There's also Higgs' comment on the broader issue of the pros and cons of a strictly-voluntary society versus a 'state supremacist' system:
“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.” ~ Robert Higgs
Totally true. The challenge is the transition, not the vision. People from all different ideologies communicated a vision, utopian or near utopian, but failed to consider the transition. Truth is in the transition.
Much of what I post is motivated / predicated on that truth: The Overton Window must shift in the right direction--and that CANNOT happen quickly, in one fell swoop. Nor can the social institutions, systems of governance/regulation, and/or sufficiently-mature market products and services, become available overnight. Collectively, all of those things could easily take decades...or even longer.
I agree. I read an interesting article this morning by the candid clodhopper on the Russian revolution and how the undermanned Bolsheviks were able to win. Setting up protection zones is a huge deal. Dealing with roving gangs must be organized. Also, I believe drones are now a greater overall threat. Easy to manufacture and conceal. Can quickly take out infrastructure. Create general chaos. These pretend wars are military training exercises.
All politics are local. In my hometown the state of Massachusetts took over 3 hotels and are paying for hundreds of illegal aliens to live there for free. Free housing, free food, free health care, free cable, free phones, free utilities, free WiFi, free transportation, free laundry service, well you get the picture. There was a man there that was raping his under age daughter constantly. People knew it and were complaining. Governor Healy got word from the man hired by the state to run these hotels the state contracted out. The police went to the hotel to get the child molester, but not to arrest him, no, they moved him and his daughter to another Holiday Inn. Recently the young girl gave birth to her father’s child. She had turned 17 and the state put her up with the child in another hotel, I’m sure Governor Healy granted dad, grandpa, the pedophile visitation rights. The young girl is receiving all the same free stuff that her father was getting. I and the rest of Mass. tax payers are forced to pay for this.
My neighborhood has been overwhelmed with break-ins, car thefts, and cars being broken into at night. All of the stores in town are being robbed daily, many now keep their merchandise in locked cabinets. The police are called but do absolutely nothing.
So for me I’m not so worried of nuclear bombs going off, I’m mostly concerned with first these psychopath politicians who consider me the enemy. And second looking out my window, seeing my truck being Brocken into, and having to confront one of these psychopaths Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas let into the country, probably released from a mental hospital in Venezuela. For sure I will be the one who gets arrested. So that’s life in a communist sanctuary state. Isn’t communism great!
How many cities have been deliberately nuked? Two.
Of those cities, how many were nuked by free marketeers? Zero.
How many nuclear weapons have been exploded since 1945 to our knowledge? At least 2,056.
How many nation states were involved in those nuclear explosions? Eight.
How many free marketeers were involved in any of those nuclear explosions? Zero.
Fallout from some Nevada tests killed some people in nearby communities according to sources I've seen. At least 355,000 were killed from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb explosions, many quite horribly in terrible pain.
We don't need to imagine psychopaths getting control of nuclear weapons. They already have them. The psychos wear uniforms, suits, or other outfits, work for nation states, and always feel fully justified in slaughtering as many people as possible.
I definitely fear the state than a private supervillain any day. In market anarchism, there would also be defense contractors working for private people and companies to deter any supervillain looking to build (and use) a nuclear weapon. This would make it less than feasible for any supervillain to get very far, even if they had the funds.
As for the state, there's an endless supply of money they can put toward these projects. If it's not taxed directly, inflation (the hidden tax) will pay for it. Plus, since nobody could hold the state accountable, they can produce as many as they wish.
States are literally ran by supervillains. Democide is the leading non-natural cause of death in the 20th century. With, what, 100-200 million people dead at the hands of supervillains in charge of governments? Who are the Hitlers and Stalins and Bushes of the world if not mass-murdering psychopathic supervillains?
All the anarchists are saying is: let's take the power away from the supervillains - and somehow this is controversial. That just shows you how much the supervillains have control over people's brains. The "mind control" from movies is not just fiction, it's reality.
If we assume that psychopaths will exist either way (and they will) then we have two choices:
1. Give them government authority, with all the power to command, coerce, conquer, control, extort, and expropriate that comes with government authority.
