AC and power

[bkholdem]

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Your not convinced, YET. But you are less skeptical than you were 6 months ago, and more skeptical of government than you were 6 months ago, aren't you?

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It would be hard for me to be any more skeptical of the government than I was six months ago, or two years ago, or five for that matter. As I said, I think some of the objections market anarchism poses to the state as it exists in practice are quite relevant. I'm just not convinced that their solutions are any better; in fact, my intuition tells me they are worse.

I'll try to respond to your other post in a little while, my professor is about to demonstrate a 'mental status exam' on me to the class.

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remember the items he tells you, people sometimes forget one

[pvn]

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If people are too poor to afford security, how much do you actually think you can make by robbing them? Do you think you're going to make it to the forbes 400 this way?

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Keep making this retarded objection and I will keep pointing to the fact that it's obviously very easy to take money from people with no protection, and that not everyone needs to or wants to be on the forbes 400. You seem to think everyone wants millions of dollars. I'm talking about people just making a decent living by working on mobs that terrorize people too poor to protect themselves.

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The limits of your imagination are not a convincing argument. If nobody cares about these people, why doesn't this happen now?


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LOL. This combined with your "why is this not widespread" point is just seriously LOL. Are you somehow unaware of crime in the world. Do you comprehend that there are, in fact, violent neighborhoods all around the world and that historically whenever a lot of poor people have been concentrated in one area there is very frequently violence?

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Oh. So under AC, your worst case scenario is basically the status quo.

What's the problem, again?

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What I'm saying is that a very strong communal spirit is necessary to accomplish the things you claim can occur in AC.

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LDO.

Every ACist on this board has said this four xillion times. If people don't respect property, or respect each other, or if there is widespread ideological support for violence, then AC does not work.

Congrats, you found the "achillies heel" of AC that everyone has been pointing to with big flashing neon signs and screaming sirens.

[pvn]

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What, exactly is the difference between "not convinced that force would be less prevalent" and "unconvinced of the viability of non-violence"? Who's being obtuse here?

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The difference is, I am not saying that non-violence is impossible. I am saying that I am not convinced an AC society would function as non-violently as you envision it. Specifically, I am unconvinced that regional security firms would provide a level of stability and personal protection from infringement and harm that would be on par with that enjoyed by the average citizen in the developed world today. (And that is not necessarily an endorsement of security practices in the developed world, merely a barometer against which to measure my estimation, since we are speculating here.) Nor am I convinced that the organizing principles of AC (competition, markets and the sanctity of property) would arise from, or contribute to, a meaningful and strong social fabric built on mutual esteem and capable of empowering society rather than leaving it victim to the whims of force.

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What you are or are not convinced of is really irrelevant to me. You might be unconvinced that the earth orbits the sun. You might be unconvinced that creamy peanut butter is better than crunchy.

Your personal convictions don't change the immoral nature of using violence against innocents, even if you think the alternative of letting people do what they want is even worse.

If things realy do turn out as bad as you say they will, won't people be *willing* to join some sort of state-like organization? Why do you think that this state-like organization, that arises voluntarily, would be incapable of doing what involuntary states do?

[bkholdem]

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If people are too poor to afford security, how much do you actually think you can make by robbing them? Do you think you're going to make it to the forbes 400 this way?

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Keep making this retarded objection and I will keep pointing to the fact that it's obviously very easy to take money from people with no protection, and that not everyone needs to or wants to be on the forbes 400. You seem to think everyone wants millions of dollars. I'm talking about people just making a decent living by working on mobs that terrorize people too poor to protect themselves.

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The limits of your imagination are not a convincing argument. If nobody cares about these people, why doesn't this happen now?


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LOL. This combined with your "why is this not widespread" point is just seriously LOL. Are you somehow unaware of crime in the world. Do you comprehend that there are, in fact, violent neighborhoods all around the world and that historically whenever a lot of poor people have been concentrated in one area there is very frequently violence?

But yes, please you and bkh keep talking about "catastrophe" and "death star objection". It's quite telling that your only defense against my objections is to say that people stealing and murdering and the existence of mobs and violent gangs is somehow a figment of my state-propagandized imagination.

