Nobody thinks the state is there to protect them, except for two guys in Nebraska. Nobody thinks restaurants are in the business of feeding the rats either, but the rats get fed anyway -- as a byproduct. And restaurants are also not in the business of feeding people -- they're in the business of making money, but you get fed in the process, see how that works? The "state" is not your friend, but it's not your enemy, either. No more than it is the enemy of oil, halcyon skies or amber waves of grain. It's plain embarrassing when grist for the mill become politically conscious  Restaurants provide a service for the money that they want. I can choose to give them money for their product or not. The state offers me no such choice. It's pay for our product or else. Or rather pay our exorbitant, extortionate rates or else. And what happens when the state realises it needs even more money? If it can't tax enough, it starts counterfeiting. And the more taxes the more of a security setup is required to make sure they are all paid. Hence, the police state, NSA, etc. You're missing my point. I'm not trying to convince you that the state is benevolent or fair -- arguments like that are childish, and usually degenerate into pillowfights about personal definitions of fairness & goodness. All i'm saying that by [dubious?] virtue of protecting itself & the status quo, the state protects you. If you wish to see the state as a villain, fine. Think of it as a slaver, and its citizens as the slaves. It's not in slaver's interests to have his slaves stealing from each other -- he gives each one just enough to survive & work. Some of the slaves may starve & not be able to work, so the slaver makes stealing unattractive -- by flogging. Enlightened self-interest. Same goes for other interslave transgressions -- murder, rape, etc. The slaver also protects his property from other slavers, just as you would protect your trash cans from being stolen or vandalized. You don't have to like them, it's enough that they are useful to you. Everything works out just fine, security's taken care of, villainous state or not.  Is this like the modern day equivalent of the white-man's burden? If let alone the primitive masses will abuse each other, therefore we should forcefully rule over them, abuse them ourselves, and violently suppress anybody who disagrees? What right do you have to decide the fate of others? |
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Nobody thinks the state is there to protect them
I don't know where the fuck you live that you actually think that, but I wanna live there. |
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We only need a critical mass, 3-5% of the population, that has a working knowledge of the dynamics of economic and political power and how they affect human liberty to effect a change from the .01% of the sociopaths that currently run the show. The decentralizing effect of TCP/IP has only been in play for a generation. My optimism is based on my life's experience of watching the effect of decentralization since the 1980's, when I first got on the net.
From the days of Usenet, I've watched this avalanche proceed. In the 90's, I had messages plonked, tanked, filtered and removed from groups for questioning the overarching control of the Federal Reserve and banking powers in general. I was still learning what was what back then, so my questions were more along the lines of uninformed suspicions rather than anything that could be mistaken for helpful information. But in the passing generation, 20 years, my uninformed suspicions are now common knowledge amongst a wide range of people.
I have great hope that the smartest kids now in their teens and 20's will easily pick up the information that was hard to come by for us 20-25 years ago.
I agree that decentralization is the road to liberty. I suppose my fear is not that information and discussions will not be readily available to people, but that they will: 1. Be too comfortable with a lifestyle of dependence to even want freedom or personal control over their lives / society. 2. Be psychologically used to the constant single-servings of bliss/pleasure that comes with a consumerist society, and as a result will not want to put forth the laborious and sometimes insipid effort required to educate themselves. 3. Not have any experiences with calm or rational discussion and subsequently will regress to the "My group is right, you're group is wrong, and anybody who disagrees with me is an idiot" mentality that seems to dominate most debates. It's not that I don't think we can make a better society, I just have doubts about our ability to change the ones we currently have. It may be necessary for similarly-minded people to create a new society from the foundation up. Of course in a world without a frontier, all the habitable land is controlled by one faction or another... |
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The first weapon is knowledge.
Agreed. I think a solid knowledge of, and open-discussions on, history, psychology, and other cultures would form a great foundation for an anarchist education system. These things, more than anything else, tend to show the fallacies of hate-mongering, aggressive foreign policies, masked politicians, and other tools of the state. We're at least a generation away from a critical mass people being able to handle that gun.
You are way more optimistic than me, my friend. When I look at the world, I see a vast, escalating, and ever-growing system of dumbed-down education, authoritarian indoctrination, debt slavery, blind collectivism, media-based psychological moulding, and an over-indulged sense that our actions provide only short-term benefits and no long-term consequences. Even the very purveyors of the modern mass mentality seem to be succumbing to it; puppets controlling puppets. Money has replaced military-might and divine-right as the basis of power, and money is fed from consumers. Everything that is happening to the mass populace is an unconscious but collective effort by those who have money to make those who don't have money into better consumers. There are still too many fatasses in my generation and the one before it looking for freebies and protection from the State. The trade-off is that they remain ignorant of the depravity of the State that feeds them.
