My Little Pony XCIX: Leakier Than A Changeling Bathtub!

[Forum Explorer]

Equestria has a confusing array of differing technologies of different eras. Without actual electricity, not late-industrial. Dirigibles is kind of weird, Pinkie uses a gyrocopter, and yet no telegram. The three signposts of the late-modern and the inevitably recession of the industrial boom of the mid 19th.

Sure, as I said before--the writers decided stupid-evil with a hamfisted allegory to 'big business' all while neglecting the fact that clearly the FF brothers have a viable machine. The Apple family farm functions as practically a chartered company (the ability to consolidate commercial exclusive rights) which is already shady, but they can't even do their job. Flim and Flam couldn't sell cider to the town. Applejack literally lassos the barrel away even though clearly they can't even facilitate need that they have. So you have a family that has cornered trade and productive forces, can't meet demand, and refuses to allow competition that can.

And for what actual reason? The thing is you need an industrial revolution in order to diversify the economic base.

I mean the Industrial Revolution allowed the most fertile grounds for electricity grids and radio.

Moreover, rampant industrialization isn't exactly a problem in comparison to yearly food riots. We have the capacity to correct human damages to the planet assuming the political will is there. But a failure of politics is not necessarily a failure of human ingenuity or necessarily consumption on its own.

After all, the situation would be much worse if we simply got up to first and second generation coal powerplants and said; "About as much industry as we need." Imagine where we'd be if it wasn't for AC power supply? Only 38% of all civil powerplants run on coal. Imagine how awful the situation would be if we didn't make such astounding leaps in a relatively short amount of time?

What's the alternative, here?

Sure they had a viable machine. That's almost irrelevant, since they didn't use it properly.

Anyways, the alternative? Progress without industrialization? It means slower growth, likely more random in what technologies are developed. It means a smaller population, with managed impact on the surrounding environment to maintain control. It mean, well, basically what Equestria is.

[Aotrs Commander]

So, upon repeated viewings of Glitterforce's Princess Mode transformation¹ - which is inordinately silly, but my reaction was still - and thinking about Centurions and Nanoha and Rainbow Power Mode... (okay, maybe not that one) and such...

I have decided it is grossly unjust that I don't have a special magical transformation. Like, even Hopereaver has one nowadays -

Darn right!

- and it's not fair! Where's my Necromantic Devastation Mode with extra shiny lights and all clunking mechanical thingies and more shiny lights and tings flashing off everything and, I dunno, a cloak of writhing shadows and, like an iron crown and cool blaring theme song that transitions into a massively explodely overly pyrotechnic mega-attack and stuff! HAX, I say, HAX!

When is it my turn to be overpowered!

Aren't you already?

When is it my turn to be more overpowered!

Weeeeeell, you could always have a "double princess mode..."

I. Will. Kill. You.

*grabs snake launcher*

Wait... Pfft! Did... Did you... Did you attach magic gems to your rocket launchers?

...

...

No?

Pfftahahahahahahaohcrap.

*splifflicate*



¹Which I could not for the unlife of me find a clear dub version of, the best being this poor quality French version (because I think warnig heresy - the substituion of Blush's main theme is better than the original Japanese music).

[Rater202]

So, upon repeated viewings of Glitterforce's Princess Mode transformation¹ - which is inordinately silly, but my reaction was still - and thinking about Centurions and Nanoha and Rainbow Power Mode... (okay, maybe not that one) and such...

I have decided it is grossly unjust that I don't have a special magical transformation. Like, even Hopereaver has one nowadays -

Darn right!

- and it's not fair! Where's my Necromantic Devastation Mode with extra shiny lights and all clunking mechanical thingies and more shiny lights and tings flashing off everything and, I dunno, a cloak of writhing shadows and, like an iron crown and cool blaring theme song that transitions into a massively explodely overly pyrotechnic mega-attack and stuff! HAX, I say, HAX!

When is it my turn to be overpowered!

Aren't you already?

When is it my turn to be more overpowered!

Weeeeeell, you could always have a "double princess mode..."

I. Will. Kill. You.

*grabs snake launcher*

Wait... Pfft! Did... Did you... Did you attach magic gems to your rocket launchers?

...

...

No?

Pfftahahahahahahaohcrap.

*splifflicate*



¹Which I could not for the unlife of me find a clear dub version of, the best being this poor quality French version (because I think warnig heresy - the substituion of Blush's main theme is better than the original Japanese music).

I mean, I gave you an Ultamatrix.

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You could just trigger the evolution feature in base form, but I honestly have no idea how that's work for you. Would it be you after many, many instnaces of Spirit Vessel Will Refinment influcned by extreme conditions(the example given was a million years long worst scae scenario war) or would it be the mosst combat adapted potential evolution of your abase race with your current Lich template and refinements added to it?

Or something I can't even begin to guess at?

Only one way to find out...

[Schismatic]

Sure they had a viable machine. That's almost irrelevant, since they didn't use it properly.

Anyways, the alternative? Progress without industrialization? It means slower growth, likely more random in what technologies are developed. It means a smaller population, with managed impact on the surrounding environment to maintain control. It mean, well, basically what Equestria is.

We've had smaller populations before. Still food riots. What kept human populations low was massive amounts of suffering. Moreover, it's a bit late to do anything about the population dynamics we have now. 91% of Australians live in urban/suburban communities, we can't exactly start 'living off the fat of the land'.

