So socialism

[Farm Boy]

There's always the Hutterites. They're still kicking.

 

[El_Machinae]

Even a democracy will be an imperfect snapshot of the will of the people. Who's to say that a 50% +1 majority makes a wall 'the will of society'? It's just a definitional argument, where one person just thinks their definition matters more.

And, as for walls keeping people in, this is where the old bugaboo of secession kicks in. If a distinct community doesn't feel well-represented within the whole or has rather different ideas - a 50%+1 of the whole determines whether they can leave or change their local laws? That just doesn't work overall as a moral argument, if only because it spirals into non-supported assumptions awfully quickly.

It's why I value voluntary migration so much when assessing relative quality of countries. There's armchair opinion and then there are explicit beliefs.

 

[Hygro]

??? christiania is a weird situation yes but this kind of baffles me; it's not what a replaced stateless system looks like. not because a bunch of its procedures are indeed marxistly moneyless and such, but because it's an area wholly dependent on and subsidiary of the danish state. it's a fristad/freetown as in "it's complicated" not as in "anarchist haven exists here!" christiania is romantic and does a lot of procedures of syndicalists; it's also wholly dependent on resources, education, police, etc of the danish government. and it does not have the right to do its own policing, because it's not an actual realization of the vision. it has no real power.

understanding the context of the free town and the sheer tinyness and powerlessness of it - not powerless because of its actual size, but because of its size relative to the comparably JUGGERNAUT that is the danish state - should bring light to why this is by no means comparable to wallbuilding of large liberal societies. it's literally like a tiny stack of homes smack in the middle of denmark's urban centre. an urban centre with extremely high population pressure. and in this freetown you live for free. it is not comparable to letting in some mexicans when your pop is 330 mil. it is the actual case of "we can't accomodate this", compared to the abject whining of most western powers.

it's seriously bad form to point at something and go "look this is what you want" (it isn't what he wants, because of its subjugation and dependency making it structurally statist) "and it sucks at what you want!" (which is meaningless because he doesn't want it)

It's also run by mafia.

Not talking with your children sucks.

Imagining this would be different for the Amish, who frequently have very strict community, not just family rules, is sort of in the quadrant that assumes the others love thier kids different. Like welfare moms birth paycheques.

You believe in the death penalty because you think it's the correct outlet for certain feelings in context to other outlets. Deprivation motivations need outlets and their system organizes it quite differently so yeah, it's going to express differently. Taken to its extreme, if your general release can only come from harming your children, harming your children is your happy place.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't, actually. I do want some people to die because I think it would improve the world, but I do not want USA capital punishment. Been true for a long time. Rests in the knowledge that I suck much of the time in fundamental ways.

If you think, however, that the hard-nosed enforcement mechanisms of camera-monitored for-profit rape-prisons in New York state resemble the enforcement mechanism of a mother, unmonitored, hearing the night-weeping of her daughter as her hair grows back out: I think you need to learn that the rules aren't always the rules and it's supposed to be that way. Call it a "theory of rules."

I mean, right? In the general "you" again.

 

[Yeekim]

understanding the context of the free town and the sheer tinyness and powerlessness of it - not powerless because of its actual size, but because of its size relative to the comparably JUGGERNAUT that is the danish state - should bring light to why this is by no means comparable to wallbuilding of large liberal societies. it's literally like a tiny stack of homes smack in the middle of denmark's urban centre. an urban centre with extremely high population pressure. and in this freetown you live for free. it is not comparable to letting in some mexicans when your pop is 330 mil. it is the actual case of "we can't accomodate this", compared to the abject whining of most western powers.

it's seriously bad form to point at something and go "look this is what you want" (it isn't what he wants, because of its subjugation and dependency making it structurally statist) "and it sucks at what you want!" (which is meaningless because he doesn't want it)

Whoa, whoa.

Sure, the question imposed by limited space and resources on one hand and potentially unlimited demand on the other is more acute there than in most other places, but it is by no means unique to Christiania.
And the approach of taking all meaningful decisions by unanimity lies at the very heart of such ... communalism (?). This is how they approach ALL issues, not just "immigration". Blaming this on "structural statism" is bonkers.

