Author Topic: VOTE DAC Just Got More Interesting  (Read 30323 times)

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Offline Riverhead

It's ironic that a lot of people who hold the belief that everything is in their head and nothing is real write a lot of books about it. Who do they think is going to read them? :)

Offline vegolino

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As far as philosophical part of this conversation goes I would warmly recommend to anybody to check out physicist Thomas Campbell who wrote book My Big TOE (Theory of Everything). He produced a lot of youtube videos, here is link for one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvz3CIv1VTo&list=UUYwlraEwuFB4ZqASowjoM0g
Summary of what Tom is saying that we are consciousness inside virtual reality and he explains why we are in virtual reality and who runs this virtual reality. My life was changed after reading his book and I hope it will do same for you  :)

Aloha  :)
I forgot to mention that bytemaster may find that his views have a lot in common with Tom's. 
« Last Edit: October 16, 2014, 12:24:21 pm by aloha »

Offline Riverhead

So back on topic.


I let this sink in last night and I think I get it if I think about it as a market rather than people soliciting vote sales.


1) Each candidate releases an asset with their version of the bill_1234 (dismiss completely is a version)
2) The candidates put their version of the bill up on the market and the voters are airdropped one bill_1234_vote for each asset
3) The candidates then put up bids on their asset trying to buy votes and the voters put up asks

How it plays out:

The voters will pretty much give their vote away (super low ask) on the bill they agree with and have an astronomical ask on the version of the bill they don't.

The voters can set their asks according to the wealth of each party. So an ask for an independent might be $0.50 but for an incumbent $1000. This takes away wealth of the party as a way to buy a bill. If they do need to buy a bill they may come close to bankrupting themselves in the process while at the same time creating a lot of wealth for the people that oppose them to fund a candidate the voter supports.


The voting would still be as anonymous as the bitUSD/BTSX market place.


Offline Empirical1.1

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If you think about it a system that openly allows you to sell your vote is not as terrible idea as it may sound at first glance. It let's market forces make decisions.
1.The money spent on (mostly negative) political campaigns will find a better use in the pocket of a voter.
2.Voter participation will start approaching 100%
and many other benefits.

It also creates a whole host of problems.  The purpose of voting is, in theory, to allow the candidate which would benefit the largest proportion of voters to be elected to an office (assuming winner take all system like the US).  The problem with introducing money into the equation is that most people fail to account for the diminishing marginal value of money.  For people who have very little money, the marginal value of money is very high, so you can "buy" their votes for comparatively less than people who are better off.  This leads to all kinds of suboptimal outcomes whereby even rational actors will vote against their own interests.  The reality is far worse, since most people don't understand how to value political platforms, and uninformed voters will follow the red herring of money offered for their votes.

Presumably votes like that will be anonymous and so there will be no way of proving who you voted for. So the political party A can pay Bob, 'X' and he can take it but vote for party B instead.

If it is a problem, a DAC also has delegates who can act as gate-keepers. They can refuse to process requests that involve soliciting electoral votes perhaps.

A system where Bob can verify his vote was counted properly is a system where Bob can prove his vote. 
A system where Bob cannot verify his vote was counted is a system where Bob does not count the votes.... thus the votes are meaningless and unverifiable.

The only things the voting system does is make it such that if Bob *wants privacy* he can vote and destroy his private key.  No one will know who Bob voted for unless he reveals it.

Then it seems to me a DAC couldn't replace current voting systems as despite their counting flaws, current systems at least provide anonymity.

Without involuntary anonymity your vote would be dictated by violence not money.

Gangsters will simply demand proof of vote.

Violence is even more expensive than vote buying and if you are being threatened with violence then that is grounds for a law suite and other remedies.   This would be like someone using violence to force you to buy a certain product... ie: protection money.     A government willing to use violence to cause people to vote is PROVABLY corrupt... which is far better than a government that uses deception to claim consent in an UNPROVABLE black box voting.


