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Author: odinn
Date:  
To: unsystem
Subject: Re: [unSYSTEM] wealth redistribution and the rule of law
Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim.

Caleb James DeLisle wrote:
>
>
> On 10/20/2014 10:37 AM, odinn wrote:
>> (Ruminations)
>>
>> I don't consider myself a libertarian, and dislike boxes, but
>> I'm
>
> Of course, there is a conflict of needs.. on the one hand we need
> some kind of words to communicate but whatever words we choose will
> be misinterpreted either intentionally or unintentionally by
> others, fwiw I understand that nothing quite fits.
>
>> voluntaryistic / cryptoanarchistic with a dash of
>> constitutionalism (e.g. if people bothered to fight long enough
>> for "rights," and defend them in a variety of fora, then we
>> should consider what those rights are and respect them when they
>> are expressed ~ though I don't mean that as an endorsement of the
>> state, it's simply "what people do" and "how we respect each
>> other"). Throw in a dash of zen, and you've got
>
> I think we should be careful of immortalizing a `right' because
> it's something people have historically fought for. People in
> history have fought for ``the right'' to do some pretty gruesome
> things, at least gruesome by today's standards... At the time it
> was considered normal and right.
>
>> enough terms to put me in a box. I don't care much for
>> politicians, but I appreciate that more people seem to be aware
>> that they can choose more than red or blue (e.g., go with third
>> parties) if they wish to vote. But that's just me stating the
>> obvious.
>>
>> ( Caleb ~ )You asked where that libertarian stateless utopia is.
>> You probably did not read the full article that I sent. A quote
>> from the
>
> I would not have written you back without reading it first, tired
> as I was having just gotten up I may not have caught every nuance.
>
>> article comes to mind: "Presented with statism’s ridiculous and
>> backward narrative, we must wonder who the starry-eyed utopians
>> really are." Indeed! But moving right along: Remove
>> "libertarian" and "utopia" and you are left with "stateless."
>> So, to get to the root of it, where is this so-called stateless
>> society? It should be plainly obvious that wherever it manifests
>> it will be difficult to identify.
>
> Yes I saw it, what then is the objective of a stateless society,
> or really any political endevor, if not to create a utopia or at
> least something better than what we have today ?
>
>> It does not have a flag or a banner. It certainly does not have
>> a Ron Paul or a party. It does not have national boundaries. It
>> would be too easy if I were to to respond by saying it is
>> everywhere and nowhere. But that's part of it, so I will say that
>> it is everywhere -- everywhere that the minds and hearts of
>> people who wish to co-create a new society make a decision in any
>> moment of any day that they wish to liberate themselves from
>> fear. It is not purely notional, either, as the distributed
>> functions of consensus and the gears of decentralization have
>> been turning in terms of societal development well before the
>> internet came into existence and long before anyone could push a
>> key on their computer and participate in decentralized and
>> distributed-digital systems that do not require national
>> boundaries or nationalistic identities and forms.
>>
>> There is a great deal of what I describe that occurs throughout
>> society without being seen, which makes it harder to explain if
>> you are asking for clear and perhaps visible evidence of it.
>>
>> I strongly suspect that the visible manifestations of developing
>> decentralized, distributed systems and / or stateless societies
>> will become far more evident only after anonymity technology
>> advances enough to be both lightweight and widespread. Without
>> saying much more about that, I believe that 2015 will be a
>> significant historical marker in the area of such technologies,
>> which include, but are not limited to implementations of such a
>> variety as SNARK-based unlinkable transactions via Zerocash,
>> Output Distribution Obfuscation involving a hybridization of BTC
>> system(s) and BCN ring signatures, distribution of stealth TX
>> technology throughout large numbers of currency systems
>> (currently it is present in several systems), and Scalable Zero
>> Knowledge via Cycles of Elliptic Curves designed to make zero
>> knowledge proofs lightweight and accessible to all programmers,
>> contingent on provable CPU. These are but a few of the many
>> developments that will alter many aspects of your life in ways
>> mostly unseen.
>>
>> I have stated in various fora that it has taken almost 226 years
>> to arrive at the next major point of revolution action, and by
>> necessity that is 'anonymity.' However, without relational
>> strength and an understanding of how relationships themselves are
>> the ultimate technology, the exponentially expanding
>> possibilities for collective and distributed participation to
>> compassionately serve many elements and aid in the determination
>> of priorities to fund, and more, will not be realized. (My
>> project, http://abis.io, still in a very early stage, is a
>> reflection of my optimism that we are capable of doing more
>> together (without direction being given by "authoritative"
>> organizations) given time and a greater level of understanding.)
>> Thus there will be a constant tension between bellicose
>> corporation-states, their struggling advocates, and the
>> increasing numbers of persons who either by choice or undesired
>> circumstance, become (for all intents and purposes) stateless,
>> whether or not they declare or are even aware of it being so.
>> Some have made statelessness an advocacy issue or a point which
>> they have individually declared. I submit that it is not about
>> such a declaration (though declarations are interesting to
>> explore as expressions within the context of discussion of what
>> statelessness might mean), but rather about a realization that
>> one may be free from fear and in opening oneself to finding the
>> _many_ _vehicles_ to a more compassionate future, the detachment
>> from statism (and indeed, departures from ideologies of all
>> kinds) will come naturally. Such terms, such as "stateless,"
>> "government," and "statism," indeed will cease to have relevance
