Oddbean

Peak Stockholm syndrome. Although the real problem with these people is not that they're able to rationalize the evil that's done to them into a fictional good, but their bizarre psychological need to force everybody else into accepting their fantasy and give in to the evil. My conclusion is that when it's someone who is actually at the receiving end of the fleecing, it's a psychiatric condition, like the aforementioned syndrome. When it's someone at the profiting end, then it's pure malice. Although we know that the Devil's best trick is always to convince everybody he doesn't exist in the first place. nostr:note1py3z6yfff6t8tm2akedepdw4ad4vnx2ycx2dwxpm7lvqmg3ff0pslg8658

I guess the monopoly on violence is just a nice to have, we'd misallocate capital regardless of the incentives, lol! I guess inflation is not theft either, lol why are we even here then? Shut down your nodes lads, we don't need stateless money

Oh, the incentives for those who secure a position among the mafia, in whatever capacity (Capo di tutti capi, down to street punk) are obvious and clear. The real problem are the peasants who rationalize the protection racket one way or another. In the West, our tremendous economic and material development during the centuries prior to the current encroachment by the State mafia has contributed to the fiction that it was the mafia itself who created it, or at least that the mafia is not an impediment to it. In reality, people here aren't aware of who stupidly rich we are, and the incredible momentum that we still carry from, say, 100-200 years ago, when the State wanted, as all mafias do, but simply couldn't do much because the technology wasn't there yet. And even back then, we had egregious examples of how the State managed to destroy fabulous amounts of wealth by itself using the few levers it had. For example, the Spanish Habsburgs, who were able to vaporize through monetary mismanagement and infinite debt to pay for wars of religion what was probably the largest amount in history in merely a 150 years since the arrival of the Castilians to America, throwing their Spanish and Italian possessions into perpetual economic, social and political underdevelopment to this day. Today the State mafia leech can keep sucking on at will. It will stunt any further growth, as it's happening in Europe most obviously. But there won't be any sudden collapse that people can immediately link to the mafia. It will be a long, slow decline and the peasants won't understand why each new generation lives worse than their parents "say" their parents used to live, while crying for even more State, because all they know is the State and there's nothing outside of it...

Yeah I'm with you, it's crazy to think how much productivity doesn't remain with those that produce or save, while we complain about inflation and taxes, what about all the deflationary gains too? I feel like the state has to rob you to justify its existence, because if all that abundance is distributed through the populus via trade, so many more people wouldn't see any value in what the state can offer, and they also have the means to provide for their wider family who do struggle and even provide private charity for their communities.

Great point. I think it's easy for many or even most to rationalize or distort truth when the struggle is not directly felt or when the wrong doing is out of sight. In my humble opinion it can take real awareness and thought to consider others from a distance in situations where yourself or people you know and love could benefit. Sorry for the aside but this gets me thinking.. Even in daily life it's easy to observe someone not caring or even supporting malevolence when there is no consequence to them, and then when the situation changes, when they do not benefit or might even face the wrongdoings themselves, of course they immediately change their position. Imo that just perpetuates itself in coddled, safeguarded states. And i think it's most common and even likely in people who seemingly haven't dealt with adversity, justly due consequence, suffered or been wronged themselves. Like there is a lack of awareness, an immature ignorance. And as mentioned above when incentives lead to benefiting from the wrongdoing it gets even uglier. The old "show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome" can be pretty dark, especially when people don't personally know the other people involved. I think many people dismiss religion and are unwilling or not interested in studying theology. A way some might be able to see the concepts of good and evil or even the ideas of angels and demons existing in at least some sense might be to see them as describing words. For example, explaining that all words are approximations of our thoughts. Obviously an ice cream man isnt actually made of ice cream and if you say something or someone is cool, you are commonly not talking about temperature, same as if some is "hot". The same is true if you call someone a life saver, a hero or an angel. These are approximations to describe the truth you perceive, same with perceiving someone as a demon or evil. These aren't imaginary fictitious things, they are approximations of truth when used sincerely. And they are worth integral examination when used by educated rational individuals, not just terms thrown around to hurt people or used for petty name calling. If you are sincere after you touch fire and realize fire is hot, you burned yourself, that injury is bad and hurts. There is knowledge to gain from the experience, consequence and realizing that truth as objective and critical to learning.