Is it just me or is distaste for Libertarianism contradictory to discordianism?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That's a no.

You do know what happens to countries who try to kick corporations out or effectively seize their assets?  Subversion, terrorism and coups.  And then rounding people up and mass deaths.  Torture.  Rape normally figures somewhere into the scheme of things.

Or sometimes they just get cancer out of nowhere.  Evita Peron comes to mind, as does Hugo Chavez.

[Cain]

Indeed. 

So, did the CIA 'give' Hugo Chavez cancer? No one knows.

On the other hand, something is known on a more interesting question: "Could the CIA have given Chavez cancer?

There is good evidence, from at least three separate sources, which indicates the Agency has been taking the question of whether they could develop ways to induce cancer very seriously... for the past 50 years.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Indeed. 

So, did the CIA 'give' Hugo Chavez cancer? No one knows.

On the other hand, something is known on a more interesting question: "Could the CIA have given Chavez cancer?

There is good evidence, from at least three separate sources, which indicates the Agency has been taking the question of whether they could develop ways to induce cancer very seriously... for the past 50 years.

Ask Jack Ruby about that one.  I'm not a Kennedy assassination nut, but his access to the spot where he killed Oswald was weird, and his cancer was kind of convenient.  The only reason I'm not convinced it was somehow induced is that he didn't croak until 1967.

[Cain]

Yeah.  I'm not so sure about the cancer death aspect myself, but based on everything I know, the killing of Oswald was more than convenient.  And Ruby himself was the kinda of guy whose...lifestyle no doubt made him very susceptible to blackmail and similar.  Not to mention the whole Company-Family partnership to take down Castro.  Carlos Marcello had good personal reasons to want Kennedy dead, in addition to the Cuba/Casinos issue, and we know he was in contact with Jack Ruby before the assassination (along with Santos Trafficante Jr, the mafia "point man" for all things Cuban).

[navkat]

I wonder if his cigarettes started tasting funny for awhile before he was even hired.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's not because it's not happening that way in this country. We've thrown common sense and social responsibility to the wind. The people are being restricted while the government is at liberty to work in collusion with the corporate world to keep it that way.

We don't live in a Libertarian-Socialist society, we live in a fascist one.

We are a society that has completely abandoned collectivism as a potential part of a functioning society, and won't even give it a passing thought. This thread is a testament to that.

[navkat]

It's not because it's not happening that way in this country. We've thrown common sense and social responsibility to the wind. The people are being restricted while the government is at liberty to work in collusion with the corporate world to keep it that way.

We don't live in a Libertarian-Socialist society, we live in a fascist one.

We are a society that has completely abandoned collectivism as a potential part of a functioning society, and won't even give it a passing thought. This thread is a testament to that.

That's lame. To some degree, Collectivism just is.

[LMNO]

What is that new thing? I'm all ears. If it makes me small-minded or something that I can't think of it, I'm willing to accept that but I want to know.

We need a system where:
1. Resources belong to everyone and can not be hoarded or owned past a person's lifetime - no more winning the uterine lottery
2. Corporations are permitted to do business by The People and can be disbanded at-will if they fuck shit up and/or fail to toe-the-line.
3. Business is truly competitive and fosters innovation over stupid shit like market share.
4. Banks BELONG to the people.
5. Medicine is relatively non-profit while good practitioners and innovators are rewarded moderately.
6. Everyone gladly pays taxes for shit like education, food cleanliness, waste management, social programs and defense programs that don't encourage dumbshits to go around raping other countries. DEfense, not Offense.
7. Unions are encouraged and lauded but kept in-check and made to adhere to human rights standards.
8. Government is truly representative and representatives are Public Servants, not career-hustlers and shills. Term limits and "Vote of no-confidence" come readily to mind.
9. There exists a built-in plan to handle scientific and technological advances which embraces its benefits in a way which favors popular application instead of the top-down model that's been developing.
10. People at the smallest unit are at liberty to do and say and eat and fuck and write whatever/whoever the fuck they want without hurting anyone until and unless it becomes a problem or an essential need is identified that lies in contradiction.
11. Socialized resources are encouraged and enjoyed and seen as wise: If 20, 000 people each have one book, they each have a book. If we pool them, WE have a library.

There's some other stuff but that's where I'm at.

Here's the problem:  You have to map that onto a pack of domesticated apes, who (in large collectives) typically act more "ape" than "domesticated".  Due to biology and evolution, that factor cannot be changed.  If any point in your plan runs counter to pack mentality and heirarchy, you're going to have problems with it.

A second problem I just thought of: You can't build your 11 point plan from a blank slate of humans wandering around and looking to set up a society.  You have to completely derail an existing society's rules and cajole, convince, or force people to live that way.  And if you've noticed people are more reactionary/neophobic than progressive/neophilic.

[navkat]

That's why it's all a giant thought experiment.

But then, if we're going by tangibility in the current climate, I guess there ain't no difference between yours and mine, is there?

[LMNO]

My giant thought experiment is much simpler, and will work just as well as yours:


1. What if everyone was nice to each other?



As you can see, the problems resulting from your plan would be just about the same as the problems resulting from mine.



Humans.

[Pergamos]

Better to look at what we can do now.  If you want to spend $10 on a burger, with the cook and waiter getting a fair wage, it is an option...

[navkat]

My giant thought experiment is much simpler, and will work just as well as yours:


1. What if everyone was nice to each other?



As you can see, the problems resulting from your plan would be just about the same as the problems resulting from mine.



Humans.

Better to look at what we can do now.  If you want to spend $10 on a burger, with the cook and waiter getting a fair wage, it is an option...

That is what I do now. Should I stop thinking and hoping for a broader system that facilitates that?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

My giant thought experiment is much simpler, and will work just as well as yours:


1. What if everyone was nice to each other?



As you can see, the problems resulting from your plan would be just about the same as the problems resulting from mine.



Humans.

Better to look at what we can do now.  If you want to spend $10 on a burger, with the cook and waiter getting a fair wage, it is an option...

That is what I do now. Should I stop thinking and hoping for a broader system that facilitates that?

"Hope in one hand, shit in the other."
- Hunter S Thompson.

"Shit in one hand, shit in the other."
- JR "Bob" Dobbs.

[Pergamos]

My giant thought experiment is much simpler, and will work just as well as yours:


1. What if everyone was nice to each other?



As you can see, the problems resulting from your plan would be just about the same as the problems resulting from mine.



Humans.

Better to look at what we can do now.  If you want to spend $10 on a burger, with the cook and waiter getting a fair wage, it is an option...

That is what I do now. Should I stop thinking and hoping for a broader system that facilitates that?

Just depends on what actions you take to make it possible,  As long as you are building good systems, way to go, when you start tearing things down that is when you need to be more careful.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

30 pages and almost four years, and nobody's answered the original question yet!

"Yes. It is just you."

EOT