Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[Purpelia]

There is any number of corporations that are famous for long-term planning (and that have existed longer than some states), and there's any number of stories of states destroying themselves through shitty short-term decisionmaking (indeed, arguably one of the reasons the USSR collapsed is the desire of its mid-tier leadership to 'cash out' and convert power into loot).

That's why all this is hypothetical stuff of political science. Once things hit reality all political systems tend to devolve into oligarchic dictatorships with various degrees of cosmetic make belief to make them look like they are hypothetically supposed to be.

After all, what is the functional difference between a state run by "elections" where you pick someone from a ruling economic elite and one run by "elections" where the ruling economic elite picks one of their own?

The problem is... if your citizen-shareholders can affect the course of the state (having 'voting' shares), what differentiates them from, uhm, voters? Is Citizen-Shareholder just a fancy title? And if they can't vote, why should the leadership listen to their opinion?

I don't really know the details of how such systems operated but it is my understanding that typically there were all sorts of methods for devolving power like workers councils or electable local authorities etc. I am no expert sadly.

[Allanea]

After all, what is the functional difference between a state run by "elections" where you pick someone from a ruling economic elite and one run by "elections" where the ruling economic elite picks one of their own?

The caddish answer is:

Depends what historiographic narrative you prefer.

I don't really know the details of how such systems operated but it is my understanding that typically there were all sorts of methods for devolving power like workers councils or electable local authorities etc. I am no expert sadly.

Well, the thing is, if your corporation controls and owns all the instruments of state, your corporation is a state.

It seems to me that a fictional state that owns all the means of production in agiven society is a Soviet state, nevermind that it calls itself a 'corporation'.

What does 'enrichment' even mean in this context?

Suppose the Soviet Union was called a Corporate Capitalist Union instead.

Instead of a Communist Party there'd be a Shareholders' Union, with non-voting shares for rank and file party members, and voting shares for members of the Board of Directors [previously known the Central Committee], and Senior Executives' Inner Board [Politburo]. It would own all the newspapers [thus executing control over what gets published and what does not], own all the land, all the gold of Siberia, the oil of the Caucasus, etc. The Board members would live in slightly greater luxury, I supposed, but that'd be the only difference.

[EEC]

After all, what is the functional difference between a state run by "elections" where you pick someone from a ruling economic elite and one run by "elections" where the ruling economic elite picks one of their own?

The caddish answer is:

Depends what historiographic narrative you prefer.

I don't really know the details of how such systems operated but it is my understanding that typically there were all sorts of methods for devolving power like workers councils or electable local authorities etc. I am no expert sadly.

Well, the thing is, if your corporation controls and owns all the instruments of state, your corporation is a state.

It seems to me that a fictional state that owns all the means of production in agiven society is a Soviet state, nevermind that it calls itself a 'corporation'.

What does 'enrichment' even mean in this context?

Suppose the Soviet Union was called a Corporate Capitalist Union instead.

Instead of a Communist Party there'd be a Shareholders' Union, with non-voting shares for rank and file party members, and voting shares for members of the Board of Directors [previously known the Central Committee], and Senior Executives' Inner Board [Politburo]. It would own all the newspapers [thus executing control over what gets published and what does not], own all the land, all the gold of Siberia, the oil of the Caucasus, etc. The Board members would live in slightly greater luxury, I supposed, but that'd be the only difference

Voting-stock would have to be widely issued otherwise it wouldn't attract investors, especially large ones like banks and financial institutions. A small group just couldn't hijack the company without tanking it.

[Purpelia]

What does 'enrichment' even mean in this context?

To put it this way.

Hypothetically a corporation-state would see as a perfectly legitimate thing to barter off part of its land, people or even just submit to a hostile takeover if the oligarchy that runs it stands to benefit from the transaction. It's the old "bankrupt the country and fleet to a private island with bags of gold" scenario. And, given its overt and open nature as a corporate entity, there would be no ideological dissonance in doing so.

