And this "law of life" stuff. It's a non-concept. The videos compare it to empirically determined physical laws, and offer NO SUPPORT for this argument, besides just repeating the lie over and over again.
Bullshit. Just because our civ hasn't collapsed yet doesn't mean its 100% immune to a future collapse. The only reason our civ hasn't collapsed is b/c of ongoing state aggression.
Is that F4M in that one video? Because the kid makes about as much sense as he does.
No that's not me. Why would you think it is?
Oh, and this repeated assertion that "every civilization that has existed has collapsed". This is utterly false. Civilizations rarely collapse, but States do. Roman "civilization" didn't collapse. The Roman STATE did. The Egyptian civilization didn't collapse, the Egyptian STATE did. And so often, the results of these collapses isn't the result of some massive systemic failure, but rather a weakening, followed by an invasion of another group of civilized or otherwise organized peoples.
Civilizations have collapsed. What about Sumer, Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley civ, the Mayans or many others?
No, that's not the way this works. You and your sources claim that "every civilization in the past has collapsed". That's just false. There are many civilizations that have more or less withstood millienia. Most civilizations have never really fallen apart. They just go through reorganizations, abliet often ones filled with violence or hardship. You don't get to just name a few that have suffered collapses or dispersals and then some up with some infalliable "law" that all civilizations must follow.
Your switching concepts again here. Nobody is stating that modern civilization is "100% immune" from collapse. I can come up with numerous scenerios that would cause a collapse, from pandemic to a cosmic event. However, this is VASTLY different than your position, which is that civilization is CERTAIN to collapse. So much so that we should just dump everything, reorganize our lives around that assumption, and return to a primitive state. The "law of life" as you're describing it, as far as I can tell, is based on a novel, not any actual body of science or philosophy. You then present the idea that this "law" can be equated to the laws of physics. This is ludicrous and intellectually dishonest. Get out.
So if americans decide to become hunters and pick off the land. how long does this last until every animal is gone or every berry is picked? If we all migrate south for the winter what about the people lalready living there that have gathered most resources. Are we ALLOWED to fish? Or throwing a spear in the water the only fishing allowed? What about boats? Think of places like japan (high population with little land). Are boats too advanced for society that it'll destroy civilization?
Why should I care if there's some kind of mass die-off if I'm living freely and suficiently after civ's collapse? I don't put individuals behind imaginary collectives. If other individuals don't want to learn the skills needed to survive then its their own problem.
Civilizations have collapsed. What about Sumer, Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley civ, the Mayans or many others? No, that's not the way this works. You and your sources claim that "every civilization in the past has collapsed". That's just false. There are many civilizations that have more or less withstood millienia. Most civilizations have never really fallen apart. They just go through reorganizations, abliet often ones filled with violence or hardship. You don't get to just name a few that have suffered collapses or dispersals and then some up with some infalliable "law" that all civilizations must follow.
Name some of those civs which have "more or less withstood millienia" because I can't think of any which have without severe massive amounts of violence to sustain them. The only reason our civ survives is b/c of violence. In order to keep ag going the state needs to invade other places when the land in its own territory bottoms out. I believe in the NAP so I reject ag the same way I reject eating animal products and statism.
Or how about this: name me one civ that's still around today that's been 100% peaceful.
So much so that we should just dump everything, reorganize our lives around that assumption, and return to a primitive state.
And what's wrong with that?
Freedom4Me73986:Will you learn the definition of "ad hominem" and quit incorrectly invoking it everytime someone points out the hypocrisy of your entire philosophy? Pointing out someone's supposed hypocrisy IS an ad hom attack.
Pointing out someone's supposed hypocrisy IS an ad hom attack.
Perhaps I used a imprecise term. Pointing out the paradoxical, oxymoronic nature of the philosophy that is the topic of discussion is not ad hominem. It is just something you have no way to respond to, so you claim you are being personally attacked and then try to change the subject, or just reply with a video.
