You’re going to call protestors “agitators” while the broligarchs keep coming up with the most outrageous, evil bullshit they could think of, just for the hell of it.
You’re going to call protestors “agitators” while the broligarchs keep coming up with the most outrageous, evil bullshit they could think of, just for the hell of it.
When everyone is out for themselves, the very basics of civilization collapse.
Empathy and pro social behavior are key to our survival and evolution as a species. Oligarchs and unbridled greed are a violation and exploitation of the social contract and bottleneck progress and healthy societal functioning.
The Bioshock games weren’t just spun up out of nowhere.
Both empathy and the lack of it are required. Humans are pack hunters. We work best as teams. Someone has to lead those teams. Guess what traits tend to make for people better at securing and conserving power within groups, and keeping loyalty within their ranks? Yep, you guessed it! Psychopaths! :D
There are benevolent leaders, yes, that exists, but in a competition where anything goes, a psychopath which is difficult ton detect will have the advantage over someone with more empathy and robust moral limits.
There’s a reason why they’re roughly estimated to be around 10% of the population. Hierarchies need few leaders. The higher the ladder, the more vicious the psycho it gets, because they’ll have to be competent enough to defend themselves from the other psychos that want all their tasty tasty power.
The reason why all our leaders are psychopaths is this is the same reason why basketball players are all tall. If you don’t have that trait, you just don’t get the fucking job (edit: unless you’re like REALLY good at it despite your disadvantage).
This used to depress me, but I chose to stop thinking about it. I don’t think there’s any fixing it.
In a time of crisis. The biggest downside of these leaders is that they keep creating new crises to stay in power. There are cases of killing such a leader because of that.
And in a lot of leaders, their status was defined for how much they could give away and how generous they were, not how tough they were.
Then there is religion, that manages to encoded certain rules and pass them on to the next generations.
The world is a lot more than psychopaths.
Agree 100% to every statement you made.
But umm… you realize that just by changing religion’s name it doesn’t stop being religion? Like, just because now instead of striving to go to heaven or achieve enlightenment or some other afterlife or any other form of supernatural transcendence, we now strive for a better society of tomorrow and understanding the universe… as long as people are willing to kill and die for their version of how to achieve their notion of paradise/transcendence/whatever is meaningful to them, and leaders are capable of using this conviction to build empires, there isn’t any meaningful difference?
You might argue we got rid of “magic”, but again… changing names… Statistical anomalies, higher curled up dimensions, superimposed states… Just because we have observed bizarre phenomena that has blown our minds and have the ability to predict some of it’s behavior does not mean the eradication of all the unknown is possible. And that’s all “magic” is and was. The unknown over which we have little control.
Yes, the world is a lot more than psychopaths, and yes, religion was and is fucked up, and there is enormous value to kindness and compassion which we should all strive for, but I’m sure we can agree psychos play a big role in leadership and people have a hard time seeing the stories of their time for what they are.
And, as a reminder, if someone has an advantage over others in the game of achieving power does not mean it’s wise to do as they do or that they are any more (or less) valuable than anyone else. They’re just good at a game. My comment was in no way a message of admiration, rather a declaration of resignation.
Libertarianism doesn’t deny empathy and “pro social behavior” (as an autistic person, I rarely see it toward myself, not being liked and not making right faces - apparently not deserving of it, but OK ; it’s already good if those “pro social” people don’t consider it normal to steal from you when they don’t like you), it actually relies on those more.
The issue is that it’s something that needs scale and consistency. You can’t just assemble a bunch of idealists and crooks and expect them to make a working mechanism.
I don’t think there were many more successful attempts by left anarchists.
We probably have different understandings of the word “libertarian,” from what I’m reading.
I’m referring to the people who would also label themselves “anarcho-capitalists,” as the literal definition of libertarianism isn’t typically associated with the term. I put it in quotes since capitalism by design leads to and encourages hierarchy (private ownership etc etc). No, commerce/trade is not the same and is as about as old as written history itself.
I’m also autistic and have been ostracized for “wrong” behavior. When I say “pro social” I mean mutual aid, genuine compassion and actually treating other humans with respect for their immutable traits (beliefs like bigotry don’t count). I do not mean masking or “fitting in.” Unfortunately we do get unfairly judged and that’s bad. But - we also are generally capable of finding and forming our own groups.
Sovereign utopia building as a whole has its own set of issues, but that’s not what was specifically being addressed. Socialist policies in general improve the wellbeing of the respective societies they’re applied to, though.
I’m talking about ancaps as well.