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I love prepping, up to a point. If we all would like to live in a world without war, the only path I see is if people learn to be strong as individuals, able t

I love prepping, up to a point. If we all would like to live in a world without war, the only path I see is if people learn to be strong as individuals, able to self govern, grow emotionally and take responsibility for their own actions. As long as we use collective thinking and externalization our power in organizations, believe in superstitions like money, government, “the greater good”, rather than recognizing what’s undeniably real, that we are all people, I don’t see a way forward. If this resonates with anyone, hit me up!

Nursie 4y ago
Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-... Personally I enjoy my government roads, schools, fire service and all the rest. Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand that government is people working together to achieve a common good. It’s flawed and easy to get wrong, it oversteps and overspends, but I’ll take that over "fully realised" adults living in a bear-ridden trash heap because they “took responsibility” for their own garbage disposal.
- Chris2048 4y ago
  > Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand This is arrogant, and condescending, not kind.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    This is a quote from the post I replied to, which is why I said it, as a mirror to the arrogance of the material I responded to. The post I responded to posits that those in favour of governments and collective action are not emotionally grown. If it is not kind, then neither is the original.
    - Chris2048 4y ago
      > posits that those in favour of governments and collective action are not emotionally grown I didn't read it like that - I read it as the ability to self-govern requires great individual responsibility and emotional control. Whether this is the only way forward is up for debate, but I agree it requires an (unlikely?) level of public competence.
- mynameishere 4y ago
  all the rest You might want to make at least a few exceptions.
- luxuryballs 4y ago
  Whooosh you totally didn’t get the point, the government is also just a bunch of individuals.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    The point that governments and money are superstitions and that people need to "grow emotionally and take responsibility" rather than believing in such things? No, I'm pretty sure I got the point there. I agree, government is just a bunch of individuals, and collectively we empower them to take action on our behalf, and they achieve things that without such cooperation would be hard to impossible. I don't believe the poster I replied to would concur, in fact a brief glance down their posting history shows this person believes governments should not exist.
    - manofmanysmiles 4y ago
      If you're talking about me, I believe that when people are ready for it, "governments" as such will cease to be relevant. To put this another way, I am NOT advocating for getting rid of governments, because a) they already don't exist, and b) right now, if we "got rid of government", let's say by somehow stopping all political, police, military and other activity, there most likely would be chaos, as many people like being told what to do, and maybe do need a imaginary father figure to make decisions for them and punish them if they do "bad" things.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        Wow, this is bordering on delusion. People will never be 'ready' to stop abusing and taking advantage of others, without cooperative measures (governments) to restrict such activity, what you have is a recipe for mass violence and a return to warlords and feudalism as those who can raise the largest mob take the lions share of resources for themselves.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Do you seriously believe that you (even collectively) empower governments to take action of your behalf?
- manofmanysmiles 4y ago
  Show me a common good, and I’ll listen to you. I only see people. Every time we generalize it results in violence and conflict. I am 100% supportive of people working together.
  - badpun 4y ago
