Quote from: username18333 on January 03, 2015, 12:13:35 AM

Quote from: no-ice-please on January 02, 2015, 09:56:42 PM

. . .

Quote from: username18333 on January 02, 2015, 08:33:50 PM

Quote from: Decentradical on January 02, 2015, 12:12:45 PM

Disregarding the preferences of sentient beings is my definition of sociopathy. It may not be a clinical label but rather a collective failing in empathy towards the weaker groups in our society.

Your condemnation of sociopathy satisfies my definition of morality (i.e., it is conducive of unreasoned [perhaps, even, unreasonable] self-preservation [i.e., the preservation of some self]).

Sociopathy even psychopathy are only useful to the group, as BitMos kind of suggests too. Maybe that is the overall problem with Stijn's intent, which seems to be to serve the group under the facade of helping individuals.

Individuals can do no wrong, they can only make mistakes and learn.

Groups can do no good. They can only make mistakes and they cannot learn. And when an individual is possessed by a group even he or she does not learn until the group is disbanded.

So my final input into this circular thread is that Stijn should help individual monkeys, save them from chimps. But should not form a religion, a society, a force etc to make other people save the monkeys in that way.

(Red colorization mine.)

Where there is heterarchy, there is reason. Where there is hierarchy, there is treason.

Not to contradict, nor to argue, but rather to question, what about this.

Say there is a land without government, and with reasonable people. The land is not populous, but it is fertile. The people are farmers, with their own families. They are friendly with each other. Now and again they work together on projects, like helping their grown children or neighbor's children to put up a barn, a small group working together. Perhaps they do the harvesting in groups, friends, offering a helping hand.

Among these farmers are the 5% that are a little prone to laziness and fraud on their neighbors in whatever ways they can get away with. A few of these are downright thieves. The thieves literally break into their neighbor's barns and steal produce. They rustle cattle and sheep, animals that the owners have not set aside for community purposes; after all, don't we get to keep a little of what we work for for ourselves without giving all of it over to community?

Some of the thieves get killed breaking and entering. They become afraid. So they form a loose government, a gang, for mutual protection. The good folk form a government to protect themselves from the gang.

The smarter thieves and "crooks" weasel their way into the government and start directing it so that they can covertly do their thieving from a supposedly moral ground. Soon the government is worse than the gang, which the government workers hire to help with their covert thieving.

This is the way it happens. Sometimes sneaky crooks go into lands simply to start such a government among the people, so that they can eventually rape and plunder from a "good" standpoint.

The governments of the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and others have built into them the way for the common people to overcome the government on individual grounds. That is, the individual person can by government, defeat just about every government action in court that is against the people. The only reason this isn't done is because the people have forgotten (been trained out of) how to do it.

We need government. Even if we don't, there will always be people who think that we do. As far as the countries I listed above, learn what you have been missing at http://1215.org/ and http://www.youtube.com/user/765736/videos?view=0&live_view=500&flow=grid&sort=da.

What does anyone think (yes, this should be in the government thread, but it seemed an appropriate response for this post)?