Why I am Basically an Anarchist

[wufwugy]

wuf your post was very long and ill just respond to things that I feel like i strongly disagreed.

"Yes, the private organization can regulate, and it does, a lot. The problem with governance exclusively coming from a private organization (special interest) is that it governs in its own best interest, not the populous' best interests."

Its own best interests better damn be the populous' best interest or they aren't getting any of populous' money.

This is refuted by the myriads of oppressed peoples governed by special interests. Also, just take the whole housing crisis as an example. This entire thing is a fantastic example of special interests exploiting the system and screwing the populous. Part of how the banks did this was by pretending to give the public something they valued. As it turns out, it was a lie, and in fact it was such a lie that we got double fucked by having to support those very same special interests in order to keep the entire system from collapsing. They basically ran off with our money then came back with big ass guns they bought with our money telling us that they need more money and on top of that that which we bought from them systematically lost so much value as to put us into more negative territory than if we'd never bought it in the first place

The Crisis of 08 and the Great Recession are extremely great examples of how private interests exploit the system when allowed unregulated reign.

Why pay an organization to do something that you don't support? Oh right, because its the law to pay the government tax money to do x,y, and z, much of which I don't support

There's a lot the government does that I disagree with a ton, but you're conflating issues and throwing the baby out with the bathwater by claiming that government doing something wrong = government wrong

It seems to me the simply doing whatever it is is going to make the organization money should be what the people who are giving that money to the organization value.

And this is how private industry operates, and it fucks a whole lot of people over due to exacerbating inequalities. We live in a world with a billion people starving everyday, yet there is more than ample supply to feed them. Following the money and private interests will reveal why these people live on less than 1$ a day.

"What I would like to say though is this: I want to have a wife, but I also don't want to have a wife. I want to have a family, but I also don't want a family. There are many things that I want, but many of them do not support each other, and I could go to great length explaining the reasons and pros/cons for my desires, yet I still have little clue as to what I 'really want' with regards to these decisions."

I think I went too far from my original argument with the post that this was commenting on. All I'm saying is I don't think something should happen for the benefit or non-benefit of an individual unless that individual performed the actions that created those consequences.

I completely agree, yet the fucked up thing is that reality itself is geared towards inequality, and not regulating this creates a social paradigm where some humans are born into rich upper class and others are born in Liberia. It is disingenuous to suggest that people should not get things they don't deserve yet support a perpetuation of a society that distributes resources unequally thus giving people things they don't deserve.

So we will just agree to disagree here. I don't believe that.

What, then, is your starting point, your most basic of assumptions with regards to humanity and civilization.

[IowaSkinsFan]

This is refuted by the myriads of oppressed peoples governed by special interests. Also, just take the whole housing crisis as an example. This entire thing is a fantastic example of special interests exploiting the system and screwing the populous. Part of how the banks did this was by pretending to give the public something they valued. As it turns out, it was a lie, and in fact it was such a lie that we got double fucked by having to support those very same special interests in order to keep the entire system from collapsing. They basically ran off with our money then came back with big ass guns they bought with our money telling us that they need more money and on top of that that which we bought from them systematically lost so much value as to put us into more negative territory than if we'd never bought it in the first place

I think this is a fantastic victimization of the American people. Banks pretended to give the public something of value? Thats the problem? The problem is that people got loans they could not pay. How they ended up getting those loans or why they decided to is their responsibility. If you feel like the populous can be that easily manipulated and shouldn't be responsible for making decisions like whether or not they can afford "x" house, than I totally understand why you would think the government is a total necessity.

And this is how private industry operates, and it fucks a whole lot of people over due to exacerbating inequalities. We live in a world with a billion people starving everyday, yet there is more than ample supply to feed them. Following the money and private interests will reveal why these people live on less than 1$ a day.

I'm really glad you brought this point up because I think its a great example of the collective results of peoples values. I think the reason people are starving everyday is because other people don't value everyone in the world having enough food to eat. Let me ask you this: Do you donate money to a fund or organization that in some way helps create a world where everyone has enough to eat? Maybe you do, and thats great. Do you work for an organization that does that? I assume no but then again I wouldn't expect a lot of people to.