    With your people-working-together model, modern civilization would not be possible. There would just be too much friction in a world where every interaction and every boundary must be voluntary and previously agreed upon. It would sorta work fine for sparsely populated pre-modern times, like the XIX century American West [1], which I believe is the origin source for a lot of such fantasies. [1] Except for the fact that the West rugged self-sufficiency was only possible because the pioneers could call in cavalry to exterminate groups of people who posed a threat they couldn't handle themselves.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    “Superstition” is just as much an abstraction over a general pattern of things happening as “government” is. You say “show me a government and I’ll listen”; I say “Show me a superstition (and an explanation for in what sense you have shown me one), and I’ll show you a country (in the same sense).”
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears My pleasure. The United States was founded on libertarian principles (excluding allowing slavery to continue, this was fixed in 1865). The result was the rise if poor people to the most successful nation in the world, and the greatest rise in the wealth of those poor people. This did not happen in, say, South America, that was discovered and colonized at the same time. The Antebellum South also did not prosper under slavery and was crushed by the free economy of the North. Other countries which embraced libertarian principles also experience a surge in their economies, like the German Miracle after WW2, same for Japan.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    > The United States was founded on libertarian principles It certainly wasn't based on modern libertarian principles, or there would not have been much of a government in the first place. It certainly pays lip service to freedom, but pre-dates the modern libertarian obsession with contract and property law as supreme above all others.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      The US government in its first century wasn't the all-powerful government it evolved into. > libertarian obsession with contract and property law as supreme above all others Contracts are always superceded by government laws under libertarianism.
      - Nursie 4y ago
        Then you've been talking to different libertarians than I have over the last couple of decades.
        WalterBright 4y ago
        I'm glad you're finally talking to an actual one. Many people call themselves one who haven't actually thought much or read much about it. If you want a book written by another actual libertarian, "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman is a good start. The neato thing about libertarianism is it doesn't have to be perfect in order to work. Since nothing about human societies can be perfect, this is fine feature. The more libertarian a country is, the better it runs.
vladharbuz 4y ago
I think that you would find it interesting to read “The Tyranny of Merit” by Michael J. Sandel, as it discusses some of the underlying assumptions that your comment rests on. I'm not saying it's a refutation of what you're saying or anything like that, but I think you would enjoy the book, and I think it would offer a healthy broader perspective.
ljw1001 4y ago
There is nothing superstitious about government, money, organizations, etc. This is a fantasy. If you really want to exist as a society of strong individuals (assuming that’s not already a contradiction in terms) in the absence of these constructs, you have to accept the very real likelihood that stronger individuals will be trying to rob and murder you. And organizing themselves into groups to do that more successfully
- manofmanysmiles 4y ago
  Show me a government, and I’ll believe you that it’s not a superstition. I only see people. People organizing and working together is great. People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Edit: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/ I will take this opportunity to to try to express myself a bit more clearly. I don't really expect to convince anyone of anything, but rather I would like to reach the few people out their that do resonate with me and my words. Government is superstition just the way Santa is a superstition. You can call it an inter-subjective entity, or egregore, but ultimately it's not more real than any other imagined concept. It is perhaps a useful mental model to apply labels and titles to groups of people, or certain concepts, but it is also valuable to realize these are labels and models. A government, as far as I know does not exist, insofar as I cannot interact with it as a single entity, or see it. If you look at this from an esoteric perspective, perhaps nothing is real, or