Sociopath Community

It's good to see you're using primary sources now instead of those horrid youtube videos.  

Recall you gave me the database from which you got these sources. I've gone through every channel many times since you gave me access including the "Debunking Anti-communism" Masterpost and Google Doc. 

To put it plainly I have a thorough response to this and have been waiting for a debate like this to arise.

Before I post anything pertaining to the Holodomor I want you to think about your claim and what you've provided to back it up.

You claim the famine was not a result of USSR policy but rather the result of terrorism and environmental conditions (USSR trying to fix the problem is irrelevant so I'll ignore that for now). 

Explain how the GIS map and data supports your claim that the famine was a environmental event.  

Explain how the documents you've provided support your claim that Kulak sabotage propagated the famine.  

I gain no satisfaction from dismantling an argument that you haven't thought through. If you can't put forward your own explanation using the documents you've provided than I will turn those documents against you easily. Give me something to chew on. 

I concede. I got over-zealous, and I shall make an effort not to jump into debates like that again. 

I used to have a better grasp, but I've let myself become rusted and I need to work on self-improving. I've made myself look like a clown and I understand that. 

Recently, I've been eating better and working on my running, which I seem to be getting better at.

When I enter service, I want to read The Prince by Machiavelli, as well as study military theory. 

If there's any works anyone who actually reads this would recommend, I'll try to add it to my list, I want to try to read all the different perspectives. 

I'm sure some will make the assumptions and use me in their mind as an example of the "useful idiots of communism" though, I would implore you to read Marx, not the Communist Manifesto but something more than that. I think everyone should seek to understand the other perspective as much as possible. 

I seek to learn and keep learning. 

This was my mistake. 

Sintetika said: 

I concede. I got over-zealous, and I shall make an effort not to jump into debates like that again. 

So... all you learned from this is to be afraid of debating? 

You should throw yourself out there like this with the risk of being wrong so that, if you are wrong, you'll be corrected, and if you either aren't or can't accept their view you could at least be that much more seasoned with debating your points and expecting patterned retorts from others. 

I used to have a better grasp, but I've let myself become rusted and I need to work on self-improving. I've made myself look like a clown and I understand that. 

Hey, a clown is a noble profession that even has it's own colleges and everything. 

Recently, I've been eating better and working on my running, which I seem to be getting better at. 

...is this some sort of compensatory back pat? What does this have to do with debating? 

When I enter service, I want to read The Prince by Machiavelli, as well as study military theory. 

If there's any works anyone who actually reads this would recommend, I'll try to add it to my list, I want to try to read all the different perspectives. 

If you ask me, you'd benefit more from having your nose less within books of lore and more within debate circles. 

If you don't stress test your findings on other people, you'll never know if it tests well in reality or if it's just crazy shit you're holding onto in your brain. It's through other people that we can keep ourselves more grounded instead of lost within false ideologies and fantasies. 

I'm not against you studying books and stuff, but you'll only get what you desire to cherry pick from it if you keep this as more of a solo hobby. Sometimes it takes another pair of eyes and ears to pick apart what's wrong with your thoughts, and there's nothing shameful about it. 

I'm sure some will make the assumptions and use me in their mind as an example of the "useful idiots of communism" though, I would implore you to read Marx, not the Communist Manifesto but something more than that. I think everyone should seek to understand the other perspective as much as possible. 

I wouldn't pigeon-hole it as "of communism" specifically... 

I seek to learn and keep learning. 

This was my mistake. 

No, this thing you're calling an epiphany is. Your losing at debate is just fine, especially if you recognize the loss and it pushes you to try harder. 

People should always be juuuust insecure enough to not trust that they must know what's going on at all times. 

I'm aware losing a debate is just fine, losing a debate is how one would gain more knowledge, the problem is I didn't entirely think this through. As Alice said above. I can barely articulate on how I even plan to converse on this scale. Alice is a professor, her ability to articulate in an argument using various data and documents is far beyond my comprehension. I am disadvantaged in that, I need to refresh my memory, even on the basics. 

 I want to read more, refresh my memory, and then discuss with others, I'm not going to isolate myself, and never debate again. That isn't how minds are changed and how things are done. 