KEEP IN MIND that I have frequently stated that I believe a smaller government is better. What I'm saying is that a very strong communal spirit is necessary to accomplish the things you claim can occur in AC. Your arguments are that people will simply not do this because it's not worth it, but it's just ridiculous.

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Here is part of your OP:

Given: We want to move to AC society, but we theoretically still have guns and money (or wealth, if we decide to abandon the dollar... we still have things worth something to people).

How exactly are we to stop some group from having the same control over people that governments tend to now?
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In your OP you assert that we want to move in the direction of OP but you are concerned about some bad people doing evil things with guns, etc.

but in your subsequent posts you are assuming we are ALREADY IN AC, so as PVN says 'your moving the goalposts' it would seem to me.

We will not go from today to AC land. We will go slowly in stages and we will see how it goes. That way I am confident you will have the time to observe and get comfortable with the process and as you see your fears are not realized you will become less worried.

Of course there would be pandamonium in the streets and gangs would be running wild if the government disappeared overnight.

But a people who slowly move in that direction will be a people who do not destroy each other violently.

[NT!]

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Your personal convictions don't change the immoral nature of using violence against innocents, even if you think the alternative of letting people do what they want is even worse.

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My personal conviction is that violence against innocents is a bad thing. I'm not saying that letting people do what they want is even worse. I'm saying that it doesn't make a difference to me if it's individuals 'doing what they want' initiating force, or a state doing it, or a private company in a stateless society. If it's more likely to happen to me in an AC society, or if the severity of force initiated is likely to be significantly worse, then it's not appealing to me.

Since we are both speculating about what an AC society would look like, of course it matters if I am convinced it could work. It can't work if people aren't convinced of it and invested in it.

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If things realy do turn out as bad as you say they will, won't people be *willing* to join some sort of state-like organization? Why do you think that this state-like organization, that arises voluntarily, would be incapable of doing what involuntary states do?

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You and bk were just telling me that such a purely voluntary state isn't really a state at all, that it doesn't count.

[bkholdem]

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Your personal convictions don't change the immoral nature of using violence against innocents, even if you think the alternative of letting people do what they want is even worse.

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My personal conviction is that violence against innocents is a bad thing. I'm not saying that letting people do what they want is even worse. I'm saying that it doesn't make a difference to me if it's individuals 'doing what they want' initiating force, or a state doing it, or a private company in a stateless society. If it's more likely to happen to me in an AC society, or if the severity of force initiated is likely to be significantly worse, then it's not appealing to me.



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I basically agree with all of this.

[xorbie]

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Oh. So under AC, your worst case scenario is basically the status quo.


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No. I could conceive of things being better or worse. I'm asking what safegaurds are in place to ensure they don't get worse. You keep telling me "the state sucks" and "that's ridiculous". I'm pretty much done until I get something more.

[xorbie]

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We will not go from today to AC land. We will go slowly in stages and we will see how it goes. That way I am confident you will have the time to observe and get comfortable with the process and as you see your fears are not realized you will become less worried.

Of course there would be pandamonium in the streets and gangs would be running wild if the government disappeared overnight.

But a people who slowly move in that direction will be a people who do not destroy each other violently.

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Ok. Fantastic. But what I'm saying is that vaguely saying "we will go in stages" and "eventually it will happen" isn't really helpful, because my claim is that it must take shape in a certain way.

[bkholdem]

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We will not go from today to AC land. We will go slowly in stages and we will see how it goes. That way I am confident you will have the time to observe and get comfortable with the process and as you see your fears are not realized you will become less worried.

Of course there would be pandamonium in the streets and gangs would be running wild if the government disappeared overnight.

But a people who slowly move in that direction will be a people who do not destroy each other violently.

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Ok. Fantastic. But what I'm saying is that vaguely saying "we will go in stages" and "eventually it will happen" isn't really helpful, because my claim is that it must take shape in a certain way.

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That's nice, but isn't it assbackwards to discuss hypothetical details about stage 99% complete when we are at stage .001% complete?

When I am working towards a goal I do not get into the micromanagement of the ends (before I am anywhere close to the ends), I set up means to take the next few steps.

[xorbie]

And yet at the same time, you are working towards a goal which you clearly do not fully understand. This seems problematic, and calling what are IMO central problems "hypotheticaly details" seems disingenuous at best.