Oolite Bulletins

Paladin Tux wrote:

We'll die to our own stupid invention.
Money.

No, money is just the messenger. And it's a clever invention. Consider this: you are well versed in the art of making arrows. It takes some time and effort - maybe a few days - during which you have to eat. Without money you can swap your arrows with hunters for a piece of meat. Maybe sometimes you need fruits instead of meat, but the gatherers don't need your arrows. With money, you sell your arrows to the hunters and buy fruits from the gatherers.

How this useful invention has been turned into a machine that pumps wealth up the pyramid, so that the would financial system looks like a sophisticated Ponzi scheme, is another story. And this machine uses technology in order to make profits by removing jobs. Until a majority of people realize how insane and wrong it is that a man can be richer than a whole country, you'll have to outplay the system in a way or another. Work for technology (and make a job of killing other people's job) if you can deal with it on an ethical level, or move before it kills your job. In either case, never forget that there is an ongoing economic world war.

SteveKing wrote:

The difficulties with this sort of society is that they are inherently inefficient in some ways - not maximising the potential of the local resources and having to leave the (renewable) resources idle for a period of time to allow them to recover.

I'm ok with everything you wrote. Another difficulty with anarchical societies is they are inherently instable when put in competition with other types of societies.

For example, they're bad at war: a soldier is a citizen having learnt to kill on command without hesitation, so not exactly the type of person totally responsible of his acts: he has delegated the task of thinking and being responsible to a chain of command; this is unthinkable in a anarchist society.

They're bad at commerce too. Commerce needs a stable judicial/police system to flourish, and anarchy doesn't provide it.

In fact, anarchy doesn't scale well with the size of population and the related consequences.

Day wrote:

For example, they're bad at war: a soldier is a citizen having learnt to kill on command without hesitation, so not exactly the type of person totally responsible of his acts: he has delegated the task of thinking and being responsible to a chain of command; this is unthinkable in a anarchist society.

It's also partly true - at least, it seems to be - of democracies. Democracies are reluctant to go to war, and to date there have only been a very few, and quite specialised, instances of one democracy declaring war on another democracy. If they are attacked, they appear to be very good at defending themselves: not surprising, I suppose, given that a democratic citizen has a far larger stake in their society than e.g. an imperial subject, for whom one despotic overlord may be very much the same as another. They also seem to be quite bad at waging wars of aggression: a democratic citizenry appears reluctant to allow its military to use the requisite levels of brutality (and, let's be honest, the levels of expense) required to crush another country which did not attack them first and is not an existential threat.

One sign that a democracy may be failing might be its increasing willingness to use force, on other peoples, and on its own. Although it should be stressed that democracies have not been around for very long, and the amount of historical information in this field is fairly scarce.

(Edited in light of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_w ... emocracies )

Disembodied wrote:

Day wrote:

For example, they're bad at war: a soldier is a citizen having learnt to kill on command without hesitation, so not exactly the type of person totally responsible of his acts: he has delegated the task of thinking and being responsible to a chain of command; this is unthinkable in a anarchist society.

It's also partly true - at least, it seems to be - of democracies. Democracies are reluctant to go to war, and to date there has never been an instance of one democracy declaring war on another democracy. If they are attacked, they appear to be very good at defending themselves: not surprising, I suppose, given that a democratic citizen has a far larger stake in their society than e.g. an imperial subject, for whom one despotic overlord may be very much the same as another.

Indeed - anarchies and democracies alike are pretty strong defensively (the anarchy probably even more able than the democracy to organise the sort of individual and small-group guerilla warfare that conventional militaries absolutely cannot deal with). Invading other places, no, probably not - but why would you want to do that?

And democracies have a serious problem of "we've trained all these people to kill on command and in various other things which are actively counter-productive in civilian life and now don't know what to do with them", so I think the anarchy wins there too by not doing that in the first place. Dictatorships have a slightly different problem: "we've trained lots of people of questionable personal loyalty and given them enough firepower to level the Imperial palace in seconds"

Disembodied wrote:

It's also partly true - at least, it seems to be - of democracies. Democracies are reluctant to go to war, and to date there has never been an instance of one democracy declaring war on another democracy. If they are attacked, they appear to be very good at defending themselves: not surprising, I suppose, given that a democratic citizen has a far larger stake in their society than e.g. an imperial subject, for whom one despotic overlord may be very much the same as another.

