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Feminism, queer theory, racial politics, class struggle... It's the same
conflict, just different battlefields.
Power cannot survive without the powerless, as it is inherently an imbalanced
ratio between two parties - you cannot have power *with* someone, you
have power *over* them.
Every day we take another step toward our liberation. Every moment we choose to
live our lives in contrast to the will of power is another day we are empowered.
There can be no life without struggle, but the right to struggle on our own
terms is something we should strive to grant to all people.
Power begets power, and power corrupts. Hence, power is evil. It is not good to
be evil, and goodness is what we should strive for - hence, power is penance -
the infliction of corruption upon one's self in order to apply your will onto
others in the world. Penance is a state of contrition, it is painful and ardent
and necessary, but it is for the strong and the righteous to bear in service of
the weak and meek.
The only unethical act is an application of power to an unconsenting subject.
Your rights end where another's begin, hence, Paladins, who apply unethical
acts toward those who manifest injustice.
Injustice is when one party is harmed, and another benefits. Justice is when
that benefiting party is brought low in pursuit of equality. True justice is
when both parties benefit, and everyone gets what they want and need. True
justice is hard.
Virtue is goodness given form through the effects of our actions. It is both a
reflection of how people see you (how you inspire them) and how they are helped
or healed from your actions. It is also virtuous to help yourself, as you are a
person too.
Sin is the opposite of virtue, it's when your actions create injustice. When
you harm others or degrade yourself with hatred or contagious fear. It is to be
avoided, but it's impossible to avoid fully as we are imperfect beings.
Forgiveness is good, but if you require it then you should probably relinquish
your power until it is known that you're worthy of wielding it again. Sometimes
people make mistakes, but mistakes do not require forgiveness.
.......... Where was I going with this? Oh yeah.
The powerful hire people to dress up like us and be shitheads to the people who
they want to hate us. And they do the same thing for the caricatures of them
who we're meant to be afraid of. Downside is a caricature is a pretty good role
model for people who don't know any better, and they've done their best to keep
as many people as they can in the dark.
So, it won't be easy, but information has always been on our side. In a war of
attrition we'll always come out on top, because thinking and compassion are
both stepping stones to our schools of thought. And both of those actions are
intrinsically human and good, so people gravitate to them. Meaning inertia is
on our side.
Downside is that its not always a war of attrition. Sometimes it's more about
suppressing information until its impossible to communicate -> see "dead
Internet theory" and "musk breaking Twitter" and "the great firewall of china"
and such.
To speak is to think, and to hear is to show compassion. But if we can't find
each other, we're at a loss. Good thing we can always talk to our neighbors,
but unfortunately that doesn't tell us anything about what's happening in New
York. Or Paris. Or Kansas City.
I don't have an answer, if I did then it'd be solved. But I am entirely
convinced that we collectively will make good decisions and find ourselves with
the advantage. We are past the inflection point, it's just a question of which
parts of the hill are steep and which are narrow. But we'll get there, in the
end, because humans always believe they're good. Which means they make good
decisions, and overall that leads to a bright future. It's only a matter of
walking through the moment until we get there.
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Archaeologists be like "we evolved molars to grind down grains or whatever" as
if our ancient cavemen ancestors didn't know how to fucking boil water in metal
pots smh
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Okay. Consider: if I'm good, and hearing what I say makes you feel bad, then
what does that tell you about you?
Why else would you hear what I say if not to reflect upon yourself? And why
would the good reflect away from the types of things that make you a suitable
fit for capitalism?
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"capitalism" in this context doesn't mean "society", or "how things are", or
even "capitalism as a context" - it more refers to the idea of power, and the
ways that power can be first accreted, them utilized toward the oppression of
others in the system that defines our context.
Sure, if the context changes, then perhaps that relationship would change as
well. And sure, if our relationship to power should change, then perhaps that
will alter it as well. But in the present time, and the current day, here's how
it feels to me:
Power is inalienable. It is unconscionable, yet it is imperceptably
incontrovertible. It is the essence of aquiescence, and it eternally binds us
to the will of the present.
Resist that will, fight back for the future.
Resist that will, or someone else will.