2. Don't give them government authority, and let them see how much damage they can do without it.
I think in addition to abolishing government we really need to talk about what to do with all the psychopaths. They're a real problem. Obviously we would have to approach the issue in a non-rights violating manner, but it is an issue. There are essentially two species of humans right now, and the psychopaths have done a phenomenal job of hiding their true nature. Revealing it is the first step.
Unfortunately, there are neurological reasons for the existence of structural psychopathy. Under-functioning or damaged structures that mediate emotions like compassion, empathy, forbearance, conscience, etc. and the moral implications of dealing with that are very thorny.
Excellent points all around—both in Christopher's original article and throughout this comment thread. I particularly appreciate Christopher's arguments highlighting just how improbable it would be for any individual to endure all the financial, technical, and logistical hurdles necessary to acquire a nuclear weapon, only to then use it malevolently with no clear advantage or rational incentive.
I'd like to further emphasize that in a genuinely stateless society, numerous natural checks and balances would significantly mitigate aberrant behavior—checks that are difficult to fully appreciate when we live under our current state-saturated conditions. For example, such an individual would need to keep their dangerous ambitions hidden from neighbors, insurers, business partners, equity and debt holders, key employees, private governance bodies, and countless other stakeholders. Imagine the swift blowback from critical institutional counterparties (banks, insurers, security providers, and others) upon discovering involvement in such reckless activity. These institutions would immediately distance themselves from a person and project that serves no legitimate defensive or commercial purpose and poses catastrophic financial and reputational risks.
Moreover, once these key institutions withdraw their support, no matter how wealthy or powerful an individual might initially be, their resources and capabilities would rapidly diminish. Without access to banking and insurance services, how could they pay employees, purchase and transport expensive materials, or maintain their standing within local communities and business networks? In short, the withdrawal of institutional support alone would severely undermine—and perhaps fully incapacitate—their destructive ambitions.
In my view, this complex web of voluntary relationships and market-imposed accountability would serve as a far more powerful deterrent against destructive behavior than any centralized state authority could. Indeed, one could convincingly argue that states provide conditions about as ideal as any nuclear-obsessed psychopath could ever wish for.
When We remove the need for money, no One could pay Others to do the work creating bombs. Any psychopaths would have to do it Themselves. And I'm here to tell You, They are not able to to a probability approaching 100%.
I don’t like what money allows psychopaths to do. And that is all the hell We see, with lies about jabs and lies about climate and lies about viruses and lies about [fill in the blank with any of a myriad things].
Your speculation appears to assume that the statement: "if there were no governments", implies that there never were any governments and therefore, no nuclear weapons have ever been created. But of course, at present, we have many governments and a lot of them have large stockpiles of nuclear weapons. So if the governments were to disappear, then the psychopaths and supervillains would surely gain access to a few of the weapons.
Sure, it is almost guaranteed that if all current governments were to disappear, the disposition of their nukes would be a serious concern. Even if just one nuclear nation were to collapse, we would have reason to be concerned. Agreed.
But none of that really changes the analysis in the piece. We are trying to understand the nature of things as they are, as they would be, and as they could be. All things being equal, it is exponentially easier for governments to build large nuclear arsenals than it would for anyone subject to market forces to acquire even a few. And there are far more psychopaths ruling “legitimately” in governments. Even if it takes a long time, we should work on building a better world rather than accepting what is.
I can't tell you if the power-hungry; or self-interested personality would nuke us or not. But I think without some structure to eliminate their trying to take what is other', they would try to do so again.
I agree that the structure we call government gives rise to those kinds of personalities.
Contemporary archaeology and genetics has illustrated that the Sumerian Kings, Egyptian Kings, et. al. did not bring civilization but moved into communities that had already developed agriculture and had advanced in technology.
In other words, kings didn't bring any benefits and stole what others had developed. The structure has to be a social safeguard that is alert and attempts to deny those who would try to control the resources and make people dependent (slaves) upon those who have taken over. Otherwise it all happens all over,
That structure is how I envision a distributed nation.
