General discussion on Ethics, Political Structures and understanding others views

Hello, I'm Eco. I'd like to be a polemic but I don't like confrontation, so I'll just sit here and watch the rest of you at it!

 

Welcome to the forums and please excuse the diatribe that's been going on as of late. Hopefully the forum will settle down soon enough and we can get back to real discussions.

 

All well and good
Short term little picture dreaming is foolish when the real problem is the house is built on foundations made of sand.

Quite a judgement claiming Suzuki is in it for personal gain
and if we are going to be a tad critical Len

What are your personal motivations?

a possible trip to heaven, free dental care, better health services, raise in your weekly pensions, so you can get better health care for a few more stray dogs(do they deserve better health care than the poor people of the third world, that you believe should have their foreign aide cut in previous posts),cheap brown coal electricity because you think wind turbines are ugly ...bugger the planet and all of humanity its all about my unsustainable lifestyle, being able to continue.

 

again GH not much just pure critic with no lateral vision, investing in people is not building on sand, but lording false science surely is, and everytime that bloke grins out from the tv set what good comes of it. people still live in poverty, so the wealthy can have pleasure, there are unsung compassionate people out there getting down and dirty helping the poor, he sits in his comfy home dressed well, and not only him many others who's names get bandied around here, major snoopy name dropping. you never see people on the ground helping, we have charity crowds who only hand out charity when the cameras are there, been dealt a blow by them as well.

talking of stray dogs, those animals get better treatment than people here in aus', and you got no idea if that foreign aid gets to where it is supposed, to but you do forget making a name for yourself by handing out donations overseas, when people at hope suffer more, but you close you little mind in that box by saying i am after personal privilege, that will never happen. you seem short on reality.

len

 

Geez, mate. Cheer up. Life can't be all that bad, can it? Warm bed, roof over your head, veges from the garden...

[video=youtube;WlBiLNN1NhQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ[/video]

 

yes mark,

we see the bright side of life each day the sun rises, and heralds a new day.

yes we admit we are comfortable, able to have a comfy roof over our heads and bills paid, be lost without garden be different then but still what about those who don't have any roof over their heads, little food(most opt' for maca's. the very many who's health care is poor to say the least, all this in this lucky(for the wealthy) country australia.

len

 

The discussions from post #45 to here are taken from another thread and moved here as it developed into a side discussion mostly unrelated to the original - Living Democracy

 

you guys can not even play together in the same sandbox !

hahaha
you guys crack me up.

marko - this is why LM doesn't fly.
it is why democracy doesn't and it is why smaller more direct democracy won't.

""..In brief, libertarian municipalism seeks to revive the democratic possibilities latent in existing local governments and transform them into direct democracies. It aims to decentralize these political communities so that they are humanly scaled and tailored to their natural environments. It aims to restore the practices and qualities of citizenship, so that men and women can collectively take responsibility for managing their own communities, according to an ethics of sharing and cooperation, rather than depend on elites....""

i note: there are no models historical or contemporary...that present LM as a wholly functioning system at the scale it aspires to.
it has not evolved to be, because it is an intellectual model that needs to be kept as such until it finds it workability.... LM hinges on the faith that humans chose in accordance with rational self interest....and this is incorrect, because many/most/more can not identify their rational self interest....



Add evidence that the herd, are not getting smarter...and straight up the need for elites jumps out – the intelligentsia....people with the smarts and inclination not to use this to their comparative advantage over the others.

And right there the human condition appears to doom the LM dream.


Exploiting comparative advantage is hard wired, a certainty, the genetic imperative.



But, with a little adaptation – like the chinese did to communism, we can get this LM notion to fly,,,what remains will be removed from the purity of the initial lovable context.


Humans can not govern humans with altruistic intent because they are humans – primates.
Putting the only humans smart enough and advantaged enough to govern results in sharks governing fish ….human's exploit their comparative advantage compulsively.



Only A.I. Removed from this human condition, can govern.

And...it should be able to do it quickly, efficiently and ethically.


It should be able to apply governance at the scale of village – related to village input.

for crying out loud how hard can it be!?
“Click box If you support culvert maintenance or sports ground upgrade.”



And it will need to be very creative in stopping village wars, the historical pattern.

______________________________

now back to the sandbox.....
lens and kimbos in every village ? - Muslims and Christians in multicultural libertarian municipal bliss?....that is crazy man.

society does enclaves with intent - enclaves of like minds - it is the village metaphor....and that is the way it is with villages....they are an extension of the family tribe and are inevitably ethnically and culturally homogeneous.
not like the sandbox here.
____________________________

good governance works on consensus and nothing gets done at the local level when council can't agree.
a village, based on the family tribe will exploit its comparative advantage, obtained through consensus, obtained through homogeneity, over the next village of 'less similar' whom ever they be.