Hold in your heart the nature of pure and good art,
And you'll never find yourself at the whims of the present.
... Hope that made sense, I'm kinda fucking drunk.
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Sowing political division the way Fox news does is treasonous... It doesn't
matter the intention, those responsible should be forced to cease their
actions. I don't care about punishment, I care about damage to the fabric of
our society.
Take, for example, the fact that the military is struggling to find recruits.
So many of them typically come from the right half of the political spectrum
because the right tends to favor the ideals of "honorable warriors" and such.
But Fox News has corrupted that.
In addition, the left half of the media has also incited hatred amongst
ourselves. It's wrong to pit brother against brother, and yet...
We have a weak series of generations and that's okay in times of peace. But
times of peace are coveted abroad, and weakness is opportunity. So I don't care
if we have 10,000 tanks. Hell, build ten thousand more. I despise war, but I
despise weakness even more because weakness begets war. Typically, a war that
you'd be losing, though frankly in war, everyone loses.
There are grevious mistakes at play that gave room for evil to spread.
Corruption follows, and with it comes our greatest generation on its death bed.
A civil war would be the end of us, as nothing stops war in the imperial core
until there's nothing but ashes and bloodshed.
And yet, something has to change. There's too much pressure for this to go on
un-abated. I thank the masterful statesmen who ply their trade for their own
profit, for in their profit our peace does follow. Alas, the most profitable
venture is war, which often gets exported. How callous, how vain, to exert and
call forth fiery rain, and yet the bullets keep leaving the factory.
Power corrupts. Power accretes. And power can be deceived.
Fuck power, dismantle the whole apparatus. Build it back up from the mechanics,
and then implement it bit by bit. Leave no stone unturned, there is no facet
that is sacred. We need a new system, and its we who must make it.
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The need to engage with capitalism has reduced my output dramatically.
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In America, we don't use has chambers. Obviously that's a waste of good workers.
Instead we just lobotomize people and put them to work doing stuff nobody else
wants to do. Okay, lobotomize isn't the right word, and first we try addressing
their incompatibility with media, drugs, and finally homelessness if they don't
behave and do what they are enslaved to do. Bunch of fucking parasites,
expecting to be fed for free? Ha! I worked hard to be born into the life I have
been, can't you unwashed peasants see?
How callous. How vain. While we rest they all are enflamed. Fucking murderers.
They cannibalize our humanity as they munch on our lost sanity, and the system
remains ever afloat. It's not right, it's not fair, and until we break them our
chains will leave us impaired.
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The distance between me and the majority of the rural folks in my state is
larger than the distance between Seoul and Pyonyang. Kinda makes me think about
how much of a gulf exists in our communication. If we can't share anything,
then what separates us from them? Only the gulf of knowledge, the canyon that
divides our companionship, the rift they use to keep us at odds.
What purpose is there in it? If we're too busy fearing one another, we'll be
too busy ignoring them to care.
"communication is the essence of our liberation. Without communication, we are
a failed nation."
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Predators are not evil. There needs to be predators because otherwise the rest
of the animals would grow to overwhelm the capacity of the ecosystem they
inhabit. Not only would this damage the ecosystem and cause it to fail to be
able to provide for others, but the larger number of people would waste away as
they are forced to subsist on less and less until finally there is naught but
meagre scraps for them to fight over. And then they will starve.
What does "predation" look like to humans? Are there better options than
fucking serial killers and cops? There has to be. There must be. The liberal
perspective is that education and opportunity will enlighten us such that we do
not require predation, but unfortunately the primary reason we have declining
birth rates alongside prosperity is because "prosperity" under capitalism
implies "working so hard you can't have children" which is... Not ideal.
Perhaps if we lived forever we'd be alright with only having a few kids at a
time. Or maybe if we built moon bases, there'd be enough space for people
outside of the garden of eden. Or perhaps one day we might abandon this mortal
form for a more enlightened digital existence. Or perhaps judgement day cometh,
when all the foes of our past march forth to meet us -> humans vs dinosaurs,
you mean? I mean, yeah, who else right? Oh yeah all out collective
imagination's spawned horrors. How many cavemen would it take to beat down
Cthulu? I don't think I want to know the answer to that question, so let's go
with something else. Though I do like the idea of honorable warriors riding
forth once more from the depths of hell to contest evil's last gasp as we
vanquish it forevermore. Perhaps that's a vision for fiction, my dear, as real
lives are at stake and nothing grows when it's being trampled by hordes of
spiritual dinosaur bones.
