Communists, Don't Fear the Reaper....:D

[laurentius]

ah ok. cool hq btw

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Velociryx
You do...which? Wanna distance yourself from Kid, or refute his claim....or both?

I distance myself from Kid. I don't know his system perfectly, given that I skipped throngs of CapCom threads, but he seems to advocate strict egalitarianism, which I oppose.

I don't remind what "claim" you were speaking of in that quote. I believe I remember, however, that you asked Agathon whether Kid was arguing for the one real Communist ideal or not (or something to that efffect).

I just wish to tell you that communist societies can be varied just like capitalist societies. Welfare's Sweden, dictatorial Chile under Pinochet, or highly free-market USA, all are capitalist. These societies may be extremely different wrt their behaviour toward the poor, toward the dissenters, toward worker rights etc., they all share the same premise of private ownership on the means of production. Hence they are capitalist..

I wouldn't know precisely what "Communism" is. To me, the word only describes the ideal of society envisioned by Marx once the Socialist transition was done, and nothing else. In Marx's Communism, there would be no State, and thus Kidicious' idea of a planned economy isn't "Communist" in the original sense of the word.

I imagine the word "Socialism", however, is more open to interpretation. The basic premise of Socialism is that the means of production can't be privately owned. On this very board, we have Odin, who wants an open market made of co-ops; we have myself, who advocates a system similar to welfare countries, only with worker-ownership* of most companies; we have Azazel, who supports a fully planned economy, etc... Most of us also strongly support democracy, although we can have different understandings of "democracy".


*more accurately, worker-management, as the concept "private property of means of production" is meaningless in my system

[Spiffor]

BTW, I read this thread both out of boredom and curiosity. I normally stay clear of Cap/Com threads, and I wanted to pinpoint why.

And I'm afraid to say, Vel, that your behaviour is the reason that makes these threads such a pain to follow.

Unlike most posters coming in the OT, you don't aim at sharing your opinions, nor do you aim at learning something new. You aim at winning debates. Pretty much everytime I read one of your posts, I feel you barely avoided writing "HA! I WIN!" in it.

This here thread didn't start as a genuine discussion thread on Kid's utopia. It directly started with you exposing Kid's contradictory quotes. It directly started with you poking Kid with his own contradictions. This thread is blatantly not intended at understanding Kid's utopia, but it is intended at ridiculing him by exploiting the gaps in his utopia.

Pretty much everytime Kid answers one of your questions, you immediately throw one of his previous quotes -a contradictory one, at least out of context, which is how you show them. It is not out of genuine curiosity, like asking which one has got more reflection, which one actually reflects Kid's vision, but out of making fun of him for being inconsistent.

Your behaviour is completely unlike, say, Anneshm's, because Anneshm showed real curiosity, and not a mere willingness to prove the system to be bad by asking questions.
In the same vein, I remember the only fruitful debate I ever had in a Cap/Com thread: where Kuciwalker and myself exposed and confronted our own political utopias. The questions we asked each other were not "let's see if I can make him look dumb with this weak spot", but it was motivated with the genuine willingness to understadn each other's system. It didn't change our minds (duh), but it greatly contributed to our mutual understanding and respect.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Unlike most posters coming in the OT, you don't aim at sharing your opinions, nor do you aim at learning something new. You aim at winning debates. Pretty much everytime I read one of your posts, I feel you barely avoided writing "HA! I WIN!" in it.

My main concern is understanding other people's opinions, and the next concern is sharing my opinions, but I have to say that I also like to win debates. If I catch someone contradicting themselves, especially someone who gets a lot of respect here, I do mention it. But this is a good post Spiffor, and I should have posted one like it much earlier in this thread.

[Velociryx]

Yep...I readily admit that I'm VERY quick to point out contradictory statements. Quite true.

But I could care less about "winning the debate" because in truth, the debate is not won or lost here...but out in the world, where it is practiced.

In that light, Capitalism has very definitely "won" the debate, and what remains is mostly idle "what if" discussions.

I'll also readily admit that I'm probably one of the "hardest sells" Kid will ever run across, because I reject the greater portion of his vision for the Utopia.

Having had numerous discussions in this same vein, most of my exploratory curiosity was long ago exhausted, because like Anneshm, I began genuinely curious to see what the other side's views were.

Having satisfied that curiosity for the most part, I now want to know what the big improvement is with the newly proposed system, and what it would mean for me personally, having to live beneath its weight, and I think that's a fair question.

If there's a sense of hostility involved in the asking, I would say that it is there for a good reason.

I tend to balk at ideologies that begin with phrases like "after the swift and final blow rids us of all the counter-revolutionaries, then we'll...."

This....makes me more than a shade uneasy, and I think you will agree, with good reason.

So yeah, there's some hostility out the gate. No doubt.

Wouldn't YOU be a bit hostile if you knew at the outset that you're one of the people upon whom aforementioned "swift and final blow" was going to fall?

And that's something else....such a beautifully impersonal phrasing, you know?

Makes it easier to forget that there are faces and names behind each and every recipient OF those swift, final blows, and I'm probably one of them.

Does that make it harder to convince me?

D@mn right it does.

Wouldn't it you?

