4 ms·

There are a bunch of zoomers out there who un-ironically claim Communism is the ideal way of life. I've worked with some of them. I still can't fathom what's go

There are a bunch of zoomers out there who un-ironically claim Communism is the ideal way of life. I've worked with some of them. I still can't fathom what's going on in their brains.

vkou 4y ago
There's a bunch (Well, a lot) of people at all ages who unironically think that we've reached some kind of end of history, and that our current state of society resembles some kind of maximum. They are generally unable to engage with good-faith criticisms of the parts of it that don't work. Don't let it get to you.
lawn 4y ago
And there's a lot of people who dream about going back to the Soviet glory days. And with how the war against Ukraine is going, Russia is on a fast track to relive those memories.
bequanna 4y ago
One explanation I've found pretty accurate: When the young start to become educated (late teens, early 20's) they face the realization that they will be entering the world on the bottom of the economic totem pole. There are two primary responses to this: 1. Realize that the real world is competitive and difficult and much self-improvement and hard work will be needed to thrive. These people put their heads down and get to work. 2. Refusal to address the truth of #1. Frame the real world as some unwinnable game to avoid putting in the required effort to succeed. Distract yourself with structural problems (real or imaginary) far too big for you to have any effect on but keep you from the painful self-improvement that is really needed. Communism preys on the people who are susceptible to the second path.
- medvezhenok 4y ago
  Sort of. I think it's more nuanced than that. Communism rebalances the relative worth of people in society. I.e. my grandfather, an engineer, earned less than a factory worker. An average or passing artist could earn a decent living in the Soviet Union, compared to having scraps today (in relative terms). I notice this calculus as I have an artistic career and a software career. I would like to pursue the artistic career (and am actually pretty good at it), but I would make many multiples less than I currently do in software. This is partly because of how we've financialized/structured the economy (i.e. software monopolies should have been broken up, taxes imposed, etc), not because the work is actually worth less in some sense.
  - bequanna 4y ago
    Right, this is the kind of seductive but ultimately unrealistic kind of thinking that ropes in the vulnerable. Shouldn't people be incentivized to pursue work that they are good at, enjoy AND which society actually demands? If good art is rare and in higher demand, good artists will be able to demand higher pay. If good art is in high supply because many people prefer the artist lifestyle, artists will not be able to demand as high of pay. Both of these situations seem perfectly reasonable to me.
    - medvezhenok 4y ago
      Sort of, but not really. There is a prisoner's dilemma here. People would like [better public transit, more art, you name it], but what's actually produced (and rewarded) doesn't completely overlap with what people want. It overlaps mainly with what _rich_ people want, which is different. The reason investment bankers are paid well is that they make money _for rich people_. If you look at any professions, the closer you are to the money source and to the rich, the more you make. Rich people want to stay rich in relative terms, not in absolute terms - something people always forget (because that makes them able to command other people's time and make other people "dance" for them, not buy gadgets or luxury goods which don't matter anyway). I.e. I would argue that a lot of things that command a high income in the U.S. are actually net-negative for society overall (if we look at the value not in $ value, but in human value). Extracting monopolistic rents, for example. Slumlording. Speculating in Bitcoin. The list is long if you want to really make it.
  - bequanna 4y ago
    > not because the work is actually worth less in some sense. It depends on how you define value. If you mean value in terms of how much money you receive, you actually need other people to agree that what you're doing is worthwhile. If you only care about the feelings that YOU get from doing the work (which is totally OK) your work is still valuable, but don't expect others to provide you value in the form of money when you provided them nothing. In other words, I'm cool with you being an artist. But you can't force me to pay you for your art if I don't want it.
- 62951413 4y ago
  There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War). A total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag not including labor colonies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...). The Communists didn't prey in some vaguely psychological sense, they physically exterminated anyone who disagreed.
  - gpgsource 4y ago