 

[Kyriakos]

The death penalty is a primitive function, imo. It's supposed to give closure, by executing a guilty party. This can be extrapolated, of course, and it bleeds out to many other rules.

 

[Hygro]

I don't, actually. I do want some people to die because I think it would improve the world, but I do not want USA capital punishment. Been true for a long time. Rests in the knowledge that I suck much of the time in fundamental ways.

If you think, however, that the hard-nosed enforcement mechanisms of camera-monitored for-profit rape-prisons in New York state resemble the enforcement mechanism of a mother, unmonitored, hearing the night-weeping of her daughter as her hair grows back out: I think you need to learn that the rules aren't always the rules and it's supposed to be that way. Call it a "theory of rules."

I mean, right? In the general "you" again.

Hm, I must have Gorbled your prose for your opinion.

I am in the process of reading your old posts on the subject, but the way you write a) cannot be skimmed and b) since you, perhaps the majority of the time allude to rather than state your subject, I am only finding your posts where you are blatantly declaring yourself against capital punishment and not our conversations where you argued for its virtues-in-context.

As your post count is poised to surpass my own, I must abate.

Still, the logic holds, now un-attached to your take. Prison, in theory, in the First World™ is for enforcing actual crimes, as opposed to mere social norms, where there are harms. And in theory they aren't cruel, nor unusual. I would hate to go to Norwegian prison for any crime I committed. But it is for now a reasonable part of a reasonable system. USA prisons are atrocious, from every direction, and a crime against humanity.

But Amish shunning is for things that aren't crimes in the rest of society. And while sure, the hurt to the empathetic parent is real, and could moderate it some, the "the pain I feel strengthens my resolve that our cruelty course is correct praise God" boner is its own toxicity as well.

 

[Farm Boy]

is for enforcing actual crimes, as opposed to mere social norms

I don't agree. Breaking social norms often quickly, directly or indirectly, becomes criminal. Hell, the social norm could easily be being black and not where you're supposed to be. Unless, of course, we're pitching that premise for the purposes of this discussion?

And those shunned people aren't locked up. They're free to go. They could come to us, but they choose to stay, shunned. That's much different, brutal as shunning may be.

I heard an interview with a shunned man once(who had lived outside for long enough to be suspect), and if he were to be believed, he was shunned for falling for the wrong church-leader's daughter. That I do believe. But still he stayed. His line? "Out there, you're a number. Here? You're a name. You might not be a well liked name. But you're a name." Makes one think about unpopularity(social norms and physical/financial attractiveness) and isolation in our society. Hell, they still feed and do laundry for shunned people. Here? I see what happens to thousands and thousands of vets. Largely people damaged by the super-ego's own hands.

Edit: sorry, edits done for now.

 

[Hygro]

I'm not hoping for anything. "nowhere outside of your hopes that I am can you find that"

Dial it back a bit. We got here from a generic "wall that keeps people out" vs. "wall that keeps people in". You're focusing on a specific example of "keeping people in" that you can then assign excessive moral weight to. Why? We're talking about the general principle.

The "good" vs. "bad" is because you still haven't acknowledged (or maybe I missed it) that people are assigning winners and losers here. Look at the likes on your first post vs. the follow-up where you explicitly call out the fascists (and point out that the wall isn't good for those inside). I know, it's a risk, guessing at why people like posts, but are reasons why that second one was skipped by people reading the thread, vs. the previous one. Maybe it's because it's taking me down a peg, vs. the more agreeable nature of the second. Or maybe it's because of what you explicitly concede vs. what you didn't previously. Maybe it's both! Maybe folks just missed the follow-up. These are all plausible theories. There's a bunch of possible reasons, but I'm trying to get you thinking here.

People are framing this as "good" over "bad" whether you want them to or not. We can't control what others do, but we can introspect on our own arguments and how they're presented, right?

