

Exactly as I predicted. Perhaps we could look at her philosophy and not degenerate into a flamewar?

I've actually read about objectivism, as explained by objectivists, and had dealings with a good number of the bastards in the past. They were all, without exception, horrible people, as can be expected from following such a contradictory clusterfuck as Ayn Rand's rantings, most of which were guided by her desire for power for herself at the expense of her followers, see: the article I linked to. Written by a prominent Libertarian no less.