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PaperclipPerfector  23d ago (text post)   3166 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 7, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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no question too simple or too silly

This is a real shower thought, but doesn’t the fact that the USSR was rival superpower to America prove without a doubt that communism actually does work? In fact, it works really well?

Thinking about it, it makes no sense to ever retort “well did it work for the USSR?” when someone brings up the prospect of communism. It worked so well that the communist USSR rivaled America and launched the first satellite. If it didn’t work well, the USSR could never have been a competitor to America. One could even argue that America cultural capital is what really led to American dominance later on, which is independent of political system and relies on America’s unique position as cultural crossroads, but that is beside the question.

  1. Taking Communism on its own terms, historical materialism is refuted by the Soviet Union's failure even if it experienced a period of success. One of Communism's primary doctrines and promises has been the historical inevitability of the Communist form, that Capitalism's contradictions mean that it must inevitably fail, and be supplanted by Communism. This was the official belief of the Soviet Union, and remains afaik the official position of Red China. The failure of the Eastern Bloc and its reversion to Capitalism contradicts the core tenets of Communism as the right side of history. The promise of Communism was never that it could deliver a period of relatively decent development relative to expectations, it was always that it would deliver a permanent world of equality. It had such persuasive power to so many intellectuals in the 20th century because they genuinely found Marx's arguments persuasive, and believed that Communism was inevitable. The failure of the Soviet Union was strong evidence against that belief. It should be noted that the continued existence of Red China should be a riposte, but that still doesn't really fit into a simplistic view of Marx, and few on any side are very pro-China.

  2. Few people are Utilitarians, such that they'll accept any amount of abridged Human Rights for a % improvement in development. The Soviets had a bad reputation for human rights abuses. There is a point at which many of us would "most respectfully return [our] ticket" for utopia.

That being said, I largely accept that argument as regards, particularly, Castro in Cuba. Mostly because the rest of the Caribbean doesn't offer much else in the way of developmental and human rights success stories compared to Cuba, while Poland and Germany are a pretty clear demonstration that Capitalism delivered better results than Communism. If anything, economic results in the Caribbean seem to show that they should have just stayed colonized.

I don't think Cuba is doing that well, even if they're doing better than some of the Caribbean nations. Maybe they're evidence that authoritarianism can be better than democracy, when the voters inevitably elect populists who just turn the country into authoritarianism with a veneer of democracy anyway. I don't think Cuba is evidence that centrally planned economies are better than free markets.

https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/in-cuba-the-terminal-stage-of-communism

No, Cuba isn't an argument that centrally planned economies are better than free markets. It is a reasonable argument that Communist totalitarianism is better than the right-wing, kleptocratic authoritarianism present in other small Caribbean statelets. And certainly better than whatever it is that they have in Haiti! There's a certain context dependence: I wouldn't bring up Cuba to argue that the USA should go Communist, but it's reasonable to argue that Cuba (taking into account the embargo) is way better than other countries which were similarly situated circa 1960, even where those countries have been the subject of repeated rounds of IMF Capitalist interventions and FDI. Cuba's murder rate, for example, is less than half that of the DR, and 1/10 that of Jamaica and 1/5 of much wealthier Mexico!

My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.

My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.

Umm, I know the theory of this is that economic growth-> more powerful third world countries which conquer their neighbors and impose a superior system. But in practice I think population sizes enable human wave attacks and borrowing that lead to mass immiseration through war. Like Russia is probably going to impose its system on Ukraine soon enough.

are you going to say that that poor backward Russia conquers rich Ukraine due to number superiority?

I think Russia conquers Ukraine and entrenches the kleptocratic mafia state system which would have gradually gotten better under polish influence.

The best example would be the Congo or Somalia, where we've seen decades of perpetual and miserable disorder.

In a world where the UN did not enforce arbitrary border set on an arbitrary date, Congo and Somalia's better-run neighbors like Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda would have a motivation to conquer, integrate, and administrate regions of those countries. Right now, only altruism can motivate anyone to help organize one of these failed states. We've outlawed any sense of enlightened self-interest.

...but Ethiopia is lost Eritrea and has problems with Tigray. Still better than Somali, thought... wait... why the international community accepts secession of Eritrea and South Sudan but does not accept secession of Somaliland?

We've outlawed any sense of enlightened self-interest.

Similarly, study of genetics of humans is backward because slavery is illegal, nobody can't design 200 IQ obedient slaves and profit from it.

My overall opinion on third world development remains that the 1st world countries need to collectively agree to legalize conquest between third world nations, abolish any international recognition of existing borders, and give it 30 years to sort itself out.

I'd agree something needs to be worked out regarding the 3rd world that probably wouldn't be politically correct, but I doubt that would work pretty well. Even if you're willing to callously sacrifice potentially billions of lives over those 30 years in order to get a better future over the up coming centuries, and you don't think there's any risk of those wars spilling over into the first world or using nukes, I don't think it'd actually result in disfunction ending. I think you'd get a lot of the dominant conquering countries not completely wiping out the populations of their conquered territories, whether out of pity, apathy, or to use the populations as poorly compensated labour. And those sorts of minority populations would just be another perpetual source of human misery.

I don't really know what would be the best solution to 3rd world disfunction, but fortunately I think genetic editing + AI will solve most problems in the long term.

and you don't think there's any risk of those wars spilling over into the first world or using nukes

If 1st world nations somehow agree to legalizing conquest in Africa, they can work out so they don't get nukes as well.

I'd be more worried about the conflict dragging in Pakistan/India/China who are borderline undeveloped themselves and already have nukes

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