Like I said way back in the original point (and the same went for Lexi): I don't think I can agree that one wall is better or worse than the other wall. I think you can find examples where specific, named, walls are worse, much like anyone can find historical atrocities that are more atrocious than other atrocities. But they're all atrocities. Playing "who's worse" is kinda a zero-sum game (at best), and that's what I'm trying to argue. Does that follow?

And this is before we get anywhere near the nuclear topic of "immigration is good, actually".

Ok this post I quite appreciate.

I suppose then we simply disagree. I don't think this is a game of ranking too-evil-to-redeem actions, where all must be cast beyond the scope of acceptable. I think it is perfectly okay for a society to decide to have a border policy, in the same sense that I think it can regulate substances. I will disagree and think the decisions are immoral but its within the scope of a collective decision with good intentions. I think tribes in the Amazon should be able to protect their lands from foreigners, I think people can do the same from outsiders in their houses, and I think democracies can, almost always wrongly, have national borders with rules on who can enter.

I understand that to have borders it takes two, and everyone counts inside and out.

But almost never do I think it's righteous for a society to say "You can't leave." Maybe it's understandable in contexts to temporary drafts in defense of a nation, something that's also already pretty horrid. But understandable is not the same as okay.

And while almost all immigration-destinations is for material-opportunity reasons, it is still as a baseline trope absent history, a good bet that slowing the intake of a place means its a place people want, and slowing the outtake of a place means its a place people don't want. And in this case, "want" is a simplified word for something more good, and "don't want" is for something more bad.

 

[Hygro]

I don't agree. Breaking social norms often quickly, directly or indirectly, becomes criminal. Hell, the social norm could easily be being black and not where you're supposed to be. Unless, of course, we're pitching that premise for the purposes of this discussion?

Ultimately what is a crime and a social norm has no dividing line. But yeah there's practice and there's theory. Practice of imprisonment is very bad, but its theory is not so bad. Theory of shunning by family for religious reasons is pretty bad.

And those shunned people aren't locked up. They're free to go. They could come to us, but they choose to stay, shunned. That's much different, brutal as shunning may be.

People don't leave abusive relationships, that is true. But where do you go when you aren't equipped for our world and aren't of the temperament of an enterprising immigrant? Plus, how can you get your revenge if you aren't there to make your shunners feel miserable for their cruelty?

 

[Farm Boy]

I think we're criticizing the idea of velvet and lauding the reality of steel.

 

[Hygro]

Norway exists! Not all prisons are American simulations of hell. Liberalism means, as it is slowly realized, all those social conventions aren't criminal, and liberal society is one where its people aren't enforcing extra judicial punishments, which is roughly the reality of many places. This isn't all hypothetical. If you want to make a case for shunning instead of prison for violent crimes, I won't auto-condemn such a thing. Just that shunning by the Amish is an added layer of oppression. The steel truth is that the Amish can still go to New York state prisons for criminal acts.

 

[Farm Boy]

And incarcerated Norwegians can't leave.

Shunning exists in our world all the time. We just don't write down rules for it so we can pretend it isn't there. I recommend you go out into a Target and weep openly as a grown ass 250lb man while Christmas shopping sometime. You will be invisible. Unless a cop shows up.

Or go to the bar trying to get a date while you smell like body odor. You think all that talk about "being attractive, whatever that is for you" doesn't have teeth on the flip?

Edit: I dunno. Maybe a lot of people don't see it. Maybe suicide rates are low in their socioeconomic and demographic brackets. They aren't in mine.

 

[Hygro]

They can leave during Christmas to see their family. Who isn't shunning them. Their society says "for this actual crime that isn't you not being religious enough, you go to jail. But here's time off from jail so that you and your family can love each other at home"

But yes. People ignore people, it hurts. People being weird might result in police especially when you start acting weird among illiberal suburbaanites.

You are leading back to some of the difficulties and cruelties of the current world which would be exacerbated by pursuing the logic of in-group socialists. What is equality, really, and how much do we want, really, and how do we achieve that, really? Because the in-groupers turn very liberal when they get uncomfortable with what they don't want to provide the other, after being very comfortable demanding we have a society that one provides for the other.

 

[Farm Boy]

Amish suicide rates are about 50% of the general population. If we care to rate the despair that a society either generates, or fails to ablate.

