The elephant in the room

[MartV]

Religion.

 

How exactly would a stateless society work without a state-led education, isn't that the highest universalization that a society can strive to?

 

Without it you are left with deranged superstitious parents indoctrinating their children with their pet nonsense.

Just in the hyper-superstitious US imagine the disastrous consequences, it would become a third world country within decades.

 

Just this alone brings the entire Stefan's philosophy down.

[dayna j.]

(...)

Without it you are left with deranged superstitious parents indoctrinating their children with their pet nonsense.

(...)

 

The governments of the U.S collectively spend more on education than any other country in the world, yet religiosity is rampant.  I'm not sure how it is that you can claim that public schools act as a barrier to religiosity, when it has demonstrably not been the case.

[MartV]

You don't know what you are talking about, public prayer led by school administrators is banned in public schools in which most children go to and ACLU constantly reminds rogue administrators to fall back in line with the constitution.

The church/state wall of separation is thin and full of holes but is still better than nothing.

 

When you talk to kids who have been home schooled they are basically scientifically illiterate, many who want to go to college recognize themselves how much damage their parents did to them and their life prospects, the whole home schooling movement is basically an excuse to indotrinate children with superstitious nonsense, exceptions are marginal and irrelevant.

Home schooling completely circumvents the whole point of education, and that is that children should get smarter and more knowledgeable than their parents, this is inimical to the core of religion.

 

Of course, if we were to restart the whole education thing today with modern technology nobody would even think of having children go to physical buildings to listen someone talk. Everything would be done online with much greater efficiency, much less time spent and much greater retention results, but that's a different story. It still means that you have to have standards for everyone.

[dayna j.]

Statistics > Anecdotes.

 

According to census data, approximately 85% of people in the United States are religious.  Public schools have had about 100 years to chip away at that.  How's it working?

[MartV]

Statistics > Anecdotes.

 

According to census data, approximately 85% of people in the United States are religious.  Public schools have had about 100 years to chip away at that.  Hows it working?

 

I don't know, maybe that has something to do with churches being on every corner in every town?

Also, you are forgetting that we are not only dealing with religious superstition but with anti-knowledge attitudes it generates, so things would be much worse than they already are without the state education, which is a castle and religion besieges it  constantly as the enemy of reason, without that castle what would happen?

Then it really would have become a third world country a long time ago.

[LovePrevails]

government schools don't even teach critical thinking, logic or even how to construct an argument

 

and the literacy  rate in the US is significantly lower than before mandatory education was instituted, when it was 96% for whites and 80% for blacks

[MartV]

government schools don't even teach critical thinking, logic or even how to construct an argument

 

and the literacy  rate in the US is significantly lower than before mandatory education was instituted, when it was 96% for whites and 80% for blacks

 

Isn't that a direct result of right wing jesus-cultists who are trying to defund public education?

Teaching critical thinking and civics would be anathema to them.

[Kevin Beal]

There is absolutely nothing stopping parents from teaching children mystical bullshit in or out of school. I went to school with some very religiously disturbed children.

[MartV]

There is absolutely nothing stopping parents from teaching children mystical bullshit in or out of school.

 

You have a reading comprehension problem, we've already established that without the bullwark of state education children would only have one option, their ignorant and superstitious parents.

[greekredemption]

Statistics > Anecdotes.

 

According to census data, approximately 85% of people in the United States are religious.  Public schools have had about 100 years to chip away at that.  How's it working?

That doesn't seem to be the case in some parts of Europe.

[MartV]

Also, state colleges and universities had great impact at chipping away at religious superstition in USA.

[dsayers]

How exactly would a stateless society work without a state-led education

 

How exactly would people eat without state-led restaurants?

 

Governments do not provide education, they inflict schooling. Breaking the will of the defenseless is a form of child abuse, which is a requisite for psychopathy, criminality, and dysfunction. Saying it's better than religion isn't the same as saying it's not as good as non-aggression.

 

exceptions are marginal and irrelevant.

 

Small side note, you're stacking here. If something is irrelevant, it's scope is meaningless. Similarly, exceptions are are relevant, even when they're marginal.

 

Also, you are forgetting that we are not only dealing with religious superstition but with anti-knowledge attitudes it generates, so things would be much worse than they already are without the state education, which is a castle and religion besieges it  constantly as the enemy of reason, without that castle what would happen?

 

At this point, it seems that you're demonstrating all output and no input. You didn't notice that anti-knowledge and enemy of reason apply to government schooling also.