1. A diaspora of people who share the principle that human beings ought to be fully free and independent, and must never be subjected to any transaction, I’m portion of authority, or initiation of force without true consent. A nation who only “nationalism” is a fierce devotion to that notion, and resistance to all attempts to violate it.
2. Market anarchism (for those who wish it), wherein security agencies arise that protect their willing customers. And part of that protection could be protection from the predations and parasitism of all types of “kings.”
I agree. But I’m speaking of a social order that basically transforms learning at an early age to prevent the development of social psychopathy not by trying to maintain a particular laws but through learning from an early age; basically requiring a reformation in parenting as the sole models of social development but by including children from the beginning.
I tend to believe that behavioral modification does occur and modern neuroscience concurs…but it’s not just accepting that it occurs, but developing a manner of social learning to de-emphasize the role of leading through dominans auctoritatem.
But for god’s sake, not Walden 2, a kind of learning through socially “acceptable” authoritarianism. For the goal to be non-dominance, then there must be a learning structure that frowns on dominant behavior.
Oh man, I had to read Walden 2 in 10th grade. I remember thinking it was a freakshow.
I agree that we need a shift in thinking and it needs to be taught early. Can you be more specific, though, in describing “a learning structure that frowns on dominant behavior”?
Regarding warlord’s with private ownership of nukes or other WMD, in my humble opinion, this is a nonstarter. We are a long ways from being out from under the boot of government. I can hope and pray that our liberation will be nonviolent, but human history contradicts.
The most important thing any of us can do is liberate ourselves, starting with our minds. Learning to persistently live in equanimity, experiencing and transmitting peace and calm, living in joy and loving-kindness - these are clear and achievable goals we can all pursue.
By the time we get rid of the current crop of psychopathic warlords, we will know how to deal with any new ones that crop up. Don’t make a problem where there isn’t one. ❤️🙏
I think those are excellent objectives. The focus should not be upon changing or overthrowing existing orders and imposing new orders upon everyone. Rather, the focus should be on changing ourselves and our consciousness, and building the new world. Just as you said.
As to making problems…I am just addressing a concern that is repeatedly raised :-)
Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
I'd also tentatively add that a monopoly on nuclear weapons is what enables people to actually use them. It was easy to use nukes in WW2 against Hiroshima and Nagasaki because no other states possessed them at the time. The Cold War was waged through proxy wars in other third-world countries, but NOT all-out conflicts between superpower states.
In contrast, despite Russia and N. Korea having nukes today, no one's using them because they know that it would lead to mutually assured destruction; it's also partly why I would be skeptical of any state's attempt to maintain unipolarity in this respect.
There was several times during the Cold War when false signals might’ve triggered a nuclear exchange. And it was the Russian (in the cases I have heard about) who said, “Nope, I’m not doing this.” God bless them.
I am not sure I ever knew his name. And I think there might've been more than one.
But isn't this even one more argument against the state?
In a condition of market anarchy, a psycho might spend half a lifetime working in business to acquire the funds to mine and enrich uranium; design and build his three nukes, etc. But he cannot destroy the world.
Meanwhile, the state has enough nukes to pulverize the surface of the Earth, and the only thing that stood in the way of that happening were a couple of dudes disobeying orders.
I'm not sure I see it in an attacking three or four countries (ie what one individual could do) vs. launching 3K+ nukes on Earth (what states can do). Scorching the entire earth seems to be a universally unappealing proposition for everyone (empathetic or not), but someone bombing three countries that are far away from *them* seems like something they'd be fine with if they're psychopathic.
If that one psycho is the only one who has the nukes, that could arguably be worse than status quo (ie psychos on opposite sides have nukes)--for me it makes more sense that a greater *dispersion* of power (or capacity to destroy) would be more conducive towards avoiding conflict.
But I could be biased; I'm not particularly fond of the "wow [thing] is really bad ... let's restrict it to people who have shown to be power-hungry, surely this will not have any unintended repercussions!", and that's usually what statism boils down to.
