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Libertarianism, Anarchism, and Society with Voluntary Self Governance

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  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"

    Well, when people eat contaminated food and die they won't buy food anymore, so profits will decrease, and so the free market will solve the problem.

    I mean, the strategy worked for cigarette companies, didn't it? They were a harmful product that made people ill, and so people rationally chose to stop consuming the product that harmed them.

  • Boring7Boring7 Registered User regular
    ...Anyway, you've all been pretty rude...

    I wasn't.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Boring7 wrote: »
    ...Anyway, you've all been pretty rude...

    I wasn't.

    He specifically said that we ALL have been pretty rude.

  • Solomaxwell6Solomaxwell6 Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    _J_ wrote: »
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"

    Well, when people eat contaminated food and die they won't buy food anymore, so profits will decrease, and so the free market will solve the problem.

    I mean, the strategy worked for cigarette companies, didn't it? They were a harmful product that made people ill, and so people rationally chose to stop consuming the product that harmed them.

    I think the counter-argument is that there's not much of a healthier alternative (if you do decide to smoke, which a libertarian would believe is completely your own decision... second-hand smoke be damned). If you have one stand selling salmonella lemonade, and one stand selling salmonella free lemonade, people will naturally decide to go to the salmonella free stand. The salmonella stand would then be forced to compensate by getting rid of the salmonella, or they'd go out of business.

    The counter-point to that, that there might not be an alternative stand (or that all the stands might work together and all decide to use the salmonella lemonade to keep everyone's costs down) is usually kind of handwaved away. "The government is making the entry barrier too high, that's why we don't always have an alternative!" or things like that.

    Solomaxwell6 on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"

    Well, when people eat contaminated food and die they won't buy food anymore, so profits will decrease, and so the free market will solve the problem.

    I mean, the strategy worked for cigarette companies, didn't it? They were a harmful product that made people ill, and so people rationally chose to stop consuming the product that harmed them.

    I think the counter-argument is that there's not much of a healthier alternative (if you do decide to smoke, which a libertarian would believe is completely your own decision... second-hand smoke be damned). If you have one stand selling salmonella lemonade, and one stand selling salmonella free lemonade, people will naturally decide to go to the salmonella free stand. The salmonella stand would then be forced to compensate by getting rid of the salmonella, or they'd go out of business.

    The counter-point to that, that there might not be an alternative stand (or that all the stands might work together and all decide to use the salmonella lemonade to keep everyone's costs down) is usually kind of handwaved away. "The government is making the entry barrier too high, that's why we don't always have an alternative!" or things like that.

    There's also the point that one should not have to contract salmonella to discover a stand is selling an unsafe product.

  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    the other counter-point is that even in the libertarian's dream scenario, a bunch of people got totally preventable cases of salmonella from this lemonade stand

    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    the other counter-point is that even in the libertarian's dream scenario, a bunch of people got totally preventable cases of salmonella from this lemonade stand

    But to prevent them from getting salmonella, someone would have to sacrifice some freedom.

  • The Fourth EstateThe Fourth Estate Registered User regular
    Also, if the salmonella comes from efficiency savings by not having to follow health and safety procedures, then the makers can compensate by selling at a lower cost. Which, inevitably, will be all some people can afford. But they'll still be freely choosing to buy it.

  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    to be fair, libertarians who've spent more than 10 seconds thinking about it normally posit that the market would bring some kind of ratings company or NGO into being which would monitor lemonade stands and provide information to consumers. This seems like kind of a dumb alternative solution though (especially in light of the recent failures of, say, bond rating agencies.)

    NREqxl5.jpg
    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited April 2012
    to be fair, libertarians who've spent more than 10 seconds thinking about it normally posit that the market would bring some kind of ratings company or NGO into being which would monitor lemonade stands and provide information to consumers. This seems like kind of a dumb alternative solution though (especially in light of the recent failures of, say, bond rating agencies.)

    My favorite part of libertarianism is listening to all the things that "the market" does.

    Positing predicates / volition onto a non-entity is adorable.

    Edit: In the same way that anarchists are adorable, since, for them, The State does things.

    _J_ on
  • Squidget0Squidget0 Registered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"

    Well, when people eat contaminated food and die they won't buy food anymore, so profits will decrease, and so the free market will solve the problem.

    I mean, the strategy worked for cigarette companies, didn't it? They were a harmful product that made people ill, and so people rationally chose to stop consuming the product that harmed them.

    I think the counter-argument is that there's not much of a healthier alternative (if you do decide to smoke, which a libertarian would believe is completely your own decision... second-hand smoke be damned). If you have one stand selling salmonella lemonade, and one stand selling salmonella free lemonade, people will naturally decide to go to the salmonella free stand. The salmonella stand would then be forced to compensate by getting rid of the salmonella, or they'd go out of business.

