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Comment by anovikov | Hacker News Reader

Broad solution to all this is building your lives in business in a way government can have a minimal control of. Just do what it requires and keep everything else encrypted and anonymized. And don't rely on government for anything, for we are heading for a world of global government failure: people and institutions are going to ignore and circumvent them all, and make them dysfunctional. In a way, that will be like communism: there is little government can be of help nowadays, and it is more and more becoming a nuisance.

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Don't rely on government for anything? What are you talking about? Almost 100% of scientific research and 100% of infrastructure around the world is funded by government. Almost all of education, health and welfare around the world (though less so in the US) is run by government. A lot of people are suspicious of government, but such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American (and sometimes Russian) traits.

'such fundamental disdain toward and alienation from government are peculiar American'

This. If you're so unshakably convinced that a government full of people you vote for every four years is never going to work in your interests, you have serious problems.

"full of people" being the operative phrase here. People with power tend to abuse that power. This is human nature, and this is where distrust of government comes from.

People work in their own interest (however they may define that). Working in the interests of those that elect them is just a hopeful side effect of the democratic process.

I wish you counted the officials you voted for and compared it to the number of governmental bureaucrats, agents, and other persons that are assigned, never elected, and often stay at their offices as elected officials change.

The number of non-elected officials is vastly larger than the few thousand elected officials people vote for.

Not that governments (and other bureaucratic bodies) never work in your interests. They always work in their own interests, and among these are self-perpetuation and grabbing more power. But as long as their other interests are aligned with yours, they could throw all their power at your cause. Should your interests diverge... well, good luck.

Many implementations of democracy have this problem, most prominent example of course the US.

> a government full of people you vote for every four years

You mean a government full of people I vote against every four years, right? I actually don't vote any more, but back when I did, the people I voted for were never the ones who won the election. (At least not at the national level. There might have been a local one, though not any I can recall offhand.)

But even if my favored candidate had ever won, there are good public choice reasons to think the system as a whole would resist serving my interests ahead of its own. We have a "government by the government, for the government" - a vast barnacle feeding off the economy, trying to take as many resources as it can without killing the host.

I think it's rather the other way. The historical record shows that they hardly ever do what I would have preferred. One problem is that the referents for "you" and "your" don't always match during the sentence:

"If you [1] are so unshakably convinced that a government full of people you [2] vote for every four years is never going to work in your [3] interests, you [4] have serious problems."

1. the person reading this

2. the majority of voters in your country, which the person reading this is only likely to be a part of about 50% of the time at best, in the US

3. the person reading this

4. the person reading this

Looking at just US presidential elections, people who vote straight Republican or Democrat will have been in the majority at least some of the time, but someone voting their conscience without regard to party has a fair chance of having been in the minority most of the time.

Another problem is that voting gives an individual neither control over nor responsibility for anything that the elect do. Look at all the Bush voters outraged about what happened during that administration (either Bush, actually), and all the Obama voters currently outraged about current administration activities.

The thing is, for all its supposed power, government is really bad at marketing. People tend to see only what they don't like about government while simultaneously enjoying the benefits from various services that are provided by the government.

As in those "get the government out of my medicare" signs that were seen in the US.

(Cue the "blah blah markets can do it blah blah" responses - no, I'm sorry, but even economists disagree with you.)

> while simultaneously enjoying the benefits from various services that are provided by the government.

Using these services because there's no practical way not to is just the reality of our system. Taking a few scraps from your masters to survive does not mean you agree with your chains.

I'm curious, what's your ideal political arrangement? How do you propose we provide for transportation infrastructure, medical services, police, fire departments, etc? I'm not convinced that abolishment of the state is possible or even ideal, but I'm open to discussion.

I don't think abolishing the state is ideal now. Hierarchical structures and violence are far too ingrained in people and passed on to their children. We really need a philosophical awakening to move beyond institutionalized violence. Abolishing the state swiftly would have the opposite effect as there are too many people dependent on it. Too many lives would be lost. This is a process that needs to happen at a local level, over generations.