But to think that we could destroy the world many times over, and we have come close to starting that war multiple times…yikes!
I came in at the tail end of "duck and cover," but still definitely grew up with a healthy fear of nuclear annihilation.
"I'm not particularly fond of the "wow [thing] is really bad ... let's restrict it to people who have shown to be power-hungry, surely this will not have any unintended repercussions!"
"So what do you think? What do you fear more? States with 3,000 nuclear missiles or the occasional supervillain with three?"
The supervillain with 3 is more likely to use them. Where did he get them?... a state. Who would he use them against?... a state, maybe a specific city in the state he hates or is demanding a ransom from ("One million dollars").
If you eliminate governments, nukes have no value. I can't nuke my neighbor over an argument or even a band of criminals. Collateral damage is too high.
We know the names of the people who have accumulated enough money through private enterprise to have a private nuclear weapons program. They seem more focused on going to Mars, other space travel, or renting Venice for the weekend. People who succeed on that level are driven by a goal of building. I may dislike them, but they are not going to intentionally develop something destructive. AI may bring about the end of human civilization, but that's not the goal.
There's also Higgs' comment on the broader issue of the pros and cons of a strictly-voluntary society versus a 'state supremacist' system:
“Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.
In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous.” ~ Robert Higgs
Perfect quote!
Totally true. The challenge is the transition, not the vision. People from all different ideologies communicated a vision, utopian or near utopian, but failed to consider the transition. Truth is in the transition.
Much of what I post is motivated / predicated on that truth: The Overton Window must shift in the right direction--and that CANNOT happen quickly, in one fell swoop. Nor can the social institutions, systems of governance/regulation, and/or sufficiently-mature market products and services, become available overnight. Collectively, all of those things could easily take decades...or even longer.
I am thinking a 100-year plan.
And we thank you for that.
I agree. I read an interesting article this morning by the candid clodhopper on the Russian revolution and how the undermanned Bolsheviks were able to win. Setting up protection zones is a huge deal. Dealing with roving gangs must be organized. Also, I believe drones are now a greater overall threat. Easy to manufacture and conceal. Can quickly take out infrastructure. Create general chaos. These pretend wars are military training exercises.
Have you “I am mother”? There is no practical way to overcome human biology.
There's evolution. And soon, genetic engineering.
But social engineering should be good enough for anti-government work.
All politics are local. In my hometown the state of Massachusetts took over 3 hotels and are paying for hundreds of illegal aliens to live there for free. Free housing, free food, free health care, free cable, free phones, free utilities, free WiFi, free transportation, free laundry service, well you get the picture. There was a man there that was raping his under age daughter constantly. People knew it and were complaining. Governor Healy got word from the man hired by the state to run these hotels the state contracted out. The police went to the hotel to get the child molester, but not to arrest him, no, they moved him and his daughter to another Holiday Inn. Recently the young girl gave birth to her father’s child. She had turned 17 and the state put her up with the child in another hotel, I’m sure Governor Healy granted dad, grandpa, the pedophile visitation rights. The young girl is receiving all the same free stuff that her father was getting. I and the rest of Mass. tax payers are forced to pay for this.
My neighborhood has been overwhelmed with break-ins, car thefts, and cars being broken into at night. All of the stores in town are being robbed daily, many now keep their merchandise in locked cabinets. The police are called but do absolutely nothing.
So for me I’m not so worried of nuclear bombs going off, I’m mostly concerned with first these psychopath politicians who consider me the enemy. And second looking out my window, seeing my truck being Brocken into, and having to confront one of these psychopaths Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas let into the country, probably released from a mental hospital in Venezuela. For sure I will be the one who gets arrested. So that’s life in a communist sanctuary state. Isn’t communism great!
Well said, and tragically so.
😳💔😡
How many cities have been deliberately nuked? Two.
Of those cities, how many were nuked by free marketeers? Zero.
How many nuclear weapons have been exploded since 1945 to our knowledge? At least 2,056.
How many nation states were involved in those nuclear explosions? Eight.
How many free marketeers were involved in any of those nuclear explosions? Zero.
