It’s fixed now!

I think that’s the wrong image

Ghislaine Maxwell develops class consciousness

I’m just joking, she already has it, along with the other billionaires

Honestly, they shouldn’t be.

This is why I think there’s a communication error here, but maybe it’s on my side. I am not advocating against anarchy at all. I am pro mutual aid and believe that it’s the best way forward for people from here (and was also the best way forward thirty years ago, and a hundred, and two hundred, etc.).

I am trying to say that a society that doesn’t meet our psychological needs (as ours doesn’t) will never enable us en masse to work on the tendencies that cause us to create oppressive societies in times of stress.

We can create societies that are less oppressive, even with those tendencies, and we have continually (but obviously not exclusively) over our history, including many examples of non-oppressive societies.

Those societies are vulnerable to outside interference or internal revolt, in my opinion because they aren’t able to prioritize minimizing our authoritarian tendencies over the long term. I am suggesting that the reason they can’t prioritize that is because they are generally plagued by violent conflict at the hands of more authoritarian groups, and they’ve had to make survival their priority.

To prioritize their survival in response to outside attacks, they must become less accessible to outsiders, which can lead to tribalism if the reasoning behind and clear limits on that reduced accessibility are not communicated with complete fidelity from generation to generation.

A society besieged by war must also have well organized response teams with the authority to defend the society: these should be impermanent groups with no special privileges outside of that which is necessary for as long as it is necessary, but it has happened many times that these groups become entrenched and their members begin to use their positions to influence their society.

I think that’s partially because any type of group authorized to use violence (even in self defense) will necessarily reward people who can easily commit violence. I vomited in high school when I had to dissect a crayfish, and I can’t watch a boxing match without turning away. Almost anyone would do better in a combat role than I would, but most people who can enact necessary defensive violence would still be less enthusiastic than someone who enjoys hurting others. Abusive people are therefore very easy to unintentionally select for, unless the society actively guards against that, generation after generation.

These defensive groups must also operate within a hierarchy, so that they can respond quickly and cooperatively to attacks. That’s not inherently problematic, because it’s not an unnecessary hierarchy, but it is the other reason the power of these groups becomes entrenched. People who respond well to authority and enjoy wielding it will do better in these groups than those who don’t, and once the immediate conflict is over, the group made up of people who like following and giving orders and are capable of enacting violence must voluntarily disband (or be forcibly disbanded, which just creates a new group of people tasked with enacting defensive violence).

The people can resist this tendency towards authoritarianism, but I think it’s difficult, because of the inherent contradiction between our survival response and our desire for a less oppressive society. We must, to some degree, close ourselves off and enact violence to have an open and nonviolent society.

I don’t think the contradiction means that an open or nonviolent society is impossible, nor do I think it’s a gotcha to show that some part of the equation is wrong. I just think the contradiction causes societal problems (much like how many people think they want a life completely without struggle, but a completely conflict free life is unhealthy for us, which leads to people striving for something they don’t want, contributing to things like mid-life crises).

The ones that have been the most successful and longest lasting are those which incorporate antiauthoritarianism into their culture, meaning that even when the first and second generation of the society are gone, the society doesn’t lose its anarchist nature.

I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not talking about capitalism or even anything created intentionally by humans.

I’m talking about much more fundamental aspects of humanity- that we become tribalist and like a strongman leader during tough times, that we want to protect children over the elderly in emergencies.

Those play well into capitalism, but they also play well into most systems people have created (because they’re fundamentally human). I don’t think they’re immutable, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near being able to change them right now.

Not because I think they’re as inevitable as monarchy, but because it would be pointless to fix those things first without figuring out a way to stop fighting wars with each other, because those tendencies will return immediately in response to war.

It’s like working with someone to help them with PTSD, then sending them immediately back to the environment that gave it to them. A) PTSD might have been protective, if it made them more sensitive to loud noises or hyperaware of any changes that might indicate a danger; and B) they’re just going to develop symptoms of PTSD again.

So yes, we could change these aspects of humanity, but it would be pointless unless we can figure out a way to coexist without developing them anew.

I love David graeber, that’s always a good recommendation.

I think that causation would be important for dealing with the issue, but I also believe there is zero practical chance we do deal with it, so it’s realistically irrelevant. We’re in a self-reinforcing cycle and it’s not changing unless we actually change it. Only in the last few years, I’ve seen us hit a dozen of what would have seemed like breaking points in the nineties, and we’re not breaking.

Tbh, I think that’s a political move either way. If nobody develops that technology further, nobody will be able to nuke the US. Nobody would realistically be able to tell if the US has completely destroyed all of their stockpiles and records, which will act as a deterrent against any attacks, whether they actually retain their nuclear capability or not (I also 100% believe they would not, but that’s just because I’ve learned not to trust the US government).

I think our inverse relationship between power and empathy is essentially a society-wide maladaptive response to trauma.

It is beneficial to a society in times of famine, war, and general disaster, to have a leader who is able to say that 12 year olds should be fed before 14 year olds. It is also beneficial to a society in those times for the majority of people to be more willing to do something if an authority figure tells them to than they are willing to decide to do something.

When a society is generally secure, this becomes hugely problematic, because some portion of us are predisposed to be both heartless and powerful (the causation is largely irrelevant, because there’s a definite correlation), and most of the rest of us will support them and carry out their wishes.

Yes, but that only applies in places with single party consent.

I only know about it because I worked in a call center and it was literally impossible at my phone, but we just transferred it to a manager’s direct line.

It may well depend on what type of call center it is though, because we dealt with privileged information in many calls. I’ve done it as a caller since, but only with similar places, so I could a sales center or cable company being different

When you are connected with a person, you can often ask for a non-recorded line, though they don’t advertise it. It’s not ideal that your call is recorded until that point, and it’s obviously an extra hassle, which is still a problem.

The Harris campaign tried to reach TONS of new people! Like all the democrats who secretly wanted to vote with dick Cheney…

I paid $450 for a single room in a house share ten years ago. Now it’s $850 for rooms on the same street

No

Probably nicer than the American ones this guy helped build

My default fist also does, but all I need to do is angle my hand towards the thumb and then it looks like the picture

I straight up almost called it a series of tubes, lol.

Yeah, that’s probably why I do think of it as a shared network, I just don’t play online games, so that’s not what I associate with the internet.

As a non-techie: websites are the internet.

Like, I conceptualize the internet as basically just a giant shared network, but the point of it is the websites (for me).

I apologize to anyone I may have just gravely offended.

I could go for a knish right now