If you forced that 91% of Australians to go off into the country and farm, about 90% of Australians will die. That goes without saying for countries like Singapore or Japan. Add into that I doubt very much the ecological situation will improve.

At the very least we're going to need a lot of magic.

[Forum Explorer]

We've had smaller populations before. Still food riots. What kept human populations low was massive amounts of suffering. Moreover, it's a bit late to do anything about the population dynamics we have now. 91% of Australians live in urban/suburban communities, we can't exactly start 'living off the fat of the land'.

If you forced that 91% of Australians to go off into the country and farm, about 90% of Australians will die. That goes without saying for countries like Singapore or Japan. Add into that I doubt very much the ecological situation will improve.

At the very least we're going to need a lot of magic.

You seem to have shifted the subject. We're already in a post industrialization world. At this point the damage (and benefits) are done, and it's all about moving forward from here. The unhealthy attitudes that existed in industrialization (exploit the Earth without regard to consequences, make as much money as possible, excess excesss excess) sadly are still very prevalent all around the world.

It's entirely possible that we are moving towards a future where food riots are going to once again become a common thing. But it doesn't have to be.

[Schismatic]

You seem to have shifted the subject. We're already in a post industrialization world. At this point the damage (and benefits) are done, and it's all about moving forward from here. The unhealthy attitudes that existed in industrialization (exploit the Earth without regard to consequences, make as much money as possible, excess excesss excess) sadly are still very prevalent all around the world.

It's entirely possible that we are moving towards a future where food riots are going to once again become a common thing. But it doesn't have to be.

While the Industrial Revolution created the capitalist class proper, you seem to be glossing over a lot of indentured labour, slavery and structuralist poverty inherent in systems prior. It was kind of my point before that basically the only way the Apples beat the Super Squeezy 6000 was emotional blackmailing of five of the Mane 6 who have other skills to do nothing but farming.

Moreover, industrialization need not be about private interest. Governments set up publicly and semi-publicly owned industries all the time.

I mean the Super Squeezy 6000 would be perfectly at home in a collectivist farmstead...

If the problems of the world of tomorrow require hands and minds, surely it's better less people work on farms just to eat when they can be doing other things? Like being scientists and engineers, and living in cities making it easier and cheaper to set up collaborative research initiatives and not having to live within a day of horse-powered wagons from major agricultural centres?

[zimmerwald1915]

I mean the Super Squeezy 6000 would be perfectly at home in a collectivist farmstead...

Agreed. But are F&F the ponies to get us there? In their first appearance, their role is a strange Frankenstein's monster stitched together from Prof. Harold Hill and John Henry's unnamed boss. The one is a grifter and the other a ruthless exploiter (who might also have been a grifter; railroad tycoons were never the most scrupulous bunch). Neither is the kind of person you'd expect to be advocating common property. Their further appearances bear out this characterization; they practice various forms of consumer and business fraud that I won't go into because I post about ponies to stop thinking about my job, damnit. They have no concern for the common good, and no high opinion of the common pony.

But really. No one ever called F&F communists, not even the writers who misunderstand communism badly enough to represent it with Starlight's village, and it's a bit disingenuous to even suggest it. Defenses and denunciations (including The Cutie Re-Mark's) of F&F usually assume that they would introduce industrial capitalism to Equestria. This is not true. It cannot be, because Equestria is already [if incompletely] industrialized, and has capitalists or at least entrepreneurs, including Stinkin' Rich and, if you accept the comics as canon, Well-to-Do, with a privileged class position and possession of means of production. Given this, the real question is, would the sort of capitalism exemplified by F&F be an improvement? I would say not. Equestria has, as I've already observed, full employment and moreover has a high or at least acceptable quality of life. The specter of crop failure has been raised, but managed weather and Earth pony magic accomplish the same things for Equestrian agriculture that chemical fertilizers do for us. That for which we need machines can be accomplished by pony labor - as can things our technology can as yet only gesture at (e.g. geoengineering). Famine is not a realistic possibility as long as enough pegasi and Earth ponies continue to labor.

This is probably what supports the strong position of labor relative to capital in the Equestrian economy. Rather than forming an industrial reserve army, pegasi who would otherwise be unemployed are put to work in the decommodified and public weather sector. We've seen that the entire pegasus population is subject to mobilization to supply Cloudsdale with water, that clouds are centrally produced and distributed, and that weather is planned. The weather sector is necessarily national, and is an effective job guarantee for a third of the population - it is a bulwark against labor markets.

So. Equestria is already industrial and capitalist, with a high portion of variable capital and a low but appreciable portion of fixed capital in the economy. What F&F would do would be to alter the proportion of fixed to variable capital in favor of fixed capital. But the ability of fixed capital to replace labor is lower in Equestria than in our world. SSCS6K is not a counterpoint to this. That was an isolated incident with a lot of particularities - the general case can be seen from the whole economy, where the introduction of labor-saving devices has not led to battalions of unemployed ponies. In order to bring about the F&F future you'd need more than just fair competition between capital and labor. You'd need a lot of pro-capital violence to displace and disempower labor. All in order to overthrow a regime that basically works and replace it with a regime that blackens the skies, poisons the waters and strips the land.

[Rater202]

Did they say that Starlight's town was meant to be a pistache of communism?

Because to me, it didn't seem Communist or even pretend-communist(Students of history will know what this means, I will not verify for fear of forum rules.)

