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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Would you really change how YOU live, all that much ?
Run wild in the streets ?
Harm your fellow man ?

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Originally posted by pizmobeach:
I'm afraid we need rules to keep more people from entertaining their lesser impulses. Predators in particular, but there's a long list of "bad intentions" that more "average" folk might visit if they had no social or legal barriers to be concerned with.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
If the "Rules" were gone tomorrow.

Would you really change how YOU live, all that much ?
Run wild in the streets ?
Harm your fellow man ?

Or would you, simply go about your life as you do, with a few minor adjustments ?

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Would you really change how YOU live, all that much ?
Run wild in the streets ?
Harm your fellow man ?

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I'd make new rules, find some like minded folks, and we'd impose them.

Rule #1. No PN on RWED.
Rule #2. Add a meal between lunch and dinner (around 2:30).
Rule #3. No musical Ice Cream trucks.
Rule #4. Only persons owning apple trees may vote.
Rule #5. No speeding.
Rule #6. No murder without a license.
Rule #7. Limit number of sitcoms and reality shows on the networks...mandate scifi hours/week.
Rule #8. Proper BBQ preparation class required for graduation (with a standardized taste test).
Rule #9. Guns.
Rule #10. Restrict apple tree ownership.

The rest will just fall into place naturally.

Edited to add: Rule 11, no dogs eating dogs...no eating dogs by anybody. Licensed cat eating...ok.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you"- Chrisisall, 2009.

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Originally posted by jameron4eva:
Hey, what about eating bats?

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Rule #5. No speeding.

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Asking such a question without dicussing the long-term and short-term implications in a practical way is a bit disingenuious, since they would be a bit more than "minor adjustments".

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Funny how folks fear their fellow man

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

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Asking such a question without dicussing the long-term and short-term implications in a practical way is a bit disingenuious, since they would be a bit more than "minor adjustments".

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Very disingenuous indeed - but the intent was to see folks *reactions* to the concept itself, more than get the questions answered.

Funny how folks fear their fellow man - which isn't without merit, mind you, but I wanted to illustrate very clearly WHY people, as a general rule are not "ready" for self-rule/anarchism - they do NOT have the required mentality for it to function properly, and it would devolve into chaos and disorder, which is despite propaganda to the contrary, a very different thing than anarchism.
(Again, removing legal rules by no means instantly destroys social rules, which every human society has, whether codified into laws or not.)

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I find it ironic that most folk worry not about themselves, but those mysterious, nebulous "other people"... which are out there, sure, but I suspect not in the numbers or degree which the folk offering to control us all "for our own good" would have us believe.

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Maybe y'all folk might consider a little faith in your fellow man - not sayin risk your neck or your stuff over it, but perhaps not lookin at everyone else as an imminent threat to you and yours might be a happier, healthier way to live your life, eh ?

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Yes, you already made that pretty obvious by the way you posed the question. I don't think anyone here would even dispute that assertation, but at the same time the biased way you asked the question was bound to draw a biased answer, which is sort of self-serving on your part and undermines you.

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I find it much more convincing when you don't work with self-fullfilling verbal traps and instead say what you mean to openly.

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And yet it doesn't take every bad person in the world to be a threat to you when you encounter one or two. People have a right to be worried about predation or even the careless endangerment of other people without being labled paranoid.

The changes in systematic self-defense that people would have to make in their lives are more than minor, to account for the things we DO take advantage of now (law, law enforcement, judicial system) and that this is what people focus on is also not paranoid but normal.

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We once had a very interesting conversation about your vision of how an anarchist society would work and I found it convincing up to the point where you couldn't account for the concentration of many people in big cities and how that would affect stress levels and social behavior, long term.

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THAT was a good conversation. This one I find myself resenting you for because it's so obviously manipulative.

It robs you of some credibility to sit back and gloat about a reaction you foresaw when that reaction is NOT as irrational as you imply.

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Sure, maybe hiking off into the woods is a little much, but looking at the sudden removal of rules as a social shock, especially to people who are already in a desperate situation, and recognizing it as a destabilizing factor is only realistic.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Not so much, cause I wanted folk to offer their perspectives within that window, and get them to really think about WHY they obey the "rules" and what, to them, the important ones that really MATTER, were.

