018 - Phone, still stage four... or is he?

[worstvikingever]

[So when he starts the call he sounds kind of astonished.]

Guys, I think I really am a communist.

No really. After hearing what it means, it... sounds a lot like the way things work back home. I mean, we kind of sort of have a system where you do something for someone and they repay you in kind, but we really don't have any currency or anything, and everyone just does stuff to help each other out.

It... worked really well. I don't see what the big deal is. Why is it supposedly such a evil thing or whatever? I mean if it works, it works, right?

Comments

oh Hiccup you don't know what you just asked...

[vytis]

That is the problem. Yes, within a village a system like that may work. What they're talking about here, though, is the Commuinsm of the Soviet Union.

And it didn't work.

No he really, REALLY doesn't. 8D

[worstvikingever]

Why not?

[vytis]

[If he wasn't truthed into talking, he'd deflect. But he is truthed into talking, so sit tight, Hiccup.]

The Soviet Union was comprised of several republics. Most did not want to be there. I'm Lithuania--at the time, I was the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, unwillingly part of the Soviet Union. On a large scale, Communism is--to put it mildly, because I know you're thinking idealistically by the way you describe it--hopelessly idealistic. People simply work better, from what I have experienced, when they are able to earn rewards based on effort. If a great amount of effort and a small amount earn the same reward, why put in a lot of effort?

The solution in the Soviet Union was that nothing was actually equal, and punishment for failing, for rebellion against something we did not want, for doing anything contrary to what Russia wanted, was severe.

You don't want to be what Mayfield considers a Communist.

[worstvikingever]

...oh. That makes sense, I guess. I just... it still doesn't change the way things are back home, though.

I'm sorry you had to go through all that, though.

[vytis]

It's fine, it's over now--well, this place is a bit of an unwelcome nostalgia trip, but regardless. Still, sharing of that sort really only works on a small-scale. I'm sure your village will continue to do fine sharing. Small communities can do that sort of thing. I wouldn't call it Communism--but of course I'm incredibly biased against it.

[worstvikingever]

Right. Okay.

So what's it like being an actual country?

[vytis]

Eh? Well, what do you mean? It's like asking a human what it's like being a human, I think. It's--well, I live a long time?

[worstvikingever]

I dunno. I just... I didn't even really know about countries at all before I got here, and so finding about about them and hearing that they're people too at the same time was kind of... weird. Really weird.

[vytis]

Well, I suppose... I'm about two-thousand years old. I started out as a tribe and eventually became a country. I've always been connected to my people, so what they think, collectively, is what I think.

[worstvikingever]

Wow. For us it's always just been the village. And the dragons. Not tons else.

[vytis]

That's how it used to be--or, I remember being mostly confined to a small group of villages, anyway. There aren't any dragons in my world, though.

[worstvikingever]

Doesn't seem like there are dragons in many other places, from what I hear.

[vytis]

What's it like, living alongside dragons?

[worstvikingever]

Well we were fighting them for centuries. But it turned out that they were just being controlled by this big giant dragon and once it was killed they were friendly. When I was brought here we were just starting to learn how to live with them like that.

[vytis]

Things seem to be working out in your world.

[worstvikingever]

Yeah, they are. I mean, I think they are. They were when I left.