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Kryptos
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The perfect society solves 99% of the problem. For most people, comfort, equality, and general well-being is enough. This is the people for who anarchist theory is made for.
For some people, this is not enough.
And most of those people are in charge right now. Because they are willing to do things that normal people are not willing to do, the same way a wild animal is willing to do things us civilized folk would not even conceive of.
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Kryptos
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Fighting between animals is 99% posture, 1% absolute cruelty.
The only times animals will stand and fight is when they are either cornered, fighting for a mate, or outnumber their opponents at least 1.5:1.
Interestingly, the history of human warfare looks to have developed very similarly, to the point where warfare did not exist prior to the invention of the arrow. You had ritual combat that looked more like a dance-off before that, because everyone knew that melee combat is unpredictable and violent.
The invention of the bow allowed one to kill without risking death, and warfare was invented.
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The Ecstatic
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Yet they sow the seeds of their own destruction.
The genius of liberal democracy is securing the prolonged existence of the power structure by ceding some benefits to the proles. But that only works when there’s entire continents worth of resources and labor to exploit, or in America’s case a bunch of free real estate to give away. We’re fast approaching a point where this give and take can’t function as intended, and the power structure begins to break down. The ruling class aren’t going to accept a reduction in material conditions, the last time they did it was because of a militant labor movement and a rising communist threat. When they’re threatened now they’ll just lash out with force. We’ll probably have some technofeudal bullshit replace all this, if humanity even survives the next couple centuries, but what we have now can’t last.
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Kryptos
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Some form of feudalism appears to be the natural state of humanity. Or, to put it differently, rule by the man with the biggest gun.
The genius of liberal democracy is a bureaucratic structure that dilutes power to the point where no one man can control the biggest gun.
The kind of people who need power like we need oxygen will always fight for control.
You can apply this outside of humanity as well. We have enslaved entire species, turning them into livestock, because we have the biggest gun.
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ballsalsa
Universally Loathed and Reviled



Registered: 03/11/15
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Loc: Foreign Lands
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Quote:
Kryptos said: Fighting between animals is 99% posture, 1% absolute cruelty.
This is called agonistic display and humans hella do it. Wide eyes, bared teeth, raised voice, raised fists, these are all examples of agonistic display. The logic is pretty simple in that if you can convince you opponent of your formidability you can win without taking damage from actual combat.
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Kryptos
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That's a limited view of agonistic display.
Fighting can also be an example of agonistic display. Hell, look at Ukraine. It's one giant agonistic display.
If it wasn't, it would be a nuclear wasteland.
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Lynnch
Strangerer



Registered: 04/29/09
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Quote:
Kryptos said: ... Interestingly, the history of human warfare looks to have developed very similarly, to the point where warfare did not exist prior to the invention of the arrow. You had ritual combat that looked more like a dance-off before that, because everyone knew that melee combat is unpredictable and violent.
Do you have a source on that? Sounds like an interesting watch/read
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Kryptos
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Re: Cuba [Re: Lynnch] 1
#28285337 - 04/19/23 01:00 PM (9 months, 4 days ago) |
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Oldest battlefield ever found was Jebel Sahaba, where approximately a third to half the bodies have arrowheads embedded in their skeletons.
Further, cave art depicting anything resembling warfare, with two distinct sides and leaders, all involve archery.
Cave art depicting melee weapons alone universally involve groups of people hunting animals, or the occasional one on one battle...which has led to theories that "warfare" between pre-bow groups was very limited, and if absolutely necessary, was solved by dueling champions.
The other major driver of organized warfare appears to have been sedentism, with evidence appearing of massacres dated back to ~5000 BC involving skeletons that show mortal wounds both by arrowheads and larger blades, among remains of pottery and other signs of early settlements.
So, basically, bows and the collection of shit worth stealing in non-nomadic tribes appears to have directly led to organized warfare.
Source for this: prehistoric warfare wiki. OG source for argument: a well sourced YouTube video I watched a while back. I'd have to do some digging to find it (and not be on mobile, I'm not watching YouTube videos at work).
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336
menehune


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Quote:
The Ecstatic said: That’s why freedom is overrated.
As a society we should be building institutions that guarantee food, housing, and medical care for every person, not one that protects one’s ability to purchase 70 private jets.
If you have to oppress some people (in Cuba’s case, the land-owning aristocracy and the mafia) to do that, then so be it.
Have you looked into the history of Latin American nations during the cold war? I've been doing fairly deep research into it, and I can assure you that authoritarianism is not the way to go regardless of what excuse or greater good is professed as the reasoning behind it. We're talking mass murder, disappearances, silencing of public thought and expression, torture, etc etc. One could argue that Ameria engages in all of these things, but it is the gridlock of our system that prevents such things from escalating to real out of control levels as can be seen in places such as Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Cuba, North Korea, etc etc.
Now if you were to suggest that some hacker group were to expose all the corruption in government, siphon all the money out of the banks, and redistribute it to everyone, than I'd be in full support of that. lmao
-------------------- "Love is seeing the unity under the imaginary diversity."
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Kryptos
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Re: Cuba [Re: 336] 1
#28285637 - 04/19/23 03:36 PM (9 months, 4 days ago) |
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So in the interests of preventing authoritarianism, you support the idea of an anonymous hacker group unilaterally acting as the sole authority?
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shivas.wisdom
בּ