A M-L state can't do that because it is physically set up in such a way that the elites can not reasonably stand to benefit from the state it self being damaged. Stalin could not just sell of his shares of "soviet government" and retire with the proceeds. Furthermore, the ideological backing is such that even if he tried he'd get a revolution on his hands.

[Austrasien]

I can sense war on the horizon between two giants of NS realism: why not take this to II?

Because we actually have good discussions here.

[Gallia-]

What does 'enrichment' even mean in this context?

To put it this way.

Hypothetically a corporation-state would see as a perfectly legitimate thing to barter off part of its land, people or even just submit to a hostile takeover if the oligarchy that runs it stands to benefit from the transaction. It's the old "bankrupt the country and fleet to a private island with bags of gold" scenario. And, given its overt and open nature as a corporate entity, there would be no ideological dissonance in doing so.

A M-L state can't do that because it is physically set up in such a way that the elites can not reasonably stand to benefit from the state it self being damaged. Stalin could not just sell of his shares of "soviet government" and retire with the proceeds. Furthermore, the ideological backing is such that even if he tried he'd get a revolution on his hands.

You don't see General Dynamics executives champing at the bit to go to make a start-up with their golden parachutes. The justifications are irrelevant because the end goal for both would be the same: to stay in power. FWIW The Soviet Union more or less collapsed because the bureaucracy sold their shares and retired with the proceeds (well, that, and extreme multiculturalism). That's what built the post-Soviet Russian kleptocracy that Putin has inherited.

Ideology is meaningless. Both the Soviet Union and PRC sold theirs without much fuss.

[Purpelia]

You don't see General Dynamics executives champing at the bit to go to make a start-up with their golden parachutes. The justifications are irrelevant because the end goal for both would be the same: to stay in power.FWIW The Soviet Union more or less collapsed because the bureaucracy sold their shares and retired with the proceeds. That's what built the post-Soviet Russian kleptocracy that Putin has inherited.

To stay in power OR if possibly attain a position superior to the one that you can get by staying in power. This is true for any and all political systems really. It's been true since the first caveman decided he should run the rest of the tribe and will be true far into the distant future of humanity. It's even true for anarchy! It's just basic human nature.

This whole discussion is really on the nature of fine details within different systems. It's kind of like discussing the pattern of various hub caps whilst a wheel is and remains a wheel.

[EEC]

What does 'enrichment' even mean in this context?

To put it this way.

Hypothetically a corporation-state would see as a perfectly legitimate thing to barter off part of its land, people or even just submit to a hostile takeover if the oligarchy that runs it stands to benefit from the transaction. It's the old "bankrupt the country and fleet to a private island with bags of gold" scenario. And, given its overt and open nature as a corporate entity, there would be no ideological dissonance in doing so.

A M-L state can't do that because it is physically set up in such a way that the elites can not reasonably stand to benefit from the state it self being damaged. Stalin could not just sell of his shares of "soviet government" and retire with the proceeds. Furthermore, the ideological backing is such that even if he tried he'd get a revolution on his hands.

That implies that majority of the voters would act short-term always, and as said before there are companies like Krupp that have now existed for 400 years. Also it selling off 'people' would be the same a country privatizes some enterprises and could be beneficial in the long-term as well.

[Gallia-]

You don't see General Dynamics executives champing at the bit to go to make a start-up with their golden parachutes. The justifications are irrelevant because the end goal for both would be the same: to stay in power.FWIW The Soviet Union more or less collapsed because the bureaucracy sold their shares and retired with the proceeds. That's what built the post-Soviet Russian kleptocracy that Putin has inherited.

To stay in power OR if possibly attain a position superior to the one that you can get by staying in power.

Do you even know what you're saying?

[Austrasien]

A M-L state can't do that because it is physically set up in such a way that the elites can not reasonably stand to benefit from the state it self being damaged. Stalin could not just sell of his shares of "soviet government" and retire with the proceeds. Furthermore, the ideological backing is such that even if he tried he'd get a revolution on his hands.

