TronCat

That is such an important point to make - thus why I am so unsure of Anti-statism/Voluntaryism - I think it is naive. In order to have freedom, we must fight for it, and protect it. Violence will be necessary in this battle, forever.

'Social pressure' has always existed, and violence has been an important part of our evolution as a species. Stefan seems to be against violence qua violence, which smacks of intrinsicism. Violence is a morally neutral concept - it's only when we take into account of why it's being used and the circumstances involved does it become something to be praised or condemned.

States are bigger and more intrinsically 'coercive' than they've ever been, and Stefan agrees with this.

THE biggest subject Stef deals with is parenting, as he suggests that bad parenting (or more specifically - violent and abusive parenting) is the reason for most, if not all, violence and aggression in the world. Stef is arguing for the 'blank slate'; that the mind has no innate traits, and that people are born 'good' or 'innocent', and are corrupted by society and culture. When Stef gets into his dogmatic 'Parent Mode', he becomes a typical speaker for the Parenting Industrial Complex. Here is a representative quote from a beseiged mother: "I'm overwhelmed with parenting advice. I'm supposed to do lots of physical activity with my kids so I can instill in them a physical fitness habit so they'll grow up to be healthy adults. And I'm supposed to do all kinds of intellectual play so they'll grow up smart. And there are all kinds of play - clay for finger dexterity, word games for reading success, large motor-play, small motor-play. I feel like I could devote my life to figure out what to play with my kids." Most studies of parenting are useless; they are useless because they do not control for heritability They measure some correlation between what the parents do, how the children turn out, and assume a causal relation that the parenting 'shaped' the child -- they may say things like parents who talk a lot to their kids may have kids that grow up to be articulate, or parents who spank their kids may have kids that grow up to be violent, and so on. Very few of them control for the possibility that parents pass on genes that increase the chances their child will have particular traits, like being articulate, or being violent, and so on. Stefan has also made a bold claim that abusing ones child can not only make them more violent, but it can lower their IQ. IQ can be lowered by many things (including neglect and abuse). However, it does not follow from the fact that group X and Y have average differences in IQ, and that Z causes average differences, that Z is the principle cause of the difference between X and Y (as there are a myriad of other possible causes). Let us consider the IQ differences in the White, Black, and Asian populations of America. When Socioeconomic status is controlled for, there is still a 12 point IQ gap between Blacks and Whites. SAT scores are a good proxy for IQ (because they strongly correlate with both IQ tests and the general intelligence factor). Blacks whose families earn more than $200,000 a year have SAT scores lower than whites whose families earn under $20,000 a year. High SES families have very low rates of abuse and neglect, so this would seem especially unlikely to be an underlying cause of average differences. Furthermore, in transracial adoption studies where Blacks, Whites, and Asians were raised by white middle class families, by age 18 the same gaps in IQ were found. This again makes it highly unlikely that differences in rates of abuse/neglect would be the underlying cause of IQ gaps. There is something else I have noticed - Whenever Stefan goes into the topic of parenting, he consistently brings up the percentage of parents that do 'spank' their kids, which he says is around 90%. Now, regardless of the legitimacy of that statistic, Stefan also continuously acknowledges that the world is becoming generally less violent over time (to suggest that people are becoming more 'moral'), and there is truth to this. Now, this does not follow, as Stefan's suggestion that the majority of parents who spank their children is reason for the insane violence in the world contradicts the fact that the world has become less violent. Does Stefan ever question where 'aggression' and 'violence' originate in our species? Because I am quite sure that the firct act of aggression by a homo sapien was not influenced by the supposed 'sin' of being beaten as a child, it was a natural action in a world to take advantage of - it is our nature. 'Violence' and aggression are in our biology, they are a natural part of our evolution - they are NOT social contructs.

because it's the only one left to be disregarded? But it doesn't follow with the analysis that the reason for disregarding all these other immoral institutions over time was because of the 'morality' of people getting better - if that argument were consistent, statism would not be such a problem today, but it is - more so than ever.

As you point out, the fundamental drive to exploit and dominate hasn't gone away. It has just been channeled from some strategies and structures to others. The key question is "Can that fundamental drive be reduced to the point of triviality?" Stef's theory seems to be that yes it can since it only comes about due to bad parenting and that, with healthy parenting, hardly anyone would have such a drive. My understanding is that such a drive is one of the main forces, along with cooperation, driving evolution and we'll always have to accede to its existence and develop structures that are inherently able to keep such forces in a healthy, sustainable balance. Exactly. Life is cyclical, and what has come to pass must come again. Fooling oneself into believing that history is linear with utopia at the end stems from cowardice and fear of nature and the inevitable future.

Stefan's thesis seems to go like this... Humanity has 'disregarded' a number of 'immoral' institutitons and ideas, thus society is becoming more moral, therefore society will eventually 'disregard' statism. But, if the suggestion that society is becoming more 'moral' follows with the observation that we have disregarded a number of 'immoral' institutions and ideas, why is statism much more a problem today than it has ever been? I do not agree with Stefan that humanity is becoming more 'moral', but rather humanity is becoming more clever.

I see what you did there... Too bad this does not address the actual point of this thread.

You seem to be conflating "staying good" with 'not taking advantage'. In an AnCap society, there may be incentives to 'stay good', but there is no way of absolutely maintaining that institutions (or other states, people, etc) not eventually take advantage. Communism as Marx established is stateless, and if the people were a 'moral' and 'altruistic' people, it could be argued by a Marxist that it could function and sustain itself. This assumes that people will ever see government as "immoral and evil" - While we have disregarded numerous institutions and theories, our nature does cannot be disregarded, and statism itself has never been disregarded, so making the assumption that we can 'get over it' as those other theories is not certain; it is naive optimism.

Okay, regarding the "moral revolution" argument that you guys tend to use to suggest that some day, Statism will be overcome by a "moral revolution", like how we got over slavery. The problem with this is that it doesn't take into consideration that the more intelligent we become, the more intelligent functions of violence can be developed - we may 'get over' primitive forms of violence like slavery, but this does not mean a new form of violence cannot be created by an even more intelligent people. I do not believe as Stefan that humanity becomes more 'moral' over time, but rather humanity becomes more clever.

The only proposed society which IS based on moral principles is AnCap, so you really can't say the same about "any society" imo. What I meant was that a proponent for any kind of society will argue that their system can work if most everyone agrees to it and acts 'morally'; Marxists will argue that if everyone were 'altruists', then a Marxist society could work. And this is more so about sustainability, not function. That's also the reason why government come to be in the first place. Neither do I remember a point in history where violence and coercion were not used in some way, shape, or form. Pointing out that we have gotten rid of some 'immoral' institutions in the past does not mean the innate nature of our species will be overcome by an even grander "moral revolution".

But Stefan clearly does this with Minarchism.

But the question is; succeed at what? Purely functioning, or sustaining itself? I think something like Anarcho-Capitalism could exist and function, but I do not believe it will ultimately sustain itself.

As an appeal to history, the argument doesn't work for anarchism. I'm sure Stef and other anti-statists will suggest that in order for an Anarchist society to be 'stable', it must be of a moral people, but the same could be said for just about any proposed society.

Usually when arguing against Minarchists, or 'limited government' Libertarians on the sustainability of their preferred states, Stef and other Anarchists/Anti-Statists will sometimes say that "There has been no government in history that has stayed limited." Well, to be fair, there has been no Anarchic society in history that has stayed Anarchic. To critique Minarchism in this way would be to assert that if an Anarchist/Voluntaryist society were to ever be, it would not eventually become a state.