    The counter-point to that, that there might not be an alternative stand (or that all the stands might work together and all decide to use the salmonella lemonade to keep everyone's costs down) is usually kind of handwaved away. "The government is making the entry barrier too high, that's why we don't always have an alternative!" or things like that.

    Oh, there's an alternative stand, just no way for you to tell which is free of salmonella. It's not like you can identify foodborne illnesses by sight, you have to see how the lemonade is made, and in the absence of enforced top-down regulation the lemonade company has every incentive not to let anyone see that process.

    Historically this sort of situation has led to the rise of private regulatory agencies, and historically private regulatory agencies have been a disaster every time they've been put into place. The company that wants approval will simply go from regulator to regulator, firing any who won't certify them until the only regulators left are the unscrupulous ones. We've seen this in pre-FDA America where snake oil salesmen and the sorry state of the meat packing industry forced that particular government agency to come about. More recently we've seen it in businesses like Enron and, soon after, the financial collapse. You can't have a private business dedicated to evaluating a particular entity, when their primary source of income is from that exact entity.

    Again, there's no need to speculate because as a society we've done this experiment. Read about the snake oil abuses of the late 1800s. Look up Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" and the effects it had. Without the evil government there's no way to know whether the bottle you're buying off the shelf contains Aspirin or Rat Poison, and prior to the establishment of the FDA the answer was always "whichever is cheaper."

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Squidget0 wrote: »
    Oh, there's an alternative stand, just no way for you to tell which is free of salmonella. It's not like you can identify foodborne illnesses by sight, you have to see how the lemonade is made, and in the absence of enforced top-down regulation the lemonade company has every incentive not to let anyone see that process.

    I'm curious. Would hardcore libertarians argue that one could, in principle, rationally discern which lemonade stand sold poison lemonade without having to watch people die? Or is the idea that no one would sell poison lemonade, because it's an unsustainable business model (ignoring snake oil salesmen)?

  • Squidget0Squidget0 Registered User regular
    _J_ wrote: »
    Squidget0 wrote: »
    Oh, there's an alternative stand, just no way for you to tell which is free of salmonella. It's not like you can identify foodborne illnesses by sight, you have to see how the lemonade is made, and in the absence of enforced top-down regulation the lemonade company has every incentive not to let anyone see that process.

    I'm curious. Would hardcore libertarians argue that one could, in principle, rationally discern which lemonade stand sold poison lemonade without having to watch people die? Or is the idea that no one would sell poison lemonade, because it's an unsustainable business model (ignoring snake oil salesmen)?

    The thing to understand about libertarianism is that it's largely based on Keynesian economics, which assumes perfect information by all parties. In the libertarian economic model there's simply no concept of a consumer who lacks perfect information about the product they're buying. As with most libertarians, you'll get a split of wishful-thinking types who believe the free market will regulate itself and sociopathic Randroids who'd argue that people who don't "do their research" deserved to get sick and die anyway.

    In practice we don't live in a world of perfect information, and there's no reasonable way for a person to know how much lead is in the paint on the toy they just purchased. But for those who subscribe to Keynesian economics the idea of consumers making uninformed decisions en masse simply doesn't enter into their world view.

  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Squidget0 wrote: »
    In the libertarian economic model there's simply no concept of a consumer who lacks perfect information about the product they're buying.

    Oh. Well. Problem solved, then.

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"
    The best part of it is that it wasn't a "lemonade stand" as we know it. It was at a large public event surrounded by real food vendors an thousands of people. This was not someone selling lemonade on their street corner. This was someone who was ostensibly a food vendor at a large public event. You cannot get around food safety laws because you employ a minor that is your child!
    Squidget0 wrote: »
    The thing to understand about libertarianism is that it's largely based on Keynesian economics, which assumes perfect information by all parties. In the libertarian economic model there's simply no concept of a consumer who lacks perfect information about the product they're buying. As with most libertarians, you'll get a split of wishful-thinking types who believe the free market will regulate itself and sociopathic Randroids who'd argue that people who don't "do their research" deserved to get sick and die anyway.

    In practice we don't live in a world of perfect information, and there's no reasonable way for a person to know how much lead is in the paint on the toy they just purchased. But for those who subscribe to Keynesian economics the idea of consumers making uninformed decisions en masse simply doesn't enter into their world view.

    You don't have any clue what you're talking about do you?

    A: No, you don't.

    Protip, libertarians hate Keynes. And they hate him largely because he

    A: Proscribed large public spending in order to cure recessions
    B: Did not believe in perfect information or perfect markets.

    wbBv3fj.png
  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    I've seen this exact thread pop up on 4 forums now. Same "argument".

