We live wasted lives
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Civilisation is a good thing yes also having access to clean and drinkable water is a good thing, but we don't need to flush our toilets with drink water, we don't need to shower with drink water, we don't need to water our plants with drink water or wash our cars with drink water.
I drink a lot of water per day and I hate it when I am in a country where I can't, but buying jugs of 8 litter water to drink isn't the worst thing either.
And since when are we obsessed about something when we talking about hypotheticals? Cause that is what this all was, heck I didn't even start about cars, that other person did ...
Ok. Figured you two had a similar bent. Heh. This is going nowhere. Nice to meet you. Lets move on.
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Once everything has been optimized and runs smoothly, there are no surprises anymore, nothing interesting, you just do a routine that you've specialized in and have gotten bored at 10 years ago. Our quality of life is unparalleled. Our quality of work less so. It's safe and all, but so so boring
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Throwing around the names of fallacies that don't apply instead of actual arguments doesn't further your cause just as much as you might think it does.
The no true Scotsman fallacy applies if:
- Person A makes a generalized statement ("No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge")
- That statement is falsified by providing a counter-example ("I know a Scotsman who puts sugar on his porridge")
- Person A does not back away from the original falsified statement but instead modifies the original statement and signals that they did modify that statement ("Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge")
The main issue here is that using this fallacy, the claim becomes a non-falsifiable tautology. Every Scotsman who puts sugar on his porridge is not a true Scotsman, thus the claim becomes always true by excluding every counter-example.
Let's apply that to the situation at hand.
- [email protected] made the statement that communism can work, providing an example where it apparently did work. This statement is not generalized, so the first condition for the true Scotsman fallacy already doesn't apply.
- [email protected] provided a counter-example, where communism didn't work. This doesn't actually contradict the first statement, because [email protected] never claimed that communism always works, so providing a single counter-example doesn't negate the statement that communism can work.
- [email protected] then pointed out that USSR states never actually claimed to have achieved communism, and that statement is true. According to USSR doctrine, the goal was to get to communism at some point, but that point was never reached. While this can sound like an appeal to purity, there's no basis for a "no true Scotsman" fallacy here.
Please read up on your fallacies before throwing around the names of them.
When you claim that something is a fallacy, even though the fallacy you claim doesn't actually apply, then you are doing so to discredit the whole argument without actually engaging with it. This is a perfect example of the Strawman argument, which itself is a fallacy.
"I don't believe your country was under communism, that's not real communism" is EXACTLY the scotsman fallacy. But by all means, go for a lengthy post that says nothing.
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The same is true for capitalism too, though.
If you work in your own little company or if you are self-employed, then the "mission" of your work might be important to you and a source of motivation.
But if you work in a huge corporation, hardly anything you do actually matters. If don't perform at 100% and instead slack off, there are other people doing the same work. And if everyone slacks off, then they just hire more people. And even if the whole department underperforms, there are other departments that rake in the money.
And whether the company thrives or goes under, your input as a lowly grunt wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Even as a mid-level manager your input wouldn't have made a difference.
Years of my work at my job can be wiped out with one email from the CEO.
Literally the only difference between capitalism and communism when it comes to that is whether the CEO wipes out my work or the state.
And yet people work in huge corporations and those are succeeding fine. Yet the collective farms that I mention led to famines and underperformed severely.
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Pointing out a positive side of something isn't muddying the waters, nor is it in any way an attempt to refute the original point. If you're unable to acknowledge something positive about the situation then I think that's on you, personally. Like I said, we should engage with the things people actually say, not what we think their implied meaning might be. It does not follow that being more comfortable should imply you should feel fulfilled and that is not an argument that's been put forward by anyone. No need to refute something nobody is putting forward. It just makes it harder to have a productive discussion, nothing more.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]WaSTeD LiFe 🤪
What do you think they meant with the alternating caps and the emoji?
Personally, I think that it's quite clearly an attempt to ridicule the meme and those who agree with it, built on the preceding facts about modern white collar work being relatively comfortable, which is (as per my previous comment) irrelevant to the question at hand.
If you disagree on this interpretation of their intent, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. Good day to you. -
The same is true for capitalism too, though.
If you work in your own little company or if you are self-employed, then the "mission" of your work might be important to you and a source of motivation.
But if you work in a huge corporation, hardly anything you do actually matters. If don't perform at 100% and instead slack off, there are other people doing the same work. And if everyone slacks off, then they just hire more people. And even if the whole department underperforms, there are other departments that rake in the money.
