Revealing The Censor

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Anarchy in a community means that censorship is not an acceptable practice.

Copenhagen street art.

Censorship is the suppression of expression, using force. Usually, the censor is unidentified, and not answerable to those being censored.

This is dissimilar to the moderating of an activity. The role of a moderator is to limit the conversation visibly, according to the rules agreed on by the participants. And every action of the moderator is answerable to them!

The censor is, in principle, an authoritarian ruler, judge, and executioner, invulnerable to feedback.

Anarchy, in the context of community, can present itself in any number of possible social structures, but all of which will follow the same rule. All interactions are free. Not only voluntary, and definitely not coerced. But free!

Free, as in any person can, at any time, do what they wish, as long as they cause no physical harm or threat to another. No force can be inflicted on them. Even if agreement was previously made, such as a written contract, further disagreement, or nulling of contract, does not justify the use of force against them.

Those who betray trust, will simply not be trusted again - until forgiven, and that is the only moral strategy in a free society.

Even within private property, such as a house, where the owner can - if necessary - use force to remove people; those people are still free, and cannot be coerced or threatened, just for voluntarily entering the private property of another. It is immoral to abuse a guest.

To conclude, there is no place for censorship within any group, community, or organization. In order to moderate activities, methods of refereeing must be applied; while those who moderate are explicitly not above the same community standards.

It is only in this way that all community members are properly represented.

The Argument Against Money, Even BitCoin

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Before money, people had to keep their promises or trade on good faith. That is to say, that you gave something of yours to another person, because you trusted that other person to give you of his own, equally.

"At the potlatch, gifts repay guests for witnessing the week's events
with nonstop feasting, singing, dancing, and gift-giving."
- Shirley Collingridge, Wordsmith

Whenever trust is lost, the only way to have trade is by force and violence. Money is an intermediary to the threat of violence. When you cannot trade by trust, but you are forced to trade regardless, by other parties, then one way to mask the actual violence inherent to the trade, is by using an actual item that represents the promise of trading back to you goods of equal value.

Whether it is a sack of wheat, the ancient Babylonian Shekel, or a coin or a note, as we know money today, it is always a promise that disagreement to do trade will lead to violence. But, it is also an empty promise, because the value of the money is always decreed by those who rule by violence. They change the value of the currency according to their own needs. Even a sack of wheat, can in one hand represent life itself, and in another hand, represent nothing, at all.

In other words, say you give me an apple, and I give you a note that says that I must give you something of unknown value back, for that note. Why would you accept such a blatant scam? Because the other party forces you to do so, using violence and the threat of violence. The only value remaining to you is the trade that you can do with others, who are under the same threat and have the same-styled notes of promise that you do.

Digital currencies are no different. They are but a meaningless promise given by strangers and those who have little to no interest in the other party; you. If I know and trust another person online, then I will feel comfortable giving them of my own; knowing that they are likely to do the same for me. However, when I deal without having trust (personally, or by proxy of another trustee), then I know not that I will ever get the value of my goods back to me, in any shape or form.

This argument, claiming that money is nothing but a weapon, may not seem obvious, at first. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Where does money come from? Generally, to everyone, and personally, to you.
• What do people do, when they have no money?
• What is the history of the value of currencies?
• Are there people who live without money, and if so, how do they do trade?
• Do most people actually agree on the value of goods?

Even the answers to these questions, should be enough to see that money is not the supposed "tool and method" of trade that many claim it to be.

The Case For Responsibility

I personally feel that the most important and practical debate of the Twenty-First(21st) Century is that of Responsibility.

What is there to discuss about Responsibility?

Responsibility, as an ideology or idea, is horribly misrepresented in modern culture, all over the world. I suspect that the number one cause for all harm and discontent to people, today, is the misunderstanding of Responsibility.

Responsibility is the amount of interest a person has towards anything that can be defined, including objects, people, events or ideas. The content of such responsibility is subjective and ever changing.

Responsibility is only relevant when there is conflict.

Conflict can be inside of the person or between people. In any case, when there is conflict, then it is immensely valuable to figure out who is responsible for what, exactly.

The process of thinking that follows, is such that asks the following questions:

Why is this important to me?

How important is this to me?

What can I lose if I do not take care of this?

What can I lose if I do take responsibility for this?

Who else is responsible for this?

What am I willing to do to take responsibility for this?

What can I gain if I take responsibility for this?

And more.

The results of not taking care of our Responsibilities is horrendous.

Either, by letting the wrong people take over our own responsibilities, or by neglecting to take care of them ourselves, or by not realizing our responsibilities, or by wrongly evaluating the importance of our responsibilities, we bring about results that are bad for both ourselves and others.

An example from one end of the scale is that of the government. Having a governing body take care of responsibilities that are our own, leads to dissatisfaction and conflict. Eventually, it leads to having those governors force us into compliance, simply because we were not willing to take responsibility for our own. Giving a stranger power over us and then arguing that they are abusing that power is illogical. It is simply our fault.

From the other end of the scale, there is the example of personal neglect. Instead of taking care of ourselves, mentally, physically and socially, we blame conditions and others for our problems. It is evident that self-care, such as exercise and education, is a personal responsibility. Nobody wants to be liable for the personal development of another person, who is not their child, except when they accept payment for it.