Stalin wasn't on Uncle Deng's level. Scrub.

The Chinese Communist Party can and does. And as you might expect they leak cadre's who try to flee the country with their money all the time. If it weren't for the fact the rest of the party keeps trying to get them sent back to China so they can kill them - and the fact that most wealthy Chinese (wealthy and communist party membership are one and the same really) have no clue how making money actually works outside of China - they would probably have all left a long time ago.

[Kazarogkai]

What's the difference between a state where all business is owned by a single giant corporation that is also the government, and a Marxist-Leninist state where all business is owned by the state?

Is it just the label 'corporate'?

The Latter is generally referred to as state socialism, the former state capitalism. The difference mostly lies in their end goal. The goal of the latter is to achieve a classless, moneyless society, whereby the means of production are controlled by the workers and all are equal and provided for according to their need. The former on the otherhand depends on the ideology it adopts otherwise it is presumably focused principally on profit margins and efficiency in order to increase the strength and power of the state. The reason why it desires that would again depend on ideology.

[Purpelia]

One day I will explain my political views in detail in some sort of manifesto and than you'll understand. But as I am too tired to do so now I'll just leave you with a super abridged beginners guide.

- Humans are greedy selfish bastards by nature
- Societies are groups of humans each selfishly trying to find a way to make the game more difficult for everyone else but make them the king, and because there are so many of them they tend to end up meeting in the middle.
- Different societies are different interpretations of what that middle is.

[Gallia-]

One day I will explain my political views in detail in some sort of manifesto and than you'll understand.

- Anders "Purp" Breivik, 2017.

[Purpelia]

One day I will explain my political views in detail in some sort of manifesto and than you'll understand.

- Anders "Purp" Breivik, 2017.

If it helps you sleep better I am a diehard pacifist.

[Gallia-]

It doesn't, because it means I'll have to wake up every day to read your complaints.

n years of : p u r p :

[Purpelia]

It doesn't, because it means I'll have to wake up every day to read your complaints.

n years of : p u r p :

Well you don't have to wake up every day...

[The Soodean Imperium]

The resulting system will not be "objectively" meritocratic, whatever that's supposed to mean. But it might be subjectively meritocratic, in the sense that it seeks to align the selection of officials with the standards that its (political) culture associates with merit.

You'd be very hard pressed to find a system of government that intentionally sought to elevate people who were subjectively unsuitable for holding power to positions of power.

It's not a useful category when everyone occupies it.

You'd be equally hard pressed to find a system of government that intentionally sought to elevate people who were subjectively unpopular with the masses to positions of power. This does not mean dictatorships are democracies as long as the Party or Junta chooses a popular figurehead.

But to avoid redundancy I'll merge the rest of this response with my response to Akasha's post.

These are fairly irrelevant because as Kyiv points out, practically every system considers itself a subjective "meritocracy" in which the most worthy individual according to prevailing criteria is selected to rule. This criteria may involve a personal claim to the rulership through relation to a previous ruler, a popular mandate from a national election, selection by the ruling party via internal vote, or outright seizure of power by an armed force. But in every case, the group selecting the leader believes that they are the best person for the job, a subjective determination of merit. The problem though is that this doesn't eliminate the aforementioned issues of varying competency between members of a ruling dynasty, the potentially destructive impulses of mass democracy, or the pettiness and corruption of a representative democracy.

Precisely what I'm arguing for is a more nuanced definition of "meritocracy." "Objective merit" is clearly too narrow because different people and different political cultures will emphasize different qualities. And I will readily concede that "any subjective merit" is too broad because it includes having royal blood, being able to win votes, being a priest or prophet, and so on. How exactly it's defined at the edges, what marginal cases it includes or excludes, and what sub-types exist are certainly contentious issues.