Wow... it is really amazing how thick the government propaganda is around voting. 

Lets look at how a voting system would be designed for maximum tyranny and see if we can improve upon it:

1) Open the voting to everyone and don't check IDs.
2) Use a digital black box that counts the vote and reports the results.
3) Have no way to prove the button you pushed resulted in the vote you entered.
4) Have the media post manipulated public opinion polls
5) Make voter turn out low by having long lines and occur on a single day during the work week. 

Under this system the public believes their vote counts, believes they can change things, and believes everyone else is STUPID based upon what they see in the media, polls, and elections.   The government has consent and can do what it pleases.

The only way to get as anonymous and "non-provable" as possible is:
1) eliminate absentee ballots... someone using force could compel you to vote absentee so they could see it.
2) use paper ballots with physical holes
3) count all ballots on video and with representatives from all candidates in physical presence.
4) keep all ballots and count all ballots....
5) require all candidates to maintain a voter registration list
6) require all voters to get their blank ballot stamped by all candidates prior to voting (candidates verify uniqueness)
7) only count ballots stamped by all candidates.

As you can see the process is much more difficult and expensive... and difficult to verify.  How hard is it to forge your opponents stamps? 

At the end of the day if you can coerce a statistically meaningful number of people and get away with it, the corruption is in the government and no voting system will matter.

I looked into it a bit more but I think I disagree on this stuff at the moment. (Though I agree there is huge manipulation of information by the media.)

Currently my conclusion is I still believe there should be no way to prove who I voted for, to protect my freedom. Where I think the improvement needs to come is in the counting system. Some decentralised maths based system that provably processes the vote correctly but with it being mixed in some way that makes it hard to link back to my identity.

Quote
Violence is even more expensive than vote buying and if you are being threatened with violence then that is grounds for a law suite and other remedies.   This would be like someone using violence to force you to buy a certain product... ie: protection money.     A government willing to use violence to cause people to vote is PROVABLY corrupt... which is far better than a government that uses deception to claim consent in an UNPROVABLE black box voting.


Wow... it is really amazing how thick the government propaganda is around voting.

Advocacy for the secret ballot system doesn't stem from propaganda, on the contrary governments today, especially tyrants and dictators would love a proof of vote system. The secret ballot system we have today is the result of hard won victories by free people in response to the tyranny a 'proof of vote' system almost always creates. I see the wiki points out that only Napolean really pushed for a 'proof of vote' system since the secret ballot system was introduced in France, I wonder why?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_ballot

Also in many countries while there's bribery, historically and in practice I think you'll find the no. 1 voting coercion tool is violence and intimidation. Proof of vote allows opposition to be systematically removed by more and more violent means until the desired result is achieved. Local government don't need to use violence directly, groups of thugs or supporters not directly associated with them or that national government are often the ones that do the dirty work.

Only in advanced Western countries could a proof of vote seem temporarily plausible as there are centralised well funded police and legal options,  but even there it would cause individual freedom to devolve imo. Starting with the most vulnerable first who have limited recourse.


Offline nomoreheroes7

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Welp, this has gotten way too philosophical/over the head for me. Interesting thoughts.

My perspective: I just roll with life as it comes at me. Worked well enough so far.

zerosum

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I attempt to avoid labeling my views as labels carry baggage.

 I submit for your consideration the following unprovable and impossible to disprove hypothesis: there is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.   All physical reality and other people are thus a manifestation of that one consciousness just like the people and things in your dreams are merely manifestations of your subcounsous.

 Lacking any evidence to suggest that there exists some objective reality outside this one consciousness one may choose how they wish to view the world.   

 If viewing the world as objective and physical and consciousness as being derived from the physical makes your life more enjoyable then view it that way and it will behave that way.   If, on the other hand, viewing the world as I view it makes life more enjoyable then view it that way.   

