2FA is no good

[Pokun]

Then don't buy the suspicious liquid of dubious providence from the unreliable source. Its easy, you just *don't* give them money, you *don't* take their product. It takes more effort to purchase than not.

But how do you know what food is poisoned and what is not? If there are no regulations or testings done to make sure people are selling genuine products, the number of malicious sellers that put all sorts of bad things in their products will increase because of the temporary advantages they gain from doing such things, and for many products you won't have a choice as everyone puts bad stuff in it.
Solving that problem is the reason why guilds were formed and sub-sequentially government food regulations based on that tradition of quality control.

And this is why food autonomy is so important to me and I've learned to grow so many things. In a crisis I don't want my only options to be having to swear fealty to just another master and hope they don't poison me.

In a crisis I agree, but the system must work even when it's not a crisis and this is not only limited to food. How can you be assured that for example medicine you buy is not containing antibiotics (for non-antibiotic medicine) or other extra stuff that may be harmful to you or the environment without regulations and enforcement?

Funny thing that, how many non-western non-governmental perspectives get to weigh in on those statistics? Or are they biased towards the views of already subjugated citizens of countries? Its hard to objectively judge corruption when you've been raised from day one in the systems...

Are you saying that you don't think that those numbers reflects reality to any useful degree?

[segaloco]

But how do you know what food is poisoned and what is not? If there are no regulations or testings done to make sure people are selling genuine products, the number of malicious sellers that put all sorts of bad things in their products will increase because of the temporary advantages they gain from doing such things, and for many products you won't have a choice as everyone puts bad stuff in it.
Solving that problem is the reason why guilds were formed and sub-sequentially government food regulations based on that tradition of quality control.

And this is why food autonomy is so important to me and I've learned to grow so many things. In a crisis I don't want my only options to be having to swear fealty to just another master and hope they don't poison me.

In a crisis I agree, but the system must work even when it's not a crisis and this is not only limited to food. How can you be assured that for example medicine you buy is not containing antibiotics (for non-antibiotic medicine) or other extra stuff that may be harmful to you or the environment without regulations and enforcement?

The only medicine I routinely buy are NSAIDs. Among these is aspirin, which is so easy to synthesize it is used as an introductory lab in basic chemistry classes. Our knowledge of pharmacology doesn't evaporate into thin air in a collapse, but my obligation to pad some abusive corporations pockets for something I can make myself does. Right now though, to protect the profits of huge pharma corporations, if I was caught making my own medicines I would be threatened with up to and including physical violence and being put in a cage by an unaccountable mafia.

Funny thing that, how many non-western non-governmental perspectives get to weigh in on those statistics? Or are they biased towards the views of already subjugated citizens of countries? Its hard to objectively judge corruption when you've been raised from day one in the systems...

Are you saying that you don't think that those numbers reflects reality to any useful degree?

Not really, its like police offices being the ones to publish statistics on police brutality or churches being able to publish statistics on the "success" of things like conversion therapy. You're letting the wolves vote on how safe the chickens are in their coop.

[Pokun]

The only medicine I routinely buy are NSAIDs. Among these is aspirin, which is so easy to synthesize it is used as an introductory lab in basic chemistry classes. Our knowledge of pharmacology doesn't evaporate into thin air in a collapse, but my obligation to pad some abusive corporations pockets for something I can make myself does. Right now though, to protect the profits of huge pharma corporations, if I was caught making my own medicines I would be threatened with up to and including physical violence and being put in a cage by an unaccountable mafia.

We are not talking about your medicine usage, how are people going to get their medicine or other products in a society that lacks quality control and where rogue medicine manufacturers that are using antibiotics in their cough medicine are not put in a cage?

Not really, its like police offices being the ones to publish statistics on police brutality or churches being able to publish statistics on the "success" of things like conversion therapy. You're letting the wolves vote on how safe the chickens are in their coop.