It seemed more like one of those communes run by a fringe cult where the inductees are talked into giving up everything that made them "them" and people who show up but decide against joining are brainwashed into it.

We've got the lies. The people who are in the group show signs of cult indoctrination to various degrees. We've got the leader who is partly or fully motivated by their ego at the expense of their followers' well being and is a colossal hypocrite... Honestly, Starlight was depicted as a narcissistic sociopath up until the very end of the Season Finale and, as people have noted, she still comes across as being "evil" even after making the effort to make amends and reform. (Notably, her reasons for taking the Mane 6's cutie marks by force and throwing them in the brainwashing tent was the boost of influence that Princess Twilight being a member of her cult would give her. That's pure ego.)

It's got all of the signs. Just exaggerated and compressed.

[zimmerwald1915]

Did they say that Starlight's town was meant to be a pistache of communism?

They don't need to. I know red-baiting when I see it.

There's a lot to be said about the archetypal cults' - basically the People's Temple, but also the RU/RCP and the LaRouche movement - relationships to communism and the New Left in the Cold War context, but forum rules say not to. I doubt the staff knew any of this history outside of a vague cultural impression anyway.

[Aotrs Commander]

I am officially The Worst at Hearts of Iron IV.

Even with, like, the entire PDX forum helping, I cannot even beat Poland... In fact, they beat me like a drum so badly they took Berlin in just under three months.

I wouldn't mind, but the general level of response is on the lines of "well, that's not actually bad, if not optimal" which indicates that I am not completely fracking everything up, it appears just as soon as war is declared everything simultaneously catastrophically fails and I don't understand how I can frack it that badly. I mean, I'm not stupid or inept, but I've been at this for 47 hours and the only wars I succesfully managed was against Etheopia as Italy and against Hungary as Germany and I had a massive overwhelming advantage in both cases and I still don't think I did very well.



I had to read four issues of Pony Comic (to #75, many hilarious references) to actuallt e-stress from the thing that is supposed to exist for de-stressing.

[DigoDragon]

The truly infuriating thing is that there attitude is completely selfish and pretty stupid. Like you can turn a profit while still operating sustainably.

Even when they're practically gifted the Las Pegasus casino resort (a legitimate business) they still scheme for more money.

Equestria has a confusing array of differing technologies of different eras. Without actual electricity, not late-industrial. Dirigibles is kind of weird, Pinkie uses a gyrocopter, and yet no telegram.

In the cold open for the episode Party of One, Pinkie refers to herself as a singing telegram. If the term exists, it's likely the invention does as well and Ponyville just doesn't have one yet. Twilight wouldn't need it since she has a direct line to the princess with Spike's dragon breath.

That's one one thing Equestria has that we don't--magic. They use magic to operate/replace some of their technology.

Did they say that Starlight's town was meant to be a pistache of communism?

It seemed more like one of those communes run by a fringe cult where the inductees are talked into giving up everything that made them "them" and people who show up but decide against joining are brainwashed into it.

Yeah, I always thought of Jonestown when I look at Starlight's village. It's got a lot of similar trappings.

I think it was the fandom that mislabeled the town as communism.

[zimmerwald1915]

Yeah, I always thought of Jonestown when I look at Starlight's village. It's got a lot of similar trappings.

Damn forum rules. Suffice to say that the People's Temple was not apolitical, but thoroughly identified itself with a particular politics, and it would not be incorrect to identify those politics with it.

I think it was the fandom that mislabeled the town as communism.

I think the fandom picked up on what the staff was putting out.

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay. Afore going to see Captain Marvel, I have finally had time to have dubous first past at Elenthnar V2.0

In this, the quadruped-spider-legs is being replaced by a more humanoid stance, with the addition of two limbs which are neither arm nor leg nor prehensile tail (let's call them flangwurzles (working title...) for the sake af arguement), which curl up the back.

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First off, of course, the thickness of the flangwurzles have been exaggerated a bit because print thickness. They also had to be longer than I thought, since they have to be able to reach the length of the legs to touch the ground (second image lines). Humanoid legs have been moved a bit forward and the hip area is basically the first one I tried (for the quadrueped, I had to make the butt bigger still). I have gone for a more tail-like structure at this stage (first order of magnitude pass to see if it even works ar all) before I consider whether it should have a more jointed form (plus I gotts know where the joints might gom even.)

Thoughts? Suggestions? Does it look too utterly terrible?

(Also gonna post this to the thread I had before as well in a little more detail.)

[BlasTech]

Spoiler: AOTRS Cmdr HOI Stuff

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Spectacular.

So, the whole "Equestria at War" thing could be a while, since I am apparently SO BAD at Hearts of Iron IV that I just basically lost, as Germany (currently considered just about the most OP), on Recruit difficulty (i.e. "easy"), by early 1939. Despite, y'know, doing my usual level of research before and during play.

*sigh*

Nope. What, ten hours of so of play, following all the advice given and trying again, and I can't even beat Italy one on one. (Well, actually no, it's worse than that, I had Greece on my side.) Which I did 'cos one of the folk reckoned Italy was a liability as an ally (and I am trying to not get overshadowed by allies and so get stuff I want this time), but no. Can't even manage that.

The only things I've managed otside focus tree evens was annexing Hungary.

I just... Can't see what I'm doing wrong. I mean, I'm not stupid, or generally even that bad at this sort of game. I've been following lots of advice but, as soon as it comes to the actual war... Nothing I do seems to work. I can only think I must be fundementally mis-using the battle planner or something. I don't get it, I really don't, and it's really disheartening.

