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Tech moguls want to build a crypto paradise on a Native American reservation (www.motherjones.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] -5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Is that different for non-libertarian paradise-building attempts?

I swear, you guys just apparently decide nobody will ask the obvious questions, because libertarians are an allowed target.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project

    Libertarian attempts make it pretty obvious why libertarianism fails wholesale. Everybody says “live and let live” at first, but as the author notes in that article it must inevitably devolve into “arguments over who is living free in the correct way”. Which is blatantly antithetical to the concept they started from.

    And if they didnt devolve into those arguments, then they would just all drown in a sea of trash and angry bears. Libertarianism is fundamentally flawed and inherently lose-lose no matter how it plays out. Governance is actually important. Whoda thunk?

    Everyone cant just be free of their neighbor. If your neighbor feeds the bears you will deal with the consequences too. Probably worse ones, since you arent so friendly with the bears (from the bear perspective)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I wrote a long reply to explore some ideas I've been entertaining recently. I guess I just wanted to straighten my own thoughts out, so please don't take this as pontificating or "this is how it is for sure". I just like thinking while typing. Feel free to not read.

    I see your point and definitely agree with the conclusion:

    Clearly, when it comes to certain kinds of problems, the response must be collective, supported by public effort

    But umm.. Sometimes the larger threat isn't bears that randomly come over from the woods. Sometimes the people that were elected to protect you from bears and were supported by the public, even cheered and applauded... Idk, circumstances are important.

    I also feel like lots of people focus a lot on the inherent flaws of different systems of political organization that they don't adhere to, while turning a blind eye on their own.

    LibertarianismYes, libertarianism is flawed and fails at a certain scale for both individuals and large populations as a whole in the presence of widespread distrust or relevant threats within or outside the population and will inevitably devolve into "anarchy" (which means warlords/cartels each with as much territory their ruthless leaders can secure and handle). Won't disagree with you there.

    CapitalismWhat about good, old fashioned, standard American capitalist democracy? Well then it seems people get ruled by what results of the negotiation between corporations and political parties, who are largely controlled by the psychos who are ruthless enough to climb to the top of those systems... Ok so I guess this means getting ruled by psychos again. But at least people get to vote! At least people respect the law! right? Well... elections are basically a competition on what individuals and organizations are most effective at persuading or manipulating, and the law is the result of those competitions through time.

    CommunismBut now let's think about communism. How's that turned out historically? Seems to me like people stop accumulating private property and start accumulating political influence to improve their position within a state that attempts to control or at the very least regulate everything to impose equal distribution of different resources, except.. you know.. for the people that have influence. This has happened time and time again. Seems devolve into authoritarianism really fast because people get desperate about trying to get to the top of that ladder of influence that decides who gets what. (trust me on this one, I live in south america). And when you have authoritarianism you have literally every psychopath in the country doing everything they can to have access to the absolute power its leadership entails. So.... ruled by psychos.

    SocialismOk, ok, but maybe communism was too extreme. How about socialism? That works, right? I mean, sure! It works under the following conditions: Your country has so much wealth it can afford to secure services to the less fortunate (as defined culturally), the struggle for power between people that want large powerful governments and those who want large powerful corporations is relatively balanced and carried out in good faith (or else unstable system), and both your private sector stays competent enough to keep the country rich and your government stays sharp enough to promote adequate legislation in order for corporations to not wreak havoc... So wait.. Doesn't this mean that this is just like American Capitalism or Communism, where this happens but in an earlier stage of its life cycle, before it devolves into "corporations win" or "the state wins"? Because the population is still able to identify charlatans and the culture is cohesive so people don't consider their political rivals to be sworn enemies yet?

    Final thoughts.Given enough time, whatever system a country uses or constitution it adheres to, the psychos will rise to different positions of power, they'll fight each other for a bit and then one team will win, turning the lives of everyone who isn't in their team a living hell. Then, given enough time, the oppressed seize a victory and then change stuff up, for the better or the worse and on and on it goes until an idea/creation myth powerful enough to unite a fractured society comes and money can be made and things can be built again with idealism and unity... But nothing lasts forever.

    That's just how it works. There are no good systems. Elections are as useless as royalty or theocracy. It's not about systems, it's about where in the life cycle of the society/empire you randomly got born into. All we can really do is adapt.

    If you made it this far, I'm impressed. Thanks for reading! Appreciate you hearing out my thoughts and would love to hear your opinion.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Governance is actually important. Whoda thunk?

    Some day you'll read Tao Te Ching and maybe stop thinking in absolutes.

    Where I live libertarians are the most adequate part of the social fabric suppressed by that governance. Trots are the second.

    In any case, you can have a thought experiment of the same town the same size with a group of people assuming governance and telling others what to do. They can collect taxes and tell they are using them as well as they can. The bear problem will probably be smaller, albeit sometimes someone complaining will accidentally meet a bear, the drowning in trash one - I dunno, probably the trash will move to the places furthest from where that group lives, but won't be really disposed of, because - why? No incentive.

    I've become a libertarian after watching one enthusiastic teacher organize some sort of discussion clubs. Everyone in favor of more governance eventually shifted to authoritarianism, when talking long enough, because when you are thinking as if you were the government, you just won't understand why you shouldn't surrender power and then why you should answer to anyone. Less governance - OK, I was alone in that, but the best (in their opinion) argument the others found was "so how do you host olympics in a libertarian land, or build a centrally planned new city? checkmate", and of course there's nothing I can answer to that because I don't think a society needs global projects or flag days.

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