    1. 1,053,829 is from https://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf https://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf. Which has no source on the claimed number. 2. USSR had no extermination camps (unlike the NAZIs), GULAG was a prison system no different from the US Prison system today.
    - 62951413 4y ago
      Tell me you have no ancestors from the USSR without telling me.
      - gpgsource 4y ago
        [flagged]
- vkou 4y ago
  Meanwhile, capitalism preys on people who are convinced that if it weren't for the moochers and layabouts and undeserving holding them back, they would have a life of wealth and respect. Joe the Plumber was the poster child for this, a decade ago.
- revertmean 4y ago
  So, the types are: 1. Keep your head down, work hard and humbly, be a good little serf. 2. Say "screw this", realise there's a ton of wealth in the world and the leeches are taking it all, push for some changes that might actually make a difference in the world. Capitalism preys on the people who are susceptible to the first path.
  - granshaw 4y ago
    Or you know you could work towards owning your own business. There are many pathways to get there, more than in any other country. If you can’t beat ‘em join em
legitster 4y ago
I can at least appreciate someone who advocates for non-Marxist or Leninist forms of communism or just socialism in general. But there has been a remarkable rise of young people who now defend Leninist communism! I think for a lot of people, it's intellectual junk food. A Marxist revolution has a low risk of actually happening in the modern world. And rather than educating yourself on policy and working on advocacy, you get to play in a fantasy world where you don't have to do anything except fight the conspiracy suppressing a natural egalitarian world order.
- CrackerNews 4y ago
  It's the "intellectual junk food" behind the USSR and China turning from backwards peasant conditions to rival global powers. Orthodox Marxist theory States that society must be advanced enough to reach a socialist phase. The nature of the class-based Hegelian dialectics that leads to communism is nebulous and unclear IMO, but I interpret it as something like the fall of feudalism.
  - legitster 4y ago
    USSR certainly industrialized past the levels of serfdom, but individuals were clearly still held back from their full economic potential. It wasn't until AFTER they left the USSR that most of the former Soviet states actually reached modern standards of living. There's nothing to say the revolution actually benefited the average person in Russia more than the natural dissemination of coal power would have. China only began thriving after they abandoned Marxist-flavored communism and integrated markets into their government. Well, it's not just unclear to you. Even if you buy into some of Marx's more coherent ideas, it's such a bonkers idea to form a government with the expressed intent of achieving some sort of vague Hegelian state as outlined by some untestable arguments described in an unfinished work of political critiques. Das Kapital is not exactly a useful guide for creating actual policy.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    If what you care about is rivalling global powers, it's hard to beat US at this game. Conversely, does it really matter one way or the other if the citizens don't see the benefits? E.g. speaking of backwards peasant conditions: USSR had restrictions on peasants moving around until 1974 - before then, most peasants simply weren't issued internal passports.
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
I know one of them. They make some good points against capitalism, but like Democracy is the worst form of government other than all the others, capitalism is the worst economic system other than all the others. But I simply cannot agree with a world that make everybody equal, no matter how much or how little work they do. People who work jobs that require extensive studying (ie, medical doctors) or jobs that almost literally nobody would ever volunteer for (ie, cleaning public restooms) should be rewarded.
- tsukikage 4y ago
  Capitalism alone doesn't do that either though? Doctors, bankers and rich people's children get rewarded. Nurses, public restroom cleaners and teachers don't.
  - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
    Right, but we should. If the state's purpose is to do things like provide education, the state needs to make it worthwhile for people to do the work of education. Despite what some people claim, capitalism is not the solution to every problem. But at the same time, if citizens are apathetic about education, they won't want to pay for it. It's one of those weird catch-22s. If we actually incentivized those jobs nobody wants, they'd get done better, and then people would be more proud of the work, and be willing to pay for it. But because people don't pay for it, the work is done poorly, and so people aren't proud of it, and thus don't want to pay for it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

