:1984: ugh it doesn't do a whole lot but the devs said your police go plant bugs and stuff. i mean they are surprisingly pacifist otherwise, no arrests, you just blacklist reactionaries from important jobs (or those that aren't "loyal to the state"). it does take some of the pure socialist urban/nation planning away from an otherwise good game. not sure how historically accurate it is, but if bug planting and removal of responsibilities is as "police state stasi" as this gets i won't be too upset in the long run. beats murdering citizens in the streets for minor crimes
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Sounds hilarious, actually. Imagine if every college Republican failed all their classes.
Honestly especially appropriate in post-WWII Germany.
I think they thought I meant little kids in school rather than, you know, this.
As always, I'm sure there were overreaches of authority, and I'm sure there were also times when they were correct (as you say, post-WW2 Germany certainly wouldn't have produced ideal conditions). This is from a half-remembered passage I read in Stasi State or Socialist Paradise, so take it all with a grain of salt regardless.
Edit: they did not. I think they're just angry and taking it out here by interpreting everything I say in the most uncharitable possible way.
Fun fact: A fuck ton of Nazis survived the war and continued being Nazis
Not fun. Not fun. Unsubscribe.
When did I call it "lol whatever"? My point is that the actual activities of the Stasi, while obviously not always above board, were also not nearly what people in the West think they were.
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People in the West think that the Stasi ran around rounding up anyone who criticized the government and killing/imprisoning them, not that they used unethical pressure tactics to dissuade active political dissidents.
There's a huge difference between those two. If you wanted, I'm sure you could also find better and worse things the Stasi did. The point is that they're not the cartoon villains they're portrayed as in American propaganda.
I'm literally not diminishing anything. I didn't say it was good.
Edit: "just examining everything your children say" University student political dissidents, not primary school children.
Edit 2: this is all from a passage I read a while back in Stasi State or Socialist Paradise, so it's possible I'm misremembering details anyway. Anyone who's reading this and is interested in the subject should take it from the book, rather than from me.
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That's just factual. Of course the Americans exaggerate the crimes of their enemies.
If you read my edits (edit: and didn't intentionally interpret them in the worst possible way), you'd know I'm not talking about "wrong-thinking" children, but adults who are working against the state (that's what "dissidents" means). And I don't think it was good, just that it wasn't quite what people think the Stasi generally did.
Once again, I suggest Stasi State or Socialist Paradise, because I'm only remembering from a passage of it. It's critical of the Stasi, by the way, not supportive of them.
Honestly, nothing I've made here is a wild point, especially in the context of this website. I'd appreciate you reading my posts in good faith instead of assuming I'm a psychopath and proceeding with the worst possible interpretation of everything I say.
Fun fact: the US employs proportionally more of its own citizens to spy on their fellow countrymen than the GDR ever did. They also imprison several orders of magnitude more people.
Has anyone (in recent history) actually beat the US on this one?
Unfortunately, a*stralia and its incarceration of aboriginal people (per capita, not raw numbers)
:jesus-christ:
You'd have to go back to like early history to beat it. The police state in America is functionally unique in world history.
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Alright. I replied exactly as much as I intended to, because I'm already tired of this and I didn't want to get deeper into a debate. "American propaganda about East Germany includes many exaggerations and even falsehoods" is a fact. It's just true.
I started typing a reply to the rest, but then realized it was pointless. Let's agree to disagree on the subject of the real Stasi not being as bad as the Stasi in the minds of Americans. Have a good day.
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I'm honestly not sure what you mean. The specific example I originally used:
And the perception Americans have of the Stasi, also from my first post:
Clearly, one doesn't line up with the other. Of course the image people in the West have of the Stasi is exaggerated. You can call that a "truism" if you want, but it's literally the entire point of this thread of comments and you seem to even agree with it here.
Whatever you think it is I'm arguing, I assure you I'm not.
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Seriously, what is it I'm missing from your comments? It's possible I accidentally skipped over a line while reading/replying.
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As far as I know, I replied to every comment. And I assure you that if I did that, it wasn't intentional. Again, please let me know the points I haven't addressed. It's totally possible I'm missing something here.
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I feel like I'm going crazy here. I'm going to read over the thread again to see for myself if I missed something.
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See my other reply, quoted here.
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"The only people in the world who think college kids are adults are either cops or kids who are even younger."
OK, I think this is what you're referring to? Yeah, I accidentally missed that line while reading the first time around, sorry about that.
Thing is, college kids are factually adults (according to the definition of the word everyone uses), even though they might not all be fully mature. Beyond that, your example of "19 years old" is essentially the youngest age for college students, and I'm talking about political dissidents who I'd imagine are typically not in their first year.
Regardless, I agree (and have said in other posts in this thread) that there were certainly overreaches. My sole point was that the Stasi were not nearly as violent as they are in the average Westerner's mind.
Edit: this was meant to relate to the text in the OP, quoted below.
Destruction as in not spending resources on their education?
I have a question, how do you organize free education (as in paid for by society), when you have brain drain problems, cause nearby usa pays more cash money?
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You have to spend money to bulldoze a house.
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Lol whatever
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You're right, it's cruel and unusual to keep an eye on students that likely grew up in the Hitler Youth. Also, it's free education. It's not like failing a class is the end of the world, they aren't burdened with student debt or anything. You can still just kinda go get a job. For fuck's sake, we don't even let you attend college in the first place if you aren't rich enough.
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So college kids in East Germany following the second world war wouldn't have grown up under the Nazis and indoctrinated in it from a very young age and maybe that's something to keep an eye on.
Public services get revoked for political reasons all the time. Do you have revolutionary politics? Cause that requires WAY harsher actions motivated by political reasons that failing a class, which once again isn't expulsion.
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Fuck are you on about? That's barely a sentence.
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Sorry for upvoting, i was trying to expand your comment and hit it accidentally.
It’s very interesting, you are jumping definitions of your and societal very rapidly. Education, housing and healthcare is society project, not singular ubermensch achievement. So precisely at what point do you think society may intervene, or it should all be left to continue?