Quote from: btcusury on November 14, 2014, 03:20:27 PM

Quote from: jbreher on November 12, 2014, 05:30:36 PM

Again, no. I am not contributing to any legitimization of any such belief. The cold stark reality is that, for the foreseeable future, there will be overlords. Refraining from voting will do absolutely nothing to change this.

Alright, I see where our understanding departs. I don't agree at all that that is "the cold stark reality". You will have overlords only as long as you are of that vibration.

"Of that vibration"? Can we perhaps stay rational? You are talking like an emotion-dominated, ganja-drenched hippie.

Running with this image, let us posit that you engage in a perfectly moral, consensual, yet frowned-upon activity -- perhaps partaking of the ganja in a locale where this is verboten -- in the presence of the overlords' enforcers. No matter what frequency you believe yourself to be vibrating at, chances are very good that you would be put in a cage. Ergo, you have overlords. That is indeed the cold stark reality.

If you want to get mealy-mouthed about the definition of 'overlords', then fine. I'll just change my term to your accepted one for such a concept.

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I can accept as a matter of faith that the reason you refrain from voting is that you believe it somehow advances the cause of liberty. I think you are wrong, but I can accept that as a motivating factor. However, you know who else refrains from voting? The disillusioned. The apathetic. The lazy. In refraining from voting, your actions in this regard are in effect, and in fact, indistinguishable from these classes. Yes, I realize that my act of voting is indistinguishable from that of power mad collectivists as well. But my point is that refraining from voting accomplishes exactly nothing. For you to assert that it is somehow superior seems silly to me.

Refraining from voting "accomplishes exactly nothing" in terms of affecting the existing system that you don't like. And this is the illusion you are choosing to buy into. What advances the cause of liberty is discovering who and what you (we) are. Seek the answers to be big questions.

No journey of self discovery is going to change the behavior of the overlords, ergo will do nothing to advance the cause of liberty.

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Perhaps you missed upthred where I have had this discussion face-to-face with Larken, and we both walked away with a begrudging assent that our respective positions were defensible. If you really want to debate this, I'm not going to do it through proxy to YouTube.

As you can see in his videos, Larken doesn't agree with the idea that your position is actually defensible, because by voting you are contributing (however insignificantly) to the enslavement of human beings by means of fear and violence.

I did not say that he agreed with my idea, my claim was that he accepted that my position was defensible. Now obviously I don't know what was happening inside his head. But I certainly came away with that impression.

I was there, and unless you are Larken, my son, or one of about three other people, you were not. I don't think you are Larken. His arguments start with clearly delineated axioms, and proceed rationally from those. You 'argument' here has so far consisted of nothing but unsupported assertions.

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But you know what I find funny? Each of us are expending energy -- trying to show each other the error in each others' ways. Despite the fact that we likely agree largely with each other on the important underlying issues. I've already sunk more effort into this stupid thread than my act of informed voting consumed. Would our time not be better spent actually out amongst the masses, telling them about the evils of 'authority'?

We don't currently agree with each other on the (most) important underlying issues.

Perhaps you can clearly state, then, what you believe to be the most important underlying issues. For it seems to me that the single topic we are discussing is whether or not it is evil to engage in the act of voting. Which is, in truth, a relatively trivial thing in my mind.

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Though you see a major aspect of the big picture of the problem, it is not until one understands the true nature of change that any major positive change will happen in one's reality. Simply put, the more you pay attention to the system you don't like (even to the degree of participating in it), the more you'll get of that, because the universe does not understand like/dislike, only likeness.

There you go with trippy-talk again. I have seen exactly zero evidence that the universe is a conscious entity. It seems clear to me that no matter how much internal thinking, hoping, and wishing you do, unless you follow that with concrete action, nothing in the external universe is going to change as a result.