Dinh AaronMk

The American Spring: An Alternate Present RP

Comrade @Keyguyperson senpai, what is answer to:

Can I do a thing with just a single character? No nation, no faction, just someone trying to live day to day?

@Byrd Man

Answer pls or face gulag deth squids lik spam ses will happen

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Hey guys, good news, I'm alive.

Bad news, I'm going to Tajikistan for four months in August (no, really.)

@TheEvanCat

Tengri bless you, child.

The American Spring: An Alternate Present RP

@Dinh AaronMk
I just don't see how the US military vanishes the way the gm makes it sound like it does. All those assets are still out there and since you have players with control of states like texas or california access to US military assets should be more common than the GM makes it sound like.

I suspect it's a asymmetrical situation as I just don't see why some players wouldn't have access to jets, helicopters, ships and tanks. The situation isn't apocalyptic (no nuclear war between America and China occurred after all) and the US has tons of energy resources even if global trade has collapsed which it likely did as China is probably a pariah state over the destruction of the worlds orbital infrastructure and the global economy tanking is just inevitable in this situation.

@Arawak

True, but a large part of what was the American military was either in active deployment or already posted overseas. Roughly a third of the US armed forces serve overseas and the deterioration of the political climate at home would leave them at limbo or abandoned. It might be presumed it'll be difficult to recall them, or incapable of doing so. And with a large body of the US military also technically 'at float' in the Pacific a lack of satellite communication would cut them out too.

Further, civil conflict on this scale doesn't exactly invite economic activity. As is the case of countries going through civil war trade tends to avoid the country and to go around it directly. Systems of checkpoints at the edge of each faction's territory would create too much red tape and the chaotic situation would no doubt lead to corruption among any group, given that many factions may not be able to pay to keep pace with the devolving situation. Financial sectors like New York would be thrown into chaos with the region taken over by basically monarchist homeless people so any funds held by banks or private savings would have been wired over to Europe. So even if US military assets reached home its doubtful any group would be able to use all of it. Like with the battleships we have "saved" from WW2, carriers and large warships would be mothballed and set aside until someone can actually afford the upkeep and staffing requirements.

How *I* See Communism: A Discussion of Spamtastic Proportions

Which begs the question, how do you create a number from any of them that can be blamed souly on the political structure of that society? If a famine happens, how do we differentiate between natural deaths and death by mismanagement? Any way you try to do it will be arbitrary.

@Vilageidiotx

Well comrade Vilage it goes without saying that if the country in question hasn't paid the pre-requisite duty of Applebucks to our lord and savior Steve Jobs and other federal duties to the United States of Freedom then any and all issues and transactions are inherently Communist.

-Literal logic of someone I have talked to (not here, don't worry)

The American Spring: An Alternate Present RP

I'm also calling this post out since this is honestly more important than impotent nation-wanking.

Can I do a thing with just a single character? No nation, no faction, just someone trying to live day to day?

@Byrd Man

The American Spring: An Alternate Present RP

The US is also fighting - or was, depending on severe this collapse is going to continue to grow if we keep getting new people - that may have deployed or stranded individual units overseas in the chaos that follows. They might be attempted to be recalled, they may never hear the word, or they get the recall notice but knowing what's happening at home or believing in the cause as it relates to their allies abandon their posts and stay put on the front fighting for a new country with the same cause in international brigades all their own.

On top of that, pause to consider that most of the men and women overseas may be considered citizen soldiers in the sense citizen is weighed over soldier and may defect the federal government to join with whatever local faction has taken power in interests of simply defending their friends and family and all notions of being supported by the Federal Government as they had before being washed down the drain.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

How *I* See Communism: A Discussion of Spamtastic Proportions

Jesus, where did I find the time to argue with people over hypotheticals on the fucking internet.

@Robeatics

It's like we're 18th century modernists in the coffee houses or taverns of Britain debating Newtonian logic and progressive government reform and the idealism of the Republic. Or much the same but further in French coffeehouses, cafes, and salons in Paris.

A liberal Republic was just as experimental then as a communist state is now, with much the same historical models to operate on (a roughly twenty-thirty year span of the Roman Republic namely, but also oligarchical republics like that of Venice or the impoverished confederate republic of Switzerland, and always the looming specter of revolutionary failure that is Cromwell).

Gee, if some of these same arguments were abided by then as they are now, we would be in a totally different world.

How *I* See Communism: A Discussion of Spamtastic Proportions

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

And vice versa, and anon, and so forth or whatever. To me that sounds like a good reason to be leery of political models with revolution at their core. Humans don't have a great track record with revolutions or freedom fighters for that matter. America too. Shit I bet we spent more than 100x the equivalent funds of the Sons of Liberty to help those brave and noble Al Qaedas fight off the Soviets).

If I'm gonna back a revolution, odds are, it's not gonna be the one proposed by hundreds of troglodytes who spend most of their days debating whether or not selling a unicorn frappuchino should count as a hate crime. And I bet the plastic thing it came in is made from recycled Kony 2012 friendship bracelets.

@mdk

Yet the entire world - or the majority of it - is built on the back of revolution. Like it or not, one man's violent radical that's a threat to the system status-quo is the liberator to the other. Whether this does mean smashing Star Bucks for concocting a drink fit only for insta-gram or to lash out a system considered unresponsive to the needs of the whole.

