Maybe I should also mention on my profile I’m a utilitarian. Exaggerating one deleterious aspect of coal-mining in order to push the public perception of the practice as a whole in the appropriate* direction seems pretty trifling next to parasitic corruption dominating an entire economy, at least in my book. It’s bad to the extent that it backfires. Oh, and to the extent that it harms respect for truth, but hey, we’re in a never-ending war on terror, remember, and we all know who the first casualty was; this century, all public discourse is irretrievably tainted with bullshit.
*to our long-term survival
Oh, and if you imagine anarchists are more likely to be sociopathic, that betrays a rather superficial understanding of a significant chunk of political philosophy. You know all the really useful and surprising emergent properties of the worldwide web, right? You can give most of your thanks to the principle of anarchy. Think of it as bottom-up organisation as opposed to top-down. Now go and look at how the Universe works.
And you know who ends up running top-down systems? Sociopaths.
The challenge posed by anarchists: define ‘legitimate authority’ without making me laugh.
You need some Chomsky up ya.
Also, since you’re prepared to repeat ridiculous comments by folks you apparently think resemble me, perhaps you’d find this helpful - that is, if you’re not just oozing Boltian disingenuity.