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    I've seen this exact thread pop up on 4 forums now. Same "argument".

    Which argument?

    "You're all mean and won't agree with the nice anarchist"?

  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    I've seen this exact thread pop up on 4 forums now. Same "argument".
    Wonder if this is like... I forget... KevinNash? who was hard core libertarian and ended up giving away the libertarian board he'd migrated in from, which showed a post where he identified PA as a board full of people who needed to have their eyes opened to 'the truth.'

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • LucidLucid Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Goumindong wrote: »
    Yea, I will totally defend that stance with me life! But not my time. No no no; can't be bothered to defend that stance with my time.

    Why do you conclude that just because I don't want to piss away my time like that on some online forum for a video-game comic means that I won't be happy to defend my point in any public context? So you know, this is not the summit of public spheres for debate/argument. My departure has more to do with my wanting to spend my life well. Now I honestly don't mean to judge people who spend all their time on forums like this, I used to do it (when I had time in high school). But I don't have the time. As such, I can't be a regular member (in which case I'd be happy to stay in this thread indefinitely), and instead can only be an anonymous stranger among anonymous strangers (all of whom apparently DO have the time).

    Anyway, you've all been pretty rude. You aren't even the only one who accused me of bad faith *just* because I'm not sticking around. If I was a regular member that'd make perfect sense, but I'm far from it. Just a guy who wanted to check on a place he visited years ago. Then from the outset I have been supposed to prove that anarchy can work-- except this is preposterous from the beginning, because anarchism is, for one thing, a project (and an ethic) that will always be ongoing even after its successes, and you can all choose to ignore even anarchist organizing's remarkable gains just because they weren't complete and total.

    In any case, in my very short time here I've had all kinds of slander pile on me, and people have read into me beliefs that aren't even mine, all in the vaguest, emptiest terms, such as claiming anarchists want to destroy the economy period (as in, not just the notion, but the whole physical infrastructure!) or assuming because I talk about some indigenous people that I am therefore some kind of primitivist? And on top of that seeming to imply that hierarchy (a social, metapysical thing) is necessary even for the existence of technology itself (a physical thing)-- something members of the open-source community would laugh at I'm sure. But not only this, you respond to and corroborate each other's slanders as though they were points, even though they're wildly off from what I was saying, and so amongst yourselves you continue to construct me as some horseshit straw-man. Who is apparently some kind of Joker-esque chaos-worshipper. Thanks for that.

    So yeah, considering this is apparently how yall argue here, I guess I'm just not accustomed to it, and so I'm definitely not sticking around. But accusing me of bad faith on top of it all, just because I'm departing, is the icing on the cake. Seriously? When you all distort ideas like worker self-management into destroying all infrastructure (btw, depending on how that's construed, it can be incredibly fucking offensive to working people)... when that's the kind of distortion I encounter, what the hell am I to do? Maybe if I did already spend a lot of my time here regularly, I would bother to sort out all of your bullshit. But I don't, I have a busy life, and besides I can have much better, more serious, and more illuminating political discussions around here at the university, or over dinner with friends, than I can on this board. And no, before you apply another gratuitously personal ad-hom slander, I'm not just friends with other anarchists, though a number of them have warmed up to my understanding of things after discussion.


    Perhaps reading through your posts a few times before finalizing them would be helpful to you in the long run, Chaos Theory. I say this because I've noticed in the quoted post here, that you employ manipulative passive aggressive language in your presentation. You call out others as being rude or insulting(without quoting said behaviour, making it an empty accusation), and pepper your paragraphs with insinuations of lower worth to those who spend their time here arguing as an enjoyable or fruitful endeavor. It's fine if being part of an internet community is something you're not interested in, but I'm sure you can recognize that there are those who are, on this forum even. So when you say things like 'piss away my time' or 'I used to do it when I had time in high school', you're implying that those who do participate on a level you do not, are somehow wasting their time, you're being condescendingly judgmental in your language use. I'm saying this is in part manipulative, because I don't think you're totally unaware and have chosen to use this type of weaker strategy in conjunction with victim hood to employ some sort of shame tactic.

    I think what you may remain unaware of is the ineffectiveness of your chosen strategy. For one, it's quite transparent, and on another note those who are posting here are astute in the ability to discern genuine argument and light trolling.

    This could in part come from the confidence breaking of arguing against multiple opponents, but if you really feel passionate about your beliefs it may be prudent to stick with it even in the face of adversity.

    Lucid on
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Lucid wrote: »
    This could in part come from the confidence breaking of arguing against multiple opponents, but if you really feel passionate about your beliefs it may be prudent to stick with it even in the face of adversity.

