I work with an infosec-related website and am looking for articles on why infosec, the internet, and "hacking" are bullshit these days to use in content for the site. Any ideas?
@amerika @p @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
Interesting. Are you coming at it from a marketing perspective? What is the audience of the text, and the purpose of the website?
I think if you could provide a bit more detail, perhaps it would be easier to come up with some ideas.
@djsumdog
@Leyonhjelm
It's a non-profit site on infosec topics, not designed to make money, but needs an infusion of energy.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
So if I had to write something on why infosec and hacking is b.s. these days, to spark interest and be a bit contrarian, I would probably start with if your site has anything of value? If not, why bother with infosec etc. since it is not a high value target.
Another angle could be that of diversity and ecology. If you don't go with the mainstream, then, by definition (almost) you're out of
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
the target zone, unless you are a high value target. I wrote on that theme myself for a client and managed to get my article published in a national newspaper.
I wouldn't say infosec is "bullshit." I'd say a lot of people in those fields are NOT developers, and they lack a true understanding of what security techniques are actually versus beneficial versus those that tick a box on a checklist (CrowdStrike was always a garbage security nightmare from the moment I saw it; and I constantly raised concerns and no one cared because "compliance.")
SHIELD certification was talked about a lot ~2012 and a lot of people in the security sector were against any type of certification, because it's just so pointless. There was a panel discussion about SHEILD form 2012, but Ruxcon pulled the video for some reason. I'd put it on catbox, but it's 950Mb.
One of the most iconic images I remember for a security conference was Travis Goodspeed's talk on packet-in-packet injection, because of the following image titled "Encapsulation."
Software is built on layers, and even security is designed in layers that are intended to create isolation as well as redundancy. The trouble is that very few people can describe, in any reasonable level of detail, everything that happens in a single HTTP request.
Modern security exploits are often a single strap in these layers. No matter how much everything else is locked in, one bad link could cause everything to come crashing out on the motorway.
Trusting an info sec company that can write to your network is bullshit. If these companies cared about security they wouldn't allow data to be sent back and forth like this.
Kaspersky antivirus just installed a while new antivirus to all their us customers without asking permission. This is all evidence that infosec is bullshit because it you get into infosec companies you get privileged access to tons of critical networks.
Not to mention Antimalware Service Executable paralyzing half of the Windows machines on Earth half of the time they are running!
Seems like an advantage to a broadcast medium generally.
After the cannibalism starts, we may have to resurrect a system like that.
@Leyonhjelm @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
Usually that is a numbers game. No one is going to invest a lot of time personally to get another bot in a botnet.
You just program a script with the vulnerability du jour, or some default passwords on default ports and off you go.
@Leyonhjelm @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
Oh, and let me hasten to add, that my post was in response to the question, not my own opinion.
My company does security audits if requested, and teaches IT-security (I don't teach that subject although I do know some basics) so I'm all for it!
@sj_zero @amerika @p @cjd @threalist
Amazing that so many companies don't test patches before applying them.
I have heard many times of bad patches that crashed products. I think Cisco had a bad switch patch a couple of years ago, that tore down the network at one of my former customers.
@sj_zero @amerika @p @cjd @threalist
This is a great business opportunity. If you can create such a thing, based only on european components, let me know, and I will introduce you to some people who pay a fortune for these devices today. Logically, they should then be willing to pay you half a fortune for it! ;)
For example, a bunch of shit coming in from Iran ahead of the missile strike. That's kind of interesting, you know, you can see something's going to go down but you can't tell what. But if half your ssh brute-force attacks in a day come from .ir, something's popping off in .ir.
I mean not really any articles off the top of my head but I have several theories.
Mainly there are a lot of gatekeepers making money of certifications that at the end of the day install a false sense of knowledge and confidence to those who get them.
Garbage distros like kali or parrot have a lot of automated tools that people will use and not exactly understand, so it's a point and fire situation. I mean if you can't set up your own box that you're fucking useless. Like honestly, if you don't know what a fuzzer is doing don't use it. (not you, like people in genreal)
Most schools are diploma mills so people who go that route have an inflated sense of superiority. Enjoy the debt dummies.
Moar gatekeeping. Like, most places now want at least a 4 year computer science degree which is dumb, theres nothing a classroom will do if you cant learn it yourself. just check out any so called "hacking forum" its moron after moron that can't google "why is postgres not starting" or "what are some common ports?"
Basically it's filled to the brim with annoying dipshits who spend most of their time blabbing about women issues in tech and building communities rather than fixing shit.
Every clown on Earth these days is all "im gonna do cyber security!"
Cool.
Learn a scripting language at least, at least be able to read C, learn how things like linux and windows servers work...at the very least before even thinking about security.
I once met a fucker at the bar blabbing about his 6k security consulting job. I started kinda talking to him and it was all "i don't code, no I don't need any of that thats for developers"
I wanted to kick his stool out form under him.
I hate that industry I hate the dumb asses in it and I'm at the point where if people get owned by the Ruskies than that's just not my problem lol
Thanks for coming to my seminar.
did he at least know any php? you kinda need to know some for xss attacks
I don't understand how someone can look at committing to something like that, paying money and having no foundational knowledge of the subject.
I see a lot, people want to do security or whatnot thinking they're going to be making 250k out the box
Want to work with computers, is that your passion? Then what excuse do you have not to have an understanding of its major facets? If all you do is use a handful of programs then you're not much of a computer guy are you
i don't have a degree that's why im so bad at making money.
I'm just baffled at people who don't know anything and yet think that they're going to be these crack security guys.
Man don't even get me going on those coding bootcamp people, that shit is a nightmare.
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even if anyone can just go and read it, they'd have to be in the building at that person's desk to do so. if someone's got unsupervised access to their desk and the computer on it, they could just go and fiddle with it anyway to steal all the credentials from someone's password manager (or the passwords.xlsx file on the desktop cause the password manager was too hard to use).
And one thing that should also be filtered out is any connection that isn't for your address/subnet, specially broadcast (where the only exception might be DHCP and SLAAC for your own machines).
> getting a job in computers is the fastest way to make you stop fucking with them in your free time
Speak for yourself.
> pointless box-checking for insurance and regulatory compliance purposes,
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> I wish I could see the rate of people dropping out or dumping the major because as you go further you need those skills anyway.
That's accurate. I mean, when I was boxing, you could tell who was gonna be good at boxing this time next year and who wasn't: the people that complained were going to quit in three months, the people that dropped when the bell rang and dude yelled "PUSHUPS!" were putting in the work.
A person studying security that doesn't wanna touch Linux and complains when given a Linux is not going to be interested in putting in the work when it gets actually difficult. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they need to show up with it, but if they complained about the Linux CD you gave them, they're not interested in putting in the work they'll need to put in.
I mean, devil's advocate, right, they compensate you for fraud, that comes out of their FDIC insurance. So you want to pull a $current_year Iran-Contra, you help the people you want to fund perpetrate a massive fraud, FBI issues a warning blaming someone convenient, banks don't give a shit as long as they get their money.
especially when it comes to computers. boomers gonna boom
Now that I don't do manual labor I have to work out and go hiking in my free time instead 🤷♀️
At least that would probably be me where I'd probably ask beforehand what software we should already have installed, no way I'd run a random blob from a teacher.
> they'd have to be in the building at that person's desk to do so.
Until some boomer decides to increase the LAPD's social media presence and you put the password for the server holding scans and photos of evidence onto Youtube.
> ICMP probably shouldn't be entirely banned though, otherwise you'll get things like MTU issues and miss connection diagnosis (like the various distinctions of destination unreachable).
The idea is that no data comes in; what do you really care if you lose some of the distinctions? Presumably it'd be one point-to-point bridge between the secure broadcast-only network and the external internet.
> And one thing that should also be filtered out is any connection that isn't for your address/subnet,
Like, in general, right? This is about a special case where you want some machines that are not quite air-gapped but you don't want machines outside the network to be able to influence their behavior.
> i think gross incompetence is more likely tbh.
Sure, but something happens a few dozen times, right, and the more likely it is that people assume it's just incompetence, the likelier that someone will realize they can use the assumption of incompetence as a cover.
LASD, last time I saw, was still logging into their shit using a 5250 terminal emulator.
> The idea is that no data comes in; what do you really care if you lose some of the distinctions?
Well MTU isn't really a distinction and AFAIK PPP doesn't fragments packets, that sounds more like something a proxy would do rather than basically network encapsulation.
And yeah for near-air-gap where a bit of connectivity issue wouldn't be much of a problem it's okay. That said at that level I'd use a filtering proxy, or even see if anything can be pushed to a machine with read-only storage with maybe some queries to the machine you want to isolate.
> Like, in general, right?
Yup.
> there's a device called a data diode which can't be hacked traditionally because it can only send signals outward and not inward. Think of a fiber optic cable where you only have a transmitter on one side and a receiver on the other, or an AM radio -- you can't hack the radio station no matter how you turn the dial on your am radio because the info only moves from the station to your radio.
That's kind of interesting. So you don't *want* the outside network to do anything to your MTU size. Zero incoming information.
Also for me the equivalent to a data diode is something like an UART link where you do not connect RX and put an actual diode on TX and ground (or even some galvanic isolation, which fiber gives you for free).
> People are much dumber
I know people are stupid. Iran-Contra wasn't done by idiots, though. The CIA tries *really* hard not to hire idiots. The more idiots there are, the easier it is to blend in with the idiots.
You want to go absolutely anywhere in most cities, you get a dirty jumpsuit and a baseball cap and fill up a shitty truck with landscaping equipment or janitorial supplies. It's not because most janitors are CIA assets, it's because they almost never are.
Interns are almost never there from the military to keep tabs on your organization, so they are usually barely vetted. Sometimes they are there from the military to keep tabs on your organization, though: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger .
@p @amerika @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
Sorry, for this customer, software is not even close to secure enough. =/
@sun @amerika @p @ins0mniak @lucy @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
This is the truth! That is why it is so important, whenever possible, to be present when they create thecurriculum to make sure you block microsoft from turning it into a microsoft program. It is difficult but on a few occasions I have succeeded.
@skylar @amerika @p @ins0mniak @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
Based on what I have seen, the first port of call, post education, is some kind of incident response center. And after a year or so there, the bright ones move on.
@sun
Sounds solid. How many years was the degree?
Can you teach this in CET time zone, and if so, what is your price per hour?
@p @amerika @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
Yes! Imagine having to send data, one direction only, and making sure with 100% certainty, that all the data got there. You cannot send back any ack or checksums. Another challenge in that situation.
https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=4SiFgB1lGxw
@p @amerika @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me has an answer, but the best I could think of is some kind of statistical approach.
You send the data N times, checksum on the receiving end, and then choose the set with the most matching checksums.
That's still not foolproof though.
In terms of transfer itself, I wonder if choosing some specific technology such as a laser would increase the certainty somewhat over others technologies (without taking
Infosec went from programmers into reverse engineering, to people reading nessus logs and running premade metasploit scripts, finally into marketers going through a bullet list.
I think that the general public willingness to accept an inferior digital experience so log as they get their digital crack, much like ads and tracking really, plays quite a big role in this. So are big firms swimming in liquidity while rent seekers are making sure compliance regulation is being pushed through.
The police department in Michigan where my parents live got hacked, certainly for something just as stupid.
Guy all on the news going "I want to move everything to the cloud, it's safer, everyone is doing it and we won't have to worry about security"
Which tacks on to my effort post about how dumb infosec is lol
It's the funniest thing. Like an iPad in a case or a Lenovo with a stylus...no one questions the dude with the terminal.
I walked forever under crystal city doing that. I start passing all this one way glass and none descript shit lol.
The glowies are desperate for anyone that can kinda computer and isn't smoking weed lol.
I know they recruit at the community colleges all over Northern Virginia where I live
Actual hackers love technology and applying it and see code as a means of getting there. Whether they write a photoshop clone or not, they're still invested in understanding how moving bits around makes shit happen.
Windows peaked at 2k, and still the command line was the best way to get 'er done.
At this point it's a mostly theoretical field that fetishises irrelevancies while missing the everyday problems people face.
The white hats today are volunteers cleaning up the office computers, IOT, field devices, etc. that MBAs and DEI hires are ignoring.
"less focused on computer science theory versus learning how to use tools"
nailed it
Software still strikes me as primitive and slow in most cases, but the problem is management not understanding the task and layering in stuff instead of opting for elegant designs.
The recent meltdown over Finale is an example of this.
Real hacker types stay up and night and drink Mountain Dew or blood
The worse problems are dark orgs and paradoxical goals.
The CIA is there to promote democracy worldwide... well that's vague.
People are computers. Program them with lies like equality and you get paradoxical output but pathologically so.
People use the tools that they need. Half the pros I know who use Windows very rarely use much of the GUI.
That Atlantic article about how even Ivy Leaguers cannot read whole books is terrifying.
Burnout is high. Funny how many talented programmers went on to second careers.
Exactly. This is the kind of stuff I have in mind.
Hacking 2.0 is more creation of software and pragmas than trying to bust into systems using known exploits.
It seems to me that the field needs a kick in the pants. This website is poised to do it from the sidelines, but needs a clear statement posted on it.
I kept my boot floppy in the drive (but ejected) because I was constantly breaking autoexec.bat and had to boot from the floppy to fix it.
kamala_cloud.mp4
@ins0mniak @amerika @Tony @p @h4890 @skylar @cjd @sapphire @sj_zero @threalist I used to work in AV doing events. You could get anywhere with black shirt and a 2-way. Most of the time security passes weren't organised for us until like 30mins before doors. By which point it was too late anyway.
@amerika @p @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
A lot of it is, but I am amazed that there is software with its roots in the 70s and 80s that is still useful today. To do one thing, and do it well seems to be the way to write "immortal" software.
@amerika @Tony @p @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sapphire @sj_zero @threalist
This is the truth! In my youth the drink of choice was Jolt Cola!
@amerika @p @ins0mniak @cjd @sun @sj_zero @threalist
Good for us! Less competition when the supposedly competent, are not! =)
The bad thing though is that I have to be very careful when hiring or collaborating with a Gen X:er.
It is very common for them to not even know that you should be on time for a customer meeting, and answer when you are asked a question.
There are good X:ers out there, but it takes a lot of work to find them.
"You Samoans are all the same. You have no faith in the basic decency of the white man's culture."
Anyway, I'm not so much in the "blank slate" category as you:
> People are computers. Program them with lies like equality and you get paradoxical output but pathologically so.