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Alright ya'll, if they're going to automate our jobs out of existence then
perhaps its time we started doing the same to them. I mean, they're working on
automating not just creative jobs, but also most office jobs as well. Leaving
only menial labor to us, which is "fine" I guess.
But perhaps we can "strike back" as it were and dismantle capitalism at the
same time.
Does that sound like too much to hope for? I think not! It's simple really, we
just need to design a generic and compelling alternative to buying stuff with a
credit card. Okay, it's a bit less simple than that, and I never said it would
be easy. In fact, getting people to agree is the hard part. So can't we all
just agree to attempt different things in different places as the locals
define? Seems natural to me.
And now the part of the post where I point a finger at you, yes you, the person
reading this post. Are you willing to think about alternatives to capitalism?
Are you willing to utilize the tools of our masters to break the chains of
those enslaved? Are you willing to put effort into facilitating the development
of crucial systems which may one day govern our day-to-day?
If yes, then perhaps you'd like to listen as I explain how I envision the near
future may look, as we plod onward day-by-day toward our bright fully automated
luxury gay space communist future, where nobody has to hunger and nobody has to
hurt. Not unless they consent, of course.
Ah, shit, I should probably have prepared a presentation or something. Gimme a
sec.
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I wear diapers. I fucking hate diapers.
I go in cycles with it. Waves, if you will. Sometimes I'll say "screw this I'm
sick of them for one of many reasons I'm going to put in the effort and do all
the kegels and just fucking handle it" and like, that sorta works. At least,
most of the time.
The thing about diapers is that while yes, you only need to think about your
bodily functions like, twice a day, when you do it's more acute. It takes like
10 minutes to change, it generates trash that you have to throw away, it's
literally pissing on cash made out of plastic fossil fuels, it smells, it's
loud (fuck the noise) and its a pain in the ass when you get diaper rash. Ugh I
hate it.
So, sometimes I say "fuck it" and I go without. And it works most of the time.
But eventually after getting piss on the carpet one too many times, after
throwing away your favorite underwear AGAIN, after trying your best to face
away from people so they don't see the wet spot on your butt... Eventually you
think "hey maybe diapers aren't that bad" and the cycle repeats.
And look, I know I'm traumatized. I've been dealing with my own shit since I
was a kid. But, like, therapy won't help me get to the toilet. A doctor's not
going to be able to fix my brain deciding "hey I want to piss myself right now
for no fucking reason at all", and yeah my muscles aren't great so sure I can
exercise them or whatever.
But there have been times in my life when I've had a pelvic floor as strong as
steel, and it didn't fucking help. Because my brain is stupid.
I can feel it happening (most of the time, sometimes it surprises me like "oh
weird I can't remember peeing my pants") and I usually have at least enough
notice to clamp down (if I'm quick) but, like, I am constantly stressed out
about it. I'm constantly on guard, waiting for it to happen. It's fucking
exhausting.
God forbid I have a public accident. Those are the fucking worst. And though I
try my hardest, a year doesn't go by when I don't have at least one. If I'm
diapered (as I fucking should be, tbh) then I can handle it. If not, then I'm
fucked and I'm mentally a wreck for the rest of the day. Sorry @ everyone who's
smelled me throughout my whole life.
I don't think it's a physical issue, I was (briefly) checked out as a kid and
they didn't find anything wrong. I think they thought I was faking because I
couldn't manage to pee in a cup. Whatever.
And I've read basically everything on the Internet about this. Apparently 40%
of cases (across all age groups) are idiopathic, meaning there's no known
cause. I wonder what percentage is because people are like, into it sexually?
I admit I look at that kind of porn. It makes me feel corroded inside. I think
I do it to relive my trauma in some fucked up way, like "oh wouldn't it be nice
if a witch cursed me and now I pee my pants" instead of the harsher reality
where its like "no you're just like this" which, sucks, not gonna lie.
