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Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan
Why I Am Basically An Anarchist:
(I know this is a tl;dr post but I was impelled to write it somewhere for feedback )
I constantly find my viewpoints about life and politics almost diametrically opposite to others views. Maybe it’s because I’m crazy. Maybe it’s because I’m wrong. Maybe its because I’m an idealist. Maybe, and I certainly hope this is the case, it’s because I have a better perspective and deeper understanding of the world than most other people. Basically, I’m in between libertarian and anarchist. I still contemplate the merits of any sort of government and laws.
It's a good thing to be continually conforming one's viewpoint to new data and logic. I would like to point out, though, that a couple highly valuable steps for you would be to set aside idealism in exchange for pragmatism. The problem with idealism is that it's untestable, and there is no way to actually know the soundness of the ideals. Pragmatism, OTOH, is the based entirely in empiricism, and empiricism is virtually the only way for us to be sure of anything. FYI, empiricism is basically science.
The other step is to learn more about logic and logical fallacies. You'll learn more about how reality works by researching basic logical fallacies than you will from any opinion piece or philosophical writing. It's actually pretty fantastic to be able to easily point out false dichotomies or red herrings or selection biases. It makes knowing what you're talking about tremendously easier
I think it is very clear there are consequences to your actions. These consequences have some order. That is to say, it isn’t like this one time I rob someone that the consequences are that no one in the world would ever rob another soul for eternity. More concretely, if you don’t plant the seeds of corn in a field, corn won’t grow. These consequences are logical. Your actions create predictable consequences, therefore you can learn what actions are necessary to create the consequences (outcomes) you desire. Therefore, consequences create a learning experience. You learn what action you must take to achieve your desired outcomes.
Sounds good
Government changes this rule. Government creates an environment where peoples action and values do not create the logical outcome. The collection of societies actions do not yield the consequences natural to their actions, and they do not learn the actions to take to create the outcome.
This is making the false assumption that consequences/logical outcomes do not change with the environment
Also, peoples decisions naturally create the perfect reflections of their actions and values.
This is assuming clear cut dichotomies and distinctions. There's substantially more going on in decision making than somebody's contextual expressed conscious value
Governments think they need to create the “right” reflections, but are really just stopping people from ultimately getting what they want (I’m not talking about what they “say” they want).
Governance is the normal outcome of complex organisms which needs societies in order to compete with other organisms. Also, if governments were about 'stopping people from getting what they want', then I'm all for it. Human biology is fucking scary. All history and societies are rife with examples of individuals getting what they want
Let me use an example to illustrate this. The Anacostia River in Washington DC is very polluted. Its filled with bags and litter. Its filled with bags and litter ultimately because individuals want it to be polluted. They may say they do not want it polluted, but the fact that it is polluted is a testament to the fact that they do. Until people take the necessary actions, until they truly want the river to be clean, it won’t be clean. I don’t care if polluting the river is bad or not, I’m not saying the people who are littering are right or wrong, I’m just saying that the collective actions and enaction of the values of everyone in DC is creating a polluted river.
Again, this isn't black or white. If I kidnapped you and your brother, held a gun to your head, told you that I was going to either kill you or him but I will allow you to choose, if after you chose yourself and I killed you, could I tell your brother that you wanted to die?
There's much, much more going on, and 'values' are among the least of the reasons that people do things.
Now what the DC government does is they implement a 5 cent bag tax to stop the Anacostia River from being littered with bags. The idea is if people have to pay for bags they will not use the bags as much. There are two problems I have with this. One, the DC government is not doing what is in peoples self-decided best interests. The People of DC (collectively) have decided not to value a clean river. Yet, we are forcing them to value it.
This is a great example of why I mentioned pragmatism and empiricism and logical fallacies earlier. From the perspective of reality, the difference you're making about why people have chosen to value the river vs being 'forced' to value it is an illusion. Reality doesn't care about 'why', just 'that'. You're making a sort of naturalistic fallacy.
Second, you are not solving the issue you have deemed a problem in the most optimal way. You are trying to rid an unwanted consequence without changing the underlying values and actions. It’s like cutting a branch of a tree. Ultimately, that branch will grow back in some form, nearly exactly the same as the old branch. So you stop people from littering with bags, which would normally come at the knowledge and values that saving the environment and having a clean river is good for you and society. But they haven’t valued a clean river yet, they haven’t gained the knowledge to create the outcome they desire, they are not acting in accord with these values which they don’t have. So they still throw cigarette buts, paper cups, and various other things in the river. Problem not solved. Now teach people what the clear consequences of their actions are. Teach them why it is important. Try to influence their values. Make people more intelligent (if the outcome desired is an intelligent one). More specifically: Spend time around the river. Talk to people who litter in it. Pick up a bag or cup in the river. Problem solved, more optimally and without government intervention.
