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Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

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Stop: Breach of rule 4
  • Staff Post
    • Miner238 said:
    Yeah, it's funny to see you get worked up over something dumb. What, you think bold italics makes you look serious? :lol
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    breach of rule 4 Rule 4 states that you will not disrupt the experience of the forum for other posters. Mocking another posters input and using the funny rating to do so is a clear breach of this rule and thus you are being infracted, threadbanned for 3 days and your ability to rate posts will be removed for the same time.


    moderator attention I've spent the whole day watching this thread. I will be continuing to do so. Please don't make it so I have to act again.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • Versharl said:
    The difference is that slavery is a violation of basic human rights while employment in a social democracy is... not. Never thought I'd have to say that.
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    Some would argue that being forced to rent oneself out piecemeal to the authoritarian control of a master on pain of starvation is also a violation of basic human rights. Like me. I would argue that.
     
    Versharl said:
    Ah, you got me! How could I have been so foolish to call them that... except for the fact that I didn't do that.

    Those are some sound economics right there. Handing people a bunch of money that they can spend on absolutely nothing. What could possibly go wrong?
    Also, you're still forcing them to hand over private property under the threat of violence. Compensation doesn't make that go away.

    @LHB, if you don't want to enforce it through the state, I'm not going to argue against it. I'm more than happy to let the socialists in the thread have their little pet project in the form of subsized worker cooperatives.


    "You don't technically own the building you live and work in, so that makes it alright for us to seize it from you!"
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    I want to apologise. I wasn't putting words into your mouth, only clarifying for the context in general. I should have phrased it better.
     
    Flectarn said:
    I care why?
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    Well, you don't have to but I thought the proposal was meant to be a good-faith compromise. If it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to seize private property, I guess it doesn't matter.
    Flectarn said:
    regardless, citing use value is a weird way to defend private property
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    Well it's the best proxy in the absence of a functioning state.
    Aranfan said:
    Some would argue that being forced to rent oneself out piecemeal to the authoritarian control of a master on pain of starvation is also a violation of basic human rights. Like me. I would argue that.
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    Nobody is forced to do so in a social democracy. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it instead of making outrageous and inflammatory claims.
     
    Here's what we do. We subsidize co-ops, but offer no subsidies for private Enterprise, with strong regulations. Offer other incentives to co ops making them the clear choice for people to work in.
     
    Antix_Shadows said:
    Businesses are not personal property.

    I agree with freedom of religion. But I also believe in freedom from religious ideology in govt.
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    Business are personal property.
    That literally how that works.
    A normal man takes a risk and using his own funds (or those loaned to him) build a up a business which he owns.
     
    Versharl said:
    Nobody is forced to do so in a social democracy. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it instead of making outrageous and inflammatory claims.
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    I think the disconnect here is in how we view social democracy; I think it's admirable, but I also think that while it maintains the capitalist system of allowing a few people to control large amounts of wealth and, ultimately, the destinies of workers and employees under them, they will have an outsized impact on the political sphere. Their economic power can be converted to political power and allow them to steer the ship of state through indirect means. And I believe that the best way to prevent outsized wealth having an outsized influence is to... redistribute it instead of allowing it to collect in the hands of a few.

    Social democracy still ultimately capitalist and that means that even if there's a robust safety net, people without sufficient capital or who don't own their own homes or who don't make sufficient amounts of money at their employment are still vulnerable to exploitation; they can still be fired and left unemployed. Their landlords can still increase rent beyond their ability to pay it (unless there are very stringent controls from the government, but I am generally not in favor of empowering the central government to wield absolute power and a centralized bureaucracy can be very unresponsive to local conditions). It still separates people into those with wealth and those without.

    Capitalist businesses generally seek to offload externalities and cut corners and try to derive profits at all costs.

    That's the moral and ethical problem I seek to solve.
     
    Rat King said:
    Social democracy still ultimately capitalist and that means that even if there's a robust safety net, people without sufficient capital or who don't own their own homes or who don't make sufficient amounts of money at their employment are still vulnerable to exploitation; they can still be fired and left unemployed. Their landlords can still increase rent beyond their ability to pay it (unless there are very stringent controls from the government, but I am generally not in favor of empowering the central government to wield absolute power and a centralized bureaucracy can be very unresponsive to local conditions). It still separates people into those with wealth and those without.
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    All systems are exploitative. Capitalist, communist, anarchic. Humans run them, so there will always be those on the top and the bottom. The advantages of a Social Democratic system is that, as a capitalist system, the exploitation is liable to be economic in nature, and we can set up robust safety nets to help and protect the workers.
     
