Social Contract Theorists: This is why we can't have successful dissidents.

[Anonymous]

I would be quite pleased with your attitude of "If you don't like it leave." if there was any way to leave. The wealth has been concentrated in the hands of one central system; the central banks, if you will. The wealth does not leave the gates below because of strict mandates over force and currency control.

Again, there is nowhere to leave to in the first-world. Viewing the exile of oneself to the slums of this gambit as a solution to the dissident problem is hardly a rational perspective.

The elites have pretty much formed a zero-sum game. Are you proud of this?

[epi 1:10,000]

This is a very valid criticism of the Lockean social contract.  It is one which Rawls, if imperfectly, addresses with his original position, reflective equilibrium, and overlapping consensus.  This creates a new definition of social contract that recognizes that one cannot just easily return to a state of nature.  Under this construct the impact and justification of projected military and legal power could be another question entirely: but one could easily postulate that a group in the original position would not want such a hypothetical projection of power as it could be argued that it would lead to an inequitable world.  That is to say one could see how a Lockean social contract could lead to this wealth and power concentration but not necessarily in a Rawlsian social contract.

[lemonginger]

This would be okay if the philosophy you were espousing wasn't going to intensify and increase these disparities.

w/rt to social contracts or a lack thereof

"We are all androgynous, not only because we are all born of a woman impregnated by the seed of a man but because each of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other -- male in female, female in male, white in black and black in white. We are a part of each other. Many of my countrymen appear to find this fact exceedingly inconvenient and even unfair, and so, very often, do I. But none of us can do anything about it."

(James Baldwin)

[AyeYo]

LOL  I guess the future rulers of the world (the Chinese) didn't get your memo.

[enmaku]

The elites have pretty much formed a zero-sum game.

I agree with the concept of your post, but I'm honestly tired of seeing this term. It's not that it's being misused or even overused, it's that it should be obvious to everyone involved that every (physical) thing on this blue-green rock is part of a zero sum game. I don't see anyone bringing back resources from Mars just yet and I can't move away from Earth to live on Titan or something. If you have something, your ownership of it removes the ability of others to own it. This is why the computers and the internet are REALLY revolutionary - we're beginning to make ideas more tangible. If I have an idea and I share it with you, I've lost nothing and now you have something you didn't before.

In other words, things that we apply the "zero sum game" terms to are only zero-sum because we've erected imaginary walls (see what I did there?) around the concept as though it were free from outside influence. Atoms do not spontaneously come into or leave existence so if it exists as a physical object it HAS to be zero-sum in one way or another. Maybe this is why we're all flocking to digital currency, we realize on some level that the ideals we hold can only be executed in a non-zero-sum world and so we happily move as much as we can away from the physical world to make our ideals reality.

[LastBattle]

LOL  I guess the future rulers of the world (the Chinese) didn't get your memo.

I was unaware that the Chinese were a single organism.

Most Chinese are dirt poor. I believe you are referring to the Communist Party, and they are sufficiently incompetent to lose their power sooner or later, anyway.

There aren't any future rulers of the world barring something coming completely out of left field. The fascists in power are going down the toilet, and that includes the corporatist ones (the US, Japan), the socialist ones (Eurozone) and the honest ones (China). If things continue the way they are going now, there won't be any superpowers in about 10-20 years.

[kylesaisgone]

Last I heard, people were buying land in places like Africa and paying contractors to defend it for them. Just don't go to Zimbabwe, Mugabe doesn't like it when white people own African land.

[SgtSpike]

If there WERE a place to go, what would it look like?  A lawless society, or a place of complete aloneness?  Because other than land ruled by established governments, I see no other options.

[Anonymous]

If there WERE a place to go, what would it look like?  A lawless society, or a place of complete aloneness?  Because other than land ruled by established governments, I see no other options.

We're not in a land of established governments nor truly sovereign bodies. In such a land, true competition between these states would emerge -- a competition to determine true prosperity. Individuals would get to truly choose their governments, from a large selection. Not puppets run by the elite who control the money.

[SgtSpike]

If there WERE a place to go, what would it look like?  A lawless society, or a place of complete aloneness?  Because other than land ruled by established governments, I see no other options.

We're not in a land of established governments nor truly sovereign bodies. In such a land, true competition between these states would emerge -- a competition to determine true prosperity. Individuals would get to truly choose their governments, from a large selection. Not puppets run by the elite who control the money.

Except... we are?  Isn't that what you just got through saying in your OP - there is no place to go that isn't already covered by an existing government?

[em3rgentOrdr]

If there WERE a place to go, what would it look like?  A lawless society, or a place of complete aloneness?  Because other than land ruled by established governments, I see no other options.

We're not in a land of established governments nor truly sovereign bodies. In such a land, true competition between these states would emerge -- a competition to determine true prosperity. Individuals would get to truly choose their governments, from a large selection. Not puppets run by the elite who control the money.

Except... we are?  Isn't that what you just got through saying in your OP - there is no place to go that isn't already covered by an existing government?

Back in the old days, it was relatively easy for one to travel between "countries".  No we have all this visa and passport crap to deal with.