 There is no need to accept it on faith... it is easy enough to experiment with fully embracing both views.  For most of us, viewing the world as physical and us as something "separate" is our default view... so it is very hard to adapt your perspective to a world where you create it through your own subjective reality much like slowly gaining control of your dream rather than being controlled by your dream. 

 So I choose to adopt the views that make life most enjoyable... and I can honestly say that switching perspectives lets you see the world in a whole new way.  The thought of adopting any kind of objective view of reality at this point in time seems painful and "dead".   

 How does this fit into morality... I choose how I interpret and perceive the actions of others and what I focus on.  I choose to view aggression and problems in the world as an outward reflection of the internal/sub-counsious need to control the world around me.   I choose to focus on releasing my own need to control others in any way shape or form as the ultimate way for finding my own freedom and changing the world.

 

Well  somebody asked me recently why Plato... and it is why:

"[the] non-material abstract, but substantial forms or ideas, and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality" 

...it all stared there...where it went.... is subject to interpretation...

PS
The quote above is... coming from my...

There is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.


and it is not too hard to get to:

"I am thinking, therefore I exist"

« Last Edit: October 16, 2014, 09:24:00 am by zerosum »

Offline BldSwtTrs

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I attempt to avoid labeling my views as labels carry baggage.

 I submit for your consideration the following unprovable and impossible to disprove hypothesis: there is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.   All physical reality and other people are thus a manifestation of that one consciousness just like the people and things in your dreams are merely manifestations of your subcounsous.

 Lacking any evidence to suggest that there exists some objective reality outside this one consciousness one may choose how they wish to view the world.   

 If viewing the world as objective and physical and consciousness as being derived from the physical makes your life more enjoyable then view it that way and it will behave that way.   If, on the other hand, viewing the world as I view it makes life more enjoyable then view it that way.   

 There is no need to accept it on faith... it is easy enough to experiment with fully embracing both views.  For most of us, viewing the world as physical and us as something "separate" is our default view... so it is very hard to adapt your perspective to a world where you create it through your own subjective reality much like slowly gaining control of your dream rather than being controlled by your dream. 

 So I choose to adopt the views that make life most enjoyable... and I can honestly say that switching perspectives lets you see the world in a whole new way.  The thought of adopting any kind of objective view of reality at this point in time seems painful and "dead".   

 How does this fit into morality... I choose how I interpret and perceive the actions of others and what I focus on.  I choose to view aggression and problems in the world as an outward reflection of the internal/sub-counsious need to control the world around me.   I choose to focus on releasing my own need to control others in any way shape or form as the ultimate way for finding my own freedom and changing the world.
If you control the reality why aren't you living in a world which is closer to heaven than the one you are right know? Why have you chosen to create pain, poverty, wars, ebola, etc?
« Last Edit: October 16, 2014, 09:02:13 am by BldSwtTrs »

Offline donkeypong

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Offline bytemaster

I have thought this before as well but the problem I have with that is that I believe the idealogy that "persceptive conciousness is reality" wouldn't allow us to assimilate new information, other than to rearrange inputs from our sensory organs to produce new outputs. Building on that I feel that if this were the case babies would know how to speak and walk without training because they wouldn't need to seek information on how to do it. There are some coded genetic instructions that are embedded with clearly defined rules like a horse that comes out knowing how to walk and run, as they are a result of perhaps a higher level of intelligence in the form of nature. The assimiliation of new information causing us to percieve an outside reality causes us to have many religions and theories that things we cannot comprehend must be god or higher being.

With quantum science, thoughts and experiments outside our realm of explanation that were traditionally applied to the work of god are beginning to take shape and discoveries of new worlds beneath or above our threshold of input detection from our senses are beginning to surface which help explain or debunk theories we have had since day 1.

Another thing we relate to reality is that we are the only living species to perceive reality thus, the truth is what I think it is. However we may be in contact with higher level of intelligence on another dimension and not even know it. IE: Aliens could be contacting us and we dont even know they are, their communication plane is on another dimension one that we cannot process or detect. All of this made me believe the objective world and state of perceiving the world is based on what myself and others describe.

