FiddlertheLeper

While I do believe that since we humans are social creatures, a form of social structure is in one way or another necessary to human interactions and happiness (or contentment or whatever word works best, basically I mean without sociability in the form of interacting with other humans in our environment we would all be miserable) where I disagree is the need for a kind of hierarchy that looks anything like what we have now. I think that is more of a cultural adaptation that was best suited for survival in environments where it's roots began. (if it even was) With the advent of so much new technology, and the greater potential for meaningful education with instant information sharing and the many other tools that are available to us as a species that were not when these Vertical Hierarchies began to develop, I think that any form of centralized leadership at this point in human social development is detrimental. It slows progress towards new social dynamics because the vested interest in any Vertical Hierarchy is to maintain the status-quo at least until the rulers can adapt to what ever the emerging social paradigm is, in order to maintain their position of authority. This automatically runs against the interest of the rest of the species in my mind, and also as Stefan has pointed out many times gives a place for those seeking dominance over others to aim for or go to. I think that a (truly) Free Market will give humans the basis needed for us to self organize in a more productive manner. I believe the potential of the Free Market is as limitless as the potential for human innovation, thus in a truly free market society I think the social paradigm would be in a more natural constant state of change (or evolution depending on how you look at it) and I believe this would be to the benefit of at least the majority of humankind. I see any kind of Vertical hierarchy as a kind of choke point on human innovation and progression, with the needs/desires of those in power trumping everyone else. I don't see a benefit for humankind in the kind of system, at least not a net benefit.

Signed.

I have to admit after reading the article i absolutely loved the part where John Kerry says :"It makes it much harder to govern, makes it much harder to organize people, much harder to find the common interest," said Kerry, "and that is complicated by a rise of sectarianism and religious extremism that is prepared to employ violent means to impose on other people a way of thinking and a way of living that is completely contrary to everything the United States of America has ever stood for. So we need to keep in mind what our goals are and how complicated this world is that we’re operating in." Now as someone who uses the internet a lot, i feel like the only true thing he said in that entire quote was that it makes it harder to govern. the internet makes it much easier to organize, easier to find common interest so where he gets that idea from is beyond my tiny brain. And the irony in the most militarily involved empire around saying that religious extremism is trying to employ violent means to impost their way of thinking and living on people (which of course he is saying is bad, but American Empiricism=Great!), is so beautifully hypocritical i couldn't help but laugh as i read it. ahhh gotta love them politicians right? or well... errm.. maybe at least pity them? nope still no? well hell who am i kidding politicians are the modern equivalent leeches as a medical cure for diseases or bad thoughts.

After watching Stefan's wonderful series entitled "The Trial and Death of Socrates' " I felt inspired to write an argument (as normal against our current situation with regard to the state) which became somewhat of a mirror of the material which inspired me to write it. Now I am in no way even at the level of Socrates' toes, nor can I make any honest claim to having lived, or to be currently living a life of virtue or reason. Though I do hope to set myself firmly upon the path that will lead me to live just such a life. I am hoping the greater minds than me within this community will help to point out the flaws in my logic, and the areas where my argument is weakest (as i am sure that on both counts my argument is surely guilty to one degree or another) so that I might revise it, and improve it. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to either read, or comment on this topic. If man is fallible and often illogical, immoral, and lacking wisdom, how can any construct of man (laws, government, the church, etc...) be accepted or expected to posses the very qualities men lack? And, how can we as fallible, broken, illogical and immoral men, either hope or aspire to create constructs that hold to logic, virtue (morality), wisdom, and that are not fallible or broken? How can we as men bequeath unto our creations that which we do not posses ourselves? Only through acceptance of our own lack, can we hope to allow ourselves to gain the qualities we so often espouse and praise. And yet, we devote so much of our time and energy to the attempt to improve our constructs, all the while ignoring the need for true improvement within ourselves. That which we created can only reflect that which we are, or know. We wish to, and attempt to instill in our constructs justice, virtue, benevolence, and wisdom, yet we do not first attempt to instill these standards in our own lives. If the creation reflects the creator, how then can we lay claim to surprise and betrayal at the injustices and evils that abound within our creations? If we do not first apply the standards we espouse and claim aspiration to within our own lives and actions, our creations will never be able to hold to or abide these standards. For our creations can only posses that which we give to them, and we cannot give that which we lack ourselves. If we wish our greatest construct (society) to posses these qualities, we must first acknowledge our own lack, and then strive to obtain and live by these standards in our own lives as individuals. Only if and when we accept and apply this truth, does society stand even a chance of true progress towards that which I hope and believe we desire. If we refuse the responsibility of aligning our actions, not just our words, to these standards, we forfeit our right to feel wronged or betrayed when that which we created does to us what we do in our own lives to others. And, those of us who see true, it is our duty to do that which is right. Not, in hope of reciprocity, but in accord with that which we know to be true, and that which we see to be right. We must do what is right because it is right. It is this upon which we must focus ourselves, not on the perceived gains or consequences of doing what is virtuous. We may not live to see the fruits of our labor, and may suffer unjustly for our adherence to virtue. Yet, let this never be an argument or reason for the inaction of virtue in our own lives and actions. The eventual outcome matters little, and the trials we must face upon this path even less. Virtue is both reason, and goal, let that be enough. Please, I beg you, men of reason, let that be enough.

