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Anything except self-governance, is an abuse. It abuses those who have been taught to go along with this external governance by those running the governance sy
by verisimi 3y ago
Anything except self-governance, is an abuse. It abuses those who have been taught to go along with this external governance by those running the governance system. Its all it ever was, all it can ever be. There is no social contract, its all abuse. Legalised theft to put in roads, or remove them, as at present.
If some people want to work together, to opt-in voluntarily to do this or that, as long as it doesn't harm another - then great. To have this immoral monolith writing laws that no one can justify, is ridiculous. All pretence of legitimacy is gone, it is simply about control.
The above is not a political argument. It is a moral one. What circumstances allow one to forcibly extract from another and steal 40% of their work, or worse and then have the gall to call itself "good"? How big does a gang have to be to gain rights than an individual does not have? No one would think it "right" that I demand 40% of their income! Government is just an extractive mafia system that attempts to pose as the "best we've got", whilst using force to knock down any alternative possibilities of management.
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- wolverine876 3y agoAn interesting philosophical argument, though it's probably been made tens of thousands of times on HN, at least. Including the obvious arguments and counter-arguments, could you boil it down to what's new?
- reedjosh 3y agoIDK what's new, but I'm 100 percent in agreement. If you claim logical consistency, I don't know how the group having rights an individual does not ever gets reconciled. In a town of three if two vote to take from the third it's clearly not just. Yet somehow as the group size grows people lose sight of that.
- wolverine876 3y ago> IDK what's new, but I'm 100 percent in agreement I'll just say this part, then: IMHO that's always the wrong position to be in. We all desire logical consistency, but we don't ever get it. No theory even approaches 100% depiction of reality.
- verisimi 3y agoLogical inconsistency is certainly wrong though, right?
- Nevermark 3y ago> The above is not a political argument. It is a moral one. First, politics and morals (and ethics) are inherently inseparable. Second, you are not making a practical argument. Individual humans are simply incapable of having informed opinions on all matters that require coordination to maintain a peaceful productive society. Thus, we have representatives who we do get to vote for individually, or appointees acting on representatives’ behalf. And we have other levers as individuals, including processes for commenting on decisions prior to finalization, challenging decisions in courts, etc. Is this perfect? Far, far from it! Is there room for improvement? Absolutely! But anarchy, where all individuals are sovereign, isn’t workable at all. Who can enforce any shared concept of equality if all concepts & organizations are varied & opt-in/out? Anarchy has a very short half life. Power abhors a vacuum. People start banding together & enforcing their values on others very quickly, because the real natural default political system is might makes right, not some imagined innocent condition of a magically unanimously shared & voluntarily abided definition of “natural” rights/sovereignty.
- immersible 3y ago"Anarchy has a very short half life." Anarchy is all there is. Underlying all the existing power structures, which people are educated into accepting and even defending to their own detriment and loss of sovereignity, there is anarchism pure and simple. No political system will ever outstrip inherent sovereignity, the same way no amount of laws and regulations can eliminate the inherent existence of an underlying free market. Life always finds a way.
- tremon 3y agoI'm sorry you live in constant fear of individuals stronger than you.
- immersible 3y agoI did not understand this comment.
- 3y ago
- tenebrisalietum 3y agoWhen you don't have governance beyond "self-governance", you get gang warfare. Gang warfare conditons are worse because in addition to having to secure basic things like food, water, shelter, and comfortable surroundings, you also have to be constantly defending yourself, and you still don't escape the competitive landscape of humanity. You only make it less pleasant. Large groups consisting of numerous fighting gangs tend to get exploited for resource-extraction by larger groups with less infighting, because they need weapons constantly. > How big does a gang have to be to gain rights than an individual does not have? Not big IMHO. Does a family have a right to excommunicate a family member that they determine simply will not do anything but destroy them?
- verisimi 3y ago> When you don't have governance beyond "self-governance", you get gang warfare. Yes... Really big bang warfare - aka war - is what governments do. Do you not think the gang mentality is the problem? As I'm saying?
- tenebrisalietum 3y agoI can't understand this comment.
- verisimi 3y agoIt seems you are worried about gang warfare, but not worried about really big gangs (governments, countries).
- tenebrisalietum 3y agoLarge organized groups of people that follow rules and laws that are publicly known are not gangs - you have all the information you need to successfully interact with them available. There is no arbitrariness. Where that is not true, then you are right. But going back to what you said: if you only consider self-governance the correct thing, then it can never be true for anything. Therefore you would never have large organized groups of people, which are necessary for things like the Internet you're using to read this right now.