YourHuckleberry

“We’ll never survive!” “Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.”

I really want to believe that a communist world is possible. Maybe I'm like the pessimists that doubted humans could ever fly. I just don't see it ever working.

I really like that you defined all these terms. It makes it much easier to discuss the ideas when the language doesn't get in the way. Thank you.

Would it be correct to state that every attempt at bringing about communism has failed thus far? From the Bolsheviks to Mao to Castro, none of them have succeeded. Is communism not what those movements were attempting to accomplish? Yes, things went badly, and the end result was not communism, but that doesn't change the fact that those movements had the aim of ending capitalism, in favor of communism.

Every unregulated capitalist economy has devolved

Right, but I'm not arguing for unregulated capitalism. I think capitalism should be highly regulated. I'm arguing for fair markets that reward good actors and punish bad. I'm arguing for continually refining capitalism and fixing the problems. Which is why I keep having this argument. You're obviously an intelligent person, motivated to change society for the better, with a good moral compass. I want you on my side. I want people to want to work on the actual problems, and not pin their hopes on some big idea that will fix everything, because that doesn't exist.

Sure, there have been authoritarian governments that said they were socialist for PR.

This is the cognitive dissonance about Marxism that bugs me the most. You believe that a system such as Capitalism is so flawed that it must be replaced with something else, but you are unwilling to see that Socialism is also flawed in different ways. If you adhered to the principles of pure Marxism, you would see that Socialism as well must be discarded for a better alternative. Instead of seeing that, you will label every failed Socialist state as a fake. We need something else.

Steam engines literally led to the development of electric motors. Steam engines led to steam turbines which led to dynamos which led to electric motors, each invention building off the knowledge gained at the previous step.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Algernon_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo

Your analogy is doubly flawed. Each type of engine you mention has strengths and weaknesses that depend on external variables. Internal combustion isn't better at producing electricity for instance, which is why we mostly use external combustion to do that. Electric motors aren't better than internal combustion, except that internal combustion is causing climate change. It's also flawed because history has shown that Socialism doesn't work better than Capitalism. I could see, if this were purely theoretical, someone arguing the benefits of Marxist ideas, but it's been tried. In several places around the world, people tried to put in place the kind of changes you're advocating. In every case it led to authoritarianism, brutal repression, and starvation. Does it suck that poor kids don't have enough to eat, while Bezos builds space yachts? Yeah it sucks, but it's not millions-starving-to-death levels of suck like we actually, not theoretically, got every time we tried Communism or Socialism or any kind of take-their-stuff-and-give-it-to-me-ism.

Was it straw man, or ad hominem? Are you thinking that I shouldn't have called Marx stupid, or that I misrepresented his concept?

China, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba. Every single time, the state becomes authoritarian and repressive, ignoring human rights, starving and imprisoning huge populations. Eventually it either fails, or the state keeps the authoritarianism, but gets rid of the communism. Look at China and Vietnam. They've transitioned to a mostly market based economy, but kept the authoritarianism.

These are examples of everyone starving because centrally planned economies are a bad idea.

Russia

China

North Korea

Why do Marxists always assume people who disagree just aren't smart enough to understand Marxism? It's not difficult to understand the concept, it's just dumb. Marx was old school I-am-very-smart.

I can absolutely draw you a line from the development of the steam engine to the electric motor to NASA. Every little thing that was wrong with steam engines led to better and better technology. Marxism is like saying, "the steam engine has problems, obviously mechanical engineering is doomed, lets breed better horses."

I see where you're going, but I think it's important to note that the Facebook algorithm wasn't intentionally boosting hate, it just looks to maximize engagement. The unintended consequence is that hate gets boosted because it gets engagement both from the haters and the hated.

Damn it. I fell for another stupid internet fallacy.

Facebook didn't generate the objectionable content. They created a mechanism for people to communicate with one another, like radio did a century earlier. Asking Facebook to check to make sure people don't missuse the platform is like asking radio manufacturers make sure equipment doesn't fall into the hands of evidoers.

What would you have had Facebook do, specifically? What practical steps are you wanting them to have taken? Could those steps be reasonably taken for every country in the world?

In 1993 Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) started broadcasting hate speach in Rawanda. They used technology presumably manufactured and sold by multi-national corporations who had no mechanism to prevent abuse of the platform they created. Should we blame the manufacturers of radio broadcast equipment for the Rawandan genocide?