What is the value of the State?

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Wed, May 03, 2017 at 01:27:05PM +0000, \0xDynamite wrote:
> >>That's some good bit o' history.
> > It was you who asked the question "Without a State, would we have
> > electronics?  Radio?"
> 
> Yes and I was being serious.  I hadn't encounted that history before.
> 
> >>  I was really referring to the level
> > of existing order needed to create *more* levels of order.
> > That sounds like gobbledygook to me.    What do you mean by this?  What is a
> > "level of order"?
> 
> It's not gobbledygook at all.  Just as single-cellular life gave rise
> to multi-cellular life, a new LEVEL of order was made beyond the cell.
>   In this sense, you could say all the problems that we've been having
> with "the State" are birthing pains bringing about the solutions to
> solve this endless conflict at the current level.
> 
> Einstein was credited with saying "You can't solve the existing
> problems at the same level which created them" (or something like
> that).
> 
> It could surmised that no amount of "self-oganization" could create
> that transformation seen in biology -- it had to be a GOVERNOR of some
> kind.  By which I intimate that leadership, with a greater view of it
> all, can generate better, meaningful, and virtuous levels of order and
> that it HAD to happen at some point in the past, in order to give rise
> to the mammalian life which we cherish..
> 
> > And why do you (apparently) think that government is
> > somehow necessary (or even desireable) to act as a driver of technology.   I
> > think the opposite is true.
> 
> It's not that government is the driver, it is simply a large force
> that can assemble huge amounts of resources and human effort to solve
> problems.

Like hoax a moon landing or imperially dominate the world?

The problem with government is that it is coopted by opportunistic
scoundrels also justly described (many/most of then) as sociopaths -
fundamentally they leech and dominate, creating far more problems
than they solve, and the problems they do solve, are often created by
government, and the other problems they solve, they solve by creating
more problems, or worse problems, or both.

In principle governmnet is founded upon principles which:
 a) a worth upholding, and
 b) are upheld (by said govt)

In practice, we haven't yet found a system which encourages enough
humans to put the principles first, rather than their self interest
and the self interest of their friends and family.

Create an empire on "democratic" principles, and it will descend into
kingdom with an "blood-ordained" emperor and ultimately despotism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire

It's all very well to agree that a benevolent dictator may achieve
far greater results that "humans without any leader", but there are
logic and causality presumption problems here:
 - "we won't get good outcomes without a system that enforces
   leadership and compliance by the masses"
 - "if we don't have government, we will miss out on the benefits to
   society if we actually got a benevolent leader, so we better hang
   on to government system"

And other assumption problems:
 - "without government, we will never achieve great things"
 - "government is the best way to get big (mostly good) outcomes"

We conflate our desire for order, safety and achievement with the
existence of government, perhaps because for a good 5 to 6000 years,
we have not known political anarchy.

Also the word anarchy tends to lead thinking and discourse into the
presumptions of the colloquial understanding of chaos; political
anarchy, anarchism, or just plain anarchy in the context of
"political system", is an entirely different beast, so I say the word
itself is quite problematic in most newbie situations. The most PC
alternative term "generally accepted as closely related and somewhat
similar" seems to be "direct democracy" but with added in "absolute
right to personal conscientious objection".


Look at software development:

 - Microsoft is the democracy, enforced order system of development
 - Linux is the anarchy software development system, and the system
   where the truly benevolent dictator rose not by force, but:
   a) by being more benevolent than the opposition
   b) by have a truly libre license (i.e. anarchistic terms of entry
      and participation in the community)

And we can readily compare not only Linux with Microsoft, but Linux
with Minix, Linux with FreeBSD, and Linux with GNU, and,

 IN EVERY SINGLE CASE,

Linux succeded and ultimately dominated the competition - yes,
building upon and incorporating the competition (GNU, even bits of
BSD), and the truly and ironic catch phrase we all used and laughed
with over 20 years ago was that the primary intention / goal of Linux
was (still is) "world domination" - which was and is so funny because
how can you dominate others with freedom, by have no force, no
compulsive enforcement of usage nor participation, merely a better
license and better (truly at-your-free-will) participation terms.

Anarchy won. That is, the anarchy software development system won.

And not just won, absolutely, overwhelmingly, globally dominates -
the BSDs had to properly establish their libre license to come back
to their rightful and dignified position. Minix ultimately
(metaphorically) got a kick up the arse and it too changed (I think)
to a proper libre license. GNU, the ultimate free software
"cathedral", has repeatedly had to learn the fundamental lesson:

 gcc -> egcs -> gcc
 GNU -> Linux -> GNU/Linux (facing reality)
 gcc (without modules) -> 

Many companies have had to learn the lesson, like the QT folks who
ultimately changed to a true libre license to compete with "the
community" who simply had learned that a libre license was the only
option for putting their efforts behind (KDE/GNOME).

And most recently Microsoft has joined the Linux foundation.


So, which software development model is truly achieving global
domination (and back in the day, in the face of overwhelming odds
against, thanks to the incredible commercial might and global
dominance of Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and the rest)??


Now here's a little secret - Linus did not quite nail it:

 In the face of the incredible stand of Richard Stallman and the FSF
 (notwithstanding their sub-optimal development zeitgeist) Linus
 Torvalds and his loud and explicit proclamations of "utility, not
 freedom thank you very much" were the single most effective way to
 facilitate, in the long term, corporate greed and centralisation of
 UNdemocratic corporate power, sidetracking an incredible opportunity
 for true system anarchy across the world, beyond mere software
 development.

And that is a very unfortunate thing that few see.


> You would never get equivalent levels of order in an
> anarchic situation.

Please be a little more rigorous with your conversation, if you wish
to avoid pointless reactions and descent into bickering. Such a
sentence is patently unfounded, and also without any citation by you
of the assumptions and reasons for your belief, and worse you don't
even acknowledge with the words you use, that this is nothing but
your personal belief, which doesn't matter except that it leads to
reactive and emotional responses which, as we see so often, lead to
worse places than nowhere.


> It would take some extreme urgency bording on
> panic to assemble such forces (because anarchists don't want to join
> someone else's causes, right?).

When folks say to you "I can't make sense of what you're saying",
we're saying that there are many assumptions, beliefs, and possibly
also projections, fears and delusions, which must be at the
foundation of such a sentence, and therefore there are multiple
possible meanings you are trying to get across, and combining these
two things (unspoken points and potential intended meanings), a
combinatorial explosion of possible responses.

I.e., such a sentence puts far too high a load on those who would
sincerely like to respond/engage with you in the conversation.

Regards,
Zenaan