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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   28626 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 2, 2024

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The conflict with Nazism is a conflict theory conflict. Nazis have it good under Nazism, so they cannot be reasoned out of trying to do a Nazism, only suppressed.

The conflict with Communism is much more of a mistake theory conflict. Even the Communist elites had it worse than Capitalist elites under Communism, and it's more of a common knowledge that Communism was bad for everyone in general. That's why it doesn't need as much suppression.

It's the same "the right thinks the left is stupid, the left thinks the right is evil" thing, which rings true in the first place because the right-wing ideologies are usually the pragmatically selfish ones.

Even the Communist elites had it worse than Capitalist elites under Communism, and it's more of a common knowledge that Communism was bad for everyone in general. That's why it doesn't need as much suppression.

The notable problem with Communism is not that it made people generally poor. The problem is the vast amounts of rape, torture, hideous murder, rampant slavery, mass starvation, occasionally intentionally induced, and the general pattern of systemic efforts to mutilate the souls of those unfortunate enough to be held in its thrall. The fact that you have bypassed these to argue for common knowledge that Communism is bad because even elites weren't as rich as westerners rather underlines the point.

Communism is in fact a conflict theory. It is in fact predicated on making things good for Communists, and is explicit that this should come at the expense of non-communists, who are to be exterminated without mercy. It cannot even be argued that "non-communist" was a category one chose for themselves; communists routinely assigned the label on the basis of who your family was, and even on ethnicity when convinient.

I firmly believe that the left is evil, and am baffled that others are confused on this point. Certainly there has never been an empire more evil than Communism.

Certainly there has never been an empire more evil than Communism.

Nazi Germany, Pol Pot, Japanese Empire, Aztecs are strong contenders.

One of those four was part of the Communist empire, and another allied with them to initiate wars of aggression.

Still, "among the most evil empires in history" is far more fitting than "Certainly there has never been an empire more evil than Communism."

How many of them lasted as long, or held so many in thrall, or caused so much damage, or brought us so close to much, much worse?

I stand by my original statement. The nazis lasted twelve years, and roughly the same for the Japanese empire. The communists held power for nearly a century, and ruled something like a third of the whole world for roughly two generations, killing and brutalizing an absolutely staggering number of people in that time.

Note that "empire more evil than" is distinct from "caused most damage overall". Unless you go with some strict variant of ultrautilitarianism.

Aztecs killed far less people, but they remain strong contender to be more evil. Maybe in a quite tragic way as they actually believed own religion.

Similarly, nazi Germany is in my opinion more evil than USSR.

If you count overall damage and count all communists as one competitor, then yes they caused most damage overall.

Aztecs killed far less people, but they remain strong contender to be more evil. Maybe in a quite tragic way as they actually believed own religion.

In what way are they "more evil"?

Similarly, nazi Germany is in my opinion more evil than USSR.

Why?

I would consider deliberate mass murder combined with being an oppressive corrupt empire as worse than treating cretinous well intended idea too seriously and predictably becoming an oppressive corrupt empire.

Germans entirely deliberately planned to oppress/murder others, as a goal. While Russians were more selective (a bit) and it was not entirely whole point. I guess that puts Aztecs also above Third Reich for me.

Not sure where to put Mao, this level of murderous incompetence and tyrany is quite unique and whole class by itself.

(not that I rate USSR high, just a bit above Nazi Germany and Aztecs)

More comments

Debating five year peak evil versus career Evil Above Replacement and Evil Efficiency versus Counting Stat Evil Accumulation. Can we come up with an equivalent for an Evil Dak Prescott with good evil stats but they're all in evil garbage time?

I feel sad that I am not getting this joke :(

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wins_Above_Replacement helped a bit

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The fact that you have bypassed these to argue for common knowledge that Communism is bad because even elites weren't as rich as westerners rather underlines the point.