It amazes me how many people think the state is actually there to help and protect them (or how many people think that different political parties enact anything but slightly different policies). Politicians and autocrats alike were bought out by corporations a long time ago. Now government is just a way for corporations with political power to serve their own interests, screw over their competitors, manipulate public opinion, direct blame towards foreign entities, and manage the populace via division and misinformation. |
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But what about regular people?
Did you watch the video? If multiple private security firms with similar consumer pools were to open in the same area, competition would inevitably occur. One of the most basic ways to defeat your competitors is to offer lower prices. Let's assume (as is most often the case) that this price reduction has a compounding effect and all security firms in the area subsequently charge less. What happens when the profit margin becomes too low, and the various firms can no longer sustain their pro bono work? Additionally, organizations such as the one in the video are examples of institutionalized power. The problem with institutionalized power, is that who is in control of it changes over the decades. It is not far-fetched to wonder what will happen when men of less moral caliber come into control of the organization. It cannot be expected that the populace will be able to see corrupt men for what they are (just look at what the smiling faces and silver tongues are able to get away with in Washington), and it cannot be expected that they will be able to do anything about it even if they did see behind the masks. As was said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men". IMO if an anarchistic society is to work, each citizen would need to have the ability to defend themselves and have access to a multitude of weapons. Contrary to popular belief, all citizens having power does not necessarily mean that all citizens will abuse power. In my experience, people only abuse power over others if they think that they are above the consequences of their actions or if they think that their actions will not be discovered. History has shown time after time that when power is held only by one small group of people, that group becomes increasingly corrupt as their power masses. A society in which each citizen is powerful is the only way I can see anarchy working. |
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PM received and 1.2 BTC sent to your address waiting for $ 115 on my paypal.
I didn't send you any PMs bro It showed you as offline so I figured i'd just wait till later when you were back Sorry I posted on wrong thread. np |
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PM received and 1.2 BTC sent to your address waiting for $ 115 on my paypal.
I didn't send you any PMs bro It showed you as offline so I figured i'd just wait till later when you were back |
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traded w/ bdub, everything went smoothly
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Welcome to the new normal.
^ this |
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But as serious weapon 3D printing is not practical.
At the moment. 3D printing is a rapidly advancing technology. These files are already out there and hundreds of thousands of computers. Not to even mention how many torrents or 3rd party server downloads have been created for them as well. I think this is more for show than anything else (kind of like the megaupload fiasco), they just want to kick somebody in the balls and scare everybody else involved. |
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Why am I paying a professor to tell me to study, when I can study on my own, tell myself to study (or get a friend to do it,) and get the same experience? Why this dependency on an outside force (which just happens to be under the thumb of a higher power) when every resource is there?
Because then they give you a piece of paper that will nearly fully define your worth at most job interviews. Seems modern day college is nothing more than a debt trap.
That's because it is. I've learned more from self-education than I ever have from public schooling or my current college. Aside from college, k-12 is more for indoctrination and mental reliance than actual education. |
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as this technology progresses it will be covered more and more by the media. they'll use fear tactics to promote regulation on it and then eventually (after a major crime is committed with a printed weapon) they'll probably use it as an excuse to ban the technology (atleast for non-corporate use). Good luck enforcing that ban.  ya, bans didn't work well for alcohol and now drugs. i'm worried more that it will hold back the technology. i mean look at how far 3d printing has progressed just in the last few years, think where it'll be 30-40 years from now if it remains unhindered. if it keeps advancing at its current rate, it's entirely possible that a 3d printer could become a household item and revolutionize how we buy products. who knows what the future will hold, but its a technology with so much potential. i'd hate to have its advancement stopped by something as silly as big brother protection. |
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step 1: spend more step 2: tax more step 3: go back to step 1 the u.s. government spends itself into near financial collapse, then uses budget cuts and subsequent job losses as a fear-tactic to raise taxes (even though their budget actually grew this year so they shouldn't have had to cut anything). every year our economy grows more and more dependent on the government and central economic planning. not to mention anybody who speaks out against it is labeled as a naive nutjob who doesn't want to pay for the 'roads' they use. |
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as this technology progresses it will be covered more and more by the media. they'll use fear tactics to promote regulation on it and then eventually (after a major crime is committed with a printed weapon) they'll probably use it as an excuse to ban the technology (atleast for non-corporate use).
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Get your hands on the good stuff, did we?  ^ |
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