Am I A "Conspiracy Theorist"?

[grandpa]

Quote by: Morality Games Cultural conditioning and brainwashing are pretty interchangeable.

But one sounds more mild than the other.

Grandpa h.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: grandpa So, because I'm "fighting brainwashing" it somehow equates me with Lenin and Mao? I'm just trying to understand your point here. Grandpa h.

My point was the point I made. I know you love it when I do this but...

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

I will say it again as plainly as I can. It does not matter if you claim that your system is exempt from corruption because it is antithetical to the ideals of your system. What matters is that if history has proven nothing else, it has proven that no system, no institution, no group of people is exempt from corruption. It is a baseless claim to claim that anarchists can not be corrupted or that anarchism can not be corrupted. It is baseless because it is the same as saying "No Christian can be corrupted." Because any Christian could argue from just as logical a position that those who are corrupt are not "true" Christians. How do you keep the "fakers" out? How do you stop them from "brainwashing" others? How do you police for purity without policing? If you can not enforce, how do you maintain? This is, perhaps, the greatest fault with the concept. It is the Protestant movement X 1000. If everyone has a personal relationship with God and the priesthood of all believers is real, how do you prevent hundreds of factions claiming the only "true" understanding? At least, with Protestantism, you have a single controlling authority in the Bible that herds everyone in a similar direction. Anarchism, by nature and design, has no controlling authority. It is bound to splinter and fracture and slinter and fracture some more. One of two things will happen; everyone will go their happy little separate ways and you will have thousands of small communities that will be easy prey for any individual or oligarcical group with the gumption to control significant resources or, some "faker" will lay claim to your mantle and do just what the individual or group who does not even bother to pose will do. So, either some Lenin from within the movement will end up shooting people or some Hitler from without will and you will be powerless to stop it.

[grandpa]

Quote by: lsbskins1 My point was the point I made. I know you love it when I do this but...

I agree that people are corruptible. That's why I refuse to place any significant amount of faith in some grreat leader, as I've stated repeatedly.

Grandpa h.

[Domino]

The problem with anarchy: people are sheep, who will always follow the best shepherd they can find, unless a wolf gobbles them up first.

The hope of anarchists: individuals are not sheep, each one has a mind and a will, and you can't find a crowd of people without finding a whole lot of individuals, each following their own unique will.

lsbskins1, all your arguments seem to consist of pointing out the sheepiness of people, and claiming that such a state is inevitable. You may be right, and there may be a lot of circumstantial evidence to support the view, but I very much doubt that you can prove any such thing. Anarchists believe that well-educated people don't have to be that way, and they seem to have a lot of circumstantial evidence in favor of that, but they, also, cannot prove any such thing.

Btw, imo, brain-washing is just education with which you disagree. It's nice to think that education should include a lot of truth, but interpreting that truth is also a thing which must be learned.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: Domino The problem with anarchy: people are sheep, who will always follow the best shepherd they can find, unless a wolf gobbles them up first. The hope of anarchists: individuals are not sheep, each one has a mind and a will, and you can't find a crowd of people without finding a whole lot of individuals, each following their own unique will. lsbskins1, all your arguments seem to consist of pointing out the sheepiness of people, and claiming that such a state is inevitable. You may be right, and there may be a lot of circumstantial evidence to support the view, but I very much doubt that you can prove any such thing. Anarchists believe that well-educated people don't have to be that way, and they seem to have a lot of circumstantial evidence in favor of that, but they, also, cannot prove any such thing. Btw, imo, brain-washing is just education with which you disagree. It's nice to think that education should include a lot of truth, but interpreting that truth is also a thing which must be learned.