 

You have a reading comprehension problem, we've already established that without the bullwark of state education children would only have one option, their ignorant and superstitious parents.

 

Actually, you posting this on the internet preempts any claim that without school, children would be forced to rely on two people. You're also ignoring the enormous amount of things that a child teaches themselves, such as walking and language.

[Andrew79]

Good education is, in my opinion, one of the most important things in society

 

Which is why it cannot be left to the state.

 

When you have a monopoly you have lower quality, less supply, higher costs, and less variety than a market would supply.

 

The government does not seek to remove religion, but to replace it.

[Carl Green]

How exactly would a stateless society work...

 

I think this is where you need to start.  I could be wrong of course. Just my opinion.

[MartV]

How exactly would people eat without state-led restaurants?

 

Governments do not provide education, they inflict schooling. Breaking the will of the defenseless is a form of child abuse, which is a requisite for psychopathy, criminality, and dysfunction. Saying it's better than religion isn't the same as saying it's not as good as non-aggression.

 

 

Restaurants do not shape human reality and they do not exist in historical contexts. It will do you good to avoid constructing false analogies.

Furthermore, you are still not proposing any solution, stateless education would be no education at all.

It doesn't matter if something right now is bad if the absence of it would mean that it would be worse.

[cab21]

should we go back and throw out any technology invented by people with a religion? that would turn the usa into a third world country

 

i don't know what state you have, but huge numbers of state education workers have a religion. our politicians can't even get elected without religion

[dsayers]

Restaurants do not shape human reality

 

If shaping human reality was your concern, you would not be advocating coercion.

 

Furthermore, you are still not proposing any solution, stateless education would be no education at all.

 

You must not have noticed my mention of your use of the internet or your having learned an entire language without any education.

 

It doesn't matter if something right now is bad if the absence of it would mean that it would be worse.

 

For this statement to be true, two conditions would have to be met: 1) the something would have to be beneficial and 2) there would have to be no alternative. Coercive schooling meets neither of these criteria.

 

For somebody who is railing against religion, your belief in coercive schooling seems to be religious.

[Andrew79]

Restaurants do not shape human reality and they do not exist in historical contexts. It will do you good to avoid constructing false analogies.

Furthermore, you are still not proposing any solution, stateless education would be no education at all.

It doesn't matter if something right now is bad if the absence of it would mean that it would be worse.

 

You accuse him of constructing a false analogy, yet in your very next sentence you tell a blatant lie.

 

Education was around long before the state got involved.

 

If people want education, and history shows they do, then the market will supply it better than the state possibly could. But if they don't, who are you to not only force it on them, but force them to pay for it, and give them essentially no control over it?

[cynicist]

So you prefer state indoctrination to religious indoctrination. I prefer neither.

[MartV]

So you prefer state indoctrination to religious indoctrination. I prefer neither.

Who will create universal standards?

Who will enforce them?

Do the unborn really deserve the life their religiously deranged parents will enforce on them without the intervention of the state?

 

It seems like you all would soon rather see the end of modern civilization and massive intellectual and emotional abuse of children than to entertain the idea that state provides a vital function.

[Andrew79]

Who will create universal standards?

Who will enforce them?

Do the unborn really deserve the life their religiously deranged parents will enforce on them without the intervention of the state?

 

It seems like you all would soon rather see the end of modern civilization and massive intellectual and emotional abuse of children than to entertain the idea that state provides a vital function.

 

Why are universal standards needed?

 

Any standards needed for employment will be maintained by the market. Competition ensures high standards - competition that doesn't exist in a state system, leading to this:

 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/80-of-new-york-high-school-grads-cant-read-despite-being-no-1-in-school-spending/

 

And in the UK, where the previous government's focus was "education, education, education"  even supermarkets have to provide basic education in reading and writing because the state system is nothing more than a glorified child-care service.

 

"Religiously deranged" - do you mean like the last leader of the USA who claimed God told him to go to war?

 

But there are plenty of very, very smart people who believe in god, just as there are many smart people who believe in government. Claiming that their education system would mean the end of modern civilisation is nothing short of hysterical - a standard lefty emotional plea with nothing to back it up. Especially as there already exist many religious schools in the UK and USA that do a far better job than their state counterparts. And ignoring that religious schools would be far from the only option, variety being a hallmark of markets.

 

And if abuse is a concern for you, then why are you advocating the state? Don't you know how it gets its money? Hint: it's not through voluntary means.

 

In fact, the state is the antithesis of civilisation.

