How to do societal transition?

[Souleye]

So I almost converted a statist. He now agrees that the state is coercive violence and is immoral. So far so good. But it's not all fine. He still says he's pragmatic, and will support the current system anyway, until I tell him some way to reach the solution, as in how we are going to transition to a free society.

What are the action steps? Got any suggestions?

[barn]

Hi @Souleye

This might sound disappointing or even contradictory, though its how I understand the 'partial' success of yours (I mean the individuals', if there is).

(if I'm inaccurate, corrections are welcomed...)

As in (example) :

'

I agree that holding people at gunpoint is force, violates personal freedom, it's morally wrong to steal, while at the same time I'm choosing to participate in the sustainment (not just being forced myself to enable... that's different), the creation of more incentives of the same crap I just claimed I had disagreed with. '

ie. - ' I agree with you that dating a, crazy, 3rd wave feminist is not going to lead to a good marriage, however I am going to keep taking her on dates eventhough I don't have to because it's the 'best' I had so far.'

In my personal experience (had a few encounters with temporary visitors to the board too), statists are highly contradictory in their thinking, want to be taken care of, their principles are not based on an understanding of individual responsibility taking, objective&personal-responsibility-allotting whatsoever. There are always deep-rooted and painful personal experiences about exercising free-will, individuality in their past... statism is just the superficial manifestation of their unprocessed past negative experiences, speaking to 'that' first I think does have a greater efficiency than abstractions about government, regulations. (me thinks)

In short, could it be, that the person you are referring to doesn't really understand force / doesn't want to do the right thing for various reasons?

(maybe thinks, repercussions can be avoided by lying, status quo is better than living according to one's principles)

4 hours ago, Souleye said:

What are the action steps? Got any suggestions? 

After having observed an experiment go terribly wrong, it is madness to perform the same experiment, expecting a different result... or just another way of saying, the experiment is for pretending, NOT for learning/finding/evaluating.

[RichardY]

"It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror! Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies."

The current plan seems to be based on a massive economic crash, followed by 1776, hand-holding or more likely hand-wringing. Or to go not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Personally couldn't give a sh*t about the moral case, given the welfare state, although probably should. Looking at the big board, pretty obvious that ethnic "minorities" are going to clobber the native "majority" as things continue, when has that not happened.

Objectivism(Classical Liberalism): Which acknowledges a state and it's use of force.

Libertarianism: Which opposes a state, and ends up perpetuating it. Both Anarcho-Captialist(providing the economic brains) and Left wing Libertarianism(social organisation).

Voluntarism: Realisation of the state as illusion, delusion or madness. But, relies on morality.

Anarcho-Primitvism: Fight Club.

Communism: I don't think is viable from a purely psychological perspective. Someone has to act independently in order to create, even if that creativity is based on what has come before. To truly create God would be required, or Quantum mechanics got to be something, or just rearranging matter. Creativity otherwise has no meaning, needs some intelligence behind it. Alternatively discovery, gross or not would be the correct concept.

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@Souleye

Without freedom there can be no morality. Both the imposition of authority or the need for worldy pleasure (Cenobites; an actual group of philosophers and monks!).

Personally I think if there were a case example, maybe things would be different. I mean China is not going to become a free society anytime soon, and Europe is rapidly less free, same with the USA and even Australia it seems. In small countries change might be possible.

Develop relationships with people, and slowly expand like early Christianity. Education of future generations. Making the state redundant. 

 

[Siegfried von Walheim]

I have absolutely no idea how we can get to an AnCap society. I think Feudalism is actually more progressive (as in actually progress) because it fuses private property and private ownership with governance (blurring the lines between the State and the Private, therefore Feudalism is the midpoint between the landless force-based state and the landed AnCap ideal) but I could be totally wrong. Maybe Feudalism is a terrible idea, or maybe it's the end in and of itself. It could be argued Feudalism is the most moral based on property rights and contractual obligations...

I'd just how AnCap as an ideal to get to and work with what's current with the intent of slowly getting there generation by generation. Your friend probably supports the current system because he's either doing fine (i.e., he's content) in it or he doesn't know of a better system that has been both tried and proven in the past. His empirical experience is at odds with your abstractions. 

If he's interested in studying historical political systems, then I encourage you let him do his own homework and reach his own conclusions. Ultimately history is vast and complicated; it can teach a lot but it can be hard to listen. 

