Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

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TL;DR: Anarchy is the system you're describing (total voluntary interaction with government, or no government) and there's plenty of anarchists around, and literally 0 successful anarchist states.

Let me approach your anarchy differently:

Why do we not have anarchy? Because not-anarchy is working and is the best system we've ever used.

Why don't we get rid of this to try anarchy? Well -- who's stopping you from creating your own Amish/Scientology/SoverignCitizen whatever lifestyle? Who's forcing you to live where you do? Is the tax man showing up at your door with guns drawn?

I think your contribution to our society is far more voluntary than you want to admit.

There are plenty of Americans who live 100-1000 miles away from a real government and largely never interact with it. Preppers in Alaska or in the wide expanses of the West.

Something tells me you choose not to live like they do, free from government regulation, not meaningfully paying taxes, etc, because you like the society and civilization that is built through Liberty (freedom with common sense restrictions) as opposed to Anarchy (freedom without restriction, period).

P.S. if you call taxation robbery but use public infrastructure, you're a completely entitled hypocrite who deserves no respect for your "I can take for free but how dare I have to pay" hottake. The only people who can criticize taxation are those who homestead far, far, far away from government and society, because they truly do not use any infrastructure or benefit, but, they largely do not pay taxation (and no government agency is going to Waco style attack to force them to, either).

Anarchists often like to cite the monopoly on violence (often purposely misrepresenting the "violence" for shock value) as evidence that all states are corrupt. Yet the only difference in application between a state and anarchy is violence being a monopoly in the former, versus a free (as in unregulated) market in the latter.

That violence doesn't apply to actors who implicitly accept the fiction of the social contract, and who follow the rules. Rather, it applies, as intended, to those who don't. And this remains true within the construct of a state as well as in anarchy.

The violence implicit in taxation is targeted against people who don't pay their taxes, taxation itself is not an act of violence. The social contract, implicit as it is, does require the needs of society to be met, and the cost of enjoying the rights and protections of law in a society is paid towards the collective welfare through taxation.

Many people will say that anarchy doesn't mean there aren't rules... and fair enough, but you can't have any degree of hierarchy or social interaction without coercion, or violence in the sense that the monopoly on violence describes. There will always be bad actors, charlatans, sociopaths and psychopaths, or simply those who can't afford the burden of debt entered into voluntarily and in good faith. As soon as a rule or a contract is enforced against someone's will, then you've just implemented an ad-hoc, poorly defined subset of a state.

No. Societies who have respect for individual rights are not necessarily anarchy. For example collecting taxes is obviously justified when it would prevent more significant violence - e.g. to fund an army, police and a court. Stealing from the hard-working to give to the lazy brings is a massively perverse incentive which only low birthrates, dysfunctional behaviours and national decline.

On the contrary - there is actually 0 successful socialist states. So your statement is massively misleading.

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>"Stealing from the hard-working to give to the lazy brings is a massively perverse incentive which only low birthrates, dysfunctional behaviours and national decline."

This is outrageously charged and bigoted language is the sole result of radicalization.

That you use these ignorant and bigoted labels when discussing economics belies your total academic and functional ignorance on the subject, and betrays your true purpose: to mindlessly repeat the propaganda which convinced you into this tribalistic response.

"On the contrary - there is actually 0 successful socialist states. So your statement is massively misleading."

An extremely common "whataboutism" defense from a fully radicalized zealot. No one brought up socialism, but the Propaganda Script that you are rote-repeating and incapable of deviating from makes heavy use of this particularly ignorant "whatabout" trope, so of course, you have to just copy-paste this red herring in.

I truly hope you can wake up from the radicalization which has fully consumed you. Good luck, you really need it.

The entire thread is on socialism - what do you think UBI is? Also you're talking about academic ignorance but your posts are nothing other than extremely lowly ad hominem attacks - first I was an anarchist, now I am ignorant - where are your real arguments?

And I use public infrastructure - was raised 200 meters away from a transfer subway station - and I call taxation a robbery. But I am not a hypocrite, because on a free market I would have paid roughly 20 times less for it - what is also called a fair price.

Not surprised that a person who sees violence and robbery as a universal solution is acting like that. Shame I just got down to your disgustingly low level...

Socialism is communal ownership of the means of production and self-regulation of workers. This is ELEMENTARY, by the way, so your propaganda-based misinformation on the subject definitely demonstrates the low-quality of your opinion.

Using a government to regulate a market to provide a social safety net is not "socialism" outside of the radicalized anti-academic conservative sphere who use the red scare in every single post they make -- NO EXCEPTIONS (and you clearly fit the rule).

"Not surprised that a person who sees violence and robbery as a universal solution is acting like that. Shame I just got down to your disgustingly low level..."

At the end of the day, you are a fully radicalized zealot whose radical anti-civilization speech perfectly mirrors the alt-right terrorists who attack our civilization all across the globe. From the far-right radical sovereign citizens who resort to violence nearly every day, to the alt-right youth bigots who shoot up mosques/blackchurches/synagogues and drive into crowds, nearly all of them parrot exact same ideological script as you do.

If I had to pick the conservative terrorist that you remind me of, I'd say either the Bundy terrorists who violently attacked the government multiple times because it existed, or the Vegas Shooter who murdered all those people. Both are huge anti-government tax-is-theft "monopoly of violence" types, and they decided to end the "monopoly of violence" in their own ways.

I'm proud -- honored -- to hold myself to a dramatically higher, more academic and more rational standard than your policy of rote-repetition of terrorist propaganda. If you think my level is low, then I have succeeded, for it is the policy of your ideology to make rabid use of doublespeak. I am legitimately honored to be considered "low" by you as that is a rather significant testimony as to my high moral quality!

And here is the second part of the quote you posted (the first result if you google your quote).

"Under a socialist system, everyone works for wealth that is in turn distributed to everyone. ... The government decides how wealth is distributed among the people" which is UBI.

I am really sorry, but you're very cheap fraud.

P.S. Also in our discussion the only person advocating violence was you, so don't you dare comparing me to terrorists. Don't you have at least a tiny bit of self-respect? And you have also called me a conspiracy theorist - this is funny now.

"When the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, everything seems to be a nail."

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