This is favoring democracies' stability, whereas unability to war disadvantages anarchies.

Disembodied wrote:

One sign that a democracy may be failing might be its increasing willingness to use force, on other peoples, and on its own. Although it should be stressed that democracies have not been around for very long, and the amount of historical information in this field is fairly scarce.

I totally concur. It's for me a sign of transformation of a democracy into an empire.

In fact, I don't think democracies scale well. What's better describing our world might be "empire with democratic tendencies, resulting of alliances of nations".
My personal detector of "empires" is the ability to impose your legislation on others; it's another way to use force, except you don't destroy the goods. Smarter way.
Currently, I see at least 4 such empires: USA, European Union, China and Russia. I wonder about India :-/
But with the current level of interconnexion, I'm not even sure there still are two empires. As capital may freely flow from an empire to another, it's finally a cooperation of legislations, with gradual homogenization.

cim wrote:

the anarchy probably even more able than the democracy to organise the sort of individual and small-group guerilla warfare that conventional militaries absolutely cannot deal with

Small-group guerilla warfare works only as long as the invader is unwilling to perform a genocide. During the three last centuries, lots of genocides have happened. I think a not-anarchy system would be better equipped to survive. Japanese, for example, went from total enemies to total allies of USA to avoid genocide.

cim wrote:

And democracies have a serious problem of "we've trained all these people to kill on command and in various other things which are actively counter-productive in civilian life and now don't know what to do with them", so I think the anarchy wins there too by not doing that in the first place.

I'm not sure. In a democracy, the size of the army is negligible compared to the population size ; so the problem is not threatening its stability as it would, for example, in an autocratic system.

cim wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

Day wrote:

...

The French fellow I can understand, if not agree with, remembering he's French. But some of the things you pommies write leave me wondering, what planet are those guys living on?

The modern, "democratic" state has been the most bloodthirsty, warmongering thing since... like ever!

Day wrote:

In fact, I don't think democracies scale well. What's better describing our world might be "empire with democratic tendencies, resulting of alliances of nations".
My personal detector of "empires" is the ability to impose your legislation on others; it's another way to use force, except you don't destroy the goods. Smarter way.
Currently, I see at least 4 such empires: USA, European Union, China and Russia. I wonder about India :-/
But with the current level of interconnexion, I'm not even sure there still are two empires. As capital may freely flow from an empire to another, it's finally a cooperation of legislations, with gradual homogenization.

From over here I see five: China, USA, Russia, Israel & WTO/IMF.

Wildeblood wrote:

The modern, "democratic" state has been the most bloodthirsty, warmongering thing since... like ever!

No, that's overstating the case: you're failing to take account of the capabilities of modern technology. Imagine the Roman Empire equipped with assault rifles and F-15s. Or the British Empire equipped with assault rifles and F-15s, for that matter. No modern democratic state has launched the kinds of genocidal, racial horrors perpetrated by their imperial predecessors. (There may be technological limitations here, too, of course: it might have been harder for the British to commit the atrocities they did following the Indian rebellion if there had been a global, visual mass media beaming live pictures into peoples' homes.)

It's certainly true that the democratic western powers have, usually through proxies, and usually for economic reasons, caused or connived at a huge amount of bloodshed across the world. One of the great tragedies of the Cold War was the failure of the West to see it in political terms (democracy versus dictatorship) and instead to see it in political-economic terms (capitalism versus bolshevism), resulting in the West cosying up to the most repellent dictatorships and conniving in the overthrow of democratically elected governments who threatened to reduce the profits of Western corporations (Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, etc.). But the problem there is capitalism, not democracy. Or rather, it's the inability of democracies to rein in the worst excesses of capitalism, when these are carried out overseas, in the midst of the ongoing post-imperial turmoil and where our jobs/cheap oil/cheap bananas are at stake.

Wildeblood wrote:

Day wrote:

My personal detector of "empires" is the ability to impose your legislation on others; it's another way to use force, except you don't destroy the goods. Smarter way.
Currently, I see at least 4 such empires: USA, European Union, China and Russia. I wonder about India :-/

From over here I see five: China, USA, Russia, Israel & WTO/IMF.

Wto/Imf ? I would have listed them as tools of other real empires, aren't they?