If he's not interested, I think it's sufficient that you share values and understand each other. It's a lot to ask someone to believe in (ultimately its a matter of faith more than reason) a system (or lack of a system) that has never successfully been implemented (on a large scale at least) especially when more present threats are abound. "How can I think of the Stars as the clouds rain down upon me?" is a very reasonable sentiment. 

[RichardY]

It is a notorious fact that the morality of society as a whole is in inverse ratio to its size; for the greater the aggregation of individuals, the more the individual factors are blotted out, and with them morality, which rests entirely on the moral sense of the individual and the freedom necessary for this. Hence, every man is, in a certain sense, unconsciously a worse man when he is in society than when acting alone; for he is carried by society and to that extent relieved of his individual responsibility. . . . Any large company composed of wholly admirable persons has the morality and intelligence of an unwieldy, stupid, and violent animal. The bigger the organization, the more unavoidable is its immorality and blind stupidity. Society, by automatically stressing all the collective qualities in its individual representatives, puts a premium on mediocrity, on everything that settles down to vegetate in an easy, irresponsible way. Individuality will inevitable be driven to the wall. This process begins in school, continues at the university, and rules all departments in which the State has a hand. In a small social body, the individuality of its members is better safeguarded; and the greater is their relative freedom and the possibility of conscious responsibility. Without freedom there can be no morality. p169 (from The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious)

Thought that was interesting, usually helps to look at quotes in wider context. Haven't read the book, intuitively can piece together things sometimes.

[ofd]

Political organisations follow the mode of production. Agrarian based societies are feudal, industrial ones are liberal, perhaps post industrial ones will be anarchistic.

[RichardY]

19 minutes ago, ofd said:

Political organisations follow the mode of production. Agrarian based societies are feudal, industrial ones are liberal, perhaps post industrial ones will be anarchistic.

Is Saudi Arabia Liberal or Russia? Feudalism was largely dead on arrival in the Northern Scandinavian countries due to the scarcity of agricultural products, not worth collecting/extorting a tithe. Iceland, first parliamentary democracy. Although as a general trend it makes sense. I think given a high enough intelligence and literacy, agrarian societies may become Aristocratic or a Jeffersonian Democracy if peaceful. The Amish are perhaps Anarchistic, although would have thought some sects might have some overbearing religious customs.

[ofd]

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Is Saudi Arabia Liberal or Russia?

 Saudi Arabia doesn't have an industry to speak off. They have to import everything. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia was on its way to become more liberal.

 

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Feudalism was largely dead on arrival in the Northern Scandinavian countries

Not my  area of expertise, but doesnt the relationship between jarls, karls and thralls resemble feudalism?

 

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I think given a high enough intelligence and literacy, agrarian societies may become Aristocratic or a Jeffersonian Democracy if peaceful.

If you do attempt to read say the American Constitution and the way it came into being, on an economic level, you may find that it was an oligarchic coup right from the beginning. It was all about the elites trying to grab as much power as they can.

[RichardY]

1 hour ago, ofd said:

 Saudi Arabia doesn't have an industry to speak off. They have to import everything. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia was on its way to become more liberal.

They still have oil right, probably played a bit at industry. Can't really describe them as feudal as all contracts are with God right.

1 hour ago, ofd said:

Not my  area of expertise, but doesnt the relationship between jarls, karls and thralls resemble feudalism?

Thralls are slaves. Enthralled, a positive connotation of attention. Would be put to death, if they didn't work the farms while the karls were away on raids. Were freed, unlike serfs as yields were meagre, Christianity looking down on murder. Feudalism relies on a contract.

1 hour ago, ofd said:

If you do attempt to read say the American Constitution and the way it came into being, on an economic level, you may find that it was an oligarchic coup right from the beginning. It was all about the elites trying to grab as much power as they can.

Yeah I have no doubt. Wanting the "right" to sell land to settlers, or financial control over tobacco and cash crop exports. Neither of which British Aristocrats had much interest in taking direct control over. Similar to trade with Portugal, would make no sense to try and attain more political control over the economy. Plantation owners and corrupt continental councils wanting to line their own pockets and have power as an end. BS monkey mind, why not play a game of chess or something.

 

[Souleye]

Almost as if Stefan read this question and kindof responded in his latest video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV0L3VKKwSI ("Why I Am Not A Conservative").