This is self-contradictory, at least as state. If people were an empty box you could dump culture into, you'd lose your argument against diversity, wouldn't you? I don't think equality's a lie, depending on which you mean. Equality under the law, that the law should be "no respecter of persons" (cough), is reasonable: if it weren't the case, we'd have things like people getting arrested for coke possession while finding baggies of cocaine in the Oval Office, we'd have all kinds of fruity shit going on like presidents and their sons banging kids on islands or groping them on TV. People would be up in arms. The Harrison Bergeron version of "equality" isn't reasonable.
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She'll just do what ever her handlers in the EU and the dark money world want her to do.
Remember shit like TPP that Obama was all about? Those kind of insane economic treaties are loaded with stipulations that turn internet governance over to unknown international authorities.
dont slander their good name
It seems to me like everyone just failed history class simultaneously out there in voterland.
Didn't we spend the last century figuring out that freedom of speech and thought were cornerstone issues of civilization?
I mean if you look at who goes into teaching to begin with, it's not usually the cream of the academic crop. Not saying much considering the asshole factories we call universities.
Then we put those people in charge of teaching kids.
> The Harrison Bergeron version of "equality" isn't reasonable.
True but all egalitarian thought always devolves to that
> Equality under the law, that the law should be "no respecter of persons" (cough), is reasonable
Except that now the law gets to determine what is "equal."
> If people were an empty box you could dump culture into, you'd lose your argument against diversity, wouldn't you?
I never said they were blank slates, simply that they can be programmed with crazy ideas. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is the best example.
That's part of it. The other part is that the students these days are less mentally coherent than those in the past, and that people in pursuit of ideology will gladly ignore history.
Egalitarianism makes people feel good, like heroin.
I've met people who are better than me on every measure that I think I'm pretty good in, and if people are all equal then that means I'm just a failure who didn't work hard enough. Some people are just better. Sucks, but it's better to think some people are just more naturally gifted than to think you suffer from some personal failing that makes you fail that hard against someone who is by all measures your equal.
But kids don't realize that yet, or at least they pretend they don't.
I hate all that kumbaya shit lol
(frantech down again so posting from here)
> I am amazed that there is software with its roots in the 70s and 80s that is still useful today.
Knuth said something like "programmers today are surprised to find out that we knew a thing or two in the 70s".
Aside from stuff based on it, some of the actual software is still useful directly. A lot (not all) of the Unix v7 software compiles and runs still. cal and ed, things like that; some of it needs to be tweaked because the headers have moved around, some of it makes too many assumptions about the libraries and the OS and would have to be ported properly to run on Linux, some of it builds but segfaults if you try to actually use it. You can still build and use the original vi. I forget what I did, but it needs a few tweaks to the Makefile.
Anyway, most of the stuff we're doing isn't fundamentally different; the tech changed but computer science is computer science, and it advances rather than moving.
> Good for us! Less competition when the supposedly competent, are not! =)
You want to go to a doctor that had attention problems because he grew up on Tiktok and Twitter? You want that guy voted into office?
If you change your mind on the hybrid militia-cult, we're right here.
Dead
Fictional
Kamel was a DA, she still is. She was speaking at some point about taking away the guns or something and she said "we get to do that". That's pig-speak, "the training manual says we're allowed to". She's a pig.
> It seems to me like everyone just failed history class simultaneously
I don't think it's ignorance, I think it's malice:
john_kerry_says_the_1st_amendment_is_a_roadblock_dr.mp4
> True but all egalitarian thought always devolves to that
If you mean "People don't pay attention to shit and then other people exploit this tendency" then sure. If you mean "Abandon your principles because an idiot might get the wrong idea" then that's absurd.
> Except that now the law gets to determine what is "equal."
That is a fuckup of a good principle. You're going to be headed uphill to convince me that a good principle is bad because it can be misused; see also freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.
> I never said they were blank slates, simply that they can be programmed with crazy ideas. Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is the best example.
Well, what you said was "Program them with lies like equality and you get paradoxical output but pathologically so." Yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is causing a panic, not programming people to think dumb shit after they have a chance to consider it.
Some people won't consider anything. You can't prevent idiots. The best you can do is get them to leave you alone or just legalize all of the things that are currently illegal to keep idiots from killing themselves and those around them (i.e., those willingly associating with idiots). Put dynamite on the shelves at Home Depot and stock heroin at CVS and we only have this problem for a few weeks. Even the second-order problem of idiot-enablers goes away.
> Egalitarianism makes people feel good, like heroin.
You're just going to have to make peace with the fact that idiots exist and are usually happy.
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> (frantech down again
I was trying to see that thing you attached to that other post and it was timing out.
"If people are just NPCs, why aren't they running your code."
I've shouted this when I figured it out.
@p @amerika @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
This is the truth! Knuth is a wise man, a legend.
I think this also shows how bad, how utterly bad, 99% of the software we use today it.
The focus is on quantity and getting shit out the door instead of quality and long lasting software.
> Kamel was a DA, she still is.
I'm from LA, I remember.
> crazy girl randomly shouts
> something about NPCs and code and people running code
> get nervous
> usher my family to safety
> usher my family to safety
There is nowhere your family is safe.
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More like than you think, but you won't catch me correcting misconceptions, something about enemies and mistakes. Hell, I'll get it wrong on purpose when it doesn't matter. I'm not very good with computers.
Not to mention that recognition placates the ego, and I've rather been focused on effect, not attribution. Fuck namefags, fuck stars on the wall.
NPCs only admit very simple code and it has to jive with their previous instructions.
So your options are limited, but if you want to get a bunch of people to destroy their society or commit suicide, it's trivial.
I want them to be happy, but I would also like to have a functional civilization that is not self-destructing.
Idiots do not threaten me personally. In fact, I kind of enjoy them.
No, I mean that the only way to prove equality is equity, and to get there, we always end up in Harrison Bergeron territory.
My perspective is that of #crowdism: herds of people tend toward control systems, and they elect talking heads to do it.
The voters filter out anyone honest -- you think Jared Taylor could win an election? -- and as a result get narcissists.
I've had no issue rolled botnet in meatspace, DICE is useful for "headers", payload is up to the reader.
I have known lots of good cops. They mean well and so they join the police force. However, then they have to enforce insane laws on uncivilized people.
Ideas only go where there is reception.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Bell Curve rule us all.
The audience regulates what is in demand.
Right now, it is refrigerators that post to Twitter.
They had one in Costco the other day and I almost fell over laughing.
I like things that work. The kumbaya shit does not work, so I left it behind.
I think of it in terms of Brad Pitt and Beethoven.
I'm never going to be as handsome as Brad Pitt.
I don't think I'm Beethoven.
All I need is a place where power+transcendence can come together.
The little old lady who sweeps the church steps and is thankful for this role in which she can be effective is more mentally and emotionally advanced than, say, Kamala Harris.
Wasn't Hercule Poirot with the Belgian piggery before he went private in England, where he could not be an official oinker?
Are you kidding, real pigs are adorable.
Cops are a mixed bag.
The laws? LOL, democracy shat the bed again.
So much for the power of The People!
This assumes free will, which is a fiction.
The reader does what his genes tell him to do.
Only basement dwelling is true.
You keep figuring out how I'm wrong, I'm gonna go get high and watch satellites.
Yeah, I never moved out of mom's basement, lmao. Don't make me post mexican women.
> The voters filter out anyone honest
People favor charismic psychopaths over sincere people, a new study suggests.
newspapers.png
Dunno, I see politics as a subset of philosophy, but then there's stuff in the news which is red team versus blue team.
Anyone want to talk about abortion?
Me neither, they're sad but sometimes necessary... in fact most of humanity should have been aborted.
The further right you push the bell curve, the more human potential there is.
Those are great!
I think it's even more basic than that: people are afraid of real stuff, so they opt for filtering it out, which leaves only the insane and manipulative who like #Control.
This is the essence of #Crowdism: we stop scapegoating the leaders and look at how human groups self-destruct over time.
You will then be under attack from people who realize equity has not been reached. And to prove equality? Without equity, you cannot.
I disagree. Left to its own devices, any human civilization degrades to third-world levels.
No, I meant it more realistically. I don't trust the affirmation of the herd and I think it screws with most people's sense of self.
I mean, look at celebrities...
Basement-dwelling (or analogue thereof, if you include my ascetic lifestyle) is the only honest approach.
If hikkis ran the world... well... it'd be less fucked up.
Fatalism is always tempting.
> This assumes free will, which is a fiction.
Prove it; you'll need to start with a definition of what constitutes "free will" and how to distinguish between the two cases. No hand-waves: I'll notice.
> The reader does what his genes tell him to do.
Name someone whose genes told him to get a vasectomy.
> If hikkis ran the world
I wish them great luck working up the courage to make a phonecall, but I have no interest in the dysfunctional and their retarded dreams.
Do you mean democracy specifically here?
Prove free will exists. Nothing says it does.
As far as vasectomies, there was a great analysis of that on Literotica. Their argument: low-T men are more willing to do it as a means of birth control.
> Don't make me post mexican women.
Counterpoint: make her post Mexican women.
Double counterpoint: post Mexican DEATH METAL.
I think hikkis have the right idea.
Society has gone off the rails and will self-destruct, so in the meantime, enjoy life and get ready for the ultimate jihad.
I wouldn't stop him either.
But I might take steps to make sure future dick-punchers are fewer in number and have no power.
So the fatalism accelerationist bit, that's projection. Who can blame you, it was determined by fate.
>Garbage distros like kali or parrot have a lot of automated tools that people will use and not exactly understand, so it's a point and fire situation. I mean if you can't set up your own box that you're fucking useless.
Can confirm. Kali/Parrot are only useful when you want to check your own setup for some common vulns. The tools included are too noisy in a production environment if you don't know what you are doing. And it's utterly unusable for red team purposes as Metasploit and similar will get instantly flagged by any AV that barely does it's job.
I once had to deal with a security auditor that the management contracted for some penetration testing. Gave him a list of IPs and hostnames to check. Not even 10 minutes later he decided it would be a great idea to launch a port scan on multiple IPs.
> Dunno, I see politics as a subset of philosophy,
Political philosophy is a subset of philosophy. Politics is just figuring out which way the wind most recently blew by watching the tribal affiliation signals stack up. It's like watching someone else eat, it's boring.
> in fact most of humanity should have been aborted.
The issue is that you think that it's a problem that most people are idiots. All of the wonderful things that have happened in history happened in societies that were almost all idiots. Demonstrate that society would be better if idiots didn't exist.
> Those are great!
They are, but it was kind of an oblique way of saying that you're pointing out the obvious.
> people are afraid of real stuff, so they opt for filtering it out,
People--you and me included--have finite energy and thus ignore things that do not demonstrate their relevance: if you didn't need to think about it and someone starts trying to tell you about it, there's a strong bias towards considering it a waste of energy until it proves its own relevance.
> we stop scapegoating the leaders and look at how human groups self-destruct over time.
"Let's stop scapegoating the rudder and discuss the individual planks in the ship for which direction the boat goes."
> You will then be under attack
They can join the club.
> And to prove equality?
You don't need to prove anything to idiots and it wouldn't do you any good anyway.
> I disagree. Left to its own devices, any human civilization degrades to third-world levels.
"Society doesn't do the thing I want it to do." What makes you think this is not for the best? What makes you certain what a civilization *should* do?
> Prove free will exists. Nothing says it does.
You've made the assertion that it does not. Please describe the specific thing that you are insisting is not real.
I perceive my actions as self-directed, even in cases where they are not. I don't need to prove anything, I just act.
> As far as vasectomies, there was a great analysis of that on Literotica. Their argument: low-T men are more willing to do it as a means of birth control
Whose genes told them to control births?
"Politics is just figuring out which way the wind most recently blew by watching the tribal affiliation signals stack up."
Platonist here. Politics is how you assemble a civilization from an organizational standpoint, and it is Darwinistic.
Yes, that's fatalism.
Many of us prefer a world that is not garbage.
You have to effect the thing to effect it. Defeat and self-seclusion will never result in victory.
It's ok that you said gay porn would be less offensive than mexican titties to your sensibilities, whatever float your boat, but I'm gonna have a laugh about it.
> Platonist here. Politics is how you assemble a civilization from an organizational standpoint, and it is Darwinistic.
You don't assemble a civilization, it assembles itself. You can only fuck it up.
>Prove free will exists. Nothing says it does.
There's a really great book about that subject called "Who's in charge?" written by Michael Gazzaniga.
To summarize the book while completely glossing over the details, your brain processes information separately in multiple parts of your brain and a specific part of your brain is tasked to rationalize that information. If your two hemispheres couldn't talk to each other, that part of your brain would come to different conclusions as it lacks the information from the other hemisphere. If it lacks enough information to make a normal conclusion, it makes things up on the go, to rationalize the conclusion it makes.
It partially proves that the concept of free will does somewhat exist, but that your brain will also make up information if it needs to and the result you interpret as something completely rationalized can sometimes be an illusion.
(Although I think "free will" is so ill-defined that anything could mean anything; I can say that I perceive myself as having directed my own actions, even when it can be demonstrated that I have not. At least as far as I can observe, free will exists, but I don't think the question of whether or not free will exists is vague and meaningless: it has no implications. If I feel hungry, I'll eat, even if you can prove to me that I am not hungry. If you could prove conclusively that love does not exist, everyone will continue to behave as if it does. Even people with an unshakeable conviction that they know what free will is and that it does not exist will themselves behave as if it does exist. It's not a criticism, I just can't figure out what the question is, what the answer would mean, and whether or not it would matter if an answer could exist. I can understand people being upset about whether or not Han shot first even though I do not care for Star Trek, but this question I can't understand.)
> but I don't think the question of whether or not free will exists is vague and meaningless:
I don't think the question is *just* vague and meaningless. I missed a word and this changed the entire thing. I mean to say that it is not just a vague/meaningless question.
fruitninja.png
sensitive media
@p @amerika @skylar @ins0mniak @threalist @sj_zero @cjd @h4890 @billiam i dont know if this is an optical illusion or not but i saved it on the pictures folder anyway
@phnt @amerika @Tony @p @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @0 @sapphire @sj_zero @threalist
Even though it is not proof, the debate has been raging in philosophy for atleast a 1000 years.
I'd say that it is far from proven, or else the debate in philosophy would be over.
Among philosophers today, the most popular position on free will is Compatibilism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
Enjoy!
