Anarchism and Autism

Post Reply New Topic

If I take that statement and base it off what I said, you are, in short, implying that

No, I was not talking about winning an argument in this thread. I was speaking about humanity. I really don't give a damn about winning arguments. I present my points and the opposition presents theirs and there is no winning or losing. I gain nothing by showing what I believe. Humanity is intractably stupid. All the major advances in civilization (mostly technological) have not been made by some general human improvement, they have been made by very bright very observant and very skillful individual humans and usually they had to be fought for very long and hard before they were adopted. Changing human traditions are extremely hard to manage. They are still killing witches and homosexuals in primitive cultures and total idiots are still murdering doctors who perform abortions and Pat Robertson provokes anger instead of laughter. The world is basically ignorant, stupid and insane and these are the three horsemen of the apocalypse. I can't either stop them or even slow them down but I certainly can scream a bit about them.

There are still enthusiastic posts at this site about perfection, spirits, souls, astrology and goodness knows about the outrageously silly nonsense proposed by much religion and other intellectual buffoonery.

If you believe that, what keeps you sane enough to function? Total detachment? Hope or faith? Entertainment? I thought I was a pessimist! If nine tenths of humans are monsters, what gets you up in the morning? It certainly isn't the thought of all those wonderful people.

Okay, one question before I switch to another idea: do you, or do you not, believe that people can be good natured given reasonable circumstances? I don't think anyone would call the way the world is right now (or ever) reasonable.

Here's my take:

Industrial society never would have existed without hierarchy. In fact, civilization would never have existed. And that, in my opinion, would probably have been a good thing as we would not be headed down the disastrous path that now faces us.

So while I consider myself an anarchist, I think it is impossible to have any transition to anarchism from our current situation. And a big reason for that is that we never evolved to be living together in the thousands, millions and billions - you need hierarchy for that to work (badly).

Anarchy can only really work amongst small scale tribal people where everyone knows everyone else, ideally in groups of 40 or so.

Check out http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm and other essays in the anthropological section at that site.

Sorry, the first paragraph was bunch of rhetorical questions to build up to the one I should have put more emphasis on.

I wanted to know, if you could build a world disregarding how it is today, Skipping all transitions and just going to it, do you believe you could take humans and make them good natured? Assuming they where only exposed to what you felt would lead to such a state, starting from birth.

I acknowledge that it's unrealistic, and most likely will never happen. I'm only arguing that humans can handle an anarchy, not whether or not we can actually reach that state I agree with you that anarchy is an ideal and not realistic, but for different reasons.

Do you believe that a majority of people (85% +/- 5%) can be good natured if they weren't brainwashed with culture, religion, patriotism, media and all that other crap from day one? Or do you believe that in the same scenario, there would be no actual difference?

I try to be subjective, because it usually generates a more opinionated answer that happens to be a little bit closer to what I asked, but it's a nasty habit that I've grown so accustomed to that I can no longer tell when it's not a goof idea. This is one of those times when I should ask questions a bit more objectively.

I'm not asking if it's a problem, I'm asking what proportion of the world would be good natured, given the best possible circumstances?

It's not about the accuracy or the value. It's about your opinion of humans. Your guess doesn't give any factual information, but it does give me some opinionated information. The question isn't about the right answer, it's about your answer. I want o know this to help me adjust my wording accordingly. If you give me a low number, I can assume you believe that it is impossible to make humans good, even if you were god. If you give me a high number, There is very little I can assume, but at least I can assume you don't think humanity is a lost cause.

Remember: under the best conditions.

You don't find amazing that in a world where there is no meaning, a bunch of proteins form love, hate, and most importantly opinions on why none of it matters. What makes us different from the crystallization of salt is our ability to give meaning to the world. It may just be a collection of shared delusions, but it is still meaning. If you find a rock that can do that I am all ears for why humanity is unnecessary, but until then, we are the only thing that completes the universe. But, if you completely agree with physical science, then yes, we are doomed to die, humanity will fall, along with all life, and rocks are for more interesting.

Can I at least here your guess. It seems like you have been gracefully avoiding it. That's just me being paranoid though.

I think this is starting to branch off into another thread. Okay, this really has nothing to do with anarchy or autism or both.

I have to agree with Henriksson. I can't see an advanced economy that works without some money-like system, and I don't think this is just my failure of imagination.