US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3862

On January 28 2023 06:00 StasisField wrote:

Your constant nudging towards revolution doesn't give me much confidence in this reply.

On January 28 2023 07:02 Mohdoo wrote:
I think it is important for people to remember we are all benefiting from the sacrifice of people who lived before us. I think it is a moral imperative to make decisions which aim to make the future better than the current reality. There is nuance to that, but I think generally speaking, people should not choose not to do something due to growing pains.

That being said, the pains that are felt vary a lot between people. It is easy to say "hey, go fight in the war to save the world", but a lot of those soldiers are going to die. Similarly, many parents would choose not to throw their lives away for a revolution that may not work and may make their children's lives worse. I am not sure how the ethics of a decision like that work out, but I think it is worth considering.

People in the past, such as the French Revolution, decided the future was worth fighting for, even if it made the near-term a lot worse. We should strive to follow in their footsteps rather than selfishly label our current condition the most important one.

On January 28 2023 07:31 Sermokala wrote:
I don't buy the slaughter and chaos of the revolution as well as the decades of war it sparked as being positive. Saying things were better 50 year later after it just seems silly and obvious regardless.

Britian exported a stable system of democratic governance and the industrial revolution. The vast system of global trade that they created as well had a far greater effect then warlords and wonton executions did.

On January 28 2023 07:07 JimmiC wrote:

that was what over 300 years ago? And basically every revolution since has ended with just a different authoritarian and different branding. Seams like a huge risk when we have a pretty good blueprint of how things could be a lot better without the massive loss of life. We also now live with much bigger weapons of mass destruction and war is really really really bad for the environment so I'm not sure that goes well for humanity.

The reason this idea is not popular is not because people think the now is good, or that they do not think that GH's end point is good. It is that history has indicated that fighting a communist revolution does end at the GH end point. It ends with a ruling class and everyone not friends or related to that ruling class as equally poor. Some sort of this is what we would do different is required. It is also required that you openly talk about the rather obvious to most failings of the past communist revolutions and the current communist countries. Talking positively about the leadership and outcomes of the USSR, China, NK, Venezuela so on takes an incredible amount of scapegoating which is hard for almost everyone to believe.



I'm all for change, it could be so much better. My issue is that people do not seem to understand how actually bad it was, or how actually bad it is many places in the world. It can and has been much worse than it is in a liberal democracy. I do not see how anyone could argue it is better in the self proclaimed communist countries that exist. I get that argument for social democracies. I get the argument they could go further.

On January 28 2023 08:01 Liquid`Drone wrote:


The problem is that the future of each option is unknown and it's not a given that the post-sacrifice future is much if any better, and then, the only situation that makes a revolution tempting is one where the present also sucks - even if one acknowledges that the current future is likely to suck. If some person from the future came and told me I gotta do x even though it'll make my life hellish because it'll make the future a lot better for a whole lot of people, I imagine I'd have a hard time not complying, but if my options are a) comfy, cushiony present and certain bad future for other people or b) unknown but most likely bad present and unknown future that might be better or worse then I'll end up going with option a).

So basically the revolution isn't gonna happen until things get significantly more dire. Seems like there's somewhat of a historical consensus that the French Revolution was triggered by a volcano contributing to famine, sooo..

On January 28 2023 07:31 Sermokala wrote:
Britian exported a stable system of democratic governance and the industrial revolution. The vast system of global trade that they created as well had a far greater effect then warlords and wonton executions did.

On January 28 2023 08:12 Liquid`Drone wrote:


I mean hard to say anything with certainty but I don't think the move from absolute monarchy in Europe happens nearly as quickly without the French revolution or a similar event. I also think this is a pov with a reasonable degree of consensus attached to it. I don't just mean 'better 50 years later', but 'better as a consequence' 50 years later. I might say the same about the black plague, tbh - terrible to live through, but probably gave somewhat better living conditions for the following generations. (This one is harder to know because data is harder to come by and less conclusive, and some points both ways. Either way rest assured that I'm not arguing for the benefits of killing a third of all people.)

But anyway, it's not a particularly controversial opinion that some revolutions have eventually yielded positive results even if they initially caused harm, and accepting this does not mean you, or I, must accept that a revolution of today would be positive or desirable. It can, however, perhaps lead to some understanding of why some people consider themselves revolutionary, even if you can assume that those people aren't actually entirely blind to how damaging their revolution might be to many people inhabiting our current day society.

On January 28 2023 06:51 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I do believe the french revolution was ultimately good.

I'd rather live the two decades preceding it than the two decades following it, but I'd rather live 50 years after than 50 years before. An anti-capitalist revolution would, even in an ideal scenario, play out much the same - a whole lot of initial pain, but with a hope for a significantly improved more distant future.

On January 28 2023 08:44 Simberto wrote:
What happens when that threat disappears is what we can see in the last 30 years. Workers rights get eroded, wealth inequality grows to absurd levels. Because they know that there is nothing they have to fear.

On January 28 2023 08:44 Simberto wrote:


I think that the credible threat of revolution usually has far more positive results than revolution itself. Nothing makes the upper strata of society more likely to share than a credible threat that they might lose everything.

We have seen this in the 20th century. In my opinion, the mere existence of the soviet union had a massive positive effect on workers rights in europe. Because there was always the very credible threat of a communist revolution, which made the capital much more interested in sharing some of their wealth with the rest of society, and stopped some of its unbridled greed. Better to share a bit and convince most of the population that what is going on is good for everyone, then risk them getting angry and burning it all down.

What happens when that threat disappears is what we can see in the last 30 years. Workers rights get eroded, wealth inequality grows to absurd levels. Because they know that there is nothing they have to fear.

On January 28 2023 06:51 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I do believe the french revolution was ultimately good.

I'd rather live the two decades preceding it than the two decades following it, but I'd rather live 50 years after than 50 years before. An anti-capitalist revolution would, even in an ideal scenario, play out much the same - a whole lot of initial pain, but with a hope for a significantly improved more distant future.

On January 28 2023 06:51 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I do believe the french revolution was ultimately good.

I'd rather live the two decades preceding it than the two decades following it, but I'd rather live 50 years after than 50 years before. An anti-capitalist revolution would, even in an ideal scenario, play out much the same - a whole lot of initial pain, but with a hope for a significantly improved more distant future.

On January 28 2023 17:24 Elroi wrote:

Interesting question. Very hard to answer. It's a no brained to rather live through the last days of the Ancien régime than the terror and genocide that followed the revolution. 50 years later you'd still be in the July Monarchy. If you had said living after 1848 or before, then I would have agreed with you.