while I agree with the sentiment and the question , you could phrase that in a less confrontational way as people tend to be a bit touchy about these things and default to arguing rather than discussing when cornered
The thing is, he and I have done this dance before several times over the years. I've gotten a bit tired, because getting him to speak plainly and strip out the random weird takes that don't make any sense is always an uphill battle at times like this. If my tone is confrontational, it's because I've tried explaining nicely why certain things are a problem several times and they keep happening.
"Hello I am Bob Small Business; I have previously owned a multi-national mega corporation, but it has since split into multiple smaller business units; please grant my multiple small businesses the money"
That would have worked if it had been done shortly after Tib War III. By now, all the multinational megacorporations are ten years dead and no longer exist structurally in meaningful form. Spinning off their subsidiaries wouldn't accomplish anything. And given that InOps must be checking into things fairly carefully to make sure we're not accidentally funding a ton of Nod shell companies, I don't think this would work out very well.
First off it's Slavic Cypherpunk...
Slavic cypherpunk is an extremely obscure sub-genre from the point of view of an English-language discussion forum. If it contains ideas that are worthwhile for our purposes here, you are going to have to
explain those ideas clearly, preferably without using whatever names were made up for it on a webforum in Serbian or whatever.
The video in question argues that only Realpolitik is the valid method of approaching obtaining power while calling any who do not engage in it stupid or good. And yes I am actually familiar with CGP Gray, he is a favored punching bag of several Breadtubers because of his takes.
Like if you want to get specific CGP Grey is Right-libertarian who views power as a pyramid one climbs and describes it as such in that very video. The entire system of power in that video completely ignores human sociability or cooperation and instead looks at people as individuals or as a group formed around specific traits.
1) If you want to present someone as a punching bag, I suggest you provide citations. Providing citations in general would be a good idea for you, because you often wish to invoke other people's opinions or views or ideas as something that you can integrate seamlessly into your own. The statement "Dmol is justified in concluding A because Person B has concluded C" is much more convincing if we can
see Person B's words and their conclusion of C.
2) I do not think you are fully understanding this significance of this particular video, even when I grant your overall perceptions about CGP Grey. There are two core points of the video.
2a) One point is that there exists an important process by which governments are held together by power relationships and distribution of resources in return for support. Loyalty and sociability and cooperation all
exist, but all these things can continue to exist under a change of leader- we can continue to be sociable after declaring our loyalty to a new leader we will be more inclined to cooperate with. Many of the structures that hold governments together are quite simply
best understood if one is at least
capable of thinking in terms of "what individuals or factions are this government's key supporters, and how does the government reward them for its support?" That's not the only question that ever matters! But it's an important question, and a consideration of political science that ignores this question will usually be very inaccurate.
2b) The other point is that the video attempts to address, in realistic terms, a very important question:
"How do corrupt dictators and elected leaders remain in power?" Many worldviews that focus on idealism or what 'ought' to be true do not have explanations for this. Why is it that some regimes are so stable for so long despite the leader being loathsome and cruel? How do certain people even get elected on certain platforms? Again, this is a question that cannot really be understood without discussing the
mechanics of power, and how support is translated into power. This is not the only perspective that matters- but there is an important truth in realizing that
yes, it is objectively possible to remain in power in a democracy for a long time, by selectively empowering and aiding certain groups of supporters while ignoring the needs of others. That is a thing that happens- and CGP Grey does a good job, I would argue, in explaining how it happens.
3) Even aside from all that, the video was originally cited in a context that
cannot justly be undermined just by criticizing CGP Grey in particular. The original point here was about the "resource curse." Namely, that an economy dominated by extraction of a single natural resource and relying on only a very small labor force is easily taken over by a tyrannical figure, who uses the resource wealth to impoverish key supporters and pursue the specific projects that enhance that wealth. But the "resource curse" is a well documented phenomenon. You can find much evidence for it in the literature of sociology and political science. CGP Grey illustrates it well, but did not make it up, and so simply attacking CGP Grey does not really address the reason the video was posted in
@mmgaballah 's post in the first place. It is pointless and frankly a waste of time.
