an answer to that annoying string of questions

[homegrown terror]

i don't know about you, but i've found that when i tell someone uninitiated and unreceptive about my political views, they tend to start badgering me on very specific points, on the line of "after the revolution, how will this, that and item C be handled?" this tactic is meant to expose me as either a charlatan or an idiot, but here is a good response to that line of conversation: "i don't have all the answers, and i'm not claiming to. i also don't know what 3,476,822.57 x 78,566, but i know the answer's not 4"

[Jimmie Higgins]

Welcome HT,

I moved this to Learning, because there are other threads in this topic about how to handle arguments that come up when talking to folks about radical politics.

Yes this is definitely something that comes up a lot when talking to people. "Well if you can't tell me how smart-phones will work under Socialism then it's obviously a pipe-dream and I'm right not to question current society." :D

[Railyon]

I've only really had this problem with Tea Partiers who think democracy is two wolves and a lamb sitting around a table, deciding what's for dinner. And ask whether in communism someone would bar them from keeping a shed full of shovels (like DUH really, why would you want to do that?)

Who then, after explaining how communism could look like respond to it saying they'd rather keep their nation-states with limited power.

I never /facedesk'd so hard in my entire life

[The Douche]

Its an absurd question, if we've never experienced a world outside of capitalism, then any attempts to create a blueprint for another world would be infected with some of the things that make this world so terrible.

If you want a glimpse of communism, then the examples are inter-personal relationships.

[ForgedConscience]

Yes, this is a problem even for very close friends of mine, they constantly barrage me with arbitrary questions. I usually respond these days with something along the lines of that I'm just one man, a society is built by multiple people combining their willpower, intellect and labour and that such problems will either become trivial or be resolved naturally as the result of democratic process and (call me a utopian or a hippy) general restoration of empathy for our fellow man.

Luckily I have succeeded in convincing my best friend that capitalism is a system of division, mass-murder and exploitation and at least partially convinced him that a communist society is needed and preferable, though he has issues with it's practicality.

[homegrown terror]

another one that pisses me off: "oh, you believe in socialism? you mean like HITLER?!?!?!"