What are these "exacerbating inequalities" you speak of? If your referring to money: How do you think the CEO of Big Screen TV's got rich? It's because people not only value Big Screen TV's, they valued the producers of those big screen TV, they valued the CEO. If they were totally ignorant about it, I just don't see why we should reward their idiocy. Money means a shitload more than people think it does. Its not some evil symbol. Money is a direct representation of your values. i.e. I chose to spend a lot of money on clothes, because I value clothes. A man decides to devout his time and give his money to a church because he values the church. Now to say that a man does not give his time and effort to putting food on a starving mans plate, but he does value it? That doesn't make any sense to me. The solution to world hunger is in the hands of the people. Now lets say some rich people do not care that others that are starving are fed: Do we force them to support this cause?

I completely agree, yet the fucked up thing is that reality itself is geared towards inequality, and not regulating this creates a social paradigm where some humans are born into rich upper class and others are born in Liberia. It is disingenuous to suggest that people should not get things they don't deserve yet support a perpetuation of a society that distributes resources unequally thus giving people things they don't deserve.

Yes I agree. Why should Wal-Mart pay massive taxes to support people who have not earned as much money by giving them tax refunds? Please explain where resources are being unequally distributed, and I'll tell you my likely answer to your response before hand so we aren't wasting any time. I am betting that this "inequal distribution," the people being "exploited," are responsible for their exploitation. Tell me that they did not make the decisions that created this "inequality."

If you value a society that doesn't have a rich upper class because some people are born into it to inherit riches, I can think of many ways without a government you can help make this happen. One would be to shop at all Mom and Pop stores. And don't just choose one, choose a multitude of them. If you buy one brand of paper towels one day, by a different one the other day. Distribute the wealth.

[wufwugy]

I think our main disagreement comes from level of cause you put on the individual's shoulders vs the level of cause I put on the system's shoulders

I think this is a fantastic victimization of the American people. Banks pretended to give the public something of value? Thats the problem? The problem is that people got loans they could not pay. How they ended up getting those loans or why they decided to is their responsibility. If you feel like the populous can be that easily manipulated and shouldn't be responsible for making decisions like whether or not they can afford "x" house, than I totally understand why you would think the government is a total necessity.

That isn't quite how it went down. The system itself worked against the populous, and this system was devised by the banks. There was legit worth in those products for the time, and the people buying them couldn't not pay them because the system told them that the value of their purchase was high enough. Some of this was directly predatory lies from the banks, others was cascading effects based on how economics works.

Later, you say that money has value, but do you realize that money is the exact same thing as the products of the housing bubble? If someday the USD were to enter into hyperinflation and all your money becomes as valuable as the paper its written on, am I allowed to come over and tell you that it was your mistake to not have expert level understanding of finances, economics, political science, and the inter-workings of the current political governing bodies in order to see this coming so you could have exchanged your USD for some other currency or commodity?

Maybe you would say 'yes', but do you think it is reasonable to think that the population as a whole could actually operate on that level? One of the reasons that we actually even have a working civilization is hierarchy. Humans are not different than any other animals, you can't expect those lower on the hierarchy to be as skilled or knowledgeable or well-off as those higher up. It appears that you want the entire hive of worker bees to be responsible for being queen bees, but if that actually happened then the hive would cease to exist because the civilization would not function.

The housing bubble was a systematic exploitation of the populous. Just like we're told that in several years time the USD will have such and such value, we were told by the same people that housing prices were skyrocketing so much and were going to do for so long that they would pay for themselves, would pay for retirement.

The working class of the US did not buy all these homes because they're stupid, they bought them because they heard the investment was TREMENDOUS, they went to the banking authorities (the people who actually know about this shit, right) and were told that the investment was TREMENDOUS and the banks were happy to lend the money because the return was going to be more than ample to pay it off, and would be just that excellent. These are average working class folk who do not understand the intricacies of economics and really shouldn't be expected to on some level given that their role in society is different. Just like how you don't expect a banker to know how to install a plumbing system or write code for software, you can't expect the working class to know the ins and outs of the economic system.

On top of that, just looking at what the banks did with the loans shows that they had no intention for them to retain value, yet this was all in secret. They were all essentially shoved into a vault, no oversight to stop this, and when the system came crashing down it was structured in such a way that the populous had to pay for it again. I mean dude, none of these loans didn't have tremendous value at the time. It was only when the bubble that the banks purposely created could no longer be supported by the vault that it burst and everything began losing its manufactured value. Also, finances and economics is largely about manufactured value. The entire system itself does not operate so much on real value like many would like to think, but on inflating or deflating particular numbers in order to create a desired effect. Finances is largely a numbers manipulation game, and it goes wrong when the numbers are manipulated to screw some people like they were since the passage of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 which allowed for the system to support a housing bubble

I'm really glad you brought this point up because I think its a great example of the collective results of peoples values. I think the reason people are starving everyday is because other people don't value everyone in the world having enough food to eat. Let me ask you this: Do you donate money to a fund or organization that in some way helps create a world where everyone has enough to eat? Maybe you do, and thats great. Do you work for an organization that does that? I assume no but then again I wouldn't expect a lot of people to.