I'm definitely not going to find myself debating in the military though, I plan to be silent on politics in the military, because I'd rather not risk being labeled as a terrorist. 

Perhaps, I'll try to debate Alice, and come back to this, at the moment, I think I should try to improve my knowledge. 

If I am, the key task is to take this in mind...

Alice said:

Explain how the GIS map and data supports your claim that the famine was a environmental event.

Explain how the documents you've provided support your claim that Kulak sabotage propagated the famine.

 If I am to try to debate this topic, then those two are my essentially goals

Sintetika said: 

I'm aware losing a debate is just fine, losing a debate is how one would gain more knowledge, the problem is I didn't entirely think this through. As Alice said above. I can barely articulate on how I even plan to converse on this scale.

What's holding you back? 

Alice is a professor, her ability to articulate in an argument using various data and documents is far beyond my comprehension.

Damn dude, you sound shook. 

Also, isn't she a bit young to be a professor? 

Debating is indeed a great way to learn as it reveals the weaknesses and strengths of your position while exposing you new ideas and perspectives. I would still like to have this debate but I want to debate you and not merely read your claim and then have a bunch of documents you screenshot from a source repository that told you "these documents prove such and such claim". Take your time but definitely don't give up. For instance if you included just a few documentation in a thorough response, even if said response is piss poor, others could point out the weaknesses of your narrative and those documents that support it; from this you understand your narrative and the documents better. 

I am not a professor, I am a project manager for the Department of Applied Mathematics and the assistant to the head of the Department of Computer Science - essentially just a professional researcher. The most professor like thing I do is give seminars but I don't teach classes, professorship is well above my pay grade. 

When did this forum become all intellectual and sciencey like this?

Anyway, let me highlight some of the cool stuff that people here have said. Firstly, there's nothing wrong with putting forward an argument, as TC points out. That's the way science works. There are many claims that haven't held up against critical scrutiny. That's how progress is made, by ruling out hypotheses until you're left with just one. If you wanted to always be right, you'd go with the null hypothesis, "I don't know, it could be anything." But then you wouldn't get very far.

Alice has given you nice general heuristics to follow. Don't selection bias your evidence. So, for example, if you wanted to investigate what happened in Ukraine, it'd be better to try to study several aspects of the history. The bad example would be googling "Stalin didn't cause famine in Ukraine" or something similar, and then making your conclusion based on that.

There are several sources of evidence. The evidence you can dig up, a priori evidence, and a priori probability for the hypothesis (Occam's razor).

The evidence you can dig up is the one that people usually discuss, because we can usually all agree on it. We can both agree that those documents that you linked (probably) existed, and we can try to make some conclusions based on that. I can investigate those claims.

The a priori evidence is the evidence that you've accumulated during your lifetime, and it is subjective to some degree. It is usually used to rule out crazy claims. For example, if someone claims that Barack Obama is a lizard human, then there's a large body of evidence, a priori, disfavoring the hypothesis. Every human we've seen has been a normal person. So, unless good evidence is presented, it makes sense to assume that Barack Obama, like the rest of us, is a normal person.

The a priori probability of the hypothesis is usually just referred to as Occam's razor. It's the statement that simple hypotheses are more likely to be true than complicated ones. For example, if I guessed that you have blue eyes, I'd be more probably correct than if I said you have brown eyes, currently wear sweat pants and you're exactly six feet tall. The latter is a more complicated hypothesis, and therefore less likely to be correct a priori.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this.

dont need the world or even the entire forum userbase, alice alone is enough by the looks of it

Sintetika said: 

Argument: I assert that the Holodomor was not the cause of Stalin or even collectivizaton, but rather weather conditions and sabotage by the Kulaks (A high class of peasants that got their land collectivized) such sabotage including hoarding grain, killing cattle, and burning crops. I also assert that the Soviets actually tried to assist and prevent the famine from getting worse.

I'm just curious how you (or anyone) would go about proving forced collectivization did not create or severely and adversely affect the 1932-1933 famine given the massive changes it had (along with the other repressive policies introduced at the time) on economic/agricultural activity in Ukraine.