    This.

    If you aren't willing to maintain an argument when presented with opposition, then you've stated that your argument isn't worth maintaining.

  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    the other counter-point is that even in the libertarian's dream scenario, a bunch of people got totally preventable cases of salmonella from this lemonade stand

    And if they went to several lemonade stands, the salmonella stand could go "wasn't me, it was totally the other stand". Forcing consumers to guess which stand gave people salmonella. After all how a lemonade stand makes it lemonade is a trade secret. You don't have a right to force them to reveal proprietary business information just because some other stand gave people salmonella.

    By the way the secret ingredient in our lemonade is love
    and salmonella.



    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • DarkDragoonDarkDragoon Registered User regular
    Just going to pop in to say that maybe the people arguing in favor of the crazy stuff by utilizing bad history need to move beyond the basic history and anthropology courses and take some Historiography and Anthropological methodology before trying to claim that the models employed by specific groups can be applied to everybody.

  • Solomaxwell6Solomaxwell6 Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Quid wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"

    Well, when people eat contaminated food and die they won't buy food anymore, so profits will decrease, and so the free market will solve the problem.

    I mean, the strategy worked for cigarette companies, didn't it? They were a harmful product that made people ill, and so people rationally chose to stop consuming the product that harmed them.

    I think the counter-argument is that there's not much of a healthier alternative (if you do decide to smoke, which a libertarian would believe is completely your own decision... second-hand smoke be damned). If you have one stand selling salmonella lemonade, and one stand selling salmonella free lemonade, people will naturally decide to go to the salmonella free stand. The salmonella stand would then be forced to compensate by getting rid of the salmonella, or they'd go out of business.

    The counter-point to that, that there might not be an alternative stand (or that all the stands might work together and all decide to use the salmonella lemonade to keep everyone's costs down) is usually kind of handwaved away. "The government is making the entry barrier too high, that's why we don't always have an alternative!" or things like that.

    There's also the point that one should not have to contract salmonella to discover a stand is selling an unsafe product.

    This is something libertarians generally don't really care about and is therefore unfortunately a pretty ineffective argument against them.

    Solomaxwell6 on
  • _J__J_ Pedant Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Quid wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    Lawndart wrote: »
    Also, I love how John Stossel never bothers to consider why, for example, businesses that sell food should perhaps be required by law to know how to safely prepare and store food.

    "It's the fascist war on lemonade stands!!!!...and salmonella poisoning"

    Well, when people eat contaminated food and die they won't buy food anymore, so profits will decrease, and so the free market will solve the problem.

    I mean, the strategy worked for cigarette companies, didn't it? They were a harmful product that made people ill, and so people rationally chose to stop consuming the product that harmed them.

    I think the counter-argument is that there's not much of a healthier alternative (if you do decide to smoke, which a libertarian would believe is completely your own decision... second-hand smoke be damned). If you have one stand selling salmonella lemonade, and one stand selling salmonella free lemonade, people will naturally decide to go to the salmonella free stand. The salmonella stand would then be forced to compensate by getting rid of the salmonella, or they'd go out of business.

    The counter-point to that, that there might not be an alternative stand (or that all the stands might work together and all decide to use the salmonella lemonade to keep everyone's costs down) is usually kind of handwaved away. "The government is making the entry barrier too high, that's why we don't always have an alternative!" or things like that.

    There's also the point that one should not have to contract salmonella to discover a stand is selling an unsafe product.

    This is something libertarians generally don't really care about.

    "They freely chose to expose themselves to a situation they knew could result in their getting salmonella."

    Right?

  • mythagomythago Registered User regular
    And now I'm leaving

    Do try to stick the flounce. Otherwise you just come across as a five year old who shouts "I'm running away from home!" and then, when his parents don't react with panic, stands on the porch yelling "I'm REALLY leaving this time!"

    Three lines of plaintext:
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  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    ... And actually considering the nonhuman tribes of the ecological community to be just as sacred and deserving of spiritual respect as human community. But hey, let's not actually bother learning about Mapuche culture, or anything for that matter; all savages are the same, and everyone who thinks they are doing some things better than civilized folks must by the same token have some crazy untenable beliefs about how noble and angelic they were to the point of some kind of cultural and ecological infallibility (according to whose metric I dare not guess). Oh, and this applies everywhere and to all of them, so that the opponent is apparently making this claim about ALL the dark savage folk the good rationalbrained whiteman slayed back in ye olde blunderbuss tyme. As though they were the same.