I believe the perception of conciousness being reality is really akin to us in dream state where rarely do you see us process new information but reassemble inputs from the vast array of data collected to rearrange to new outputs. Thus you wouldn't learn that 2+2=4 and what it means in the grand scheme but you could learn that the inputs of 2 and 2 make 4, whatever that means in your context of reality.

That said they do say our dreams are a gateway onto another universe and thus maybe the truth of reality actually resides somewhere in between.

So maybe a vote to describe the protocol of vote should take place to create an objective as possible protocol to work off of.

Look into reincarnation where toddlers remember past lives including skills with knives, entire written languages, etc or even know how to play an instrument.   Aliens, other life forms... animals, plants, rocks... the "one consciousness" isn't human... it is just experiencing life from that perspective "for what ever reason only the higher conscious knows".    You cannot say "look at XYZ out there" as "proof".... XYZ is just part of your subjective reality that we have created.   Making the assumption that cousiouness would only be feeding "inputs to outputs" assumes that all inputs and outputs can be enumerated.   It also assumes that consousness isn't experiencing all views at once.   It all comes down to what you want to believe and how that belief helps you achieve your goals.    It looks like you are still living in an objective mindset.
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Offline arhag

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I attempt to avoid labeling my views as labels carry baggage.

Generally I agree, but at the same time labels can be really useful in reducing multiple paragraphs of English prose down to a couple of words.  :)

I submit for your consideration the following unprovable and impossible to disprove hypothesis: there is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.   All physical reality and other people are thus a manifestation of that one consciousness just like the people and things in your dreams are merely manifestations of your subcounsous.

Oh definitely a possibility. But it is unprovable and impossible to disprove, hence we are in the realm of metaphysics. And as I mentioned in my previous post, it doesn't really matter since even a metaphysical solipsist still needs to deal with the inherent and uncontrollable limitations of the "physical" universe that they perceive. Namely that they need to survive to avoid death because of the fear of death and survival instinct that seems to be ingrained within them, they need to survive and live well to avoid pain which is clearly undesirable, and they rationally conclude they are more likely to survive and be happy if they work together (which means compromising) with other human beings.

There is no need to accept it on faith... it is easy enough to experiment with fully embracing both views.  For most of us, viewing the world as physical and us as something "separate" is our default view... so it is very hard to adapt your perspective to a world where you create it through your own subjective reality much like slowly gaining control of your dream rather than being controlled by your dream. 

Except unlike lucid dreaming where the dreamer is actually able to control the dream, there is no evidence of the laws of physics being violated by the sheer will of human consciousness. Or at least there is no evidence of that in my personal subjective view of the universe :P. Maybe there exists a universe in the subjective mind of some other consciousness in which that consciousness is able to control the matter and energy in their universe simply through thought. But then where does this consciousness even "exist" within, a meta-universe? Haha, this gets super bizarre really quickly which is why it doesn't appeal to me. Then again, I suppose that a similar bizarreness occurs with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

So I choose to adopt the views that make life most enjoyable... and I can honestly say that switching perspectives lets you see the world in a whole new way.  The thought of adopting any kind of objective view of reality at this point in time seems painful and "dead".   

That is fair. It ultimately doesn't matter very much. So whatever helps people sleep at nights I suppose. I am definitely sympathetic to that feeling of sadness and emptiness that comes from attempting to objectively perceive a physicalist universe (or actually even worse, a multiverse). But one can learn to "get over it" and focus their attention on far more trivial matters, like changing the world.  ;)


Anyway, enough philosophy for me for today.

Offline jsidhu

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I attempt to avoid labeling my views as labels carry baggage.

 I submit for your consideration the following unprovable and impossible to disprove hypothesis: there is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.   All physical reality and other people are thus a manifestation of that one consciousness just like the people and things in your dreams are merely manifestations of your subcounsous.