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Or to sum up:

I'm debating with a guy who wants to put my head on the chopping block.

Granted, not by name...not specifically me. Just the sort of person I represent.

That's what starts the show, and to that end, Red is an excellent color choice.

Blood red.

My blood.

Flubber's blood.

Berz's and Walker's too.

Hostile?

Count on it.

-=Vel=-

[Last Conformist]

Pointing out self-contradiction is just about the only way I've ever got anyone to change opinion in an online debate of politics/ideology/philosophy. This, of course, not to say that people always change or modify position when such is point out to them, but erratic success is better than none.

[Ramo]

Vel, I just looked into the old thread to find the context of the "The counter-revolutionaries will be crushed with one swift and final blow" statement. And I found that it was in response to this question by Flubber:

"How will that happen with the civil strife from all the Vel's and Flubber's that will fight you ."

Clearly, Kid isn't advocating rounding up every capitalist and putting his "head on the chopping block" as you're trying to pass this off as. It was clearly meaningless banter about who would win a civil war. That you take the statement out of context and pretend that it's some sort of call for slaughtering dissidents instead is, frankly, disingenuous.

[Velociryx]

If that had been the first time the phrase had ever come up in any of the cap/com debates, Ramo, you'd be more than right.

But it isn't. You've participated in enough of them to know that. Yes?

-=Vel=-

[Spiffor]

I was beginning to reply to the post you made right after Kidicious', but I saw the following reply while in the "post reply" screen.

This is precisely the kind of posts that irk me.

You use your undeniable writing talent to make your points through style and emotion. And through simplicism. You just transformed the "when the counter-revolution is beaten" to "when Vel, Walker, Berzerker, Flubber et al are killed".

You just represented Kid as some monster who will kill many of the people we know online, and I bet you'd tell he'd kill my capitalist family members and friends if you knew their names.

---

A counter-revolution is the corollary to a revolution. A revolution destroys an old order through force, and it imposes a new order. The old order tries to defend itself, through force as well, and this is called the "counter revolution".
For the matter, I oppose a revolutionary rise to power, precisely because I oppose the spilling of blood. I am completely at odds with Kid in this regard.

However, it is normal for a revolutionary to want to crush the counter-revolution. Just like it is normal for an army at war to want to crush the opposing army.

Not all capitalist sympathizers are necessarily "counter-revolutionaries". Those who'll take up arms for capitalism, yes. Those who'll actively support the capitalist counter-revolution, probably. The others, probably not (unless the revolutionary is especially paranoid).
Revolutions are variable in their treatment of dissenters: compare the Cambodian and the Cuban revolution in this regard. Pol Pot genocided a quarter of his population in 4 years, for plenty of paranoid reasons, while Castro barely touched the civilian population.

---

I remembered you supported the war in Iraq before it started (I don't know if you changed your mind since then). Had we had Iraqi posters here, I'm sure you would have considered it a really insightful debating technique if they told you:

"You're a monster
You want to spill my blood

[some poster we all like]'s blood

[some poster we don't necessarily like, but who is our boy nonetheless]'s blood

etc."

I'm sure you would have loved it if the potential victims reduced all your pro-war arguments to mindless bloodlust. Especially with your knowledge that their chance of being hurt by colateral damage, being civilians, is very small.

[Velociryx]

And...to be fair, it wasn't always phrased exactly the same way, either.

For a while we had great fun with "re-education camps" and threats of sending us all off to them.

Then there were the simple strongarm tactics "then we come and take your $hit" kinna things.

And often...there was just...killin'. Lots of it, or threats of same.

-=Vel=-

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Pointing out self-contradiction is just about the only way I've ever got anyone to change opinion in an online debate of politics/ideology/philosophy. This, of course, not to say that people always change or modify position when such is point out to them, but erratic success is better than none.

More often than not they create a strawman or just not respond. That's from my experience anyway.

[Velociryx]

But Spiff....think about what you are saying for a moment.

You just said that one key difference between you and Kid is that you don't propose a revolutionary rise to power.

Kid does.

That means armed conflict.

So yes...it means that Kid is willing to kill to implement his vision of the Utopia.

That's not taking his words out of context....that's what the revolution IS, as you yourself have pointed out.

That means too then, that *I'm* gonna be on the business end of Kid's gun.

You're telling me that such a condition would not make YOU a bit harder to convince that the revolution is "good for you"?

Would not make you just a shade hostile at the notion?

C'mon Spiff...I think I know you better than that...

-=Vel=-

[Ramo]

If that had been the first time the phrase had ever come up in any of the cap/com debates, Ramo, you'd be more than right.

But it isn't. You've participated in enough of them to know that. Yes?

I can't say that I've followed the cap/com debates that closely, but I don't recall any time where Kid advocated rounding up dissenters to his system.

And no, saying that statement (in that sort of context) multiple times doesn't magically transform its meaning.

If you truly think that Kid believes that sort of thing, surely you can find actual evidence to that effect. That's not out of context.

[Velociryx]

Dreaming of revolution
~Kid's Profile

You're aware of what a Revolution is, yes?

Killin' the opposition and all that?

Guess who the opposition is?



-=Vel=-