Roll Playing the NAP in DnD

The ideals and the philosophy is. The awful results of applying such idealised notions to reality are rather less so. Then again, no individual has ever been able to really institute those ideals. They're almost always supplanted by totalitarians using them as a justification before anything can get started. It's the sad fate of idealists in politics in general, that they'll be abused or replaced by those who only desire power, and exploited to justify the excesses of those who rule.

fpbp

Where did this whole "communism will be supplanted by totalitarians" myth come about? In most cases, the form of communism implemented was ALWAYS totalitarian. There was no supplanting, that's how it had always been.

>killing more people than the bubonic plague
>good

You mean
>neutral

>Steal from other people.
>Crush/execute/exile dissenters.
>Utopian ideology that leads people to do horrible things for a theoretical perfect future that never comes.

In b4 no-true-scotsman "b-but those people weren't -true- Communists"!

Because it's recorded history? Trotsky and the other idealists were driven out and killed to pave the way for fascists by another name.

It's not a no true scotsman, it's understanding the difference between the ideals and the philosophy, and the atrocities committed by totalitarians using its name as justification.

>be human
>do human things
Your average Soviet was just a fuck in the middle of a bad situation, doing his best to keep his and his family's hides intact. Therefore, neutral.
As I already said, Stalin and Beria would be evil as fuck.
On the other hand, Engels and Chernyshevsky would be Lawful and Neutral Good, respectively.
Trotsky was a totalitarian you nitwit.

Oh, and Lenin and Trotsky would be Lawful Neutral too, because they were basically just autocrats. In D&D autocrats (ex. kings) are usually neutral, so so are they.

No.

Good has to do with whether you care about the good of others, and evil has to do with if you enjoy suffering or just give 0 shits, per the books.

Lawful/Chaotic depends on what you think about authority and tradition.

It is ridiculously easy to think of a character who is any of those philosophies and holds any alignment. Idealogy=/=Alignment.

Communism isn't just "helping other people". It means "helping SOME other people" specifically through violent revolution and forced redistribution of the means of production, because the current order is (or so the theory goes) is explotative to the proletariat.

The alignment chart is meant for ethical/moral issues only, and even on those it's rather limited. Certainly not politics.

Trotsky would have purged his own enemies too in case that he had managed to overthrow Stalin somehow. Their main ideological difference was to either consolidate communism in Russia first or not.
And the communist program was carried out by Stalin as Lenin intended. The NEP wasn't a departure of the "program", it was a necessity, because demonetization wasn't exactly working all too well for them (as in, famines).

How so?

Admittedly this is coming from relatively long ago history lessons, but Trotsky was always portrayed as a sincere idealist, a true believer rather than the cynics who supplanted him and the others of his kind.

And you, of course, are a superior judge of which of those totalitarians -truly- believed in your philosophy and which didn't?

Come on.

Stalin did the right thing.

>Good has to do with whether you care about the good of others, and evil has to do with if you enjoy suffering or just give 0 shits, per the books.
>Lawful/Chaotic depends on what you think about authority and tradition.
And that is exactly why:
Monarchists, who support authority and tradition, would be lawful;
Communists, who care deeply for the good of others, would be good (and because they support authority, lawful) -- or alternatively, if they're drawn from Bolshevism, they merely care for themselves and those they love, so they're lawful neutral;
And Existentialists who don't care for laws or tradition are chaotic, and who (depending on the strand) either care deeply or don't care at all for good and evil.
Your history lessons lied to you. Trotsky had many people killed (rebels and the like, of course, but nonetheless he was no idealist). He was MORE of an idealist than, say, fucking Stalin, but he was no super soft dancer either. Pointedly, he was in charge of the army.
>Communism isn't just "helping other people".
Yes it is. Alienation applies to everybody.
>Specifically through revolution
Plenty of non-Marxist strands did not advocate such a thing.
>Ethical/moral issues only
Which are frequently political.

If you hate the human race, yeah, somewhat.

>And you, of course, are a superior judge of which of those totalitarians -truly- believed in your philosophy and which didn't?
What, superior than you?