Maybe that is a somewhat accurate depiction of my point, but only if you reduce it to some kind of base level version that a 5th grader could follow. My point is not that all people are "sheep". My point is that most people are not exceptional. Most people are average. That point seems to be fairly self-evident. If there are people existing that have above average talents, those talents will tell. Some will be more devious, some more ruthless, some more intelligent. All of these things lead to the ability to amass power. You can pretend that these differences to do exist or happily delude yourself into believing that if you just "educate people properly", they will somehow learn to refuse to take advantage of their talents but nothing in history has shown me that that will happen. The question then becomes, how we most effectively channel and/or counter these tendencies. Anarchist principles may attempt to channel, but they make no effective attempt at countering.

[Piscean]

Hey grandpa you'll get no argument from me, it is a conspiracy and it's only the tip of the iceberg, were engulfed in conspiracys all the time.

[Domino]

No one has power that is not given to them. When no one grants power to the people you describe, they cannot progress beyond the common conman. This has nothing to do with those who wish for power, and everything to do with the society in which they live. If that society is gullible and/or poorly taught in critical examination, power can be amassed.

In an anarchy, the counter to anything you wish countered is you.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: Domino No one has power that is not given to them. When no one grants power to the people you describe, they cannot progress beyond the common conman. This has nothing to do with those who wish for power, and everything to do with the society in which they live. If that society is gullible and/or poorly taught in critical examination, power can be amassed. In an anarchy, the counter to anything you wish countered is you.

But that assumes that everyone is of equal ability. If I am a person fated to have MS, I can not counter the ability of a 300 pound, healthy, thief who takes advantage of his advantage and steals my food. I starve, he eats what he wants. In anarchy, there is no coersive state power to tell him he can't steal my food. There is only the hope that my neighbor is either 1) not so busy protecting his food from the same guy that he can't help me or 2) not so impressed with that guys power that he figures it is better to wash his car so he will take enough food for both of them. Anarchy counters nothing. Anarchy has no power to protect the weak. It may aim to do this, but it has no power to do it.

[Domino]

You are correct, the weak have a hard time in an anarchy. They'll pretty much need some primary caregiver who's sturdy enough to fire a gun, if you want to try to guarantee their safety from thieves... but, then, that's the case, anyway. Unless the weak keep the coercive power of the state in their houses with them, the thief will do as he pleases.

Anarchy protects the weak exactly as much as society believes the weak ought to be protected. The buck stops at the nearest concerned citizen. It may be wise for the weak to surround themselves with concerned citizens.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Domino You are correct, the weak have a hard time in an anarchy. They'll pretty much need some primary caregiver who's sturdy enough to fire a gun, if you want to try to guarantee their safety from thieves...

Rather than calling the people "weak" and demanding they be subordinate and coerced around, we should spend more time building social networks that are more reasonable and tolerable.
That's what anarchy is about...it's not about gaining up on people who cannot defend themselves. That's what governments and corporations are for. Of course, you can always just say, "well, that's your idealistic view of anarchy" -- but there's nothing particularly "idealistic" about what I've said here. Governments and coprorations actually are thieves.
Sure, many of us happen to work for them, but let's at least admit the elementary truth.

And it's a complicated issue, because right now we are compelled to choose between
a. privatization, where there is hardly any accountability,

and

b. state government, where there is at least a bit more accountability.

As Jon Luoma noted, there are "Corporate masks of public concern" to bridge the divide:

To achieve their goals water corporations must overcome a number of obstacles, the most important of which is government. As owners of water resources, public service providers and regulators, governments can play a crucial role in safeguarding the environment, universal access to resources, water quality and public health. This places them in the way of corporate growth and profit. Therefore, the realisation of corporate objectives depends upon reducing or even eliminating these traditional government roles. Strategic partnerships developed between the global water companies and international financial institutions have provided an effective strategy for bringing this about. The two most notable of these partnerships, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and the World Water Council (WWC), were founded in 1996. They provide an arena for negotiation and collaboration between the major water companies, multilateral banks, UN and bilateral development agencies and NGOs. Through these partnerships, the economic motives of the major water companies become rationalised as, or embedded in the facade of, broader public interest objectives.

Grandpa h.