As others have noted, there were rape, torture, hideous murder, rampant slavery and starvation in many states across history, generally eased back on as such atrocities started to be less economically efficient and contributing to state security than not doing those things. So the notable thing about Communism is that they decided to do those things, up to eleven, and got nothing good in return. Elsewhere you say that those things would be immoral even if they resulted in great economic efficiency, and I agree, but I could find quite a few people even here on this forum who seem to be ready to return to premodern atrocity levels in return for some societal gains.

Communism is in fact a conflict theory. It is in fact predicated on making things good for Communists, and is explicit that this should come at the expense of non-communists, who are to be exterminated without mercy. It cannot even be argued that "non-communist" was a category one chose for themselves; communists routinely assigned the label on the basis of who your family was, and even on ethnicity when convinient.

I think it's obvious the way Nazis determined their outgroup was quite a lot more rigid and, dare I say, final, than the way Communists did it. I'd guess there were more Communists of noble or otherwise undesirable descent than there were Jewish Nazis.

When there's no basis of injecting yourself into the power structure other than power, it doesn't look as bleak as having to be a blonde blue-eyed white man.

Also, I don't mean to say that Communism is a mistake theory, but that normies view "current society vs communism" as a mistake theory fight, as opposed to "current society vs nazism".

I firmly believe that the left is evil, and am baffled that others are confused on this point.

When you call an entire half of the political axis evil without even stating where you believe the center it, it does get confusing, yes.

The notable problem with Communism is not that it made people generally poor.

Of course this is the problem with communism. If all of the horrors of the USSR and red China had resulted in societies five times as prosperous as the US in material terms we’d all be communists now. The fact that the economic systems failed utterly is what makes communism disastrous. The torture, the killing, the brutality, (I exclude the starvation, which is a direct consequence of communism as an economic failure state), that is all sadly very human, very common, very widespread (certainly until very recently) in every corner of the world. What is particularly communist is that on not one occasion did it achieve anything like the mass popular prosperity achieved in comparable nations under capitalism.

Of course this is the problem with communism.

I fundamentally disagree.

If all of the horrors of the USSR and red China had resulted in societies five times as prosperous as the US in material terms we’d all be communists now.

In the first place, if the USSR and Red China could actually produce five times the prosperity as the US, they likely would not have needed to resort to the violence. This is the basis of plausibility for "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism".

In the second place, I don't think torture, rape and murder can or will ever produce superior prosperity to their absence, so I don't think the question is actually meaningful. If we're going to chase the hypothetical, though, I'll happily reject the idea that economic abundance and moral justice are mutually fungible. It is not immoral to be poor. It is immoral to murder, rape and torture. This does not change even if the torture, rape and murder are enormously economically productive. Those who think otherwise and manage to make a go of it should be properly categorized as hostis humani generis. No mortal man is fit to prey on his fellows. Those who forget this should be reminded of their mortality.

The torture, the killing, the brutality, (I exclude the starvation, which is a direct consequence of communism as an economic failure state), that is all sadly very human, very common, very widespread (certainly until very recently) in every corner of the world.

I am skeptical that Communist Russia is actually typical in its rates of torture, murder and brutality. I think we can find other regimes that were similarly brutal, but those regimes are likewise unusual.

What is particularly communist is that on not one occasion did it achieve anything like the mass popular prosperity achieved in comparable nations under capitalism.

What is particularly communist is that it created notable brutality more or less out of whole cloth. We can accept that the Aztecs, in the end, gradually devolved into a society built on slavery and murder. What is surprising is that the Communists built such a society from scratch overnight, out of otherwise reasonably decent, peaceful human beings.

so they cannot be reasoned out of trying to do a Nazism, only suppressed.

The conflict with Communism is much more of a mistake theory conflict. Even the Communist elites had it worse than Capitalist elites under Communism

That doesn't mean they can be reasoned out of communism. I've made this point before, but ideologies based on good intentions are often no better than ones based on blind hate. There's no limit to what a man can do, if you convince him it's all in the service of the greater good.

and it's more of a common knowledge that Communism was bad for everyone in general. That's why it doesn't need as much suppression.

This makes no sense. If fewer people believed communism was bad, than you'd have even more people arguing it doesn't need to be suppressed.

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