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Discussion
Interesting. Are these considered authoritarian countries?
Good question.
Authoritarian state: Strong grip, low freedom
Fragile state: Weak grip, low stability
In the absence of government, I expect the countries are not short of bullies.
Absence of government sounds like freedom to me
Don’t you think there will be bullies to fill the vacuum?
Yes, 100%, but there are decentralized legal systems for dealing with those.
Mises.org has hundreds of papers on times and places that worked on that principle.
What’s an existing gold standard or model we can observe in the wild as an example of this decentralized legal system?
Xeer - read "The Law of the Somalis"
Pastunwali is similar, but in southern Afghanistan, any time there's nobody physically present trying to enforce Shariah at gunpoint
Original-flavour Common Law was very close.
Merchant Law in medieval Europe.
Rural South Asia and East Africa today mostly run on traditional courts of various local flavours. Often the central fiat governments try to repress them and stamp them out, but traditional freedoms die hard.
Somalis. Interesting.
There was one area that had a government collapse. Things actually went well but then government recovered and returned to harass the people. Wish I could remember the place.
I can see things going well as long as there aren’t any asshole showing up. Murphy’s asshole show up and then people start talking about how things ought to be.
In-your-face assholes are great in that scenario; its bleeding hearts and "economic hitmen" gifting dependency and delusion that people should fear
Businesses protected certain areas with security for the benefit of their customers. Everyone operated based on self interest. Nothing was forced on anyone. No one paid a tax for something they didn’t want. The fact that the government returned in a short period of time is evidence that the economy recovered fast when the government was out of the picture. The economy went to shit because of the government. Your continued insistence that theft and violence is necessary for a society to function is astounding.
Are you pro consent or pro rape?
There have been so many...
The more typical scenario is retrenchment and retreat by the regime to control only key transport checkpoints and maybe a natural resource extraction facility or two, and extort monopoly rents from those, while the hinterland returns to local tribal self-governance.
An older and less intrusive form of Statism, at worst, so long as traditional cultural institutions for internal dispute management and collective defense are still around.
I was talking a year or so ago with a former mine manager in Bouganville Island, PNG, where this happened two decades back. Well, he talked, I listened. He's still mad, invested a lot of his own money but treated the locals like slaves and isnt afraid to boast of it
It feels to me like scale matters. If I can replicate something in a Petri dish but I can’t replicate at the macro level. Then I have to question my assumptions.
I mean take Satoshi as an example. In order for him to bring Bitcoin into being, he had to come up with a set of rules that became law and ended up governing an entire ecosystem. He wrote executable code that enforced those rules. It scaled to the size of the problem, and then people added more on top of it to scale it even further like lightning. I guess what I am looking for is that practical set of rules that will replace these existing governments that we say we need to rid ourselves of.
We know government/fiat is mining violence. Whether we like to admit it or not, our private keys are susceptible to this type of violent energy. So what’s the set of rules that can deal with the violence beyond the structures of existing governments?
Totally freedom
My taxes get spent on terrorism, sanctions and "nation building" for those bros, not fair to judge them on the results of my taxes.
Read "Better Off Stateless" for what happened during those few years Somalia was just left the hell alone
I didn’t read it, what happened?
Interesting conclusion
No such thing as a good government
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
We can have governance without governors, though.
A majority of humans came to live under nation-states only in c. 1500 AD
If men aren’t angels, government will always be tyrannical
Men are not angels, so lets build a government out of those men that are not angels.
This 🎯
This is the full quote from James Madison:
“It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices [checks and balances] should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
Sounds like a fucking statist. What checks and balances actually work? The checks and balances have to be the people because the useless piece of paper known as the constitution certainly isn’t checking or balancing anything. All the members of different government branches are bought and compromised. The real checks and balances have to be the people. The people have to be willing to overthrow their rulers when they become tyrannical. And if it comes down to the people, then why have a government to begin with? The only answer is to control and extort you.
Madison would actually agree with you on most of these points. He shared the same fears.
Madison would argue that he wasn’t defending government because he trusted it — he was defending government because he didn’t trust it.
He believed humans are flawed
He believed government itself is a threat
His solution: build a government designed to fight itself
He saw government as a tool, not a virtue
His whole project was: Given that people are flawed, how do we prevent any one group from dominating everyone else?
Why do we keep quoting dead people who tried to build a system that has clearly failed?
I shouldn’t even say we. Why are you quoting him?
Because I found I tend to learn more from dead people than living people. 😄
Well this living person taught you something today which that dead person could not
I am not sure what that is because I don’t think you acknowledged his premise that humans are flawed. I am actually not sure what your proposed solution is, just let humans fight humans instead of government fight government?
Hypothetical scenario: disband the constitution and the United States government. Over or under bet that China or Russia will move in?
They’ll move in and do what?
Make you pay Chinese taxes lol
What’s stopping them from doing that now?
The military operated by retards in the government
What is a military?
You tell me, sounds like you’re looking for a specific answer
Making assumptions now?
I’m simply using the Socratic method as you often enjoy doing. You can find the answer yourself
I am not making any assumptions, I am asking you what your definition of a military is
You said I’m looking for a specific answer. I never said I was. That makes it an assumption.
I asked you first. If you’re interested in learning a different perspective then answer it. Use the dictionary or whatever you like. If you’re just gonna throw it back at me, when you’ve argued that we need a government with all these nonsensical things, that clearly have failed, then just drop the convo because it’s a waste of time discussing with someone who has already made up his mind.
