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We recently discussed reddit's woes and the hiring of a new CEO. However, we have seen communities come and go for many years.
Clay Shirky wrote about his experience in 1978: "Communitree was founded on the principles of open access and free dialogue... And then, as time sets in, difficulties emerge. In this case, one of the difficulties was occasioned by the fact that one of the institutions that got hold of some modems was a high school. ... the boys weren't terribly interested in sophisticated adult conversation. They were interested in fart jokes. They were interested in salacious talk. ... the adults who had set up Communitree were horrified, and overrun by these students. The place that was founded on open access had too much open access, too much openness. They couldn't defend themselves against their own users. The place that was founded on free speech had too much freedom."
There are two clear trends. One is that less input and customization tends to grow bigger. Note how Geocities was replaced with Myspace which was then replaced with Facebook and Twitter. These newer systems take away personal freedom of expression and makes people follow a 'prescribed' system, albeit an easier one to use. The other trend is that communities that try to be truly free and open end up either stifled by that openness or give up. The only obvious exception is a platform that allows us to simply filter out everything we don't want to see, which becomes a series of the feared echo chamber. With the excessive amount of data and the build up of complex rules on how information is shared, where does this leave us? It seems that like the famous iron triangle allowing free (and legal) speech with the possibility of diverse opinions, a cohesive group, and growth only allows you to pick two.
It seems to me this is a wicked problem, perhaps unsolvable. But I wonder if the community thinks there are other design options? Is this even possible with human nature as it is?
Original Submission
(Score: 1) by TmTFx on Sunday July 19 2015, @07:20PM
First of all Lennon was a singer maybe you spoke about Lenin, second it's all true what you said, except that:
- communism (as a political movement, not an economic system) in russia existed only the very few months when council were formed to take decisions
- people in russia as in the Marx theory was not ready to have a revolution
- people was oppressed and saw every movement as a possible way to get rid of Czars, it was only in the late years that Lenin grew strong.
- what you mix is economic system and political system (this is why a State capitalism as you described perfectly matched the communism political system) It's the same if you say that democracy (as we western people live) is a free capitalistic market; they are 2 different things...
The rest of your story IS STORY but this doesn't eliminate the fact that common people did not a civil war when Stalin got power cause they weren't ready (with their knowledge and consciousness) for their communism revolution... It's a fact that it became a dictatorship, and that's not communism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 19 2015, @09:16PM
what you mix is economic system and political system
As do you.
a State capitalism
Yes, the feudal overlords were replaced with the Gosplan (appointed by the dictator); workers had no say in how the system worked.
the communism political system
If it was actually Communist (as Marx used the term), the governmental system would have been Democracy, with each worker getting a vote and each worker's vote being equal to any other vote.
Every system so far that has called itself "Communist" has been Autocratic (a dictatorship), so, about as far away from what Marx described as can be.
It's clear that you have seen that system from up close.
Your descriptions of the Cold War era systems of eastern Europe and your understanding of that make for worthy reading.
What you say is so much more useful than the ramblings of so many Soylentils (which are clearly based on the Cold War indoctrination|propaganda of western systems).
.
The GP's mention of aggression by states with Capitalist systems is a point routinely overlooked when examining the success of non-Capitalist entities.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22 2015, @10:21AM
aggression by states
governments of all types are really good at aggression
the most aggression that free markets can do is spam your inbox, cos nobody forces people to buy ridiculously priced iphones
and democracy is great, as long as you're not in a minority group, because democracy is merely sugar-coated mob rule
maybe marx was an idiot that had nfi what he was describing