The premise is not a joke, and something people would actually like to achieve.
4 years ago(+21)(-304)
Well, yikes. I can't believe people still believe in communism in the age of information. The fact that this dev has the opportunity to make and get this game hosted is a product of capitalism.
4 years ago(+153)(-19)
Markets =/= capitalism, socialism =/= communism, there's no reason this game couldn't exist in a socialist society (though the subject matter might be redundant).
4 years ago(+60)(-7)
to live in a world with an economic and political system that does not favour you doesn't mean you need to support that economic and political system
4 years ago(+36)(-18)
Scandanavian game developers do some you great work, you know. pretty sure most of them qualify as socialist.
4 years ago(+10)(-35)
Actually they are more free market than the USA, they just have a massive welfare state and high taxes as a result. It is Captialism that funds it.
4 years ago(+28)(-9)
you are aware that a form of socialism can coexist with capitalism, and that this is very common.
socialism is about the social ownership of the means of production.
this comes in various forms, one of which is nationalized institutions.
"We, The People" then own and operate it.
4 years ago(+6)(-43)
Yes of course under Capitalism nothing stops you from starting a Socialist community. And there are examples of this, of course most fail and they do not scale well.
But under Socialism or any other Autoritarian system you are not free to create a business. Yet even under the most oppressive government's like North Korea there is black market Capitalism.
Peopel everywhere desire to be free. Nobody flees Capitalism to a Socialist country.
Think!
4 years ago (+25)(-3)
actually, communes and communities scale amazingly well, if they can work mostly independant of eachother.
a cell like structure is actually extremely common in business and government alike.
in governments, they are usually hierarchical as well.
the cells operate mostly independantly, but answer to the layer above and command the layer below.
Second, me and my 5 friends starting An Island Onto Itself won't work, because what we need to survive and what we need to maintain standard of living will be with held from us.
4 years ago(+6)(-29)
Yet there are no examples, they have all failed. Odd if it is such a good system that nobody has managed to make it work.
Nothing in your way other than hurdles that anybody else faces. You don't need an island. Yet there are people that put in the hard work and achive their dreams all the time. People that go off grid and live with very little outside interaction.
4 years ago(+19)(-2)
There are dozens of communes out there that seem to work fine. I'm not particularly pro-commune but it is very disingenuous just shotgunning all of them with your expectations of failure when many communes have been running for 30+ years, and Cuba has been doing about as well as the capitalist countries of latin america even through all the sanctions that made that government unable to trade with almost any other.
4 years ago(+1)(-23)
As I said people can choose to form a collective collony or group and make it work as long as it is volentary. But of course then it would be Capitalism and not Socialism and it does not scale well.
As far as Socialist or Communist countries they always result in misery for the people and collapse. I oppose sactions on whole countries as they harm the people and give the Dictators a scape goat.
4 years ago (+17)(-1)
Yeah, most European countries have what's known as "Social Market Economy" which is based on the free market. It's basically impossing socialist laws without changing ownership, just putting limits to the private hands. Because in the end it doesn't matter if the means of production are privately or socially owned as long as some social limits are impossed .This prevents huge monopolies from raising up and killing the small companies (in a way, protecting social welfare is the best way to protect capitalism).
Sadly, because US does not care so much about protecting social welfare, huge international companies based on the US rise up to eat up market, mess up with the competition internationally and more than once have clashed with the antimonopoly laws in Europe, or have to conform to things like the GDPR and other European social laws.
The fear the US has to socialism seems to have creeped into any kind of social reform, and any mention of social measures often gets automatically identified with communism as if they were equivalent. There's the irrational belief that it's impossible to have any form of social reform that doesn't lead to authoritarianism, and when presented with any possitive influence social reforms have had in any country (even in the US) they'll immemdiatelly attribute it to capitalism, or justify it saying that it's still capitalism, without acknowledging that it's thanks to those social reforms that capitalism (and economic competition) was healthy.
4 years ago(+10)(-2)
Socialism is an economic system not a government one. However a state can choose to support a capitalist or socialist system. If you read Marx he never actually said anything about what the state should do, and only wrote about the workplace and the power that people who work in the factory should have over the owners who hold tyrannical power over the means-of-production currently.
4 years ago(+18)(-1)
Capitalism requires policing to keep people from stealing.
all ruling systems i have taken serious so far require force somewhere, somehow.
not all uses of force are equivelant and that is common sense.