it's all consciousness, or a simulation, or vibration of energy, however that doesn't change my lived experience of what appears real now. I take issue with collective thinking, labeling a group of people with an identity, and then acting as if this identity is real. I don't have any animosity towards any other man or woman living in a different "country". I doubt many people do, and yet under the superstition of collective thinking, many people go to war, fighting against a "them" that someone did us "wrong", because we've been told so, or believe in large geopolitical movements. If every single conscious entity took a step back, and only acted violently in self-defense, there would be no war. There would simply be no reason to do it. There are numerous arguments against this, such as "there will always be 'bad' people, so we need gang up and make sure they don't do bad things", and soon enough, there will be a group of people, believing they are the only people who can legitimately use force and violence, because they are stopping the 'bad people'. If you look at a history book, you'll find more death and destruction because of "governments" by a very long shot, and very little due to the few "bad apples". The "Common Good" is another fallacy that leads to much suffering. How do we define it? We can use numbers, and metrics and "happiness surveys", and try to use left brain thinking to optimize for it, but ultimately "good" is in they experience of the individual conscious entity experiencing it. Trying to define it mathematically is taking away the agency and life of those who experience it, reveals a certain hubris and elitism that certain "experts" know what is best for everyone, for the "common good". A book I recommend for those interested in what I'm saying is "The Most Dangerous Superstition" by Larkin Rose. If you think I'm wrong, please continue to do so. I am supportive! I don't intend or expect to reach you.
manofmanysmiles 4y ago
Replying to myself to say I will not be replying any more unless it's to people that do "get" what I'm saying. I chose not to expend any more energy arguing.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
Have you read "The Unique and Its Property" by Max Stirner by any chance? I think you'd enjoy it. (The title is often translated as "The Ego and Its Own", but that entire translation is really, really bad) It's basically a 19th Century proto-existentialist analysis trying to explain "Why do people sacrifice their free will to abstract ideas, and should they?"
carapace 4y ago
The way I put it sometimes is, government exists to manage human wickedness, good people need no laws. - - - - You might be interested in the work of Moshé Feldenkrais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosh%C3%A9_Feldenkrais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosh%C3%A9_Feldenkrais He's a fascinating person in his own right, a physicist who was also the first Westerner to earn a black belt in judo. > On the eve of the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, Feldenkrais fled to Britain with a jar of heavy water and a sheaf of research material, with instructions to deliver them to the British Admiralty War Office. Anyway, his "Method" is a kind of direct physical intervention to dispel superstition in the nervous system, returning the person to a more high-fidelity self-model, which in turn develops the qualities you mention above: strength (physical, emotional and mental) and the ability to self govern, which then permits taking responsibility (i.e. you can't drive a car if the steering wheel and pedals don't work, eh? You have to fix the car first, then you can drive it.) (I would normally link to the Wikipedia article on the "Feldenkrais Method" but unfortunately it has fallen in with the "Alternative medicine" woo-woo stuff, which then makes the Guerilla Skeptics come in and crap on it. I wish I was making this up but that's really what they call themselves. Anyway, if you're interested get a copy of his book "Awareness through movement : health exercises for personal growth" and try it out. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3AFeldenkrais https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3AFeldenkrais )
hopperific 4y ago
It's great to communicate about liberty to those who are ready to hear it, for their own benefit. I have no desire to change the world, I just inform my personal decisions and benefit from understanding the truth. If you want to discuss how to communicate for liberty, my email is in my bio.