But this IS government intervention. Governance is not some obscure dominating entity, it's an integral facet of society. If you want to go to the river and try to teach people, be my guest. You'll soon realize it doesn't work (this happens ALL THE TIME today). But if you want to actually make an impact, you'll need a program that can compete on the societal level i.e. education system of some form. And since society is of the people, by the people, and for the people, the best outcome for education people on the river comes from the public sector.
I would love to be able to dispel this 'government bad' myth. We have been duped into a government of the people, by the people, for the special interests; and those special interests have straw manned us into thinking that this is real public governance. Government is not some kind of unholy. Not only is government inseparable from a functioning society, but the health of that society depends on how strongly the government regulates for its people instead of leeches and luckboxes or ideologues (special interests)
I think of Laws in the same way. I’m betting if you took a survey about why someone does not steal their groceries from a grocery store, they would say because they don’t want to go to jail. I think that is a terrible reason not to steal groceries.
It doesn't matter if it's terrible, it matters if it's true. And our knowledge thus far of the human organism is that punishment plays an essential role in behavior.
Way back when there was a law implemented not to steal because of XY and Z. People valued not stealing and therefore they didn’t do it. Now people never learn why not to steal, and that creates numerable other consequences.
Not stealing is far more integral to humanity than this suggests. We see this 'morality' in animals as well. Also, your argument about losing the value in learning why not to steal is more about poor governance, not governance itself.
I was watching a show one time where the host was making fun of a group of people who lived in trees to prevent them from being cut down. Most people who watched this show with me laughed and thought the people who lived in the trees were crazy. And maybe they were… but they were damn good at one thing that it seems like almost no one in the world is good at: Living and acting in accord to the values and outcomes they say they desire. To me, doing that is more important than living by the “right” values.
Christian scientists do this as well. Many of their children die from lack of medicine.
Viewing the world through ideological lenses does not lend itself to a statistical significance of correctness.
A spiritual guru once said no one is responsible for giving any difficulty or any pleasure to anyone.
A wufwugy once said that spiritual gurus say lots of stuff simply because it makes sense to them. 'Spiritual' should be enough of a turn off.
Replying to this non-cynically, this maxim is assuming SO much. He's effectively straw manned himself by attempting to objectively analyze all of humanity yet emphatically imposing the vague notion of responsibility. Be very VERY wary of moralistic and ideological philosophies (fallacies) that ignore relativity and practicality
Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions.
Not sure if this was you saying it or the aforementioned sage, but this is missing the forest for the trees. Within the right context, this is a nice adage, but assuming the context is meant to be all inclusive, it's not even close to correct that our decisions are the sole proprietor of our lives.
What upsets me about people who do not share my viewpoint is they don’t seem to agree with the guru. Many complain about the salary of the CEO of Bounty while simultaneously buying a 12 pack of Bounty paper towels. Many complain about the state of the world they are essentially creating with their own actions.
Yeah, it sucks, but that's reality. We don't live in a universe where all things are dichotomies. Overlap and connectedness is tremendous, paradoxes abound, and ideological contradictions do not carry over into the physical universe that often. Decision making is hosted by currently innumerable factors, and it is not at all unnatural for a human to lament the multinational corp pay structure while still being in his best interest to purchase product from that corp. It is very common for things to be both bad and good, or a little bad and a lot good, or a lot bad and a little good, or bad now but good later, the list goes on virtually forever
I think its ignorant to say that the state of the world today is any different than the world people want. I think its probably different than the world they say they want…but what’s that saying again? Actions speak louder than words. The society clearly isn’t how Marx saw it to me. Everyone has so much power to get what they want in the world, they just have to live in accord with what they want.
It's not so much about what people want, but about what people do. Or even moreso about how reality itself works. Humans are not some kind of great superior species. We're actually pretty goddamned limited and subject to the environment just like everything else.
I think its funny that people worry about global warming when really it seems like the thing people should be worrying about is everyone becoming total drones. When we have a government that tells us to pay taxes to support x, y and z causes, to not litter bags, to not steal, and we do it, does it make a difference if we are a human or a robot? I don’t think this matters to many, but it matters a hell of a lot to me.
We are already drones. We're drones to our basal instincts and our primitive through processing. We do the same stuff everyday just with slight variation. This is completely normal, and is actually what we're wired for biologically.
Also, we are the government, but apparently that's not the popular idea. The quickest way to not have a government run by the public is to weaken that government enough that powerful individuals can seize control for himself. Will be quite the Utopia then I'm sure
P.S. I lost some of addons and clarifications within this post due to forum fuckup, and didn't attempt to fix it due to mental overload
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