Technically, no - there has never been a truly communist society. They've all really been communist in name only.

In order for the society to be truly communist, property must be communal - that's the fundamental requirement.

And in order for property to be truly communal, all must have an exactly equal right to it, or more precisely, an exactly equal right to share in control of it.

The moment that hierarchical authority is introduced, control over the society and its property is tied to that authority. The right to exercise control over property is vested not in the people communally, but in the system by which authority is designated and exercised - the state. And that means that for all intents and purposes, regardless of any claims to the contrary, all property is actually owned not by the people, but by the state. And that is not and cannot be communism.

Your opening point about advantage reminded me of a story I read years ago. It was in some dense Russian tome - I want to say Brothers Karamazov, but I don't know and don't remember. Anyway, it's not mine.

Once there was a farming village in a valley, Their lives were generally peaceful, except for every few years, a band of ruthless bandits would ride down out of the mountains, sweep through the village, kill a bunch of men, rape a bunch of women, steal everything they could, and ride back into the mountains.

Then the village would rebuild, and after some hardship, replenish their crops and livestock and supplies... then the horsemen would ride back down, kill, rape and steal, then ride away.

This went on for many years, until the time that a different band of horsemen rode down from a different part of the mountains, and they killed, raped and stole, then rode away.

Then, shortly thereafter, the customary band of horsemen rode down, only to find the village devastated and everything they intended to steal already gone.

When they found out what had happened, they realized that that could not be allowed. They lived lives of ease through killing and raping and stealing, and they weren't going to give that up, but they couldn't do it if things continued that way.

So they struck a deal with the villagers. The villagers would provide them with everything they would've stolen if they could've, and in exchange, they'd not only stop killing and raping them, but make sure these other horsemen didn't kill or rape or steal from them either.

And the villagers, wanting only to live their lives as unmolested as possible, reluctantly agreed.

And thus was government born.

This just jumped to the top of my to be watched list.

I love genre mashups.

None or about a dozen, depending on how you want to look at it.

I have about a dozen accounts on various instances, and four or five that I use regularly, but they're not really "alts" since they're all the same name - Rottcodd. Unless someone checked the @s and compared them, they likely wouldn't even realize they're not all the same account.

I started out doing it that way because when I first moved here, I just signed up for whatever instances looked appealing for whatever reason, just to try them out, and figured I'd settle on one later. I kept doing it that way because I discovered some advantages.

Each instance actually feels a bit different, since they have different moderation policies, different sets of federated vs. defederated instances, and different sets of communities that members have subscribed to, so different Alls. And I've emphasized that by having different subscribed and blocked lists on different instances.

So if I want to wade through chaos and maybe do some shitposting, I have an account for that. If I want to read or post about gaming or technology or popular media, I have an account for that. If I want to read or post about the arts, literature, society, philosophy and the like, I have an account for that. And if I just want to see comfy, pleasant stuff like cat pictures and recipes, I have an account for that.

Yeah - look at the face she's making at the top left.

There's a lot of dere under her tsun.

Those last two panels were subtle but nicely done. It took me a minute, and a bit of zooming, to figure them out.

I'm pretty sure they're meant to illustrate Ri-chan's perception of the world changing - going from dark and simple and vague to light and complex and detailed, as she figuratively comes out of the dark and into the light.

I suspect a lot of us can relate. I know I can.

I love the brain cell board meetings.

Eien no Filena on the SNES/SFC (it was Japan-only but it's been fan-translated).

Not only is the protagonist a woman - that fact is repeatedly plot-relevant.

Setting aside the fact that this is a generalization and thus naturally overstating things, I don't doubt that there's some truth to this.

There's a sort of rigidly intolerant moralizing that arose on the internet over the last decade or so, most exemplified by Tumblr, and gen z was right in the middle of it.

It puts me in mind of the Victorian era, with a group of people who absolutely and unequivocally condemn anyone and everyone who violates their rigid sense of propriety, or more precisely, the stereotypes that they substitute for those people. Of course, the biggest difference is that they have a completely different set of rules to which they insist that all submit - instead of a religious morality mostly concerned with sex they have a secular morality mostly concerned with social behavior. But they share that absolutism - the smug certainty that their way is the only way and that any who believe otherwise are not only wrong, but due to the fact that they believe otherwise, so monstrous as to be unfit to even judge.

That last is the trap - the thing that sets that extreme of moralizing apart and keeps it going when it takes hold. Those who come to believe in it end up believing not simply that they're right, but that believing as they do is the defining trait of people who are fit to judge the matter, so they then can and do reject any and all differing views out of hand on the basis that the mere act of holding a different view means that one is obviously an inferior being, and since one is an inferior being, whatever one believes is and can only be wrong. It becomes a closed loop, in which people aren't even capable of considering different viewpoints.

And that's presumably the quality that's being characterized, and with some accuracy, as them not having the skills to disagree.

I'd note though that this is just one manifestation of the problem. It's a new version of it, made possible by social media, and it appears to be notably widespread, and particularly in a relatively narrow age group, but the dynamic itself is likely as old as human civilization.

I doubt it, particularly because it's almost certainly the case that the people who deride it when others do it do it themselves in other situations.

It's far and away most common in partisan politics, and it happens because the simple fact of the matter is that most professional politicians and political parties are loathsome slimeballs, and the only thing a partisan can dependably say in support of their preferences is that they're (purportedly) better than the alternative. So it's nearly always the case that in attempting to defend or advocate for their preference, they'll bring up the alternative and shift focus to them.

And then they'll potentially turn right around and deride their opponents for doing the same.

Right after spez's petulant AMA, I thought I should take a look around at alternative forums, since that AMA wasn't a good sign of things to come. I didn't have an explicit goal of moving - I just wanted to see what options were out there.

I fairly quickly ran across mentions of and links to kbin and lemmy. I was already familiar with Mastodon, but it hadn't much impressed me (though Twitter never much impressed me either, so that was no surprise). Kbin and lemmy sounded more up my alley though - more traditional forum structure rather than the sort of microblogging thing of Mastodon/Twitter.

So I checked it out

Then I just... never left.

I've never worked in any tech field, but I've built every computer I've ever owned and have been online since '93, which I suppose counts as far as this thread is concerned.