 

It seems like you would rather imprison a nation and force your beliefs on them than to entertain the idea that using violence to get what you want is not only wrong but counter-productive.

 

And you talk about intellectual abuse, but you've already unapologetically lied in this thread, demonstrating your own dogma.

 

All you've done is trade god for government.

[Kevin Beal]

This is an awfully painful thread, haha.

 

If child abuse is the issue, then it doesn't make any sense to me to be going after listeners of FDR. It's like a bad joke.

[MartV]

If child abuse is the issue, then it doesn't make any sense to me to be going after listeners of FDR. It's like a bad joke.

*sigh*, road to hell is paved with good intentions, surely you must be familiar with such concept..

[NumberSix]

Right now there are groups in the west that are able to raise and educate their children however they choose with no intervention from state.  For example: the Amish, Irish Travellers, and Gypsies.  It hasn't caused the downfall of western civilization.  In the US parents are free to brain wash their children to their black hearts content.

[LovePrevails]

If you want to argue for the state I think choosing education is one of the worst ways you could possibly do it

 

why don't you go to Alfie Kohn's website and see some of his articles since he is a leading expert on education reform and highly empirical in his approach

you will basically see that everything that schools do is the opposite of what a good school would do

from the way they treat children

to using grades

to homework at the elementary school level

to punishments and rewards

to "tougher standards" and standardized tests

there is hardly a thing schools do that are useful for the development of a  young minds asides from teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, and then they even do that poorly

[cynicist]

It seems like you all would soon rather see the end of modern civilization and massive intellectual and emotional abuse of children than to entertain the idea that state provides a vital function.

 

Doesn't public school doesn't qualify as "massive intellectual and emotional abuse of children"? I went through that and a catholic upbringing. Both are pretty horrible and severely retard a person's ability to reason. I'm not really sure how you can say one is better than the other. I think you are probably right about religious education taking over without state education, but so what? The only real solution to that is to try and promote peaceful parenting so that future generations stop damaging their children. 

[JamesP]

Mart, I agree with you that trading one irrationality for another is no victory, and can be very dangerous. Can you demonstrate how state-led education is rational?

[MartV]

Mart, I agree with you that trading one irrationality for another is no victory, and can be very dangerous. Can you demonstrate how state-led education is rational?

 

The absence of state would automatically lead to theocratic fascism given the current disposition of populations.

So it's rational in that tiny way.

[cab21]

The absence of state would automatically lead to theocratic fascism given the current disposition of populations.

 

 

how?

[MartV]

how?

For one to ask this one has to have no idea about history, political activism and lobbying of jesus-cultists, organisational consolidation in a vacuum of power, indoctrination and polls.

Are you really that ignorant about everything or just trying to use dishonesty as a tool for dismissal?

[dayna j.]

For one to ask this one has to have no idea about history, political activism and lobbying of jesus-cultists, organisational consolidation in a vacuum of power, indoctrination and polls.

Are you really that ignorant about everything or just trying to use dishonesty as a tool for dismissal?

 

If this is your response to the question "How?", then there is no place for you on a forum dedicated to philosophy. 

[Marcus Clarke]

Religion.

 

How exactly would a stateless society work without a state-led education, isn't that the highest universalization that a society can strive to?

 

Without it you are left with deranged superstitious parents indoctrinating their children with their pet nonsense.

Just in the hyper-superstitious US imagine the disastrous consequences, it would become a third world country within decades.

 

Just this alone brings the entire Stefan's philosophy down.

 

Well, a stateless society requires people who use reason and truth in their personal lives. If a parent told a child that they were going to go to Church, and the child said “No”, then the parent would not take their child to Church. If a parent told a child that he must pray before dinner, and the child said “No”, then the parent could not hit/spank/assault their child in order for them to mutter words while in front of the dinner plate.

 

It is important to understand that a permanent stateless society will never be created by unreasonable and irrational people. The state requires anti-reason and anti-rationality to exist, which is why the state thrives in this world just as much as religion does.

 

You don't know what you are talking about, public prayer led by school administrators is banned in public schools in which most children go to and ACLU constantly reminds rogue administrators to fall back in line with the constitution.

The church/state wall of separation is thin and full of holes but is still better than nothing.

 

When you talk to kids who have been home schooled they are basically scientifically illiterate, many who want to go to college recognize themselves how much damage their parents did to them and their life prospects, the whole home schooling movement is basically an excuse to indotrinate children with superstitious nonsense, exceptions are marginal and irrelevant.

