3 ms·

In the foreword for Animal Farm (in the del Rey edition, I think), Orwell writes that he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes becau

In the foreword for Animal Farm (in the del Rey edition, I think), Orwell writes that he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. Bullshit from scientists is normal. They're just people after all. But people who join the Culture War on one side must necessarily choose Science as a side despite it being just a technique for knowledge, not a team. And then they're forced to defend it in some way. I've posted years ago about how biotech science is sometimes faked https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25926188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25926188 I wonder whether this reaction to a con is necessarily Western, though. I've noticed it in Americans as well. They'll get conned by corrupt politicians and rather than admit the con, they'll defend them and pretend they weren't conned. In the East, the attitude is different. It's more like "damn, well what can you do". Both failure-oriented but different. I wonder if it comes from different structures of pride.

scrubs 3y ago
Stupidity in large human organizations does not favor or exclude the east or west. It's endemic to humans. Wasn't that the essential criticism of "The Lord of the Flies" and, in terms of putative solutions, Volaire's satire in "Candide"? Leaving the conversation at I saw this or that ... is too incomplete. The question is what are we going to do about it. Management at scientific institutions should have more backbone not less on BS data reporting.
deanCommie 3y ago
> he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. I have a lot of empathy for the tankies of that era. It was clear that people like Stalin were truly evil, but it was also clear from centuries of evidence that capitalism was exploitative and needed upheaval. On PAPER, Communism sounds great. I do think people genuinely believed there were simply growing pains and once through them something what today's generation thinks of as the "Star Trek The Next Generation Utopia" could be achievable. There are still people that think it might have succeeded if given a genuine chance, and not undermined by the rich in the west. In retrospect we now know they were wrong, and probably Russia was the worst place for communism to succeed. A society like China is probably the one in which it has the best chance, and even there we see that successful communism requires some free market economics and some pretty heinous repression.
- iraqmtpizza 3y ago
  Everything sounds great until you ask, what if someone wants to opt out?
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    Yeah, but that's not unique to communism. You can't really opt out of current capitalistic economic system either
  - harimau777 3y ago
    That applies to capitalism as well. For example, if you opt out of recognizing private property (in this case, by private property I mean things like land as opposed to personal property like someone's house or car) people with guns will come and destroy your personal property and/or throw you in jail.
    - lupusreal 3y ago
      In capitalist systems, you and your buddies are free to opt out and sign over all your property to a commune. What you aren't free to do is rob other people who don't consent to your commune of their stuff. Because they have the right to not join you, this is the fundamental sticking point that makes communists (literally) murderously mad.
      - harimau777 3y ago
        I don't think that's quite accurate. The sticking point is whether people have the right to own or exclude others from private property (again as separate from personal property), to what degree it is legitimate for individuals to profit from private property, and whether that private property was legitimately acquired. If individuals don't have the right to own or exclude others from private property, then other people using it isn't theft. If the bounty that comes from natural resources on private property should benefit society as a whole (because no individual created them). Then it is unjust for their extraction to be monopolized by someone who claims to own them. If land was unjustly acquired such as through enclosure of common land or colonialism, then it is the owners who are the thieves. It's important to recognize that different branches of socialism are going to see the specifics of these sorts of issues differently.

scrubs 3y ago

Stupidity in large human organizations does not favor or exclude the east or west. It's endemic to humans. Wasn't that the essential criticism of "The Lord of the Flies" and, in terms of putative solutions, Volaire's satire in "Candide"? Leaving the conversation at I saw this or that ... is too incomplete. The question is what are we going to do about it. Management at scientific institutions should have more backbone not less on BS data reporting.

deanCommie 3y ago

> he was asked by tankie friends to keep quiet about the USSR's crimes because they were the best chance for Communism. I have a lot of empathy for the tankies of that era. It was clear that people like Stalin were truly evil, but it was also clear from centuries of evidence that capitalism was exploitative and needed upheaval. On PAPER, Communism sounds great. I do think people genuinely believed there were simply growing pains and once through them something what today's generation thinks of as the "Star Trek The Next Generation Utopia" could be achievable. There are still people that think it might have succeeded if given a genuine chance, and not undermined by the rich in the west. In retrospect we now know they were wrong, and probably Russia was the worst place for communism to succeed. A society like China is probably the one in which it has the best chance, and even there we see that successful communism requires some free market economics and some pretty heinous repression.

iraqmtpizza 3y ago
Everything sounds great until you ask, what if someone wants to opt out?
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  Yeah, but that's not unique to communism. You can't really opt out of current capitalistic economic system either
- harimau777 3y ago
  That applies to capitalism as well. For example, if you opt out of recognizing private property (in this case, by private property I mean things like land as opposed to personal property like someone's house or car) people with guns will come and destroy your personal property and/or throw you in jail.
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    In capitalist systems, you and your buddies are free to opt out and sign over all your property to a commune. What you aren't free to do is rob other people who don't consent to your commune of their stuff. Because they have the right to not join you, this is the fundamental sticking point that makes communists (literally) murderously mad.
    - harimau777 3y ago
      I don't think that's quite accurate. The sticking point is whether people have the right to own or exclude others from private property (again as separate from personal property), to what degree it is legitimate for individuals to profit from private property, and whether that private property was legitimately acquired. If individuals don't have the right to own or exclude others from private property, then other people using it isn't theft. If the bounty that comes from natural resources on private property should benefit society as a whole (because no individual created them). Then it is unjust for their extraction to be monopolized by someone who claims to own them. If land was unjustly acquired such as through enclosure of common land or colonialism, then it is the owners who are the thieves. It's important to recognize that different branches of socialism are going to see the specifics of these sorts of issues differently.