I am officially The Worst at Hearts of Iron IV.

Even with, like, the entire PDX forum helping, I cannot even beat Poland... In fact, they beat me like a drum so badly they took Berlin in just under three months.

I wouldn't mind, but the general level of response is on the lines of "well, that's not actually bad, if not optimal" which indicates that I am not completely fracking everything up, it appears just as soon as war is declared everything simultaneously catastrophically fails and I don't understand how I can frack it that badly. I mean, I'm not stupid or inept, but I've been at this for 47 hours and the only wars I succesfully managed was against Etheopia as Italy and against Hungary as Germany and I had a massive overwhelming advantage in both cases and I still don't think I did very well.



I had to read four issues of Pony Comic (to #75, many hilarious references) to actuallt e-stress from the thing that is supposed to exist for de-stressing.

Got a replay or anything I can watch? I've played a bit of HoI4 and am sorry to hear it's not working out for ya - mostly because it's holding you up from enjoying the fun fest that is EAW (Assuming they've patched it for the latest expansion)

Spoiler: Join the fight!

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[gmoyes]

I've also played a fair bit of HoI4, including Equestria at War. My suggestion is to try playing a middle power and trying to win your own small section of the war and leave your stronger allies to fill in the gaps. The first time I played was as Canada and managed to take on Italy pretty much on my own. Because the British navy is so overpowered (though now nerfed due to fuel concerns) you don't really need to commit any units to defense. Here's a couple general tips, but it's hard to tell what misplays you're making without any specifics.

1: Use tanks to push, infantry is for defense and holding the line.
2: Encirclements are your friend. If you can cut off a good chunk of the enemy army, you can wipe them out easily.
3: For your economy, if you are at war, you can jump straight from civilian economy to war economy without any middle steps.
4: When in doubt, go for historical accuracy. Don't attack the Magniot Line, go around it.

Finally, I'd suggest checking out Conquering History Games who has done quite a few HoI4 games, including a few Equestria at War gameplay and guides.

[Thanqol]

What's the alternative, here?

"It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

[zimmerwald1915]

"It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

For good and sound reasons. Capitalism has proved itself exceptionally resilient. And the world as we know it will end in 10 years.

[Forum Explorer]

For good and sound reasons. Capitalism has proved itself exceptionally resilient. And the world as we know it will end in 10 years.

I'll take that bet! If the world doesn't end in ten years, I get all your personal possessions and money. If it does, then you can have all of mine. Sounds fair?

[zimmerwald1915]

I'll take that bet! If the world doesn't end in ten years, I get all your personal possessions and money. If it does, then you can have all of mine. Sounds fair?

Sure, why not? I plan to have been assassinated by then, anyway.

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, you're only one Bleakbane-break away from an orbital razing, so there's that to look forward to...



Hooray! After 49 hours and two people sending me their save games to see if I could work out what in the merry hell I was doing wrong, I actually managed to capitulate Poland (the the second attempt of the evning, the first got within 2% of capitulating them and then went catastrophically wrong...) I'm still not entirely certain, but i think possibly one lead contender - the incredibly stupid omission it almost had to be - is that maybe I wasn't clicking go on my field marshal's order, just the divisions?

I'mm go back tomorrow, ratchet the difficulty down to civilian and try again, see if I can ramp up to maybe managing more than hopeless. (I've been avoiding allies, since with that Italy run, I ended up so irrelevant, I didn't really learn anything, let alone get any useful stuff out of it...)


Carol Danvers is now Best Avenger, by-the-by.



Any thoughts on the elenthnar revision, or is it just too hideous an idea?

[t209]

I've also played a fair bit of HoI4, including Equestria at War. My suggestion is to try playing a middle power and trying to win your own small section of the war and leave your stronger allies to fill in the gaps. The first time I played was as Canada and managed to take on Italy pretty much on my own. Because the British navy is so overpowered (though now nerfed due to fuel concerns) you don't really need to commit any units to defense. Here's a couple general tips, but it's hard to tell what misplays you're making without any specifics.

1: Use tanks to push, infantry is for defense and holding the line.
2: Encirclements are your friend. If you can cut off a good chunk of the enemy army, you can wipe them out easily.
3: For your economy, if you are at war, you can jump straight from civilian economy to war economy without any middle steps.
4: When in doubt, go for historical accuracy. Don't attack the Magniot Line, go around it.

Finally, I'd suggest checking out Conquering History Games who has done quite a few HoI4 games, including a few Equestria at War gameplay and guides.

So I am guessing that HOI creators built the military system around Deep Warfare and Blitzkrieg.
Still having issue trying to find a difference between them though, let alone an analogy.

Carol Danvers is now Best Avenger, by-the-by.

And how will they get Binary, Ms. Marvel's star god form, again?

[DigoDragon]

Sure, why not? I plan to have been assassinated by then, anyway.

Wait, you're planning your own assassination?
Wow, that's next level.

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[Alabenson]

And now for another episode of random thoughts Alabenson had while rewatching early episodes yet again;

I noticed recently that Aunt Orange has an almost identical color scheme to Pear Butter, which makes me wonder if Aunt Orange wasn't related to Applejack on her mother's side of the family and the Oranges just never wanted to mention the feud to her.

[DigoDragon]

I noticed recently that Aunt Orange has an almost identical color scheme to Pear Butter, which makes me wonder if Aunt Orange wasn't related to Applejack on her mother's side of the family and the Oranges just never wanted to mention the feud to her.