@ins0mniak @amerika @p @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
The question is, can you prove it? How many women have you made love with compared with Brad? ;)
@p @amerika @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist everyone in or seeking a position of power is acting out of malice, by definition.
> the debate has been raging in philosophy for atleast a 1000 years.
That's how it is with stuff that has no real answer because any answer you give has zero consequences, meaning no effect in the real world, meaning no way to prove either. It's just a matter of outlook.
First thing that comes to mind is "caveat emptor" given arguably the majority of projects related to infosec these days are actually just honeypots created with fed money to con privacy/anonymity oriented people into giving up both in exchange for a supposed free lunch. Either that or security theatre designed to part fools from their money. Plus everyone I've heard from in the pen-testing community tends to agree that security auditing is just a way to check a box on the marketing hype, and 9 times out of 10 the same problems are cited year after year with jack squat ever done to resolve them. $0.02
Interesting. To me it seems simply to be a jobs program at this point.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
No one has observed free will in nature, so advocates have to prove their position. Attempts to do so almost always involve moral and legal logic. In the meantime:
https://ia903008.us.archive.org/1/items/NietzscheTruthLiesInANonmoralSense1873/Nietzsche%20-%20Truth%20%26%20Lies%20in%20a%20Nonmoral%20Sense%20%281873%29.pdf
The medical side is closer to this, i.e. the self-rationalizing human brain.
Yep, me too. For thirty years. Poseurs gonna pose.
I disagree. Power is a way to get stuff done. It is in fact the only way stuff gets done widely enough to be beneficial.
Gotta have someone to nail to the cross in order to feel better.
Possibly. It used to be that anyone concerned with Infosec or Appsec would quickly find their job being downsized just for mentioning it. I had that issue at more than one employer where their code was as secure as a wet paper bag and I got anything from a condescending head-pat to a swift boot in the ass for opening my mouth. It was more rare for any execs to give a shit whatsoever unless they had to demonstrate compliance with HIPPA, PIPEDA or such. Even then, it was typically the bare minimum. At least there are nominally infosec jobs/budgets which exist now. Whether most of the amount to anything is another question.
I find regulations really destructive, generally, since they are a shield against legal liability and therefore take over management thinking.
> so advocates have to prove their position.
I haven't advocated anything. I specifically said several times that the question of its existence is meaningless and has no impact on the world.
You have made an assertion, though, that it definitely does not exist. Please explain what it is. If you can be certain whether or not it exists, you can say what it is, because that's a necessary prerequisite. This question keeps getting ignored but this question answers whether or not there's anything to discuss. Without an answer to this question, there isn't anything to discuss.
I can say there's no gorilla in my living room, and I can tell you what a gorilla is. I can say there is no prime number below ten except 2, 3, 5, and 7, and I can define a prime number below ten. I can say there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. I can say there's no woman that isn't crazy, and I can tell you what "woman" and "crazy" mean, and you can tell me I'm right or wrong but at least we know what we're talking about.
So if you can say there is no such thing as free will, then you must be able to say what free will is and you must be able to explain how you distinguish between a case in which free will acts and a case in which free will has been absent. Otherwise it doesn't mean anything to say "yes" or "no" to the question. It's not even wrong, it's "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." We're just babbling.
This isn't a rhetorical trick, it's not an irrelevant question. We don't even know if we agree or not because I have no idea if we're talking about the same thing.
> widely enough to be beneficial.
Widely enough to be widely beneficial; this reasoning gets you stuck in the grandiosity tarpit. I don't need authority to cook something, and I have benefited from a meal if I do so.
Cooking a meal isn't a question of power.
> Even then, it was typically the bare minimum.
The bare minimum to ensure that they could wash their hands, whether or not it accomplished the security goals. The goal is compliance (and thus avoiding liability) rather than security.
There was a very good writeup of the Crowdstrike problem where the guy used (maybe invented) the phrase "checkbox compliance" and it sums up all of these people.
100%. The Crowdstrike situation is just a symptom of that. It's been the status quo from day one. But arguably the fact that there are even checkboxes at all is a small step in the right direction compared to where things started off.
Category confusion. Power leads to beneficial things, but other things can lead to beneficial things as well.
Checkboxes = means-over-ends thinking = necessarily going to miss something.
> Power is a way to get stuff done. It is in fact the only way stuff gets done widely enough to be beneficial.
A thing does not need to be wide to be beneficial.
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist cooperation is a way to get things done.
power is a way to force others to do things that one wants.
another question is "beneficial" to whom? "the majority"? "oppressed minorities"?
that's how we end with conservatives/liberals/other-flavor-of-cronyism lamenting about how rigged and flawed things are until they are in power and suddenly it's democracy that need to be defended.
Beneficial to a specific civilization and/or humanity.
Oftentimes minority rights and majority practices stand in the way of that.
Gotta avoid the B->A error there...
Suspect, 68, would jog around soccer pitch at housing estate exposing his buttocks and then remove shorts completely in public park, residents say.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3281738/elderly-hong-kong-man-arrested-allegedly-exercising-nude-public-park
Anarchy's a mess. I don't want to tell the guy he can't exercise naked, either, but there are reasons people do this.
It's really not. The checkboxes more often than not get in the way of genuine efforts to improve things.
@p @amerika @cjd @djsumdog @h4890 @sj_zero @threalist
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
what stands in the way of things is applying rules about everything to everyone instead of having people who are affected by $thing deciding how to proceed. nobody is keeping people from choosing a leader for themselves. you just can't force people to participate - they just won't get the benefits as well.
what would YOU do with naked man exercising in the park?
Very true. Checkboxes are great when the need that caused the task to be assigned lines up exactly with the past cases.
But they often do not.
More NAP jive. Leadership is going to happen whether you want it or not.
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist guess that's an opinion to have :)
As far as the naked man exercising in the park, I see only bad options:
1. Tell him not to do this because it makes the park less useful for others
2. Tell him to do whatever the heck he wants and have the park be less public (theft of taxes)
I have to default to aesthetics and culture here.
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @bonifartius @cjd @sj_zero @threalist go guerrilla: take pictures of him, post them to Grindr and give directions to the park
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I find that most regulations today is to either increase government power, or, it is used by corporations in teh form of regulatory capture in order to block new entrants from the market.
That's why deregulation is to abhored by politicians. It weakens them. But when it is tried, usually in a country that has tried everything else first, the results are amazing, and quickly hushed up by the rest of the world.
@amerika @p @ins0mniak @skylar @bonifartius@noauthority.social @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
I think the concept power in itself is meaningless. Once we start to talk about "power over what" it becomes easier to discuss.
A hallmark of capacity, the inability to define what is claimed absent because of the referenceability of the medium.
"I can't possibly define 'free will', I don't have nearly enough RAM, and it doesn't exist anyway."
I see power in two contexts: political leadership and ritual power.
Why are you making gay offtopic arguments? Either the mandated checkboxes help or hurt efforts to make things better and they pretty much always make them worse. Politics are not relevant to whether the method improves or damages a product or effort.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I think the three converge: regulation favors monopolies, delights bureaucrats/politicians, and enables regulatory capture.
Not a massive endorsement...
In this case, the general public.
Without free will the truth would be some magical spell that once heard, could never be denied. We know this is not the case, and therefore we must allow that free will exists, at least in the capacity to choose to be wrong, which informs all subsequent actions guided by reason stemming from these false propositions.
Anyway, I gotta get the hell out of this thread unless one of you knows how to speed this shit up.
> That's why deregulation is to abhored by politicians.
Also why the left loves having the commie agenda pushed in schools, since anything involving deregulation is automatically smeared as "capitalist". Because useful idiots are useful.
If a man is a gear, a cog who will always do as expected, then there is no free will. If instead A man might surprise you and choose to do something you didn't expect, then they do have free will.
I think many progressive ideologies deny free will and say that if a man chooses wrong it's because they were played like a piano key and they had no choice, whereas most ideologies through history claim you do have a choice and thus it is your duty to choose well.
I'm one of 6 kids. We had the same family, grew up in the same house, often shared bedrooms growing up, went to the same schools with often the same teachers, but everyone's path is vastly different. I can't experience that and believe we are piano keys.
They made their own choices which led to those external factors. If you choose to walk down a certain path, the road ahead has certain paths and forks. For me, I can see many people and how my life could have turned out more like theirs if I'd chosen differently, and those decisions were choices someone personally makes. In some cases you can see how similar our paths were until a critical decision that changes the paths we walk, and it's often not a circumstance but an actual decision we personally make. Whether those decisions are rational or irrational doesn't really matter in that respect from my point of view. Both are part of us and our minds and our will.
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
"theft of taxes"
@Leyonhjelm @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Yawn, block me if you like. It's as simple as that. And yes, I will continue with my comments and I do take pleasure in the fact that you do not like them. =)
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Yes, this is the truth. The left always fear well educated people with critical thinking skills.
The reason is that their ideology and politics have been disproven numerous times by science and history.
Only if people are kept from educating themselves, will they allow themselves to be tricked by the left again and again and again.
In economic terms that seems to be true, but I wouldn't let the modern right-wing off the hook or characterise them as any more "educated". If anything it's the reverse. The left are stupid because their relative over-education gives them undue conceit in the correctness of their opinions/indoctrination.
Speaking from personal experience, most of the right-wingers I've spoken to are out to lunch. They can't claim to have critical thinking skills while grovelling towards a character from a 2,000 year old pseudohistorical fantasy novel, and constantly knob gobbling zionist cock. But at least they don't buy into the commie shit. They have that much going for them.
When it comes to the OP (infosec) however, they're usually first to jump on the bandwagon of reducing data security if the subject get's linked to "criminalz" or "wutabout the childrens" or some other laughable but tried and true transparent manipulation used by political hacks to erode basic human rights.
Talking about Jews too much will make you gay just like talking about gays too much will make you gay or talking about gay Jews using Apple products will make you a Redditor.
If ordinary people cannot use the park, yes, their tax money got taken and they got nothing for it.
I like these mammaries unless she's a Latina, then I choose to be homosexual.
Burroughs says the bureaucracy created democracy. I think he's right. The bureaucracy will always support regulation because like insurance, it distributes responsibility for oopsies and allows socialization of externalized costs.
Anarchy has no response. That's the point there. I am inclined by nature toward no rules, but I can see why people don't want floppin' dongs in the park.
IMHO Jews are part of immigration and both are symptoms of civilization decay.
That is the real threat: going out like Rome, Athens, etc.
If you give individuals or entities the ability to set up checkboxes, the little sneaks are going to include stuff they care about that is not part of their job. I think that's what he's hinting at but my description is more brutal.
With info security, we have to assume attackers both foreign and criminal.
We usually say the stupid party versus the evil party.
Leftism fails and leaves ruins.
Conservatism is rarely understood as what it is, especially by conservatives.
Jews got bullied in the past and are disinterested in having it occur again.
More like Whites refuse to play to win because their brains are befuddled by egalitarianism.
But you're right, regulations are also use to squash out competition. It also keeps people who want to buy questionable things, like raw milk products, from being able to accept the risks and doing so. At the same time, fat retard law-tuber Barnes is defending Amos Miller, an Amish farmer whose raw milk has gotten people sick. The state has even tried to work with the guy to decontaminate his tanks, but he just ignores them and keeps selling.
And in the US, the food industry has lobbied against labeling GMO food. So unlike many places in Europe, you can't tell if a food comes from genetically modified crops by the packaging.
> With info security, we have to assume attackers both foreign and criminal.
Of that I have zero doubts. I'm not an infosec professional (at least not on paper), but I do routinely get both a chuckle and a shudder when I review my server logs on a daily basis.
I am continually amazed by the myriad of ways that users find and stash pornography.
I can see an entirely different legal framework working better, based on administrative agencies setting standards without force of law and allowing civil courts to make up the slack.
LOL. As long as it's not CSAM...
At one time I worked as a dev for a pr0n company and they had me write software to scrape all their affiliate sites on the daily to ensure none of them hosted CSAM or the like. Sad that it was necessary, but it felt good to get paid to do that bit of work.
That's very reasonable of them to take proactive steps. What amazes me about CSAM/pedos is how much money seems to be behind it.
But yes with regular porn you just delete it from any company gear and move on.
I got drafted into one security team at a consulting company, for only one day a week (priorities right?) and it ended up being mostly scripting update tools and checklists.
Ever security team at other companies I've worked with were always borderline incompetent. Because of that, their relationship to developers was almost always adversarial.
The problem in most offices is that eveyrone has an adversarial relationship to the developers, some through aggression (management) and some through neglect (sales).
This is compounded by the fact that programmers tend to be inarticulate and focused too little on the bigger picture.
I think you'd eventually still get confederations across small countries for things like food safely and regulation, and would see corruption grow there, but it would still be an improvement over mega-states.
I like the idea of layered confederations: a big empire for security and trade uniformity, a smaller one for regional concerns, and then national entities (ethnostates) under that.
> You probably know more than most "professionals"...
Maybe. Maybe not. I do feel a vested interest in not having my shit cracked, nor my customers. While I've informally done explicitly infosec work (eg. incident response, code review/refactoring, etc) it's not something I'd want to do for a living. Mainly because when you do the job right (at least blue team) and nothing goes wrong, the execs tend to view you as a drain on finances that serves no purpose. Then when SHTF, you're on the hook like it's a 5 alarm fire, and everything's your fault until shit's fixed. Not my idea of a fun time. Doing it for my own stuff is enough for me without having someone else breathing down my shoulder about it.
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
"being robbed is fine if the robber buys something for the victim"
@amerika @p @h4890 @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @sj_zero @threalist
anarchy is you. that's the point. that's why i asked what YOU would do about flopping dongs.
Value for money is legit, money taken to fund others is parasitism.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Yes, I think you have a point.
@amerika @TheMadPirate @p @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @billiam @sj_zero @threalist
Note that one marker for the downfall of Rome we're already seeing, and that is fiddling with the currency.
On the other hand, we are today a global civilization, which means that "downfalls" are handled differently, than if we were to rewing about 300-400 years.
@amerika @TheMadPirate @p @ins0mniak @skylar @cjd @billiam @sj_zero @threalist
Nice description of western "liberal" democracy.
@djsumdog @amerika @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Some of the wealthiest countries on the planet, with the highest standards of life are small countries, outside the EU. Look at Switzerland and Liechtenstein, no natural resources to speak of, yet both are extremely successful countries.
