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If I could remove the quip I would, but I only said it because I feel passionate about the issue. I sincerely was not trying to bait anyone.

dang 7y ago
I'm sure you weren't, but it was flamebait because it was predictable that the comment would blow up into a flamewar. The issue is the expected value of the subthread, i.e. the sum of the probability distribution of responses. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
jodrellblank 7y ago
It's possible for 20 serial killers to call themselves Christian, and still "not be following Christ correctly", and pointing that out over and over isn't supporting serial killing, and it shouldn't be the serial killers who get to define what "Christian" means. Analogously, "the struggle of the proletariat isn't "the proletariat want themselves put in mass graves" no matter how many times mass murderers put the the proletariat in mass graves saying "but it's what they wanted!". That a central planning economy can be badly and inhumanely run is not, in itself, proof that one cannnot be run well run. It might be the case that it can't, even that it's irresponsible to try; but what you're doing is pointing to mass graves as a kind of emotional reasoning "that is a lot of suffering so don't you dare argue, I win" shutdown tactic. Marx was not famous for saying "The proletariat are looking a bit porky these days, let's get a dictatorship going, kill all the farmers, starve the proles to death and call it utopia" When Britain directed India's wheat production to Britain and starved 7 million people, or Churchill diverted Bangladesh's crop production to Greece and 4 million Bangladeshis starved, or Britain bought granaries in Iran (Persia) in the early 1900s and 2 million starved, those weren't local people determining their food supply distribution in a free market; you said in another comment that your definition of Socalism was "the only real definiton, when the government controls the market and no capitalism exists"; by your definition were these micro-instances of Communism? You're arguing a strawman, and you have a one-word panacea answer: Capitalism. A one-word explanaton which covers many countries over many decades with many problems and many atrocities, one thing to blame for all ills and a one-word answer for everything good. That is unlikely to be the best possible understanding.

dang 7y ago

I'm sure you weren't, but it was flamebait because it was predictable that the comment would blow up into a flamewar. The issue is the expected value of the subthread, i.e. the sum of the probability distribution of responses. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22expected%20value%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

jodrellblank 7y ago

It's possible for 20 serial killers to call themselves Christian, and still "not be following Christ correctly", and pointing that out over and over isn't supporting serial killing, and it shouldn't be the serial killers who get to define what "Christian" means. Analogously, "the struggle of the proletariat isn't "the proletariat want themselves put in mass graves" no matter how many times mass murderers put the the proletariat in mass graves saying "but it's what they wanted!". That a central planning economy can be badly and inhumanely run is not, in itself, proof that one cannnot be run well run. It might be the case that it can't, even that it's irresponsible to try; but what you're doing is pointing to mass graves as a kind of emotional reasoning "that is a lot of suffering so don't you dare argue, I win" shutdown tactic. Marx was not famous for saying "The proletariat are looking a bit porky these days, let's get a dictatorship going, kill all the farmers, starve the proles to death and call it utopia" When Britain directed India's wheat production to Britain and starved 7 million people, or Churchill diverted Bangladesh's crop production to Greece and 4 million Bangladeshis starved, or Britain bought granaries in Iran (Persia) in the early 1900s and 2 million starved, those weren't local people determining their food supply distribution in a free market; you said in another comment that your definition of Socalism was "the only real definiton, when the government controls the market and no capitalism exists"; by your definition were these micro-instances of Communism? You're arguing a strawman, and you have a one-word panacea answer: Capitalism. A one-word explanaton which covers many countries over many decades with many problems and many atrocities, one thing to blame for all ills and a one-word answer for everything good. That is unlikely to be the best possible understanding.