    Having thought about it while at my jarb, I've decided that this whole fucking argument has exploded pointlessly due to a total neglect of the good old facts vs. values distinction. Having noticed that this anarchist is coming at you with facts and evidence of some promising applications of anarchy, apparently you all will just brush them off and won't be satisfied until I somehow "prove" my values. Well, I have absolutely nothing to say to that of course. I will just accept neither any master over me, nor will I ever aspire to be the master of others (or the nicer word we use these days: "representative"). And I will glady defend that stance with my life-- period, full stop.

    Anyway, this format is pretty frustrating, because I'm totally outnumbered. I'll be glad to speak with those who are genuinely interested via PM or whatever. I can't guarantee I'll be in the thread because I have better things to do than to contend with willful ignorance-- and with some of the responses I've gotten I really have no idea where to even begin.

    Later on. And remember: happy slaves are no excuse for slavery.

    The mapuche had a state though, simply not one which had massive centralized authority. There are plenty of examples of that throughout history, where a group of loosely assosciated tribes had minimal laws applying to all and local laws set by a chief. These chiefs had been selected in all sorts of different ways, from hereditary ruler ship to selection by elders. However, its still a state, the abundance of resources and uniform population just means that the state doesn't have too many big disputes to resolve. Furthermore, the legions of incas pouring over the river probably served to Focus the mind on external concerns rather than stealing Jim's corn. However, like every other society like this eventually their natural barrier was overcome and the lure of more specialists and better stuff led to integration into a bigger society.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    Just going to pop in to say that maybe the people arguing in favor of the crazy stuff by utilizing bad history need to move beyond the basic history and anthropology courses and take some Historiography and Anthropological methodology before trying to claim that the models employed by specific groups can be applied to everybody.

    I took a gen ed. once which was entirely guilty of this. Since it was just to fill in gen. ed. requirements I was entirely disruptive during it, since the guy lecturing couldn't get through more then 2-3 sentences without using sweeping generalizations to deride the current state of world affairs, and then suggesting it would be fixed by applying the principles of some really specific small-town/native tribe, and thoroughly glossing over the obvious places it falls down (i.e. what happens when participants in your "reciprocity economy" disagree on the relative value of something).

  • GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    (i.e. what happens when participants in your "reciprocity economy" disagree on the relative value of something).

    That actually isn't a problem. The real problem is "how does one reciprocate with someone they will never see again?"

    wbBv3fj.png
  • notdroidnotdroid Registered User regular
    The "State VS Community" divide is fictional. A state is a community whose members have chosen to live under a government. Also, states very greatly between one another, both in their way to govern, their motivations and their goals. Lumping a representative democracy, a monarchy or a fascist government under the same denomination without differentiation is simply wrong, and does not make your argument stronger.

    States didn't just spring up into existence. When civilization started, individuals joined up into communities. Those communities, over the course of history, have formed/transformed into what we call states, and it has been/still is an iterative process. No, we don't live in a perfect system, but we sure live in a better system than a century/a millennium ago. While over the course of history many states' goals have been domination and conquest, that has also been true for many single tribes. Likewise, especially in modern days, states like America, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, etc. have (for the most part) their citizen's welfare in mind. That isn't their sole motivation, but we're quite ahead of "lets conquer the world!" mentality, especially when we consider that ideologies who openly tried to (fascism, communism (not so much the ideology itself, but it's latest proponents)) have lost that battle.

    Anarchists like to throw around the word "freedom" around in the hope that it will automatically make their cause seem good and just, but the concepts of human rights is just as important to everyone, and sometimes some freedoms must be sacrificed to preserve basic human rights. An oversimplified example: we as a society have sacrificed our freedom to murder people to preserve our right to live.

    Freedom is nice, but one's freedom ends where another person's begins, and not every person has the same interests. Freedom is also a highly abstract concept, completely dependant on one's interests and desires. Someone in the USSR who completely agreed with the government was essentially free. Someone who didn't wasn't.

    Wherever, whenever centralized authority has been too little or completely absent, whether we're talking about when people lived in tribes, or about a modern day government collapse/power vacuum, X group's interests end up clashing with Y group's (their freedom ending where the other group's begins), and almost every time one ends up wiping out the other, because there's always someone unwilling to sacrifice his personal view of freedom for the benefit of the other.

    No, not everyone is like that; most people, as some libertarians/anarchist say, are inherently good. But not all people are, and it takes a lot less people to fuck up a good thing than it takes to make it work. This is essentially why people defend the idea of a State, and would rather improve it rather than get rid of it. A centralized authority, representative of all it's diverse groups, will do a way better job at making them coexist than the alternative.

