Do you believe there is some force that justifies separating the collective governing entity as conditional? If the stereotypical person is only shamed into submission by a threat of violence, what forces are in play that curb the same behavior when they collectivize? Why should the governance turn inward only? In your apple analogy, there are two fundamental forms of violence, both the individual stealing – an act of offensive aggressive violence, and the merchant cheating the individual – an act of devious opportunity generally speaking. Why should a government only carry out this violence internally towards constituents, but not externally towards others in the equivalent of stealing the apple?

You’re asking a question that relates to IR theory of anarchy, and the short answer is that governments, on the national scale, carry out the same behavior that individuals do in the absence of central conflict resolution authority - and, in the same way, develop towards increasing centralization amongst themselves to fulfill the purpose of deterrence against outside forces (in the broadest sense, universalist orgs like the UN; in a narrower and more recognizable sense, supranational entities like NATO and the EU which have real, though not infinite, power to compel their members states).

Your question of “Why shouldn’t it?” is irrelevant; the correct question would be “Why doesn’t it?”, since what’s being discussed is the world as it is, not the world as we wish it to be.

And the answer to the latter question would be a negation of the base assertion that it doesn’t: it absolutely does, and has, through all of history, layered over a thousand different moral codes and cultural norms; that practical, opportunistic extension of violence by states and protostates has always reasserted itself in the absence of restraining factors. Just like it does in societies of individuals.

This is “how it follows” in my mind. A government is not independent of the people and cultures it represents. If the people are motivated by violence, so is the government, unless you have some kind of mechanism that can clearly alter why one can act in some different way than the other. If there is such a mechanism, I would argue that this is the deeper fundamental truth.

People are not just beliefs and cultures. People are animals as well, with animal desires and animal feelings, and, for that matter, limited information in any given situation. And again, you go back to ‘motivation’ when I’ve clearly and explicitly stated, in contradiction to that very claim, that it’s not a question of motivation, but restraint.

This seems extremely idealized and unrealistic compared to reality. The State does nothing against most theft on both sides of transactions. Almost all goods sold are being cheated to various extents in the USA. I’ve worked retail and even when several thousands of dollars are involved, the police are useless.

Holy fucking shit, man, if you think that modern states do nothing against theft, I really don’t know what the fuck to tell you. “The police don’t catch shoplifters!” is blatantly untrue, in any case - in fact, it’s one of the more pointless and resource-wasteful things they do in the modern day as part of performative security.

When I ran my business painting cars, I dealt with lots of dishonest businesses. I was cheated many times, but that burns bridges. I worked with many of the same 3rd party vendors at many different used car dealerships. We would all talk about stuff like this. When someone doesn’t pay their bills, everyone basically pulls the business’s credit and demands immediate payment, raises their rates, or stops working with the business. Those people never did well or stayed in business for very long. It is never in a person’s best interest to behave badly in their local region. At the individual level, the person is not primarily restrained by a threat of violence, but because of opportunities and stability required for cohabitation. The only scope where one is restrained by violence, in my opinion, is if long term planning and well-being are not factors. In this context, we may as well substitute humans for any other moderately complex animal.

This is some libertarian “The market will regulate itself!” thinking that doesn’t actually work out the way it’s claimed to. Fuck’s sake.

Anyways, I acknowledge that there is a threat of violence, but I don’t see that as any deterrent myself.

You don’t see negative consequences as a deterrent.

That’s an, uh, interesting life philosophy you have there. I can’t help but imagine that you’ve had some exceptional luck to last this long with that in mind.

I view this violence like shame based ethics in religion. Shame can’t motivate positive behavior. It can only discourage what it labels as wrong behavior.

…

What the ever-loving fuck do you think theft and unlawful violence is being defined as here

I find all such systems of ethics deeply flawed. They incentivise opposing behavior without getting caught, and they create a culture without individual independent ethics. If this is the only motivation, I can easily thrive by not getting caught.

Yes, this is why systems of retribution and coercion focus on performing retribution and violence on actors, instead of just punching blindly at the air?

How would you describe your awareness of all the products you interact with daily? Could you tell me how each product you encounter is being exploited for dishonest profit?

… isn’t that contrary to your claim that you regulate the behavior of others with your own, rational self-interest market choices, not contrary to my claim of having subcontracted out regulation of market behavior to a centralized authority?

Christ.

I understand the premise, but it comes across as unrealistically idealist in practice and execution to the point where holding it up linea standard is a billboard for why one should violate it in practice.

This is probably the first time I’ve heard basic social contract theory in the vein of Hobbes’ Leviathan be called ‘unrealistically idealist’.

My policy is to trust openly, but never forgive infractions against me. I have no expectations of enforcement by some government. I only take measured risks I can afford to lose.

… okay?

A common conundrum with science-fiction teleporters is that they’re often described as breaking down, and then recreating, matter.