What are these "exacerbating inequalities" you speak of? If your referring to money: How do you think the CEO of Big Screen TV's got rich? It's because people not only value Big Screen TV's, they valued the producers of those big screen TV, they valued the CEO. If they were totally ignorant about it, I just don't see why we should reward their idiocy. Money means a shitload more than people think it does. Its not some evil symbol. Money is a direct representation of your values. i.e. I chose to spend a lot of money on clothes, because I value clothes. A man decides to devout his time and give his money to a church because he values the church. Now to say that a man does not give his time and effort to putting food on a starving mans plate, but he does value it? That doesn't make any sense to me. The solution to world hunger is in the hands of the people. Now lets say some rich people do not care that others that are starving are fed: Do we force them to support this cause?

I'd rather not get into much of this other than say: you're assuming it's reasonable to expect populations to work in reasoned harmony based in arbitrary values (which itself is a contradiction). While that's a nice assumption, it's just not how reality works. If you want a society that reflects people's ability to make value judgments you'll find a pretty poorly functioning society

I don't really disagree with you under a certain kind of hypothetical, but my contention is purely from the pragmatic perspective of what happens in real society.

Yes I agree. Why should Wal-Mart pay massive taxes to support people who have not earned as much money by giving them tax refunds? Please explain where resources are being unequally distributed, and I'll tell you my likely answer to your response before hand so we aren't wasting any time. I am betting that this "inequal distribution," the people being "exploited," are responsible for their exploitation. Tell me that they did not make the decisions that created this "inequality."

Are you arguing that resources are not distributed unequally? Maybe look at what historians believe to be the primary cause of war.....

Is there no unequal distribution of resources between a child born to Warren Buffet vs a child born to a Zimbabwean? How about between a child born mentally gifted vs a child born with downs? How about the difference between an ISF who came across the path of online poker and now makes tons of money vs a random person who, per chance, never really came across online poker and statistically ended up in a 9-5er the majority of the time?

If you value a society that doesn't have a rich upper class because some people are born into it to inherit riches, I can think of many ways without a government you can help make this happen. One would be to shop at all Mom and Pop stores. And don't just choose one, choose a multitude of them. If you buy one brand of paper towels one day, by a different one the other day. Distribute the wealth.

This type of thing does not happen on the large scale of populations. On the individual level it's nice, but individual != population. And it's not that a collective of individuals cannot act in harmony this way, but that that's just not how the entirely different paradigm of society on the level of populations works. Just like how I initially explained why anarchy does not work; it's not that it's hypothetically impossible, but that it doesn't work on a systematic level for humankind

And I didn't say I didn't value a society without a rich upper class. Any well-functioning society has hierarchy which involves the wealthy.

[sarbox68]

Later, you say that money has value, but do you realize that money is the exact same thing as the products of the housing bubble? If someday the USD were to enter into hyperinflation and all your money becomes as valuable as the paper its written on, am I allowed to come over and tell you that it was your mistake to not have expert level understanding of finances, economics, political science, and the inter-workings of the current political governing bodies in order to see this coming so you could have exchanged your USD for some other currency or commodity?

But the level of complexity is nowhere near the same. Expecting someone to predict long-term currency volatility is not in same neighborhood as expecting somebody to think through some very basic, financial decisions before they commit to a massive, discretionary obligation. Whether someone thought leveraging something they couldn't qualify for if they had to prove their income, could only afford to contribute 2-3% of their own money to, and could only justify the decision on the bet that the value will increase ahead of their need to take out another loan are not issues that go over the heads of the populous. They chose to do it anyway because of our fundamental cultural character trait of material greed.

I believe you'll argue (because you have previously) that you cannot fault the middle class for purusing a standard of living beyond their means, and that that absolves (or at least, justifies) their self-destructive behaviors associated with debt, lack of savings and gross over-leverage. We can argue that point separately, but if you are correct, then I would argue that that represents a fatal flaw in our manifestation of a middle class, and one that contributes as much as anything to the inability of that middle class to self sustain. It also is frequently the key factor that determines who progresses to the next economic level -- and barring lottery winnings, inheritance and other outliers, it's frequently those who shun non-productive leverage, living and investing within their means, and purusing productive risk who make it.