I think the entire family was in on this conspiracy to withhold everything from the three siblings. This only makes me speculate more if Granny hexed the entire family to secrecy or something.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Or they just didn't want to admit that the Pears were that big of jerks until the kids were older, and then the parents die and nopony wants to step up and tell the truth. Been through something like that my ownself regarding an uncle who just disappeared.

[Schismatic]

Agreed. But are F&F the ponies to get us there? In their first appearance, their role is a strange Frankenstein's monster stitched together from Prof. Harold Hill and John Henry's unnamed boss. The one is a grifter and the other a ruthless exploiter (who might also have been a grifter; railroad tycoons were never the most scrupulous bunch). Neither is the kind of person you'd expect to be advocating common property. Their further appearances bear out this characterization; they practice various forms of consumer and business fraud that I won't go into because I post about ponies to stop thinking about my job, damnit. They have no concern for the common good, and no high opinion of the common pony.

But all form of hope for an meritocratic society is born of the structural relationship of a society's productive forces. You can't have scientific societies and advanced educational resources without people doing just that. And unfortunately regardless of the economic system that requires private mobilization of otherwise public or private ownership of resources.

No transferral of material wealth is free. Prior mass industrialization there were chartered companies that basically was the template of what we consider textbook colonialism. And even now, Chinese multinationals and Chinese 'debt-traps' exploiting corrupt politicians in the expanded Indo-Pacific all the way to Africa in order to 'negotiate' national assets is going to start looking no different once all those extorted docks start housing Chinese 'Coast Guard' corvettes, frigates, submarines and destroyers with a 'security' complement.

There is no 'high opinion' without people empowered enough to simply take and control the land beneath their feet, and regardless of how that looks--it works better when people have the industrial basis to exploit it to the best of their abilities for social-wide benefits than simply run goat herds and using it as communal grazing lots.

Equestria is literally not going to develop industrialization any other way than a temporary period of private ownership, as the Apple family is quite literally the worst form of bourgeois. Land owners, privately chartered for a monopoly by both government and local power brokers, can't even fulfil demand, are incredibly wasteful, and literally justify all of this because they're aristocracy-esque displeasure with the nouveau riche industrialist.

They are like lords of a French vineyard and run it as if a self-justifying pleasure farmhold.

How exactly is that better than an industrialist that can at least match total productivity with land usage? The price of cider goes down, more ponies benefit from total land use. I mean now they have an actual export market. And while I agree that it would be better if the entirety of Ponyville benefit from a co-operative farmstead that meets pony needs of nutrition and pleasure--at the bare minimum cost (if not making the most of the land and being personally enriching and increasing total happiness)--chartered mercantile companies ala ye olde British Empire are worse than what we have now when taken by per capita population and productivity.

On the flipside of industrialist control being generally bad, who actually benefits from the Apples being a chartered company on the basis of 'tradition' that sees wasteful land usage in total with general incompetency and pretending like there is a moral virtue in being so wasteful on the basis of 'tradition' alone actively impeding pony's enjoyment of a product that is now prohibitively low in total supply and prohibitively high in cost?

The worst thing of all is that it was public land to begin with. Applejack would be much more beneficial to society as a mechanic than she is ever shown as a farmer. And when talking about pollution, what about when she just outrightly dismisses Fluttershy's concerns of local wildlife and total farmhold productivity and ecological land management? Applejack is a Celestia-awful farmer using far too much land with nothing to show for it.

You don't get that many acres of homogenous orchard plantation without bulldozing and irrigating an equal amount of forest. And oce more, why exactly do they even grow just apples? Apparently because they simply want to and neglect to even take personal inclination of tastes of the ponies in Ponyville into account. Like acting butthurt if a non-land owning pony might not like apples, and apparently that's somehow bad the plebeians desire something else that could be locally sourced by land given to them for free for the supposed benefit of a new settlement.

[zimmerwald1915]

Equestria is literally not going to develop industrialization any other way than a temporary period of private ownership, as the Apple family is quite literally the worst form of bourgeois. Land owners, privately chartered for a monopoly by both government and local power brokers, can't even fulfil demand, are incredibly wasteful, and literally justify all of this because they're aristocracy-esque displeasure with the nouveau riche industrialist.

They are like lords of a French vineyard and run it as if a self-justifying pleasure farmhold.

If your materialist conception of history cannot recognize peasants (either in their form of property or in their specifically petit-bourgeois rather than aristocratic prejudices) when it sees them, then I really don't see any value in it.

[Schismatic]

If your materialist conception of history cannot recognize peasants (either in their form of property or in their specifically petit-bourgeois rather than aristocratic prejudices) when it sees them, then I really don't see any value in it.

They are the haute-bourgeois. The Apple family would have to be the largest land holders in Equestria. That is about as aristocratic as it realistically gets in a still very much colonial-esque society. Beyond Blueblood and Flurry Heart there isn't exactly a dynastic nobility and there is no greater expression of a pre-high industrial colonial society's aristocracy than whoever controls primary resources in a mercantilist or feudal state.

Just because they're bad at it doesn't make them any less haute bourgeois. Plenty of awful legacy wealth families out there. It doesn't matter if they're multi-bankrupted, they still maintain political power. Many democracies don't allow formerly bankrupt claimants get into political office for a reason... at least as an appeal to the idea of 'Yes, we're corrupt--but not that blatantly plutocratic.'