With a human being (or other sentient life form), this brings up the philosophical question of whether the ‘recreated’ you is really you? If you were taken apart in chunks, and then someone put an exact copy of you back together from those chunks, would it still be the same ‘you’ that was taken apart? Or would it be a new ‘you’, some copy or clone with all of your memories?

The joke is that trolley problems are usually used to portray moral dilemmas, so the teleporter is a subversion by rendering the trolley question irrelevant.

Gotta remind the complacent goons that oppression has consequences. 👍

To every force there is an equal and opposite counterpart. We have established that violence to gain advantage is justified, and we outsourced our violence to a much larger entity. Therefore by this fundamental basal ethos, we must expect that that larger entity shares our values.

Not really. As I mentioned, the outsourcing of violence is conditional - the larger entity can only expect compliance insofar as it seeks to address the concerns of those under its jurisdiction.

Only now, this entity has many opportunities where it has no larger rival. It must then use violence to gain advantage. This plays out as an expansionist policy because as weaker entities are encountered, this government must act in the exploitive interest of its constituency and destroy or incorporate the smaller entity’s resources…

How does that follow in any way?

That is what I see as far as I can gather from this abstraction of violence as a basal motivation underpinning all social engagement.

Violence here is not a ‘basal motivation’, violence is a constraint upon action. There is a distinct difference. You don’t buy an apple because you crave to use the coercive apparatus of the state against an innocent merchant. You are restrained in your options to purchase, rather than theft, by the coercive apparatus of the state; and on the other side of the coin, that same coercive apparatus forbids the merchant explicitly cheating you in this interaction.

If you think that cooperation is the law of the jungle between strangers, you really need to read up on early human societies.

I’m also super cynical about the legal system, with extensive first hand experience of how it is not in any way shape or form a justice system outside of fantasy fiction. If you do not have around $250k to burn, the US legal system is not made to help you.

Man, if you have ever done any research on alternative legal systems to modern, Western legal systems, it might become more apparent that there are far worse systems out there than our’s - even including the US, which is one of the poorer of the modern lot. And in societies without robust legal systems to regulate violence, things are even fucking worse than that.

Pointing out that the rich have outsized advantages in our system is true, and a necessary point to make as a general criticism of the system. Using it as some sort of proof that only the rich benefit from it is utter insanity.

From some perspective, you might say I was acting as the larger outsourced entity in the aforementioned scenario, but then what was my motivational factor? In truth, it was kindness, empathy, and altruism. I saw a need, I recognized the opportunity, and I put myself in danger for the benefit of someone else and with no potential benefit to myself.

Okay? How does that in any way contradict that the usage of violence as deterrent in societies?

I feel no desire to outsource offense, and that is probably what bugs me most. Your theory seems to justify expansion and to turn outward instead of inward. Perhaps I misunderstand what you are saying in this regard.

What?

Workers taking action, love to see it.

Violence is typically taken up by actors on their behalf. In an organized state this is, well, generally the state. In non-state activity, this tends to be their friends and family. In societies with weak or nonexistent centralized states, you see this in the form of honor societies being willing to have the young and healthy take up arms and feuds on behalf of offenses against elderly, children, or disabled who they have ties with.

I don’t think violently hurting people is a good idea.

A lot of people forget, due to the exceptionally stable nature of modern Western society, that society is built on violence. We, as citizens of a polity, subcontract out our violence to a central state. And this is, to at least some degree, a good thing - there’s a central entity which can be observed and judged and regulated, rather than a million people all trying to enforce and judge one another’s usage of violence as justified or unjustified.

But ultimately, such subcontracting of violence is conditional - as long as the central state represents our rights adequately, to at least some degree, people are willing to continue to surrender their own sovereign right to commit violence to it. Whenever the central state does not represent a citizen’s rights adequately, the citizen often withdraws that surrender of sovereignty - either in total or, more often, conditionally - to protect their own rights.

When you make a contract - even in something as small as buying an apple - you are relying on the threat of force from the state to back it - “We will forcibly remove property or freedom from you if you violate this contract.” Violence is a part of everyday life - what’s important is to act in such a way that minimizes the need for it. In the case of defense of LGBT rights, sometimes that means using violence as a means of deterrence against the violence of bigots that is insufficiently deterred by state action.

With “thank you” cards?

“Thank you for respecting our identity :)” written on a brick.

Show it to friends, ‘show it’ to foes.

Man, if being ineffective stopped Dem policy, we’d have a lot less Dem policy.

Take the deal, institute a 99% wealth tax on billionaires anyway.

God, I wish the Dems had the balls for that.

You’re joking right

Sorry, do you not remember who the de-facto leader of the Northern Alliance was?

Things the US will forget:

Korean War (3mil civilian dead)

Vietnam War (2mil civilian dead)

Iraqi War (1mil civilian dead)

Imagine thinking that the US has forgotten any of these when they’re a constantly pressure on the cultural zeitgeist even literal decades later. Or, for that matter, that the Korean War is in any way comparable.

