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> So is property. So is language. So is symbolic thought. Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. > I, of course proudly admit to b

> So is property. So is language. So is symbolic thought. Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. > I, of course proudly admit to being a criminal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXTt9OmJis&t=1m18s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEXTt9OmJis&t=1m18s) insofar living in modern society makes criminals of us all, yourself included, even under duress. I’m not convinced that it is meaningful to make that assertion. But this is fine, I’m an anarchist because I oppose coercion and you’re a criminal for supporting it. > Because it's cheaper to provide social programs than to deal with rolling peasant revolts. And so that makes it moral to suppress peasants with unjust taxation regimes? > And indeed so. So are you then an anarcho-primitivist? Or anti-propertarian? I decline to identify as a proponent of any belief system because of the harmful epistemological consequences of group identity.

Apocryphon 6y ago
> Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. They are according to John Zerzan. > But this is fine, I’m an anarchist because I oppose coercion and you’re a criminal for supporting it. Anarchism, fwiw, is not meant to be a pejorative, but a reference to an actual ideological framework, albeit a radical one. One that has both left and right variants, including the aforementioned ancaps. > And so that makes it moral to suppress peasants with unjust taxation regimes? No, it's moral to provide people with food and shelter, health care and education, opportunities for social advancement, funded by surplus wealth generated by a society, in a manner deemed agreeable by societal consensus, so as to create a stable social order. A just tax regime would not be taxing peasants more than nobles nor burghers. > I decline to identify as a proponent of any belief system because of the harmful epistemological consequences of group identity. But by crowing "taxation is theft", you have clearly virtue-signalled yourself to be a libertarian.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > No, it's moral to provide people with food and shelter Then it must be immoral to take food and shelter from people. How do you then justify taxation? > funded by surplus wealth generated by a society, in a manner deemed agreeable by societal consensus, so as to create a stable social order. And in order to maintain consensus, and order, anyone who doesn’t agree is subject to violence. No, thats not moral. > But by crowing "taxation is theft", you have clearly virtue-signalled yourself to be a libertarian. > you might as well label yourself an anarchist. Which is fine, plenty of mutualist ideologies exist, but you should at least identify yourself so people will understand the very different ideological framework you're arguing from. So you continue to insist on labeling me, but the point is that the ideas exist independently of labels and must be dealt with on their own merits.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    > How do you then justify taxation? Presumably society comes with concepts of fairness, and that it is more fair to take someone's surplus means to share with those who are running a deficit. This need not be coercive either, as there are always incentives such as tax credits and deductions so forth to spur voluntary giving. I'm sure there are moral philosophers better suited to explain it than me. > And in order to maintain consensus, and order, anyone who doesn’t agree is subject to violence. No, thats not moral. We live in a society, as they say. > the ideas exist independently of labels and must be dealt with on their own merits But pattern recognition is a form of optimization, and labels are but filters created from reoccurring ideological patterns.
    - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
      > Presumably society comes with concepts of fairness, and that it is more fair to take someone's surplus means to share with those who are running a deficit. So your concept of fairness involves a person who has the power to assign and remove property from other people according to his judgments. > This need not be coercive either, as there are always incentives such as tax credits and deductions so forth to spur voluntary giving. Taxation is coercive, so offering relief from coercion as an incentive is coercion. > I'm sure there are moral philosophers better suited to explain it than me. There are moral philosophers in favor and opposed. You must take responsibility for your own moral judgments. > We live in a society, as they say. And marriage means that its not possible for a husband to rape his wife. > But pattern recognition is a form of optimization, and labels are but filters created from reoccurring ideological patterns. Its a lossy form of optimization and the labels have connotations that may not be justified.
      - Apocryphon 6y ago
        > So your concept of fairness involves a person who has the power to assign and remove property from other people according to his judgments. Yes, and that person is Uncle Sam, Marianne, the Goddess of Democracy, it is me and you, because it is be formed from societal consensus and the republican process. > Taxation is coercive, so offering relief from coercion as an incentive is coercion. Coercion schmoercion. > You must take responsibility for your own moral judgments. Certainly, in the same way a fish takes responsibility for the water it lives and breathes in. > And marriage means that its not possible for a husband to rape his wife. Your entire stance is that marriage is unjust because it can be abused. While I'm arguing that abusive marriages do not necessarily form the majority, nor does it invalidate the concept. > Its a lossy form of optimization and the labels have connotations that may not be justified. I'm no audiophile.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  >> Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. > They are according to John Zerzan. Thanks for this. >> If agriculture was the original sin of History, the Fall was our descent into Symbolic forms which created a psychological removal best expressed by the use of artillery. With the epoch of History proper, beginning with the Neolithic, internal abstractions are projected outwards onto a terra nullius, a void now dedicated to the manufacture of first commodities, the domestication of animals and conflict management, in terror of the silences of a world made ancient by representation and signs. The great farming apparatus of this era mirrored institutionalized ritual and the codes of orthodox magic, which are the ancestors of surveillance technology and remote control. Division of labor lead to the great land enclosures and the dawn of the money form, nascent surplus-value with its classes of guardians, warriors, magistrates, clerics. Greek books were read in boustrophedon, which means ‘after the action of an oxen plowing a field’, each line progressing and then reversing back in a bi-directional motion, equating the patterns of informational technology with the golden gizmo of sedentary humanity. The subsequent Bronze Age saw pottery, the production of rich varieties of armaments, the complexities of credit and written script, and the formation of the great elites – and naturally, slavery. Early statecraft was far more ‘modern’ than is commonly acknowledged: banking, proto-welfare, heated toilet seats, the wide application of credit and debt enslavement (we have conveniently lost the custom of the Jubilee write-down), micro-breweries, were all part of the ancient world. http://www.johnzerzan.net/ http://www.johnzerzan.net/

