Oddbean new post about login | logout They rule, whether you are interested or not.
Which is why we rid ourselves of them rather than giving in. Any state that exists should be small, homogeneous and local, made up of you and people like you. Anyone supporting or participating in anything else should be resisted, violently if needed.
Either it's so tyrannical that it needs to be overthrown immediately, or it isn't. If it isn't (and we apparently agree on that, seeing as how neither of us are storming any capitols), then it is worth influencing through political agitation and voting.
You're both wrong then. It is so tyrannical it needs to be overthrown immediately. You can blame me for not overthrowing it myself, but every day we wait, people die, and eventually I'll be one of them because I am trying to do it myself - which isn't very efficient to attempt by storming capitols in a one-man army.
Violently overthrowing a state with tens or hundreds of millions of citizens is at best useless and at worse would result in a gigantic bloodbath. We have the vote.
No matter what you do, it will result in a bloodbath. You're a mortal being born into world war 3. The least blood anyone can spill these days is their own, which is still an entire human. You are locked in to making painful choices. I want the death to be biased in favor of bad people and I want good ones to survive. Ripping the band aid off today would probably save a lot of lives compared to whatever else is going to happen because people keep waiting.
Does the government deserve to be overthrown? Absolutely, but most revolutions lead to worse tyranny, not a better smaller government, so be careful what people wish for and be careful starting something that could make everything so much worse.
We need to bide our time though to get things in place. These are cycles that span multiple decades. I also support a preference for a non-violent solution by defunding them.
I like this, but I don't trust it. I'm pretty sure you've just got "minimizing violence" higher than your priority list than "maximizing fairness" when you kill people, and that seems irrational, like it's just a way to tell yourself you're not killing people. Let me rephrase actually, I don't just "like," I love the idea that we can actually use non-lethal force thanks to technology such as Bitcoin. I just think it's so clear that can't work, I don't trust denial of that.
I think it's up for debate how well it might work. I'd prefer my enemy to be weakened as much as possible before I actually have to take calculated risks myself.
If I manage to raise an army or anything, you might be a good provider of counterweight opinions for me to consult before doing shit. 🤙