    Kufufu said:
    Business are personal property.
    That literally how that works.
    A normal man takes a risk and using his own funds (or those loaned to him) build a up a business which he owns.
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    Personal property is generally considered movable, i.e. personal possessions, a computer, a car, livestock, as well as intangible personal property (services and so on), whereas private property is supposedly immovable - real estate, a building, dams, mines, etc.
     
    Aranfan said:
    Unless there's a way for Joe Average to get enough money for food and housing without getting a job, then yes, you are forced to do so.
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    Basic housing and food should be supplied by the state in a robust Social Democracy. As well as things like healthcare, water, education, information, and other necessities for life. The goal of the market is to make like better and to offer greater options, not to hold those things you need most hostage.
     
    Rat King said:
    I think the disconnect here is in how we view social democracy; I think it's admirable, but I also think that while it maintains the capitalist system of allowing a few people to control large amounts of wealth and, ultimately, the destinies of workers and employees under them, they will have an outsized impact on the political sphere. Their economic power can be converted to political power and allow them to steer the ship of state through indirect means. And I believe that the best way to prevent outsized wealth having an outsized influence is to... redistribute it instead of allowing it to collect in the hands of a few.
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    Their economic power can only be converted to political power if the state and people allow them to do so. It's not impossible to prevent the transfer or at least minimise it to such a degree that it becomes unimportant.
    Rat King said:
    Social democracy still ultimately capitalist and that means that even if there's a robust safety net, people without sufficient capital or who don't own their own homes or who don't make sufficient amounts of money at their employment are still vulnerable to exploitation; they can still be fired and left unemployed. Their landlords can still increase rent beyond their ability to pay it (unless there are very stringent controls from the government, but I am generally not in favor of empowering the central government to wield absolute power and a centralized bureaucracy can be very unresponsive to local conditions). It still separates people into those with wealth and those without.
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    You say that but that doesn't make it true. The safety net is precisely there to provide people who have been fired or who quit due to exploitation the capital required to find a new job while they're unemployed. That's the entire point of the labor and unemployment system of the Nordic countries! I don't know where you've gotten this skewed view of social democracy from but I'd recommmend you actually researched the implementation of social democracy in practice before talking about how vulnerable it leaves workers to exploitation.
    Rat King said:
    Capitalist businesses generally seek to offload externalities and cut corners and try to derive profits at all costs.

    That's the moral and ethical problem I seek to solve.
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    Yes, they do and it's the job of the state to make sure to prevent that from happening through the use of regulation and redistribution.

    Aranfan said:
    Unless there's a way for Joe Average to get enough money for food and housing without getting a job, then yes, you are forced to do so.
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    Basically, you can get food and housing without working. The state will hazzle you about looking for a job but it will not force you to take a job you don't want. Congratulations, you just played yourself.
     
    Rule 3 - Be Courteous to other users
    Sweet merciful buddha.
    There are legitimate communists in the thread. You would think the damn things track record alone would stamp out the ideology but here we are. Debating you people on government systems is like trying to play chess with a pigeon; you knock the pieces over, poop on the board, and fly back to the safe space to claim victory.
     
    PoptartProdigy said:
    Starting now, and carrying on through the rest of the plot, the NC develops into an increasingly-rural autarky/tourist paradise/innovative manufacturing hub. Lacking power independence, the vast majority of the population goes without and must revert to farming in a move shaped by Kraft and Rumford's Retroculture vision. It is a hard life, but cleansing. They sell off all of their nature preserves to foreigners for tourist money and give a Chinese corporation a 100-year monopoly in exchange for building a dam across the Bay of Fundy. Oh yes, you read that right: a century of uncontested dominance over the proceeds of that megaproject! They convert their economy to tourism and resource extraction -- mostly farming. And also become world leaders in zeppelin manufacture. And cold fusion, eventually. And wireless power transmission. Oh, and they kicked everybody out of the cities. Because cities are bad. And then they do all this! Lovely!
    • AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! SO! The NC is not electricity-independent and has to scramble to make ends meet. They spread out people as far as they can and get everybody they conceivably can into farming so that they can all eat. The end result of untrained city folk going into subsistence farming is, of course, huge numbers of people dying a la fucking Year Zero, which is why it's so convenient that power is now such a rarity! That makes it way easier to justify implementing state control of media, as there's not enough power to maintain multiple, let alone independent, news networks! So the population disperses to farming, massive numbers of people die, and the government hushes it all up to avoid riots! The CMC, which the Okhrana is now starting to train for secret police duties, continues their MO of inciting riots and mob rule against folks who speak up. The government desperately sells as much of its territories to Asian tourist site developers as it can for funding. They do not have the educational or industrial base to become an innovative manufacturing power. They do not specialize in wireless power transmission. They do not invent and master fucking cold fusion! Also, should be noted, while the pre-secession moderate holdouts are basically in panic/damage control mode throughout this and see themselves as choosing the best of terrible options, the reactionaries throughout are egging this shit on fucking gleefully as their political and military leaders Kraft and Rumford get to see their Retroculture fantasies play out before their very eyes.
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    This bit of the lore annoys me, because Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island actually are all net exporters of electricity


