Funny, I was just reading all about that whole mess yesterday on Wikipedia.

Yeah, I saw a headline so I went to the Wikipedia to find a name, then just ended up jumping around between pages.

which irc network do you hang out on?

Truly an inspiring soul.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to suffering...

If only someone could find a solution to the (false?) dilemma of Government vs. Anarchy... isn't there a way to land in a stable balance-state between the two, where slippery slopes don't lead in either direction and (most) people are satisfied?... even democracies or republics can turn sour when times are hard or the oligarchs want to stir things up (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Germany 1930s, America 1990s-present...)

Government supposedly was created to solve the problem of the weak being exploited by the strong (at least, that's what the "social contract" and all the other bullshit American students learn in Social Studies classes in elementary school tells us)... but from what I've learned in anthropology and ancient history courses, I've come to believe that it's more of a protection racket where the powerful organize the less-powerful to "protect" them against the other groups, which were also organized for "protection"... yet overall, the only winners are the leaders, who get the power and the wealth. Then when the people try to change things, they're "endangering security" and have to be oppressed.

I guess it's just human nature - grab power, hold onto it by any means necessary, and lie, lie, lie about why power is needed and why you're keeping it. Whatever you call the lies (like calling giving the rich the right to get richer "trickle-down economics" or "compassionate conservatism," a fascistic nationalist party the "Liberal Democrats" (Russia; Zhirinovsky) or the "National Socialists" (Germany; Hitler), a government power grab the "Patriot Act"...), they're still lies. Government exists, by and large, for the purpose of control. It happens to be a side effect of that centralization of command and control that defense (and offense) becomes easier, and thus the cohesion of the group is easier to maintain against outside threats... and thus government has grown and continued to centralize power and specialize government workers, making the system more and more complex and micromanaging (necessary for controlling large numbers of people), and of course, more expensive and intrusive.

And I really can't see much of a solution to things; power corrupts, but power also controls. The love of money is the root of evil, but money talks and bullshit walks. Revolutions occur once in a while and temporarily upset the balance (and I believe they're necessary to remove the stasis which the powerful attempt to maintain), but the pendulum will always swing back toward centralization of power and control, especially with the complexity and ease of communication our worldwide society enjoys today... without a government, or at least powerful individuals (say, corporate heads or celebrities), many technological systems would degrade; the Internet would become like the road system of the pre-revolution Colonies, with tollbooths and pikes every few miles so you could pay the local overlord to cross their land; the laws would be so patchwork that no one could get anything done without breaking at least a few... we hate it when Congress steps in to regulate things, but human nature being what it is, there will always be a few assholes who'll exploit anything they can unless there's the threat of jail or losing their money... without government, I'd have to round up a posse of my friends and neighbors if someone stole my car, find the culprit, and force him to give it back or die.

I'm rambling, probably because I'm tired. But I guess the upshot is... we'll always have these problems, simply because of the way the "game" is set up... we're creatures of Order, we use energy, and those patterns which have more Order and more energy to use to maintain that Order, will tend to last longer, even at the expense of diversity of patterns or conservation of energy or the "right" of other patterns to exist and use their own resources as they see fit. Might makes right, whether that Might is physical, intellectual, or societal...

I suppose the only way to "even the balance" would be if the strong had consciences which nagged them to be kinder to the weak... yet that would be a disadvantage, and they'd be overthrown eventually by someone willing to be more ruthless...