I'm much less concerned about the government knowing what the 'criminals' are talking about (there are plenty of other ways to track them) than I am with the government knowing what the citizens are planning on standing up for/against.
In the case of government, I find it hard to see what do you mean by "same world, but without government". If everyone behaved the same in absence of government, nothing would really change. If we take into account changes in people's behaviour due to lack of government, then how do we stipulate that no government forms in that world? Are we imagining a world where everyone knows that forming any government will end the world and thus no one does that? In that case I'm hard pressed to even guess the sign of the difference in magnitude of harm, let alone its order of magnitude.
Money laundering and drug trafficking are rounding errors.
If we want to compare two situations, we should not only point out the differences in one direction. Otherwise we'd end up claiming that e.g. a society on a desert will have many fewer deaths on account of drowning being vastly less likely.
Corporations might do it for a different reason — seeking capital above all else — but the end result is the same.
Any organization that gathers enough power would be capable of bringing about a Chinese Great Leap Forward, a Soviet Holodomor, or a German Holocaust.
Some of the worst abuses in history were made possible by the invention of the corporation. Ever hear of the East India Company? They are responsible for 100s of millions of deaths, many genocides, and the eradication of entire cultures.
The difference is that we now regulate corporations to hopefully prevent this level of power and abuse. We seem to be moving towards a new era of East India Companies though, so I'm not sure why you think only a "government" could commit atrocities.
Hell, the Irish famine was caused by the British adhering to free market principles. In that case corporations and the government teamed up together to kill 15% of the Irish population for no particularly good reason.
Governments do not have a monopoly on atrocity.
Edit: Nestlé probably has a bodycount approaching the governments you listed.
“The corporation” in general is, and the British East India Company in particular was, a tool of government, not an opposing force.
Unlimited government power has historically been, well, terrorizing for citizens in the same ways as large crime groups - but far more deadly.
Hell, politician can lie their way to power, realize nothing of what they promise and still somehow not lose the "job"
If we want to discount such deaths as caused by the government, we will end up with lots of cases of "would not happen but for policy X, but policy Y would have prevented them". From some POV _every single death_ is somehow caused by some policy that's government-imposed. To have a reasonable way to define "caused by government" we need to have something to compare with.
why is that
democracy didn't save the cherokees or the melians because they weren't voters
Cryptography isnt a solution to this because wrench attacks will continue to exist
A President elected by a minority of voters under a system designed to disenfranchise the majority, who selected a panel of Supreme Court judges for life terms, themselves selected by a right-wing think tank specifically for their willingness to overturn Roe V. Wade, which had the support of the majority of the population and was settled law for nearly half a century.
That demonstrates the solution of government is only effective for a specific demographic... ironically the demographic that's been claiming everything is rigged against them for the last decade. For everyone else participating in the system seems like a fool's errand. One side was willing to risk sedition to get what it wanted, and suffered no real consequences, while the other side seems incapable of opposing the status quo, almost as if it's just there to provide the illusion of a choice between two sides.
I can see why people want to opt out. I vote, and I'm still going to vote on principle, just because I want to go down fighting, but I'm under no illusions that my vote is anything but a farce.
Tell me again about how voting is an “effective solution”.
Oh, right, because it's impossible.
A solution is to indoctrinate bureaucratic elements of government to follow political leadership, but this trick only works in authoritarian systems, like USSR, and requires periodic show trials and executions, or in the military (thus: bootcamp).
This is one of the areas where machine intelligence could end up saving the day for humanity. Bureaucracies can potentially be replaced in toto by informational systems at some point. I think only then will we get to try actual democracy democracy.
Otherwise, you need to run for yourself.
You won't get what you want done if you don't participate, and voting is the bare minimum of participation you can do
edit: ymmv, hard work & organizational skills still required
If you make $150k/year half your paycheck goes towards funding traitors to the United States of America, funding people actively seek to undermine the constitution.
I met a guy running for congress a couple years back and had some discussion. We didn’t align politically but he seemed like a genuine guy who cared about helping people in his district more than reciting the party line and joining in on culture wars, and ultimately that screwed him out of the election.
The only time I can’t understand voting is in swing places where a small margin can make a difference, but even then I wouldn’t vote given some of the people on both sides running.
Stop pretending these organizations represent democratic interests, or are beholden to democratic forces.
We pay for them, but they do not serve us.
You should convince other voters to agree with your policy first, and if you can't, then you should concede that FBI/CIA/NSA/ATF shouldn't get voted out even if you want them to.
The primary means through which said voters learn about these institutions are controlled by said institutions.
The FBI/ATF murdered hundreds of people at Waco, the CIA murdered the elected president of the United States.
These are not passive institutions that serve the people, they are hostile mafias hell bent on our subjugation, and inherently incompatible with the concept of democracy.
What, do you want the tyranny of the minority? Are you proposing some sort of fascism?
This is (in many cases) a lie. The system is set up in a way that only the political class can realistically run for political office.
> the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy
What Signal is doing is infinitely more effective than voting for this year's media-approved career politician.
Are you cool with that? Or is voting ineffective at stopping them?
> you can decide who is the government
I think it's okay for people to express their opinion on the internet, and it's not a moral failing that they are doing that instead of, as you suggest elsewhere, running for office, getting elected, writing a bill and finding allies.