Apocryphon 6y ago

> Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. They are according to John Zerzan. > But this is fine, I’m an anarchist because I oppose coercion and you’re a criminal for supporting it. Anarchism, fwiw, is not meant to be a pejorative, but a reference to an actual ideological framework, albeit a radical one. One that has both left and right variants, including the aforementioned ancaps. > And so that makes it moral to suppress peasants with unjust taxation regimes? No, it's moral to provide people with food and shelter, health care and education, opportunities for social advancement, funded by surplus wealth generated by a society, in a manner deemed agreeable by societal consensus, so as to create a stable social order. A just tax regime would not be taxing peasants more than nobles nor burghers. > I decline to identify as a proponent of any belief system because of the harmful epistemological consequences of group identity. But by crowing "taxation is theft", you have clearly virtue-signalled yourself to be a libertarian.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> No, it's moral to provide people with food and shelter Then it must be immoral to take food and shelter from people. How do you then justify taxation? > funded by surplus wealth generated by a society, in a manner deemed agreeable by societal consensus, so as to create a stable social order. And in order to maintain consensus, and order, anyone who doesn’t agree is subject to violence. No, thats not moral. > But by crowing "taxation is theft", you have clearly virtue-signalled yourself to be a libertarian. > you might as well label yourself an anarchist. Which is fine, plenty of mutualist ideologies exist, but you should at least identify yourself so people will understand the very different ideological framework you're arguing from. So you continue to insist on labeling me, but the point is that the ideas exist independently of labels and must be dealt with on their own merits.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  > How do you then justify taxation? Presumably society comes with concepts of fairness, and that it is more fair to take someone's surplus means to share with those who are running a deficit. This need not be coercive either, as there are always incentives such as tax credits and deductions so forth to spur voluntary giving. I'm sure there are moral philosophers better suited to explain it than me. > And in order to maintain consensus, and order, anyone who doesn’t agree is subject to violence. No, thats not moral. We live in a society, as they say. > the ideas exist independently of labels and must be dealt with on their own merits But pattern recognition is a form of optimization, and labels are but filters created from reoccurring ideological patterns.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    > Presumably society comes with concepts of fairness, and that it is more fair to take someone's surplus means to share with those who are running a deficit. So your concept of fairness involves a person who has the power to assign and remove property from other people according to his judgments. > This need not be coercive either, as there are always incentives such as tax credits and deductions so forth to spur voluntary giving. Taxation is coercive, so offering relief from coercion as an incentive is coercion. > I'm sure there are moral philosophers better suited to explain it than me. There are moral philosophers in favor and opposed. You must take responsibility for your own moral judgments. > We live in a society, as they say. And marriage means that its not possible for a husband to rape his wife. > But pattern recognition is a form of optimization, and labels are but filters created from reoccurring ideological patterns. Its a lossy form of optimization and the labels have connotations that may not be justified.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      > So your concept of fairness involves a person who has the power to assign and remove property from other people according to his judgments. Yes, and that person is Uncle Sam, Marianne, the Goddess of Democracy, it is me and you, because it is be formed from societal consensus and the republican process. > Taxation is coercive, so offering relief from coercion as an incentive is coercion. Coercion schmoercion. > You must take responsibility for your own moral judgments. Certainly, in the same way a fish takes responsibility for the water it lives and breathes in. > And marriage means that its not possible for a husband to rape his wife. Your entire stance is that marriage is unjust because it can be abused. While I'm arguing that abusive marriages do not necessarily form the majority, nor does it invalidate the concept. > Its a lossy form of optimization and the labels have connotations that may not be justified. I'm no audiophile.
chordalkeyboard 6y ago
>> Language and symbolic thought are not opinions or value judgments. > They are according to John Zerzan. Thanks for this. >> If agriculture was the original sin of History, the Fall was our descent into Symbolic forms which created a psychological removal best expressed by the use of artillery. With the epoch of History proper, beginning with the Neolithic, internal abstractions are projected outwards onto a terra nullius, a void now dedicated to the manufacture of first commodities, the domestication of animals and conflict management, in terror of the silences of a world made ancient by representation and signs. The great farming apparatus of this era mirrored institutionalized ritual and the codes of orthodox magic, which are the ancestors of surveillance technology and remote control. Division of labor lead to the great land enclosures and the dawn of the money form, nascent surplus-value with its classes of guardians, warriors, magistrates, clerics. Greek books were read in boustrophedon, which means ‘after the action of an oxen plowing a field’, each line progressing and then reversing back in a bi-directional motion, equating the patterns of informational technology with the golden gizmo of sedentary humanity. The subsequent Bronze Age saw pottery, the production of rich varieties of armaments, the complexities of credit and written script, and the formation of the great elites – and naturally, slavery. Early statecraft was far more ‘modern’ than is commonly acknowledged: banking, proto-welfare, heated toilet seats, the wide application of credit and debt enslavement (we have conveniently lost the custom of the Jubilee write-down), micro-breweries, were all part of the ancient world. http://www.johnzerzan.net/ http://www.johnzerzan.net/