>> in the way we understand them today as society realizes more and
>> more its collective potential. Perhaps then we will begin to
>> consider "stateful" (such as, in a state of being) more
>> descriptive of these 'decentralization developments' than
>> "stateless" within the context of the corporation-state, or even
>> notice that such references to the "state" as a nation,
>> government, or corporation-state will diminish, for if the
>> "state" as it has been known is no longer that important to us,
>> then we need not regularly refer to it, nor need we be bound to
>> other arguably related terminologies, such as "anarchism,"
>> "socialism," "capitalism," and all the -isms we have allowed to
>> condition our minds. Freeing oneself from fear, thus the old
>> language will not excite or raise one's interest, but natural
>> thoughts which create concepts, new terms, and numerous
>> permutations and styles of meditation, can arise at any time, for
>> any person, anywhere. The vehicles to our destinations, of
>> course, are those which you might intend or those that you
>> realize or are surprised by ~ they are countless in number. Thus
>> does language set the tone for what we may choose to build for
>> our shared future, the relationship provide the basis for
>> connecting our minds and hearts to each other, and the reflection
>> upon our present moment create the state in which we exist, now.
>
> I respect your position here, personally I feel that the
> opportunity of anonymity is limited and will eventually pail in
> comparison to decentralized states which compete for the
> individual's voluntary association.
>
> The reason why I don't expect the anonymous cryptoanarchy to scale
> is because The Darknet, as it were, is the Jungle. One mistake,
> one too many details in an IRC story, one day too late to update
> your system... () {:;}; you're lunch. It is not exactly a society
> without rulers; it is a society ruled, in a very personal
> one-on-one way, by whoever has the most blackmail and 0days.
>
> In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is
> getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is
> stupidity.
>
> Caleb
>
>>
>> Stopping here. The stars are out.
>>
>> -Odinn
>>
>> Caleb James DeLisle wrote:
>>> Hi Odinn, Thanks for your reply, I know taking a socialist
>>> position on an unabashedly libertarian list is not going to be
>>> popular but I sent it here because I really want to be
>>> fact-checked. ~nothing more infuriating than bobbing heads of
>>> unconstructive agreement..
>>
>>> Your link speaks of "Rights of The State", this immediately
>>> struck me because I don't any longer care about rights, I care
>>> about people.
>>
>>> I was born in the USA which pays awful heed to Rights and
>>> Justice, and trucks millions off to prison cells for violation
>>> of The Law. I was a fervent follower of the libertarian dogma
>>> myself it because it looks so damned good on paper (I even have
>>> a pair of Ron Paul tshirts to prove it).
>>
>>> The question I have is "where's the beef?" where is the
>>> libertarian stateless utopia? I understand we can't have
>>> perfect now so maybe there is something moving in the right
>>> direction, a small-government state where individual liberties
>>> are protected? Give me any example you like as long as it's not
>>> some kind of libertarian community which exists under the
>>> protective umbrella of a social state.
>>
>>> I've not been able to find any such example and so have taken
>>> to trying to understand why what looks so good in theory
>>> doesn't apply in practice.
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 10/20/2014 02:51 AM, odinn wrote:
>>>> Caleb,
>>>>
>>>> I don't want to waste energy typing in my own words here
>>>> what someone else has written in a way that I think would
>>>> enhance understanding of this subject in a better way than if
>>>> I were to comment further on it.
>>>>
>>>> With that said, I think you really need to read (and
>>>> carefully re-read) the following article, which I submit may
>>>> well enhance your understanding of this matter substantially:
>>>> http://c4ss.org/content/32570
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> -Odinn
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Caleb James DeLisle wrote:
>>>>> I have a hypotheses which has been percolating in the back
>>>>> of my mind for some time now and I thought now is a good
>>>>> time to share it.
>>>>
>>>>> For all that libertarian systems offer in theory, they have
>>>>> a distinct problem that when it comes to practice. Unless
>>>>> you consider Texas a utopia, libertarian utopias don't
>>>>> really exist and I wanted to study how something which
>>>>> looks so good on paper manages to fail so completely in
>>>>> practice.
>>>>
>>>>> To be ruled by law, as opposed to being ruled by men, means
>>>>> to me that nobody can just order your execution or
>>>>> imprisonment without dire consequences. Given wealth and
>>>>> power are interchangeable, if you live in a country where
>>>>> one person controls 99% of the wealth of the nation, there
>>>>> is no rule of law. He can just simply up the government and
>>>>> whatever checks and balances you put in place he can undo
>>>>> or subvert. Judges, as impartial as they might like to be,
>>>>> do not live in a vacuum and challenging a de-facto dictator
>>>>> is not good for one's health.
>>>>
>>>>> Therefore, wealth redistribution is not about paying alms
>>>>> to the poor but about making sure that nobody amasses such
>>>>> power as to threaten society as a whole.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> tl;dr wealth and power are interchangeable, wealth/power
>>>>> pools up in certain lucky and industrious individuals,
>>>>> without redistributing it, democracies devolve into
>>>>> oligarchies and then eventually into monarchy or chaos. The
>>>>> US is in the oligarchy phase.
>>>>> _______________________________________________ unSYSTEM
>>>>> mailing list: http://unsystem.net
>>>>> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/unsystem
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>
>>>>>

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>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>

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>


- --
http://abis.io ~
"a protocol concept to enable decentralization
and expansion of a giving economy, and a new social good"
https://keybase.io/odinn