    Using a single tribe, or a factory (hell, I think most people here agree that traditional management styles in companies are outdated and inefficient) as an example of "working" anarchism is not a valid argument against the necessity of state, because you're talking about a single, homogeneous group of people. We're not saying that communities of people who agree with each other needs a centralized authority, we're saying that multiple groups with conflicting interests need it. I may not need the government to cook breakfast for my family, but I do need it to build roads/inspect food/protect borders/enforce laws etc.

    Also, notice that a lot of people have characterized a world where government wasn't needed as utopian. People aren't arguing that the abolition of state would be bad in a perfect world. They're saying that the abolition of state in the real world would have horrible consequences, as history has shown us.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    Goumindong wrote: »
    (i.e. what happens when participants in your "reciprocity economy" disagree on the relative value of something).

    That actually isn't a problem. The real prob lem is "how does one reciprocate with someone they will never see again?"

    Simple enough, just issue reciprocity tokens whose value is set by a central voluntary committee. They would of course need the authority to prevent forgeries and control the number of tokens minted. People could use them to easily track the value they had created and consumed.

    Don't call it money though! Or mention a government backed central bank!

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • Knuckle DraggerKnuckle Dragger Explosive Ovine Disposal Registered User regular
    Lawndart wrote: »
    When you all distort ideas like worker self-management into destroying all infrastructure (btw, depending on how that's construed, it can be incredibly fucking offensive to working people)...

    Except that's not always a distortion of anarchist thought, since there are spectra of the anarcho-rainbow that very much do want to destroy all infrastructure (anarcho-primitivism) to those who are mainly advocating non-hierarchical forms of running workplaces (anarcho-syndicalists).

    I was just about to say that from what Chaos Theory has been throwing at us, he is a syndicalist, not an anarchist, and Anarcho-Syndicalism is about as anarchist as the DPRK is democratic.

    Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.

    - John Stuart Mill
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    _J_ wrote: »
    _J_ wrote: »
    sanstodo wrote: »
    One last point, this time rhetorical and not logical: You keep insisting and insinuating that we are indoctrinated. Yeah, so what? Everyone is indoctrinated to some degree. Show us how we are blind rather than telling us that we are.

    Yeah. It is kinda cute when one side claims that the other side is indoctrinated and unthinking. Yet while it's cute, it doesn't seem to be terribly helpful. If only because the sentiment seems to be, "if you just sat down and thought about it, you'd be an anarchist, too."

    I told my father I'd blow up a government building if Australian soldiers were ever ordered to shoot illegal refugees. The main problem I have with the notion is whether I'm ok with killing a bunch of secretaries and public workers, because let's face it: explosives aren't that hard to make.

    What's strange to me is that 'The State' is held to be this abstract evil that controls people via manipulation. But when anarchists decide to fight back, what they shoot / blow up are not abstractions.

    It's as if they're making a category mistake, but with guns and fire.

    That's because most anarchists who fight back have no idea what they are doing. Just look at the OWS movement.

    'The State' isn't some abstract evil, just look at the Vietnam War or the current wars in the middle east. How many thousands have died to catch one man who was never even convicted? Look at the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Civil War. May Day is coming up, most people don't even know what it's about. Look at the war on drugs and the actions of the CIA (who have admitted in congress that they back several of the countries largest street gangs). Look at all the cases of police dealing heroin to communities who then have to work to get it out of their communities.

    Just because 'The State' does some good things that doesn't excuse all the evil they are guilty of and are never punished for. People feel helpless in fixing these problems because to get proper representation would require changing the constitution, but how do you do that if you can't get proper representation? Some are trying to call a constitutional convention but that requires getting the states on board and that requires proper representation which people can't get. So some, like the Weathermen, in their desperation and adherence to non-violence, blow up desks and walls and cars.

    >One last point, this time rhetorical and not logical: You keep insisting and insinuating that we are indoctrinated. Yeah, so what?

    The indoctrination is pretty blatant, and it's dangerous. It starts in kindergarten, you pledge your allegiance every day, write essays on how great the US is, you're told that your country is the only true free country, and then people are surprised when you get those crazy right-wingers. It's literally fascism, creating mindless drones who obey the state without question is what the prussian school system was made for.

    When I refused to salute the flag in kindergarten I was yelled and physically forced to stand and salute. When I wrote my essay on why I didn't think America was the greatest country I got yelled at and got detention. This didn't end with just American patriotism, I was actively discouraged for thinking for myself in school many many times.
    Incenjucar wrote: »

    ...organic communism and solidarity which are intrinsic and instinctive our species by our very nature in the context of the modern world and all it entails.