And whether the company thrives or goes under, your input as a lowly grunt wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Even as a mid-level manager your input wouldn't have made a difference.
Years of my work at my job can be wiped out with one email from the CEO.
Literally the only difference between capitalism and communism when it comes to that is whether the CEO wipes out my work or the state.
But if a CEO does something that actually destroys the company (without question) the governance structure that most companies in most countries have will put a halt to it. If the company is of size to have an actual CEO than they will have a need for a governance structure.
The sad part is that due to whatever reason it doesn't always work like that.
Heck somebody once told me that in the US you can just fire people for whatever, which is insane to me
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Found the berry picker
Picking berries can be relaxing but cleaning them sucks
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But if a CEO does something that actually destroys the company (without question) the governance structure that most companies in most countries have will put a halt to it. If the company is of size to have an actual CEO than they will have a need for a governance structure.
The sad part is that due to whatever reason it doesn't always work like that.
Heck somebody once told me that in the US you can just fire people for whatever, which is insane to me
Governance structures aren't without fail either, as exemplified with quite a few big corporations going down over time.
Governance structures are also present in political systems, and also there they can fail.
A government and a corporation are really not all that dissimilar when it comes to managing work, projects and so on.
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No true scotsman fallacy. I could say that no country was under ideal capitalism so you can't criticize it either. You have to look at reality, not make believe nations that never existed.
I just gave you a true scotsman 4 messages ago, genius. You pick those debate skills up at Harvard?
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Throwing around the names of fallacies that don't apply instead of actual arguments doesn't further your cause just as much as you might think it does.
The no true Scotsman fallacy applies if:
- Person A makes a generalized statement ("No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge")
- That statement is falsified by providing a counter-example ("I know a Scotsman who puts sugar on his porridge")
- Person A does not back away from the original falsified statement but instead modifies the original statement and signals that they did modify that statement ("Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge")
The main issue here is that using this fallacy, the claim becomes a non-falsifiable tautology. Every Scotsman who puts sugar on his porridge is not a true Scotsman, thus the claim becomes always true by excluding every counter-example.
Let's apply that to the situation at hand.
- [email protected] made the statement that communism can work, providing an example where it apparently did work. This statement is not generalized, so the first condition for the true Scotsman fallacy already doesn't apply.
- [email protected] provided a counter-example, where communism didn't work. This doesn't actually contradict the first statement, because [email protected] never claimed that communism always works, so providing a single counter-example doesn't negate the statement that communism can work.
- [email protected] then pointed out that USSR states never actually claimed to have achieved communism, and that statement is true. According to USSR doctrine, the goal was to get to communism at some point, but that point was never reached. While this can sound like an appeal to purity, there's no basis for a "no true Scotsman" fallacy here.
Please read up on your fallacies before throwing around the names of them.
When you claim that something is a fallacy, even though the fallacy you claim doesn't actually apply, then you are doing so to discredit the whole argument without actually engaging with it. This is a perfect example of the Strawman argument, which itself is a fallacy.
Actually, I think this is a case of the fallacy fallacy
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"I don't believe your country was under communism, that's not real communism" is EXACTLY the scotsman fallacy. But by all means, go for a lengthy post that says nothing.
Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal')[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state.[7][8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Let's see how the USSR performed against this definition of communism.
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Common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.
Kind of, the state owned most means of production and distributed products. Arguably based on Russian need rather than any other Soviet republic's need. Let's be generous and say partial pass for this one. -
Absence of private property and social classes
Presumably this is private property as in the distinction between personal and private property set out by Proudhon. In that regard, as the state owned most all private property, in a way it was absent. But the state still owned it, and the state is counter to communism. Social classes still remained. -
Ultimately money
Still existed. -
The state.
That definitely still existed.
So what part of the USSR was real communism? Kind of common ownership of the means of production and kind of the absence of private property. All other criteria were failed.
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"I don't believe your country was under communism, that's not real communism" is EXACTLY the scotsman fallacy. But by all means, go for a lengthy post that says nothing.
So if someone calls you a git, and you say "I'm not a TRUE git", is that a no true scotsman too?
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And yet people work in huge corporations and those are succeeding fine. Yet the collective farms that I mention led to famines and underperformed severely.
Huge corporations also underperform compared to smaller startups.
If a small startup wants to roll out some new thing they just get to the work. If a corporation does the same thing it first takes a year of preparation and internal politics.
