Comment A bunch of psycho tech bros (Score 2) 60
Want to get us all wearing glasses because we'd be walking around creating a surveillance network. Americans don't like the idea of the government running a surveillance Network so we're building our surveillance Network with Private industry and then the government taps into it with private contracts.
Americans have this weird thing where they don't care how much they are oppressed or how much the boot is on their neck as long as it's a privately owned boot. The idea of that the billionaire is getting together on their golf course is a de facto government is way too complex and abstract idea for most people. And try explaining a power vacuum to them or what happens if you don't have a powerful central government...
The way I've tried to explain it to people is imagine that in the center of the town is a giant box of guns and ammo. And anyone can just pick up the guns and ammo. And you decide that guns are dangerous so you don't pick one up. That means a handful of your neighbors can grab all of those guns and now you have to do what they say.
Large governments are the box of guns. They are an inevitability. They are up there with the nuclear bomb as inventions of humanity that once we got it we were stuck with it. You either pick up that gun and take part, which is to say you take an active role in your state and federal government and understanding it is best as you can and the systems that need to be built to make it functional. Or somebody else comes along and takes all that power for themselves and uses it against you.
The solution a lot of people come up with to deal with government is the same solution people come up with to deal with nuclear weapons which is just do away with them. And yeah that would be great. Sit down with a real anarchist sometime and they will tell you for hours how great that would be.
Except it never works because sooner or later some rich asshole builds an atomic bomb or sets up the same power structures as government and doesn't call it government.
Americans have this weird thing where they don't care how much they are oppressed or how much the boot is on their neck as long as it's a privately owned boot. The idea of that the billionaire is getting together on their golf course is a de facto government is way too complex and abstract idea for most people. And try explaining a power vacuum to them or what happens if you don't have a powerful central government...
The way I've tried to explain it to people is imagine that in the center of the town is a giant box of guns and ammo. And anyone can just pick up the guns and ammo. And you decide that guns are dangerous so you don't pick one up. That means a handful of your neighbors can grab all of those guns and now you have to do what they say.
Large governments are the box of guns. They are an inevitability. They are up there with the nuclear bomb as inventions of humanity that once we got it we were stuck with it. You either pick up that gun and take part, which is to say you take an active role in your state and federal government and understanding it is best as you can and the systems that need to be built to make it functional. Or somebody else comes along and takes all that power for themselves and uses it against you.
The solution a lot of people come up with to deal with government is the same solution people come up with to deal with nuclear weapons which is just do away with them. And yeah that would be great. Sit down with a real anarchist sometime and they will tell you for hours how great that would be.
Except it never works because sooner or later some rich asshole builds an atomic bomb or sets up the same power structures as government and doesn't call it government.
