Aurani wrote:

Let's look at it this way:
If you try to discuss something with someone and you have thoughts on the matter that are seriously, SERIOUSLY far off from the other person's point of view, there is no reason to discuss it any further. Lack of proper knowledge on the matter means you will NEVER be able to bridge that big of a gap and the discussion is always going to end up with someone going ad hominem.
The only reason to ever continue a discussion is if the other person's point of view is in the same ballpark, but you can't agree on certain intricacies of the matter being discussed.

So, if someone doesn't answer your post or anyone else's for that matter, know that it is because the person simply recognised how it will ultimately end for both parties.

B1rd wrote:

Problem with people who have radically different views than you is that they have fundamentally different presuppositions about the world. The other day I had a leftist tell me, honest-to-God, that hierarchies don't exist without Capitalism and CEOs aren't any more competent than your average worker.

But regarding what was said in this thread, I'm wondering if Vipper is going to just wiggle out of backing up his unprovable assertions, like how I don't know what I'm talking about regarding the Soviet Union.

Railey2 wrote:

Talking about unprovable assertions, do you think that a society without leadership could stabilize itself with nothing but the free market?

B1rd wrote:

But regarding what was said in this thread, I'm wondering if Vipper is going to just wiggle out of backing up his unprovable assertions, like how I don't know what I'm talking about regarding the Soviet Union.

B1rd wrote:

Railey2 wrote:

Talking about unprovable assertions, do you think that a society without leadership could stabilize itself with nothing but the free market?

You could have a society without any centralised governing body based on the underlying principle of the NAP.

Aurani wrote:

I don't know why you had to mention Nazis there, when the Soviets did the same thing.

Aurani wrote:

Yeah, more widely recognised by people who haven't read 2 books in their life. I won't deny that it's a valid statement, but it's a pet peeve of mine when you need to add an orange from another basket to your basket of apples, simply because you don't care. I like my things tidy, is all.

DaddyCoolVipper wrote:

B1rd wrote:

But regarding what was said in this thread, I'm wondering if Vipper is going to just wiggle out of backing up his unprovable assertions, like how I don't know what I'm talking about regarding the Soviet Union.

Your post suggested that people were just idly cooperating with Stalin's regime and giving his dictatorship more power, but that's completely lacking the context of his repressive government. People informing on their friends and such were only doing so because they themselves were threatened- similar to what happened in Nazi Germany where informing on Jews was highly 'encouraged'.

Besides, plenty of people would actively try and hide things from the state in the Soviet Union too, although it's hard to get any meaningful statistics- it certainly wasn't a case where everybody simply cooperated with the state, because if that were true, they wouldn't have to behave in such a violent and oppressive manner in order to get what they wanted. Forced disappearances etc due to the secret police,

Basically, you shouldn't be using the Soviet Union as an example of people refusing to do what was morally right despite threat of persecution, because the threat was significant enough to actually control people on a psychological level. Ideals of standing up to a tyrannical government are pretty, but not actually an option to the majority of people living in the USSR.

Railey2 wrote:

I don't think that would be stable, how would that be able to resist pressure from the inside (people will inevitably use aggressive and underhanded business strategies) and pressure from the outside (foreign invasion, foreign economic aggression)?

Not having a centralised governing body under these conditions just means that you are an easy target for everyone that doesn't play by your self-imposed, highly restrictive rules.

It's a fun thought experiment, but in the end it's also no more than a fantasy.

Endaris wrote:

Well, regardless how I look at it, doing the referendum was one thing. They got lots of international press and opened a good opportunity to accelerate the progress to even get serious talk on the topic going when the spanish government was literally keeping Catalonia under wraps before.
Actually trying to go with the head through the wall by announcing to declare independency...I don't know really what good is supposed to come from doing it that way.

DJ Enetro wrote:

and right now we are in ye midel OT, don't you think?

DJ Enetro wrote:

and right now we are in ye midel OT, don't you think?

ColdTooth wrote:

DJ Enetro wrote:

and right now we are in ye midel OT, don't you think?

By the time we reach ye newe OT, we're all going to pretty much suffer

Endaris wrote:

You don't have to witness it.
All you have to do is getting consumed.