[throwaway84742]

That’s what scares me. As the generations who experienced the “utopia” first hand die off, new generations are born who think “it’ll work this time”. Nothing that goes so fundamentally against human nature will ever work.

[zpr]

Good book about exactly this is Orwell's Animal Farm which is an allegory to the Russian revolution itself

[monocasa]

It's worth saying that Orwell was himself a communist who fought in the Spanish Civil war, he was just against stalinist communism (which he didn't see as real communism, and neither would Lenin).

[throwaway84742]

>> and neither would Lenin

I grew up in the USSR, and this is news to me. Do you have evidence in favor of this claim?

[monocasa]

I mean, that's the whole distinction between Marxism and Leninsim, right? The idea of a vanguard party that facilitates the transition to communism? I can't imagine that Lenin would look at Stalinist USSR, and say "oh yeah, we've actually transitioned to communism now".

[pault]

I've been thinking about this recently; we're about to lose the last of the people that lived through WWII. I wonder how the generations 40 years from now will interpret those events. I think we're already starting to see it with the rehabilitation of nazi germany in alt-right circles.

[flyinghamster]

> we're about to lose the last of the people that lived through WWII.

And for a long time, I've felt that the lessons learned from WWII would be promptly forgotten once the vets died off. It's damn infuriating to see it actually happen, though.

Sadly, the rise of despots like Putin, Trump, Duterte, Xi, Orban, etc. (not to mention the Brexit fiasco) is not a surprise to me. I figured this would happen once enough of the vets died off. [Lack of faith in humanity? Me? Yeah, exactly.]

(US-centric) Frank Zappa's later albums carried the motto, "Register to vote before it's too late." Too bad that there were so many people back then who were either too cool to show up at the ballot box when they were needed most (think 1980), or decided that outright fascism served their interests best.

[throwaway84742]

How is Trump a “despot”? Please explain.

[throwaway84742]

Except of course there’s no “rehabilitation of Nazi Germany in alt right circles”. They despise that shit as much as the liberals do. Don’t believe everything CNN tells you.

[forapurpose]

I see it now in the embrace of nationalism, geopolitics, and war as a tool by current leaders in the U.S. and elsewhere. The people who knew most about war, the survivors of WWII, build the international order, established the UN, and did other things explicitly to prevent war from ever happening again.

The fools of today think they know better. One thing that particularly concerned the leaders post-WWII was that the next war, after more technological advances, would cause unimaginable levels of devastation to humanity. Remember they had seen WWI exceed what anyone imagined, then WWII exceed WWI. Imagine a major war with all the technological advancement since 1945 devoted to killing and destruction.

[krzyk]

I fail to understand why you are downvoted. Someone care to explain?

[throwaway84742]

Millennials. They think it’ll work this time. Just as soon as we shoot everyone who disagrees, the eternal utopia will arrive.

[monocasa]

The why do the majority of Russians want a return of the USSR, with higher numbers among older generations?

[krzyk]

Because in those times USSR was a "power" - investing in military, ripping of dependent states for food. Life in USSR was good (especially Russia) in comparison to other states that were occupied by them (meaning USSR stationed army there).

[monocasa]

That doesn't really have with the data. A 2009 Pew research poll put the majority of satellite states as having a greater view of communism than even Russia does. Basically it's just the Czech Republic and Poland where the people who don't want a return to communism outnumber those who do.

http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/leg...

[TangoTrotFox]

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and go for Hanlon's razor here. Your image doesn't say what you think it does. Here [1] is the pew page where your image came from. You, for whatever reason, decided to not offer the data that actually answers the question of what percent of people approve the change to a capitalist democracy. This [2] is the answer for democracy, this [3] for capitalism.

Literally every nation polled except Hungary and Ukraine have a majority in support of both changes. A critical point is that this poll was also done in 2009 when economic times were quite hard around the world. Also I expect that answer was on the approve - neutral - disapprove spectrum, so (100 - approve%) is not the same as disapprove.

Finally, there's also the general issue that overtime for whatever reason we, as humans, tend to view the past as much more pleasant than it was. If you polled Americans over some minimum age on whether the country was better off 'x' years ago (e.g. - the 50s) or better off today, I expect you'd see an enormous chunk, and likely a majority, stating that we were better off in the 50s. Even well below that age, I would be mighty tempted to agree as well. It was a time of 'friendlier' economics and people able to graduate debt free working a part time job, and also an era where employees were not just "human resources" -- think about how dystopic that phrase really is! There was a very different employer-employee model than we have today.

And finally there is the issue of a shared enemy. Countries united when they have a common enemy. Even George Bush approached near 90% approval engaging in some pretty bad actions following 9/11 simply because we had a shared enemy. It's called the 'rally around the flag effect'. The Soviet Union had the greatest of enemies, which is something that would have galvanized and unified the people. All we need to do to create world peace and harmony is get invaded by a space fairing civilization! I meant that as a joke, but it's probably quite true...

[1] - http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/11/02/end-of-communism-cheered...

[2] - http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/leg...

[3] - http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/leg...

[Voyage_wanderer]

Just google “east Germany poll communism”. you will be surprised what poll results consistently shows year after year. (presentage of people thinking it was good times steadily well over 50%)

[zipwitch]

I have the similar thoughts about capitalism as the Great Depression leaves living memory.

Perhaps it is not any arbitrary and general '-ism' that is so deeply problematic, but the periodic failure or fall below some critical level of a collection of human understanding and willing effort that waxes and wanes with circumstances and lived experience over generations?

[Pica_soO]

Does it? For a part of humans this has always worked. Every mammoth hunted down- was socialized once it was back in camp.

Sure the chief-tain had a say, but in the end, i think for a lot of human history as hunter gatherer without big storage- we ran on socialism. Which is why it reappears again and again.

Want to talk to socialism that's oh so unnatural? Close your browsers, stand up, talk to your spouse, lie about one of the neighbors having won the lottery. Observe.

Also, for all the bad it does to the economy as a total- at least, it resets the inequality, that prevents alot of Americans today from realizing there full potential.

Somewhere you have to draw a Finnish line, so that the race can start over.

[rascul]

> Want to talk to socialism that's oh so unnatural? Close your browsers, stand up, talk to your spouse, lie about one of the neighbors having won the lottery. Observe.

What are you trying to get at here? What reaction do you think there would be?