Well, I know people in many countries lower on that list and according to them (who would be the chickens in the coop) you may have to bribe the police if you want to get safely out of trouble when stopped by them. They don't put you in a cage if you beat up a pedo, they put you in a cage if they smell money on you regardless if you are a criminal or not by making up some excuse. That's some serious corruption and it's only skimming the surface as one of many examples. Other examples includes giving someone a bottle of wine to get a driving license (which isn't needed to drive as the police doesn't care, but some employments may require it) or get treatment ahead of others because you know the doctor personally.
None of these have happened to me in Denmark or Japan for example which are higher on the list, nor have I ever heard of them happening. So the statistics seems to have some truth in it by just using some common sense.

[segaloco]

The only medicine I routinely buy are NSAIDs. Among these is aspirin, which is so easy to synthesize it is used as an introductory lab in basic chemistry classes. Our knowledge of pharmacology doesn't evaporate into thin air in a collapse, but my obligation to pad some abusive corporations pockets for something I can make myself does. Right now though, to protect the profits of huge pharma corporations, if I was caught making my own medicines I would be threatened with up to and including physical violence and being put in a cage by an unaccountable mafia.

We are not talking about your medicine usage, how are people going to get their medicine or other products in a society that lacks quality control and where rogue medicine manufacturers that are using antibiotics in their cough medicine are not put in a cage?

They make them? The knowledge isn't a secret, like I've said in the past I'm using I statements but that is true for anyone else. The recipe for aspirin isn't some secret. You just follow the recipe. Chemistry is just baking. You either make your cake wrong or you don't, but if you don't trust the other cake makers, then you too can follow steps 1 through 10 and wind up with a medicine. Nevermind the fact of how many diseases are caused by the effects of the western lifestyle....cars and fast food ain't exactly helping the situation but the government doesn't address that...

Not really, its like police offices being the ones to publish statistics on police brutality or churches being able to publish statistics on the "success" of things like conversion therapy. You're letting the wolves vote on how safe the chickens are in their coop.

Well, I know people in many countries lower on that list and according to them (who would be the chickens in the coop) you may have to bribe the police if you want to get safely out of trouble when stopped by them. They don't put you in a cage if you beat up a pedo, they put you in a cage if they smell money on you regardless if you are a criminal or not by making up some excuse. That's some serious corruption and it's only skimming the surface as one of many examples. Other examples includes giving someone a bottle of wine to get a driving license (which isn't needed to drive as the police doesn't care, but some employments may require it) or get treatment ahead of others because you know the doctor personally.
None of these have happened to me in Denmark or Japan for example which are higher on the list, nor have I ever heard of them happening. So the statistics seems to have some truth in it by just using some common sense.

But it doesn't consider non-control societies at all, such a survey by definition is biased towards state-based society. Its a spectrum of what you can experience under states, not the full spectrum of human experience. That's like ignoring all other forms of radiation and not factoring them into questions of emission even though there are more non-visible wavelengths than visible. Forget the rest, all that matters is what the current humans have grown up with apparently. I want to assess the full spectrum, not one tiny slice of it that is governmental organized state-based societies. Of course their study is going to be limited to their form of social order.

[Pokun]

They make them? The knowledge isn't a secret, like I've said in the past I'm using I statements but that is true for anyone else. The recipe for aspirin isn't some secret. You just follow the recipe. Chemistry is just baking. You either make your cake wrong or you don't, but if you don't trust the other cake makers, then you too can follow steps 1 through 10 and wind up with a medicine. Nevermind the fact of how many diseases are caused by the effects of the western lifestyle....cars and fast food ain't exactly helping the situation but the government doesn't address that...

That's unrelated to the question and nope you specifically said that the only medicine you take yourself are things like aspirin which obviously isn't what everyone takes.
The question is how are you going to assure the quality of medicine if anyone can make it themselves without consequences. It also goes for other products that may be harmful to people and/or the environment, food and medicine was just two examples.