Will you respond to the videos Ive posted or are you going to ramble on about how I'm using a computer at the moment?
Will you address the fact that your philosophy contradicts itself, and you contradict your philosophy every time you get on here, or are you just going to keep posting bullshit videos that are the product of the very civilization and technology they are intended to claim is evil and inherently destructive?
Running out of berries and animals to eat isn't the same as carrying the know how to make a stick into a spear. Great, you have the knowledge of survival. What will you eat when most things become scarce? Even if you know what can or cannot be eaten when most common things are gone doesn't mean no one else will follow your ideas. People will learn what can and can't as well. Long run your screwed.
No one is that stupid though. People would start to farm. Thus, increasing the stock on meat and vegetables. Trade would develop and there you go we have civilization. oh no...
John James: Perhaps I used a imprecise term. Pointing out the paradoxical, oxymoronic nature of the philosophy that is the topic of discussion is not ad hominem. It is just something you have no way to respond to, so you claim you are being personally attacked and then try to change the subject, or just reply with a video.
Exactly. What F4M fails to realize, is that by not practicing what he preaches, we can only conclude that he does not believe what he is saying. Consider:
We can only conclude that I do not actually believe that aggression is immoral, bad, and evil. It is obviously the same with F4M:
We can only conclude that F4M does not believe a word of what he is saying, else he would stop doing all actions that he "considers" to be immoral and evil.
gotlucky:Exactly. What F4M fails to realize, is that by not practicing what he preaches, we can only conclude that he does not believe what he is saying.[...]
True as that may be, that wasn't even my point. I was merely pointing out the paradox he is faced with in admitting he could not survive outside of civilization...without the help of civilization.
His entire philosophy is debunked by his own admission.
John James: True as that may be, that wasn't even my point.
True as that may be, that wasn't even my point.
There's just that many layers to how wrong he is!
gotlucky:Exactly. What F4M fails to realize, is that by not practicing what he preaches, we can only conclude that he does not believe what he is saying.[...] True as that may be, that wasn't even my point. I was merely pointing out the paradox he is faced with in admitting he could not survive outside of civilization...without the help of civilization. His entire philosophy is debunked by his own admission.
Why does it matter that I'm using the internet to help me learn primitive survival? How is that any more hypocritical of you using state resources to learn how to fight the state?
F4M: Why does it matter that I'm using the internet to help me learn primitive survival?
Why does it matter that I'm using the internet to help me learn primitive survival?
See my above post here.
F4M: How is that any more hypocritical of you using state resources to learn how to fight the state?
How is that any more hypocritical of you using state resources to learn how to fight the state?
We do not view the tools of the state as inherently immoral, whereas you find the tools of civilization inherently immoral. The resources of the state have been taken from ourselves and other citizens. When we use these resources, we are only using what is rightfully ours and our fellow citizens. We do not consider these tools to be immoral.
You claim to find these tools to be immoral, yet you use them anyway. How do you live with youself?
EDIT: Fixed a quote fail.
Clayton:This is the official Freedom4Me thread. F4M, can you please post your anti-civilization posts to this thread instead of the low-content threads? We will be just as happy to debunk and ridicule you in this thread and forego the cluttering up of the low-content threads.
I guess I see the use in quarantining F4M by banishing his dogma to his own thread, but really...why is this being debated? F4M is, by far, the most embarrassing member I have encountered on these forums yet. Sorry for the Ad Hominem, F4M, it's just the way i feel.
"If men are not angels, then who shall run the state?"
Freedom4Me73986:Why does it matter that I'm using the internet to help me learn primitive survival? How is that any more hypocritical of you using state resources to learn how to fight the state?
I don't lobby and buy off members of congress to further my libertarian agenda. You do use the internet, computers, video cameras, etc, to further your anti-civ agenda (or whatever it is that you are). I will concede you one point that does give me pause every day (and guys please correct me if I'm being illogical) but if we ridicule these people for using cameras (something they consider evil) to further their ideology, then what makes us any better by using ron paul and (hopefully) the office of the presidency (something we consider inherently evil) to further our ideology? I think this has been discussed elsewhere, and I still feel at odds with it. F4M doesn't seem to have any problem at all with his cognitive dissonance.