Violent overthrow of Afghanistan (twice, over 1 mil dead)

Twice? Christ, tell me you aren’t talking about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Not to mention that the ‘overthrow’ of ‘Afghanistan’ the second time would rely on recognizing the Taliban, and not the democratically-oriented Northern Alliance which was fighting them at the time, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

Yes yes I understand why Jolani needs to work with a genocidal state which openly says it wants to annex Syria and is doing it now. Very smart!

Weren’t you just advocating for Jolani to side with Iran, a state which quite openly supported genocide with military force in Syria out of a desire to keep it as a puppet state, and which is still attempting to overthrow the current Syrian government in order to replace it with their puppet?

Jesus Christ. Either absolutely disingenuous, or zero self-reflection. You’re all for genocidal states until it’s Bad Camp, I guess.

Good.

So funny how all of them come from Saudi then isn’t it?

Jesus fucking Christ. “I’m not racist, I’m just asking questions about why all these ISIS are BORN IN SAUDI ARABIA”

10/10.

Wahabism is the Saudi state idology

Yes.

and exclusively spread by the Saudis.

No. But considering your position dehumanizing all oppressed peoples as helpless puppets that need a Campist Savior™ like you to guide them, it’s unsurprising that you think as much.

You can stop opening Google and digging yourself in a hole.

Sorry that I’m relatively well-read on the matter. I understand that your games of internet telephone with your fellow ‘anti-imperialist’ friends who can’t tell the difference between Islamist groups and switch sides as often as is needed to oppose ‘bad camp’ are much more entertaining than actual history.

He didn’t leave ISIS. He never joined. Al-Baghdadi attempted to ‘soft coup’ and fold the Al-Nusra Front under his command, which did not satisfy the more Al-Qaeda aligned Jolani. Nor did it, for that matter, satisfy Al-Qaeda, which both groups pledged nominal allegiance to at the time.

Jolani’s atrocities are a different discussion entirely. You can be shitty and Islamist without being part of ISIS. And, for that matter, you can be brutal without being ISIS.

Yes the guy who worked with Al Baghdadi has no relation to ISIS. Put a new sticker on it and it’s good to go!

“Wow two Jihadis that fought the US occupation in Iraq worked together at one point, clearly this means that ISIS and Al-Nusra are the same!”

It’s amazing that people like you claim to be anti-imperialist whilst maintaining a Bush Administration level of understanding of the Middle East. Can’t wait 'til you advocate an invasion of Ba’athist Iraq to defeat Al-Qaeda.

ISIS and Al Qaeda are both Saudi Wahabi groups. You clearly have no idea what the deal with Wahabis is and should probably read up on that if you think it implies racism.

That you think him being born in Saudi Arabia has anything to do with ISIS, or that Wahhabis are exclusively Saudi instead of a religious movement which has been spread across MENA since the 18th goddamn century, when it started, with only a brief suppression with the popularity of secular Ba’athist ideology in the Cold War, is immensely racist.

Sorry that you can’t see why quoting where someone is born as proof of their ISIS credentials is immensely fucking racist.

A 2021 PBS interview with Jolani revealed that he was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as an oil engineer until 1989.

Oh no. Born in Saudi Arabia. Clearly this means he is ISIS.

Definitely not a racist connection for you to make. /s

In that year, the Jolani family returned to Syria, where he grew up and lived in the Mezzeh neighbourhood of Damascus.

He LIVED in SYRIA as a child? Holy shit, he’s deep ISIS

Jolani’s journey as a jihadist began in Iraq, linked to al-Qaeda through the Islamic State (IS) group’s precursor - al-Qaeda in Iraq and, later, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

After the 2003 US-led invasion, he joined other foreign fighters in Iraq and, in 2005, was imprisoned at Camp Bucca, where he enhanced his jihadist affiliations and later on was introduced to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the quiet scholar who would later go on to lead IS.

“Jolani fought under Al-Qaeda during the Iraq Occupation” isn’t really all that compelling for your narrative of “He was ISIS” when the whole point here is that you couldn’t tell the difference between ISIS and Al-Qaeda, despite all your posturing about how other people are ignorant and racist.

In 2011, Baghdadi sent Jolani to Syria with funding to establish al-Nusra Front, a covert faction tied to ISI. By 2012, Nusra had become a prominent Syrian fighting force, hiding its IS and al-Qaeda ties.

From your own source, literally starting the sentence after this, which I will generous assume you just didn’t read instead of disingenuously reading and then disregarding in the hope of quoting a misleading narrative:

Tensions arose in 2013 when Baghdadi’s group in Iraq unilaterally declared the merger of the two groups (ISI and Nusra), declaring the creation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), and publicly revealing for the first time the links between them.

Jolani resisted, as he wanted to distance his group from ISI’s violent tactics, leading to a split.

To get out of that sticky situation, Jolani pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, making Nusra Front its Syrian branch.

From the start, he prioritised winning Syrian support, distancing himself from IS’s brutality and emphasising a more pragmatic approach to jihad.