But it doesn't consider non-control societies at all, such a survey by definition is biased towards state-based society. Its a spectrum of what you can experience under states, not the full spectrum of human experience. That's like ignoring all other forms of radiation and not factoring them into questions of emission even though there are more non-visible wavelengths than visible. Forget the rest, all that matters is what the current humans have grown up with apparently. I want to assess the full spectrum, not one tiny slice of it that is governmental organized state-based societies. Of course their study is going to be limited to their form of social order.

Well, it's definitely not a perfect way to measure people's happiness, but it is a scientific way to measure how well a society works to some degree.
It's also biased towards countries that value low corruption. Scandinavian countries ranks very high there probably because tolerance against corruption is very low. Other countries may value certain other things more, like tax crimes, and would score better on a survey that measures how common tax crimes which may be another way to measure how functional the society is.
Scandinavia and Japan are also both famous for high suicide rates and might score low on a survey for mental illness.
Catholic countries on the other hand tends to score high on happiness surveys, supposedly because of a stronger tradition for confession sessions with a priest. They may also be more accepting of the bad things in society for better or for worse, with the biblical “the poor you will always have with you” type of thing in mind.
Protestant countries on the other hand have a tendency to work towards perfection which may explain the low tolerance against certain crimes (like the mentioned corruption and tax crimes) in protestant countries.
Asian countries tends to value self-cultivation in a way that may be similar to the protestant idea of going for perfection. Though there are also those with a caste system which is sometimes criticized for preventing people from trying to improve their situation since you are born into a caste.

[segaloco]

They make them? The knowledge isn't a secret, like I've said in the past I'm using I statements but that is true for anyone else. The recipe for aspirin isn't some secret. You just follow the recipe. Chemistry is just baking. You either make your cake wrong or you don't, but if you don't trust the other cake makers, then you too can follow steps 1 through 10 and wind up with a medicine. Nevermind the fact of how many diseases are caused by the effects of the western lifestyle....cars and fast food ain't exactly helping the situation but the government doesn't address that...

That's unrelated to the question and nope you specifically said that the only medicine you take yourself are things like aspirin which obviously isn't what everyone takes.
The question is how are you going to assure the quality of medicine if anyone can make it themselves without consequences. It also goes for other products that may be harmful to people and/or the environment, food and medicine was just two examples.

You assure the quality by knowing what you are doing. The information is there, people can learn if they need to. We don't need a body regulating quality if people inherently espouse a culture of care and quality. If they do that, they put in the effort, then control becomes a moot point. The information and resources are out there, people can put in the effort, it is possible. If one set of hands can produce, so too can another, it is the willingness of the mind using them to put in the effort. I've never been killed by any food I've grown because I think, I learn, I use my brain for its literal intended purpose, to secure and vet food. The literal purpose of having senses is to alert us to these things. If the world was free of any dangers, we wouldn't need senses, we would probably just be blobs that roll about absorbing nutrients. Instead we have eyes that we might see cliffs and holes. We have ears that we might hear predators and breaking limbs. We have noses that we might smell foul rot and delicious food. We have mouths that we may taste spoiled sour as well as mouthwatering savory. We have hands that we might feel the firmness and consistency of food and manipulate it to get at the good parts. Our bodies are literally for ensuring the safety of our journey gathering nutrients in our environment. That is literally the point...

[Joe]

You know how easy that "right" is countered by my right to not buy their food?

If it were that easy, the regulations wouldn't need to exist because people wouldn't buy poisoned food. And yet, the regulations exist. So why were people buying poisoned food?

Then I better get to it first?

How? The person you want to push off a cliff is thinking exactly the same thing.

You assure the quality by knowing what you are doing.

That only works if you have the time, equipment, and physical ability to do it yourself. What about the people who don't have all of those things?

We have noses that we might smell foul rot and delicious food. We have mouths that we may taste spoiled sour as well as mouthwatering savory.

Many forms of tainted food are undetectable to these senses.

[segaloco]

You know how easy that "right" is countered by my right to not buy their food?