    Its silly compared to the rest of the absurdity, but come one, at least do a little research Lind.
     
    Kufufu said:
    Sweet merciful buddha.
    There are legitimate communists in the thread. You would think the damn things track record alone would stamp out the ideology but here we are. Debating you people on government systems is like trying to play chess with a pigeon; you knock the pieces over, poop on the board, and fly back to the safe space to claim victory.
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    Can we please do this without the insults.
     
    Kufufu said:
    Sweet merciful buddha.
    There are legitimate communists in the thread. You would think the damn things track record alone would stamp out the ideology but here we are. Debating you people on government systems is like trying to play chess with a pigeon; you knock the pieces over, poop on the board, and fly back to the safe space to claim victory.
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    I prefer the term 'Marxist-Vaderist', see the link in my sign. (It's a joke btw)
     
    Flectarn said:
    This bit of the lore annoys me, because Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island actually are all net exporters of electricity
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    But is that still the case when stuff happens. All 3 seem fairly reliant on natural gas. Once the civil war starts and the pipelines are blown, that ends quickly. New Hampshire has a bunch of nuclear, but those reactors will be at retirement age at that point.
     
    Versharl said:
    Well, you don't have to but I thought the proposal was meant to be a good-faith compromise. If it's just a thinly-veiled excuse to seize private property, I guess it doesn't matter.
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    Willingness to invest doesn't seem like enough of an incentive to actively stop workers from taking control of firms, after all the workers can come up with their own sources of investment capital.

    Versharl said:
    Well it's the best proxy in the absence of a functioning state.
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    Its not a proxy that lends itself towards the establishment of a capitalist system though.
     
    Simon_Jester said:
    I mean, we're not just a collection of random homeless people with zero equipment, logistics, or materials to our names.

    There's stuff, and people are using it, and in quite a few cases have been using it for quite some time.
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    Twiggierjet said:
    I feel like a part of the problem is that some people are looking at this from, well, modern day real life perspectives. We are not in the modern day in this quest, we are in a borderline post-apocalyptic wasteland torn apart by 50 years of warlordism and violent supression by a far-right regime whose destruction is more or less one of our primary objectives. Many of our modern day views are likely not adapted to this environment, if they are still even a thing, and of those that are, many of them still need to either be tweaked or no longer go together with their contemporary ideological allies.
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    These are both some key points to consider. We are in a situation where all the various legal entities, documents, chains of inheritance, proof of ownership and all that jazz have been tossed into a proverbial blender before getting lit on fire. Just inheritance alone will be pretty much impossible to prove assuming any legal heirs have actually survived for many pre-collapse assets and holdings. Regardless of what we feel about an ideal situation, in our current lives and context where that isn't the case, the fact is actually proving ownership in any meaningful fashion beyond, "they're living on it and/or physically hold it" is going to be pretty close to impossible.

    Forcing all of that to conform to expectations that simply can't be enforced in any pre-collapse fashion would be even more farcical than anything Lind has written. I'd imagine any accountants and lawyers attempting to make that stick would keel over from stress-related illnesses long before they manage to actually sort out a tenth of what is going on.
     
    Kufufu said:
    Sweet merciful buddha.
    There are legitimate communists in the thread. You would think the damn things track record alone would stamp out the ideology but here we are.
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    And that is why at least playing lip service to it would be a good idea.
    Right now, we have relative prosperity and stable nations capable of supplying basic needs of people, and we still get communists.

    Now, the scenario there is that we have people supressed for almost half a century, who were lucky to be taught how to read, who were reduced to substinence farming and artisanship and guilds as if they're living a millenia earlier.
    Ideas proposed by Marx and Lenin are extremely, insanely, attractive.

    We have to use them. Otherwise, they would be used against us.
     
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