Remember the old anecdote about how long it takes to order an empty cardboard box at IBM? That one was an extreme example, but the concept persists.
We had a project, created by two people over half a year. The corporate parent liked it and wanted to expand the product to all the country division. So they planned for a year, then assembled 8 teams with a total of 50 people to copy that project with a planned development time of 3 years. They overran the deadline by 2 years.
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Actually, I think this is a case of the fallacy fallacy
fallacy fallacy
I have to admit, a did not know that one. It's even more fitting than the strawman argument! Thanks for sharing, TIL.
(Though I do believe the fallacy fallacy is a subcategory of the strawman argument.)
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Huge corporations also underperform compared to smaller startups.
If a small startup wants to roll out some new thing they just get to the work. If a corporation does the same thing it first takes a year of preparation and internal politics.
Remember the old anecdote about how long it takes to order an empty cardboard box at IBM? That one was an extreme example, but the concept persists.
We had a project, created by two people over half a year. The corporate parent liked it and wanted to expand the product to all the country division. So they planned for a year, then assembled 8 teams with a total of 50 people to copy that project with a planned development time of 3 years. They overran the deadline by 2 years.
Cool. Yet you are ignoring the very tiny fact that collective farms started famines. They didn't "just underperform".
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I mean we have it pretty good compared to most of history
I think most reasonable people would agree that there are many objectively good things about the modern world, but progress isn't a strict good/bad binary. Often, progress results in both good and bad circumstances.
For instance, I think most reasonable people would agree that modern medicine is a very good thing. Vaccines and antibiotics have saved countless lives. Also, more advanced agricultural technology has allowed us to grow more food and feed more people. However, progress has also resulted in significant ecological damage, depletion of natural, nonrenewable resources and a significant loss of biodiversity. I think most reasonable people would agree that these are very bad things.
I don't think the point is to ignore the very real, important positives about the modern world, but to point out that there are still things that need to improve, and unintended negative effects of progress that need to be dealt with.
I appreciate that for you the modern world is overall good, but that's not necessarily everyone's experience. Some people do feel purposeless, depressed and worn down, despite being relatively wealthy and comfortable, especially compared to humans of past eras.
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So if someone calls you a git, and you say "I'm not a TRUE git", is that a no true scotsman too?
If someone gives you an example of a communist country and then you go "no no that's not communism" when in fact yes, it was communism, because otherwise as you yourself said "no country in the last 2000 years was communist" then that's the true scotsman.
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I just gave you a true scotsman 4 messages ago, genius. You pick those debate skills up at Harvard?
You gave me a singular anecdote from a state that didn't exist for even three years.
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Communism (from Latin communis 'common, universal')[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.[3][4][5] A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes,[1] and ultimately money[6] and the state.[7][8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Let's see how the USSR performed against this definition of communism.
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Common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.
Kind of, the state owned most means of production and distributed products. Arguably based on Russian need rather than any other Soviet republic's need. Let's be generous and say partial pass for this one. -
Absence of private property and social classes
Presumably this is private property as in the distinction between personal and private property set out by Proudhon. In that regard, as the state owned most all private property, in a way it was absent. But the state still owned it, and the state is counter to communism. Social classes still remained. -
Ultimately money
Still existed. -
The state.
That definitely still existed.
So what part of the USSR was real communism? Kind of common ownership of the means of production and kind of the absence of private property. All other criteria were failed.
Tbh, I don't even think the first two points apply.
Ownership by the state, especially a state that the people have no control over, isn't really ownership of the people. The main point of ownership (also under communism) is control. If I own something, I control it. I can decide what happens with it. Under capitalism the worker doesn't own the factory, because the worker has no control over it. The worker has no say over what or how or when the factory produces, so the worker doesn't own the factory.
Under the USSR system, the worker also has no say over anything regarding the work. The only difference is that the owner isn't another person but the state.
Something like the early stock corporations would be closer to communism. There each worker owns stock in the company and thus can vote on what the company does.
Same goes with social classes. There certainly was a class difference between party member (or at least high ranking party member) and non-party-members.
Private property also still existed, just on a lower scale. People still owned their cars, their stereo systems and all the other items of daily usage.
(I'm not disagreeing with you, just trying to reinforce the point)
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"I don't believe your country was under communism, that's not real communism" is EXACTLY the scotsman fallacy. But by all means, go for a lengthy post that says nothing.
Go, read what I wrote, then come back.