And I don't have any proposals for how those services will be provided. People will just figure it out and create solutions organically, as they have for numerous other problems throughout history. We didn't need to know how cotton would be picked before we abolished slavery.

I would point out that the conception of the state arose "organically", in the sense that basically all of our structures and hierarchies are socially constructed. With that in mind, would you see it as "wrong" if, upon finally ridding ourselves of ingrained hierarchical structures, we find ourselves rebuilding similar structures all over again? Do you find hierarchical structures of authority to be bad because you don't think they're "organic," or because you think there's a better way and you simply don't know what it is? Or perhaps you think our current structures are stale, and even rebuilding them in new ways would be helpful?

Libertarian socialism is more popular in Europe than in America, and they, too, strongly disdain governments.

I think many in Europe have a disdain for governments because our countries have experienced tyranny up close and personal, if not experienced it directly. Many European countries have at some point in fairly recent history have had governments that have gone too far against their own people (Spain, Greece, Turkey, Italy spring to mind for example, but also to a lesser extent France, the UK, East Germany, Poland etc.).

In many European countries there's been a history of oppression and a state controlled press that spouts untruths, which makes people quite skeptical and untrusting of governments. Indeed, some countries still have this or a notionally free press that's hampered through other means.

There's an almost brave new world-like contrast in the US whereby having the illusion of a free press and free democracy has lead many Americans to believe they're free, even though they're supporting things that work against them collectively.

I'm not bashing America, there are many free-thinking Americans (on this site especially) and there are many non-free-thinking Europeans, I'm just trying to highlight some of the differences.

All of these are taxpayer funded.

1) Most people around the world have some alienation towards their government (probably because most governments are willing to screw over/kill their citizens to maintain power if need be).

2) The United States Found Fathers pretty much all warned (and every child is taught in school) that the government should not be trusted (at least not with that much power).

Its astonishing that most American's allowed their government to become so over baring. If anyone read a couple history books as a child or young adult they would understand that one of the greatest concern for many of the nations leaders was the government become tyrannical. If it is a "peculiar American" trait, it comes from the literature, ideology, and moral fortitude of the original founders of the culture/nation.

/sarcasm -- (to be read in the voice of Sir Humphrey Appleby)

I, for one, rely on my government to perform all those vital, but tragically under-appreciated services done selflessly and at great sacrifice, and all for the public good. Our top Whitehall mandarins do so much to pre^H^H^Hdeserve their salaries.

The fabulous residences for the ambassadors, senior diplomats and other political appointees -- all those social events on the diplomatic circuit -- absolutely essential for our collective well-being. The unending sole-supplier cost-plus contracts given to the private contractors with the largest revolving door -- where would the nation be without them? The quangos and consultants, lobbyists and contractors -- our newly publicly-owned financial industry - the whole system -- not to mention the only middle class that we have left -- would suffer so very terribly without the kind patronage of a friendly state to steward and protect them.

/sarcasm

I don't understand your point. You could probably say the same about your family. The fact that something is not working as well as it should does not mean it's not essential. I mean, would you prefer feudal lords? Because that's what we had before central government, and that's what many corporations would like. Do you want to be ruled by Google? By Walmart?

Do you want to be ruled by Google? By Walmart?

Why is the default assumption by Statists that if the government won't rule us, corporations will?

A novel concept that people may want to attempt to grasp is that there could be no rulers, and as such, there's no need to make up a fictitious "new ruler".

>A novel concept that people may want to attempt to grasp is that there could be no rulers

It seems to me that the fastest way to evaluate this idea is to look at how an organization is propelled to statehood in the first place. If incentive structures support states, they will exist.

And this will last for approximately five minutes until a new ruler establishes themselves either through resource monopolisation or through pure threat of force. And they will never be short of toadies.

Why is the default assumption by libertarians that if the government is brought down, human nature will suddenly, completely change?