I see LM finding its right time when it marries with Totalitarianism....and AI runs the show.

click box to select; culvert maintenance , sports ground upgrade or bomb delivered to neighbouring infidel village
___________________________



and only AI can stop this sort of sandbox shit..... that is the human condition.....
by refusing the democratic request of village A to bomb village B ,,,implementation of Empire.

(i was going to post this over at the discussion of LM post, but i got enthralled by what was happening here - in the sandbox, in the virtual village and i found the parallels irresistible.

and in the end; i disagree with Bookchin's generalisation that the human condition is benign.
humans of one type are good to others of the same types....and hostile to others of less similar like types.

liking is rooted in likeness
unlikeness is easily, naturally unlike-able,

the acid test it would seem is recent studies ( ofcourse i can't quote shit, do i sound like a man with a degree!) that explain why even like organisms kill each other....and it gets down to jealously guarding the genetic traits that have made for the organisms success.
genetics, hard-wired.....bookchin was doing optimism, in the absence of the contemporary science.

human genetic imperatives do not support inter-social bliss...

cheers,
k

 

Yep, it's a tough gig. I've not long finished reading Clark's (2013) The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (if you ever get the chance I thoroughly recommend it - Zizek's philosopical outlook receives special mention early on). Clark has for a long time been a strident critic of MB's LM. The final chapter in the aforementioned is once again dedicated to this task, albeit mainly as a rewrite from earlier essays. As always, I\it is a somewhat painful, but truthful read. LM is not a perfect concept. MB was never shy in returning the favour, often singling out Clark's communitarian anarchism for special treatment of the critical kind. Overall, historically, communitarianism has never been a pretty nor neat concept - Kropotkin's mutual aide was a dog's breakfast! Yeah, we're idealists. And yeah, we tend to think of human nature (if not in a positive) at least in a neutral light. I tend to think, personally, MB was more of a pragmatist rather than an optimist. Concerning LM, we'll probably never know if it could be a longterm success. If Holmgren's lifeboat scenario ever comes to pass, I think the end will be rather swift.

 

Indeed, Pak. In reality, I'd rather poke my eyes out with a blunt stick than attend any form of a gathering that included a '12-steps' agenda.

 

My friend, there is a large village where this already occurs.

The city is part of an Empire called, New York. It's a wonderful place to grow up. Black Militant Muslims on soap boxes shouting in midtown. Pagans in downtown with the most beautiful white temple. Mosques, Synagogues, Temples, and more, all surrounded by an oppression known as Capitalism.

If you haven't guessed by now, it's New York City, and honestly, it was the best place in the world for me to grow up because I learned to treat everyone, of every ethnicity and every other subcategory someone can make up.

It is literally because of that I can say I was not born for one corner of this world, because the WHOLE WORLD is my native land. ((As it is yours kola))

 

paka,

you can hardly boast unity and tolerance acceptance of others without prejudice, yes we do honestly need to come together and have a common base where respect for each other is high and we discount lawlessness to make street safe.

the US is hardly the knight in shining armour the guiding light, might does not make right.

len

 

Kimbo, you are a very intelligent chap. Your insights are razor sharp and you seem to be able to tap into the truth of things, all from a recluse and a dirty old pagan. Impressive. Probably as impressive as any of the other great minds I have read or heard speak.

But what concerns me is that you don't really have a workable solution to this human circumstance the world finds itself in. If the best minds out there don't have a good answer then my guess is there is no good answer. Maybe the question is all wrong, but if not then we are royally screwed.

Perhaps all the optimist can hope for is decline rather than total collapse. Discuss.

 

Being two thirds the way through Dmitry Orlov's 'The Five Stages of Collapse' - A survivors toolkit. This is no lightweight treatise. I have to say he makes a good case for his theory. I tend to agree with the scenario that global collapse of the industrialised world is a certainty and it is only the details and accurate predictions of timing that are to be debated. The collapse will follow a set course as have all the collapses of all previous great civilisations. Climate change will certainly play an important part as will peak everything. But it is the fall of the global financial system that will be the trigger. How long can the balls be kept in the air in a world of rapidly diminishing resources and an increasing yet ageing population? Very soon the US government will have to move to vote yet again to increase the debt ceiling to more than 17 trillion dollars so it can......keep servicing its DEBT. How can they keep a straight face?