We have irrevocably changed nothing. Our entire internal culture is in flux and our society hasn't even fully stabilized yet. The only thing that is certain is that we are a militaristic state. Everything else is up for grabs.
I don't think it's that simple. There are some social changes that cannot be undone by any reasonable amount of effort- you cannot un-ring the bell. Changes caused by wars and extreme economic crises are particularly likely to go this way.
Or to look at it another way, some things are changeable
in theory but not
in practice.
The Assassination rolls are in part about hitting the political targets that will cause GDI to backslide to it's bad old self. Last turn the leaders of the Militarists and the Developmentalists were assassinated and Crucible was also targeted for organizing the Open Hand Party. Before that there was that assassination attempt on a family member of the leader of Initiative First that drummed up sympathy for him.
True, but Nod has also targeted many other people within GDI for assassination. Assassination is one of their favorite tactics against us, and the targeting is semi-random. Out of character, Ithillid literally rolls dice for the targets sometimes. In character, Nod often goes after targets of opportunity or simply tries to destabilize GDI by targeting leaders. For instance, Ozawa is out of power and has been ever since his party split up in the runup to the 2056 election. Nod would gain nothing by assassinating him, even if they have no long-term plans to shape GDI politics.
By contrast, throwing the Militarist Party into disorder can plausibly disrupt GDI's political lobby for a stronger military... and Nod is
very much concerned about GDI's military getting any stronger, given that they are still putting out the fires from the thumping our military has just given them.
So to some extent, you are trying to see cause and effect in the workings of a random number generator. If you are right, why did Nod try to assassinate Dr. Takeda and General Jackson? Why
not assassinate Dr. Granger, who was in many ways the architect of the entire Militarist-Developmentalist strategy that has served GDI so well?
Also look up the Lalande 21185 Scenario in Civilization, look up in which languages it has a Wikipedia page entry, read it's Civilopedia and tell me I made that up.
...I don't even understand why you're asking. My point is not "there is no Serbian-language science fiction fandom." My point is that it something no one you're speaking to has ever heard of before cannot be dropped into the argument as if it is a meaningful concept that will be relevant to the discussion. What does the existence of a Serbian-language wiki article on a
Test of Time scenario have to do with anything? As is often the case, there seem to be logical connections between ideas in your head that do not exist outside your head. Please explain yourself clearly.
Cooperatives just make sure that there is no sharp peak to the pyramid of capitalism, not that everyone is treated equally. It's strong unions that make good economic policy for the small people. Also as has been noted a lot of our cooperatives are giant mega-cooperatives that are squeezing out the little guys out of the markets by being large enough to be able to play corporate games and shut out their local opposition out of markets.
We
have strong unions. If mega-cooperatives are squeezing smaller ones out of the markets (I would appreciate evidence)... Then that is a problem that can hopefully be solved by good economic policy. But it is not the same thing as creating a "Slave Empire" or whatever. What is your
point?
I mean, you might like to believe that but I think we're gonna see the politicians prioritize refilling the stockpiles so we don't have to pull consumer electronics off the shelves to loot their chipsets.
I mean, that's just as easily solved by having a large surplus as it is by having a large stockpile. The government could just mandate that we increase the Capital Goods
surplus to +30 or whatever, and we'd do our best to do it. Then there'd be plenty of Capital Goods for private industry, and in the event of war this surplus could be easily switched without unduly
hurting private industry except by curtailing its expansion during wartime, something GDI is clearly willing to accept.
The point is, you can't say we "need" a Capital Goods stockpile of 200 or 300 points instead of 100 points, on the basis of what you expect the politicians to tell us to do, when the politicians haven't told us to do it yet, and when doing it would actively undermine the fairly clear trend towards "build up the civilian economy."
Because Capital Goods that are going into a stockpile cannot
also be going into revving up the civilian economy at the same time.