But there are also a half-dozen different ways to define democracy that run into similar questions. One can follow Robert Dahl and define democracy as an ideal-type system in which the government treats all its citizens as equals and is perfectly and continuously responsive to their preferences. In this case, no real-life country fully meets the standard (which is also impossible to objectively define!) but one can rank them by how close they come in various important measures. Or one can follow Adam Przeworski and define it broadly as the selection of leaders by voting, regardless of the imperfections and irrationalities that may exist. Most scholars fall somewhere in between, including some basket of necessary rights and incentives (e.g., freedom of the press, freedom of expression, ability to form new parties) or some effects-based rule to screen out competitive authoritarianism (e.g., a country is only counted as a democracy if the incumbent party has lost an election). Another option, introduced by Bueno de Mesquita et al., focuses on the size and nature of the legal selectorate, which is particularly relevant to meritocracy (I'll touch on this later). Even under intermediate definitions, scholars will hotly disagree over what fringe cases can be categorized as democracies - Russia under Putin? Japan under the LDP? - but will agree that democracy as a useful and distinct category exists.

My reason for taking this tangent is that even democracy is subject to a wide range of academic definitions, all stemming from the fact that its ideal form - a perfectly equal citizenry and perfectly responsive government - is difficult to objectively measure and probably impossible to achieve in practice. But this is not any reason to reject democracy as a classification of regimes, or to say that all regimes are democratic to some extent or another. I'm essentially arguing the same for meritocracy. It is difficult, yes, but still conceivable to draw up some intermediate definition that is neither all-encompassing nor hopelessly ideal. And it is probably necessary, in order to properly classify governments that rely heavily on formal examinations or college degrees or IQ records as opposed to elections or bloodlines in order to place government officials.

And that is simply because all of these qualifications are subjective and there are broad swathes of the population that do not and will not agree on the subjective merits of an individual candidate or even of the merit criteria themselves. Any modern election in a Western democracy is a perfect example of how a broad swath of the population can see an opposing candidate's strengths as a weakness or disqualifying liability, and vice versa. And this applies regardless of the system of government in place.

The only solution would be to attempt to find some kind of objective merit criteria that could be used to select a candidate that would be objectively superior to others. To find some kind of criterion or criteria that would be universally acceptable and readily quantifiable in a way that can be compared between candidates. But this is impossible because the fundamental criteria are themselves a subject of disagreement and because in thousands of years of human history we have yet to have found any such objective criteria for selecting the best ruler.

This ultimately means that any attempt at meritocracy will fall prey to the same issues inherent in virtually every other form of government that's been tried. Because as both Allanea and Kyiv have pointed out, every government thinks it is selecting people based on merit, with the major differences being the selection process and the subjective criteria.

Which is why I referred to "(prevailing) political culture," which is subsequently enshrined in law by those with the power to do so. Even "political culture" is probably misleading though because such a system could also be set up under the self-preserving whim of a ruling elite.

The ideal-type process, though not necessarily the only definitionally possible one, is that bureaucrats in power (i) decide among themselves what traits are necessary in a good leader, (ii) draw up a readily quantifiable exam to assess the extent to which a person has those traits, (iii) administer this exam to applicants in a double-blind setting with strict controls against bribery and cheating, and (iv) determine entry-level placement based on anonymous scores. This does not require a society-wide consensus on what gets put in the test; if anything it may be a necessary condition that the populace at large is not consulted on the details. It does not require that the measures included in the test objectively correlate with ruling ability, though it may require that said bureaucrats think they do. It may not require that the same bureaucrats design the test (they may just adopt IQ) as long as the measure they use is standardized. It does not require that the results be objectively free from imperfection, and in practice they probably won't be.

The core issue at stake is that the procedure I've just described is distinct, in both concrete organization and dynamic effects, from democratic, theocratic, despotic, clientelistic, and hereditary ways of placing officials. And therefore it deserves a definitional category of its own, especially when extended beyond the auxiliary civil service to the entirety of the government.

It wasn't a straw man until you made it one by seeming to imply I meant only absolute success in an endeavor makes it worthwhile. To use your own phrasing, this is also a straw man, and (I hope) you know it.