 Lacking any evidence to suggest that there exists some objective reality outside this one consciousness one may choose how they wish to view the world.   

 If viewing the world as objective and physical and consciousness as being derived from the physical makes your life more enjoyable then view it that way and it will behave that way.   If, on the other hand, viewing the world as I view it makes life more enjoyable then view it that way.   

 There is no need to accept it on faith... it is easy enough to experiment with fully embracing both views.  For most of us, viewing the world as physical and us as something "separate" is our default view... so it is very hard to adapt your perspective to a world where you create it through your own subjective reality much like slowly gaining control of your dream rather than being controlled by your dream. 

 So I choose to adopt the views that make life most enjoyable... and I can honestly say that switching perspectives lets you see the world in a whole new way.  The thought of adopting any kind of objective view of reality at this point in time seems painful and "dead".   

 How does this fit into morality... I choose how I interpret and perceive the actions of others and what I focus on.  I choose to view aggression and problems in the world as an outward reflection of the internal/sub-counsious need to control the world around me.   I choose to focus on releasing my own need to control others in any way shape or form as the ultimate way for finding my own freedom and changing the world.

 

I have thought this before as well but the problem I have with that is that I believe the idealogy that "persceptive conciousness is reality" wouldn't allow us to assimilate new information, other than to rearrange inputs from our sensory organs to produce new outputs. Building on that I feel that if this were the case babies would know how to speak and walk without training because they wouldn't need to seek information on how to do it. There are some coded genetic instructions that are embedded with clearly defined rules like a horse that comes out knowing how to walk and run, as they are a result of perhaps a higher level of intelligence in the form of nature. The assimiliation of new information causing us to percieve an outside reality causes us to have many religions and theories that things we cannot comprehend must be god or higher being.

With quantum science, thoughts and experiments outside our realm of explanation that were traditionally applied to the work of god are beginning to take shape and discoveries of new worlds beneath or above our threshold of input detection from our senses are beginning to surface which help explain or debunk theories we have had since day 1.

Another thing we relate to reality is that we are the only living species to perceive reality thus, the truth is what I think it is. However we may be in contact with higher level of intelligence on another dimension and not even know it. IE: Aliens could be contacting us and we dont even know they are, their communication plane is on another dimension one that we cannot process or detect. All of this made me believe the objective world and state of perceiving the world is based on what myself and others describe. Monkeys and Apes are our closest species and arent many orders of magnitude of intelligence below us yet we cannot understand each other or communicate meaningfully, thus outside intelligence orders of magnitude above us may be similarily unable to convey messages perhaps without us even knowing just as monkeys dont know we are trying to tell them something.

I believe the persception of conciousness being reality is really akin to us in dream state where rarely do you see us process new information but reassemble inputs from the vast array of data collected to rearrange to new outputs. Thus you wouldn't learn that 2+2=4 and what it means in the grand scheme but you could learn that the inputs of 2 and 2 make 4, whatever that means in your context of reality.

That said they do say our dreams are a gateway onto another universe and thus maybe the truth of reality actually resides somewhere in between.

So maybe a vote to describe the protocol of vote should take place to create an objective as possible protocol to work off of.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2014, 05:05:09 am by jsidhu »
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Offline donkeypong

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I attempt to avoid labeling my views as labels carry baggage.

 I submit for your consideration the following unprovable and impossible to disprove hypothesis: there is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.   All physical reality and other people are thus a manifestation of that one consciousness just like the people and things in your dreams are merely manifestations of your subcounsous.

 Lacking any evidence to suggest that there exists some objective reality outside this one consciousness one may choose how they wish to view the world.   

 If viewing the world as objective and physical and consciousness as being derived from the physical makes your life more enjoyable then view it that way and it will behave that way.   If, on the other hand, viewing the world as I view it makes life more enjoyable then view it that way.   