I think you might want to re-examine some of your thoughts on this matter. While I agree that the environment is the major influence in a child's behavior, (adults as well though to at least a slightly lesser degree) the parents and their own desires, preferences, beliefs, and behavior are a fundamental part of a child's environment. And, although your right in saying it is the child who changes themselves, children naturally want to please their parents. This leads to the child changing it's behavior to suit the parent's desires or preferences, this in and of itself is not negative. But, it has a great potential to be either negative, or positive. The fundamental disconnect I see in the parent child relationship is the lack of any real involvement on behalf of the child. The child needs to have the ability to effect it's environment, and this needs to happen (for the most part) through the parents. This makes it the parents responsibility to discover, understand, and guide the child's desires, preferences, needs, and the resulting behavior, not by commanding, or punishing the child. But, through reasoning and negotiating with the child, helping the child to understand why a particular behavior is negative or another is positive. Saying parent's Can't change their children is only correct on the surface level, the reality is parent's can and do change their children everyday. The problem is that they do this in ways that is often times beneficial to the parents, while being (at least in the long run, and often times in the short term as well) negative to the child. The other problem with the argument that parents can't change their children, is it removes the responsibility for the behaviors of the child from the parents. One thing I do agree with you on fully, is that in order to help a child change a behavior that is negative, the focus needs to be not just on the behavior but on the root cause of the behavior. But, in my opinion, it remains the responsibility of the parents to guide the child's behavior towards healthy, self improvement, rather than self-destructive behavior or behavior that is harmful to others or the environment of the child. Now I do agree that the horror's of Childism in our world need to go. It is simply soul destroying and mind boggling to see the amount of hypocrisy surrounding the issue of children in our world. And, that begins with parents.

Well in my opinion, it's really hard to deal with this type of argument, because the argument itself has nothing to do with the person your talking to own thoughts, it's all cultural/national etc.. programming. Because these conclusions were bestowed upon them (or taken upon themselves depending on how you look at it) they become almost impregnable to logic, because if you have the "answer" the process becomes irrelevant, and because they never really went through the process of coming to the conclusion based on evidence or logic, any argument which points out a flaw in the logic/process or even the showing of evidence, really will fall on deaf ears. You would have to get to the root of the issue, which is the acceptance of the programming without question, until they are willing to question their "borrowed" beliefs the best argument in the world will typically not even leave a dent in the wall of preconstructed conclusions. There maybe one way though, but finding someone willing to go through with it will probably be difficult. That would be to actually (without them realizing where your going or what your building too) lead them through the logic and evidence that allowed you to come to the conclusion you hold. Get them to agree on the basic logic, and the truth value of the evidence for the precursors to the overall argument. If they agree with every necessary component of the conclusion, they really will have to realize that to hold to their previously espoused conclusion would be to admit the logic and evidence are meaningless to them, and thus they would have to then think about what really is meaningful to them. And most people will avoid that kind of thinking even at the cost of accepting a position that is contrary to their overall approach or acceptance to the world. Just my 2 cents, this is all off the top of my head, so take non of my points/arguments with any sort passive acceptance, if my logic and belief about the programming and such is correct i think this will work, if i am totally off base with why they hold these beliefs then it will probably not work any better than the arguments you mentioned in your OP.