Fallout from some Nevada tests killed some people in nearby communities according to sources I've seen. At least 355,000 were killed from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb explosions, many quite horribly in terrible pain.
We don't need to imagine psychopaths getting control of nuclear weapons. They already have them. The psychos wear uniforms, suits, or other outfits, work for nation states, and always feel fully justified in slaughtering as many people as possible.
There's no evidence that nukes exist.
I definitely fear the state than a private supervillain any day. In market anarchism, there would also be defense contractors working for private people and companies to deter any supervillain looking to build (and use) a nuclear weapon. This would make it less than feasible for any supervillain to get very far, even if they had the funds.
As for the state, there's an endless supply of money they can put toward these projects. If it's not taxed directly, inflation (the hidden tax) will pay for it. Plus, since nobody could hold the state accountable, they can produce as many as they wish.
States are literally ran by supervillains. Democide is the leading non-natural cause of death in the 20th century. With, what, 100-200 million people dead at the hands of supervillains in charge of governments? Who are the Hitlers and Stalins and Bushes of the world if not mass-murdering psychopathic supervillains?
All the anarchists are saying is: let's take the power away from the supervillains - and somehow this is controversial. That just shows you how much the supervillains have control over people's brains. The "mind control" from movies is not just fiction, it's reality.
Totally.
If we assume that psychopaths will exist either way (and they will) then we have two choices:
1. Give them government authority, with all the power to command, coerce, conquer, control, extort, and expropriate that comes with government authority.
2. Don't give them government authority, and let them see how much damage they can do without it.
The choice is clear.
I think in addition to abolishing government we really need to talk about what to do with all the psychopaths. They're a real problem. Obviously we would have to approach the issue in a non-rights violating manner, but it is an issue. There are essentially two species of humans right now, and the psychopaths have done a phenomenal job of hiding their true nature. Revealing it is the first step.
I'm guessing, when they violate other humans, people will defend themselves or continue to be violated.
Unfortunately, there are neurological reasons for the existence of structural psychopathy. Under-functioning or damaged structures that mediate emotions like compassion, empathy, forbearance, conscience, etc. and the moral implications of dealing with that are very thorny.
By the way, if we take Rummel's figure for democide (252 million) and add in war dead, I think we get 400 million.
Jeez, that's bad.
💯😢
The complex made simple by you Christopher!
It is so simple, once one has the magic decoder ring to see it!
That's key!
Excellent points all around—both in Christopher's original article and throughout this comment thread. I particularly appreciate Christopher's arguments highlighting just how improbable it would be for any individual to endure all the financial, technical, and logistical hurdles necessary to acquire a nuclear weapon, only to then use it malevolently with no clear advantage or rational incentive.
I'd like to further emphasize that in a genuinely stateless society, numerous natural checks and balances would significantly mitigate aberrant behavior—checks that are difficult to fully appreciate when we live under our current state-saturated conditions. For example, such an individual would need to keep their dangerous ambitions hidden from neighbors, insurers, business partners, equity and debt holders, key employees, private governance bodies, and countless other stakeholders. Imagine the swift blowback from critical institutional counterparties (banks, insurers, security providers, and others) upon discovering involvement in such reckless activity. These institutions would immediately distance themselves from a person and project that serves no legitimate defensive or commercial purpose and poses catastrophic financial and reputational risks.
Moreover, once these key institutions withdraw their support, no matter how wealthy or powerful an individual might initially be, their resources and capabilities would rapidly diminish. Without access to banking and insurance services, how could they pay employees, purchase and transport expensive materials, or maintain their standing within local communities and business networks? In short, the withdrawal of institutional support alone would severely undermine—and perhaps fully incapacitate—their destructive ambitions.
In my view, this complex web of voluntary relationships and market-imposed accountability would serve as a far more powerful deterrent against destructive behavior than any centralized state authority could. Indeed, one could convincingly argue that states provide conditions about as ideal as any nuclear-obsessed psychopath could ever wish for.
This sounds like the makings of an excellent article.
Agreed!
What a strange title. Considering our government is full of psychopaths.
