The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Zablorg]

timmy are you high

don't do anything stupid ok

[Questor]

Can you imagine an anime version of Animal Farm?

I really don't want to...

[Zablorg]

oh i thought he said "animal version" and i was like

[timmy]

I really want to see the pigs get their comeuppance

[Bounty]

China is not that bad once you get used to it. It's fucking commercialized out the ass though. Even my shitty apartement building has an LCD screen next to the elevators blaring commercials 24/7. Communism lost.

[Oxymoron]

That feel when the last big communist country in the world looks more capitalist than a western european country.

[RyanThunder]

Of course it lost, it was fighting a long held human tradition of fucking up everyone and everything ever, unlike capitalism which thrives on, no, enshrines destructively self-centred attitudes.

We can't have nice things because you're all such fucking morons that you think this is good or efficient.

[Darksi4190]

Of course it lost, it was fighting a long held human tradition of fucking up everyone and everything ever, unlike capitalism which thrives on, no, enshrines destructively self-centred attitudes.

We can't have nice things because you're all such fucking morons that you think this is good or efficient.

I'd say communism fucks people in the ass just as much as capitalism does, it just does it in a different way. The only reason that capitalism's body count is higher than communism's is because capitalism has existed for centuries, while communism was a relatively short social experiment that only really lasted about 100 years.

[RyanThunder]

I'm not advocating communism. I'm saying we have a childishly irresponsible system in place, and the attitudes that it perpetuates makes concepts like communism (or, hell, any sort of public planning for that matter) impossible on a large scale.

[RyanThunder]

And besides that, communism devolves into authoritarianism which then installs capitalism again.

[Crazedwraith]

in my totally unresearched layman's opinion that's probably utterly wrong; communism fucks you up because its an uworkable concept/nigh impossible to implement.

Capitalism fuckiing you up is capitalism working as its supposed to.

[RyanThunder]

Right. Human nature being what it is after centuries of this nonsense, it can't be done without comprehensive social engineering.

[Oxymoron]

What do we think about when we say "Communism" ? Are thinking about the Soviet State-Capitalism sort, or something else ?

[Oxymoron]

And yes, social engineering is necessary if you want to institute any kind of reform.

[Crazedwraith]

oxy: Hell I don't even know; just the ultra basic 'communism is where you throw everything in the pot and everyone gets an equal share' sort of thing that I was probably told in primary school or something.

[Oxymoron]

I see.

Well, the thing is that "Communism" as a concept has fairly evolved since the fall of the USSR, at least from what I can see with the French Communist Party. It's become more of a... compromise between the need for a private economy where it's possible for people to create business and participate in an innovative economy ; and the need for everyone to be socially protected from the bad kind of randomness life has to offer.

There is a need for some sort of central planning, but less in a "five year plan" still, and more in a "forecasts say X will happen if we let Y happen / continue, so let's encourage Z". Not a centrally planned economy, but one which is supervised by a voluntarist governement with the common good at the heart of its preoccupations.

[evilsoup]

just because the french communist party have that name, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually communists (see: the UK Labour party, which no longer particularly represents the interests of organised labour)
that sounds more like social democracy than communism, with a bit of 'nudge economics'

[Oxymoron]

just because the french communist party have that name, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are actually communists

Dem be fighting words.

Seriously though, I agree with you. That's why I don't like to label myself a communist, because the meaning of that word, well, isn't what I'd like it to be (you don't say...).

By the way, what's "nudge economic" ?

[evilsoup]

don't ban cigarettes, but force the manufacturers to put plain packaging on them
using psychological tricks to 'nudge' people towards the behaviours government wants to encourage, rather than banning stuff or other heavy-handed measures

[RyanThunder]

To be honest I just want something where we recognize that cooperative is better than competitive.

Then enforce that. Because fuck these guys trying to run me off the road so they can get to work faster, trying to brainwash me into buying their shit whether I need it or not, cutting every corner they can get away with, etc.

[Veef]

man nobody ever mentions The Room is like %40 softcore porn

[Oxymoron]

If that's nudge economics, then yeah, I'm a nudge-economist. Well, except for some stuff where you have to put a hard limit, like worker's rights, and things like that : you don't give a knife to a psychopath, asking him nicely no to stab you, and expect him not to stab you in the back if he can profit from it in any way.


Yeah, cooperation is better than competition. Problem is, more than half of the population has been brainwashed to see competition even at all level of society as an inherently good thing. That the abuses it lead to are just the products of some "bad apples" and not a systemic flaw.

[joviwan]

man nobody ever mentions The Room is like %40 softcore porn

The softcore in The Room is more tame than most R-rated movies. It's also entirely belly-button-humping.

[Veef]

The softcore in The Room is more tame than most R-rated movies. It's also entirely belly-button-humping.

Yeah but I feel bad for the rifftrax crew how had to do this recurring bit where Disembodio walks in with a friend and someone gets offended.

It's like the least funny aspect of the whole thing.

[RyanThunder]

Yeah, cooperation is better than competition. Problem is, more than half of the population has been brainwashed to see competition even at all level of society as an inherently good thing. That the abuses it lead to are just the products of some "bad apples" and not a systemic flaw.

Yeah. Intentional or not, all the advertising and vapid shit we see on TV has the effect of socially engineering society into a collection of petty, materialistic little twats.

Which is why you need deliberate social engineering to undo the damage done so we can have a proper, ordered society that functions smoothly and isn't some kind of de facto oligarchy or plutocracy.

EDIT: imo