All the things you would criticize a F&F as doing, they physically are. If the only virtue of the Apples over a F&F is they'll 'make sure they cut down o pollution'--that's pretty god-awful when you consider that means less building publicly owned solar powerplants and more keeping society locked in a state of perpetual ignorance.

I mean all those trains running to Ponyville would be pretty coal intensive, but I would argue the train track owners are better land users than the Apple Family and it's a net social good, wouldn't you agree? The step up from that would be public ownership of the trains--not tearing them out of the ground.

The Apple Family is probably the greatest argument of why Equestria technologically hasn't altered in 1111 years.

Basically the only transformative relationship in all this has/will have been that train track.

[zimmerwald1915]

They are the haute-bourgeois. The Apple family would have to be the largest land holders in Equestria.

Based on what? The Apples in Ponyville own a couple hundred acres, and were migrant farm workers as recently as three generations before Applejack's. Braeburn in Appleloosa may or may not have an ownership interest in that town's orchard, it's not entirely clear. It's also not clear whether that orchard is common property, the property of a joint stock company, individually owned and regulated plots, or individually owned and competing plots. The remainder of the family is not shown owning anything, and are at most called out as living in places. That could imply anything from big landownership, small landownership, agricultural labor for other owners, or (for those who aren't associated with a place) migrant labor. Babs Seed is coded urban working class, though her immediate family is never shown - not even in comics.

The best case for any Apple being haute-bourgeois, that is to say, owner of large amounts of industrial capital used as means of production and put to use by a big labor force (variously free or unfree), and living off the value generated by that capital and labor, are the Oranges. We don't see anything of them besides their social life, where they live in an urban setting and have expensive tastes and Atlantic accents. That is to say, they are coded haute-bourgeois.

You don't get to just throw terms around. Materialist analysis proceeds from observation of really existing conditions, insofar as they can be observed.

That is about as aristocratic as it realistically gets in a still very much colonial-esque society. Beyond Blueblood and Flurry Heart there isn't exactly a dynastic nobility and there is no greater expression of a pre-high industrial colonial society's aristocracy than whoever controls primary resources in a mercantilist or feudal state.

Because Equestria is in most ways, and significantly in the twin realms of technology and social organization, much closer to the period of the New Imperialism than to the classic colonial period. The various indications of this have been pointed out to you many times, and I will not repeat them. I will, however, repeat my admonition to proceed from really existing conditions, and not ones that you make up. It will lead you to dead ends. In any event, Equestria is well beyond primitive accumulation in its core territories.

All the things you would criticize a F&F as doing, they physically are. If the only virtue of the Apples over a F&F is they'll 'make sure they cut down o pollution'--that's pretty god-awful when you consider that means less building publicly owned solar powerplants and more keeping society locked in a state of perpetual ignorance.

What I actually said would be the biggest detriment to F&F's model of development would be a major offensive of capital against labor. It would mean privatizing the weather industry and other nationalized industries, and abolishing the weather industry as a job guarantee for pegasi. It would mean the creation of industrial reserve armies to pressure labor into accepting lower wages across the board. It would mean worsened living conditions for most of the people, and a degradation rather than a generation of culture. All of this is observable from our own history.

It would not mean the introduction of things that already exist, namely industrial methods of production, compulsory education, electrification, telephony, and so on. It probably would not even mean their extension into the countryside, where they exist, albeit in primitive forms. For example, Ponyville has compulsory education, but only a small schoolhouse and teaching staff, and the age of compulsory schooling is low. The Friendship School is funded out of the Treasury (where else?), but serves a national and international, and somewhat older, student body rather than/in addition to the local population. Ponyville also has electricity generation and some of the buildings (notably the very modern hospital) are electrified, but most of that dam's power probably goes into feeding the grid. Ponyville does not have a telephone network.

That you ignore this or write it off as "inconsistency" shows once again how deficient your materialist conception of history is, how what you're really doing is playing with jargon to justify a pre-conceived notion. My opinion of you at this point is as Marx's of Lafargue and Guesde.

I mean all those trains running to Ponyville would be pretty coal intensive, but I would argue the train track owners are better land users than the Apple Family and it's a net social good, wouldn't you agree? The step up from that would be public ownership of the trains--not tearing them out of the ground.

I would argue that Equestrian rail is already nationalized and possibly always was, based on what we see of it. Notably, the network extends to places that would not be profitable to serve, including spurs to Starlight's village (where no one ever left and few ever came), to the Peaks of Peril, and to the site of the Crystal Empire before its reappearance. New track also seems to get built very quickly. Between The Movie and Surf and/or Turf - about the same timescale as the construction of the Friendship School - the railway was extended across the southern desert all the way to Mount Aris, where it crosses a newly-built causeway. It also crosses at least two national borders, between Equestria and points south and between Mount Aris and points north (the desert is probably terra nullius, though the area around the newly-built track might have gotten annexed by someone at some point), with no apparent change in gauge. The published maps show the train crossing a titanic steel bridge to cross a strait to Griffonstone. None of this screams private industry. There is at least massive government subsidy and regulation here, if not outright ownership.

