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Depends on who is doing the tracking and for what purpose.

I prefer societies that expect people to do the right thing and have measures in place to deal with anti-socials than societies that expect people to do the wrong thing and therefore try to control everybody for it.




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Oh no, not communism! Everyone knows that's the worst thing ever!

The American demonization of communism is a bit tiresome. You can't use the word "communism" as a conversation-stopper, it's not an argument, it's a fallacy. It's like saying "so you're basically Hitler".


And I'm tired of people underestimating feloniousness of communism.

Just for your information: communism, as in Soviet Union, accounts for more victims than Hitler and nazism. They might not have built gas chambers, but trying to deliberately starve the whole nation (Ukrainian) to death isn't much better [1].

Unfortunately, at some point of WWII Stalin became US and UK ally, so still some political correctness prevents West to freely speak about communism and it's crimes.

So all things considered communism actually is "the worst thing ever" and nazism is a close second.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor


Your should fear totalitarianism, not communism. Soviet Union was totalitarian state, but there was (and there are) many other bloody totalitarian states, which don't used communism as ideology.


True, not every totalitarianism is communism, but, as Leszek Kołakowski proved in "Main Currents of Marxism" monography, totalitarism is deeply ingrained in communism ideology. Every single country that was ruled by communists long enough ended up being totalitarian regime. There are no known examples of country being democratic and communist at the same time.


Nominal democracy and nominal communism didn't exist in the same country because they were each belief systems of different empires. The ideas themselves are certainly compatible, both being just different takes on collectivism.


Far too many have the same response to the word capitalism.


And it's exactly as fallacious.


Violating an entire population's right to their property, and to engage in economic activity with other consenting adults, is evil on a nightmarish scale.


I think communism to be a very good thing, and would be a great economy. But nash equilibrium will never work with humans. We are too egoist (that isn't necessary a bad thing) for it to work.

I want tracking by the government because I don't believe in humanity. With the caveat that the same spying that is done on citizens should be done (and more) on politicians.


> I want tracking by the government because I don't believe in humanity.

What do you think the government is comprised of? If you think communism is unworkable because of human nature, what makes you think that getting the people who make the rules to make rules against themselves will be any easier?


If you don't believe in humanity, you can't believe in any system.

Communism is the purest form of ideals: it assumes people will recognize and do the right thing because it's in their best interest collectively. Capitalism abstracts over the ideals by offering money and property as incentives. By the nature of abstraction, a lot of the original value is lost and people mistake the incentives for the ideals. Statism goes further, and whether or not it incentivizes the ideals, it centrally enforces them. But it's so far detached from the original ideals that it's not even enforcing the right things anymore.

So again, in the end, if humanity is incapable of communism then no system will save us.


The problem with communism is that, in order to work, it requires a version of humans that would render communism redundant.

At least capitalism works with the nature of humans and proposes kind-of, sort-of okayish incentives. Unfortunately, you are right, ultimately no system will save us.


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The tyranny of the majority assumes that issues are always us vs. them, i.e. two choices. Often there are more than that and then no changes by government can be made. The two party system often masks this possibility.




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