This shows that you don't need size to be successful. In fact, I'd argue that the bigger the country the worse it gets and more difficult to change and adapt.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
This is usually how it is imagined in a private libertarian world. Defense associations, insurance, and individuals coming together to defend their own territory.
I also like that thought applied at the country level.
@djsumdog @amerika @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
The market can also handle food regulations, because poisoning and cheating your customers is extremely bad business practice.
Over time, the market would produce better quality food, not worse, when the cheaters and poisoners would be found out and boycotted.
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
A few comments. The top level in Fortune 500 (or below) I have seen have been talented politicians. They are not hired to be talented at some specific skill, but to be good at playing politics. In the best cases you might have some leadership skills, but far from always.
Another distorting factor is woke:ism. Companies hiring based on race, religion etc. has become a badge of honor and
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
approval, which leaves talented white people in the wrong jobs.
The googlers are part of the market too. And finally, what corps are bad at, is training their own personnel. I think that it will become fashionable again to train your personnel.
When I started ages ago, I was sent 2 months to boston, all things paid for, by the company, and it was the best corporate training I have ever received.
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
Then as the year passed, this training stopped. I think it will make a comeback out of necessity.
I was thinking yesterday about how "the market" also succumbs to a "tragedy of the commons". The classic prototype is a public field shared by a bunch of cattle ranchers who have incentive to put as many cattle of their own on the field as possible to maximise profit, lest their competitors do so instead. Ultimately the field can no longer sustain the herds and the whole system collapses.
But this is functionally identical to corporations which try to maximise profit by screwing everyone over for the smallest margin. The end result is the externalisation and destruction of the planet at the expense of everyone but the executive class and shareholders. Ultimately it's unsustainable, the market collapses, and everyone loses.
So in effect, the argument for the current form of market capitalism suffers the exact same problem that capitalists like to point the finger at socialism/communism for. I'm not sure what the solution is, but just lobbing another libertarian market utopia at it doesn't strike me as a viable option. At least not unless it can address that demonstrable reality.
The world is really complex and has a lot of paradoxes that you can't really easily resolve. Given the fact that industrialization can have a negative externality on the environment that everyone shares, you would think that we need to just make sure that we don't do that at all costs, but there's a cost to that decision as well. Much of the world was extremely conservative and didn't want to take any risks because things have been basically fine for a very long time, and then the tiny island of Britain started to take scientific risks, and there were definitely negative and externalities in terms of deforestation and air pollution but that tiny island nation ended up having the largest empire in the history of the world. Meanwhile, those extremely conservative places like China which wanted to just keep doing the things that they had already done ended up facing colonialization and in the case of china they faced the century of humiliation, in the case of India they were totally colonized, in the case of the Americas they eventually became effective extensions of the European continent.
About all you can do in a situation like that is try to find the best balance for the situation of the time. I think that one thing that the West is going to discover and perhaps is discovering right now is that if we don't burn oil then our global competitors will and if they outcompete us hard enough it won't matter what we want to do because we'll be speaking Chinese and Russian. On the other hand, what's the point of continuing to be a superpower if everyone has to live in Mordor because the entire world was burned to ashes to manufacture more junk? On the third hand, the fact is that industrialization and like our good for individuals in the aggregate to a degree. I mean, we are all on the fediverse which is pretty much definitionally a fruit of industrialization. We have access to computers which are truly magical devices, and we have access to home electricity and home internet which is amazing, and we are all literate which is unheard of throughout global history. Most people don't want to go back to sustenance farming.
I read a story about a waste dump that was built by just some guy in the mountains, and he would just take on whatever. And companies would pay him to take their waste. Eventually, the guy died and there was suddenly this massive environmental disaster that nobody was alive to care about. This story shows that just being local doesn't mean you are totally immune to ignoring externalities, but I do think that being more local does help. If you have to live in the same community that you are destroying, first you're going to have to deal with living in a worse place, and second you're going to have to deal with the people in the local community really not liking you very much because you're messing up their local environment. So it isn't a complete answer, but I do think that one of the things that needs to happen is we make it harder for businesses to get much much bigger. My first proposal for how to do this is to eliminate limited liability, so everyone who owns a company could be fully on the hook for the actions of that company.
Second, there would have to be rules everyone has to follow because otherwise the free rider problem doesn't go away. The guy who dumps a bunch of toxic waste on his land and then guys without any heirs, there's literally nothing you can do about that because there's no one after the fact to punish. Therefore, they would have to be some way that the government (it doesn't have to be the feds, it can be municipal or regional) can step in before someone starts causing all that harm.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
This is a common argument against markets, but it has two responses.
1. The market as we have it today, is far from a free market. Governments, taxes and laws limit the efficiency and benefits of the markets today.
2. If you eliminate the commons, you also eliminate the tragedy of the commons.
Maybe, but we're beyond libertarianism at this point, because leaders are required at every level.
Humans keep trying to dodge the obvious, namely a need for (a) competent leaders and (b) competent citizens. We cannot escape the aristocracy and eugenics questions, much as I would like to.
> beyond libertarianism at this point, because leaders are required at every level.
Libertarianism/anarchism doesn't preclude having leaders. It precludes involuntarily established hierarchy.
"It precludes involuntarily established hierarchy."
That's what leaders are.
> > "It precludes involuntarily established hierarchy."
> That's what leaders are.
No. A leader is someone who inspires people with the desire to follow. If people are forced into it, they're not a leader, just a bully.
"A leader is someone who inspires people with the desire to follow."
This is a fantasy that assumes people are equally able to determine who is a good leader.
At this point, you might as well draw a cartoon.
We all follow Steve Jobs into Enlightenment!
Reminds me of this video of Rajneesh. I do think you're being overly cynical. Not entirely wrong, but also shooting yourself in the dick by equating a defeatist attitude with pragmatism.
One of my favorites.
It's not defeatist to be realistic.
There is no voluntary solution.
Human capacity for wisdom, rationality, etc falls on a Bell Curve
Only the right fringe has a chance in hell of doing the job right
> There is no voluntary solution.
If the solution is coercion (which is inherently violence), then I'm curious what problem you think is being solved here? To me it seems like just more of the same. And if you think that solution will magically produce more ethical and wise leaders, I strongly disagree. It will simply encourage the most violent sociopaths to vie for the job. That is already the status quo.
We might add that the Left enstupidate themselves by adopting a paradoxical belief, namely equality.
It'll tard up anyone.
Also the mortality problem. If you know you are going to die someday, might as well make a toxic waste dump on your property because you will not be around to face the consequences of doing so.
"what problem you think is being solved here?"
Civilization. The question of how to establish one and keep it from dying.
It's like a goldfish but more complicated.
So you have a fetish for some imaginary concept you call "civilisation" and use your love of this figment of imagination to justify all manner of tyranny. Seems pretty banal and in keeping with the status quo afaic. In reality culture and human society are in a constant state of evolution. You can no more stop a society from dying than you can stop yourself from dying. It's a natural cycle as inevitable as the seasons.
"imaginary concept"
No, civilizations are observable.
Most of them are run poorly which is why they are third world.
The idea of civilization is a construct invented by colonial powers to justify the conceit of their being more "advanced" in their own imagination than some other society, and thereby justify their tyrannical behaviour as some kind of philanthropic act. Etymologically it just refers to the process of urbanisation (from Latin: civitas = city).
"The idea of civilization"
No, civilization is a fact. You have varying degrees of organization, but when people live together you have some kind of civilization.
The colonial powers did a better job than the third world, and the third world is still butthurt over that.
> did a better job
Of what? You can do a better job of demolishing my house than I did, but if I don't want you to do that, then your opinion about it being better is fucking retarded. Learn to take "no" for an answer first, then we'll talk.
"if I don't want you to do that"
This is how civilizations fail: they insist on their pretenses instead of what works.
The West rose because its systems worked better than yours.
Would I endorse colonialism? No, but that's because I see it as destructive to the West.
> The West rose because its systems worked better than yours.
The west rose because it was more violent and deceitful than the indigenous people. If that's your idea of civilisation, you can frankly shove it up your ass afaic. Not the type of society I'd want to live in. Which arguably, is why we're having this conversation at all instead of just worshipping at the altar of western civilisation as unanimous patriots. If it's so great, why are we all so busy theorising about how to replace it with something better? Never mind that the most highly regarded good parts of it (eg. USA's constitution) were adopted from the Haudenosaunee in the first place.
"The west rose because it was more violent and deceitful than the indigenous people."
You mean like the Mongols, Huns, and Muslims who invaded Europe?
The third world is incompetent. It's going to get conquered by major powers regardless, whether China, the West, or someone else.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
An example that is often cited was poaching of tigers in a part of india.The government could not control or fight it, so by chance, for some inexplicable reason, the ownership of the lands, including tourist rights, was given to a nearby village. Since they would then profit by eliminating poachers, the poachers quickly discovered that there were better places to shoot animals than in the area of a village that made
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
money off the tigers. That is, I think, a good illustration of what it means to eliminate the commons in order to get rid of the tragedy of the commons.
These countries basically exist as financial hubs outside of the heavy regulatory burden of the West.
It's an important reminder that democracy has shat the bed.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
This is true. Finance, by its very nature, is very liquid, and they are smart to exploit that fact for the benefits of their inhabitants.
Sadly the EU has strong armed Switzerland, but I still think that perhaps Liechtenstein still helps with fairly aggressiev tax planning.
https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html
Just FYI
Big point is that things which are not owned get exploited too
IMHO exploitation of resources is held in check by the following:
* Culture
* Aristocrats
And lack of ownership results in Communism and equal poverty.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Perhaps it would be fair to say that culture precedes aristocrats, and that aristocrats have a strong incentive to think long term for the benefit of the family, in a way that quarterly driven corporations do not.
I tell people I am part-libertarian. That is, I think libertarian theory works great for the economy.
We also need social systems and political systems.
For the former, I choose culture, and for the latter, aristocracy.
All other things fail hard.
Anarchy's a mess! -- but it's what most humans want, at least subsidized anarchy with grocery stores and mall cops.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
This is the truth! That is why I find you so fascinating. I like and encourage people experimenting, mixing and matching in the hope that an even better system will be invented than libertarianism.
We should drop the green belt example in here...
I have sympathy for libertarians, mainly because they've taken the morally correct stance on just about every single human rights and economic issue since the inception of the idea, and not just in lip service, but also in practice. It's main drawback is that it's not appealing to authoritarians who want to coercively foist their personal delusions on everyone, which sadly is the majority. I do identify as "anarchist", but in my view that is nearly synonymous with libertarian (originally "libertarian" was what french anarchists rebranded as to avoid the guillotine) everywhere but north america. To me that means first and foremost that equal rights (to say "no" without experiencing reprisal) belong exclusively to individuals, and in practice take personal responsibility for your own decisions/actions and walk the talk. It has nothing to do with utopian ideologies.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
This is true. A problem with libertarianism is that due to its "open" and free nature, it is a very unstable system.
For instance, in my libertarian utopia, everyone is welcome to live the communist lifestyle as long as they don't force it on anyone else.
However, in a communist utopia, I am _not_ allowed to live my libertarian lifestyle, because the government says so.
At this point the EU is a colony of the USA with a little help from UK. The war in Ukraine is really in my view a way to control the energy and other critical resources of Europe, largely by making them less dependent on Russia and more dependent on USA. While there might be a few edge cases in certain policy areas per situation, in effect all the EU governments are puppet states of USA now. As to the USA, it's basically an oligarchy run by globalist gangsters.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
My best argument against libertarianism, is that in the long term I see no protection from it turning into a medieval system with lords, kings and serfs.
The only protection I can see is a strong culture enforced from birth, but that is very difficult to create artificially from without. It kind of has to grow from within.
I favor direct liability.
If your food makes someone sick, you are responsible.
The most advanced legal systems combined criminal and civil law.
Whatever nation adopts "value for money" is going to become the wealthiest on Earth in a short time span.
Leadership is necessary, police are necessary, etc. but government has gone too far and equality was its golden ticket.
I think you're right to cite "culture", but I'm not so sure about "aristocrats". Seems Platonic. Communism on it's own isn't really a problem for me. Like every family operates on a communal basis with shared property and so on. On a small scale, not only does it work, but it's the status quo from time immemorial. It's only when it expands to the level of a state government and is forced on people that it tends to go sideways. My personal favoured theory follows on the ideas expressed by Elinor Ostom in "Governing the Commons". That has a basis in reality that demonstrably works and has worked in some cases for millennia, without falling into the trap of the black & white capitalism vs socialism false dichotomy.
"Like every family operates on a communal basis with shared property and so on."
Does it? Here's what I've learned about shared property: as soon as there's a disagreement, you will find out who really owns it.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I would also argue that in case of families in western europe and the US this is also not true.
The property belongs to the father, or possibly, the father and the mother. The children don't own anything except what they are being given by the parents.
There's no communal economy or shared assets.
That's at least how I grew up and I do not think this is unusual in any way.
"They are not hired to be talented at some specific skill, but to be good at playing politics."
To manage the shareholders, in other words...
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Shareholders, politicians and business partners in the form of other powerful corporations.
You must not neglect the amount of work top level CEOs put into lobbying politicians and influencing them to grant small monopolies to their companies. Perhaps this is even more important than shareholder mgmt, since most shareholders sleep anyway as long as the stock value goes up.
Aristocrats are an outgrowth of culture through the natural elevation of leaders who deal with the struggles of early civilization. They are the only group with a vested incentive for society to succeed... they also have no escape from their role, and are aware that they are being judged by history, so are probably the people with the most "skin the game" in that civilization. This is appropriate pressure on a leader in my view.
> libertarianism, is that in the long term I see no protection from it turning into a medieval system with lords, kings and serfs.
Agreed. Already the population is being effectively reduced to a bunch of renters whose only means of subsistence is to barter their labour power in exchange for basic necessities, often hand-to-mouth. So by whatever name, it amounts to the same thing. That's why I'm more inclined towards Ostrom's perspective than I am a hard-line "capitalism" vs "socialism" trope of economic/political ideology.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I find that eugenics dovetails wonderfully well with transhumanism, as well as that it puts the finger on the question...
"breeding" (or developing) ourselves for _what_?
Also extrapolating scientific progress, raises the same question... for what purpose?
Looking at our scientific progress the past 200 years, and extrapolating that 200 or 300 years into the future, we'll have the power of greek gods. For what reason?
I appreciate you reading my words here.
I see two issues:
1. The "system" as you note
2. Population quality (biologically)
For a system, I favor as little as possible so that life is easy, simple, and imbued with beauty instead of red tape.