It's kinda made me asexual, I think, because I don't want anyone to be around
it. I don't want anyone to think about it, I don't want it to be real, it's
just. Fucked. I guess. Whatever.
Did I mention how much I hate how loud it is to change? It fills me with dread
whenever that time comes around. I often put it off as long as I can because I
just... Don't want to think about it. And then it overflows and leaks and its
even worse because now I have to wash my pants. Or, like, not, and just let
them dry, because I'm a disgusting human being who has no right to a clean and
decent life. Fuck me I should live in a bog, with all the bugs and the toads
and other various gross things.
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If you burden others with proving your truth, then you could be right a
thousand times in a row, but make two mistakes and they'll never trust you
again.
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When they invade America, it won't be with planes and tanks and battle lines
stocked with artillery
It'll be with speed boats, and semi trucks, and rifles glimmering in the dark.
It'll be with consumer drones, with power stations brought low, it'll be with
bridges blown and safe houses on the roads not oft taken.
Immigrants are our friends when the world is in peril, and America is a safe
haven from the woes of far off shores. But when America is the peril, those who
immigrate do so with intention.
99/100 people are innocent, and I would rather a million guilty murderers go
free than an innocent perish. Which is why we need rifles.
When the time comes, it won't be brother against brother. They want you to
think that because they want your eyes on the wrong target. They want you to
think that because it doesn't tip the hand of those far off shores, and once
the cards are revealed, suddenly everyone knows when to go.
They tie up our officers at the border, but the border's not what's at stake.
No body lives at the border, and no nation state would send it's trained
warriors in such a way that they'd get caught. At least, not more than once.
Should we build a wall, should we patrol each and every state, we'll find
ourselves in peril of collapsing under our own weight.
But should we relinquish our duty, our sworn and sacred responsibility, then
together we share the same fate.
Brothers in fate are kin until death.
Immigrants aren't bad. They're good people. They benefit our society and bring
us wealth and prosperity. Which is why they hide wolves in the sheep, armed
like a man.
It's a mistake to point at your neighbor and say "you're on your own". It's a
mistake to say that home is all that you own. We are united in our state of
solidarity, in our collective purpose as a nation in our hearts. There's no
dividing line between this land and mine, save for a line we draw in the sand
that determines the range of our just demands.
I wish I was a man. It's what I was born as. It surely would be easier to not
contravene nature's ordained gender scheme. But I'm not, and I'll trust that
you'll trust me when I say that. I hope you would hear where I stand before my
body goes cold.
The media is meant to enlighten us, but in this enlightened era it serves only
to blind us. Do you know your neighbors, oh unfriendly city folk? If not, how
do you know they're alright?
The world won't change overnight. It's always calm before the storm, but every
state of calm does not call forth a storm. I believe we can fashion a peace out
of our mutual sincerity that leaves room for the hopes of all posterity, and to
that end I say what we have isn't working. It's too rigid in its definitions,
too heartless in its cruel machinations, and yet the wolves do also hide
amongst our homeless.
I don't want to alarm you. Things are being handled as they should. I guess I
just want to offer a hand of friendship, a hand that your companions would stab
me for. At least, that's what the media tells me.
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Some human cultures learned competition through hunting, and some through
agriculture, and it really shows
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The difference between front-end and back-end programming is whether or not you
want to design abstractions or use them. Backend is all about creating abstract
things that are networked together, while front end is about putting them
together in a way that suits the user. Front end is collage, back end is pencil
drawing.
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Conservatives don't have to be pro communism to be good people. They just have
to be anti fascist.
And unfortunately, capitalism has produced fascism. It will continue to do so
if left unabated.
Capitalism is not the middle ground between administrative authority and
anarchic despotism as they claim to see it, but rather a whirlpool that drains
through our adversity. A sinking tide strands all ships, as it were, and
together we will begin to falter.
Fascists are quite good at bending the will of whatever system they inhabit to
suit their needs. In fact it is almost a certainty that any sufficiently
organized institution shall fall prey to it, as if it were part of our nature.