You seem to be operating under the belief that I arbitrarily plucked some inherent negative traits in human governance from thin air, but they are taken from Absalon's own post and they were the very concerns that he felt made several forms of government unsuitable.

Absolon-7's original post was that monarchy has a higher risk of presenting an incompetent heir, while democracy is vulnerable to corruption, petty rivalry, and fickle popular will.

Your original response was that meritocracy, however defined, does not magically eliminate the factionalism, pettiness, and corruption of the others.

The basic gist of my response to that was that political institutions, including but by no means limited to selection, will never "magically eliminate" any of these things but can have a profound impact on how they function and how pervasive they are. Meritocracy, depending on how it's implemented, might reduce them, or aggravate them, or present completely different disadvantages. If anything I would expect the variations within each system to exceed the differences between their means. It wasn't so much disagreeing with your response as pointing out that it's incomplete.

But "all systems are prone to corruption, it's just human nature" is a cop-out answer that glosses over the profound qualitative and quantitative differences in social effects between different regime types and institutional forms.

And these in particular are complicated issues to solve. It would be one thing if he were proposing some kind of legal literacy standard for politicians, something that could be more easily measured and quantified. But here we are trying to eliminate such things as "corruption" and "pettiness," problems that have vexed mankind for its entire history. And the trouble is not in trying to build straw man comparisons between "good" and "bad" tests, but assessing which "good" tests are worthy of inclusion and who makes that determination. Which is why defining a "meritocracy" itself is a complicated endeavor.

Which I covered later in the second half.

If Absolon-7 is proposing that democracy is rife with corruption, pettiness, and factionalism, while monarchy is forever haunted by the risk of an incompetent heir, and meritocracy (however defined) is a panacea that will solve all of these problems, then yes, it's an overly optimistic assertion about a vague category of ruling systems. I would even go further and strongly advise against using your personal political opinions to craft the "perfect" NS government, be it meritocratic, libertarian, theocratic, or anarchist.

But this does not mean that we as writers cannot depict an NS government whose founders intended to fight these problems, and did so by implementing what they saw as a more perfect selection process, one based on knowledge and ability rather than vulgar popularity. The next step would be to lay out the details of that particular system, and then consider the various imperfections that would develop in it, and the wider flaws and side effects that would result.

For what it's worth, in the mid-20th century, military commanders and educated technocrats in Argentina and Brazil followed more or less the same argument: "the age of populism is fickle and unstable, and it has ruined the economy. The only way we can fix it is if we take control, strip the workers of their power, and run the country rationally, because we are experts and know what is best."* There is ample precedent for having some group in one's NS country do the same thing; Guillermo O'Donnell predicted in 1973, albeit incorrectly, that as economic modernization proceeded all Latin American democracies would arrive at the same fate.

*(Notably, in both cases the results fell far short of expectations, partly because the new rulers inherited weak institutions and strong landowning elites, allowing patronage to easily creep back in. But claiming that meritocracy is unfeasible in Latin America's political legacy, or even that it's unfeasible in general, is separate from claiming that it does not exist as an ideal-type category.)

A democracy is a "meritocracy" where the voters select the candidate they feel is most deserving of the position based on their own subjective criteria.

A one-party state is a "meritocracy" where the party selects the candidate they feel is the most deserving of leadership based on their own subjective criteria.

A theocracy is a "meritocracy" where the religious leadership selects the candidate they feel is the most deserving of leadership based on their own subjective criteria.

A dictatorship is a "meritocracy" where a group of followers controlling the threat of force put the candidate they feel is most deserving of leadership into power based on their own subjective criteria.

A bureaucracy is a "meritocracy" where a collective of employees promote leaders based on their internal subjective criteria.

