Split Thread What is Communism

[Ziggurat]

How was it prevented up to that point? They could have just kept doing that, right?

Oh my. Oh my oh my. You really don't know anything about this, do you?

At the point at which smallpox was introduced to the Americas during the 1500s, nothing was done about smallpox. If you got it, you either survived or you didn't. There was no medicine for it, not cure, not even any real prevention methods. You ask how it was prevented. It wasn't prevented.

What there was, though, was a history of European exposure to smallpox over several thousand years that had left the population better able to survive it, because the people for whom it was 100% fatal had mostly died off in earlier outbreaks. So the survival rate for small pox among Europeans was something like 70%.

But without that history of exposure, without that forced evolutionary adaptation to the presence of the disease, native American populations didn't have a 70% survival rate. They had something closer to a 10% survival rate. And so smallpox absolutely devastated native American populations with both no prior adaptation and no experience with epidemics. This wasn't colonialism, this was biology. So no, there absolutely wasn't anything anyone at the time could have done about it. Nobody, including the Europeans who accidentally introduced it, even really understood what was happening.

 

[Ziggurat]

BTW, for your education, here's a nice overview of plagues, how they work, and why the Americas were devastated by contact but Europe wasn't.

 

[The Atheist]

While the discussion of what is and isn't Communism is probably riveting to some middle school kids, I'm seeing no relevance to Luigi or the case in hand.

When you move it to a new thread, don't forget to add that Nazis were Socialist.

 

[Ziggurat]

While the discussion of what is and isn't Communism is probably riveting to some middle school kids, I'm seeing no relevance to Luigi or the case in hand.

Luigi might not have been a communist, but he absolutely was a subscriber to the politics of grievance, of which communism is one of the more prominent varieties.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Luigi might not have been a communist, but he absolutely was a subscriber to the politics of grievance, of which communism is one of the more prominent varieties.

And the conquistadors come into this how?

 

[theprestige]

How was it prevented up to that point? They could have just kept doing that, right?

Ironically, it was prevented exactly the way the colonists ended up doing it: Expose the entire population, then congratulate the survivors on taking their first steps towards generational smallpox resilience.

 

[Ziggurat]

And the conquistadors come into this how?

Ask TGZ.

 

[Helen]

Luigi might not have been a communist, but he absolutely was a subscriber to the politics of grievance, of which communism is one of the more prominent varieties.

Just like Trump! So he's a communist, is he?

Some grievances are real, and I cannot see why ideologies based on righting real wrongs are necessarily bad. Quite the opposite.

Oh, I am not a communist. I suppose I had better add that.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Kerala is a state within India, it is not a nation state. It is a parliamentary democracy, one in which the Communist Party is one of the parties. They are part of a coalition that has been in power, but as far as I can tell the communist party never had an outright majority, and again, they're only part of India. The Kerala government is subservient to the national government. Which means they've never really been in a position to exert complete governmental power.

moving goalposts/no true Scotsman

no reason why a communist state needs to be a dictatorship, just like there is no reason why a capitalist state needs to be a democracy.
Research suggests that the more capitalist a society, the less democratic - as is perfectly logical.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

And the conquistadors come into this how?

claim was that Communism is the reason for mass killing.
the conquistadors were pure capitalists in that they all had huge debts to banks at home and had to exploit the new continent and the people, lest they themselves ended up in a debtor's prison, and no constraints from a State on how they got to exploit the natives.

 

[Ziggurat]

no reason why a communist state needs to be a dictatorship,

And yet, they keep ending up that way. Curious.

Research suggests that the more capitalist a society, the less democratic - as is perfectly logical.

Let me guess, you think China is capitalist.

 

[Ziggurat]

claim was that Communism is the reason for mass killing.

The reason? No. A reason. As in, communists are mass killers. I never suggested they were they only mass killers, that’s your straw man.

the conquistadors were pure capitalists

No, they absolutely were not. Capitalism wasn’t even a thing at the time.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Sure:

This is more of a defense of Mao as my post was a defense of colonists.

And if you think this wasn't much of a defense of Mao, congratulations, now connect the dots.