    I have seen no indication in human history or modern behavior to suggest this is instinctual, and what is or is not instinctual is not inherently valuable. It's like trying to apply Biblical stuff to the modern age.
    http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/3/8/humans-are-nicer-than-we-think

    Studies have shown time and time again humans are naturally non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing. Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.
    Behemoth wrote: »
    I'm always skeptical of theories that view institutions as monolithic and having definitive plans and conspiracies. To hear you tell it, the State is some alien thing that has been unjustly ruling over humanity for thousands of years. That it's some insidious thing trying to stay in power against everyone's wishes, and if we were truly free we would all really be communists.

    It's not a conspiracy, people honestly think we need a state and so it keeps coming back almost every time they mange to overthrow it. If you look at the few instances in history where the state was successfully crushed and people returned to anarchism, people enjoyed much more healthy non-violent lives. A few examples off the top of my head are ancient Caananite cities and England. In ancient Caanan there was a massive uprising of the poor and working class and they completely destroyed their ruling class. They then returned to an agricultural life style. In England this happened as well. When Europe invaded they took the land and forced everybody into cities by making it too expensive for them to live an agricultural lifestyle.

    During European feudalism, which enabled more freedom than the earlier empiricism, people lived more agricultural lifestyles and increased the average lifespan from 28 to 30. People were also safer and militias usually consisted of voluntary members, wars tended to be smaller because of this.

    rayofash on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    rayofash wrote: »

    Yes let's look at that. Two communities when in unable to reach agreement over scarce resources attacks each other and creates a blood bath until the federal government shows up with troops to stop them.

    And are you ever going to explain how, if there is no central authority to enforce rules, your system would not result in another Guilded Age? The era that was the very product of the government letting people doing what they want.
    rayofash wrote: »
    Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.

    This also false. When people are threatened they generally resist following orders. When they think they're doing something for the greater good though then they will do terrible things.

    Quid on
  • BehemothBehemoth Compulsive Seashell Collector Registered User regular
    rayofash wrote: »
    [...]

    The indoctrination is pretty blatant, and it's dangerous. It starts in kindergarten, you pledge your allegiance every day, write essays on how great the US is, you're told that your country is the only true free country, and then people are surprised when you get those crazy right-wingers. It's literally fascism, creating mindless drones who obey the state without question is what the prussian school system was made for.

    When I refused to salute the flag in kindergarten I was yelled and physically forced to stand and salute. When I wrote my essay on why I didn't think America was the greatest country I got yelled at and got detention. This didn't end with just American patriotism, I was actively discouraged for thinking for myself in school many many times.

    Wow, what kind of crazy kindergarten did you go to?

    Anyway, your argument cuts both ways. Just because the state does bad things doesn't mean we should ignore all the good it does. You're making a compelling case for some important reforms, which I don't think anyone would disagree with. We should talk about that! But you're not making a very compelling case for anarchism. In fact, you're making a very good case that most anarchists are just aimless, angry youth who are dissatisfied with things in general but don't want to take on the responsibility of coming up with something better, so they just resort to thuggery and petty crime. Which certainly contributes to the negative image that most people have of anarchists.

    And maybe they are getting proper representation, there just aren't very many of them. Which is frustrating, I'm sure, but them's the breaks.

    iQbUbQsZXyt8I.png
  • LawndartLawndart Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    rayofash wrote: »
    Studies have shown time and time again humans are naturally non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing. Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.

    Actually, there are several landmark psychological studies that show that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do, absent of any threat of violence.

    For example, the Milgram experiments did not involve any threat of violence to the subjects whatsoever, yet in those experiments people were willing to administer what they thought were lethal electrical shocks to unseen victims simply because an authority figure ordered them to.

    People can be non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing towards certain people, especially those they know personally and are in close contact with, but once there's any amount of psychological distance or deindividuation, that empathy and compassion flies out the window. Hence, the issue of translating non-hierarchical, anarchist-style organizing from small groups to larger societies.

    Lawndart on
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Quid wrote: »
    rayofash wrote: »

    Yes let's look at that. Two communities when in unable to reach agreement over scarce resources attacks each other and creates a blood bath until the federal government shows up with troops to stop them.

    And are you ever going to explain how, if there is no central authority to enforce rules, your system would not result in another Guilded Age? The era that was the very product of the government letting people doing what they want.
    rayofash wrote: »
    Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.

    This also false. When people are threatened they generally resist following orders. When they think they're doing something for the greater good though then they will do terrible things.

    The first part of your post is horribly incorrect, I don't think I'd be able to explain it to you your misunderstanding of the situation is so wrong. The second has already been answered:

    >For example, the Milgram experiments did not involve any threat of violence to the subjects whatsoever, yet in those experiments people were willing to administer what they thought were lethal electrical shocks to unseen victims simply because an authority figure ordered them to.

    And of course there was the whole genocide of the Jews who for the most part didn't fight back, and almost none of the soldiers protested.

    rayofash on
  • rayofashrayofash Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    Behemoth wrote: »
    rayofash wrote: »
    [...]