My view of libertarianism is that it's not a movement to 'fight government'. It is just a system of views that once productive forces of society achieve certain level, government at least as we know it will become redundant. And there is little 'new ruler' can do to establish himself if people don't need a ruler.

>> And there is little 'new ruler' can do to establish himself if people don't need a ruler.

How charmingly naive!

I don't know that people have needed a ruler at many times in history, but there has always been one. A power vacuum almost always results in war, revolution almost always results in war... basically humans like war and leaders. I don't think that will ever go away. We're tribal animals.

Even if people don't need a ruler, leaders will arise, and some of them will recruit violent men to force their will on others, growing into warlords. Factions will fight each other, people will die.

Better, IMHO, to have a codified power structure that seeks to eliminate or at least mitigate these flaws.

Well, if there is little government can do to control (like people using p2p currencies on a massive scale and encrypting their communications), and with production structure not suffering from possibility of monopolism (which we are close to having now), how will the government exercise their control? Of course we will always have some sort of government, but over years, it will become more and more irrelevant, not able to control/regulate things it claims to.

Then the incentive structures have changed to no longer support statehood. See my earlier comment on how to easily figure out the viability of the various forms of anarchism.

"It seems to me that the fastest way to evaluate this idea is to look at how an organization is propelled to statehood in the first place. If incentive structures support states, they will exist."

Since government is the current default, the onus is on you to prove that the incentive structures that select for statehood have changed in a significant way. (Or that they are going to change or could be changed.)

>> people using p2p currencies on a massive scale

I'm not of the faith that says that p2p or crypto currencies are necessarily a good thing. I, personally, think it's a good thing that democratic governments can exert control over fiat currency in order to attempt to mitigate economic disasters. I certainly don't think that the (for example) bitcoin model is a good one.

>> and encrypting their communications

I'm not really sure what this has to do with governments or control. I don't think democratic social order necessarily depends upon being able to surveil everyone, it's just a trap that the current bunch have fallen into.

>> production structure not suffering from possibility of monopolism

I'm not really sure what you mean here either, but it's hard to forsee a state in which monopolies are somehow impossible, or how the lack of them would imply the lack of need for government.

>> how will the government exercise their control?

In much the same way they do now, by the majority of us granting a democratic government a monopoly on the use of force. I'm not sure what bearing the form of currency, or encrypted comms, or even a utopian ideal of monopolistic impossibility have on this.

--edit-- Please do not take this as me saying either that I think the way governments have handled currency is good, or the way they do ... pretty much anything is all totally awesome. Far from it.

--edit 2-- The use of language is interesting here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you see government as the external imposition of control on to otherwise free citizens? I see it as (at its best) free citizens banding together to achieve collective goals and prevent the worst of human nature overtaking us. The rhetoric and the social measures that come from government in this day and age are pretty abhorrent, but collective defence, roadbuilding, education etc are (to me) vital and useful functions.

>And there is little 'new ruler' can do to establish himself if people don't need a ruler.

Did you, as an uncoerced free man, ever swear an oath of fealty to the US government? (The pledge of allegiance doesn't count.) Did your parents? Did their parents? Did their parents? Has anyone?

Anybody who may have elected to be governed by the United States is now dead, and the chances are good that you're not even related to them by blood. The vast majority of people who have lived under some form of government in their lives almost certainly did not choose to.

EDIT: Unless they immigrated. Forgot about that option. If you immigrated to the United States, you are exempt from this thought experiment.

But not totally, because you probably weren't stateless when you did.

>there is little 'new ruler' can do to establish himself if people don't need a ruler.

What about sending his group of followers door to door shooting people who don't acknowledge that he is the leader?

True enough. Human nature is (moresthepity) what drives all of this ... which is why it is unlikely to change any time soon. In other words, we are all royally screwed.