Luigi might not have been a communist, but he absolutely was a subscriber to the politics of grievance, of which communism is one of the more prominent varieties.

Wow, and I thought Vixen was reaching in the thread about Woody Brown's magical communication through vaguely pointing at various letters on a moving cardboard 'keyboard' he wasn't even looking at.

 

[Ziggurat]

Just like Trump! So he's a communist, is he?

I just explicitly said that communism wasn't the only form of grievance politics. What about that did you not understand?

Some grievances are real

True.

, and I cannot see why ideologies based on righting real wrongs are necessarily bad. Quite the opposite.

There is a fundamental difference between having a grievance and forming an ideology around a grievance. If you only have a grievance, then that grievance can be addressed and solved, and then you no longer have a grievance. You can get past it and move on. If your ideology is founded on a grievance, you can never solve it. You will always find something to fit that grievance, and it will never go away, because if it went away, you would have to abandon your ideology. Individuals are occasionally able to do that, but institutions built on grievance can never abandon that grievance. That's why communist revolutions enact never-ending "revolution". The grievance cannot go away. It must not go away. They will fight tooth and claw to make sure it doesn't.

 

[TragicMonkey]

In any event, surely it's clear by now that communism and conquistadors are not relevant to the recent assassination of a healthcare insurance executive so maybe stop posting about those things?

Mods: can these derails be split off?

 

[dann]

What a self-contradictory Gish gallop.
This is how to deal with the notoriously violent communists!

The Kyle Rittenhouse tweet about spiders and communists was also noticed by SNL:
Weekend Update: School Kids Save Bus From Crash, DoorDash Driver Posts Video of Passed-Out Customer (SNL on YouTube, May 10, 2026 – 2:15 min.)

 

[dann]

Ziggurat is thinking of justified grievances like those of billionaires, not the grievances of people who have three jobs and struggle to pay the rent:

Greed is good! Grievance is good! Except when ... you know!
It is not as if the Epstein class bought a whole ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ administration to pursue their goals. It is not as if they will fight tooth and claw to make sure their revolution succeeds.

More grievances:

Financial Times on bsky, May 10, 2026
The city’s wealthy property owners say they are sick of being vilified.
Read the full story here: ft.trib.al/9LbpUVQ

Great bsky comments!

 

[The Great Zaganza]

"suddenly I'm the Bad Guy, just because I hoard food while other people are starving?"

 

[plague311]

Oh my. Oh my oh my. You really don't know anything about this, do you?

At the point at which smallpox was introduced to the Americas during the 1500s, nothing was done about smallpox. If you got it, you either survived or you didn't. There was no medicine for it, not cure, not even any real prevention methods. You ask how it was prevented. It wasn't prevented.

What there was, though, was a history of European exposure to smallpox over several thousand years that had left the population better able to survive it, because the people for whom it was 100% fatal had mostly died off in earlier outbreaks. So the survival rate for small pox among Europeans was something like 70%.

But without that history of exposure, without that forced evolutionary adaptation to the presence of the disease, native American populations didn't have a 70% survival rate. They had something closer to a 10% survival rate. And so smallpox absolutely devastated native American populations with both no prior adaptation and no experience with epidemics. This wasn't colonialism, this was biology. So no, there absolutely wasn't anything anyone at the time could have done about it. Nobody, including the Europeans who accidentally introduced it, even really understood what was happening.

MY POINT WAS THEY COULD HAVE LEFT THE PEOPLE THE ◊◊◊◊ ALONE. Jesus ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ Christ. How God damn obvious do I have to be? Mother ◊◊◊◊.

 

[Ziggurat]

MY POINT WAS THEY COULD HAVE LEFT THE PEOPLE THE ◊◊◊◊ ALONE.

Contact would have been made eventually, and unless you think it could have been delayed another 400 years before happening, smallpox and other old world epidemics would have ravaged the Americas. It was inevitable, a tragic result of geography and biology. The only way to stop it would have been modern medicine, which wasn't available. Do you really think Europeans would have just never explored the Americas? Why are you evaluating these events with perfect hindsight instead of with the limited knowledge available at the time?