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Comment by applfanboysbgon | Hacker News Reader

> hopefully it never comes to an actual revolution, because life for everyone will be much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better afterward.

In the situations a revolution comes to exist, it is because life for everyone is already getting much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better. Nobody starts a revolution for funsies, so you're supposing a false dichotomy where the choice is between "plunge into hell for no reason" or "continue living a great life", when in fact the latter is not an option at all.

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> In the situations a revolution comes to exist, it is because life for everyone is already getting much, much worse with little prospect of anything being better.

Some folks want to hasten "a revolution" because (a) they think it's going to happen 'eventually' anyway so might as well get it over with, and (b) they think they can come out 'on top' and set up the new system the way they want it (because the current Enlightenment-based system(s) suck in their opinion):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

> Some folks want to hasten "a revolution"

well some folks are doing that all the time, but only sometimes does it take. what's the difference between one time and another?

> Nobody starts a revolution for funsies

They definitely do, see the 1900s.

I think modern day Americans do not understand how bad war is because they’ve been engaged in it for nearly 30 years continuously without directly feeling the consequences.

Which revolutions in the 1900s were started for fun? Unless you're considering CIA backed coups in that count?

Loads, the various attempts to overthrow the Weimar Republic for one, but many smaller, like the Impresa di Fiume.

Maybe not “for fun” but largely for justifications that pale in comparison to the suffering they unleashed.

Americans ready to go to war because eggs and gas are too expensive, or their trans teen’s top surgery was delayed, might be making similar mistakes. But Americans are good at making mistakes, perhaps supernaturally gifted.

> trans teen’s top surgery was delayed

This is in poor taste given there is a bill right now being debated that bans the exact surgery you’re mocking. It also bans trans Americans from participating in gendered sports. You should find a better example.

Agreed. With all of the efforts to make it difficult for trans people to exist in society, it is quite literally an in-progress attempt at genocide.

At this point the laws in several states go far beyond those topics. The people pushing them just figured on had to start with something that would let them mock any opposition as extremist "gender ideology" and the like.

And sadly federal > state law so that means the reasonable states not enacting these awful policies would have to get in line with nationwide, legal discrimination.

Exactly. Revolutions are awful things that are only defensible if the conditions are brutal enough. And even then, there has to be the caution that the revolution can be co-opted by infinitely worse people than those that were overthrown (take the Russian revolution, for example)

Also, actual revolutions require a significant chunk of "excluded elite". People who have nothing can generally manage a riot, maybe burn down some buildings until the police open fire, but nothing more coordinated. Revolutions require more money and organization. I'm reminded of how the convicted Jan 6th rioters were a lot more middle-class than you might expect.

No American revolution would succeed without a significant chunk of US military support. Either from above ("autogolpe"), or entire units defecting en masse.

The Russian revolution is not a good example if you are talking about the October revolution. It cannot be stated objectively that it turned out to be worse, and, in fact, for many replacing the czars with the Bolsheviks led to a lot better living conditions.

Tell that to the 60 million people who died in the Holodomor.

Holodomor was the result of several unfortunate events including the Ukranian kulaks burning their produce to protest collectivisation, a natural famine and misjudgement of the State.

If the responsibility of Holodomor lies solely with the USSR, the nexus between the NATO and occupied Palestine are responsible for at least a billion deaths, going by your intellectual honesty standards. I have factored in death due to military interventionism, gun laws, and capitalism related deaths (death from being uninsured, hunger, poverty).

I have no problem with the proposition that the post-ww2 global order is responsible for a billion deaths.

Why not 120 million?

What about the 240 million who died under the tzarist regime?

If you're going to make up nonsense numbers, why stop there?

In the American context, life is pretty great. Been all over the world. It could get better here but it's still by and large pretty great.

My point wasn't to suggest the options were "hell for no reason" or "continue to live a great life" so to speak, but that the probability of "life gets better" as an outcome is one of the least likely. The most likely outcomes, certainly in a single lifetime, are death, destruction, food shortages, roving gangs of gunmen, religious theocracies, dictatorships, and more.

The US for example is in no position or need of a "revolution". Reform, sure. Most revolutionaries are just in it for their own power grab, at your expense.

>Nobody starts a revolution for funsies,

They do when they're convinced it's a walk in the park.

See the Spanish civil war, which was a two week coup by military worried about conspiracy theories turned into a years long war turned into a 40 year dictatorship (with decades of hunger).

Counterpoint: no matter how bad you think your life is, it's nowhere near as bad as it would be if a civil war occurred in your country.

Even people living a quite miserable life have a lot to lose.

This is obviously true now in places that aren't currently revolting, which is why they aren't revolting. But it can definitely get bad enough that it's worth gambling on the chance of a better life (as well as the chance of a worse life) vs. a guaranteed chance of a horrible life, or imminent death.

> Nobody starts a revolution for funsies

I mean... we're 4 years into a little Russian jaunt that was supposed to be over in a matter of weeks. And a certain someone just picked a war with Iran pretty much for funsies

I don't want to underestimate the level of arrogance/stupidity that might be involved in sparking a revolution at this point

I wouldn't call either of those a revolution; they're both top-down directed foreign offensives. A revolution is generally domestic and sparked by widespread popular internal unrest, even if it's sometimes led by elites.

Yes, my point is more that entering into a war for funsies is a similarly stupid decision, and we have a whole bunch of guardrails that are supposed to prevent it, but somehow it just keeps on happening

> we have a whole bunch of guardrails that are supposed to prevent it, but somehow it just keeps on happening

Yes but all of these wars are generally much smaller in scope and less frequent than they were 80+ years ago. The current world order has absolutely reduced the amount of warfare happening in the world as well as a conflict’s tendency to increase in size to include more and more belligerent nations. We just don’t see “big” nations duking it out like they used to, though I also should acknowledge that in the grand scheme of things 80 years isn’t that long so the current situation is far more fragile than I think any of us like to believe.

I don’t think anybody is claiming war has been eradicated and I am certainly not looking to diminish the scale and suffering that has happened over the last century when conflict has emerged. But there’s no doubt things are “calmer“ than they have been historically. That’s why all the wars that have been happening over the last 5 to 10 years have been very alarming. It’s bucking the trend.

It is easy to see that South Korea is much better off now as a democracy than under the generals. It is easy to see the Philippines are better off than under Marcos. What countries move away from democracy to become better?

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