For population quality... what has worked best is failing to penalize people for being successful, and that way they breed more.
IMHO the most important idea in libertarianism is not just social Darwinism, but the idea of avoiding disincentives for productive genetics.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
In traditional corporate speak, leader is the positive, and "manager" is the negative version.
Karl Popper got it wrong as usual. The "paradox of intolerance" is that the notion of "tolerance" is paradoxical because it is purely symbolic.
I generally like the idea that people can do whatever they want and live how they want, but reality punishes that.
If you do not filter out the dysfunctional... their agenda ALWAYS includes dominance of you and those like you.
So the idea of Utopia is dead, and so is the idea of tolerance, despite how emotionally appealing those are to me.
Leaders are people who do the unpopular when necessary.
Saying "the leader is the person who is popular" gets you right back to where we are now.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
The people is what it is. Becoming a leader is entirely up to the skill of the person aspiring to be a leader.
My preference is for the "lead by example" variety.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Despite the bell curve and our inherent imperfections, due to the free market and capitalism, humanity as done enormously well the past 200 years. You can basically look at any measure, and our lives, globally, as improved a lot.
As long as capitalism and markets are allowed to continue to exist, I only see this trend continuing.
For the interested person I recommend Johan Norbergs book "The Capitalist Manifesto".
"USA, it's basically an oligarchy run by globalist gangsters."
This is what happens when you let political machines take over.
"At this point the EU is a colony of the USA with a little help from UK."
Because that's who covers its defense.
"I see no protection from it turning into a medieval system with lords, kings and serfs."
Possibly that is the natural state of humanity. Manorial feudalism however was unique to the West (Hajnal line).
"The only protection I can see is a strong culture enforced from birth"
Yes, same here, although in an actual culture, it too is an incentive or opportunity as @FourOh-LLC would say.
The paradox of tolerance gets taken out of context quite often. Here's perhaps the most important point of Popper's thesis on the subject.
“In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
In other words, if you are intent on forbidding discussion in favour of violent coercion, then you need to be put down like the rabid animal you are.
> The third world is incompetent. It's going to get conquered by major powers regardless, whether China, the West, or someone else.
Your argument boils down to "might makes right". Why not cut the pretence of intellectual superiority and just state that plain and simple. Also, try living your life accordingly and see how many friends that wins you.
"The children don't own anything except what they are being given by the parents."
Or at least, anything they own can be taken away by the parents.
Same observation here.
'Your argument boils down to "might makes right".'
More likely, might decides issues, and "right" is a fiction.
Reality makes might.
Unrealistic societies become third-world shitholes.
Sad but true.
I look at it cynically: the Board hires the CEO so that the shareholders do not remove the Board.
But it's true about law. The more rules, the more niches for micromonopoly.
I think a lot is about insider information too. "The regulations changed, and it just so happens that our new product which came out six months ago is the only product on the market that is compliant with the new regulations!"
...which means that the herd will ignore them, and take great delight in doing so, since rejecting anyone who knows better makes them feel more powerful...
"You can basically look at any measure, and our lives, globally, as improved a lot."
This is mostly technology. I agree that capitalism reduces costs and raises quality, and socialism does the opposite.
"But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force"
Which means, in practical reality, the suppression is legitimized and will become the norm.
> More likely, might decides issues, and "right" is a fiction.
That's basically the ethos of fascism. Can't say I agree nor am I a fan. Whether or not you're wrong is TBD, but suffice it to say I consider that outcome just as much a "shithole" as what it's proposed to replace, if not considerably moreso. To call that "civilisation" is laughable.
"Civilization" is not a binary moral judgment here. It's a description of a thing that exists in reality whether people want it or not.
I am skeptical of any "right" that is divorced from function. This is why I am not fond of dualism and egalitarianism... it's fiction, but people rely on those fictions, and then their civilizations collapse.
To me a "right" is simply a contract which demands a corresponding "responsibility". In it's most basic form that is "Take 'No.' for an answer in respect to each other's person and property." That basic form is the prerequisite for all other forms of right, consent, agreement, whatever. If a society is based on anything other than that foundation, then it's inherently uncivilised in my view, and really just a veiled excuse for tyranny and deceit. If that's not accepted, then we'll need to agree to disagree, or otherwise inevitably come to violent blows over the issue.
Back to voluntarism, which assumes that all people are equal in ability to be realistic.
That's the moral fiction in another form.
> Back to voluntarism, which assumes that all people are equal in ability to be realistic.
It also assumes that people will suffer the consequences of their own decisions, since there is no state to coercively appropriate resources to provide infinite welfare to the irresponsible.
> That's the moral fiction in another form.
All this simply boils down to which fiction one happens to prefer. If we're going to imagine a world to live in other than the one we have, and devote energy to bringing that about, I'd frankly rather envision one in which people are free, than reverting back to some kind of quasi-theological ethnostate like the Taliban, and slap a retarded veneer of "civilisation" on top to sooth my ego.
"It also assumes that people will suffer the consequences of their own decisions"
Not possible, since civilization, agriculture, and technology convey some benefits.
This is why you see migration from the third world to the first world: more benefits.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Ah, but that is migration within todays framework, where people can live happily of the state.
If people suffer the consequences of their own decisions, that means no one pays for the immigration, immigration will be very much decreased.
That's like saying that taking self-defence classes will result in violent gangs bullying people. It's not a chicken or egg question. The self-defence classes are a response to the existing violent gangs, same as the need to resist intolerance with commensurate force is a response to the existence of violent intolerance in the first place.
"As long as capitalism and markets are allowed to continue to exist, I only see this trend continuing."
I do not; as you know, history tends to run in cycles for a reason.
At some point, we run out of competent people.
Technology and capitalism have aided us, but these are dying civilizations.
The genetics will be the first warning and the last thing noticed.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Yes, and the ones who insist on poisoning their customers will soon have very few customers left.
The ones who insist on giving their customers delicious and healthy food, will soon have more customers than they can cater to.
I disagree. This society actively discriminates against actual leaders.
It seems straightforward: enhance what is good about life, decrease what is bad.
It may not translate into dollars and cents.
Also, "fascism" is vague. It seems to mean anything but anarchy to Leftists, who have adopted a paradoxical philosophy and therefore have trouble thinking clearly.
"Already the population is being effectively reduced to a bunch of renters whose only means of subsistence is to barter their labour power in exchange for basic necessities, often hand-to-mouth."
It's interesting how all systems converge on this. Over time -- whether by socialism, insurance, welfare, unions, or some combination therefore -- societies swell to the point that they subsidize their people and as a result keep them in permanent poverty owing to the tax load.
> It seems straightforward: enhance what is good about life, decrease what is bad.
Yet as far as I can tell, your idea of how to do that is the opposite. Institute a regime which dominates the populace through coercive violence, in the name of some conceit called "civilisation". I think you're being disingenuous under the guise of realism.
Maybe not, because then someone will simply import labor in order to make his own profit. The degeneration continues.
No, because violence has always existed.
The "tolerant" are focusing on one type and ignoring the rest.
Also my point is simply that if you legitimize violence in your ideology, it will become the norm despite all the fancy language about holding back.
People revert to the simplest interpretation.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
What is Ostroms perspective?
Exactly.
Ironically I think this has worked even on American fast food, which seems to have gotten healthier over the past decade.
The problem here is the "myth of the informed consumer." You need informed consumers; most people now live through rumor and media trope more than actual informed choice.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Yes, I see the point in that. But this needs culture. In todays world, there is no clear connection between being successful and breeding.
I'd argue that in many western countries, the opposite is in fact true. The successful don't want to bother with children and family, they want to continue doing what they are good at.
The fact that lower classes breed is just a function of the current system,
Also a good point.
Interesting how just now we're settling 1940s-era asbestos claims...
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist so that amount of reproduction would be decreased a lot in a libertarian world I'm sure.
Fascism has a wide range of features, some or all of which may be present in a given instance. Originally it evolved out of the Futurist art movement in Italy, which valorised violence, modernism, speed, and so on. In it's political form, that got entwined variously with ethnic nationalism, militarism, traditionalism vis-a-vis the revival of a mythical golden era, socialism (hence national socialism), the combination of state and corporate power (per Mussolini), etc. I'm using the term in it's original context, not simply as a slur against whatever "I don't like".
Not true at all. Civilization is not a moral judgment, just a descriptive term for human societies.
Raising IQs, having social order, and having functional institutions are all valuable things.
We can see why through the third world, which has none of them and destroys them if brought to it.
Colonialism briefly installed such things in some places.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I think there are good points in favour of that point of view, however, when it comes to our ability to change that, I differ from you, in being quite an optimist. ;)
I suspect that is why I am a libertarian, since I'm very optimistic in the long term, when it comes to what the human race will be able to do, and that we will be able to overcome our darker sides in time.
You can search for a summary if you like. She uses 1000's of case studies both historical and contemporary to boil down to 8 principals which make or break self-governed common pool resource (ie. shared/public property) systems. Examples of that would be a fishery, an aquifer, an irrigation system, a forestry, etc, where you have a shared resource relied upon by a community of private property owners who must develop mechanisms for cooperation which are resilient to the pitfalls of real life. A summary of her princpals are as follows.
1. Commons need to have clearly defined boundaries. In particular, who is entitled to access to what? Unless there’s a specified community of benefit, it becomes a free for all, and that’s not how commons work.
2. Rules should fit local circumstances. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to common resource management. Rules should be dictated by local people and local ecological needs.
3. Participatory decision-making is vital. There are all kinds of ways to make it happen, but people will be more likely to follow the rules if they had a hand in writing them. Involve as many people as possible in decision-making.
4. Commons must be monitored. Once rules have been set, communities need a way of checking that people are keeping them. Commons don’t run on good will, but on accountability.
5. Sanctions for those who abuse the commons should be graduated. Ostrom observed that the commons that worked best didn’t just ban people who broke the rules. That tended to create resentment. Instead, they had systems of warnings and fines, as well as informal reputational consequences in the community.
6. Conflict resolution should be easily accessible. When issues come up, resolving them should be informal, cheap and straightforward. That means that anyone can take their problems for mediation, and nobody is shut out. Problems are solved rather than ignoring them because nobody wants to pay legal fees.
7. Commons need the right to organise. Your commons rules won’t count for anything if a higher local authority doesn’t recognise them as legitimate.
8. Commons work best when nested within larger networks. Some things can be managed locally, but some might need wider regional cooperation – for example an irrigation network might depend on a river that others also draw on upstream.
The original text in full: https://wtf.tw/ref/ostrom_1990.pdf
I think that's a fair analysis. Most people don't realize that they were futurists. The important ingredient is the "corporatism" (combination of state and corporate power) which still makes me nervous.
Ethnonationalism came into play because of the question of what makes civilizations great... being monoethnic and having social Darwinism is a necessary part of greatness.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist This raises the question of if perhaps, we are not _yet_ ready for libertarianism.
That libertarianism will only work after a couple of 100s of years of evolvement, and with increased quality and knowledge of psychology, schools and training.
On the other hand... the same can be said of communism. ;)
"The successful don't want to bother with children and family, they want to continue doing what they are good at."
I think this is the problem that will rapidly end the West.
It's more than just doing what they are good at. Careers are simple; families are complex; taxes are high.
Socialism is totally dysgenic even if mild doses (like our Keynesian "mixed economy" societies).
"All this simply boils down to which fiction one happens to prefer."
No, all thoughts are not equal.
We do not need fiction at all (in a government context; it's essential for literature however).
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
The problem is that following that leads to authoritarianism. Therefore the only way out is to punish actions. Proactive punishment, ahead of time, turns the incumbent into what the incumbent wants to avoid.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
True, very much true.
I am neither optimistic or pessimistic; I am a realist.
If we make realistic decisions, we will do well; if not, the piper will have to be paid.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Exatly.. thus turning the "good" guys, slowly, into "bad" guys.
Looks like a path to totalitarianism, to be honest.
> ...if you legitimize violence in your ideology, it will become the norm...
I agree with you on the realism in the sense that I think the 2nd amendment is very wise, and militias should be the norm for every society. I tend to relate this as "dissent is custodian of consent" and "might is custodian of rights" per our earlier discussion of those terms. Not that "might is right", but that might is necessary for the maintenance and defence of consent. If people won't take "No." for an answer, then it's necessary to back it up with force, or rights (ie. consent/agreement) is purely a fiction. Same rationale for having a rule of law (though I'd prefer the polycentric variety).
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
As the techno-optimist I am, I see us reaching the ocean floors, and reaching for the stars.
Once we do, population will explode as will wealth and trade.
Of course we are talking 100s and 100s of years in the future, but eventually I almost see it as a fact, that we will become a multi-planet species.
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
Yes, but this also makes regulation by the government meaningless as well.
And possibly worse, redirecting society toward a tolerance/intolerance binary when it simply should be paying attention to what works and what does not.
'Not that "might is right", but that might is necessary for the maintenance and defence of consent.'
A good point.
I see the consent/non-consent binary as irrelevant.
There's what works, and what does not.
Backward category loading there.
The best can refuse to breed for any number of reasons, and that does not change their qualifications.
Reminds me to re-read "The Martian Chronicles."
We cannot escape our problems by moving. America is proof of that.
There are also some tragedies that are part of technological development.
Back in the day, asbestos was seen as a safe insulating material.
It took time for us to realize how dangerous it was.
Heroin was originally a non-addicting form of morphine. Thalidomide was a wonder drug. Vapes were safer than cigs. Etc.
That's just reality. If the chain of life ends, it never restarts once it's smith is dead.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
My interpretation of amerikas ideas has always been a starting point in Plato and the philosopher king, and then trying to extrapolate from there.
Apologies, if I'm putting words into your mouth amerika, but that has somehow been my impression of your starting point.
> Raising IQs, having social order, and having functional institutions are all valuable things.
IQ was created as an ideological tool to position "white people" as superior to other races. It was inherently a bigoted and arrogantly conceited notion from it's inception, relying on criteria which are largely only meaningful/valuable to it's creators. As to functional institutions, that again is ridiculous. Haudenosaunee had a functioning confederacy (constitutional democracy) for 1,000 years before "white people" showed up (as did any number of other indigenous groups, globally), yet by your metric we'd have somehow brought the civilisation to them. That's laughably ignorant. Smacks more of penis measuring to me, and in your case, you'd have to stretch it quite bit to make the cut. In effect the only relevant criteria you'd have was our relative degree of industrialisation. If "civilisation" purely amounts to "modern gadgets", then again, asinine criteria imo. In our ignorance we discarded the advancements that have been made by other peoples the world over in areas such as agriculture, medicine, art, astronomy/science, and any number of other areas, because we were to blinded by our own conceit to recognise it. Not the least because of worshipping a zombie on a stick due to the relative incapability to distinguish between reality and a pseudohistorical fantasy novel.