Registered: 02/19/09
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Quote:
Kryptos said: So in the interests of preventing authoritarianism, you support the idea of an anonymous hacker group unilaterally acting as the sole authority?
Unilateral action doesn't necessarily equate to acting as sole authority; unless that hacker group also controls various institutions such as the police, the military, the courts, the prison system, and the state bureaucracy - otherwise, it's just direct action.
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shivas.wisdom
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Quote:
Kryptos said: And yet, many people that do understand anarchy, shivas included, are unable to solve the conundrum of the man with a gun who doesn't give a fuck what you think. [...] To a large degree, the more authoritarian the system, the simpler the solution to that problem.
Huh? By solve, do you mean 'eliminate completely'? Because otherwise, the solution is well-known and currently-practiced: decentralized self-defence networks.
And I'm not sure if 'simpler' is the appropriate word choice. A centralized system of police, courts, and prisons has lots of moving parts - by centralizing authority, those down the hierarchy can remain uninvolved in the operation - but it's still a highly complicated solution.
It also seems, by your own admission, that authoritarian solutions just turns the man with a gun into the man with the military. If anything, such a solution sets the foundation for systematic genocide and mass murder, rather than removing the original risk.
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shivas.wisdom
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Quote:
Kryptos said: This is also why I say morality is a luxury. People that haven't eaten in three days are a lot more willing to make some moral compromises.
What do you mean by luxury?
You seem to be using this to say that morality is more difficult than immorality. Wouldn't that make immorality the luxury? 'Something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary'.
Or are you using it to say that 'a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort' is a necessary precursor to morality? Once again, considering that moral action is not confined to those who live luxurious lives, this claim is self-evidently false.
To me, this claim of yours really just comes across as you attempting to rationalize your own moral choices as 'necessary' rather than personally own up to them.
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SirTripAlot
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Would you being willing to steal a can of Spam after a meal or after missing 20 meals? Don't know if stealing for subsistence rather than for being fat or bloated, isn't the same thing....its still stealing, however, mitigating factors make these choices seem murky, IMO.
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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shivas.wisdom
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Quote:
Kryptos said: Oldest battlefield ever found was Jebel Sahaba, where approximately a third to half the bodies have arrowheads embedded in their skeletons.
Jebel Sahaba: 16,000–11,000 years ago Arrowheads: 72,000–60,000 years ago
How do you explain that gap?
I think you need to re-examine your views on the natural state of humanity. Human organization goes back much further than written history - hundreds of thousands of years; millions if you consider the genus homo in it's entirety.
Decentralized organization is likely to have been the human default until some time in the neolithic era.
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Edited by shivas.wisdom (04/19/23 05:56 PM)
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shivas.wisdom
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Quote:
SirTripAlot said: Would you being willing to steal a can of Spam after a meal or after missing 20 meals? Don't know if stealing for subsistence rather than for being fat or bloated, isn't the same thing....its still stealing, however, mitigating factors make these choices seem murky, IMO.
Personally, I don't consider stealing from corporations to be immoral, so not the best example - but I don't dispute the point that 'people who haven't eaten in three days are a lot more willing to make some moral compromises'. It's still a generalization rather than immutable truth. There are more than enough examples of people making the hard moral choice to prove this.
Secondary point, most of us living in North America haven't been starving for three days before compromising our morality for comfort. We're making these decisions while living in the heart of luxury - so it seems weird to be saying 'of course starving people would make this choice' in the context of our own lives.
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SirTripAlot
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Interesting, you don't think stealing privately owned property is not immoral? Do you feel that way legally as well?
I do agree that there is so much food in the US, that starvation is incredibly rare.
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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ballsalsa
Universally Loathed and Reviled



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I think stealing must be a moral act in some contexts. Otherwise Robin Hood would be the villain of the story.
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SirTripAlot
Semper Fidelis



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True dat, those mitigating factors.
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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shivas.wisdom
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I don't think stealing from corporations is immoral, because the foundation of these organizations is exploitation for profit. It's not stealing, it's taking back what's been stolen from us. I know that's not legally true, but I don't conflate legality with morality. Non-profits and co-ops are given a little more nuance. Imo the best theft is stealing from work.
Stealing personal property from other people is something else entirely. Not necessarily good or bad, depending on contextual circumstances.
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