Yes, that would be sad. Sorry if that seems to be the case. It might be because you sometimes put things in universal all or nothing terms. I personally try to avoid making all-inclusive blanket statements. Perhaps this comes down to differences in opinions, or merely communication styles.
Hardly! The left version might be something like: “For the good of your fellow people, please submit yourself willingly to this only negligibly unfair system, and we promise that nobody will take advantage of you.”, while the right version could be: “This is the natural order as interpreted by us, but if you work hard enough and kiss up, we’ll let you hold the whip for a while.” What I meant was that no large-scale solution will ever be fair. So striving for a popular form of emancipation believed in by millions holds the seeds of its own demise. The largest groups which can handle direct democracy have a population of several thousand at most. Anything larger has a significant demographic as captives, taken along for the ride.
By crypto-country I mean using network technology to offer a system for anybody to register any group they need. Not unlike how crypto-currencies can be used to decentralize money. With countries, traditionally, they are “recognized” by using force to control a geography, and a population. Then they offer their authority to “recognize” kinds of families, currencies, corporations, etc which they feel further their interests. If I try to marry three people, they refuse. If I try to devise a company which is not a financial entity in their sense, they refuse. If I try to draft a town charter with a non-hierarchic structure, they refuse. So the idea is to recognize the legitimacy of people to create their own social organizations without government interference. Such charters are limited by size and impact. If they grow beyond a certain size, they dissolve or split, like amoebas. A reputation system can work towards maintaining feedback based upon influence, coercion, and ecological footprint. This means that you can do whatever you like, provided that those you are doing it with agree, and inverse to the amount that it affects other people. It also reduces any incentive to coerce others, because your freedom to mind your own business is dependent upon recognizing the same for others. Such groups could be families, trade syndicates, thinktanks, city states, or practically anything else. They could be seen as “feeds” or subscriptions where a person might be a member of anywhere between zero to hundreds of such groups.
I have had guns pointed at me. Sometimes I have been carted away. Sometimes I have left them looking through the alley to find where their gun went. Sometimes I have simply explained that I am unarmed, and asked if they thought that shooting an unarmed person was a brave thing to do.
My perspective on what sort of power this may demonstrate is a bit philosophical. I think that guns are not a matter of essential power, but rather an attempt at control. The tricky consideration is whether a person who strives to control another truly has control even over themselves. Someone fighting over a social role, territory, property, or even their desire to survive - is mostly a slave to their instincts. They hardly even control their own life, never mind mine. And I cannot truly control my life or decisions if I worry about people killing me over them. And honestly, some people have tried in earnest to get rid of me. Even if I need to decide between obeying others or being killed - this is a choice I can make instead of having it made for me. And it has never come to that. The short version is that when people can be made to fear for their lives, they can be coerced into doing anything, and they are. This is why the masses allow themselves to be kept in check by police, despite vastly outnumbering them. Everybody can rush them to take their town back - but somebody might be killed - and they each selfishly hope that it won’t be them, so nobody does anything!
I am not encouraging reckless or risky behavior. Not having a desire or instinct to survive doesn’t mean that you can’t, and live a long, wonderful life. It just means that you have taken control over the impulse. This enables a person to choose their priorities and assess their risks consciously, with full participation. And also to more fully consider their agency as a living person, and how it can be compromised. If you can’t direct your life and make meaningful decisions, how much “life” does that leave you with? And how much can you afford to bide your time before it is wasted?
Mostly, in daily life, it is a matter of not letting people “push your buttons”. Companies and government have done a lot of research into how to manipulate people’s pleasure and terror centers to elicit desired behaviors. Survival panic if you “buy into” the wrong headlines, orgasms if you vote right or buy a certain thing. It’s hardly surprising that most people worry a lot or feel manipulated. But rewards and punishments are very simplistic motivations, such conditionings can be avoided or bypassed with some clarity and willingness to confront your deepest motivations.
It would have been a lot easier to act upon this all twenty years ago than it is now. Likewise, it might be a lot easier to act upon this now than twenty years hence.