If I am learning a different perspective I’d prefer to use the dictionary you have
I’d rather use your dictionary to avoid confusion or disagreements
This is Google’s dictionary
Is it impossible to have armed forces without a government?
What is the definition of a government?
A group of individuals that use violence, coercion, and other forceful means to compel others to do what they want with or without consent.
This may be where our dictionaries depart
They used the same word inside the definition. This dictionary definition doesn’t work. Not surprising.
Your definition may match closely with that of an authoritarian government:
It’s the same. Government imposes authority over you. That’s what it means to be authoritarian.
No further questions?
I think we already established the two distinct dictionaries. We are speaking different languages. Maybe some are narrower? Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right.
The dictionary definition you provided contains the same word in the definition. So the definition is not helpful. What is your definition of government? Clearly I’ve shown you a simple example of the influential power and potential for corruption that government imposes.
A government is how a community organizes power to make collective decisions, maintain order, and provide public services.
Was the entire community involved when the constitution, articles of confederation, and Declaration of Independence were created?
The better question is can members of the community choose to get involved?
No. The better question is can “members” choose to opt out freely without violence directed at them. You don’t wanna shop at Walmart? You don’t have to vote and gather majority support for the right to shop somewhere else. That’s freedom. You don’t want to pay taxes for cops? Too bad the community “voted” so you have to obey or you’ll be murdered or thrown in a cage. That’s retarded and tyrannical. This type of violence and reasoning means you have no respect for human life.
Your options are fight or flight. If your way of fighting is posting on nostr then 🫡 I see you.
This is the false dilemma or false dichotomy logical fallacy
Yes maybe. I think the next logical question is suppose you’re the American President, what’s the first 3 things you do?
The thing about fearing authoritarianism and power is that everyone’s afraid the next big idea end ups being some weird trade off of the same thing.
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
-Animal Farm
Freedom isn’t for cowards. And most are ruled by fear. There is no reason the masses should be afraid of the minority that is government. It really makes no sense. https://youtu.be/H6b70TUbdfs
No disagreement here.
Correct. It's not scary to defend the tyrants that enslave you. It's scary to speak out against it. To risk losing friends and becoming ostracized by those who fear change.
Yeah maybe, that’s what the new tyrants will want us believing also. That’s actually the first thing they say to you.
Step down, find a job, stack sats.
That’s actually what George Washington did. I think? But that doesn’t prevent the next guy from stepping in.
Because you think that the system can be fixed. The system is broken by design. The intentions of the “founders” of this “country” don’t matter. In reality, it’s broken and tyrannical.
Suppose that’s all true. At what point do we go beyond criticizing the thing and do something more to change it?
Before change can happen, you must be aware of the problem. That starts with people who defend false ideas.
Oh I didn’t realize you were recruiting 😂 I think I am going to step down and stack sats.
You’re showing me a potential for something I already acknowledged, and there’s a word for that in the dictionary: authoritarianism. The word government by itself is a more generic term, people tend to project personal views and context onto it that says more about the person than the word itself.
Speak for yourself my guy. Your definitions of government imply consent when none was given. Do you know what consent means? No community in human history has ever collectively agreed on the establishment of any government anywhere. Some may want it and others don’t. Yet it is still imposed on those who don’t, meaning it is NOT consensual and the community did not collectively agree. There is practically no difference between a “government” and a mafia. The only difference is that a government gives you a political ritual (i.e. voting) and gaslights you into thinking this whole thing is good for you and what you want. Mafias are at least more honest. Coercion and violence have always been necessary to establish any government. Which means that if you believe government is necessary for society to function, then you believe societies require violence and coercion to function. And that further implies you don’t believe in consensual relationships 🤷♂️
You can think boy all day about this subject, but a government-citizen relationship literally cannot be consensual and can never have a collective agreement from everyone to live under its rule.
I don’t disagree with that sentiment. There are at least 2 views on American government :
(1) The American experience is finished. Game Over.
(2) The American experience is an experiment that is still unfolding. Then game on.
“The experiment of America is new, and it may be delicate.”
-Thomas Jefferson
The experiment has failed 
Yes humans are flawed. So his solution is to give flawed humans ultimate power over others? Makes no sense
My proposed solution is to stop supporting and legitimizing monopolies on violence and theft using all these mental gymnastics about checks and balances and other nonsense.
So do nothing?
Not sure how you equated what I said to doing nothing
I didn’t, it was framed as a question. So what do we do instead?
I told you what to do. Scroll up and read it again.
lol, I read you said to stop doing things
Uh huh. Keep going you’re almost there.
nostr:note158m7c4mwk42w5s9lldcas8pstjj5at800kuw329wyve22gwcyg6qr6y62d
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Who are these people? All these retards I see roaming around that can’t take accountability for anything.
Exactly. They will never take accountability. There are no checks and balances in government.
Things got better.
https://www.peterleeson.com/Better_Off_Stateless.pdf
Then the outside world noticed, decided they were setting a dangerous example, and spent hundreds of billions to liberate them again. Not just the West; the AU, Turkey, UAE and Ethiopia decided to get violently involved.
It drives me crazy when people attribute low standard of living to the laziness or stupidity of its people. America definitely fucks over these countries with their monetary colonialism.
I don’t think you should call them your taxes though. You didn’t voluntarily pay them. It was forced upon you.