Because the in-groupers turn very liberal when they get uncomfortable with what they don't want to provide the other, after being very comfortable demanding we have a society that one provides for the other.

Spoiled children, everywhere! I agree with that, for the record.

 

[Hygro]

I bet if you put in a lot of controls your Amish might have an unusually high suicide rate. Their lifestyle wallops modern depression, purely on exercise and diet alone.

Suicide rates are a clue, but aren't the end all. Women have it better than men by that metric.

 

[Farm Boy]

Society does women better, on that whole.

But if you want to slice and butcher the pieces until you get the cut you want, rather than the beasts with mannerisms and temperaments intact that are there... I guess, fine?

Suicide is an end all measurement.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have to doubt that the majority of Amish people even have any logical view of how the world around them is. They look like a cult. There is nothing good about living with 1600s tech.

 

[Angst]

Whoa, whoa.

Sure, the question imposed by limited space and resources on one hand and potentially unlimited demand on the other is more acute there than in most other places, but it is by no means unique to Christiania.
And the approach of taking all meaningful decisions by unanimity lies at the very heart of such ... communalism (?). This is how they approach ALL issues, not just "immigration". Blaming this on "structural statism" is bonkers.

- christiania's situation in regards to extreme demand for housing is not unique, no, but it's not something any western country on the planet can evoke atm. it's a bad example to evoke when discussing limits to immigration, since christiania's a fishbowl and a unicorn. and on a concrete level the argument for immigration restriction lacks the practicality the proponents of free movement actually under. not everyone is a libertine. like, can't speak for other people, but i'm very radically free movement, doesn't mean i'll support the population of china moving to bornholm, and arguing i'm a hypocrite for not wanting the latter - not saying you're arguing that - has literally no point in addressing my actual beliefs. similarly, i understand the practicality of christiania's control of """migration""", while understanding that the actual danish government's immigration policy is absolute bonkers.

- blaming it on structural statism. uh what. the point about structural statism is that the area is not independent, not wholly self-organizing (although they are to an impressive point), under the jurisdiction of the danish law and police (this has caused a lot of issues for the christianites), wholly dependent on state education, complex tech services and infrastructure, etc. i'm not blaming the unanimous vote system on structural statism (why would i?), i'm noting that christiania is under a statist system; it is not an example of an anarchist anything specifically because of its dependencies on denmark and its subjugation and control under the danish government. exemplifying it as a whatever-commune or concrete representation of the abstractions communists are talking about is unhelpful when it's so wholly dependent on the danish government's sanctioned existence (and under a constant, albeit mild, threat of shutdown). it's a complicated situation where the state tolerates (ie positive-sanctions) some lawbreaking because it's charming & quirky and brings in tourists. communists like the direct democracy, solidary work ethic and fewer issues of the cruelties of finance. and they recognize that christiania is often relatively succesful there when it comes to internal affairs. communists often romanticize the place for that reason. but it's because they don't understand the situation of the freetown. it's not particularly helpful that the place is danish and while having a cult tourist following, it's internationally obscure. there's a lot of filters of language and garbage articles to go through in order to understand how the place operates

edit: shoutout to @Caesar of Bread here: i just want to reiterate/rephrase the above: christiania is not anarchist, in that they're a fishbowl, wholly dependent on government sanctions to exist, wholly dependent on government services, etc. so do not romanticize it as an independent, anarchist nation. it's not. but its internal self-organization is actually reasonably functional, yes, and pretty much follows an anarchist model of organization. it's a very interesting issue to research if you're into anarchism, and has promising aspects to it. but understand that it's not an independent nation or stateless society, regardless of what its citizens believe. it's very much part of denmark because of its jurisdiction and dependencies. both de jure and de facto. ... if anything, visit it sometime if you can. the place is amazing.

It's also run by mafia.

it's really not. i know the nature of the drug cartels that are involved in the area who you're thinking about. but they're not "running" anything.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I read earlier today (and can't find it now) that Norway has set aside ~$288,000 for every Norwegian. The money is in its pension fund from oil revenue.