This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
That is a large amount of slack created by the AI. Typically that much slack in resources can be used to do many things. Resources are transferable between economic sectors in the long term. I have no doubt that communism would escape any blame in this scenario, but yes I'd still say that is a massive failure of communism that basically destroyed resources on a massive scale.
The outcome was certainly foreseeable after the fifth or sixth attempt. Which is how many attempts singular countries racked up trying to do these farm reorganization schemes, or "land reformation". Less people died in the later attempts ... but there were also less people to feed.
The failure of communism in these cases was a failure of understanding base incentives. They had magical thinking that their reorganization scheme would work. They treated humans like chess pieces, and assumed they would just work themselves to the bone for no reward. If communism is not responsible for these starvation deaths, then there is no meaning to the word "responsible". I can't conceive of a line of thought that absolves communism of these deaths. You say there is one, but you'd have to lay it out for me very carefully for me to understand.
They are called death tolls, and not murder tolls. Some of the "holocaust deniers" use these same kinds of wheedling arguments. "they weren't outright murdered, they were just starving in this camp because there wasn't enough food for everyone". Why was there a food shortage in Europe ... because there was a war. Why was there a war ... because the Nazi's started one. Likewise with the communists, all roads lead back to fingers pointing at the communist government. At certain levels of power, casual indifference and outright hatred are equally effective at slaughtering millions of people.
And if you are a smart communist and realize this is not going to work? I think I can conceive of that. In a counter-factual world where they transitioned differently would that prove Communism right or good? I don't think it would. But the opposite of that means that transitioning badly, doesn't on its own prove communism wrong or evil either. (But repeated failures should be a clue!)
I think communism is pretty bad actually, but I do think if we look at say land-enclosure in England (which increased efficiency) but concentrated wealth in fewer hands, resulted in rural depopulation and emigration to America and cities to become labourers, is not seen as terrible simply because it increased wealth overall. (Comparisons to the Rust-belt are clear of course). If land-enclosure had been driven by communism (which it could have been, it was all about centralizing control in fewer hands) would its overall success be attributed to communism? Should it be?
So I am not saying communism should be absolved of deaths, just musing on how closely the motivation behind communism is tied to the methods of change employed versus how similar methods in different places at different times might be deemed "successful". I don't have a particular answer.
The problem with communists wasn't that they weren't smart. The problem was that they had an ideology tracing all of the world's problems to capitalism, capitalists, speculators, landlords and so on, and offered full proof scientific solutions in the shape of their economic system. If the latter didn't work, the former must have been to blame. What you're doing is like speculating about "smart scientologists" that didn't blame everything on thetans and suppressive persons, or... well, "smart Nazis" that didn't blame everything on the Jews.
But the specific issue was about with agricultural reforms. Even if they believed that X needed to happen, there are a number of different ways to achieve that. A smart Nazi might still think Jews were to blame, but might have preferred exile to death for them, perhaps because it might be safer for Germany.
Wasn't that exactly what the Nazis originally were trying to do? Wasn't it only after that didnt work our, and things started going worse for their country that they started coming up with "final solutions"?
Yeah, that's kind of my point. Could that have worked if they planned it better? Did Nazism requiring killing Jews? Did Communism require the famines, or could there have been other options to get the result they were aiming at?
Which is not to say that Communism or Nazism are good, but that even within these ideologies there are presumably smarter and dumber ways of going about things. How much is the blame of the ideology itself? Now, it's also true I think that an ideology that can give good results without needing a crew of geniuses is probably better than one, that only works if you have 170IQ people running the show. because you probably won't.
Maybe, but the point is they'd still be the kind of people that throw a genocidal fit if things don't go their way.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link