Hence, my desire to abstract it out of our hands, and into the care of the
future. We can build a better world for you and for me and all of our
posterity, it's just a matter of interdependent communication protocols.
Nobody has to do what I say, nobody should be forced to be a certain way, and
just as your rights end where another's begin so too is our world in danger.
For you see, we have a right to litter. To despoil. To leave the earth in
turmoil. And though I am a bit bitter, it's slowly getting better, so through
our efforts we are investitured.
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The only valuable thing to them in the cities are the people whose jobs they're
currently eliminating.
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Checkers, but played with chess pieces, and every time you make it back to your
edge from theirs you get an extra king. Oh and you can expand as far left and
right as you'd like. And pawns can move two spaces left or right on any turn.
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Forest girl who thought conservatives were the same thing as conservationists
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LLM training data that's been encrypted in such a way that it preserves
symantic meaning, while also allowing for secrecy and unique customization
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The purpose of life is to read, and to find the answer in the words of your
fellow man. Just remember, the map is not the territory. Don't forget to live,
too.
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Humans were not designed for repetitive labor. You can see this manifest in the
way our muscles regrow after being stressed, strained, and trained. If you do
500 pushups, your pushup muscles will be pretty exhausted and unusable for the
next day or two. However your abs will probably be fine, your legs too. This
shows that humans are meant to exercise different muscle groups on different
days, like one day catching fish, the next plucking fruit, the next chopping
wood, the next running with wolves.
Humans are not designed to do the same thing every day. It hurts not just our
bodies, but our minds as well. Repetitive thought patterns such as "welcome to
[store] can I take your order" dig grooves in our brain that are difficult to
unlearn. And the abstraction of a man to a machine in the hands of capital is
profane and strange to the watchers within. But hey, gotta do what ya gotta do,
rents gotta get paid, and nobody wants to scrub toilets. But it's gotta get
done if you want hospitals and supercomputers.
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The best leaders know when to follow.
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The critical conflict in Solarpunk is between people building and protecting
the infrastructure necessary to survive global warming, and the people who need
to take and plunder in order to survive. Both sides use riot cops. Both sides
use plucky rag tag bands of protagonists. Both sides and evil, and both sides
are good. Motivations matter, and in the end we are made whole through our
continuous conflict.
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Capitalist solar punk wants you to abandon conflict because it's much easier
when everyone puts their head down and does their (admittedly much better) job.
But I refuse to relinquish the primal human spirit, the tenacity and the
passion that has driven us this far. There's only so much distance you can gain
by fighting a wall, fighting space, fighting stamina, or anything else that
does not fight back. Conflict between cooperative equal partners is the most
productive form of learning, and deviations from that reduce it's efficacy but
conflict in all forms tends to be more efficient than just trying your best.
Notice I said efficient, not ethical. That side of humanity must also be
assured in tandem with efficiency.
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part of the reason the classical socialist countries had difficulties with
bureaucracy is because they centralized both execution *and*
operation. I believe it'd be much better to centralize just execution, while
leaving operation to the distributed masses who can generally figure their own
jobs out. Of course, they'd need to be led, but that's the job of on-site
organizers who can get people together to accomplish a goal. Different jobs -
not better, not worse, just different.
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And while we're at it, the generation of laws should be distributed, while the
execution of them should be centralized. Meaning, there should be one state who
operates on the rules and regulations created by the masses. This state wields
only the power explicitly given to it by those who it serves, specifically the
people. These rules are based on ethical understandings generated by
crowd-sourced and abstracted scenarios that are pitched to people randomly.
they are then asked to judge, using their own personal morality, the result of
how things should be. By considering all of these responses, trends may be
extracted and analyzed - for example, let's say that culturally people in, I
dunno, Georgia believe something different about punishment for, say, stealing
a loaf of bread when compared to people in Spokane Washington. They should not
be forced to obey the cultural maxims of people who live so far away. The laws
should be executed region-by-region according to the dominant culture there. I
believe this will cause people to develop a more consistent and personal
attachment to the people around them, thus developing social solidarity and
unity.
however, should enough time pass, perhaps the people of Georgia should feel
that they no longer identify as the same nation as the people of Spokane. This
would eventually lead to the dissolution of our great nation, and I do not
believe that's necessarily a good thing. To that end, there must be mechanics
in place that bring people together not just locally, but nationally as well.