Is that, like.... better, though? "Someone else probably would've also killed a shitload of people out of incompetence" isn't exactly a roaring endorsement.

@mdk

No, but it goes over the contextual details which may be worth noting. As noted by @Keyguyperson situations like that per the Great Leap Forward are complicated by notions ultimately outside of the philosophy but rather are fault of the structure. Which per revolution's sake just often means the revolutionary party gets to adopt the administrative structure of that country. In China's case, communists adopting almost quasi-feudal structure and trusting it to work.

I'm just.... sorry, I'm hitting on this like every other sentence this time around but..... the goal of communism in the past has been to, like.... feed people, and have them be not dead.

@mdk

Read Mutual Aid or something god damn.

I need to learn more about the different sects? Sects, right? Whatever. I think we're overstating the role of the government. Innovation isn't.... well, isn't USUALLY a product of the state. I don't know enough about like Roman aqueducts and that sort of thing. Wild horses don't need to be led to water, or, like, some other folksy metaphor for "fuck it we're prolly fine."

@mdk

This assumes all possible models of communism are state reliant. There is a handy discussion I threw myself in elsewhere where one part is actively questioning the whole, "Is state-owned capital all that better compared to private-owned capital?"

Capital in this case being something like the farm fields or the factory.

But to risk being declared as a MARKET COMMUNIST REVISIONIST I'm going to simply invoke Proudhon and move along.

Dammit I told you once, it's called a Krautteste. Don't make me tell you a third time. I am the krautteste baron. Don't question it.

@mdk

Soooooooooooooo peg leg?

We can drop this thread if you like. I don't think we're arguing prosthetic development on equal, uh.... footing god damn it kill me.

@mdk

I mean hell, if we're going to go the route of publically owned 3D printers and open for free the ability to learn yourself some CAD whenever you want and however far you want to go, if that's what you want to print out then sure. But if out of all the things that are now in their own way your property and you don't want to build Venom Snake's bionic arm v3.0 then be my guest.

I still don't fully understand this meme.

@mdk

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet

It's almost like revolution isn't needed to kill all your enemies anyways.

Just the white landowners though lol. Okay, so maybe I should dial down the founders-worship a touch. BUT -- the people who got a say, back in the day, were the ones who had a financial stake in things. That worked great, right? Pay no attention to the slavery or civil war or repression or clubbings. Yeah. Okay. Yeah definitely dial back the founder-worship.

Oh, posh. That's an act of petty vandalism, fit for the cover of Enquirer at the worst. The start of the American Revolution is more accurately (probably) attributed to the already-ongoing wars of the French and British within the context of global colonialism. If it weren't for all that, honestly our shenanigans never really rose to a level which should've warranted a war. Except maybe that Declaration... I guess that would probably merit a royal bitchslap.

I'm rambling. The Tea Party would never pass for terrorism. Unless you consider pouches of Earl Gray as citizens...... wait are you British?

@mdk

Boston's Sons of Liberty totally weren't vandalizing crown property not just on sea but on land, killing and assault magistrates, and doing all sorts of things to vent their anger and cause financial or personal ruin across the board. And Loyalist militias totally were not doing the same.

It's like nothing happened.

But the definition of terrorism - or what constitutes as terrorism today - has been broadly expanded to include large scale destruction of property, so much so in some cases simply opening a hole in a stockyard fence to release some cows may be considered terrorism in a court of law. For dumping tons and tons of tea into the Boston harbor the Boston Sons of Liberty would have dealt such a financial attack on the East India company they could be charged for terrorism on the notion they carried out large-scale property damage.

This too along with all the many charges of assault Sam Adams and his men lead and a shit ton of smuggling charges.

The American Spring: An Alternate Present RP

<Snipped quote by Dinh AaronMk>

I suppose that smugglers and black market dealers are going to have a field day. As will any gun smiths who will certainly never be out of work.

Would anyone be able to get things from the outside? Or is that something which only the remains of the federal government supporters can get if at all since they are still seen as the "true" America.

@ClocktowerEchos

There might be some channels but it would be extremely limited and affected by consequential economic collapse that has literally the entire nation at war with itself at this scale. Depending on whether or not California or New York is going to embargo internet connection for the interior then it's likely only they will have access to the external consumer market, assuming their population even has the financial stability to make purchases and their bank accounts totally not being nuked with the total seizure of assets that might arise in some areas, or the falling out of financial backing from the federal government making the situation so bad easily spooked bankers straight up jump ship and leave.

Otherwise material aid into the country would probably come in the form of NGO organizations organizing efforts to get medical and basic needs into the country to make noncombatant's lives easier. This would probably end up having a tremendous social impact given the American identity since forever has been at some level of individualist success and when large-scale long-term aid missions were needed there was reluctance to go along with it, or when they had too there was some major depression and regret on the part of the bread winners. But then again, this is thinking back to the 1930's and mostly the Dust Bowl and the disaffected pride of farmers laid to waste by pool economic conditions and a fucking ecological disaster (which I might add that very same region is still entirely vulnerable to today still).