Nursie 4y ago

Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears - https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-... Personally I enjoy my government roads, schools, fire service and all the rest. Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand that government is people working together to achieve a common good. It’s flawed and easy to get wrong, it oversteps and overspends, but I’ll take that over "fully realised" adults living in a bear-ridden trash heap because they “took responsibility” for their own garbage disposal.

Chris2048 4y ago
> Perhaps when you’ve grown emotionally, you’ll understand This is arrogant, and condescending, not kind.
- Nursie 4y ago
  This is a quote from the post I replied to, which is why I said it, as a mirror to the arrogance of the material I responded to. The post I responded to posits that those in favour of governments and collective action are not emotionally grown. If it is not kind, then neither is the original.
  - Chris2048 4y ago
    > posits that those in favour of governments and collective action are not emotionally grown I didn't read it like that - I read it as the ability to self-govern requires great individual responsibility and emotional control. Whether this is the only way forward is up for debate, but I agree it requires an (unlikely?) level of public competence.
mynameishere 4y ago
all the rest You might want to make at least a few exceptions.
luxuryballs 4y ago
Whooosh you totally didn’t get the point, the government is also just a bunch of individuals.
- Nursie 4y ago
  The point that governments and money are superstitions and that people need to "grow emotionally and take responsibility" rather than believing in such things? No, I'm pretty sure I got the point there. I agree, government is just a bunch of individuals, and collectively we empower them to take action on our behalf, and they achieve things that without such cooperation would be hard to impossible. I don't believe the poster I replied to would concur, in fact a brief glance down their posting history shows this person believes governments should not exist.
  - manofmanysmiles 4y ago
    If you're talking about me, I believe that when people are ready for it, "governments" as such will cease to be relevant. To put this another way, I am NOT advocating for getting rid of governments, because a) they already don't exist, and b) right now, if we "got rid of government", let's say by somehow stopping all political, police, military and other activity, there most likely would be chaos, as many people like being told what to do, and maybe do need a imaginary father figure to make decisions for them and punish them if they do "bad" things.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      Wow, this is bordering on delusion. People will never be 'ready' to stop abusing and taking advantage of others, without cooperative measures (governments) to restrict such activity, what you have is a recipe for mass violence and a return to warlords and feudalism as those who can raise the largest mob take the lions share of resources for themselves.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Do you seriously believe that you (even collectively) empower governments to take action of your behalf?
manofmanysmiles 4y ago
Show me a common good, and I’ll listen to you. I only see people. Every time we generalize it results in violence and conflict. I am 100% supportive of people working together.
- badpun 4y ago
  With your people-working-together model, modern civilization would not be possible. There would just be too much friction in a world where every interaction and every boundary must be voluntary and previously agreed upon. It would sorta work fine for sparsely populated pre-modern times, like the XIX century American West [1], which I believe is the origin source for a lot of such fantasies. [1] Except for the fact that the West rugged self-sufficiency was only possible because the pioneers could call in cavalry to exterminate groups of people who posed a threat they couldn't handle themselves.
- drdeca 4y ago
  “Superstition” is just as much an abstraction over a general pattern of things happening as “government” is. You say “show me a government and I’ll listen”; I say “Show me a superstition (and an explanation for in what sense you have shown me one), and I’ll show you a country (in the same sense).”
WalterBright 4y ago
> Let me know when libertarianism achieves any more than attracting bears My pleasure. The United States was founded on libertarian principles (excluding allowing slavery to continue, this was fixed in 1865). The result was the rise if poor people to the most successful nation in the world, and the greatest rise in the wealth of those poor people. This did not happen in, say, South America, that was discovered and colonized at the same time. The Antebellum South also did not prosper under slavery and was crushed by the free economy of the North. Other countries which embraced libertarian principles also experience a surge in their economies, like the German Miracle after WW2, same for Japan.
- Nursie 4y ago
  > The United States was founded on libertarian principles It certainly wasn't based on modern libertarian principles, or there would not have been much of a government in the first place. It certainly pays lip service to freedom, but pre-dates the modern libertarian obsession with contract and property law as supreme above all others.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The US government in its first century wasn't the all-powerful government it evolved into. > libertarian obsession with contract and property law as supreme above all others Contracts are always superceded by government laws under libertarianism.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      Then you've been talking to different libertarians than I have over the last couple of decades.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        I'm glad you're finally talking to an actual one. Many people call themselves one who haven't actually thought much or read much about it. If you want a book written by another actual libertarian, "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman is a good start. The neato thing about libertarianism is it doesn't have to be perfect in order to work. Since nothing about human societies can be perfect, this is fine feature. The more libertarian a country is, the better it runs.

vladharbuz 4y ago

I think that you would find it interesting to read “The Tyranny of Merit” by Michael J. Sandel, as it discusses some of the underlying assumptions that your comment rests on. I'm not saying it's a refutation of what you're saying or anything like that, but I think you would enjoy the book, and I think it would offer a healthy broader perspective.

ljw1001 4y ago

There is nothing superstitious about government, money, organizations, etc. This is a fantasy. If you really want to exist as a society of strong individuals (assuming that’s not already a contradiction in terms) in the absence of these constructs, you have to accept the very real likelihood that stronger individuals will be trying to rob and murder you. And organizing themselves into groups to do that more successfully

