Nostr Web Client

Yes, I am okay with the first thing you mentioned.

And if your beef is with informed consent and rational choice, then pour your energies into education and the invention of new choices to solve your problem - rather than leaning further into violence and coercion and the creation of more and more laws that get abused.

In your words, there seem to be two paths to solving your conundrum ahead of you. Choose the one that doesn't re-create the problems we already have and are so close to leaving behind.

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

I have chosen education. I am a teacher.

I've stopped compromising with evil. That's where I'm coming from. That, and an actual education in economics. That's my degree. Debt is the root problem. Education depends on motivation. I'm the only teacher I've ever met who thinks kids shouldn't be compelled to be in school. If they're motivated, they'll show up. Its the same with adults, except that we have a whole financial system built on top of them making bad decisions and them being effectively enslaved. If my attitude is, "oh you should've paid attention when we tried teaching you, so FU your enslavement is fine because you chose it" then I would be making a compromise with evil, as well as failing as a teacher. We should give evil no quarter, no path to come back, if we manage to push it back.

We've tried laws that limit usury. For over a thousand years, all debt was illegal in Europe. Then in the Netherlands, usury was redefined to 6%. They made the first central bank, which they used to invade England and install a protestant monarch, who gave the usurers a new country to loan to. Then literally all the American states capped usury at 6%, and still do, but two states repealed that (Utah and Delaware), which is why all the credit cards are from there. We also got the "commerce clause" for constitutional law, which takes economic sovereignty from the states and mysteriously gives all power to whatever the worst policy is anywhere in the union.

My point is, we've been reasonable, acted like adults, compromised and kept faith in the intelligence of people... And still got to where we are. Corruption happened. How do we fix it? Not just roll back the laws and install better safeguards - how do we have the tempting candy, the debt, without it corrupting us again?

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

vinney...axkl 6mo ago

What do you mean by "evil"? It seems to be doing a lot of work here and is also very ill-defined - a bad combination for this discussion.

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

Yeah, I'm not fuzzy brained about defining it, but most people are, so they aren't capable of having a discussion about it. Evil is destruction, specifically of human beings, and the growth of nihilism that results and feeds back into destruction of more human beings. In that way, it takes on a life of its own. Its a real thing, although nothing supernatural is necessarily a part of it. Its a broad category, but not fuzzy. No woo woo needed. If compromise with it, you facilitate it.

vinney...axkl 6mo ago

Who defines what it means to be "destroyed", you or the "destroyed" person? What happens to your definition of evil when the "destroyed" (in your view) person actually **wants** that result and seeks it? Who are you to say they've been tricked and are acting against their own interest?

I'm not saying that _you_ can't hold a definition of destruction, but I am saying that it isn't an objective measurement - it is subjective. Thus, criminalizing someone's choice based on your value system is - in my view - coercive and immoral.

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

Can you give an example? I don't want to make a generalized statement when each situation is unique. And I'm not arguing that destruction itself should be illegal, or even that destruction is evil. A certain kind of destruction is evil - the kind that destroys hope, abuses and victimizes, increases nihilism, which feeds back into suffering. Creative destruction isn't that, even though it can involve suffering. And suffering is not pain - its a mindset, whereas pain is not. It can be mitigated through beliefs and self discipline, but also it is objectively increased by predations upon helpless people. A solution isn't to say, "suffering is a mindset, so bear it quietly" ; a solution is to stop the predation.

Need examples to be any more specific.

vinney...axkl 6mo ago

gambling. drugs (of any severity). consensual prostitution. weird sex parties and antinatalism. etc.

assume the affected person is otherwise physically healthy and financially "unexploited".

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

IMO gambling is destructive, but it isn't necessarily so destructive that it creates a cycle of destruction. I think doing gambling is fine, but not selling the dopamine hit of gambling. Similar views on drugs. I don't condemn a person for using them, unless they're causing a problem for someone dependent on them. They move a lot easier than casinos, so making them illegal is a different deal than making casinos illegal. If the prostitution is fully consensual, then its no different than the less remarkable addiction to sex - all parties are better off without the addiction, but you do you.

But its never fully consensual. We have the luxury of making up these "what ifs" because it's not in our face. Its all over some countries and its clearly exploitative. What we've done wrong in the past is punishing the women while the pimp goes free. If they want to freely sell a service because they've seen the prices they can get, no problem, supply and demand, then the price falls and its not a great career option anymore. But get the pimps. Exploitation is inexcusable. Make their life hell.

The problem with that "antinatalism," if I get your meaning, is they go for kids. You mean gays, right? I couldn't care less what people do if its consensual, but why do they have to indoctrinate kids? Yes, that's evil. Give them the same treatment as the pimps.

But none of these things come close to the destruction caused by debt with interest.

"The love of money is surely the root of all evil." 2 timothy 6:10 if memory serves. Watch it be wrong... Lol. Love is equivalent with "increase." Symbolic language. The increase of money is the root of all evil. Very efficient wording.

Sat Nakamoto 6mo ago

We like to divide the world into good and bad people. The reality is more complex: we are all deeply flawed.

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

I got that verse wrong, of course. Not an uber-Christian yet... It was 2 timothy 1:6-10. I got it all crammed together in memory.

vinney...axkl 6mo ago

antinatalism is the belief that humans shouldn't reproduce. usually it's a personal philosophy, not something aggressive.

Comte de Sats Germain 6mo ago

Ah OK, makes sense. I should've looked it up. Doesn't it seem like that's the agenda, though? It seems too expensive, and there's so much messaging that there's too many people, humans are bad, be gay, get a career, delay...