But the fact remains that there is a category of regimes, both theoretical and real, in which a government body sets ostensibly knowledge-based criteria that are based on neither a popular vote, nor hereditary descent, nor military might, nor patronage ties, nor religious interpretation, nor pure seniority. This would include the Imperial Chinese examination system, as well as any hypothetical dystopian (utopian?) society in which people are assigned posts based on IQ or personality tests. It would probably encompass the majority of modern civil service examinations and bureaucratic promotion systems, which in general do not involve assessing one's princely descent, holding elections, consulting the oracle, or staging military coups. If these systems are not democracies, theocracies, monarchies, military juntas, or loyalty-based patronage systems, why not call them meritocratic?

All of these are "meritocracies" and loop back to the key question which remains unanswered in this case, which is who holds the power of selection? In a democracy, it is the people, while in a theocracy it may be a council of bishops or rabbis or imams or monks or what not. This is the most important question, because whatever "merit" criteria is used for the selection of a leader will be chosen by this group either explicitly or implicitly and thus is just as liable to fall prey to the whims of pettiness and corruption as any other system because in this case, it is no different from any other system.

No, it loops back to the question of how broadly or how narrowly we define a meritocracy. To put it in Bueno de Mesquita et al's terms, a meritocratic system would be one in which the "selectorate" consists of some bureaucratic organization which assesses people based on some standard of qualifications that's ostensibly based on their knowledge and governing ability.

This is actually a pretty profound difference from the perspective of actor-centric game theory. Under a democratic or oligarchic system, the challenger only has to win over the support of a large enough portion of the selectorate, and this can be done on a spectrum that ranges from demonstrating better fitness for the job to issuing threats, favors, and bribes. But under an ideal-typical meritocracy, the challenger's only path into office is to meet the concrete personal qualifications enshrined in law, be they a grueling civics and econometrics exam, a basic literacy test, or the recitation of classical poetry. The laws of the game, and the (dis)incentives they present, are qualitatively different. Which is ultimately the basis on which various political actors would advocate for meritocracy: it creates relatively high obstacles, though not insurmountable ones, to personal preference, mass popularity, and hereditary bias.

I can sense war on the horizon between two giants of NS realism: why not take this to II?

Probably 90% of the reason I'm still on these threads is so I can read random sperg arguments. It should be obvious that I mean no ill will to either Akasha or Kyiv.

This just happens to be a rare occasion where my formal education intersects with the topic at hand.

The Soviet Union had various measures to reward workers based on productivity. Stalin was deeply opposed to proposals of an arbitrary wage.

It also had various export products (timber, oil, weapons), etc.

From a True Believer perspective, the USSR was a capitalist society with all means of production owned by a state entity (thus, 'state capitalism').

In fact, during WW2 the USSR even introduced prizes for blowing up enemy tanks/planes, and even for quality maintenances. [Shooting down a fighter plane in 1941 gave a fighter pilot 1000 roubles - at a time when the average wage in the USSR was 354 roubles].

Notably, if you use Wallerstein's definition of Capitalism - an economy based on perpetually accumulating capital and then reinvesting it back into production in order to make even more capital, as opposed to doing just enough work that's needed and then relaxing or consuming - the Soviet Union is more Capitalist than most advanced (post?)industrial democracies.

Stalin could not just sell of his shares of "soviet government" and retire with the proceeds. Furthermore, the ideological backing is such that even if he tried he'd get a revolution on his hands.

Post-collapse regional officials in the former Soviet Union did exactly that. And not because they had ceased to be selfless Leninists overnight, but because the state's ability to restrict these predatory behaviors was abruptly lifted. Even under Brezhnev and Khrushchev the Soviet economy was teeming with corruption and parasitism, the profiteers of the 1990s were just taking methods they had already learned in the preceding decades and exercising them freely on a vastly larger scale.

[The Soodean Imperium]

A lot of definitions were thrown around in that last post so I'll take a moment to straighten them out:

- an "ideal" meritocracy, as I see it, is one that directly and consciously selects and promotes officials based on their actual ability to administer the country well. Like Dahl's definition of democracy, this is impossible to objectively determine in practice because so many competing standards and practical obstacles exist, but it serves as a useful heuristic end-point along which to rank different systems.