manofmanysmiles 4y ago
Show me a government, and I’ll believe you that it’s not a superstition. I only see people. People organizing and working together is great. People feeling they have a right to use violence to achieve their goals, not so much. Edit: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/ I will take this opportunity to to try to express myself a bit more clearly. I don't really expect to convince anyone of anything, but rather I would like to reach the few people out their that do resonate with me and my words. Government is superstition just the way Santa is a superstition. You can call it an inter-subjective entity, or egregore, but ultimately it's not more real than any other imagined concept. It is perhaps a useful mental model to apply labels and titles to groups of people, or certain concepts, but it is also valuable to realize these are labels and models. A government, as far as I know does not exist, insofar as I cannot interact with it as a single entity, or see it. If you look at this from an esoteric perspective, perhaps nothing is real, or it's all consciousness, or a simulation, or vibration of energy, however that doesn't change my lived experience of what appears real now. I take issue with collective thinking, labeling a group of people with an identity, and then acting as if this identity is real. I don't have any animosity towards any other man or woman living in a different "country". I doubt many people do, and yet under the superstition of collective thinking, many people go to war, fighting against a "them" that someone did us "wrong", because we've been told so, or believe in large geopolitical movements. If every single conscious entity took a step back, and only acted violently in self-defense, there would be no war. There would simply be no reason to do it. There are numerous arguments against this, such as "there will always be 'bad' people, so we need gang up and make sure they don't do bad things", and soon enough, there will be a group of people, believing they are the only people who can legitimately use force and violence, because they are stopping the 'bad people'. If you look at a history book, you'll find more death and destruction because of "governments" by a very long shot, and very little due to the few "bad apples". The "Common Good" is another fallacy that leads to much suffering. How do we define it? We can use numbers, and metrics and "happiness surveys", and try to use left brain thinking to optimize for it, but ultimately "good" is in they experience of the individual conscious entity experiencing it. Trying to define it mathematically is taking away the agency and life of those who experience it, reveals a certain hubris and elitism that certain "experts" know what is best for everyone, for the "common good". A book I recommend for those interested in what I'm saying is "The Most Dangerous Superstition" by Larkin Rose. If you think I'm wrong, please continue to do so. I am supportive! I don't intend or expect to reach you.

manofmanysmiles 4y ago

Replying to myself to say I will not be replying any more unless it's to people that do "get" what I'm saying. I chose not to expend any more energy arguing.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago

Have you read "The Unique and Its Property" by Max Stirner by any chance? I think you'd enjoy it. (The title is often translated as "The Ego and Its Own", but that entire translation is really, really bad) It's basically a 19th Century proto-existentialist analysis trying to explain "Why do people sacrifice their free will to abstract ideas, and should they?"

carapace 4y ago

The way I put it sometimes is, government exists to manage human wickedness, good people need no laws. - - - - You might be interested in the work of Moshé Feldenkrais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosh%C3%A9_Feldenkrais https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosh%C3%A9_Feldenkrais He's a fascinating person in his own right, a physicist who was also the first Westerner to earn a black belt in judo. > On the eve of the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, Feldenkrais fled to Britain with a jar of heavy water and a sheaf of research material, with instructions to deliver them to the British Admiralty War Office. Anyway, his "Method" is a kind of direct physical intervention to dispel superstition in the nervous system, returning the person to a more high-fidelity self-model, which in turn develops the qualities you mention above: strength (physical, emotional and mental) and the ability to self govern, which then permits taking responsibility (i.e. you can't drive a car if the steering wheel and pedals don't work, eh? You have to fix the car first, then you can drive it.) (I would normally link to the Wikipedia article on the "Feldenkrais Method" but unfortunately it has fallen in with the "Alternative medicine" woo-woo stuff, which then makes the Guerilla Skeptics come in and crap on it. I wish I was making this up but that's really what they call themselves. Anyway, if you're interested get a copy of his book "Awareness through movement : health exercises for personal growth" and try it out. https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3AFeldenkrais https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3AFeldenkrais )

hopperific 4y ago

It's great to communicate about liberty to those who are ready to hear it, for their own benefit. I have no desire to change the world, I just inform my personal decisions and benefit from understanding the truth. If you want to discuss how to communicate for liberty, my email is in my bio.