4 years ago(+2)(-26)
There is a big difference between using defensive force aginst agressors and using aggresion against innocent people.
State sponsored violence is bad and should be rejected by all. No kind person would support such a system. Just look at the recent protests against police brutality. Of course that is nothing compared to what people face under Socialism or Communism.
4 years ago (+7)(-1)
Someone who steals from private hands is as much of an aggressor/innocent as someone who steals from social hands.
Note that socialism is not about public (government-controlled) goods but socially owned (community/cooperative/group-controlled) goods. ie. in this case you should compare it to someone who steals from your local community (let's say.. a building where the ownership is shared) something that belongs to a group or a collective. Not necessarily to the government.
You are probably gonna argue that it's not the same to take money from someone than to steal a good. But as a matter of fact, taking money from someone is what is done in every purchase. When someone takes a good from your shop without paying for it, you are actually forcing him to give you money in exchange, in the same way as you pay taxes in exchange from being able to be part of a community with its benefits and obligations. You can always emigrate to the United Arab Emirates or any other country without taxes if you don't want to be in a community that has taxes as part of its social contract established by "we, the people".
You can't expect to have the police defend you from stealing and at the same time refuse to pay the salary of the police (which in the USA it's publicly-funded with taxes, same as the army, the sewage, the garbage collection/treatment, and other "evil" social services).
4 years ago(+3)(-7)
"Someone who steals from private hands is as much of an aggressor/innocent as someone who steals from social hands."
it's official, taking things from Lex Luther is equivelant to stealing the savings of millions of americans.
4 years ago (+6)
I'm not sure what you are trying to say there. I never implied they were equivalent, what I said is that stealing is an aggression also when you are stealing from social/public funds.
I don't think killing 1 person is equivalent to killing 100, but I would still say both are aggressions and I'd rather be defended against both situations.
The person I was replying to (Wulfgar_3D) assumed that stealing from someone was an aggression (to be defended against), but that it isn't an aggression to commit tax fraud (which as I illustrated, it's like refusing to pay after a purchase... or like not paying the rent , the electricity or the internet). For him, defending against tax fraud IS what's "using aggresion against innocent people", and my point was to show that that's just hypocrisy.
Calling "innocent" to someone who doesn't want to pay for the police, at the same time as he wants to use "defensive force against agressors" is not making much sense, specially considering that you need police for such defense..
4 years ago(+41)(-5)
I think then, this game is especially for people like you. I'm just about to play it and it seems like you are given statements that you, as the president, need to evaluate as reasonable or not. You might be surprised or shocked to find that certain values you fundamentally agree with may be considered socialist, and if that's the case, you may wish to reconsider what you believe socialism to be. In a game, it's cool because you can test drive it.
4 years ago(+49)(-4)
You criticize society despite participating in it?
Hypocrite, you are!
I am very smart.
4 years ago (+29)(-7)
This game is about introducing Democratic Socialism with a market economy, the same kind of system used in France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, etc. That's not communism, and if you think it is then you might like to read some books and think a bit more critically about where you get your political understanding from.
4 years ago(+15)(-4)
Sweden, Norway, France, and Germany are all capitalist, with Sweden and Norway being capitalist kingdoms. Welfare =/= Socialism. Government =/= Socialism. You are thinking about Social Democratic policies.
4 years ago(+35)(-5)
I can't believe in the age of information you think communism and socialism are the same thing and still think either of those ideas are inherently bad. Have they been misused by some, yes, has capitalism YES! Any system with people in power can be corrupted beyond recognition. Try actually reading into what each of those words mean and not just from capitalists. Not saying you have to come out wanting either but you'll learn a lot.
4 years ago (+14)(-1)
The developers produced the game with their own labour, in no step of the process was capitalism necessary. Capitalism is simply one mode of production and distribution, there were others before and it will be surpassed in the future.
2 years ago(+5)
i think they call this 'an argument from intimidation'.
just state the conclusion really confidently.
leave.
4 years ago(-10)
The dev didn't delete you shitting on him. Lolz. He goes with the masses. The dev is pro segregation for blacks. When I call him out on this he deleted my thread. He's a racist. You wouldn't have wanted to play his game. It wasn't even fun. It was just propaganda.
2 years ago(+2)
more than likely you haven't been informed on what socialism is or communism. The channel "second thought" on youtube is a good general source of what we believe. I don't think he'd "convert you" but if you'd like to at least understand this dev's perspective it would definitely strengthen your own political views and you'd leave more educated regardless if your views change or not. :)