> We can see why through the third world, which has none of them and destroys them if brought to it.
You've yet to establish that any of that is true, or why it should even matter. If the idea is so great, you shouldn't need to force it on the unwilling.
Yes, we agree on those points.
Populations degenerate over time if they do not breed their best.
One way this can happen is lack of struggle, ironically...
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.com/search?q=mouse+utopia
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
An argument to suppor this, from today, is our current fetishism for political compromise. There are no principles any longer and anything can be compromised because it is easy. That way principles do not have to stand in the way.
That is why, in my opinion, we are seeing a drift towards more authoritarian values and cultures and more wars. There's no cultural "anchor" to keep us from degenerating.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
True... the informed consumer belongs to the "few", the many are too busy to become informed.
However!
Todays system is imperfect, but the effects of information does spread, albeit slowly.
I agree. I don't think Popper was advocating pre-crime. But in any case, you can see exactly the dynamic you're talking about with the modern left vs. right dynamic. Both sides accuse each other of being intolerant and violent, and will resort to force to supposedly prevent it. The left is usually the first to taut the paradox of tolerance, while hypocritically shouting "punch the nazi" out the other side of their mouth (in which case "nazi" means "people I don't like / agree with"). It's fucking retarded.
This article puts a different spin on it that I think is worth considering.
https://aeon.co/essays/reciprocity-not-tolerance-is-the-basis-of-healthy-societies
Seems pretty accurate.
I started out with nihilism, which was based on something I realized when very young about the contrast between consequences in reality and human ideation.
I read Plato in high school and enjoyed him, then studied under one of the best minds in philosophy, but returned to him after having deconstructed the far-Right.
Somewhere in there I also got interested in economics, and this helped me understand the failings of democracy.
I am still a nihilist, but categories are not super-helpful except "realist": everything I believe is based in my understanding of its impact in reality.
I am not interested in moralism, belief, symbolism, ideology, etc. that is unconnected to reality, including biology, economics, genetics, historically proven successes and failures, etc.
But Plato! He hit all the right topics with the right analysis before anyone else. What a stud.
If that's the conclusion you've reached from it, I gotta say you're completely out to lunch. Maybe read the book.
'IQ was created as an ideological tool to position "white people" as superior to other races.'
Not historically accurate. It was an assessment that followed previous assessments trying to who was fit for certain roles. Much of it came from the military. IQ was just the most advanced of those attempts.
Completely agreed. The system replaced culture, and it turns out we need culture to avoid getting swallowed up by the system.
Consent begins and ends with the willingness to take "No." for an answer in respect to each others' person and property. If you can't agree with that much, then it's highly hypocritical to point the finger at anyone else as outlining a recipe for totalitarianism.
Same. It's worth noting also that Plato was likely using that as a metaphor for the governance of the soul, rather than as a blueprint for a society.
But we should ask, what might intensify that effect?
It seems that most of us follow the leads of others who we think are knowledgeable.
Usually those are more successful people.
One can now see the utility of caste... or at least part of it.
"Both sides accuse each other of being intolerant and violent, and will resort to force to supposedly prevent it."
And both are right...
I agree here. Most people need some kind of daily work to keep them from imploding mentally. However, the form of "jobs" is probably not what they need in many cases.
It was developed out of the ideas of Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin who advocated eugenics and white supremacy on the same basis.
Yes, and most do not realize that.
The "Republic" he describes is a thought experiment.
However, he also describes the civilization cycle:
1. Monarchy (of two types)
2. Timarchy
3. Oligarchy
4. Democracy
5. Tyranny (rule by self-interest)
Very few understand that argument either.
Plato's thought experiment was mostly designed to prove that external control -- regulation of method -- was inferior to internal control, i.e. motivation toward the good.
Galton and Darwin covered so much ground that this can be said about almost anything.
"The first group tests of intelligence, providing the prototypes of many that were to follow, intended to improve selection, placement, and training for specific occupations within the US army during the First World War, constructed by a group of US psychologists under the leadership of Robert Mearns Yerkes (1876–1956), including Lewis Madison Terman (1877–1956), and applied to approximately 1,750,000 recruits in just over one year. The test and the results that it generated were kept secret until the war ended, eventually being published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1921 in a book edited by Yerkes entitled Psychology Examining in the United States Army, and in 1919 Yerkes published a version of the tests called the National Intelligence Test, which was widely used by schools, universities, and commercial companies. The Army Alpha test included the earliest examples of analogies tests, number-completion tests, synonym tests, and antonym tests, and the Army Beta test, designed specifically for people who were illiterate, introduced the first incomplete-pictures test and coding test, all the subtests being strictly timed."
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095424949
Francis Galton of course is one of my heroes:
https://galton.org/
False dichotomy. Saying that there needs to be authority is not an argument for full totalitarianism. Also, totalitarianism is not inherently bad; it depends on the quality of the leader. However, I think it will be very difficult to apply without it turning into disaster.
No need; it's the same stuff we see everywhere else.
What do we do with the commons?
* Organic: make sure someone owns it or culture regulates it (croissants)
* Totalitarian: have rules, cops, and regulatory bodies to fix it
The latter is apologia, not a plan. It will also backfire because of the overhead it introduces, like Communism.
I shouldn't complain about IQ tests honestly. I took one in school when I was 10 or 11 years old and they said mine was 180. I've done much shorter tests a few times since, and never scored less than 152 (because my pencil broke at the start of the test and they wouldn't let me sharpen/replace it). But does that actually amount to anything? Not if my bank account is any indication. In retrospect I've been so completely wrong/retarded about so many things I can only conclude the tests are a load of BS. To say nothing of EQ. But it's great for stroking the egos of children in order to set them up for a very instructive face-plant in later life once the illusion of "I'm a special snowflake." meets up with reality.
1. There are things you do in life that are important and have nothing to do with money. Being a good father for example is a full time job and doesn't pay a dime.
2. There are important things in life you don't need money for. People think you need money to do things, but it doesn't cost money to go for a walk, to swim in a local river, to have a conversation, to read a library book.
Money is important but not all-important.
This was probably not an actual IQ test but an attempt to estimate with other tests. We used to have the "Iowa" tests in school as well.
Are you saying this society does not reward intelligence? Seems to me it actively works to destroy it!
There are so many niche skills that feed into it, like decision making and estimating probabilities, which don't correspond with pattern matching of typical IQ tests but which are very important to actually succeeding in life.
Both solid points. I think people want money for security. When you have enough money to pay for healthcare, colleges, natural disasters, etc. you feel secure; when you have a lot of money, you no longer need to flatter people so they like you so they will help you out. You just pay someone.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Thank you, will have a look.
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
True, but that is from an evolutionary point of view. Due to our brain and consciousness and technology, we have kind of moved past evolutionary.
Due to our consciousness we have the capability to override, so it could be that evolution did not expect to evolve consciousness to our degree, and that actually limited or stunted evolution itself.
Maybe that is why we seem to be alone in the universe? ;)
The one I was initially referring to in public school involved a bunch of written tests and 2 weeks of psychiatric evaluation. The purpose was to evaluate kids across the school board to find a dozen candidates for their new "gifted" program, for which I became one of the selectees. So as far as I know, it was a very legit comprehensive evaluation. The other tests I took since were not of the same calibre. For example the Church of Scientology offers free IQ tests to people who walk in off the street, but theirs only went up to a max of 160 if you got a perfect score. I don't recall off hand but it was about 30-60 minutes long, and involved multiple choice questions on a few sheets of paper. The guy who refused to replace my pencil and was admining that test was practically on his hands and knees begging me to join, and offered me a job on the spot for 50% above the current minimum wage. I declined because I'd already been part of other cults and wasn't interested in a repeat.
There are a few markers of Rome-style failure.
Fiddling with the currency is one. The political maneuvering we see is another.
The biggest? Mutation load.
"take personal responsibility for your own decisions/actions"
Never going to happen. Even extreme social Darwinism involves some subsidy effect with civilization.
Any time egalitarianism touches anything it makes it toxic. It takes a while to kick in.
"Due to our brain and consciousness and technology, we have kind of moved past evolutionary. "
And as some say, this could be a problem.
The state seems to simply be bureaucracy funded by taxes at this point.
Libertarians are correct to say that governments are morally repugnant.
So is not having one and letting the worst people win by default - but fundamentally, both are the same evil.
@amerika @cjd @djsumdog @h4890 @p @sj_zero @threalist
I agree here. Leadership is a necessary evil because to fail to have it is to ensure the worst version of it possible will come about.
Democracy is an attempt to make government based on consent, and it ends up being one of the most abusive forms.
And so a lot of people will die out and their genetics and culture with them.
You're allowed to name the Jew on the fediverse
@h4890 @amerika @cjd @djsumdog @p @sj_zero @threalist
I'm naming this one "Dave" or "Phil."
> You're allowed to name the Jew on the fediverse
People advocate for ethnic nationalism and fascism, and yet revile "the Jew" for being better at it than they are. It's just penis envy. I want none of it.
I don't think people would have a problem with it if they'd do it in their own country instead of yours.
@amerika @cjd @djsumdog @h4890 @p @sj_zero @threalist
I don't trust the Church of Scientology tests either. Only the ones administered by psychiatrists who know what they are doing.
They (COS) used to have a big-ass building near the university in Austin where there are lots of weak-minded people. Having just survived #ARSBOMB, I was skeptical of the COS and started to hear horror stories from the gormless Austinites as well.
IQ tends to correlate with those, but it was always intended as a first cut.
It came out of a series of military tests, going back to the Prussians IIRC, which assessed roles for young men.
E.g. "is this an officer, footsoldier, supply clerk, or cook?"
I think Whites should adopt the Jewish attitudes toward ethnonationalism, culture, and family. The Jewish civilization is ahead of all others in this regard.
Ultimately, ethnonationalism is the solution.
Only Jews and all Jews go to Israel.
> they'd do it in their own country instead of yours.
They don't have a country. They never did. Even their Zionist ethnostate in Palestine wouldn't have existed were it not for sponsorship of the German Zionist Federation by the Nazis (ie: Haavara agreement). The only time in history that Jews have had a nation of their own was a 32 year period between 128 and 96 bce under the Hasmoneans where they briefly controlled part of the Gaza strip before it was conquered by the Nabataeans. In all cases they were living amidst highly multicultural societies including Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Canaanites, Persians, Philistines (hence Palestine), Phoenicians, etc. Judaism as a religion of the people didn't even exist until 150 bce. Prior to and into the common era, they were an amalgam of various polytheistic Hellenised Canaanite peoples. The oldest extant copy of their holy text is written in Greek (ie. Septuagint). There's no complete Hebrew copy until 1,000 ce (ie. Masoretic text), and it has some notable differences with the oldest partial copy (ie. Dead Sea scrolls). In any case, there's no evidence of widespread observance (ie. only tiny fringe cults like zealots, etc) until after 150 bce. Everything prior to that is just disparate fragments of text, in the oldest case (ie. Ketef Hinnom scrolls) a magical amulet (mezuzah) for protecting the dead.
> They don't have a country. They never did
That, sir, is not my problem
@amerika @cjd @djsumdog @h4890 @p @sj_zero @threalist
Personally I prefer the original American indigenous attitude towards it, which is not ethnic nationalism, but cultural nationalism. Everyone is welcome, if they assimilate into the culture. If they refuse to, then they are for all intents and purposes an enemy alien. That said, even among indigenous peoples, cultural differences frequently arose within family lineages, and were respected in the wider multi-cultural paradigm. The only thing limiting to ethnicity gets you is genetic degradation due to inbreeding. Also xenophobia tends to arrest cultural and technological development, making you more susceptible to being supplanted by those able to adapt to changing circumstances with greater flexibility. Granted when I say all this, I'm generalising quite a bit. There's a lot of diversity with American indigenous people, but looking at groups like the Haudenosaunee and various Algonquin'esque peoples, I think the point stands.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
No government does not mean no justice.
Read "For a New Liberty" by Murray N. Rothbard for examples of how such a society could work.
I would love to see some of these principles put into place but there's the problem of unintended (deadly) consequences.
I've proposed trying it out in a game like environment first, in order to minimize casualties.
"Everyone is welcome, if they assimilate into the culture."
Conservatives like this idea in the USA. I do not because it denies the genetic links to culture and the need of preserving unique genetic groups.
I also have not seen "assimilation" ever work despite having lived in the most diverse part of the USA for most of my life.
"The only thing limiting to ethnicity gets you is genetic degradation due to inbreeding."
Only if you have under 2K people.
"Also xenophobia tends to arrest cultural and technological development, making you more susceptible to being supplanted by those able to adapt to changing circumstances with greater flexibility."
Not necessarily; it has not slowed down the Jewish people at all.
Genetic data says Jews were a fusion that occurred in ancient Israel. Whether they had formal political power or not is moot.
I like the idea of a society simulator where we can test different rulesets.
> Not necessarily; it has not slowed down the Jewish people at all.
The Jews are fine with interbreeding, so long as the mother is Jewish. The majority of Israelis are more ethnically European than Semitic as far as their DNA is concerned. It comes down to culture. Same goes for Roma. The main benefit of an ethnic distinction is that if you allow people to breed into a society, then the newcomers are less likely to go to war with the incumbents, because they now have a family allegiance. It's one of the oldest ways human kind has devised to peacefully prevent conflict in the face of human migration. Intermarry, adopt the incumbent culture (with a few holdover customs to acknowledge prior lineage), and voila, you're "one of us" now.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Exactly. I doubt it will ever happen but it would be fun to try out SocialTerra, FeudalTerra, FascistTerra etc
> > The only thing limiting to ethnicity gets you is genetic degradation due to inbreeding.
> Only if you have under 2K people.
Interesting. I had initially thought it was closer to 30,000. Turns out from doing a little search that the MVP (minimum viable population) is now estimated to be between 500-5000 individuals, which may depend on various factors from their genetic background to environmental conditions.
