Quote Originally Posted by andy-akb View Post
Only read your first post, so sorry if any of this has already been said and responded to.

The problem with anarchy is essentially the game theory issue of collusion. Collusion only works when all sides keep their share of the bargain. If 4 companies control a market and agree to keep their prices high, then that is the best long term solution for them [disregarding a ton of intricacies about which is a better company, etc.]. If one company gets greedy and says "I will lower the price on my products so that everybody buys from me" then the other companies will have to react by lowering theirs even more which will keep driving the cost down.

In a society it is a similar concept. If you start with anarchy, a state of nature with no rules or organizations, it simply cannot be sustained and would collapse much faster than collusion in a business environment. This is because this state of nature is NOT the best solution for most people, so what would happen is the weak would get together in numbers and form groups that would create and enforce rules to protect them from being exploited by the strong. This is basically how we got into our current situation, we started in a state of nature with no rules, but then when the weak realized it sucked for them, they got together and broke away from the system which in turn brought the entire system [or lack thereof] down.
I'm having trouble understanding this argument. First, I'm not sure what your saying with the collusion point in regards to businesses. If your saying that companies have the ability to take advantage of consumers through collusion, I honestly disagree. I understand that monopolies are a very well defined concept of economics and that I'm really going against the grain here. But lets say we have a company that is a total monopoly, like phone service and AT&T in the 80's (right?). Lets say instead of the government getting involved, people said fuck this, I'm not going to use my phone you tyrannical piece of shit. And lets say everyone in the country did this. AT&T would go out of business right? I'm not talking about the power of collusion here, I'm talking about collective consciousness, collective values. Why in God's name are you supporting a phone service that is not serving you well? Now if people go "wait wait, fuck this their taking advantage of me. The government should stop them." I think your being a pussy about your values and your will. Today I was in the computer lab and some asshole was chit chatting about bull shit. I went up to him and said "shut up" politely. He obliged. I used my own knowledge and actions to rectify the situation. Now if I go up to the computer lab supervisor and go "enforce your authority, tell him to quiet down." I'm simply someone who can't take care of himself. I think its important that I learn how to deal with this situation than have someone else do it for me.

About the 2nd part, what do you mean by weak? Weak in what way?

On a further point, I also think you are giving way too much credit to the rationality of most people's decision making process. People do not constantly evaluate their decisions in light of their consequences. How many people do you know with horrible attitudes that just constantly bitch about how things cannot go right, but yet never change what they do. Most people are like this to some extent. People do not litter because they do not want the river to be clean, they litter because they are lazy or just dont care. Motives cannot be deduced by just looking at results, because most people do not evaluate their actions by their results and the results that do come about are often unintended.
Yes, I do agree with you. Some people are stupid and lazy and are bad at learning. I know tons of people with horrible attitudes who never change. But if the solution is these people need to be taken care of and told what to do, kill me now. I'd at least like to be heading in the right direction of learning and evolving as human beings rather than stagnating and becoming drones.