Reactions to AC

[tomdemaine]

I'm trying to understand peoples reactions when the first hear about the concept of a fully a free society and I just can't. Pretty much everyone it seems (including me) scoffs and pronounces from a position of ignorance. I myself made some very dumb high and mighty posts when I first came across it on these forums and I'm wondering why. I don't have that reaction to other theories that I hear.

If a theory is truly crazy you simply don't engage. If some toothless weird looking dude comes up to me in the street and says he lives on the moon the a straw hut with live chocoloate bunnies, I don't start listing the reasons why that's impossible,

"you see that wouldn't work because there's no oxygen on the moon and chocolate cannot be alive, please provide some proof."

Also when I hear about a theory I know nothing about but the explainer seems credible, say the first time I heard about quantum physics, I was interested and wanted to find more out rather than being dismissive. So why the reaction to AC? It happens too often to be coincidence.

Is it simply down to propaganda? Or could it be that if you find out more about AC and come to realize that the government is violence then you have to rethink a lot that you've done in your life (borodog's hypocrite issue)

This should perhaps be in psychology but I don't think they could help and I doubt the admins want the virus of AC spreading to another forum. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[pvn]

People get personally offended when you challenge ideals that they've believed their entire life. America = freedom, duh. When someone points out that this is not the case, it's much easier to strike out at the messenger than to actually internalize the truth, admit that you've been bamboozled, and that what you believed in actually stands for very nearly the complete opposite of everything it's sold as.

[clowntable]

It's a simple question of epistemological philosophy for me to try to find wholes in the theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_rationalism

[Copernicus]

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Or could it be that if you find out more about AC and come to realize that the government is violence then you have to rethink a lot that you've done in your life



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the answer to your question can be found in your own post. You havent stopped "high and mighty" statements, you have merely changed their content. Compound that with the intelletual dishonesty of the more prolific AC posters here and you have the formula for polarization.

[pvn]

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wholes

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OT, I catch myself typing "wholes" when I mean "holes" ALL THE TIME. What's up with that?

[pvn]

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intelletual dishonesty

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[Nielsio]

Statism, theism, conforming to the family, and all that are classes of cults/rackets/scams/nightmares of obedience, that have evolved as a strategy of parasitism.

You can derive the behaviour on the individual level from this.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

I think it is similarily arrogant by AC'ists to claim that "statists" do not have thought-through opinions on this subject. I think that to propose AC'ism in today's society and claim that it will be an improvement you need to lack life experience and insight into human psychology and mentality. Try to go somewhere where there isn't a "social contract" in place and then see if you manage to support AC afterwards. So you throw rocks in a glass house if you sort of claim that "statists" haven't thought it through.

However, I think AC'ists and statists talk past eachother many times, because some/most AC'ists sees AC as hopeless today but possible after a mentality change in the general population. And I have no problem in believing that given the mentality change it would be a success, I have created and managed many groups myself (especially when innovation was necessary) using a near-AC-philosopy and it has been very successful. But, I knew who would fit in and that most people definately would not. The mentality change is IMO never going to happen, it is so contrary to common human psychology, thus the foundation for AC is never going to be in place, thus it is a fantasy utopia.

[Copernicus]

change "human psychology" to "human nature" (as in evolution/genetic pre-disposition) and I agree.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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change "human psychology" to "human nature" (as in evolution/genetic pre-disposition) and I agree.

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Yeah, it is better. It seems to me it usually only takes one person with a "wrong" mentality to make such a group collapse.