 There is no need to accept it on faith... it is easy enough to experiment with fully embracing both views.  For most of us, viewing the world as physical and us as something "separate" is our default view... so it is very hard to adapt your perspective to a world where you create it through your own subjective reality much like slowly gaining control of your dream rather than being controlled by your dream. 

 So I choose to adopt the views that make life most enjoyable... and I can honestly say that switching perspectives lets you see the world in a whole new way.  The thought of adopting any kind of objective view of reality at this point in time seems painful and "dead".   

 How does this fit into morality... I choose how I interpret and perceive the actions of others and what I focus on.  I choose to view aggression and problems in the world as an outward reflection of the internal/sub-counsious need to control the world around me.   I choose to focus on releasing my own need to control others in any way shape or form as the ultimate way for finding my own freedom and changing the world.

 

Well said. We are all interconnected selves. And our thoughts CAN shape our destiny, both individual and collective.

Offline bytemaster

I attempt to avoid labeling my views as labels carry baggage.

 I submit for your consideration the following unprovable and impossible to disprove hypothesis: there is only one consciousness and that consciousness is me.   All physical reality and other people are thus a manifestation of that one consciousness just like the people and things in your dreams are merely manifestations of your subcounsous.

 Lacking any evidence to suggest that there exists some objective reality outside this one consciousness one may choose how they wish to view the world.   

 If viewing the world as objective and physical and consciousness as being derived from the physical makes your life more enjoyable then view it that way and it will behave that way.   If, on the other hand, viewing the world as I view it makes life more enjoyable then view it that way.   

 There is no need to accept it on faith... it is easy enough to experiment with fully embracing both views.  For most of us, viewing the world as physical and us as something "separate" is our default view... so it is very hard to adapt your perspective to a world where you create it through your own subjective reality much like slowly gaining control of your dream rather than being controlled by your dream. 

 So I choose to adopt the views that make life most enjoyable... and I can honestly say that switching perspectives lets you see the world in a whole new way.  The thought of adopting any kind of objective view of reality at this point in time seems painful and "dead".   

 How does this fit into morality... I choose how I interpret and perceive the actions of others and what I focus on.  I choose to view aggression and problems in the world as an outward reflection of the internal/sub-counsious need to control the world around me.   I choose to focus on releasing my own need to control others in any way shape or form as the ultimate way for finding my own freedom and changing the world.

 
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline jsidhu

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I know in punjab state in India its modus operandi way of doing elections so much so that people look fwd to selling their votes to put food on table and in some cases considerably more if late in elections... Ppl dont see the big picture they assume corruption anyhow.. if they could verify their votes it would turn corruption inside out.. This is why you cam drive on both sides of the road the bigger you are the less you have to swerve
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Offline arhag

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1) All reality is subjective...thus morality is subjective.

Don't quite agree with the seemingly solipsistic nature of the former part, but am glad to hear the latter part.  :)  To be more specific, I have no problem with epistemological solipsism, but I think metaphysical solipsism goes too far.

So, would it be fair to say that everything you say is your subjective opinion that you happily give out to others in the hope that others will adopt it because that makes for a better world from your perspective, even though you realize that people having a view of how the world should be organized that is different than your own is just as legitimate as your views on how the world should be organized? I suppose I should define legitimate then. If you're a metaphysical solipsist, perhaps you can say only your views are legitimate. If you are not and you also agree morals are subjective, then I think it should be fair to say the legitimacy of each person's views are on equal footing (they are all equally illegitimate, objectively speaking).  In either case, the end result is that the legitimacy of your views and morals are irrelevant. What is relevant is that which is physically possible to achieve in the universe as you perceive it and which is best aligned to the way you wish to experience the universe.