It's worth noting the human species has experienced various population bottlenecks through history where the total number of humans on earth (that we know of) dropped to as little as 1,200 people or more recently 10-30,000 (75,000 yrs ago). So effectively we're all genetically related anyway. It only depends on the time scale and/or geographic boundary where you choose to draw a line in the sand.
On the other hand, cultural practices like cave painting, playing the flute, wearing jewellery, cooking food, hunting with a spear, probably mother goddess worship, and other stuff like that, predate even the existence of our species.
PS. It's common practice for indigenous people in my area to have taboos against marrying someone from the same clan. When people marry their children become members of whatever clan the mother belonged to, and adopt the cultural customs/obligations of that clan. Usually clan identity centres around ecological stewardship of the clan's titular animal species, including taboos prohibiting consumption of the animal's meat, etc. But the upshot of this is that in the broader multicultural setting of interclan relations, inbreeding is never an issue since to create the conditions for it goes against their greater shared cultural ethos. Afaik, "white people" are considered "eagle clan", but we never assimilated that custom of intermarriage reciprocally (to our detriment).
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
You also have alternative cost. If asbestos would not have been used for a short duration of our history, how many would have died in fires compared with asbestos poisoning?
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
Nope. Culture travels on top of genes, and can spread through ideas.
That's what makes culture so powerful. it is also massively decentralized.
I disagree here. Certain cultural behaviors can be passed along, but not the understanding of the culture as a whole. It rapidly becomes a degraded version of itself. This is why most third world civilizations feature ruins of great cultures not understood by the people who live around them now.
Good point. I do not know what other fire-resistant materials were available at the time.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
I think that is pretty meaningless, because every philosopher and every ism can be taken as an attempt map the governance of the soul.
Without actual words and indications, that theory, although helpful for inspiration and interpretation, is unprovable.
> third world civilizations feature ruins of great cultures not understood by the people who live around them now
Like all the US states, cities, etc, named after people and landmarks identified by their American indigenous names. ;)
...but none of them were built by the Mongolians...
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
A quick glance makes it look pretty vague and undefined á la Habermas, but from a decision theory point of view, one of the dominant strategies in terms of evolving cooperation is "tit-for-tat" with a starting point of cooperation, when having multiple strategies competing in the prisoners dilemma.
IMHO very little is provable.
In the case of Plato, his roadmap in "The Republic" is about conditioning the soul to realism, and the arguments are fairly detailed.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
In terms of IQ, it seems to me like there is a kind of "optimum" for wealth and success. Obviously there will always be individual cases that prove me wrong, but in the aggregate it seems to me that too little or too much tends to spiral out of control or not do very much.
I also read somewhere that Ogilvy felt inferior all his life due to IQ tests, but he did well anyway.
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
Dying out? We've never been as many in the entire history of man. I do not accept that statement.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Evolution at work? Being hunted for milennia has made the jewish culture flexible, adaptable and strong.
The idea is not new. To my knowledge it was first evident in writing of/about the Platonist school of thought via Diogenes Laertius who claimed the name of the book we call "the Republic" was "Peri Dikaiou" (On the Just/Righteous Person). It's also in keeping with all the various other ideas and metaphors in use by Plato in all his other works. Nothing is exactly as it appears on the surface. His entire philosophy revolves around identifying and refining "the Good" within the human psyche. The most explicit examples of that are Phaedrus and Timaeus, but it's also the dominant undercurrent of everything else he wrote, as well as consistent with the claims of his successors within the Academy and subsequent NeoPlatonic tradition.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
You should read up on decision theory and peace studies. I think they try to apply this kind of thinking, although, at the end of the day it is of course impossible to say if a model will work or not in real life.
And if it works, and if people know about it, the model will stop working, á la Psychohistory. ;)
..it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
The irony is that this perfectly describes every single person posting that paradox of tolerance comic on reddit.
Not sure what comic you mean (I'm not on reddit), but presumably they're misconstruing it as per usual. Hence my reason to cut/paste that quotation of Popper's actual statement on the matter. I've found that most people who cite the paradox of tolerance are exactly the type of people Popper considered to be enemies of the open society.
I think about reciprocity often in the context of why human ethics don't extend to animals. I think this has a lot to do with why we put "pet" animals in a different ethical category than other animals. We have experience with pets reciprocating non-violence with us, but we have no such expectations of a cougar we cross paths with on a hike.
@Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
The problem with Voluntaryism is that it fails to account for human nature. Laziness, greed, and contempt are all basic human traits that you can't volunteer away. It might work toward fixing laziness, but the fallout from greed and contempt would get worse without enforcers. Must we all hire private guards for our bodies and property? And how do we know if we can trust THEM? If men were angels...
> We have experience with pets reciprocating non-violence with us, but we have no such expectations of a cougar we cross paths with on a hike.
I've had way more threatening encounters with domestic animals (eg. dogs) than with wild ones.
In my experience the type of reciprocation has more to do with the way people approach animals than anything universal about the animals themselves. Human beings tend to be extremely conceited and arrogant towards other animals, probably as a consequence of most being indoctrinated into Abrahamic religion which regards animals as inherently inferior and disposable. So it's no surprise they are met with reciprocity in kind. If you treat animals with the respect you would an equal, including making an effort to respect their different worldview and priorities, in many cases they will reciprocate in kind. Inter species communication and cooperation among animals, is way more common than most people suspect. But for those who bother to patiently observe with due respect, it's a no-brainer.
That said, just like with human beings, not every member of a species/group is going to prioritise developing a relationship with a human. They have other priorities and interests. In most cases our antics are simply irrelevant to them, when not outright threatening. Yet there are exceptions where some will be patient enough with our stupidity to bother reaching out and entertaining a 2-way dialogue or even a long term relationship. It's more rare to find a human who's not too conceited and arrogant to prevent them wanting to.
@toiletpaper @nicholas @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Very interesting. Do you have a longer text on that theme? It seems to me that you have actually read Popper. Maybe you should write a short essay or blog post about it?
@nicholas @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
In my opinion, animals don't have rights, since they are not at our level of consciousness. They _do_ have rights, only so far as we find it expedient to give them those, since it makes us feel good, or makes us treat them better which in turns yields better quality products and services.
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I think this boils down to, at the end of the day, wether you think man is naturally bad, or naturally good.
Most libertarians tend to think that at the end of the day, man is good, and that is why it will work.
In terms of enforcement, there's plenty of options. Private police, community guards, the neighbourhood watch, the family, the village, doing it yourself etc.
Some methods have been tried
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
successfully in the past. Come to think of it, probably all of them have been tried successfully in the past.
My best argument for that man is inherently good is that we've had the technology to destroy ourselves and the planet for more than half a century, and despite all madmen, authoritarians, dictators, religious zealots and politicians, despite all of them, we are still here and have not destroyed
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
ourselves.
I haven't read the entirety of both volumes of the Open Society and It's Enemies. But about 12 years ago I read sizeable chunks of it when it was still available for free download on IA. The quote I pasted was from notes I made around that time in response to seeing a tonne of BS being spewed by leftists on FarceBook, mainly of the "Punch a Nazi." variety directed towards anyone who didn't subscribe to their asinine extremism (see attached meme). As still today, they love to think that Popper backs up their claim, when in fact taken in context it's precisely the opposite. I also read The Logic of Scientific Discovery and some more obscure stuff like Three Worlds (actually one of my favourites on the mind/body problem). https://tannerlectures.org/lectures/three-worlds/ I sometimes think I should have a blog to have a more permanent linkable place to share these ideas/commentary, but alas, I do not. Probably never will tbh. It's ephemeral, and my advice is you're better off getting it from the horse's mouth (ie. Popper).
I don't know how you feel about homesteading as the origin of property, but certainly large numbers of libertarian/anarcho-capitalists seem to find it compelling. I don't see how under that framework for instance a beaver mixing their labor with natural resources doesn't give them private ownership over their dam and river. If there is a consciousness threshold for rights, that raises some uncomfortable questions about people with cognitive impairments / degeneration.
Before you can answer whether animals have rights or not, you have to define what rights are in the first place. In my personal view a right stems from the willingness to take "No." for an answer in respect to each others' person and property. Animals intrinsically understand that if you don't respect their dissent, they will need to back it up with force. Take the stray cat who would attack you when you refuse to pay attention to it's signals that it doesn't wish to be handled (ie. dissent), or the wasps who sting you when you don't get the hint to back away from their nest. For the same token, on an interspecies level, what is conceived of as "property" is up for grabs. The wasp will not respect your property rights over the apple you just bit into. But you also have the freedom to back up your claim with force by swatting it. A rose or hawthorn tree is capable of expressing dissent (ie. thorns) and consent (ie. flowers/fruit) just the same as any animal. It's a natural law, far from merely a construct of human opinion.
@h4890 @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I don't think "good" and "bad" are particularly useful terms here. Humans' (and all organisms') primary instinct is to survive. Selfishness, greed, suspicion, laziness, aggression, will-to-power and so forth are all geared toward individual/in-group survival. To be fair, survival is also facilitated by in-group generosity, marriage, nurturing of young, cooperation, forgiveness, creativity, ingenuity,
@h4890 @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
...industriousness, and willingness to compromise.
The thing is, these deep drives guarantee conflict. Without governments, militias WILL form. Everything throughout history points to this.
And, as you already mentioned, without compulsion, large scale infrastructure that everyone can use will not exist. All "m'roads" (and ports) will be toll roads. Air traffic control won't even exist. Why should it?
@h4890 @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I think you greatly overestimate the desire and capacity of humans to be good for goodness' sake. We're good AND bad for SURVIVAL's sake.
> We're good AND bad for SURVIVAL's sake.
Not always. It's necessary to make a firm distinction between need (ie. survival) and fear/desire. Take greed for example. Imagine the multibillionaire who continues to covet more and more and more even if it means causing entire nations to descend into starvation. There's no survival at stake for them. This is a case where desire has been mistaken for being a need. Need can be satisfied, but desire cannot, because unlike a need, a desire doesn't exist in the here and now, but is continually projected via the imagination into another time and/or space. The same is true of fear.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Let me clarify. Greed STARTS as a survival instinct, that is, the ability to "store up your nuts for winter", so to speak. It can easily become pathological, but its origin is in the instinct to survive.
My point is, Volunteerism doesn't recognize and address greed and can't cope with its natural consequences. Not that any system can, but in a completely voluntary scenario, might is guaranteed to make
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
You can't volunteer your way out of dominance hierarchies. With no regulation, and no enforcement, the strong will simply dominate the weak. They won't have any reason not to.
You seem to have a lot of faith in human compassion. That's not necessarily a trait everyone possesses, particularly toward out-group members.
> You seem to have a lot of faith in human compassion.
I also have a lot of faith in things like the 2nd amendment. We don't have that here in Soviet Canuckistan, but in principal it's still an option.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
AAAHH!! I see! You're Canadian, and naturally nice!
See where that got you guys?
> You're Canadian, and naturally nice!
> See where that got you guys?
We have a pretty decent culture here. Notwithstanding the colossal embarrassment known as Just'in Turdeau, we can travel almost anywhere in the world and be immediately respected. Can't say that for 'muricans. So I can't complain. But that's our culture. Our politics are a different story. Also, piss us off and you won't find that "nice" attitude is infinite. Think Logan/Wolverine sort of archetype.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Volunteerism only works if EVERYONE is nice. If one single person is not nice and is strong and/or brutally intelligent (Machiavellian), it goes to poo with a quickness.
Still better to try being decent people and fail, than to try being brutal tyrants and succeed.
He needs to be confined to the dustiest and most forgotten history books...
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
You don't have to convince me. I'm a HUGE Canadaphile. For years, I said I wanted Canada to annex Alaska so I could be Canadian. Then... well, you know.
I can think of a lot of things I'd like to see happen to Turdeau, but none of them are stuff I'd put in writing in a public forum.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
I'll be mean and survive before I be nice and slaughtered/enslaved.
That said, I've never been to Canada and NOT loved the culture and the people. It's a beautiful country!
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
This is why I support some form of geniocracy.
> This is why I support some form of geniocracy.
I had to do a search for the definition. Ironic that it was first formulated by Raël given that none of his followers would qualify. Maybe by design...
In practice though I think geniocracy, or scientocracy, or technocracy or whatever other analogue of that system, would constantly have moving goalposts/metrics to support the authority of the incumbent leadership. Very rapidly it would become a tragic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The audience shapes the product.
I would like to see him managing a cell phone store for life.
As a realist, I think what is functional is best and morality is usually irrelevant.
"Volunt[a]rism only works if EVERYONE is nice."
I agree, and even then, it does not work. It encourages people to be self-centered and stop caring about consequences.
"Imagine the multibillionaire who continues to covet more and more and more even if it means causing entire nations to descend into starvation."
That's not why they are descending into starvation. Food is grown, essentially. They are starving because they are disorganized because their people are too self-centered.
Good/bad are judgments about actions, but the only real concern is how functional the action is.
It helps to separate short-term from long-term thinking.
Lots of stuff that seems smart in the short term is destructive in the long term, sowing future seeds of its own destruction.
Formalizing feudalism, which gave fewer rights to the lower-IQ people.
If you are not posting controversial content, it takes a few minutes to set up a WriteAs, Substack, Wordpress, or Blogger account.
It's not in our self-interest to self-destruct, but our civilizations keep doing that, and the world keeps getting dumber. They are careful to avoid the big direct destructions however.
I trust people to ignore anything that upsets their preconceptions.
Or at least, realistic about race.
I think humanity is deeply troubled and is nearing a tipping point. Malthus was right, just not how he thought he was right, or in the timeframe he anticipated.
> If you are not posting controversial content...
...then it's not worth posting.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
No proper IQ test I've ever taken had such pencil restrictions. They were administered one-on-one by a proctor and were mostly verbal in nature. Except for the part with the blocks.
You're thinking of standardized tests like the SAT or ACT.
Whenever anyone announces his/her IQ, I mentally subtract 30 points. In your case, 60.
180 is 5 to 6 standard deviations above average. Even 152 is not credible.
No, I mean controversial in the sense of "Right-wing" and or race, class, ethnicity, or gender genetic realism.
There's nothing to be done, most countries are facing 50% population declines over the next 100 years because of all those "evolution-proof" individuals who aren't having kids. South Korea is on track to have 4 grandkids for every 100 Koreans alive today.
Evolution is occurring right now, and many people who think they're superior are failing at it.
120 is where people start getting good with words and concepts.
125 is your professionals.
130ish is your thought leaders.
140+ is your geniuses, who if they survive can do great things.
