Comment on We live wasted lives
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks agoI don’t believe your country was ever under communism in the last two thousand years. I think you’re actually from a former USSR state. Not even Stalin ever dared to claim that the USSR had achieved communism, and he was an arrogant git who would have said it if he’d had a shred of evidence.
Maalus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No true scotsman fallacy. I could say that no country was under ideal capitalism so you can’t criticize it either. You have to look at reality, not make believe nations that never existed.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Throwing around the names of fallacies that don’t apply instead of actual arguments doesn’t further your cause just as much as you might think it does.
The no true Scotsman fallacy applies if:
The main issue here is that using this fallacy, the claim becomes a non-falsifiable tautology. Every Scotsman who puts sugar on his porridge is not a true Scotsman, thus the claim becomes always true by excluding every counter-example.
Let’s apply that to the situation at hand.
Please read up on your fallacies before throwing around the names of them.
When you claim that something is a fallacy, even though the fallacy you claim doesn’t actually apply, then you are doing so to discredit the whole argument without actually engaging with it. This is a perfect example of the Strawman argument, which itself is a fallacy.
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Actually, I think this is a case of the fallacy fallacy
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I have to admit, a did not know that one. It’s even more fitting than the strawman argument! Thanks for sharing, TIL.
(Though I do believe the fallacy fallacy is a subcategory of the strawman argument.)
Maalus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“I don’t believe your country was under communism, that’s not real communism” is EXACTLY the scotsman fallacy. But by all means, go for a lengthy post that says nothing.
Zombie@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Let’s see how the USSR performed against this definition of communism.
Common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.
Kind of, the state owned most means of production and distributed products. Arguably based on Russian need rather than any other Soviet republic’s need. Let’s be generous and say partial pass for this one.
Absence of private property and social classes
Presumably this is private property as in the distinction between personal and private property set out by Proudhon. In that regard, as the state owned most all private property, in a way it was absent. But the state still owned it, and the state is counter to communism. Social classes still remained.
Ultimately money
Still existed.
The state.
That definitely still existed.
So what part of the USSR was real communism? Kind of common ownership of the means of production and kind of the absence of private property. All other criteria were failed.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Go, read what I wrote, then come back.
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
So if someone calls you a git, and you say “I’m not a TRUE git”, is that a no true scotsman too?
dbtng@eviltoast.org 3 weeks ago
Nerd up!
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I just gave you a true scotsman 4 messages ago, genius. You pick those debate skills up at Harvard?
Maalus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You gave me a singular anecdote from a state that didn’t exist for even three years.
Genius@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
That’s one more anecdote from a communist country than you’ve given.