If it were that easy, the regulations wouldn't need to exist because people wouldn't buy poisoned food. And yet, the regulations exist. So why were people buying poisoned food?

Could the revocation of much of public land for the nearly exclusive use of owners of private automobiles have anything to do with it? That's a lot of land we could be growing food for ourselves and each other on...if we build our communities around food production rather than....whatever this concrete hellscape is currently, maybe our survival would be less and less dependent on what we can buy on some ephemeral market.

Then I better get to it first?

How? The person you want to push off a cliff is thinking exactly the same thing.

I'm glad we have an understanding then.

You assure the quality by knowing what you are doing.

That only works if you have the time, equipment, and physical ability to do it yourself. What about the people who don't have all of those things?

I'm happy to share. The screw you I've got mine mentality is what got us into this whole mess. It isn't what is going to get us out. I don't know how to stress enough that I recognize this requires dispensing with selfishness. I'm more than interested in combining resources, its the prevailing economy that wants us to have our own everything and never combine efforts.

We have noses that we might smell foul rot and delicious food. We have mouths that we may taste spoiled sour as well as mouthwatering savory.

Many forms of tainted food are undetectable to these senses.

Yes but artificial adulteration by other humans is much easier to detect. And I only present the senses as an example, yes, we also have the whole host of analytical methodology that don't disappear into thin air. I keep a physical copy (dated, but has the important bits) of Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater around from my lab days in case in a crisis I need to do various water quality tests. Most of the chemicals I need are common household things. For everything else if I saw stormclouds on the horizon I'd make plans to stock a cabinet with what is needed for the short term. If I had my way though there'd just be community chemical depositories along with maintained records and recipes we could contribute and use. I've got my various books and lab ware, I'm happy to put them towards the cause. I also know where to look for more, physical objects don't cease to exist after a collapse, just the power structures that decide who can and cannot use the means.

This is where intention comes in. If we learn to take the reigns of our fate now, when those we've put on pedestals by our choice or not can no longer pull the strings, we are ready to pick up the pieces rather than our inability throwing us into a new dark age. Resilience is built on redundancy of capability and information, not clinging to any particular structured use thereof. So long as the capability and information remain, it can be put towards good, but no structure in the world matters without the skills and information to use it. That is where people learning to do these things, being repositories for this cultural information, is of growing importance. All the regulations in the world in the end are just bits of paper and/or data, but tradition passed down, culture made endemic, that survives the test of time which our arbitrary structures fail. We still tell stories older than the oldest government or religion, not because they fit our current structures, but they speak to cultural undercurrent. Creating that culture can obviate the need for explicit structure to make it relatable to people. It takes time and effort but I am more than interested in doing my part to keep that ball rolling.

[Pokun]

You assure the quality by knowing what you are doing. The information is there, people can learn if they need to. We don't need a body regulating quality if people inherently espouse a culture of care and quality. If they do that, they put in the effort, then control becomes a moot point. The information and resources are out there, people can put in the effort, it is possible...

You are still misunderstanding the question. It's not about the knowledge or ability to make it, forget all that. It's about the problem of an evil medicine maker that causes unfixable problems if not stopped. For example by using antibiotics in non-antibiotic medicine to get ahead of the competition and cause a spread of multiresistent bacteria which makes antibiotics useless in cases when it's actually needed.
As there are no regulations or tests done it's not possible to know what he puts into his stuff until it's too late. He may know exactly what he is doing but he is selfish and prioritizes personal short-term gains over anything else (a common strategy in many larger companies), and chasing him with a sickle or pushing him off a cliff has no effect on the multiresistent bacteria. There must be a strategy to counter this type of behavior, for example by regulating medicine manufacturing like we are already doing.

[Joe]

Could the revocation of much of public land for the nearly exclusive use of owners of private automobiles have anything to do with it?

Probably not, since it had been a problem even before private automobiles existed. So why were people buying poisoned food?

I'm happy to share.