Responsibility is a subjective, personal, private experience, which is reliant on personal characteristics that change all the time.

Just as it is impossible to directly force an emotion on another person, so it is impossible to directly force responsibility on another person. While it is possible to manipulate another person into feeling an emotion or accepting a responsibility, it is not a direct action, but rather a costly and risky manipulation.

However, responsibility is very flexible. We can share responsibility and enjoy cooperation. Or, we can have negating responsibilities and endure competition.

To clarify the practical uses of responsibility in our daily lives, let us take two situations. Each, with its' own degree of responsibility.

If I were to have a child of my own, then both me and the mother would be responsible for the well-being of that child. Normally, parents feel very strongly towards their children. This means that we will both feel great responsibility towards that child. Also, this will mean that any inability we show in taking care of that child will reflect very badly on us in society.

On the other hand, responsibility can be a very minor and personal issue. If I were to plant an apple tree and let it be, and another person would have an apple fall and hit their head, then I could be considered liable for that incident. Obviously, such a minor incident would not bring public attention to me, nor would that person have a strong case against me, for having that apple fall there and then.

To conclude, our priorities reflect our responsibilities. Whenever it seems that our situation is lacking or wrong, then it is evident that our priorities are somehow not correct, and so we are simply not taking responsibility where and when we should.

This is the first of many notes I have begun working on in private. For my next post on this, I will discuss Responsibility versus Ownership, as ideologies and as practical thinking strategies. It will be very relevant to all freedom lovers! Beware, Libertarians and Anarchists!

Logical Thinking And Productivity

Let us start with the conclusion:

There need be a balance between logical thinking and intuitive thinking, in order to achieve a regular and useful rate of productivity.

Now that it is out of our hair, let us talk a bit about the reasons behind this statement.

Random lady presents: Unintuitive Logic!

Logical thinking is a very powerful tool. It lets us deduce conclusion about situations that cannot be intuitively understood. Also, it lets us understand problems faster than we would otherwise, in constructed environments. Meaning, environments that are constructed by identifiable parts; not an urban lot.

Intuitive thinking lets us figure our way through situations, where we simply do not have enough information available to us, to calculate anything useful. Our intuition is an interesting mixture of memories and thoughts that combine, as to give us hints about life. These are sort of   red alerts  in our mind that announce anything that resembles our previews experiences, or any information that is coded into our DNA.

It is evident that sometimes we are reliant upon logic, for the benefit of predicting the results of interactions. It is less evident that we are reliant upon intuition, to act wisely. The latter is, due to intuition being so obvious that we simply do not notice it.

This is how I intuit modern culture.

Modern culture encourages us to think logically, rather than intuitively. This is a fallacy, which makes no sense in practice. Intuitive behavior is so prominent in us, that we are bound to choose intuition over logic in almost anything we do. Nobody actually thinks everything they do through, logically. We are not born that way, neither are we raised that way. Never the less, we do have the responsibility to choose between logic and intuition, whenever the occasion arises.

An easy to understand example, would be to assume intuitive thinking upon the construction of any modern instrument. Ten out of ten engineers would agree that, without proper study and application, this will fail miserably. It would not be practical, if not even dangerous to the practitioner.

A harder to understand example, in the case of assuming logical behavior on a person, would leave us wanting. Predicting what people do, when you interact with them, is not likely. While we do have interesting generalized statistics about certain conditions, in which people interact, we do not have anything so reliable that we would risk our lives upon its' predictability. Airplanes rely on engineering, for flight, and not on the mood or opinion of the captain.

People intuit emotions. Even angry babies do.

Better Have Extreme Politics

We all seem to have two options in life. On one end of the scale, we have security and safety. On the other, we have freedom and liberty. Naturally, there are endless variations of the two, as it were, balancing the scale in different ways.

Extreme politicians for extreme politics!

The Socialist state is one where everyone takes responsibility over everyone else. That is the idea, anyhow. In practice, it means that everybody is taxed aplenty, in order to equalize society, financially, as much as possible. Some may see it as unfair, but they would not usually be the ones who direly need the resources.

The Libertarian state is one where each takes responsibility for his own, and any social connection is either voluntary or incidental in nature. In practice, people tend to network more often than not, and so it would result in different areas with changing social rules, laws and accepted practices; not to mention unaccepted practices.

Each has its' faults. A Socialist society, while quite comfortable to live in, can be socially exhausting and extremely constrictive. A Libertarian society, while quite liberal in personal choices, can be disorganized and harsh on the unlucky; even if it is less brains than luck, in many cases.

Towards which end of the scale would you lean and why? Comment below!

For me, it is not so much a matter of moralistic ideology, as it is a practical ideology. I would lean strongly towards a Libertarian society. The risks are obvious, and we all suffer the stupidity of those in riches and power, on a daily basis. Never the less, I feel that freedom is a pain worth suffering, if only to enjoy that feeling, that really everything is possible.

The freedom to roam and do and try!

    The liberty to fail and hurt and cry!

I hope I do not come out as too much of an Emo! Hahaha