Would this be a superior economic system to the US?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It misses out the most important features of the Soviet economic system (including the ones that guaranteed eventual disaster) and so is just a little on the dishonest side, but then I suppose we should expect that from you.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So I suppose you're a Thatcherite on the coal mine issue?

The coal mine issue? What was 'the coal mine issue', exactly?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So I suppose you're a Thatcherite on the coal mine issue?

The coal mine issue? What was 'the coal mine issue', exactly?

Well since you appear to believe that the taxation and spending policies of the Soviet Union were sound, I presume you either believe that central planning and/or state-owned enterprises were "the features that guaranteed eventual disaster," so presumably you either believe that coal mining should not be centrally planned or that it should be privatized.

Are you an irredeemable idiot for real or are you just pretending to be one for the purposes of trolling?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I dunno Al.  Enlighten me as to my error with your brilliance.

I think you've got this the wrong round. I'm not claiming to be brilliant and, actually, don't really go in for that type of thing. Not good for the liver. But thanks for answering my question.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Happily.  I have to feel sympathy for someone whose health depends on not backing up any assertion with evidence or explanation.

Slightly too pointed, dear. And therefore needlessly unpleasant.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Happily.  I have to feel sympathy for someone whose health depends on not backing up any assertion with evidence or explanation.

Slightly too pointed, dear. And therefore needlessly unpleasant.

Are you an irredeemable idiot for real or are you just pretending to be one for the purposes of trolling?

You might consider the advantages of using your own material. It might seem of poor quality now (and, in fairness, that would be because it is), but the only way to improve it is to work on it. Not that there's anything wrong in re-working material thought up by others, but you should consider adding your own stamp to it, or to use it in a way that makes it nodding status clear. Failing that, appropriate use is always a positive.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well actually, your material is as predictable as it is mundane (1. either "You are a fycking idiot" or "You are trolling, idiot", 2. "Stop that name-calling, muffin!", 3. repeat 1 and 2 as necessary), but occasionally you unintentionally produce something that might prove an ironically appropriate addition to a more diverse repartee.

I don't think I've ever called anyone a 'muffin'. It seems like an odd sort of word to use as an insult. Is it common, in your part of the world, to use the names of baked goods as insults?

As for predictability, I confess, alas, yes. Not really in the way that you seem to think... but then as you are clearly a poor judge of character, I concede that you may be a poor judge of other things as well. They do tend to go together. Anyway... I confess that my material seems mostly to consist of dense paragraphs of alarmingly petty and bitter sarcasm, combined with disguised personal abuse, atrocious irony, and a tendency to use worryingly specific violent figurative language. The hideous suspicion must also exist that I actually find writing such material enjoyable, which would rather ruin the point of any baiting. The thing is though, as a great man once said (and repeatedly), I am not a member of the Liberal Democrats (thank the Lord), but I do believing in recycling old material. For instance, I find your humour (which is nasty in a way that mine isn't; the natural response seems to be the sort of unpleasant sn than comes from self-satisfied - but unselfaware - entitlement) slightly less amusing than sepsis. I have used that line before, and will do again because it perfectly captures a certain specific type of contempt. And because I firmly believe that you are also the by-product of a severe bacterial infection and that you must be flushed out by intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

23 minutes for that?  I must say, you have a halfway respectable serve but choke against an opponent who predicts it.  Not going to win the table tennis championship, are we?

I don't play table tennis. And, you know, I tend to do other things while posting here. Usually they're more productive, but it's nice to alternate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Alright, I'll agree to save you from further embarassment.  I'm not the type to kick a dog while it's down.

That's very noble of you, but I have to decline the offer.

(Four minutes, by the way. And seven for the previous post. Or near enough. And for only a handful of sentences, tut, tut).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.

You mean you actually checked? Haha! That's both worryingly obsessive and utterly pathetic.

But I'm sure you'll think up some spiteful wisecrack to make it seem otherwise. To you, if to no one else. Probably you don't even see why others might find it weird...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.

You mean you actually checked? Haha! That's both worryingly obsessive and utterly pathetic.

But I'm sure you'll think up some spiteful wisecrack to make it seem otherwise. To you, if to no one else. Probably you don't even see why others might find it weird...

Is it bad that I can now predict exactly what you are going to say before you even say it?

Here's my notes:

• I've won the argument, will snidely offer to stop
• Al doesn't know when to stop, will say how many minutes that post took
• Al does say how many minutes that post took
• *insert appropriately snide response here*
• My response: “Actually, I was counting the amount of time you spent composing your written equivalent of stammering, not the amount of time between my post and yours.  That would be 27 minutes.  Of course, one of the many inefficiencies of the Soviet system was its emphasis on quantity over quality.”
• Al will say that I'm too obsessed because I checked when he started his post
• I could either point out that I was checking what Mint was doing (), point out I'm not the one obsessed enough to spend two years of his life on Atlas (though admittedly it's a time-waster I'm much too fond of), or simply ignore his increasingly childish and stupid responses
• Al does say I'm too obsessed
• I know, I'll post this!
• Al posts how many minutes this post took, or one of his generic muffin posts.  whatev

So you respond to a suggestion that you might be a little on the... er... strange... side with... that.

Fine. Fine. I guess. Fine. Absolutely fine. Everything up top is clearly all in good working order.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Clearly the problems with the Soviet Union were not the absence of any sort of democracy or the total lack of basic freedoms or the arbitrary judicial system or the failure of the system to fulfill the promises that it made. No, the problem with the Soviet Union was that it promised free healthcare and generous pensions.

Makes perfect sense, does it not? And obviously this is utterly and absolutely relevant to today in all ways and forever.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, I write down nearly everything.  Helps me think and also to return to something I've forgot.  Keeps me from writing paragraphs of incoherence.

I'm glad to hear that. Thinking is fun; you should try it some time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Shouldn't someone make a thread like this one:

'Is this society inferior to the 1950s US?'

-A society with full gender equality and no racial segregation or discrimination
-A society where everybody has acces to affordable education and health care
-A society with the largest army on the surface of the planet, which has almost single-handedly won the largest single land war in the history of humanity
-A society where poets, writers and artists are greatly valued and which has had a tremendous influence on the history of cinema
-A society which has had major scientific break-troughs like the development of the H-bomb, the first living creature AND the first man in an orbit around the earth, the first transplantation of an animal head
-A society with X Nobel Prize winners*
-A society which has managed to double and triple the size of its economy and food production in a matter of decades
....


*: Actually I checked and the USSR won a grand total of 17 Nobel Prizes in its history (and one of those was for Gorbachov in 1990) the first of which only came in 1933. On the other hand the US won some 330 Nobel Prizes. There's certainly no dodgy ideology involved in the mechanisms of the Nobel Prize,...

And Wormy, no this is not a defense of the USSR

It would be on about the same level (and contains a similar number of distortions even within bullet points; the first two especially), but I don't think there's much need to sink to a certain level.