Hello all, pretty new here, and I would like to ask for help from the community on a little project I am working on. Here is the basic premise; While the majority of people will say the support the idea of Government in their lives, they are in reality against the actual realities of Government in their own lives. My idea is to create a questionnaire/Survey about your average individuals Direct interaction's with the State and its agencies/agents/programs etc... to get (and give) a sense of how people truly feel about the State in their own lives. So my questions to you are these: What State agencies can you think of that your average individual is going to have to interact with in their own lives? What programs? The point of all of this is that I believe that most of us (both statist and anarchists) have pretty much the same general opinions about our interactions with the State (we feel frustrated, worried, scared, ineffectual, unimportant, etc...) and that barring a few positive Outcomes here and there we dislike the interactions. The point of this, is while so many people espouse support for a State society, I believe that many if not most, are actually against the State in reality, I mean how many people who are not currently being victimized by a criminal actually feel safer with a Police Officer standing over their shoulder watching them? How many people are eager and happy to do their taxes, or look forward to renewing a license? etc... And i think pointing out that for the most part these are the only direct interactions people have with the State may help them to understand the reality of State society, and understand (from a personal perspective if not a moral perspective) why we are against the State. So here are the State agencies/agents/programs etc, I have already come up with, (please feel free to add, and also if you want to throw in your ideas on what the actual questions about peoples interactions with these should be) Police School Licensing Voting Taxes Court Programs (welfare, food-stamps, state healthcare etc...) Jail/prison Border checkpoints Thats all for the moment (i know there are a bunch more but this idea just came to me this morning so is still in it's very early stages, all help, criticism's, or ideas are welcome!) Thanks to all of you who took the time to read and contribute, may you all have a wonderful day! Sincerely, Brandon Howe

Thank you Psquared, I have to admit I was not expecting in the slightest to run into someone from Whidbey Is. here, life is full of wonderful little surprises. I agree completely when you say there is no shortcut's on the road to Self-Knowledge, and I think that's a great thing, I mean don't get me wrong there are definitely times when I feel stuck on a problem and I wish it was easier, but the truth is, if it was easier it's value would decline proportionately, and that's not a worth while trade in my mind. As to why I believe myself to be broken, (thank you for asking that question by the way, it's easy for me to think of myself as broken, but far harder to articulate why I hold that believe) it comes down to a few things; I have always been at least partially self-aware to a greater degree than I believe most people are (thanks to my wonderfully dedicated dad) I can see in myself the issues that i have absorbed or assimilated into myself during my childhood and early adulthood. I tend towards procrastination, I lie (and although this particular issues is one of the few that was simple enough to change when it comes to times when I am calm and asserted, but if I allow my emotions to drive my reason it pops up again, and it's still hard to admit when I have lied in the midst of a heated exchange) I have been frozen in the same basic circumstance for almost 10 years, I am a recovering heroin addict, (4 years clean time) and until recently I was focused on denying the effects of my problems within my life, as Stefan once said, "I was trying to over leap my past to get to my future..." which simply does not work. So my point is that I say I am broken, not as an admission of defeat, or cry against life/world, but as a clarification of where I stand in my life. In that sense I take reassurance from the admission, because as long as I am willing to see the truth of myself, what is broken now, can be fixed, and eventually even made better than new, as long as I do not deny the problems any longer, and truly invest in healing and helping myself, instead of just blaming and limiting myself. It's amazingly counter-intuitive (at least to my mind) that such a seemingly negative assertion, can hold such power for the positive, I am broken, but I Will fix myself. But enough about myself, how about you? how did you discover Stefan and Freedomain? and how long have you been listening/member? And what was it that drew you to become a contributor to Stefan's wonderful project? P.s. Which end of the island do you live on? (Southie here , feel free to either Pm me, or tell me your not comfortable putting that sort of information out there if you aren't)

Hello everyone, My name is Brandon Howe, I am a 26 year old restaurant worker on beautiful Whidbey Island WA, in the Puget Sound. I am a new listener to Stefan, having only discovered his show about 3 months ago, but I am avidly working my way through his absolutely wonderful selection of topics and conversations. I have to say that Stefan is already on the list of the most amazing, thoughtful, honest, and insightful (this list of adjectives shortened for your sanity) people I have ever had the pleasure to meet in any format. I have always held the basic belief that the way we structure our society today, and the requirements to be a "functioning" part of that society, have at some fundamental level gone far wrong from the world we all were told about and hoped for as children. For a long time I saw this disconnect with the facades required in day to day interactions as representative of a problem within myself (of which I have many), I figured this was a phase of discontent that I would naturally grow out of, except I never did. While I learned the basics of how to function in a world that doesn't care about the individual beyond their financial contribution, I never did come to accept that this was how life was meant to be. It is only recently with my discovery of Stefan, that for the first time the feelings I have held have begun to come into focus, I now understand that it is fundamentally both. The society we live in, is fundamentally broken, but I am as well, and that change (true change) has to come from within, it cannot be forced upon others (or myself) by an external actor. So now I hope to join with others of a like a mind in taking the first steps towards fixing this broken world, by fixing myself, and carrying that change forward into the next generation. I know the road ahead is difficult, fraught with trials and obstacles to overcome, but I am committed to making the change, and healing myself (and hopefully helping others to heal as well). I hope that together as both a community and as individuals we can laugh, cry, grow, discover, share, and support each other as we make our way down the road to a brighter tomorrow, that begins (as it does everyday) today. I look forward to meeting you all, and hope today finds a smile on your face and a hope in your heart.