It is how one prepares for this that is important. There are certainly strategies and examples that we can look at and implement. Permaculture design and 'philosophy' offers me a lot of workable and achievable solutions to help meet my and my families critical needs when the nation state can't/won't and there are serious environmental constraints. If others with permaculture and similar skills are able to co-operate together in smallish communities with no hierarchy then a way forward for a much reduced population is perhaps not only possible but preferable.

All of which is why my immediate concerns are how to get off the grid, ensure we have a water supply, a food supply and have the skills to use alternative low/no tech solutions for cooking, transport etc. The part I need more work on is forming strong ties with neighbours and like minded friends. The government and nation state will not have answers and may even be resistant and problematic initially. Fairly soon though, into collapse, they will be irrelevant. That is when people who have thought through this scenario and acted accordingly will be able to just get on with it.

 

Well said MITH. I think along the same lines as well. The world financial system should have collapsed already but the timing of it has been kicked down the road a bit with QE, bailouts etc. It can't go on indefinitely though. The derivatives and bond market are hanging by a thread. Trouble is if you try to talk to people about it, well some anyway, they sort of glaze over and don't want to think about it. Very hard to get neighbours into thinking about it at all. They are just content to get my extra produce at the moment. They have skills though.

I have water sources and filtration. Septic toilet. I bought in an area I can walk to a huge water storage with fish and other animals to eat. I have a boat and fishing and crabbing equipment. Outside cooking with a fire etc. Chickens. Stored food. Fruit trees, and herb and vege garden, not enough but a start.

Am working on getting things to barter with at the moment.

Hope it doesn't happen, but I will be somewhat prepared if it does.

 

Better than money... https://www.communityexchange.net.au/

 

solutions !

en contrare, i have a big broad solution - follow no one. (J.Krishnamurti)
when the power of non compliant humans is turned to the problem, then parallel processing can occur.
never mind the parable of 100 idiots, engage the possibility of 7 Bn idiots all off doing benign but idiotic shit....
sooner or later someone nails solutions...its in the odds.

now i gaze across the landscape of herding humans, self sorting the way herds do,,,doing group think, doing herd blind, increasing in group stress and missing the obvious exits....all patterns of the herd.

and i scream from the untrammelled edge, rogue, shunned - 'follow no one'.

compel the genetics to obey the human.....or admit them the master.
rise up.
do the equiv of genetic crazy,,,,
despise the herd mind.
break out and operate solo.

__________________________> that is what i call a solution.

yes, it fully sucks and it is not a solution in itself...but it sounds like this herd shit....is blocking us....seems obvious once you've learnt (not fun) to see it,,,,embrace it,,,but it can be a hard thing to love.
hug
K

 

proviso.; i'm not advocating this as a permanent solutions because there are no environmental permanents, more-so these days with climate change.
i do suggest though, that there is no leadership, removed from the human condition i've discussed previously.....necessarily elite, or inept.

i want to top up on my assertion that the only village scale that stands the test of time is homogenous, a group of 350 people with 6 surnames or similar....

i want to link this with Bookchins optimism in the basic human condition as 'good', benign.
and then marry this with the Eastern Philosophy of Confucius and Filial Piety.

the jist of which is " Human Nature is Good"
but the highest expression of this good is through Filial Piety.....

and Filial Piety boils down to duty to family and a near devotion to this hierarchical model.

I assert that about sums up the limits of the 'good' human nature.....it is not anticipated beyond this family hierarchy,,,it is a moot point.....
i assert this is the fundamental glue of the family tribe, the successful village scale model...
( nod to Pak, NY is not a village, it is a city with the city scale problems that the village model hopes to address)

in the absence of any thing better than tribalism, with bugger all leadership.....the need now,
is surely to follow no one.

(no one len )

k
PS i'm a polemic polemicist , i collect labels that help me explain myself to myself and i'm sure i'm going to be able to use this.

 

I agree kimbo. Interestingly, in the aforementioned book, the author suggests that the most successful scale/structure for communities in a post-collapse world is one of family/tribe/clan. Then some interaction/trade with other small communities of family/tribe/clan with no hierarchical system.

Read the book kimbo - most of Orlov's observations and ideas tie with what you are saying. He just goes into a lot more detail and gives examples of groups and tribes that exist despite the system.

 

Gilman's (1984) take on village scales and dynamics; note his reference to Alexander et al (1977):

https://www.context.org/iclib/ic01/gilman3/