    The indoctrination is pretty blatant, and it's dangerous. It starts in kindergarten, you pledge your allegiance every day, write essays on how great the US is, you're told that your country is the only true free country, and then people are surprised when you get those crazy right-wingers. It's literally fascism, creating mindless drones who obey the state without question is what the prussian school system was made for.

    When I refused to salute the flag in kindergarten I was yelled and physically forced to stand and salute. When I wrote my essay on why I didn't think America was the greatest country I got yelled at and got detention. This didn't end with just American patriotism, I was actively discouraged for thinking for myself in school many many times.
    In fact, you're making a very good case that most anarchists are just aimless, angry youth who are dissatisfied with things in general but don't want to take on the responsibility of coming up with something better, so they just resort to thuggery and petty crime. Which certainly contributes to the negative image that most people have of anarchists.

    This is because of the protest culture that came up in the 1900s. It's caused a lot of confusion and in-fighting among activists. This is starting to change and anarchists are becoming more organized. That's a long complex discussion though.

    >And are you ever going to explain how, if there is no central authority to enforce rules, your system would not result in another Guilded Age? The era that was the very product of the government letting people doing what they want.

    There's a lot of confusion here on what the Gilded Age was. The Gilded Age is a brilliant example of crony capitalism run amock. There was plenty of government, it was just in control of the rich capitalists. Just look at The Battle of Blair Mountain, the mining companies had the sheriffs and judges completely under their control, and then the federal government came in and started killing the protesters rather than the mining companies.

    Central authority is the problem, not the solution.

    rayofash on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    rayofash wrote: »
    The first part of your post is horribly incorrect.
    Do you not read? The battle was between the coal miners and the company and police. It only stopped when
    By September 2, federal troops had arrived. Realizing he would lose a lot of good miners if the battle continued with the military, union leader Bill Blizzard passed the word for the miners to start heading home the following day.

    So again. After fierce fighting between two forces a central power is what stopped it.
    The second has already been answered:
    You said capitalism would prevent it. That is not an answer. Capitalism with no government regulation is what caused it.
    And of course there was the whole genocide of the Jews who for the most part didn't fight back.
    Which was done by people believing they were doing what was best for their country. So... your still wrong?

    Quid on
  • LucidLucid Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    rayofash wrote: »
    The first part of your post is horribly incorrect, I don't think I'd be able to explain it to you your misunderstanding of the situation is so wrong.

    Aside from the grammatical oddity of this sentence, this isn't really an appropriate way to argue with someone. You aren't saying anything aside from 'I'm right, you're wrong'. If you are confident in your knowledge and understanding of the matter you're discussing, it shouldn't be too difficult to explain to the opposition. You're employing transparent rhetorical strategy, and it doesn't contribute anything to your argument.

    Lucid on
  • notdroidnotdroid Registered User regular
    edited April 2012
    rayofash wrote: »
    The indoctrination is pretty blatant, and it's dangerous. It starts in kindergarten, you pledge your allegiance every day, write essays on how great the US is, you're told that your country is the only true free country, and then people are surprised when you get those crazy right-wingers. It's literally fascism, creating mindless drones who obey the state without question is what the prussian school system was made for.

    When I refused to salute the flag in kindergarten I was yelled and physically forced to stand and salute. When I wrote my essay on why I didn't think America was the greatest country I got yelled at and got detention. This didn't end with just American patriotism, I was actively discouraged for thinking for myself in school many many times.

    That's not state policy though. That is the behavior of the people/community you lived with, and getting rid of the state won't solve it. They might replace "USA" with "anarchist communty #143", but their behavior will remain the same. Which brings us to:
    rayofash wrote: »
    I have seen no indication in human history or modern behavior to suggest this is instinctual, and what is or is not instinctual is not inherently valuable. It's like trying to apply Biblical stuff to the modern age.
    http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/3/8/humans-are-nicer-than-we-think

    Studies have shown time and time again humans are naturally non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing. Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.

    Yes, most, but not all. State or no state, there will be violent people, and that will scare other people into committing horrible actions or using violence to try to control people (like those who'd physically force you to salute). Those situations are amplified, not lessened, by a lack of central authority, because people will feel more threatened in said scenario. When there's a sudden power vacuum in a country, people don't start holding hands and singing songs: they loot/harm/hurt each other. A very small amount of those because they're violent thugs, and a very large amount of those because even though they're normally good people, they get scared shitless of those violent thugs and start acting on basic survival instincts.

    It seems to me like you're blaming "the State" for individuals' behaviors, and then proceed into saying we should trust those very same individuals.

    notdroid on
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