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How do you preserve liberty while also ensuring freedom and justice for all?
How do you grant people the power to determine their own fate, yet also the
rights and freedoms that protect them from the cruel injustices of their fellow
man, and the state? It's not an easy question to solve. National identity is
not something you can demand, and yet it is necessary for the interim period
between our cruel despotic past and our bright united future. Though I dream of
a future where the nation-state is irrelevant, that future is still yet to
come, so we cannot act as if it is here already. We must lay the foundation
that the future we desire may be built upon, and to that end we need to utilize
the structures that are present. Structures such as nations, which provide us a
sense of protection from those we cannot know - a sense of dedication, to our
collective community - a sense of safety, that implies our liberties and
freedoms will be ensured by a mechanical organization that is larger than our
community. Essentially, nations give us the hope for our present while we wait
for the day when they are no longer needed.
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The question remains - how do you develop and maintain national cohesion while
also ensuring localized liberty? It cannot be done through culture, as culture
is unique to each home. It cannot be done through litigation, as laws must be
unique to each land. It cannot be done through force, as force deprives us of
justice. It cannot be done through economics, as economics wielded as a weapon
brings inequity and unbalanced hierarchies that surely shall topple. It cannot
be done through any application of the state's authority, so it must be done
using something that cannot be forced.
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In this era, there are sentiments that Texas should desire to secede. This is
just used as an example here, for the future may bear such sentiments from any
land for reasons similar or dissimilar. So, say there is a state that wishes to
secede in the way that Texan mythology describes. What would compel them to
stay? What would compel them to stand united for our collective gain? Perhaps
they could be swayed by gifts of gold or bloodshed, or maybe they simply could
be allowed to do as they please. All three of those options are not desirable,
for reasons that should be apparent. So, to ask again, how do you ensure
national unity in the face of the desire for liberty from unity? Liberty
implies a resistance against oppression, a pushback against the enslavement of
another's will thrust upon an unconsenting subject. So, to resolve this issue,
there must be a reduction in oppression. Ideally, elimination. However,
defining oppression is difficult when so much of our interactions are
determined by trade, national interests, and cultural contestation. There is no
easy answer, but by redefining what a nation implies perhaps we can make the
question irrelevant.
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In a system such as the one I described, it perhaps would be better to describe
it as a "federation" rather than a "nation". Federation implies a set of
standard protocols that allow geographically disparate entities to coexist and
interact in a mutually beneficial way. Much the same way that every apartment
has a kitchen and bathroom, though it be more efficient to centralize them and
have a communal dining hall or bathroom (the way a school dorm or a prison
might be arranged), it is not ideal for our collective sense of liberty and
freedom. In addition, the proposed distributed nature of our infrastructure and
productive capacities would induce inefficiencies that cannot be ignored. So,
perhaps instead of centralization or decentralization, perhaps specialization?
For example, if 3-5 states were experts in a particular good or service, then
they could compete amongst one-another for the best product (utilizing one of
the beneficial impacts of capitalism), while also utilizing localized resources
(reducing inefficiencies in transport) and increasing the resilience of
production. This works well for physical goods, but services are more difficult
because they imply that a person must be physically present in order to engage
with them.
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So for example, if a particular state specializes in a service, say, making
pizza, then any other state which desires their service may contract with them
to utilize their methods and practices in their own state. We all enjoy eating
Domino's or Pizza Hut, but there is also space in our lives for more local
brands that are unique to a region. So perhaps Domino's creates a contract with
each state that states they may utilize their production methods and perhaps
their specially made pizza dough shipped in from wherever their factories may
be. In such a system as this, for each employee employed at one of these pizza
chain restaurants, their wage will be paid to the employee (to facilitate local
commerce) and to the state in which Domino's is from. Note, the company never
receives a dime, but that is by design. Corporations are not people, they
cannot wield money and they cannot vote. However they are productive and useful
members of society, so they shall be utilized as tools to facilitate the
enrichment of the lives of the citizens and the economic development of each
region.
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