[barry-cotter]

>How is forcing that indie developer in live in Alaska, much different from the Soviets shipping someone off to Siberia because they didn't get with the plan?

Because one of them involves the choice between the gulag and death and the other involves the choice between being a poverty-stricken artist and anything else you might decide to do once you get over your art and quit.

[burgers]

But maybe people who ended up in the Gulag were because they chose not to go along with what the state wanted them to do? It seems quite obvious that the United States strongly discourages going into any other field outside of economics. That is by far the easiest low risk high income path a person can take in the US. So by becoming an artist, you are going against the framework set up by US society to convince you to go into finance. That's why there are so many punishments and risks involved. Just like the Gulag was set up to convince people to follow the framework set up by the Soviets.

14,000+ people were murdered in the US. Many of those people died simply because they had a low enough ratio of money to others to force them to live in a dangerous place. Not because of any other reason than having less money that others.

[judk]

Stalin murdered how many million people?