Israël? Hmm, in France, we don't speak in the press about our legal/business relations with them. I really have no clue about their ability to influence the legislation of others, except maybe in the antisemitism realm. Would you have some hints?

Wildeblood wrote:

The French fellow I can understand, if not agree with, remembering he's French.

Wildeblood wrote:

The modern, "democratic" state has been the most bloodthirsty, warmongering thing since... like ever!

Hmmm, I disagree. We got some pretty harsh wars in Europe before democracy...
Now, I think that what you hint to is generally described as military-industrial complex. Which may happen in other systems than democracy.

I've seen Disembodied last post: i totally concur.

Day wrote:

Israël? <snip>. I really have no clue about their ability to influence the legislation of others, except maybe in the antisemitism realm. Would you have some hints?

Not a hint, exactly, but take a look at the influence of the Jewish lobby on American foreign policy for an example. OK, it's not exactly the State of Israel, but the distinction is trivial.

Disembodied wrote:

Wildeblood wrote:

The modern, "democratic" state has been the most bloodthirsty, warmongering thing since... like ever!

No, that's overstating the case: you're failing to take account of the capabilities of modern technology. Imagine the Roman Empire equipped with assault rifles and F-15s. Or the British Empire equipped with assault rifles and F-15s, for that matter.

That's an oft-made but un-testable assertion. I think it's based on a kind of irrational prejudice akin to racism: an assumption that people alive in our time are "obviously" morally superior/more civil/less violent to previous generations of humans. There'a no meaningful difference between C1 Romans and C21 Italians - human evolution just hasn't been that quick. Do you really believe a Roman empire with C20 technology would have committed war crimes more enormous than Nagasaki?* I can't even imagine what that would be.

This prejudice against our forebears needs to be labelled as some kind of -ism, so it can be denounced for the irrational othering that it is. The humans of 2000 years ago were not some other kind of humans, they were just like us.

Disembodied wrote:

No modern democratic state has launched the kinds of genocidal, racial horrors perpetrated by their imperial predecessors.

Unless you count the Clinton administration casually bombing Somalia back to the stone age because the new government there wanted to re-negotiate oil exploration concessions previously given to American companies. An act of pure spite since there was never any prospect of getting their (probably imaginary) oil after bombing all the development that would have been needed for any "western" oil company to operate there. What essentially happened in Somalia is that Clinton killed hundreds of thousands of human beings in nothing more than a temper tantrum.

You don't need a thought experiment to imagine war between an imperialist society and democratic states. The Pacific war 1940-45 was for more brutal than the co-incidental European war. The Japanese were a notoriously brutal enemy, and you can say that pre-war Japan was an example of an imperial society. But MacArthur's prosecution of the war against Japan was obscene in broad strategy and obscene in detail. The finale at Nagasaki settles the question of who was more murderously ruthless.

* Genghis Kahn would have nuked Nagasaki, I've no doubt. That makes him as bad as modern Americans, not worse.

Day wrote:

Small-group guerilla warfare works only as long as the invader is unwilling to perform a genocide. During the three last centuries, lots of genocides have happened.

Sure, but if the invader is willing to perform genocide then in the modern world they can nuke you - or use an equivalent amount of conventional explosives - without needing to put a single boot on the ground and no governmental form will protect you. Generally invaders wish to control the territory and government to exploit the natural resources and civilian population - there's no profit in scorched earth.

Day wrote:

cim wrote:

And democracies have a serious problem of "we've trained all these people to kill on command and in various other things which are actively counter-productive in civilian life and now don't know what to do with them", so I think the anarchy wins there too by not doing that in the first place.

I'm not sure. In a democracy, the size of the army is negligible compared to the population size ; so the problem is not threatening its stability as it would, for example, in an autocratic system.

It's not about whether they threaten the stability of the state - it's about the mess it makes of the ex-soldiers' lives. (Which governments are generally very wary about offering commensurate help for except in the case of obvious physical injury or they would effectively admit systematic liability for creating that mess.)

Disembodied wrote:

No modern democratic state has launched the kinds of genocidal, racial horrors perpetrated by their imperial predecessors.