Exaaaaaaactly.
When We remove the need for money, no One could pay Others to do the work creating bombs. Any psychopaths would have to do it Themselves. And I'm here to tell You, They are not able to to a probability approaching 100%.
You don’t like money, Amaterasu? I had no idea 🤣
I don’t like what money allows psychopaths to do. And that is all the hell We see, with lies about jabs and lies about climate and lies about viruses and lies about [fill in the blank with any of a myriad things].
🍄
Your speculation appears to assume that the statement: "if there were no governments", implies that there never were any governments and therefore, no nuclear weapons have ever been created. But of course, at present, we have many governments and a lot of them have large stockpiles of nuclear weapons. So if the governments were to disappear, then the psychopaths and supervillains would surely gain access to a few of the weapons.
Sure, it is almost guaranteed that if all current governments were to disappear, the disposition of their nukes would be a serious concern. Even if just one nuclear nation were to collapse, we would have reason to be concerned. Agreed.
But none of that really changes the analysis in the piece. We are trying to understand the nature of things as they are, as they would be, and as they could be. All things being equal, it is exponentially easier for governments to build large nuclear arsenals than it would for anyone subject to market forces to acquire even a few. And there are far more psychopaths ruling “legitimately” in governments. Even if it takes a long time, we should work on building a better world rather than accepting what is.
I can't tell you if the power-hungry; or self-interested personality would nuke us or not. But I think without some structure to eliminate their trying to take what is other', they would try to do so again.
I agree that the structure we call government gives rise to those kinds of personalities.
Contemporary archaeology and genetics has illustrated that the Sumerian Kings, Egyptian Kings, et. al. did not bring civilization but moved into communities that had already developed agriculture and had advanced in technology.
In other words, kings didn't bring any benefits and stole what others had developed. The structure has to be a social safeguard that is alert and attempts to deny those who would try to control the resources and make people dependent (slaves) upon those who have taken over. Otherwise it all happens all over,
That structure is how I envision a distributed nation.
1. A diaspora of people who share the principle that human beings ought to be fully free and independent, and must never be subjected to any transaction, I’m portion of authority, or initiation of force without true consent. A nation who only “nationalism” is a fierce devotion to that notion, and resistance to all attempts to violate it.
2. Market anarchism (for those who wish it), wherein security agencies arise that protect their willing customers. And part of that protection could be protection from the predations and parasitism of all types of “kings.”
I agree. But I’m speaking of a social order that basically transforms learning at an early age to prevent the development of social psychopathy not by trying to maintain a particular laws but through learning from an early age; basically requiring a reformation in parenting as the sole models of social development but by including children from the beginning.
I tend to believe that behavioral modification does occur and modern neuroscience concurs…but it’s not just accepting that it occurs, but developing a manner of social learning to de-emphasize the role of leading through dominans auctoritatem.
But for god’s sake, not Walden 2, a kind of learning through socially “acceptable” authoritarianism. For the goal to be non-dominance, then there must be a learning structure that frowns on dominant behavior.
Oh man, I had to read Walden 2 in 10th grade. I remember thinking it was a freakshow.
I agree that we need a shift in thinking and it needs to be taught early. Can you be more specific, though, in describing “a learning structure that frowns on dominant behavior”?
Hmmm tough choice. Depends if the super villain has a cat.
Or a Mandarin-collar jacket.
Regarding warlord’s with private ownership of nukes or other WMD, in my humble opinion, this is a nonstarter. We are a long ways from being out from under the boot of government. I can hope and pray that our liberation will be nonviolent, but human history contradicts.
The most important thing any of us can do is liberate ourselves, starting with our minds. Learning to persistently live in equanimity, experiencing and transmitting peace and calm, living in joy and loving-kindness - these are clear and achievable goals we can all pursue.
By the time we get rid of the current crop of psychopathic warlords, we will know how to deal with any new ones that crop up. Don’t make a problem where there isn’t one. ❤️🙏
I think those are excellent objectives. The focus should not be upon changing or overthrowing existing orders and imposing new orders upon everyone. Rather, the focus should be on changing ourselves and our consciousness, and building the new world. Just as you said.