Or worse, we keep having more people born and crash the ecosystem.
Sure, there seems to be a dropoff right now... but the figures are always wrong and the century trend is more people.
Let's put it this way... everywhere I've had a social media account in the past decade and change has been censored into oblivion. Nor am I willing to subject myself to spontaneous KYC bullshit in order to retain access to my account(s). At least here I have a modicum of pseudonymity and somewhat the possibility of an audience finding me that has relevant engagement and some at least rudimentary critical thinking ability.
If you read the rest of the thread you'll see it was a one-on-one and the context. As to your scepticism, you're hardly the first. But I have nothing to prove. Just stating the facts. Take it or leave it. My ego isn't going to live or die over it.
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist We've been paying the dumbest in our society to breed for decades now. There's no way back from this.
There is, but we are going to have to relocate some people and stop subsidizing the reckless growth.
I think we need an IQ test at the door to the internet. Also the shopping cart test.
Agreed. If people see they can have effect doing good in the world, more will try it.
That's like an A, right?
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Same situation for me except worse since I have had to host websites for thirty years or so.
I am still banned on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit... and a billion other places I forgot.
Considering all the drugs I've consumed since youth, mine's probably hovering around there by now too anyway.
I am told beer makes people retarded, so I try that on occasion. Every now and then I miss taking big beefy bong hits but life is a lot simpler without having to keep up a habit.
Well, except nicotine and caffeine, which is really my drug of choice/abuse.
I put the alcohol behind me a long time ago. I still have the odd beer, but only when it's foisted on me repeatedly by a mate. Was chronic with weed and tobacco for a long time, but finally ditched that too. Never was much into the hard stuff, but was pretty hardcore into hallucinogens as a teen-20-something. Mostly in a shamanic context though. I still do it ever so rarely for same purpose. Now my only real vices are being a teetotaler and spending too much time online for my own good. The thing that contributes most to my present state of retardation is interacting with you lot. 🤪
We are the retardation!
(seal barks)
@amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
And at the voting booth.
Incidentally, the point I was trying to make there wasn't to prove I'm so smart. It was that these numerical designations are not automatically a guarantee of wise decision making or superior outcomes. At least not if my own experience is an indication. There are far too many external factors that impact outcomes besides even a relatively empirical measurement like that. Again, also EQ is highly underrated and arguably not something that correlates well with IQ. I'd say the two are almost mutually exclusive in some sense.
On a personal note, one of the most hated phrases of my childhood was "You have sooo muuuch potential!". It's not fun being used as a prop for parents' egos, and expected to live up to other people's unattainable aspirations, rather than just being treated like a normal kid who can do normal kid stuff and make normal kid mistakes. I'm sure many adults have similar angst. I remember one of my class mates for instance was out in the hall crying his eyes out after we got results from a test, because he only got 100% and missed the bonus question, so his parents would be mad at him. IQ is overrated, and I'm not even sure it actually measures what it's claimed to measure in any truly meaningful sense. It's just a pedestal to put people on. Using it as an excuse to do some kind of dick measuring exercise with people of other ethnic groups, is fucking retarded nonsense (that kid who was crying was East Indian btw). There's so much more to life. No such innate talent will replace consistent disciplined hard work either. I wish I'd learned that lesson first and foremost.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
I can get behind that. IQ isn't everything. It is, however, a HUGE indicator of potential success.
Case-in-point: I learned recently that the average IQ in Haiti is 67. I have not had the "privilege" of visiting Haiti, but I was on the same island, in the Dominican Republic a few years ago, and boy was it a crap-hole!! Just NASTY. And that's the GOOD side of town!
Don't dismiss IQ altogether. It matters.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
2 things here... first, if it's meant to be 1-on-1, you should move to DM. Otherwise the conversation is free game for anyone to jump in. And second, there's something... unsavory... about parading your IQ in public. If you're smart, you don't have to tell people. They will tell you.
That said, you're right that IQ doesn't define you, and your score can actually set you up for a fall. Diligence is also vital.
I think @p is correct when he analogizes the Fediverse to IRC more than USENET.
It's a stream of stuff passing by, and people are going to just jump in (this is a strength IMHO even if I abuse it).
Average IQ determines the wealth of a society.
If it chooses Communism, the morons have taken over... and people are going to get dumber.
Or just limit them by sterilization after their one or two kids.
Bigger problem is how to cut taxes and reduce red tape, frustration, stress, tension, and obesity so the intelligent have 35 kids each.
@amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @Vox @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist highest iq nations tend to go for communism. Average iq is 86 here and I can't tell you how much everyone loves capitalism and God and white people
@amerika @djsumdog @p @h4890 @Vox @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist yeah Twitter is like irc and fedi is like Twitter
I don’t think anybody is stressed out because of the weather or the potential of an asteroid hitting Earth, or by their bad health or the death of natural causes of a family member, we accept those things as part of life, stress happens when a retard is in your world and you can’t kill him because it’s illegal.
Or just that we live in an ugly dysfunctional world because it is a tardocracy.
@toiletpaper @nicholas @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Got it. Thank you. A lot of my thinking is ephemeral too. Sometimes I do write something down, but then the problem is that the notebook tends to become ephemeral too. ;)
@nicholas @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I don't think those questions are uncomfortable at all, just natural and logical. Let's say someone is reduced to a coma. That person has very limited rights, and in practice, his rights are transfered to a legal guardian.
This also happens in way less serious cases than someone in a coma for the rest of his life.
So a reasonable intelligent mind, with
@nicholas @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
capability of understand the rights and arguing in favour of the rights, does not seem unreasonable to me.
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
I guess maybe creative and destructive might do? Do you those words are better than good and bad?
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
The government is a militia. We don't usually notice it until we disobey. Anything that we are susceptible to, still holds true with government, since it is made out of people. Government is not magic which changes human nature for the better.
That is why a libertarian society works, since it is more decentralized, so the damage in the worst cases is far, far less, than in todays world.
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Let me also add that I am looking at the consequences and practical actions. When I say humans are more good than bad, or more creative than destructive, I do not talk about the "sake" or motivation. I only talk about what's actually has happened or is happening in the world.
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @Vox @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Sounds very buddhist somehow.
@Vox @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Regardless of system, protection against violence and crime will always be needed.
No system, by its design, "fixes" this problem. That is why commust states, socialist, capitalist states, etc. all have military, police, private security etc.
A voluntarist or libertarian society would be no different.
@Vox @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Ahh... you're alaskan? Alaska is one of the places on my list to retire to! I would love to retire in solitude, with a nice lake or river for fishing and plenty of pine trees around.
My theory is that rural alaska would shield me somewhat from civilization and future corona pandemics.
@Vox @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Yes! Very friendly. I traveled to Riga a few months ago and a man started to talk with me in the elevator wishing me good morning. It turned out he was canadian.
This has happened on several occasions. I seem to attract canadians. ;)
@toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @Vox @cjd @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Another problem with that is that it does not solve the problem of values. Values are by definition normative, and not descriptive. That is why we fight about them, for as long as we have existed on the planet.
My belief is that the only feasible system is a system that allows people as muc has possible, to live according to their own preferred values and does not impose values from "above".
@amerika @djsumdog @p @Vox @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
The problem with function is that it is descriptive. It still needs to "rest" in the soil of value or goal. Otherwise you don't know if the action is conducive to getting you towards where you want to go (if we're talking politics and not just science).
@sj_zero @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @threalist
But note that this will favour families and individuals who actually enjoy forming families and having children.
Yes, for a few decades, populations will shrink, but automation and immigration will solve that.
But after a while, evolution will produce people who actually enjoy producing offspring.
Also on a global level we are far, far away from this happening. Population globally is only increasing.
@toiletpaper
That's a nice way to look at it. Sadly a part of my self image is based on me being somewhat intelligent, so I would never dare to take an IQ test. ;)
I'll content myself with selfdiagnosing as "above average intellicen" and leave it at that.
In my youth I think I took some amateur tests that said 140, and I have done the mensa pre-test which I think I got almost all right on (multiple decades ago), but I never actually took the real test, and I'm happy to let it rest at that. =)
@amerika @djsumdog @p @Vox @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
The individual is a strange thing. I never had any need for substances except coffee, tea and alchol.
My philosophy books are plenty enough for me in terms of wonder and amazement. ;)
Did you have any spiritual experiences that shook the foundations of your psyche?
I've always been very interested in psylocybin & co, but I have mental illness in the family, so I do not want to awaken any demons. So never tried and probably never will. But still very fascinated by the experiences of other people.
Kinda. It actually is an observation stemming from my own meditations. I developed a dialectic system over years based on observation of how my own consciousness functions, and this was one of the insights that came out of it. There are a bunch of different philosophies that share this insight, including Stoicism. That's one of the reasons I'm confident about it. If a whole bunch of other philosophies back it up, before I was necessarily aware they would, then it's probably legit.
Having a high number is a nice way to floss the ego, but as you noted, it serves no purpose, because the moment you tell people they will say you're full of shit anyway. So it's really just a way of masturbating over your own reflection, and has no genuine practical achievement associated. Better to make a positive contribution to the world and be respected for it than to stroke your meat because you have a high IQ with nothing else to show for it.
PS. My mom was big into the Mensa thing when I was a kid. I did the pretest thing too, but never official joined or anything. It's cool if you like crossword puzzles or that kinda stuff, but from what I've heard since it seems to be basically a big circle jerk club.
> Did you have any spiritual experiences that shook the foundations of your psyche?
Big time! But my perspective on those experiences has evolved considerably over years.
> I've always been very interested in psylocybin...
That's my goto psychedelic personally. I've tried a lot of others too, but it's the most safe and reliable. Essentially I view psychedelic experiences as an elaborate lucid dream. They provide insights into the inner workings of your own psyche using the dressings of your inner symbolic landscape. If you understand it as a highly symbolic conversation with yourself, it can provide tremendously beneficial insights and opportunity for personal growth. If you take it literally (such as encounters with otherworldly beings), then you're going to pretty certainly swirl down the drain into self-delusion and psychosis. I've seen it happen loads of times, and had my own moments in that respect also. End of the day, you can get all the same benefits (albeit less dramatically) via mindfulness meditation or a similar modality. There's basically nothing I've experienced using a plant medicine that I haven't had comparable experiences of via trance, dreams, or plain old meditation.
This is a good article that pretty much sums up my perspective in a nutshell. I have some more speculative nuance that I contemplate like "thought-forms" (eg: egregores, Popper's world 3, etc), the collective unconscious, and so forth, but in pragmatic terms this is the most important bit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4141319/
I know three people who are members, and based on the one that is really "into" it, I would say that you are 100% correct.
It is a shame, because I heard somewhere that the original intent, was to bring smart people together to solve the worlds problems.
But it seems like it's fallen pretty far short of that objective.
@toiletpaper Thank you, very much appreciated. You talk about one thing I have thought a lot about, and that is how it can go wrong.
I've read about young people without meaning in their lives, who try it and "find or encounter god", they become connected with the world soul, etc.
To me, it seems that what they do get hooked on is the experience. The experience gives them meaning, and they want to experience it again and again, and it gives them emotional "proof" of god. In short, it becomes
@toiletpaper a pleasurable feeling which becomes addictive.
On the other side of the equation, you have cured alcoholics, cancer patients who feel less anxious about death, etc.
So this makes me think that perhaps there is a reason for why nature did not evolve human beings to easily have these experiences. Meditation, trance etc. might work, but with more effort and perhaps also with a somewhat "lower volume".
From a spiritual point of view, I think of some of these people as getting
@toiletpaper hooked on the technique, and thereby getting distracted from the ultimate goal.
Well, in my own life, I find that what helps me most in terms of personal growth is the interplay between random life encounters and deep thought.
I cannot boast of any grand and ecstatic revelations, but I can say that as life progresses I get more and more comfortable with my own mind, and perhaps even more powerfully, comfortable with the fact that some "answers" are beyond answering in an objecti
> ...comfortable with my own mind, and perhaps even more powerfully, comfortable with the fact that some "answers" are beyond answering in an objective way.
Bingo!
Tbh, I fell into the trap of getting obsessed with "visions" and supposedly supernatural encounters and all that stuff at first too. The experiences are hard to debunk because sometimes there are insights and knowledge gained which are absolutely inexplicable in contrast with normal means of discovery. It took a while and a lot of experimentation to return back to earth and get my feet planted on the ground again. A lot of humiliating mistakes involved too. But in the end I reached exactly the conclusion you have, ironically in large part aided by those experiences. So as far as ends vs means go, I'd say there's not much need for it in your case. As to me, it still has some entertainment value on the extremely rare occasion, and/or helps me jump start my intuition when I'm having a hard time figuring out an issue, but beyond that, it's just a rarely used tool in a broader toolkit for self-discovery.
People place too much emphasis on it these days probably because of a fetish for the exotic, and a desire to reinfuse the world with magic after the disenchantment of the scientific materialist determinist atheist ethos has become dominant in the western mindset (and/or the constant hypocritical moralising of the Abrahamic tradition). Can't say I blame them, nor consider it an unhealthy impulse, but just that it needs more tempering and grounding in reality. Like IQ vs EQ, there's an important balance to be reached between the rational and irrational elements of the psyche. Over emphasising either is a recipe for disaster. They can be mutually complementary and supporting when integrated and synthesised properly, both individually and culturally. Maybe at some point there will be a legitimate role for shamans (by whatever name) in the western cultural setting, which doesn't involve simply mimicking/parroting whatever "brown people" are doing by way of a noble savage fetish. LOL!
@h4890 @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Yes, I think that's more accurate.
@h4890 @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Rural Alaska shields you from all manner of societal evils. I was TRULY off grid (not the Curry version... I mean REALLY OTG. No municipal ANYTHING.) for 6 years. I had a baby in a dry cabin with no attendant except the father. It changed me. It made me rather fearless. It's not easy, but it's valuable.
@Vox @Kolomona @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Leyonhjelm @toiletpaper @sj_zero @threalist
Thank you for making me clarify. I think it is better and more clear as well. Thank you.
@Vox @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
I would love to try it once in my life. Sadly my wife will probably not let me, so the closest I get is no electricity for a week or two, but that's nothing, especially since it is during summer.
Maybe time for you to write your own Walden?
@h4890 @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
It's already been written. I'll just podcast...😎
@Vox @toiletpaper @amerika @djsumdog @p @cjd @Kolomona @Leyonhjelm @sj_zero @threalist
Ahh... found the link in your profile!