>demonetization wasn't exactly working all too well for them
The main issue was the war, and the desperation with which they had to requisition grain. Peasants just stopped overproducing, because it'd all be taken by soldiers. Both the Communists and the Anti-Communists did this, incidentally.
In fact, while the NEP was wildly successful for the first few years it was used, by the end it was actually faltering.

I should clarify, I don't mean 'idealist' as in starry eyed do gooder. I'm aware he and basically all of them did awful things in those events. But he truly believed in the philosophy, at least as I understood it, as opposed to the rampant hypocrisy which arose instead.

Yeah, that'd be true. But, I mean, don't you oppose those "awful things"? Lenin and his like are usually what people refer to when they say Communism is supplanted by totalitarians, although not always I guess.

>Monarchists
Consider Catholics in England. Throughout much of history they did not support the ruling regime, but were certainly Monarchists. So long as the Monarch was theirs. They were enemies of the state.

>Communists
If you really believe Communism is inherently good I probably can't convince you. The death toll says otherwise. You need to graduate college and think about it some more.

>Existentialists
Believing in radical freedom and respecting/disrespecting authority are not mutually exclusive.

>Yes it is. Alienation applies to everybody.
Not to the bourgeoisie, no. They are already living in "communism" in a sense.

>Plenty of non-Marxist strands did not advocate such a thing.
Not really keeping track of post-modern versions of marxism. Classic Marxism is enough lunacy as it is for me.

>Which are frequently political.
In real life, in a sense. Politics might be considered a collective/social expresion of ethics. Depends on which ethical philosophy you might be refering to.
But I was talking about the aligment system, not real life. And this thread is getting off-topic much as it is, lol.

>The main issue was the war
No, it wasn't. Demonetazation was much more destructive to the russian people than the whole war. Certainly in body counts.

Same with the "Great Leap Foward of Mao" and all other attempt to bring about "true" communism.

The problem is economic calculation. By getting rid of offer & demand & money, you lack any efficient way of keeping track of prices and exchanges. No matter how many bureocrats and funcionaries you keep, trying to keep some track of it. Thus, you don't have any clue of what to produce, or how much. That's when famine kicks in.

Atrocities are atrocities, no matter who inflicted them, but revolutions like that tend to involve them no matter who wins or their ideology. I suppose it more seems like a matter of course than something to remark upon.

I don't believe that if Stalin hadn't taken power they would have achieved some magnificent utopia, for all the bright and hopeful ideas of the philosophy it fundamentally breaks down when applied to actual human beings, but I don't think it makes sense to attribute atrocities to a philosophy that isn't actually being followed by those responsible for them. It would be like claiming the Holocaust was socialist due to the full name of the Nazi party. Which, granted, is something I have seen people try to do, but it's still stupid.

>You need to graduate college and think about it some more.
College is where the communists come from these days.

Yeah, exactly why he needs to get out of that insulating Marxist bubble before he can learn a thing or two.

>Throughout much of history they did not support the ruling regime, but were certainly Monarchists
And they were certainly lawful.
>If you really believe Communism is inherently good
My friend, I do not believe anything is inherently good. We are going by the D&D definitions, which are your definitions. If you cannot get passed the fact that your own morals disagree with D&D's, well, you're going to find this whole thing difficult.
>Believing in radical freedom and respecting/disrespecting authority are not mutually exclusive.
Yes they are.
>Not to the bourgeoisie, no
What? They very definitely are.
>Not really keeping track of post-modern versions of marxism
I said NON-Marxist. You know, not-a-form-of-Marxism. You understand there's more to Communism than Marx, right? And, for what it's worth, this is mainly referring to the ideology BEFORE Marx stomped onto the scene...as well as anarchists. So well before postmodernism.
>And this thread is getting off-topic much as it is
No, user, this was always the intended topic.
>Demonetazation was much more destructive to the russian people than the whole war. Certainly in body counts
That is the single dumbest thing I've ever heard. No answer to the fact that the Whites did the exact same thing with even worse results, either.
>and all other attempt to bring about "true" communism
Yeah if by "true" Communism we mean "this specific weird variety of Communism which most Communists disagreed with".

