Okay so an army of foreigners show up and they burn everything to the ground. Then what? What did they gain by doing that? This is stupid reasoning because they don’t gain anything by doing that.
Discussion
Whatchu talkin’ bout? Armies been taking land since armies existed. Still do. It’s going on right now. Anyhow it’s cool mah dood, I know you’re fuckin’ wit me 😜 ✌️
Instead of burning everything to the ground, they could tax or enslave you
That’s the ultimate goal but it wouldn’t take 5 minutes for a country to just declare they own you
I don't understand what you're saying here
This is what the original argument was about lol someone claimed that if the nation state was dissolved, another country would declare this new free land belongs to them within 5 minutes.
I've looked back in the thread and i don't see anything about "5 minutes."
The "take over and enslave/tax" thing has happened many times in history, so i dont see how you can brush it off.
Open my reply to op
I’m not brushing it off. I’m just saying it’s not as simple as another country just declaring they own you.
We are not in that thread, we are in a different thread.
Oh my bad. Too many convos to track. But yeah I was trying to get him to reach the conclusion that these large groups of “foreigners” would not have anything to gain by senselessly attacking you. Instead, they’d want to enslave you. If it was an individual foreigner, they’d want to maybe steal your property. Defending against one or two “foreigners” is more doable and you don’t need a standing army or tyrannical government for that.
I don't ever find the idea that "we need government" compelling. What i always get stuck on is that warlords can gain from enslaving/taxing people, and the only thing that has ever stopped them is either 1) other warlords, 2) unusual technological situations where rag-tag defensive groups have a temporary advantage, or 3) areas where the targets are too spread out, for example a few random mountain men scattered in the wilderness.
In the future the Soveriegn Individual thesis might play out, but until that happens, a highly populated anarchist societiy ("Ancapistan") is unlikely to last long.
This does not mean the state is good or just in any way.
And none of this denies that it's possible for an individual to do a lot to free themselves.
This article helped me refine my views on these things, and also contains a pretty solid prediction about the coming decentralisation of the US.
https://www.anarchonomicon.com/p/after-the-state-the-coming-of-neo
