I find it hard to believe that your family could starve to death just from some mistakes but I might be in the “too positively biased against AES” stage of my radicalization journey

-21 points

Lmao wut

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4 points

Where is it set?

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Arstotzka, a fictional country based off of the GDR by the looks of it.

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38 points

The border and migration controls are something socialist states do to protect workers and their economies. The “your family will starve if you fuck up” or “our laws are inhumane and we don’t care; if you care you’re fired” are absolutely propaganda.

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31 points

The propaganda is always projection too

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-38 points

No, I don’t think Arstotzka is modeled after any particular country.

However, under Stalin, workers were paid for their work based on a piece-rate system, meaning that if they didn’t hit the quota, they were paid less.

This, coupled with famines caused by the mismanaged production and distribution of food, like the one in 1933, could certainly lead to a working man not being able to provide for his entire family.

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No, I don’t think Arstotzka is modeled after any particular country.

Are you sure? On the 29th/30th day, the border wall gets destroyed; which really gives me serious “Fall of the Berlin Wall” vibes.

Also, Arstotzka has “East Grestin” as one of its region names, and another country (Kolechia?) has “West Grestin” as one of its region names. Would be really surprising if neither of these were based off the GDR and West Germany respectively; despite having these details.

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32 points

There’s no need for reactionary propaganda here.

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169438

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-30 points

Ah, didn’t realize this was lemmygrad 😅

Just out of curiosity though, which part of my comment do you consider to be propaganda?

Btw, by my understanding a “reactionary” is a person who seeks to restore an earlier political state of society. Wouldn’t that make people who want to return to the “good old days” under Stalin the true reactionaries?

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26 points
*

You’re obviously just agitating, but I’ll bite.

A reactionary is defined by the OED as “a person who is opposed to political or social change”.

The propaganda you posted was about the famine in 1933. Read the link you were given. It’s an overused talking point with a grain of truth. It’s propaganda because it specifically blames communism for a natural disaster. And people who typically bring it up completely gloss over what was happening in capitalist north America at the time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

I might also argue that it’s not so much “if you don’t meet the quota, you’re paid less”, but more of “if you meet the quota, you’re paid more”. But that’s a matter of personal bias. I work in a capitalist country, and both statements apply to me. I would be more charitable with the socialist state, and probably use your statement to describe my job, but that’s my personal bias.

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39 points

The last paragraph referencing the Holodomor, which is a hoax, and as is refuted in the breakdown I linked. I haven’t looked into the various wage systems the Soviet Union experimented with so I can’t speak to that.

To be a reactionary is to seek to conserve the current structures of power, ie. to defend capital, and in so doing to oppose revolutionary and even non-radical progressive liberal movements. It is not reactionary at all to look back on revolutionary movements in a positive light.

https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Reactionary

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13 points
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Stalin died in 1953 and people in the west also used to be paid by the piece in the 40s and 50s 🤨 my grandma was one of them in the 60s, it still happens in some industries to this day.

Papers Please takes place in the 80s, it doesn’t have anything to do with Stalin. Stalin is dead he can’t hurt you it’s okay.

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38 points

It is liberal propaganda, the game is fun, though, if you ignore it. I’d recommend more The Return of Obra Dinn which is another, much more superior, video game by Lucas Pope.

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7 points

Return of the Obra Dinn is probably one of the best games I’ve ever played. It is simply fantastic.

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6 points

Indeed, I really loved their approach to languages and the gameplay is fantastic. I consumed it voraciously because it was so fascinating.

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Games

!games@lemmygrad.ml

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Tag game recommendations with [rec]. Tag your critique or commentary threads with [discussion]. Both table-top and video game content is welcome! Original content or indie/DRM free material is encouraged!

Not a place for gamer gate talk or other reactionary behavior. TERFs and incels get the wall.

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