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Libertarianism, Anarchism, and Society with Voluntary Self Governance
Posts
Quite right. This is why people were steaming mad over the Trayvon Martin case. Which, if you think about it was caused by a libertarian principle making it into law - the right to "stand your ground" - which essentially gives police powers to ordinary citizens.
It is a pretty crazy thought. Having driven across Texas from west to east, it's mindblowing that we can fit the world into it.
Well to be fair, overpopulation has never been an issue of not having enough room for people, but rather of not having enough resources to feed those people. Still, if the will* was really there, we could easily feed the world's population a few times over.
*Meat would probably be out of question at some point.
At then back in the equation at a certain point after that.
Also on PSN: twobadcats
Mmm, soylent.
and on meat:
I'm picturing the scene in The Two Towers where the orcs are arguing over eating the hobbits. Only replacing the orcs with libertarians. Of course orcs know they need leaders and to protect their community with violence when need be.
Non-aggression principle? What principle? There is none what so ever in the history of humanity. Ever since the caveman days if there is something that the other has, then he gets it whether through violence or force you to do so. This was always the steppe principle. Its what made Chinggis Khan so strong because he realized it was the way to power. If this society exists, be sure that I'll form an empire in an instant whether through force or coercion.
No, this is false. Desperation does not factor. Its called Jealousy, Greed and Might. You might want to look up what they mean.
You're doing it wrong.
You're supposed to overly romanticize the past.
Because everyone knows that everything was fine, and everyone got along, and no one ever had any problems or starved to death or died of disease before those nasty Romans came and told us that we had to construct governments.
If you don’t want to go for the pseudo-history of The Witch’s Child, you can always opt for the telepathic monkey.
Probably because people have illusions of becoming a CEO or their child becoming one. With a King there is only his family in charge and your way lower than they are.
It's even simpler than that.
We have been TAUGHT to hate kings, it's in our history and our culture that America fought off the evil kings. But the peasants loved their royal families just as much (or more) as we love our blessed and divine "Job Creators." Because our
daddiesCEOs can beat THEIRdaddiesJob Creators.Even worse than that, because "stand your ground" is the law in many states - just not in a form that gives police powers to citizens. Normal "stand your ground" laws simply remove the requirement that, to claim self-defense, you have to prove you tried to run away first. In Florida, "stand your ground" also comes with a whole host of immunities from legal inquiry and responsibility. So the police power it gives to ordinary citizens is, in effect, the qualified immunity that normally attaches to state actors.
obsolete signature form
replaced by JPEGs.
Eh. Hunter-Gatherer communities were surprisingly egalitarian and crime-free (easy to keep order when everyone knows everyone else). It's arguable that until only recently (in historical terms) that life in modern systems has become demonstrably better than a hunter-gatherer lifestyle for the median human (and for some in Africa, it is still worse). I don't think libertarians want us to return to a pre-agricultural way of living, however.
How the shit do we know if HG communities were egalitarian and crime free? Observation of remote uncontacted tribes? This just seems like perpetuation of the Noble Savage myth.
Why, by terrible inductive and abductive speculation, of course!
That, and fish.
The huge surface coverage of oceans, the comparative ease of extraction (which has led to the major problem of over-fishing) , etc.
Hardly seems egalitarian to me.
oddly enough as soon as social groups start getting bigger than that, you start seeing a lot more 'crime.'
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
To be fair, it was egalitarian towards all of the people they kept.
it might actually be a good topic; you could argue that in a lot of ways, adopting agriculture and leaving behind the hunter-gatherer life is actually not for the better. I'd definitely be interested in reading some discussion on a thread about that. And might even stop being a pseudo-lurker long enough to participate a little
(I'd make it myself, but I suck at making an OP)
PSN/MGO- Eupfhoria
XBL- Eupfhoric
I have had this argument before with people. The huge, glaring, intensely problematic thing about modern hunter-gatherer societies is that they are contemporary. As in, they still exist after the vast majority of humanity has converted to agri-industrial-commercial-global-whatever. Not all of these tribes are pre-contact, many of them enjoy the benefits of trading with modern societies and as a result they can externalize some of the biggest issues with their lifestyle.
Even if you want to limit your assumptions to those tribes who haven't had any (or have had very limited) outside contact, there are still several big problems with using them for any meaningful extrapolation. For one, the lands they exist on must necessarily be remote and in no way representative of the rest of the planet. For two, they are very small societies and you simply cannot support a large population with their methods. For three, the fact that they're still around and still hunter-gatherers means that they haven't had any competition for resources, no inter-tribe politics, no pressure to expand or advance, and basically lead a lifestyle that is not representative of that experienced by the majority of pre-agricultural tribes 10,000 years ago.
That's before you get into the issues with infanticide, deaths from preventable diseases, idiosyncratic rulership systems that do not translate well to other cultures or larger populations, and so on. Your biggest problem is not anthropological, but statistical: your sample is way too small and in no way representative of the population you're trying to make conclusions about.
when the indigo children come
Related: This, from the first page, is so laughably bad it has stayed with me for a week.
Those groups also have crazy high murder rates, and resource limitation necessitates infanticide. The average living hunter-gatherer may have had a higher standard of living than the average early agriculturalist, but since 3/4 of those agriculturalists wouldn't make it to adulthood in a hunter-gatherer society its hard to argue which is better. Most people will take a reduced standard of living over not being alive.
That isn't true at all. They're fairly egalitarian towards themselves (sometimes) but generally warlike against others. Labor times decreased for agriculture and material good possession increased.
People did not leave the hunter gatherer lifestyle because they thought they were worse off farming. They did so because farming was easier and safer. Because it decreased aggregate labor times necessary to feed a population which freed up others to produce in other areas.
Running a country the size of a USA in a way that works for a clan of 50 people is like trying to run the MacDonalds corporation with the organisational structure of a hotdog stand.
Labour times were unchanged for the actual workers. Free time and material goods only accrued significantly to the most well off.
Actually, because farming allowed better access to specialists such as brewers, bakers, doctors, priests, and soldiers. While early farming wasn't much more productive than hunting and gathering, it did decrease the 'cost' of having access to specialist skills simply because the specialists could all be in one place. It's a kind of chicken and egg thing.
Labor times were unchanged for the actual workers, there were just less of them which means that aggregate labor times were reduced. When you're HG the entire family works every day to get food. When you're farming, half the family works for that food.
If the entire family works then you have surplus that you can trade. Free time and material goods indeed did accrue to the least well off [at least those that did not become subjugated]
It's like arguing that a dictatorship is the ideal form of government so long as your dictator is a benevolent genius. Strong societal models are sustainable for many generations. Give Libertopia one tiny shove and the whole thing comes crashing down.
This is the page one quote that has stuck with me. We're at like 7 billion people, right? So the number of criminals is in the single digits.
No, actually, it's just the same a billions each time.
That... actually kind of makes sense. When I go on a submarine with a crew a bit over a hundred theft is normally inconceivable. Valuable electronics and other property are left out all the time, even for hours, with no concern.
When I tell my coworkers who go on ships with hundreds, sometimes thousands of people they just stare at me like I'm crazy.
That's Dunbar's Number. More popularly known as the "monkeysphere."
Anyone know if any academic have explored the relation between Dunbar's number and Anarchism?
My google-fu is weak right now.
Edit: I am an idiot