For example, the VAST majority of Communists would not agree with the idea of functionaries or bureaucrats. If you're gonna criticise Communism, do it on its own failings. It has plenty enough.
They do. The Bolsheviks were the guys who decided to have such a revolution, and it was precisely because they were so totalitarian. It's not a coincidence that many people were killed.

>which are your definitions
Which are the definitions you gave*, more precisely.

>Were certainly lawful
Which is why they did not respect the authority of the State?
>Communism
Every single philosophy claims to support the good of all. The philosophical arguments come from the means.

Communism directly supports harming people, (the bourgeois), to 'help' others (the proletariat). That is not some kind of clear cut "Communism just wants to help people". You are conflating your personal political ideology with the alignment system.

Read carefully the image first. Then consider that Marx defined alienation as " estrangement from the self". Why would the bourgeoisie be alienated? They keep their work's value and that of the worker's, with minimun sacriffice.

> You understand there's more to Communism than Marx, right?
No, Communism is a Marxian concept. Socialism is another matter. All those other socialist movements (san-simonism or proudhonian anarchism, or what have you) required some measure of violent revolution to be carried out. Thinking that current state of afairs can radically change some other way is just wishful thinking.

>No, user, this was always the intended topic.
Not really talking about aligment chart anymore, are we?

>hat is the single dumbest thing I've ever heard.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932–33

>Yeah if by "true" Communism we mean "this specific weird variety of Communism which most Communists disagreed with".
Variant strains of Communism differ only in the METHODS of achieving TRUE communism, which is a classless society, where the means of production are owned by the community as a whole. Which, by the way, it's the same goal that the anarchists share. Main difference between anarchist and communist is that anarchist concive a "leaderless" spontaneus revolution and communist variants usually involve a "vanguard" a leading cadre of revolutionaries managing the revolutionary effort.

>Which is why they did not respect the authority of the State?
Which is why they did not respect the authority of that particular state, yes. You think lawful people never go to war?
If they were rebelling against the state because they believed the whole institution was bad -- for example, if they were levellers -- then yes, they would be chaotic. But in fact they saw themselves as MORE lawful than the rebellious Protestants.
>Every single philosophy claims to support the good of all
They don't, actually. Stoicism just supports the good of the practitioner, for example.
PLUS, there are some which claim to support the good of all *but are not concerned with other people*. For example, Randian Egoism. The ideology is only concerned with, well, the ego, but this is supposed to be what is best for everyone. Nonetheless, in D&D terms this is evil.
>Communism directly supports harming people
Lawful good adventurers exist, and they do harm people.
>the bourgeois
No, they think they are providing some help to the bourgeois, who they see as victims of capitalism as much as anyone else (but just more lucky).
>That is not some kind of clear cut "Communism just wants to help people".
Yes, yes it is.

>Your personal political ideology
Name my ideology, numbnuts. I am, by the way, very opposed to Communism.

>Why would the bourgeoisie be alienated?
They are themselves governed by the system of capitalism.
>No, Communism is a Marxian concept
It really, really isn't: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Marxist_Communism
>Wishful thinking
A lot of these guys were pretty wishful.
>Not really talking about alignment chart anymore, are we?
We are, actually, but whatever the case politics was the aim. It's bait.
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932–33
You mean that thing that was a result of collectivisation and a lot of other factors (but mostly collectivisation)?
>Variant strains of Communism differ only in the METHODS of achieving TRUE communism
This is true, but it's usually the methods people are criticising. E.g., the whole "let's have a fuckhuge state and control everything" thing.
>that the anarchists share
That many anarchists share. Post-leftists and, arguably, anarcho-capitalists do not.

>They are themselves governed by the system of capitalism.
You clearly didn't read the text carefully. Alienation is the result of the workers lost of self due to their inability to govern their own lifes and the maiming of the capitalist mode of production (ie factory work). A capitalist has all the freedom that money can buy and doesn't work long hard hours. They aren't governed by capitalism as much as they ARE capitalism and profit from it.

