Statism Is Dead - Part 3 - The Matrix is a YouTube video by Stefan Molyneux. It's a wonderful short-form view of the idea that governments were not designed for the aid of people, but with human livestock in mind. It's a wonderful way to spend 16 minutes, and is his most popular video to date:
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Statism Is Dead
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9 comments:
Hi there!
I am writing a series of posts on God concepts and I was wondering if anybody is interested in playing the devils advocate – since all the comments I get are one sided and it just doesn’t make for a good debate. So if you are an intelligent individual that can respect different opinions and would like to pitch in a thought or two stop by :)
Thank you!
The video is basically right, but the proposed solution, anarchism, just shifts the problem of mutual exploitation on a higher, although more humane, level. It will replace outright coercion with cunning and deception. This might benefit the intellectual elite, but it will be detrimental to the naive who now are the predominant consumers of religion. Therefore a new ethical code is required to protect the weak in this new society and new forms of control that do not rely on ideology.
So let me get this straight. We would be better off in simple small family units eating bugs and small animals with no alphabet or even the simplest technology other than fire, and maybe flint knapping. Infant mortality would range somewhere around 60-70% and we would be at the whim of droughts, floods, fires and diseases--Gee that sounds like such an idylic life!
The problem with anarchy is that it too is just another ideaology. Okay, let's get rid of government, all government. Yay! this means no more taxes, keep what you earn. But why aren't the roads being fixed? Why didn't the firemen come and put out my house when it was burning down?
Oh, yeah and where are the cops when a bunch of thugs are kicking down the door and taking all my stuff. The thugs and criminals are the ones who would love this idea. Of course once things broke down, 80% of the population would starve because they don't know which end of the seed points up (in industrialized countries, anyway). And the farmers, who do know, have most of the guns and will shoot anyone who tries to take their stuff.
I always find it interesting that the one yelling about anarchy is the skinniest dude around, and the first one who will get beat down because he can't stand up for himself. A new philosophy isn't going to change the way people think or act, because the only people paying attention to philosophy today are those who teach it. (Imagine what driving would be like if all stop lights and speed limit signs were removed.)
The video may have made a couple of points, but it has no concept of the reality of human nature, which, for the most part, is might makes right. We have, in certain areas of the globe, gotten past that.
So, would you rather be a comfortable slave now or live like a "free" wretch, destined to die at the age of 35, ten thousand years ago?
Anarchy is a nice, and impossible (therefore moot) ideology. He preaches against perceived ideology with his own ideology. Thoughtful awareness and cooperation are key to maintaining a helpful and balanced government. It is not very helpful to give up on governance altogether while the world population is approaching 7 billion. The Farm metaphor is a weak and paranoid scare tactic for an extremist ideology; it cannot help anyone acquire "freedom". Mob rule has the worst track record of all.
You are a sad excuse for a philosopher, have you actually ever went through a tertiary education? Do you actually own a degree in Philosophy? What gives you the right to call yourself a philosopher when all you do is post incredibly pathetic liberalist views of anarchy that no person of left wing perference would ever agree with. You are a fool and should actually take into consideration that a well funded goverment would be more feasible (Ie Marxism) Then some chaotic life of pain and suffering of people who wouldn't deserve such a life.
@MRumph:
1. The applivation of the non-aggression principle leads toward a high-tech, capitalist civilization, not towards primitivism!
2. Not all ideologies are ideologies in the Marxist sense (i.e. lies to acquire ressources from the lied ones).
3. Where is a need there will be a offer. Thats one law of the market. This includes security services (from the "police").
4. Farmers are motivated to trade their products -- as everybody else in his right mind.
5. "Skinny dudes" have much negative experiences with those in power. So it is understandable that they are in favor of a new system where the initiation of force is prohibited.
6. New (and old) philosophies do affect how people think and act, or else they wouldn't be fought by those in power. What's now in place is a de facto theocracy.
7. Re human nature: Yes, might makes laws, that's exactly the reason why the people should strive for it. To make the laws more humane!
8. Slave versus freeman: the preference depends on your abilities. There will always be a class who prefers the life of a parasite. I don't blame them, but I resent it.
@Anonymous:
"Anarchy is a nice, and impossible (therefore moot) ideology."
What you call Anarchism I call spontaneous order, and it is already practiced: in the markets!
"He preaches against perceived ideology with his own ideology."
That's the nature of intellectual debate.
"Thoughtful awareness and cooperation are key to maintaining a helpful and balanced government."
Nobody is against these points! On the contrary. Cooperation is key. But that also means that where there is coercion, cooperation is just an euphemism for mindless obedience.
"It is not very helpful to give up on governance altogether while the world population is approaching 7 billion."
Leaving all to the market is an utopia, I know. That's the reason I'm a minarchist (for now).
"The Farm metaphor is a weak and paranoid scare tactic for an extremist ideology;"
Paranoia must not rely on false facts. There were always conspiracies in the history of our world, and there always will be. Now the biggest conspiracy in place is the one of the government against its productive citizens. Extremist: means logical. Only mystics are against a scientific and logically consistent world
view.
"it cannot help anyone acquire "freedom"."
... because it already is!
"Mob rule has the worst track record of all."
Democracy is mob rule, and people are, for the false reasons, quite content with it. But as we see now, the mixed economies which are a direct result of democracy are leading to the collapse of the state. So I'd prefer a minarchist republic over unlimited mob rule.
"You are a sad excuse for a philosopher, have you actually ever went through a tertiary education? Do you actually own a degree in Philosophy? What gives you the right to call yourself a philosopher [...]"
I am not a philosopher, and I don't call myself one. You are right, I do not own a degree in Philosophy, but that doesn't mean that you will restrict my right to think for myself? Or even to philosophize?
"[...] when all you do is post incredibly pathetic liberalist views of anarchy that no person of left wing perference would ever agree with."
Right, I'm not a lefty, I'm a paternalistic market-anarchist (minarchist). Does that make me a villan in your eyes?
"You are a fool and should actually take into consideration that a well funded goverment would be more feasible (Ie Marxism) Then some chaotic life of pain and suffering of people who wouldn't deserve such a life."
People flee in droves from Marxism to free countries. I don't know what you are talking about. If you are such a friend of Marxism, why don't you go to countries where it is in place: Northern Korea for example.
@Alex: You don't get to point guns at people and call it moral. Are you an example of the sort of benevolent and compassionate people that would populate your ideal society? I hope I can be excused for not being too excited about your values, if only for the fact that they seem to have made you into a dickhead.
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