- the broadest possible definition of meritocracy, as I see it, is one that selects and promotes people directly based on some subjective assessment of ruling ability. This is impossibly broad, and overlaps with many other systems, but like "voting equals democracy" it serves as the lower bound of any spectrum of definitions.

- for the purpose of today's thought exercise, I am tentatively defining meritocracy as that i-ii-iii-iv standardized examination system, as this is the most distinct from other methods of succession. I still acknowledge that broader and narrower intermediate definitions are possible but this is probably the most classic example.

[Gallia-]

Post-collapse regional officials in the former Soviet Union did exactly that. And not because they had ceased to be selfless Leninists overnight, but because the state's ability to restrict these predatory behaviors was abruptly lifted. Even under Brezhnev and Khrushchev the Soviet economy was teeming with corruption and parasitism, the profiteers of the 1990s were just taking methods they had already learned in the preceding decades and exercising them freely on a vastly larger scale.

Sperg Union undermined by Parasite Normies. ):

It doesn't, because it means I'll have to wake up every day to read your complaints.

n years of : p u r p :

Well you don't have to wake up every day...

Yes I do, because I don't want to stay in bed with you.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Post-collapse regional officials in the former Soviet Union did exactly that. And not because they had ceased to be selfless Leninists overnight, but because the state's ability to restrict these predatory behaviors was abruptly lifted. Even under Brezhnev and Khrushchev the Soviet economy was teeming with corruption and parasitism, the profiteers of the 1990s were just taking methods they had already learned in the preceding decades and exercising them freely on a vastly larger scale.

Sperg Union undermined by Parasite Normies. ):

To be clear, I'm not saying that the Soviet Union was undermined by a conspiracy of speculators and parasites, but that its economic system was rife with conflicts of interest from the start. It probably would not have survived as long as it did without factory managers trading and stockpiling spare parts behind the scenes.

[Austrasien]

One day I will explain my political views in detail in some sort of manifesto and than you'll understand. But as I am too tired to do so now I'll just leave you with a super abridged beginners guide.

- Humans are greedy selfish bastards by nature
- Societies are groups of humans each selfishly trying to find a way to make the game more difficult for everyone else but make them the king, and because there are so many of them they tend to end up meeting in the middle.
- Different societies are different interpretations of what that middle is.

>Computer programmers
>Politics

dis gunna be good

[Gallia-]

One day I will explain my political views in detail in some sort of manifesto and than you'll understand. But as I am too tired to do so now I'll just leave you with a super abridged beginners guide.

- Humans are greedy selfish bastards by nature
- Societies are groups of humans each selfishly trying to find a way to make the game more difficult for everyone else but make them the king, and because there are so many of them they tend to end up meeting in the middle.
- Different societies are different interpretations of what that middle is.

>Computer programmers STEM
>Politics

dis gunna be good

STEM Politics:

Type 1 - Ron Paul
Type 2 - Mega Lenin

Rumours of a Type 3 - Apathetic abound, but remain unsubstantiated.

[Korva]

the few stem majors in law school were invariably libertarians

just like purp!

[Gallia-]

the few stem majors in law school were invariably libertarians

just like purp!

STEM Libertarians are a stereotype for good reason, it's probably because they use themselves as a baseline for other people (e.g. Dunning-Kruger IRL). Leninism is only slightly rarer and usually found in STEM majors with some social savvy, academic or practical. Or super spergs who want loads of money to make The Fastest Planes and The Biggest Tanks.

Maybe a 60/40 split.

[Purpelia]

Actually I find that both libertarianism and base Marxism have the absolute same problem. They rely on people being good by nature. And that is absolutely positively 1000% undeniably wrong. People are monsters, plain and simple. Being good is no more natural to us than presenting a paw to shake is to a dog. It's trained behavior.

And I find that all freedom loving ideologies, be they relent on good through individual expression or good through cooperation fail because people just won't do good until you force feed it to them during their formative years. And that's hardly free now is it?