There's no way you can provide enough for everyone, other people will need to make medicine too. How do you guarantee that everyone who makes medicine will do it correctly?

The screw you I've got mine mentality is what got us into this whole mess. It isn't what is going to get us out. I don't know how to stress enough that I recognize this requires dispensing with selfishness.

Sure, but how does getting rid of the government fix that?

I'm more than interested in combining resources, its the prevailing economy that wants us to have our own everything and never combine efforts.

How does getting rid of the government fix the economy?

And I only present the senses as an example, yes, we also have the whole host of analytical methodology that don't disappear into thin air.

Again, that only works if you have the time, equipment, and physical ability to do it yourself. What about the people who don't have all of those things?

[segaloco]

Both of you won't move past market economy. Past the idea of a market, of buyers and sellers, of producers and consumers, of haves and have nots. There do not need to be haves and have nots, that is an artificial delineation made by our current socioeconomic model to justify the withholding of critical resources from people as a matter of procedure.

You have to think beyond going to some person and giving them the emperors currency for something only their two hands can make. This idea of ownership of business and control of things like designs and recipes is a big part of it. Right now there are things I cannot make, not even due to safety regulations, but because some business or corporation or whatever is deemed owner of an idea, a concept, a recipe for an object, what have you. Therein lies a limitation of the system which highlights why I'd rather move past all of it. I certainly don't want our current socioeconomic organization with government simply skimmed off the top like cream.

Its a cultural shift away from this current system in which we constantly erect barriers to a system in which we can choose to combine or focus our efforts however we see fit. I may make okay aspirin. One person may make okay aspirin. Yet another may make not so okay aspirin. If myself and the other good aspirin person work together with the not so good aspirin person, maybe they will get better too, no? Who knows, maybe we get better at different parts and decide to specialize. What makes this different than the current system you ask? Choice. Consent. Agreement. Transparency. We choose to go about this task together and share resources. The people who are interested in the results of our labors consent to partake or not. We are all in agreement in our actions in the moment. We gain transparency in all having access to the means and understanding to do the same. Its hard to fool another practitioner of an art. If an art becomes well known, it is unlikely and unwise to try and play someone for a fool.

The current state of affairs presents withheld resources critical to survival as a cudgel to force you to do solely by someone else's design and for someone else's bottom line, rather than just doing what needs to be done directly for ones survival and sense of community. Most of our effort doesn't go into food and yet we still manage to have more food wasted than is needed. Imagine if half our effort went into food. It doesn't even need to, but it is still withheld as a matter of procedure and people starve to death. Ask those people how successful this system is.

I don't know how better to explain this so long as we are hung up on the idea of businesses, customers, shopping, buying, selling, this idea of a market. That is largely a product of government and trade law. There are other systems for pursuit, production, and distribution of goods and services than just one focused on the market construct. But economics are their own kettle of fish from political systems, I find I have different opinions on economics depending on what the political system is "fixed" as for any purpose of discussion. Its hard when trying to approach both axes as variable.

[Pokun]

Its a cultural shift away from this current system in which we constantly erect barriers to a system in which we can choose to combine or focus our efforts however we see fit. I may make okay aspirin. One person may make okay aspirin. Yet another may make not so okay aspirin. If myself and the other good aspirin person work together with the not so good aspirin person, maybe they will get better too, no? Who knows, maybe we get better at different parts and decide to specialize. What makes this different than the current system you ask? Choice. Consent. Agreement. Transparency.

Maybe the other person chooses to not work together with you and not show you what he is doing so there is no consent, agreement or transparency there. Even choice is questionable as you didn't choose to live with the multiresistant bacteria he caused.

Its hard to fool another practitioner of an art. If an art becomes well known, it is unlikely and unwise to try and play someone for a fool.

Sure but does that matter when his medicine is more effective than yours because he uses antibiotics? People not knowing this will be very happy to use his medicine instead of yours, unknowingly causing the evolution of multiresistant bacteria.