Civilization Destructive! So I Destroy Civilization! Nom! Nom! Nom!
Very funny.
Looks like no one answered my question: which civilizations still exist today that haven't engaged in massive amounts of violence?
Define "violence". Is my immune system wiping out a bacterial infection violent?
Clayton -
F4M: Looks like no one answered my question: which civilizations still exist today that haven't engaged in massive amounts of violence?
Why does it matter?
Watch this
Absolutely not. You can tell me in your own words.
It's like this:
Agriculture replaces hunting and gathering. Civilization grows.
Human population grows to the point where humans are completely dependent on ag and can never go back.
Civilization gives birth to the state.
Humans need more land for ag, so the state conquers more land for ag via violence.
More ag = more population growth.
More population growth + state = more lands needed for ag.
Old ag lands can no longer grow food. More lands needed and more conquest by the state.
More ag increases the population.
All lands are taken over by states. Ag is bottoming out, so states subsidize more technology like GMO, chemical fertilizer, pesticides.
Industrial ag ends up killing the lands and causes the human population to double within a few generatiions.
All evidence shows that a civ collapse is in the near future. There's no way this cycle can keep going w/o a massive crash and die-off. What happens when ALL the land is no longer good for ag?
Freedom4Me73986:What happens when ALL the land is no longer good for ag?
Well, if your hypothesis is true that all the land will be ruined, then your hunter-gather method of survival will be pointless because in this Armageddon scenario of yours, one of two things will occur: 1) there will be no land to sustain even the most primal of eco-systems, which means no food for you to hunt or gather, which means starvation, which means very imminent death....or....2) What little land is untouched will be quickly usurped via the state or civ resulting in scenario 1. Either way, you, sir, are fucked. What all this means is that, IF you are right, no kind of preparation even matters because total annihilation of the Earth is inevitable anyway.
Why do you think i plan on homesteading acres and acres of land up in NH for me to gather my food supply on?
Freedom4Me73986:Why do you think i plan on homesteading acres and acres of land up in NH for me to gather my food supply on?
Let me know how well that homesteading thing goes for you. I'm sure you'll be real successful at that endeavor, given how much of a push-over the state has been the past 100+ years regarding homesteading of the oceans or any other land for that matter. Im sure they'll be especially generous when their land is made worthless for ag and they need what little fertile land they can get to sustain their ag-schemes you have so thoroughly warned us about. There's no way they'll just take it from you by force. Nah, they never use force to get what they want. They'll just ask you nicely, and then if you say "No" they will just leave you alone, im sure.
Wake up, man. Your idea doesn't even sound great, much less realistic. At least Marx had an idea that, superficially, sounded nice. You're dropping one serious sinister ball on this forum when you start preaching a return to the stone age on an internet discussion board filled with people who's most cherished ideal is that of the technological progression of society through means of the division of labor, especially when absent the state. To be honest, living as I do now, existing and functioning inside and despite the state, is still preferable to your ideal of running around naked, hoping that I might stumble upon a bush of berries (that won't poison me) before I am hunted and eaten by some wild animal. How much are you willing to give up to avoid civ in some form? Are you going to live alone? If you form a tribe, even a completely decentralized one, or even a mere hunting team, you have established some semblance of a civ, have you not? I appreciate the passion you've shown for this idea, day after tireless day, all in the face of unending scrutiny and truly viscous ridicule from the many members of this forum who have taken time out of their day just to tell you what fool you are. You have shown some serious (perhaps even stubborn) loyalty to your ideals, and I salute you for that, if for nothing else. But, most importantly, I think JJ put it best many months ago when he asked you over and over, "Why are you here?" If you really do believe what you are telling us, then put your money where your mouth is and go all in. If you KNOW you are right, then you can't afford to spend another second writing on this forum. GO OUT and prove us wrong. I'll even wish you good luck, just not here.
