@RIG
 
Fair enough…though just you wait until someone starts defending the ending to Mass Effect 3 using terms like “artistic integrity” or “gamer entitlement”, and I guarantee that it will be anything but peaceful :P

@Ebalosus  
actually, my point was that even though you are talking about damn serious stuff i prefer to ignore at least your discussion is very peaceful, that is why i posted a pic of a peaceful debate, it even has food!

@RIG
 
Yes yes, I know: I should keep the economics discussions to the bogosity forums. I usually refrain from discussing either politics or economics or religion here, and just stick to long winded narrative, character, or setting analyses :P

>this thread  

@Background Pony
 
Fair enough. Though I may disagree with some of the finer points, I can see things from your position (I was once the same). The closer the government is to you, the more power you have over it. It’s far easier to influence local government than the national or international government. Granted, I’d prefer no government at all, but that’s just me.
 
Thus, things controlled by local governments are far better than things controlled from national governments (trust me, I know).
 
@Trickquestion
 
Ehh…yes and no. Yes if the corporation is immune to market forces (something that can only come about due to government intervention in the marketplace), no because corporations are controlled by people, and those people have aspirations of their own, thus corporations are the means they use to reach their aspirations.
 
Remember: Capitalism is about profit and loss…but those terms are only vaguely defined. Yes, we can mean them in terms of money or financial capital, but we can also mean them in terms of social capital, or environmental capital, or consumer capital, or technological capital. Corporations can and do strive for profit in some and/or all of the above.

@Ebalosus  
The real problem with corporations is that, for all their power and complexity, their only real goal is the accumulation of wealth. They have no greater objective then that. They do nothing for the greater advancement of human civilization, except by accident.

@Ebalosus  
I’ll give you the point on the healthcare reform we got instead of the one we deserve. I do apologize for my hotheaded outburst, but I am passionate about my position, which can be summed up that I look at Europe and appreciate the actual economic system Austria has now, and Germany, and other countries: a mixture of ‘capitalism’ and “socialism’. Though I tend to view social market favourably and oppose privatizations in certain instances, especially in the case of management of water and sewer services, which I feel should be under management of local government.

@Background Pony
 
Firstly, libertarians and Objectivists are not the same, as Libertarianism is only a political ethology, not a total philosophy like Objectivism. Rand hated us for being hippies and anarchists (as if they were bad things). More here about the false conflation of libertarianism and objectivism.
 
Secondly, corporations are a creation of government, not the free market, because you tell the government that you are now incorporated (i.e. a corporation). Even still, corporations can never be as dangerous as a full fledged government, since corporations cannot kill, terrorise, or carry out drone strikes on Pakistani schools under their own volition.
 
Regulations are anti-competitive, and hurt smaller businesses much more than big ones, whom can absorb the costs of regulation more easily. Regulations also have the unintended consequence of making corporations more powerful, due to the lack of competitors in the marketplace, and giving them even more political sway.
 
More regulations will just create the kind of corporate behaviour that you say more regulations will “fix.” Just look at Obamacare…

@Ebalosus  
Yeah, ‘proper’ as it is usually utilized by libertarians, who have never been in power anywhere, if they don’t cling to the economic idiocy known as Objectivism put forth by Ayn Rand. So free-market that she accepted ‘socialism’ (Social Security) in her old age.
 
Because, you know, somehow large corporations aren’t as dangerous as powerful governments, and the Fertilizer Plant explosion in West, Texas, and other industrial accidents shows that we don’t need proper regulations and we shouldn’t punish our slavemasters job creators hazardous corporate ‘citizens’.

@Trickquestion
 
What’s this?! Looks like someone doesn’t know how proper (I.e. Austrian-school) economics work.
 
Let me help you with that
 
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design”  
-F.A. Hayek  
The Fatal Conceit

In response to the comment: Politics! It sucks even in Equestria.

@Tk3997  
Might also explain why he has no soldiers, no administrators, and no advisors. He’s probably some kind of foreigner to the Crytsal Empire, since he is the only unicorn, so he’s have no Crystal Pony friends or political allies to recruit, and if he was already in trouble in his home it could explain why he had no followers from there. He probably wanted to brainwash them for a few years before building an actual society.

@Trickquestion  
I don’t really see Luna and Celestia like sitting around for 50 years while he horribly abuses his population, so my assumption is he probably took control in a rather rapid coup, started enslaving the shit out of everyone, and then was in turn pretty quickly curbstomped by the sisters. So his reign is like a few years AT MOST.