[Schismatic]

Based on what? The Apples in Ponyville own a couple hundred acres, and were migrant farm workers as recently as three generations before Applejack's. Braeburn in Appleloosa may or may not have an ownership interest in that town's orchard, it's not entirely clear. It's also not clear whether that orchard is common property, the property of a joint stock company, individually owned and regulated plots, or individually owned and competing plots. The remainder of the family is not shown owning anything, and are at most called out as living in places. That could imply anything from big landownership, small landownership, agricultural labor for other owners, or (for those who aren't associated with a place) migrant labor. Babs Seed is coded urban working class, though her immediate family is never shown - not even in comics.

So what? At best it's reminiscent of the squatter land system in Australia pre-Federation. If you were on good terms with the established political entities of the colony, that determined the quality of the land you could simply claim or purchase outright. Moreover there's more than enough proof that this land does not have some form co-operative agreement with local settlers, rather it's quite firmly established it is family owned and run and why exactly would that change in Appleloosa as it would Ponyville? This is further solidified by the fact that Applejack literally loses her mind over Rarity suggesting that a pony in town doesn't even like what she's selling. The farm managed is private interest, it is run on the basis of that private interest. Not merely to secure food for the town as if a collective agricultural resource that attempts to facilitate personal needs and desires of the town it is economically attached to.

In the 1850s you had the Victorian Land Rights Act, which was immediately blocked by the squatter gentry-run Legislative Council, which cast shadows long and wide to this day, largely monopolized the arable land ownership in the hands of a select few families. Mind you, people who were 'just two or three' generations of being migrants themselves and not necessarily rich to begin with. Didn't stop them achieving significant positions of political power and esteem, and often dominated the economic frameworks of many a country town. Often being exclusive industrial powers unto themselves that routinely sabotaged any pauper ownership of land, either by manipulating local politics or directly through law enforcement and getting them to harass small 'selector' farmhold families. Incidentally this is partly why Ned Kelly became a bushranger, and why many will-be Australians loved him for it.

Moreover, being a legacy family does not necessarily suggest every one of your family is rich. My paternal great great grandfather owned multiple dairies. My maternal great grandparents on my mother's side were political elite in the Philippines. That being said, disastrous mismanagement on one side, and a Philippine-American War, Japanese invason and Marcos blacklisting later on the other means I don't inherit millions of dollars. Some of my extended family are doing quite well, but that's because of more re-acquisition of familial wealth, not because they were born into it. I personally don't. At best I have an investment and Super portfolio of no more than 530K. My Super could just disappear in another 2008, and if something bad happens to me I have to live on that money for the rest of my life. I don't even have land to my name, and my parents cut me off when I was 17... so bad stuff happens in terms of branches of one's family.

There's no real merit in comparing a Babs Seed and pretending like the Oranges don't exist. Let's assume that the Pears aren't as well off as possibly the Oranges that... hrm, how does that family tree work again? Regardless, there is explainable reasons why a family can be wealthy even if branches of it are not. Not every descendent within the Buffett family might have Buffett bucks. Specifically I think one of his grand nieces is an artist and barista? Moreover, the fact that the Apple family (which is huge) specifically all are landowners across Equestria is pretty telling. Pretty sure you can call that an agricultural dynasty. Which might explain why Applejack has immediate family members in the uppercrust in Manehattan who have never touch a hoe in their lives.

They aren't bedraggled mono-industrial tycoons.

I get they exist as a pun and metaphor in the same way a sledgehammer is to a nail, but then again all signs point to the Apple family as being quite wealthy and connected even if you remove these other examples of their family. Even if parts of it might seem working class.

You don't get to just throw terms around. Materialist analysis proceeds from observation of really existing conditions, insofar as they can be observed.

Equestria is very much a settler society and makes no small effort trying to nail that idea of 'Westward bound' ideal of some early 19th century American new society. It does play to that aesthetic of being a somewhat confusing mix of high-fantasy and Western-ish. Why not critique it in those terms?

Because Equestria is in most ways, and significantly in the twin realms of technology and social organization, much closer to the period of the New Imperialism than to the classic colonial period. The various indications of this have been pointed out to you many times, and I will not repeat them. I will, however, repeat my admonition to proceed from really existing conditions, and not ones that you make up. It will lead you to dead ends. In any event, Equestria is well beyond primitive accumulation in its core territories.

Fine, fair point...

What I actually said would be the biggest detriment to F&F's model of development would be a major offensive of capital against labor. It would mean privatizing the weather industry and other nationalized industries, and abolishing the weather industry as a job guarantee for pegasi. It would mean the creation of industrial reserve armies to pressure labor into accepting lower wages across the board. It would mean worsened living conditions for most of the people, and a degradation rather than a generation of culture. All of this is observable from our own history.

Right, and the person who made the Monopoly board game was actually trying to educate people on the dangers of a rampant, regulation-less accumulation of land and services through capitalist control... and through capitalist markets and rebranding is literally making a spin off 'game' with that label like this...



Once again, never argued that F&F are going to, on their own, somehow achieve an other-regarding, enlightened socialist ideal. In fact my argument before was that it was to ponies who make or break their society. What I argued was you need a transformation of productive forces in order to realign those that benefit. Clearly the ponies aren't benefitting from the Apples. That is exactly the point the episode made no efforts to hide. The fact that the Apples wouldn't have accepted even a legitimately beneficial product made by say a local tractor factory is also plain to see. What's problematic is the fact that it takes charisma and con artistry to legitimately even have a chance of altering their practices for the benefit of everypony.