It is interesting and fortunate that the NSA/GCHQ scandal was still bubbling away as a news item when the story broke about the UK government's moralizing censorship crusade. Viewing these two stories through the lens of my (inevitably dim) perspective on human nature has led me to some unsurprisingly depressing conclusions. (Apologies for the cross-posting):

You might not always get what you want, but the converse is more frequently true. For example, positions of power and authority tend to be occupied by the sort of person who actively seeks out greater power and authority. In contrast, those with no real desire to dominate and control others neither seek nor achieve power. As a result, our elite political, legal and corporate offices are inevitably dominated by an elitist, authoritarian culture and mindset. For as long as we allow people to self-select, even implicitly, there is nothing we can do to prevent this.

The authoritarian mind is characterised by a desire to dominate and control others. The more invasive, disruptive and widespread the control, the more satisfying it is to the authoritarian, and the greater the validation of their elite status.

Sex; particularly issues of sexual morality; are behavioural characteristics that are tremendously intimate, personal and difficult to rationalise/control. It is this very intimacy that makes the exertion of control over sexual behaviour so very compelling: Control over sexual behaviour is like crack cocaine to the authoritarian mind.

Time and time again throughout history, those in power have sought to control the sexual behaviour of their subjects, a motive that is exactly equivalent to the alpha male in the pack controlling access to the harem, and reminding all the beta males of their status by rubbing their noses in their inability to mate.

Technology is a lever - it gives increased power to those who wield it. Modern technology is already enabling those in power to gain greater control over their subjects. It is inevitable that technology will embed itself ever more intimately in our lives, and it is inevitable that this technology will be used by the alpha males in our society to exert their domination and suppression over the rest of the population - to mock, to belittle and to abuse those who are not in power.

Basically, as technology becomes more powerful, and exerts a greater influence over our lives, the humiliating and belittling reminders of our subservient role in society will become more and more pervasive ... and there is nothing that we can do about it.

The existence of the state - and the forceful dominance of one group over another - has always been the moral equivalent of rape - but the power of the state has always been diluted to such an extent that we have been able to persist in the illusion of freedom and self-determination. Technology is ending this dilution, and the truth of our subservient relationship to the state will forcefully re-assert itself in our everyday lives.

It's the assumption because it's how things have always happened. Do you have an example to the contrary, of any significant group of humans living without rulers for any significant amount of time?

> A novel concept that people may want to attempt to grasp is that there could be no rulers, and as such, there's no need to make up a fictitious "new ruler".

Do you want to run the country? Do you think you have the time to run every aspect of the country? If you don't, then you need to delegate the authority to run those things to others. And then the people who are doing those jobs become the rulers in those areas.

And those areas are going to have to work together, at which point you get hierarchies and people similar to managers and fairly rapidly you end up with what we'd call a government.

If you believe there's a better way to run things, then start a company that works in a more egalitarian manner and scale it. As I understand it though, companies that work even vaguely like that have never scaled well beyond a few hundred people at most - i.e. Dunbar's number.

If you want to solve the problem of people needing a government there are serious questions about complexity and conscientiousness (do people even want to run their own affairs?) and how people are meant to work together when they can't know everything about all the areas they'd have to oversee without empowering others even if they just did that as their full time job.

So, my answer to why do I think people need rulers is, essentially, that equality doesn't seem to scale well to the sorts of problems that a country would have to address at the moment - and, implicitly, that anywhere that decides not to be a country anymore is going to get walked all over by anyone that decides to still be a country.

I just meant that in a personal way. That is: if you get into trouble, don't rely on the government to help you, for it is not too much willing to help, and pretty soon will be unable to. If you are in your 20s, no way you should hope the government will pay you pension once you grow old, for example.

I see. In that case, if you're in your 20s maybe you should try to get into politics and change government so that it would work better.

That's a nice view. What sucks is that you need money in order to get elected. And if you're not a millionaire already, chances are corporations won't be willing to lobby for someone proposing to change the status quo.

As someone who does research and builds infrastructure, it's not all government funded stuff. In fact, I'd say that governments indirectly fund a very small part of my research and none of my infrastructure.

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