@Tk3997  
True, true. I have been operating under the assumption that the entire crop of slaves was born into bondage, and the possibility exists that they weren’t, and they were able to restore their old lives after Sombra’s defeat.
 
Of course, the show gives us no evidence either way, and we can’t really be sure how old Sombra is, seeing as he’s pumped up on magic and the show also never tells us how long he has been in power for, but what you suggest is the most logical situation.

@Trickquestion  
This assumes that those ponies being forced into hard labor where ALWAYS hard laborers. Sombra took control of the country, but it presumably existed before him as a functional state. It’s rather more likely this is something more like Cambodia where all the doctors and professors and shit where shoved into work/death camps to secure his rule.
 
When he was banished and the empire vanished it was presumably more or less frozen in time, so all those ponies aren’t uneducated morons. They’re regular citizens and such forced into slavery, and once freed can presumably return to their former occupations.

@Itsthinking  
The key word there is single “party.” Even though non-party members are virtually slaves, the people inside the party who knew how to organize and administrate, and understood how to live a life of relative “freedom.” they would recive an education to the best of the country’s ability, and have some familiarity with an economy.
 
With the Crystal Empire, literally the only free pony they ever showed was Sombra. Everyone else was depicted as a chained to the dirt hard laborer. It’s absurd to think Sombra’s slavery program came with an education program. A more comparable situation is the freedom of the African Americans at the end of the American Civil War. A huge percentage of them were completely illiterate and needed adjusting to life as free people. And while the Crystal Empire dosen’t have as many roadblocks as the African American’s did, the idea they could build a perfectly pristine society so quickly and with no mentioned difficulties is absurd.

@Trickquestion  
South Korea was a single-party dictatorship before they realized they had to change before the Olympics.
 
Plus I’m guessing having alicorn magic helps.

@Itsthinking  
True, but those countries merely had to fix themselves up. With the Crystal Empire, they have to completely overhaul their entire economic and political system, as well as drastically change their infrastructure. An entire non-magical bureaucracy has to be put in place (based of the assumption that Sombra ran the entire empire by himself using his magic, seeing as there were apparently no soldiers, administrators or other government employees on his side) to ensure a non-slavery distribution of wealth, the crystal mines have to undergo incredible safety rennovations to make ponies willing to go back to him, they probably have to create a whole new currency, seeing as, once again, Somber was the only free pony in the Crystal Empire, and you don’t pay slaves in money. A massive humanitarian overall of all utilities to provide humane living standards.
 
They rushed the recovery of the Crystal Empire way too fast I think. It looked like friggin Mordor in Celestia’s hologram, but seems totally sparkly and bright when it first returns (meaning, from their perspective, no time had passed since Sombra’s defeat) and by it’s second episode, there is absolutely no trace of the hideously tyrannical, pony rights abusing madman lead, magic fueled dictatorship at all! The whole thing becomes absurd if you think about it for as much as a minute.

@Trickquestion  
Hey, the Olympics are pretty much an excuse to modernize for some countries. Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008 come to mind for Olympics that had massive renovations prior to the event.

@Background Pony  
No one ever said that subtlety was something royalty is good at.

I find both of these hairstyles atrocious. The one on the left looks like she went face first into a crystal wall, and the one on the right just looks gaudy and tacky. Now that would have been a funny joke: After hours of work, the new style is just as ugly as the old one, but as the mane six cringe, everyone else loves it for some reason.

@Trickquestion  
If you’re wondering how they eat an breathe and other science facts, just repeat to yourself “It’s just a show; I should really just relax… for My Little Pony: Friendship I Magic.”!”

It’s called the trappings of leadership/royalty. You have to project a certain image, so it’s understandable that she thought having a traditional hairstyle of a Crystal Princess would help in at least some small way. It shows that she and her stylist went the extra mile instead of just showing up like she’s always dressed.

that fancy one is kinda stupid

Come to think of it, do the Crystal Ponies even know what the Equestrian Games are? I wouldn’t think they existed a hundred years ago. And while some could argue the revenue would bring an economics boost, can an economy that was until recently 100% slavery with nothing in the way of consumerisim or infrastructure beyond the bare bones neccesary to keep the slaves from dying on the job capable of actually hosting such an event and handling the massive influx of tourists?
 
This episodes was funny, but gets really stupid if you think about any of the mechanics involved in the story.