John James:Pointing out the paradoxical, oxymoronic nature of the philosophy that is the topic of discussion is not ad hominem. It is just something you have no way to respond to, so you claim you are being personally attacked and then try to change the subject, or just reply with a video.
+1 The Texas Trigger
One way of gauging the extent of "harmonious" development of all of the individual's powers in the absence of specialization is to consider what actually happened during primitive or preindustrial eras. And, indeed, many socialists and other opponents of the Industrial Revolution exalt the primitive and preindustrial periods as a golden age of harmony, community, and social belonging?a peaceful and happy society destroyed by the development of individualism, the Industrial Revolution, and the market economy. In their exaltation of the primitive and the preindustrial, the socialists were perfectly anticipated by the reactionaries of the Romantic movement, those men who longed to roll back the tide of progress, individualism, and industry, and return to the supposed golden age of the preindustrial era. The New Left, in particular, also emphasizes a condemnation of technology and the division of labor, as well as a desire to "return to the earth" and an exaltation of the commune and the "tribe." As John W. Aldridge perceptively points out, the current New Left virtually constitutes a generational tribe that exhibits all the characteristics of a uniform and interchangeable herd, with little or no individuality among its members.
...
If we consider the supposed happiness of primitive man, we must also consider that his life was, in the famous phrase of Hobbes, "nasty, brutish, and short." There were few medical aids against disease; there were none against famine, for in a world cut off from interregional markets and barely above subsistence any check to the local food supply will decimate the population. Fulfilling the dreams of Romantics, the primitive tribe is a passive creature of its given environment and has no means for acting to overcome and transform it. Hence, when the local food supply within an area is depleted, the "happy-go-lucky" tribe dies en masse.
Furthermore, we must realize that the primitive faces a world which he cannot understand, since he has not engaged in much of a rational, scientific inquiry into its workings. We know what a thunderstorm is, and therefore take rational measures against it; but the savage does not know, and therefore surmises that the God of Thunder is displeased with him and must be propitiated with sacrifices and votive offerings. Since the savage has only a limited concept of a world knit together by natural law (a concept which employs reason and science), he believes that the world is governed by a host of capricious spirits and demons, each of which can only be propitiated by ritual or magic, and by a priest-craft of witch doctors who specialize in their propitiation. [33] The renaissance of astrology and similar mystic creeds on the New Left marks a reversion to such primitive forms of magic. So fearful is the savage, so bound is he by irrational taboo and by the custom of his tribe, that he cannot develop his individuality.
- Rothbard
Rothbard didn't know what he was talking about here. Primitive man was WAY happier, healthier and better-off then civilized man. All disease we have comes from civilization in some way or another. Why are H/Gs today hardly ever sick when our civ is ridden w/ diseases of all sorts?
And where does Rothbard get the idea that H/Gs lives were short?
Freedom4Me73986:Primitive man was WAY happier [...]
How exactly would you know this?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
From studies researching men from 30k years ago. Duh.
gotlucky:From studies researching men from 30k years ago. Duh.
studies = civ
So, there were scientists, 30K years ago, researching them?
Yeah, there were. JJ posted a picture of one right above your post.
http://www.contra-versus.net/uploads/6/7/3/6/6736569/john_zerzan_against_civilization_readings-and-reflections1.pdf
Zerzan is totally wrong on a lot of things too (namely that private property or markets dont exist w/o civ) but he is right about why civilization is causing human extinction.
Zerzan is totally wrong ... that private property or markets dont exist w/o civ
Zerzan is wrong when he says private property was an outcome of civilization. He's not an economist so I give him some slack on that, but if he had more of a basic understanding of things he'd know that private property exists inherently, as do markets.
Markets do not exist without civilization.
All voluntary transactions are part of the market. Markets exist inherently.
I'm no longer sure what you mean by the word 'civilization'. Do you define it as 'anything that happens after we start planting our food instead of foraging'?