Would you have a problem if it was let's say a small agricultural machinery firm building the Super Squeezy? What happens if they equally got as rich and or powerful without being hucksters and rather simply made the best all fields and purpose farming equipment around (like Toyota)? What happens if they expanded into other fields of heavy industry--Like tanks and aircraft (Like Volkswagon and Chrysler)?

There's nothing stopping someone like a Flim & Flam in current Equestria (hence why I argued before that there should simply be laws, not merely blame for being 'nebulously bad' when I was talking about their tonic). The Apples routinely enable a F&F to exist as they do--not stop them (without direct action).

The morality of the episode is broken because quite clearly something is wrong and the solution doesn't necessarily require a Flim and Flam--merely their obvious capabilities and their obviously superior machine.

It would not mean the introduction of things that already exist, namely industrial methods of production, compulsory education, electrification, telephony, and so on. It probably would not even mean their extension into the countryside, where they exist, albeit in primitive forms. For example, Ponyville has compulsory education, but only a small schoolhouse and teaching staff, and the age of compulsory schooling is low. The Friendship School is funded out of the Treasury (where else?), but serves a national and international, and somewhat older, student body rather than/in addition to the local population. Ponyville also has electricity generation and some of the buildings (notably the very modern hospital) are electrified, but most of that dam's power probably goes into feeding the grid. Ponyville does not have a telephone network.

Compulsory school system? Or simply beneficial school system? After all, Twilight gets a multi-million bit, unregistered college of friendship, Cheerilee teaches out of a barn. It's also rundown and relies on private funding. Which I suppose is more reflective of current ideas of the U.S. school funding system that takes money out of local rates for their district educational services? IDK how the U.S. education system works totally, so I can't comment. But I will say it can't be that compulsory or centrally planned as you have obvious Equestrian youth enrolled at a privately-run facility with untrained educators rather than an Equestrian Board of Education-approved facility and staff.

So it seems as if it ain't all that compulsory. Also, that they do--a very modern hospital. Also you're right about electricity, so I concede.

That you ignore this or write it off as "inconsistency" shows once again how deficient your materialist conception of history is, how what you're really doing is playing with jargon to justify a pre-conceived notion. My opinion of you at this point is as Marx's of Lafargue and Guesde.

Where exactly is it deficient?

I would argue that Equestrian rail is already nationalized and possibly always was, based on what we see of it. Notably, the network extends to places that would not be profitable to serve, including spurs to Starlight's village (where no one ever left and few ever came), to the Peaks of Peril, and to the site of the Crystal Empire before its reappearance. New track also seems to get built very quickly. Between The Movie and Surf and/or Turf - about the same timescale as the construction of the Friendship School - the railway was extended across the southern desert all the way to Mount Aris, where it crosses a newly-built causeway. It also crosses at least two national borders, between Equestria and points south and between Mount Aris and points north (the desert is probably terra nullius, though the area around the newly-built track might have gotten annexed by someone at some point), with no apparent change in gauge. The published maps show the train crossing a titanic steel bridge to cross a strait to Griffonstone. None of this screams private industry. There is at least massive government subsidy and regulation here, if not outright ownership.

One does not inform the other. The railway lines in Australia were privately funded, but each colony pre-Federation had a different gauge in mind as they each had different traffic considerations as per their regulations. It wasn't until I believe it was Curtin during the Pacific War years that tried to standardize the railways nationally, and even then wasn't that successful. This is why in NSW you have the super-heavy rail that is suitable for bulk transport and military materiel supplies for the war effort, but also allows the double decker-large passenger cars for transport.

You won't find the same type of railway in metro Perth in WA. It's also why their trains are better, as few countries use the super-heavies for both bulk and passenger transport so they have a better train car catalogue to pick from. Then again Sydney needs the double decker super heavy passenger cars, as they don't want to pay for using lighter, more regular transport cars.

So nationalizing or centrally planning railways of settler societies doesn't necessarily mean uniformity of rail dynamics. As certain rails are better than others depending on their duties or what you need them to be able to do.

If anything if all of Equestria ran on a singular gauge of railway it could suggest privatization by industry and building them on the basis of moving materials and ponies, and not having to stuff about with different gauges and different types of trains to do so. So it could either be centrally planned from Canterlot, or it could simply be a singular private/semi-private corporate entity that simply makes a single type of train engine and/or railway gauge.

Which, mind you, isn't uncommon in our world. Even if technically the railway is state-owned and planned, that says nothing about the private company that built it or the type of gauge or train car it was designed to take. This includes transgressing national and state/province borders.

For example, if there was planned additional railway mass transit simplification scheme being set in motion between Germany and the rest of the EU, and Germany as an exports heavy nation could economically benefit from it, they might try to haggle for a type of gauge that economically bolsters their extant economic base or may even offer greater than their original share to see it become reality. Even if that gauge of railway is overkill for the more passenger centric services based economies of the other EU states who only originally planned for the transit of people.

EU nations are no less neoliberal capitalist societies even if that heavy gauge load rail track became the standard regardless of borders, and says nothing about just how private or public that railway might become. There's nothing stopping investors simply pouring in their own bits. And governments routinely get lobbied by private interests to build taxpayer funded transportation to largely benefit private firms.

The standardization of all Equestrian and external railways despite different economic conditions could simply be that satellite resource extraction and transit purposes, and Canterlot quite literally being its terminus would suggest it's not for merely ponies but resources as well. There is an economic incentive for both a state and private interest to build that type of railway.

What makes less sense, for either state or private control, is why the Hell is Ponyville a major rail nexus?