But you are just one person and you depend on others for your survival not to mention other more sophisticated pursuits and desires. So people need to come together to form societies and need to come to a consensus on the rules by which these societies operate. But different minds think differently, so the consensus will need to be a compromise from your ideals, otherwise consensus will be practically impossible. So I would say the argument has been reduced to the question of what is the subjective limit that you are not willing to compromise past. A lack of will to compromise can be understood in multiple ways: a willingness to spend considerable time and effort speaking out and educating others to adopt your philosophy (and maybe building technology and tools to make the adoption by others easier) until the compromise becomes acceptable to you; a willingness to use violence or coercion to avoid an unacceptable compromise. The different tactics obviously would be in response to different subjective limits of the compromise. For example, a disagreement with taxation policy might result in some people using the first tactic (complying with law but working hard to change it). However, some people might take a disagreement with another policy (say government officials seizing one's house while citing authority from some dubious law that the homeowner thinks is morally corrupt) as justification for armed resistance. I'm less interested in learning your limits for the second tactic (though that is always fun to learn) but rather more for the first tactic.

My understanding is that your limits are the use of violence and the lack of respect of property rights as you understand them. But I think this is too simplistic of an answer since the world is far more nuanced than that. That is the reason for my fourth and fifth questions in the list of five questions I asked. You say you don't want to be harmed even if you harm others as a justification for why people should never harm other people. But if your goal is to not be harmed, what is the proper thing to do if a policy of not harming people leads to many more people being harmed (including you) compared to the case where the policy was more nuanced rather than so black and white? Certainly wrongful imprisonment is a great horror that should be avoided (and I agree that the balance in the current system is biased towards erring on the side of prison), but there is surely a delicate balance between false positives and false negatives that leads to a more optimal society than erring on the side of no one should go to jail, is there not? And even if the solution is not jail but ostracization, how is that any more fair? An innocent person being unjustly ostracized from all of civilized society is also messed up. It is essentially sentencing them to death since they are unlikely to be able to survive for very long in the wilderness. Property and property rights are also very complicated. How are the commons managed? What is a violation of property rights? Is carcinogenic smoke emitted from my property that is blown into my neighbors property a violation of their property rights? What about greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere that can cause great damage to human lives a long time from now (lives that may not even exist today)? How are decisions regarding these issues determined? If we do have a way of coming to a consensus on these issues, how do we enforce them? Isn't the enforcement of these consensus property rights, which by the way may be different than how a particular individual views their property rights, equivalent to the situation we have today where people complain about the government violating their property rights? What really is the difference between this hypothetical system enforcing the people's global consensus of what property rights are specifically and what we call "government"? Can the enforcement truly be accomplished without any violence or the threat of violence? If the violence is only justified as self-defense against an actor at the moment the actor is violating the property or human rights of a victim, is it not just for the victim to delegate the violence to a third party, who is better trained for the task, to act on their behalf? Does this not just lead back to a system similar to law enforcement agents?

I could go on, but I have already gone on for too long. My point is that things are not black and white and everyone has disagreements about the specifics. I don't disagree that the way society is structured could be much much better than it is today, but I don't think it is as simple as saying the state is the source of all problems and if only we could get rid of it we would be living in a utopia (or even that the world would necessarily be a much better place than it is today). The governments we have today are an emergent phenomena that arise because of the ways humans think. And its not even just because of humans thinking with a utilitarian "greater good" ethical philosophy. Many people who are thinking individualistically, just concerned about making their own lives better, see personal value in organizing society in a way that resembles what we call a state/government. You obviously don't see things this way and envision a society that you think is both more desirable and a system that does not resemble what we would today call a state/government. It is definitely great to keep letting people know what this society you envision is like and how it meets those two criteria. I don't think moral justifications are the best way to change people's minds, since they likely have their subjective morals fairly rigidly set as adults. I think the better way is: point out logical contradictions in their views given their own stated beliefs and values; show how the society you envision could plausibly be more desirable to them given their values; and explain how the system could practically work and how it is different and better than the current system we live under.

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« Last Edit: October 16, 2014, 04:05:58 am by arhag »