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Not self-fulfilling as much as focusing the discussion, and I phrased things in such a way to draw an emotional response which'd be likely a more honest one than otherwise offered.

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While not so very sure those things are any kind of advantage, I am well aware of that point, but there's a difference between thinking the rules serve as a set of guardrails to make society run smoothly, the same way locks keep honest people honest - and thinking we're all a bunch of savage, rapacious barbarians who would destroy all of existance if the leash slipped even a little.

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Actually I think you mistake me - if baiting people to actually think and react qualifies as manipulation, perhaps, but you mistake me quite a bit if you take my encouragement of folk to re-examine core beliefs as gloating.

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Sure, maybe hiking off into the woods is a little much, but looking at the sudden removal of rules as a social shock, especially to people who are already in a desperate situation, and recognizing it as a destabilizing factor is only realistic.

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Very much so, VERY much so - and it is indeed this that is the very heart of the matter, because the reactions expressed (save one gleeful predator) range between mildly disturbed to outright horrified, but they ALL fall within that range, you see ?

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But what CAN be done is paring down the "rules" instead of stacking more just for the purpose of making more - that we COULD do, and in my opinion, we SHOULD do - I mean, do we really *need* some of the more ridiculous and archaic stuff on the books ?
Aren't there some very valid reasons for an audit ?

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And now, as promised - why the discussion of anarchism breaks down past a certain community size.
(...)
In order for any large scale collective to actually WORK, the first thing that would have to happen would be for doing harm unto a fellow person for gain or amusement to be as universally morally and socially, personally repulsive as outright infanticide or cannibalism, no law can replace the ingrained personal morality of a human being, nor can any law override it for very long.
(...)
We're missing that key piece though, the idea of harming each other for gain or pleasure being anethma - and without it anachism on a wide scale simply will not WORK - we need to develop that key piece first, and allow natural progression, rather than forcing an unwanted model upon the unwilling and hoping they will develop it.

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Originally posted by Hero:

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Would you really change how YOU live, all that much ?
Run wild in the streets ?
Harm your fellow man ?

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I'd make new rules, find some like minded folks, and we'd impose them.

Rule #4. Only persons owning apple trees may vote.
Rule #10. Restrict apple tree ownership./B]

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Haha... that's pretty good man!

Pretty much how it is now though since voting means nothing. Only those with the apple trees can really do anything in the world, and I'm pretty sure nobody on this forum owns any.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
I really do think you've badly mistaken my methods and intentions, AgentR, and if it came across like that to you it surely wasn't by design.

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Another thing worth a mental thrashing over is why chaos leads to violence in human society - figuring out the exact why would be of benefit to it's prevention not only along future paths, but here and now in cases of civil disorder or natural disaster.

Something we can still do here, mind you, instead of arguing.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
And I was actually more offended about the comments about the woods. Bizarre, but when you like a particular past time, you rush to defend it. I don't think anyone meant anything by it now.

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I'm starting to get a real complex about my inability to detect sarcasm. It's gettng sad.

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The changes in systematic self-defense that people would have to make in their lives are more than minor, to account for the things we DO take advantage of now (law, law enforcement, judicial system) and that this is what people focus on is also not paranoid but normal.

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Well, one could start with the automatic and completely justified assumption that anything said by Me, Kwicko, Chrisisall or SixStringJack says is just dripping with sarcasm and snark, cause we're like that, yanno...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:

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The changes in systematic self-defense that people would have to make in their lives are more than minor, to account for the things we DO take advantage of now (law, law enforcement, judicial system) and that this is what people focus on is also not paranoid but normal.

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I have to question this. I in no way expect the police to act as any kind of "defense" for me. At best, they're there for clean-up after the fact; at worst, they're in my way. As for "taking advantage of law enforcement", I'd call that a laughable concept to anyone who's every lived in a bad neighborhood. The one time I *did* call the cops, it was a "shots fired" call, because there was a drive-by outside my house. I told them on the phone how many shots (11, 9mm semi-auto), who they were fired at, and what I saw of the shooter. FOUR AND A HALF HOURS LATER a lone police cruiser actually drove by. Didn't bother to stop, but did slow down a bit.

Wow, did I ever feel safe knowing they were on the case...



Mike

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