Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[thathopeyetlives]

I have a vague like (well below the level of actual political preference) for a monarchy.

And, well, I really, really, really don’t like British Monarchy Apologism. It’s simultaneously obscene and cowardly.

[thathopeyetlives]

If we see a restoration it will, and will have to be, different. Above all things the historical aristocratic contempt for all things useful and practical and especially for labor must pass away.

[rendakuenthusiast]

I’m not sure it’s possible to have a monarchy without some level of aristocratic contempt for useful and practical things. What would a non-aristocratic monarchy look like? 

[thathopeyetlives]

I didn’t necessarily say “a non-aristocratic monarchy”.

What I was specifically thinking of is, like, people who form entire cultures around considering Working For A Living to be basically illegitimate, and who then don’t have the saving grace to live in austere and ascetic poverty when their rent fails them.

[mitigatedchaos]

In my ideal nation, the royal family would have the role of safeguarding the nation’s culture (and a few other things) rather than being a tourist attraction or having full political power better reserved for the civilian government.

Their membership would be drawn from national heroes, waning over several generations and requiring new heroes to marry in for the line to remain royal.  So, great artists, great scientists, great warriors, those who have made amazing sacrifices - people who just knowing they’re from your country and embody its ideals, make your heart swell with pride.

This keeps the genetic lines fresh, rewards those who benefit society, helps keep the nation united, and so on.  In many countries the monarchy is reduced to a national mascot and cultural institution - so if we’re going to do that, let’s do it right.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

• Libertarian: let me try an economic argument
• Statist: Efficiency isn't everything!
• Libertarian: ok let me try a moral argument
• Statist: Yeah, but how would that work in the real world?
• Libertarian: ok let me try an ec
• ---
• Libertarian: Voluntary action will solve environmental problems.
• Statist: It's already failing to solve environmental problems in China.
• Libertarian: But the Chinese government is authoritarian and corrupt and is failing to solve environmental problems.
• Statist: But it doesn't prohibit solving environmental problems through voluntary action, they lie about the smog levels being low so they would hardly stop you actually clearing the smog, and other countries have environmental problems managed through government. If voluntary action is enough, why isn't it already there and working?

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

AnCaps acting as if we forgot about workers locked into burning factories, rivers so polluted they became fire hazards, meat packing plants so vile they contributed to more deaths of soldiers than enemy action, women licking radium paint, dumping PFOA in the water supply, and every other abuse by business. They would have us believe voluntary consumer action is sufficient to address all these and other problems, when it already isn’t sufficient now. They say that “well that isn’t worse than what states have done”, but that’s mostly because these companies do not have freely-operating military arms and are instead militarily subordinate to states. Even abolishing LLCs does not actually solve it, since it’s possible to set up alternate webs to escape liability, and it’s far easier and cheaper to cause damage than to fix it. People cheated at Commie rules. No reason they wouldn’t cheat at AnCap rules, too.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

To put the culture post another way: Muslim countries get Muslim laws.  

This isn’t just under democracy, but also dependent on raw ability to wield force, which is also impacted by how big and willing to fight the dominant cultural group is.

If you want a Liberal country, with Liberal laws, then either you need to have a Liberal culture, or someone strong enough and with enough backing to impose Liberal laws.  

If an imported culture gains ground until it replaces the dominant culture, then it will replace the dominant culture’s laws.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[mitigatedchaos]

It isn’t as dangerous, but also the number of police shootings is lower than some people expect, if I recall correctly.

But then, I’ve generally lived in areas where the police would actually come and intervene if there were a problem.  That varies a lot in my country though, by area.  

Lately, in developing a hypothetical/fictional country, I’ve been pondering foot patrol officers assigned to specific neighborhoods (rotated on a five year basis), trained in EMT stuff as well, with the different role of “Community Support Officer”.  Separate out the heavy guys for use solely on bank robbers.

Edit: The idea being that you want someone who can use discretion, who lives nearby and is more of a part of the community than an occupying force within the community.  All sorts of contextual information.  But you don’t want them to stay so long that they set up a bribery network or something.  You’d have to combine this with a whole bunch of other stuff to make it work, though.  It isn’t so helpful if your CSO arrests some kid for vandalism after several warnings and the prosecutor sends him to prison in order to max his “woo, tough on crime!” ratings.  (Instead of, you know, making the kid clean up the spray paint.)

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[ranma-official]

I’ve no clue why I keep reflexively defending cops given the fact that I’ve been a victim of a crime several times and the cops never did anything to satisfyingly help

[mitigatedchaos]

Based on your blog’s usual content, I imagine you’re encountering people that want to get rid of the police force entirely (or something equally wacky), which will go about as well as that time the police went on strike in Brazil.

You also probably realize on some level that better policing is possible, just like better zoning laws are possible, and better drug laws are possible, and… now if only improving the overall quality of government were as exciting as social wedge issues.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

multiheaded1793 asked:

Solution to the previous anon: GTFO those two places, you are the traffic, etc.

wirehead-wannabe answered:

The point of the two-income trap is that housing prices are rising faster than can be accounted for simply by expanding populations, iirc

[mitigatedchaos]

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[Oceans Yet to Burn]

Anonymous asked:

Yeah, I think it would probably be deemed to be a tip and not a gift. Just *saying* "this is a personal gift and not taxable" isn't a magic spell you can recite to make something nontaxable! Of course, nobody's going to actually care about an unreported, looks like $7 there, per se, but if it's a regular thing it could be a problem.

argumate answered:

I think to make it stick you’d have to switch to a complete gift economy, where you regularly give gifts to people who aren’t currently providing you services, and don’t give gifts to people who are (as that is their gift to you).

That works for small groups, but doesn’t work so well in cities of millions where you can’t effectively maintain personal social ties with every single person you might possibly interact with. Then if you use an app or something to keep track of gifts you’ve just invented a new form of currency, which would actually be kind of cool.

[mitigatedchaos]

On the magic spell angle, see also SovCits who are too dumb to realize that the state is not validated by laws but by force. (Property, of course, also ultimately comes from force and not moral law.)