>It really, really isn't
You really think that hunter-gatherers called themselves communists? Isn't it more likely that the form of life of those times was dubbed retroactively "communist" by marxist thinkers?
>It's bait
Obviously.
>You mean that thing that was a result of collectivisation and a lot of other factors (but mostly collectivisation)?
Mostly collectivisation. Yup. I don't see a disagreement here.
>This is true, but it's usually the methods people are criticising. E.g., the whole "let's have a fuckhuge state and control everything" thing.
I'd say that
Thing is, anarchist (for instance) have never really controlled and managed a country on the macro level. And never for long. A couple of years at most. And besides, they always had a form of "goverment" they just didn't called it as such. I'm from Spain,for instance, and during the civil war we had some territories governed by anarchists (most famously Catalonia) and they had their own police,military, law and leaders. They just didn't refered to it as a state.

>Post-leftists
Not really familiar with them.

>anarcho-capitalists
Whole other animal there. I don't think that they belong to the anarchist "tradition" that I was referring to. They wouldn't think so either. And less than all, the "true" anarchists themselves.

You fundamentally misunderstand the No True Scotsman fallacy. Here, let me educate you.
The fallacy is based in the fact that the proposed wrong person believes that no Scotsman would commit x crime, but when faced with the evidence that a Scot did, in fact, commit such a crime, falls back on saying that a "true" Scot wouldn't act like that.
However, there is a difference in national background, which is inherent to a person, and ideological identity. If a person acts in a way that does not befit their nation, that doesn't stop them from being born in that nation. If a person acts in a way that is incongruent with their supposed ideals, however, they are literally no longer following that ideal. A Communist state that does not follow Communist ideals is not, in fact, a Communist state at all. Which makes sense because Communism is a fucking pipe dream.

>You really think that hunter-gatherers called themselves communists?
Wow good job reading the first line, knucklehead.
>Mostly collectivisation. Yup. I don't see a disagreement here.
Uh, okay, but collectivisation has nothing to do with money. Like you can do it even keeping money.
>Thing is, anarchist (for instance) have never really controlled and managed a country on the macro level
Yes, exactly. The Bolsheviks were successful (AFTER the main revolution...but whatever) which meant two things:
1. loads of people wanted to copy them. Hey, if it works, right?
2. They financed a bunch of copycats, and squashed non-Bolshevik socialists (Mao still broke through their apathy through sheer force of autism).
>Not really familiar with them
I don't blame you. They're the fedoras of the anarchist universe. They almost get the point, IMO, but man do they fall at the final hurdle.
>Whole other animal
Yeah. I still think they deserve to be called anarchist, but they are very different.

Also this a tonne because seeing people misuse the fallacy triggers my autism.

>always looking for a reason to kill people
Yup, definitely seems like Evil

Sounds neutral verging on evil to me. What evil character needs a reason to kill?

>Wow good job reading the first line
Sigh. Pic related. Also, good like finding an instance of Robespierre or any of the others talking about "communism". Socialism, yeah, communism, no.

>Uh, okay, but collectivisation has nothing to do with money. Like you can do it even keeping money.
Not, in the sense that money is just "means of payment". In a collectivised economy there isn't any "payment" as I'm refering to. The only money that you might find are goverment hands-out. Which doesn't help on keeping track of offer, demand and thus prices. Demonetization is a inherent part of collectivization. It might help you grasp the situation, thinking that our personal accounts (as in, you keep what you get by your work and manage your own personal "economy") requieres a series of decisions that you need to make to not going broke (don't buy more than you can afford, ect). The total sum of this kind of decisions of a large group of people form an economy, with it's offer and demand and thus it's prices. If you take personal accountability off the table, you essentially transfer those "calculations" to a single office: goverment. Which can't possibly handle such a humongous amount of calculations, even If goverments were competent to begin with (they usually aren't). URSS literally coped (badly) with this problems by literally "copying" prices from USA newspapers.

It's pretty late where I'm from. Hope that I might have been helpful. Bye

Forgot pic. There we go.

>Lawful/Chaotic depends on what you think about authority and tradition.
no it doesn't

>he thinks marxism is utopian

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