Most of our effort doesn't go into food and yet we still manage to have more food wasted than is needed. Imagine if half our effort went into food. It doesn't even need to, but it is still withheld as a matter of procedure and people starve to death. Ask those people how successful this system is.

The fact that those are very few compared to historical numbers proves that the system is relatively successful statistically speaking.

Both of you won't move past market economy. Past the idea of a market, of buyers and sellers, of producers and consumers, of haves and have nots. There do not need to be haves and have nots, that is an artificial delineation made by our current socioeconomic model to justify the withholding of critical resources from people as a matter of procedure.

Well, regardless of what type of economy you have you must still produce food and other products to live right?
It doesn't change anything, you still have the problem that anyone is able to produce medicine and can do it in a way that harms us all if not regulated.

It's not even only limited to the manufacturing of products. If you fish out all the fish in a body of water there will be no more fish for the coming generation to eat (among other possible environmental problems caused by driving various species to extinction in a short time).

This is a major problem today and governments in general aren't doing a very good job in regulating fishing so that they are not driven to extinction. I think part of the problem is that a lot of fishing is done on international waters where it's hard to impossible to enforce much of any rules. Several nations also doesn't seem to agree that the fact that our grandkids might not be able to eat tuna, eel or whale is a problem in the first place, for not mentioning the related environmental problems.
So you basically have highly dysfunctional anarchy on the sea.

[segaloco]

Its a cultural shift away from this current system in which we constantly erect barriers to a system in which we can choose to combine or focus our efforts however we see fit. I may make okay aspirin. One person may make okay aspirin. Yet another may make not so okay aspirin. If myself and the other good aspirin person work together with the not so good aspirin person, maybe they will get better too, no? Who knows, maybe we get better at different parts and decide to specialize. What makes this different than the current system you ask? Choice. Consent. Agreement. Transparency.

Maybe the other person chooses to not work together with you and not show you what he is doing so there is no consent, agreement or transparency there. Even choice is questionable as you didn't choose to live with the multiresistant bacteria he caused.

Its hard to fool another practitioner of an art. If an art becomes well known, it is unlikely and unwise to try and play someone for a fool.

Sure but does that matter when his medicine is more effective than yours because he uses antibiotics? People not knowing this will be very happy to use his medicine instead of yours, unknowingly causing the evolution of multiresistant bacteria.

I don't see how that is any different, if people know the process they will know what is and isn't okay and can hold each other accountable. If this person is both known to cause harm and contradicts what everyone else learns about the process, and they trust that person anyway...well then I don't know what to say. If I don't trust someone I don't partake of what they are trying to give me. Easy as that. Nobody is forcing them to be ignorant, nobody is holding them at gunpoint saying they have to purchase from this shady character.

Most of our effort doesn't go into food and yet we still manage to have more food wasted than is needed. Imagine if half our effort went into food. It doesn't even need to, but it is still withheld as a matter of procedure and people starve to death. Ask those people how successful this system is.

The fact that those are very few compared to historical numbers proves that the system is relatively successful statistically speaking.

Both of you won't move past market economy. Past the idea of a market, of buyers and sellers, of producers and consumers, of haves and have nots. There do not need to be haves and have nots, that is an artificial delineation made by our current socioeconomic model to justify the withholding of critical resources from people as a matter of procedure.

Well, regardless of what type of economy you have you must still produce food and other products to live right?
It doesn't change anything, you still have the problem that anyone is able to produce medicine and can do it in a way that harms us all if not regulated.

It's not even only limited to the manufacturing of products. If you fish out all the fish in a body of water there will be no more fish for the coming generation to eat (among other possible environmental problems caused by driving various species to extinction in a short time).

This is a major problem today and governments in general aren't doing a very good job in regulating fishing so that they are not driven to extinction. I think part of the problem is that a lot of fishing is done on international waters where it's hard to impossible to enforce much of any rules. Several nations also doesn't seem to agree that the fact that our grandkids might not be able to eat tuna, eel or whale is a problem in the first place, for not mentioning the related environmental problems.
So you basically have highly dysfunctional anarchy on the sea.