Very arguable, I think. I suspect it's a matter of degree only. (That, or you're using a much narrower definition of "modern democratic state" than I am)

Wildeblood wrote:

That's an oft-made but un-testable assertion. I think it's based on a kind of irrational prejudice akin to racism: an assumption that people alive in our time are "obviously" morally superior/more civil/less violent to previous generations of humans.

I make no such assumption. The assumption I make is that a democracy - a type of state which has only existed in the modern era, as I discount the slave-owning, woman-oppressing Athenian interlude - is less likely to commit to warfare on a mass scale than a dictatorship/empire without some form of significant provocation. The reason it is less likely to do so is primarily because a democratic citizenry has the power to object to the cost (in money, materiel, and their own lives) of total war, and usually will not commit to such an action unless their own survival is actively threatened. But once war - full-scale, total war - begins, then the leash is slipped and horror will inevitably ensue.

Wildeblood wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

No modern democratic state has launched the kinds of genocidal, racial horrors perpetrated by their imperial predecessors.

Unless you count the Clinton administration casually bombing Somalia back to the stone age because the new government there wanted to re-negotiate oil exploration concessions previously given to American companies. An act of pure spite since there was never any prospect of getting their (probably imaginary) oil after bombing all the development that would have been needed for any "western" oil company to operate there. What essentially happened in Somalia is that Clinton killed hundreds of thousands of human beings in nothing more than a temper tantrum.

That's capitalism, not democracy, which is to blame there (you can criticise democracy for failing to hold back capitalism's worst urges, if you like, but it still does so better than other forms of government). If the USA was a dictatorship, with an equivalent military power and global reach, do you think Clinton's actions in Somalia, at the oil corporations' behest, would have been a) less bloody, or b) more bloody?

Wildeblood wrote:

The finale at Nagasaki settles the question of who was more murderously ruthless.

No, it just settles the question of who was more scientifically inventive. If Japan had developed the a-bomb, do you think they wouldn't have dropped it on the USA? Human beings - past and present, east and west, north and south, are equally capable of perpetrating horrors when given the opportunity. But democratic states seem less willing to give their militaries such opportunities. Less willing, not unwilling: it's not perfect. It's just better than the alternatives.

cim wrote:

Disembodied wrote:

No modern democratic state has launched the kinds of genocidal, racial horrors perpetrated by their imperial predecessors.

Very arguable, I think. I suspect it's a matter of degree only. (That, or you're using a much narrower definition of "modern democratic state" than I am)

I'm thinking primarily about industrialised Western nations since about the 1920s-1930s. Admittedly, by that time pretty much everywhere grabbable had been grabbed.

It is a question of degree, though, you're right. But there's a fundamental difference between e.g. the Americans in Vietnam in the 20th century (working with a local, albeit puppet, regime; trying to disengage; pouring resources into Vietnam; etc.), and the British in India in the 18th and 19th centuries (invading; conquering; constructing a racist colonial state; dismantling and outlawing competing local industries; stealing everything they could lay their hands on; etc.). Say what you like about the USA, they're lousy imperialists (apart from wiping out nearly all the indigenous population of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific - but that was mostly done before they became what I would call a modern democracy, with universal suffrage).

Disembodied wrote:

That's capitalism, not democracy, which is to blame there...

All Scotsmen like haggis.
My uncle, Scotty McScot, is Scottish and he doesn't like haggis.
Then he's not a real Scotsman; all real Scotsmen like haggis.

As far as I can understand you at all, you're arguing that "democracies" are better than other societies because the're less warlike in your estimation, and you're dismissing all real world examples of war-mongering democracies as not real democracies in your opinion.

So essentially your definition of democracy is whatever society you approve of is a "democracy", and anything you don't approve of is "Someone Else's fault, not democracy's problem."

It's sad that someone as well-written and obviously erudite as you can have such obvious, illogical prejudices and be unaware of them, or unwilling to admit them. If one can't have a sensible discussion about the problems of democracy with you, what hope is there for the likes of the climate change conspiracists I pointed to in my OP?

Let me re-iterate the problem: there are people out there so stupid that they think a tropical cyclone occurring in mid-winter is not an indication of a changing climate. They have such a paranoic delusional belief system that they think the Bureau of Meteorology accidentally-on-purpose loses records of such events happening before. And thanks to the wonder of the thought-stopping cliché "One man, one vote, one value" they are allowed to vote, and their vote has the same value as a rational person's vote. That's a system that's broken by design.