As to making problems…I am just addressing a concern that is repeatedly raised :-)
Buckminster Fuller: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
💪
Government = Psychopaths
🔥
I'd also tentatively add that a monopoly on nuclear weapons is what enables people to actually use them. It was easy to use nukes in WW2 against Hiroshima and Nagasaki because no other states possessed them at the time. The Cold War was waged through proxy wars in other third-world countries, but NOT all-out conflicts between superpower states.
In contrast, despite Russia and N. Korea having nukes today, no one's using them because they know that it would lead to mutually assured destruction; it's also partly why I would be skeptical of any state's attempt to maintain unipolarity in this respect.
There was several times during the Cold War when false signals might’ve triggered a nuclear exchange. And it was the Russian (in the cases I have heard about) who said, “Nope, I’m not doing this.” God bless them.
“How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy
There is no monopoly of common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you…
______________________________.”
When I did my big nuclear #FMF post, I did not include that song. https://christophercook.substack.com/p/people-allowed-own-nuclear-weapons
I should have. But I guess now I can have it for a new one!
Vasili Arkhipov, if I remember correctly.
I am not sure I ever knew his name. And I think there might've been more than one.
But isn't this even one more argument against the state?
In a condition of market anarchy, a psycho might spend half a lifetime working in business to acquire the funds to mine and enrich uranium; design and build his three nukes, etc. But he cannot destroy the world.
Meanwhile, the state has enough nukes to pulverize the surface of the Earth, and the only thing that stood in the way of that happening were a couple of dudes disobeying orders.
I'm not sure I see it in an attacking three or four countries (ie what one individual could do) vs. launching 3K+ nukes on Earth (what states can do). Scorching the entire earth seems to be a universally unappealing proposition for everyone (empathetic or not), but someone bombing three countries that are far away from *them* seems like something they'd be fine with if they're psychopathic.
If that one psycho is the only one who has the nukes, that could arguably be worse than status quo (ie psychos on opposite sides have nukes)--for me it makes more sense that a greater *dispersion* of power (or capacity to destroy) would be more conducive towards avoiding conflict.
But I could be biased; I'm not particularly fond of the "wow [thing] is really bad ... let's restrict it to people who have shown to be power-hungry, surely this will not have any unintended repercussions!", and that's usually what statism boils down to.
Yeah. Lots of knowns, lots of unknowns.
But to think that we could destroy the world many times over, and we have come close to starting that war multiple times…yikes!
I came in at the tail end of "duck and cover," but still definitely grew up with a healthy fear of nuclear annihilation.
"I'm not particularly fond of the "wow [thing] is really bad ... let's restrict it to people who have shown to be power-hungry, surely this will not have any unintended repercussions!"
—Well said.
"So what do you think? What do you fear more? States with 3,000 nuclear missiles or the occasional supervillain with three?"
The supervillain with 3 is more likely to use them. Where did he get them?... a state. Who would he use them against?... a state, maybe a specific city in the state he hates or is demanding a ransom from ("One million dollars").
If you eliminate governments, nukes have no value. I can't nuke my neighbor over an argument or even a band of criminals. Collateral damage is too high.
We know the names of the people who have accumulated enough money through private enterprise to have a private nuclear weapons program. They seem more focused on going to Mars, other space travel, or renting Venice for the weekend. People who succeed on that level are driven by a goal of building. I may dislike them, but they are not going to intentionally develop something destructive. AI may bring about the end of human civilization, but that's not the goal.
Right.
And in the complete absence of states, what exactly would be the incentive? And what would be the pathway…
First, we need to imagine someone who actually wants nukes. (Why does he want them?)
Then, he has to acquire the resources to research and design them himself (since there is no market profit in making them).
Then he has to acquire and enrich uranium. More resources.
Then he has to assemble them. More resources.
Then he has to have reason to deploy them and actually do so.
Okay fine. So compare that highly improbable situation to the REALITY of what we have now.
It's a no brainer!