There are a bunch of zoomers out there who un-ironically claim Communism is the ideal way of life. I've worked with some of them. I still can't fathom what's going on in their brains.

vkou 4y ago

There's a bunch (Well, a lot) of people at all ages who unironically think that we've reached some kind of end of history, and that our current state of society resembles some kind of maximum. They are generally unable to engage with good-faith criticisms of the parts of it that don't work. Don't let it get to you.

lawn 4y ago

And there's a lot of people who dream about going back to the Soviet glory days. And with how the war against Ukraine is going, Russia is on a fast track to relive those memories.

bequanna 4y ago

One explanation I've found pretty accurate: When the young start to become educated (late teens, early 20's) they face the realization that they will be entering the world on the bottom of the economic totem pole. There are two primary responses to this: 1. Realize that the real world is competitive and difficult and much self-improvement and hard work will be needed to thrive. These people put their heads down and get to work. 2. Refusal to address the truth of #1. Frame the real world as some unwinnable game to avoid putting in the required effort to succeed. Distract yourself with structural problems (real or imaginary) far too big for you to have any effect on but keep you from the painful self-improvement that is really needed. Communism preys on the people who are susceptible to the second path.

medvezhenok 4y ago
Sort of. I think it's more nuanced than that. Communism rebalances the relative worth of people in society. I.e. my grandfather, an engineer, earned less than a factory worker. An average or passing artist could earn a decent living in the Soviet Union, compared to having scraps today (in relative terms). I notice this calculus as I have an artistic career and a software career. I would like to pursue the artistic career (and am actually pretty good at it), but I would make many multiples less than I currently do in software. This is partly because of how we've financialized/structured the economy (i.e. software monopolies should have been broken up, taxes imposed, etc), not because the work is actually worth less in some sense.
- bequanna 4y ago
  Right, this is the kind of seductive but ultimately unrealistic kind of thinking that ropes in the vulnerable. Shouldn't people be incentivized to pursue work that they are good at, enjoy AND which society actually demands? If good art is rare and in higher demand, good artists will be able to demand higher pay. If good art is in high supply because many people prefer the artist lifestyle, artists will not be able to demand as high of pay. Both of these situations seem perfectly reasonable to me.
  - medvezhenok 4y ago
    Sort of, but not really. There is a prisoner's dilemma here. People would like [better public transit, more art, you name it], but what's actually produced (and rewarded) doesn't completely overlap with what people want. It overlaps mainly with what _rich_ people want, which is different. The reason investment bankers are paid well is that they make money _for rich people_. If you look at any professions, the closer you are to the money source and to the rich, the more you make. Rich people want to stay rich in relative terms, not in absolute terms - something people always forget (because that makes them able to command other people's time and make other people "dance" for them, not buy gadgets or luxury goods which don't matter anyway). I.e. I would argue that a lot of things that command a high income in the U.S. are actually net-negative for society overall (if we look at the value not in $ value, but in human value). Extracting monopolistic rents, for example. Slumlording. Speculating in Bitcoin. The list is long if you want to really make it.
- bequanna 4y ago
  > not because the work is actually worth less in some sense. It depends on how you define value. If you mean value in terms of how much money you receive, you actually need other people to agree that what you're doing is worthwhile. If you only care about the feelings that YOU get from doing the work (which is totally OK) your work is still valuable, but don't expect others to provide you value in the form of money when you provided them nothing. In other words, I'm cool with you being an artist. But you can't force me to pay you for your art if I don't want it.
62951413 4y ago
There were an estimated 7 to 12 million casualties during the war, mostly civilians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War). A total of 1,053,829 people died in the Gulag not including labor colonies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...). The Communists didn't prey in some vaguely psychological sense, they physically exterminated anyone who disagreed.
- gpgsource 4y ago
  1. 1,053,829 is from https://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf https://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf. Which has no source on the claimed number. 2. USSR had no extermination camps (unlike the NAZIs), GULAG was a prison system no different from the US Prison system today.
  - 62951413 4y ago
    Tell me you have no ancestors from the USSR without telling me.
    - gpgsource 4y ago
      [flagged]
vkou 4y ago
Meanwhile, capitalism preys on people who are convinced that if it weren't for the moochers and layabouts and undeserving holding them back, they would have a life of wealth and respect. Joe the Plumber was the poster child for this, a decade ago.
revertmean 4y ago
So, the types are: 1. Keep your head down, work hard and humbly, be a good little serf. 2. Say "screw this", realise there's a ton of wealth in the world and the leeches are taking it all, push for some changes that might actually make a difference in the world. Capitalism preys on the people who are susceptible to the first path.
- granshaw 4y ago
  Or you know you could work towards owning your own business. There are many pathways to get there, more than in any other country. If you can’t beat ‘em join em

legitster 4y ago

I can at least appreciate someone who advocates for non-Marxist or Leninist forms of communism or just socialism in general. But there has been a remarkable rise of young people who now defend Leninist communism! I think for a lot of people, it's intellectual junk food. A Marxist revolution has a low risk of actually happening in the modern world. And rather than educating yourself on policy and working on advocacy, you get to play in a fantasy world where you don't have to do anything except fight the conspiracy suppressing a natural egalitarian world order.

CrackerNews 4y ago
It's the "intellectual junk food" behind the USSR and China turning from backwards peasant conditions to rival global powers. Orthodox Marxist theory States that society must be advanced enough to reach a socialist phase. The nature of the class-based Hegelian dialectics that leads to communism is nebulous and unclear IMO, but I interpret it as something like the fall of feudalism.
- legitster 4y ago
  USSR certainly industrialized past the levels of serfdom, but individuals were clearly still held back from their full economic potential. It wasn't until AFTER they left the USSR that most of the former Soviet states actually reached modern standards of living. There's nothing to say the revolution actually benefited the average person in Russia more than the natural dissemination of coal power would have. China only began thriving after they abandoned Marxist-flavored communism and integrated markets into their government. Well, it's not just unclear to you. Even if you buy into some of Marx's more coherent ideas, it's such a bonkers idea to form a government with the expressed intent of achieving some sort of vague Hegelian state as outlined by some untestable arguments described in an unfinished work of political critiques. Das Kapital is not exactly a useful guide for creating actual policy.
- int_19h 4y ago
  If what you care about is rivalling global powers, it's hard to beat US at this game. Conversely, does it really matter one way or the other if the citizens don't see the benefits? E.g. speaking of backwards peasant conditions: USSR had restrictions on peasants moving around until 1974 - before then, most peasants simply weren't issued internal passports.

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

I know one of them. They make some good points against capitalism, but like Democracy is the worst form of government other than all the others, capitalism is the worst economic system other than all the others. But I simply cannot agree with a world that make everybody equal, no matter how much or how little work they do. People who work jobs that require extensive studying (ie, medical doctors) or jobs that almost literally nobody would ever volunteer for (ie, cleaning public restooms) should be rewarded.

tsukikage 4y ago
Capitalism alone doesn't do that either though? Doctors, bankers and rich people's children get rewarded. Nurses, public restroom cleaners and teachers don't.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  Right, but we should. If the state's purpose is to do things like provide education, the state needs to make it worthwhile for people to do the work of education. Despite what some people claim, capitalism is not the solution to every problem. But at the same time, if citizens are apathetic about education, they won't want to pay for it. It's one of those weird catch-22s. If we actually incentivized those jobs nobody wants, they'd get done better, and then people would be more proud of the work, and be willing to pay for it. But because people don't pay for it, the work is done poorly, and so people aren't proud of it, and thus don't want to pay for it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]