Home schooling completely circumvents the whole point of education, and that is that children should get smarter and more knowledgeable than their parents, this is inimical to the core of religion.

 

 

Religious teaching happens in the home before public school. It never exits the home and then only exists in schools. Parents specifically design the minds of children to believe in God until they die. Public school simply does not turn religious children into atheists. Religious children inoculate their children against reason and evidence, which is why reason and evidence generally do not work/appeal to religious people.

 

I don't know, maybe that has something to do with churches being on every corner in every town?

Also, you are forgetting that we are not only dealing with religious superstition but with anti-knowledge attitudes it generates, so things would be much worse than they already are without the state education, which is a castle and religion besieges it  constantly as the enemy of reason, without that castle what would happen?

Then it really would have become a third world country a long time ago.

 

The state, and therefore state education is an enemy of reason. The church threatens you with hell, and the state threatens you with prison. I think that you are making an assumption that people do not want to be educated (this is not true! People educate themselves all the time in things that they have interest in). It may also be important to understand that the historical evidence shows that intelligence and education mean nothing against the power religion. Why are the top 20% of students not atheists if education can destroy religion? It is because religion is immune against education. To defeat religion, people need parents who love them (never hit/threaten them, [be the guide, not the ruler]), and religious parents simply do not love their children, they love the idea of children.

 

Isn't that a direct result of right wing jesus-cultists who are trying to defund public education?

Teaching critical thinking and civics would be anathema to them.

 

Left wing, right wing.  Same vulture, different colored feathers.

 

You have a reading comprehension problem, we've already established that without the bullwark of state education children would only have one option, their ignorant and superstitious parents.

 

I felt a bit anxious when you said "You have a reading comprehension problem".  If you could, please refrain from insults in order to present what you have to say.

 

Also, state colleges and universities had great impact at chipping away at religious superstition in USA.

 

College is way past the point at the religion virus passes from the parent to the child.  We need to focus on the point at which the virus passes from one person to the other.

 

Furthermore, you are still not proposing any solution, stateless education would be no education at all.

It doesn't matter if something right now is bad if the absence of it would mean that it would be worse.

 

The solution is to try to convince every parent and potential parent to stop hitting/threatening their children, and to start using reason and logic with them.

 

Who will create universal standards?

Who will enforce them?

Do the unborn really deserve the life their religiously deranged parents will enforce on them without the intervention of the state?

 

 

Of course children do not deserve religiously deranged parents. However, it is people in the community that must do the intervention, not the state. The state has failed over and over and over and trying to stop immoral behavior (how many times does an employee have to fail before you fire them?). The state presents itself as the savior, and this blocks people from recognizing that groups of individuals could solve these problems.

 

 

For one to ask this one has to have no idea about history, political activism and lobbying of jesus-cultists, organisational consolidation in a vacuum of power, indoctrination and polls.

Are you really that ignorant about everything or just trying to use dishonesty as a tool for dismissal?

 

"Are you really that ignorant" is a statement designed to inflict emotional pain on the person that you are talking to. This is exactly what religious fanatics do to their children.  Please avoid using sentences designed to hurt others.  The pain that you just tried to convey is the pain that children can not deflect due to a natural lack of brain development.  The pain is dealt, then the religious virus infects the child, and then it is over for that child, and thus over for us all as the power of religion grows.

[cab21]

so without a state, we will have a state.

we will have a state that is a 20th century concept, if we do not have a state

 

the founders of the usa constitution were religous

no president of the usa has not had a religion

maybe less than a handful of atheists ever elected to federal government, and those handful are just recent

the usa public education system is filled with people with a religion.

 

do you have statistics showing a public education system that only has atheists?

[JamesP]

The absence of state would automatically lead to theocratic fascism given the current disposition of populations.So it's rational in that tiny way.

I think you'll find that Stef agrees with your assessment that humans as they are today would not generate a peaceful society. That is why he has said that this is a multi-generational change. This is not because it cannot be done now, but because most people do not have the courage to follow through on their stated values. I know this one personally!If people denounced the initiation of violence against children (which includes threatening them with hellfire if they don't obey), we would have a free society in less than a generation. So what you are saying is right, the removal of the current state would cause another to pop up, because the state is an effect, not a cause. The state is in your head. It is in your relationships. Every time small-minded people attack you, the state is there. Does that make sense? It also might be worth listening to a few more podcasts & videos and being very specific about your criticisms as that would help us understand where the flaws are.

[cab21]

a different state popping up is one thing, but to say it would be facist?