If people want to be stupid and overfish their only resource then they reap what they sew. If they think about it for 5 seconds we could have functional anarchy, people just don't want to think about others, only themselves, so instead they opt for a system that prods and pokes them until they finally roll over and care about others rather than caring about others because it is beneficial to our survival as a species. If you can reason that out, and I can reason that out, I'm sure other people can reason out that if they eat all of their resource then they have no resources. Nobody made them do that. They *chose* to abuse their resources, so they choose the consequences as well. I am not forcing someone to overfish a body of water, their hands, their boat, their rod, their reel, their bait, their time, their consequences. If humanity is so predisposed to such blatant abuse of our planet and can only exist here with this restrictive system....maybe thats the entire rest of the biosphere's way of saying we aren't as adapted as we think we are and we don't deserve the bountiful life this planet otherwise sustains free of our influence. Earth gets on just fine, it is humans who make it suffer unduely.

[Joe]

I don't know how better to explain this

Try using fewer words. So far, I understand that you want to get rid of the government, and I understand that we can get rid of the government if everybody agrees that there should be no government. I don't really understand what else you want to change or how we would make those changes happen.

[segaloco]

The changes are individual. I can only do what I can do, I espouse a perspective of everyone ultimately acting in the interest of their survival. That is first and key, regardless of structure. I live as much of my own life as free of preconceived notions as possible. I check in with friends early and often regarding how they feel about things. I don't assume someone I'm interacting with in a business sense (grocery, shopping, whatever) is happy to be there or consents to the compulsory expectation of treating me like some valued customer of some corporation. I don't expect others to understand the social norms of western society. These are just a handful of ways I try to interface with our weird restricted culture while still working "against the grain" if you will. Sure, there is the prospect of just devolving into a dung flinging howler monkey, but I also recognize the realities of what we live in and that I can only make subtle moves in the moment to assure the person I am interacting with that I am not a civilization reptilian, that they can let their guard down and relax and be human with me. That alone is something so central to my philosophy on being, well I might as well not dance around it anymore, a dirty filthy anarchist. I don't hoist the expectations of our hierarchical structure on others just because the prevailing society says that as a customer or consumer or whatever I am entitled to excellence. Treating each other in the working class as human beings rather than servants goes a long way towards envisioning a post-control future of people caring about each other because its the right thing to do.

And of course I say none of this to pat myself on the back or gloat, rather, to promote the mindset that makes anarchism possible in the first place. A respect that all others are ultimately just trying to survive. A rejection of this idea of bosses and masters and rulers instead to decide out of care to come together and make something greater than simply the sum of our beings. Optimistic, sure, but I do want to believe there is a bias towards good even in our species. In the spirit of that I do concede that in our current state of affairs, sure, a shock adjustment to elimination of government and total anarchism would result in significant suffering and death. I don't want that. Believe me when I say that is not what I am advocating for.

I am simply advocating for not treating governments and economic systems and all this structure as the default. To grow past it (and I do mean grow, not regress), we need to recognize it as a step, not an end state. That is why I mention knowledge not going away. Yes, our control society lead us to the point we are, where we know more than ever, but at some point, we need to rest, we need to take stock of all we have learned and instead of this endless pursuit of growth, figure out how to actually enjoy the progress we have made. To paraphrase my absolute favorite book of all time, on his deathbed, after much adventure, sacrifice, grief, and torment, Thorin Oakenshield, a dwarf worthy of regard, laments to Bilbo that if more people valued good food and cheer over hoarded riches, we would inhabit a merrier world.

If nothing else, if you take nothing from what I say, know that this world is what I want. Anarchism is my means, but it is not my ends. It is simply the philosophy that above all others, to me, consistently results in this world. Know that I do not wish harm, I simply speak out and act towards what my heart says yields this result. I hope we can at least agree on that, that whatever the means, the goal is cheer and comfort, not strife and suffering.