What would happen

[Joe]

Imagine that tomorrow the US govt. declares that there will be no more elections in the US, either at state or national level; that power was being handed over to a cabal of elitists, which would include present and former politicians and corporate big wigs, and that henceforth they would privately choose officials to run the country from their own ranks and from anywhere else they saw fit.

What, if anything, do we think the response would be from any section of the US population?

 

[psychegram]

Helpless muttering for the most part.

The poli sci departments of universities across the country are resounding with the cry that democracy ain't all it's cracked up to be. Just before G20 in Toronto, there was a column published in the Globe & Mail, Canada's largest and supposedly liberal newspaper, in which the author essentially calls for a fascist takeover under the logic that it took Mussolini to balance Italy's mess of a budget. The zeitgeist is being prodded in this direction quite rapidly and enough people seem to be nodding along that at this point, I expect many would be secretly relieved or even pleased.

 

[Joe]

That's what I was thinking too. People would just accept it because, somewhere in the back of their minds, they know they are already living under such a system. The actual truth of the matter is that there have been no free elections in the US since JFK was killed. That is to say, democracy in the US ended around the time that the idea that the US was the "greatest democracy on earth" was beginning to be touted, and a Pathocracy was ushered in.

 

[EdgeofDawn]

Sadly, I can't imagine most people doing much other than uttering a few curse words and then going back to watching their sports or their insipid reality tv shows and playing video games etc. I myself wouldn't care too much, because that's pretty much the way things are already.

 

[thevenusian]

In the book 'Defying Hitler' by Sebastian Hafner, the author, who lived in Germany during the years before and during Hitler's rise to power, makes the observation that it was not so much that the people of Germany chose Hitler because they liked him or his policies. Rather, they were willing to simply accept him due to the overwhelming sense of betrayal they felt from their previous government. Those conditions certainly exist in the US at present.

In my own conversations with average folks in my community, I am struck by what seems to be the most common response any time the subject of corruption in politics comes up. While there is a high degree of agreement about the sorry state of things, most people then brush it off by saying 'well, there's nothing I can do about it.' People are disengaged and feel powerless to change things. I do not get the sense that most have really thought these things through very much, and are basically in a state of denial.

What we are seeing around the Gulf catastrophe illustrates this pretty well. Those with the power are doing whatever they want to do to manage and control, and people are mostly upset but powerless to do anything about it. I think the scenario you outline is quite possible. There would be resistance from some of the anti-government survivalist groups, but they have been so marginalized that I doubt they would gather the majority of people to them. I fear the majority would behave like good sheep and probably just keep hoping the government will take care of them.

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Makes sense, to the average American it seems that the system is corrupt and failing them - their own democratic and economic systems somehow allows for incompetent lying idiots to ruin everything - both within the country and around the world. So if the democratic government is seen as an utter failure and everyone is so frustrated with it, it may seem almost a blessing when a whole different system is given. Look at how many clamored for change when Obama promised it - they didn't even ask him what he's going to change, it's like people collectively felt that anything else but what they have now could only be an improvement, so they may see an autocratic government as the change that they really wanted but Obama never delivered.

Also interesting is that socialism is paramoralistically equated with fascism in US, but at the same time countries like Canada have a national health care system and everyone is taken care of, and the mainstream media here do admit to this and throw jabs at our own corrupt and failing health care system to make people want a different one. This made people line up behind Obama's idea about the "public option", which is in principle a socialistic idea (not in practice perhaps, but just the initial concept, which is what appealed to people), and it is telling that such starch individualists and capitalists in USA actually wanted it. So the formula is this:

1) Equate socialism with fascism and make everyone hate socialism because they hate fascism (but don't really know what either means).
2) Point out how good socialist ("fascist" in people's minds) policies work out for other countries, and how broken and miserable our own system is.
3) Declare "socialism" in US which will really be a form of fascism because the government controls everything with people having no say - the exact opposite of real socialism, but what Americans think socialism actually is due to step 1.

Perhaps initially it will be accepted, but I wonder how well it will last if things don't substantially improve? That might result in some sort of uprising since the "final solution" failed, so now what?

 

[cholas]

Along with what you all have stated, I'd venture a guess that those who have been considering relocating based on the current conditions would likely make the plunge.

Not that it's terribly different in other parts, but I've talked with many who have been riding this fence for a while now.

Obviously a clear minority though.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I think that would be the beginning of a full-blown police state. The majority would be complacent, but I think there would be an outraged minority. It's possible this minority would just be largely ignored, as it is now. Or, if their voices get louder, the PTB would manufacture evidence that these people are dangerous to the state, linking them with terrorists and going gung-ho with the "homegrown radicalization" idea. Then in a relatively short time, everyday life would more resemble that in Nazi Germany, the GDR, or any full-blown pathocracy, where you can't walk down the street without being afraid something you say will get you locked up or disappeared. It would be like the G20 protests, but 24/7. Or not, it's hard to say.

 

[psychegram]

The following discussion I recently had with a former army 'buddy' on facebook is quite revealing of the mindset prevailing within the academic political 'science' departments. I'm posting it in its entirety as it seems to me a brilliant example of paralogic in action. Also instructive is the way my predator comes out in response to this. The amount of energy this so-called debate sucked out of me was quite striking, and thinking about this was what knocked me off the fence and back onto this board. I'm sick and tired of having my energy stolen by fake debates with neurotic schizoid zombies who attempt to use twisted logic to cloud my mind.

It's lengthy so, for anyone who doesn't have the time or patience to wade through 6000 words of back-and-forth I'll offer a quick precis first.

This ex-colleague of mine is now a political science PhD. He's aware of ponerology, he claims, and seems at first to understand the problem of psychopathy and power and yet, then goes on to claim that the people in power are no different from you and I, that we're all just people, as well as to reject the use of the terms 'good' and 'evil' as regards politics (clearly not knowing what ponerology means). He knows that we live in a kleptocratic oligarchy masked as a democracy, and argues that it would be preferable to just make it official, ie to do away with democratic practices entirely and to institute an explicit caste system.

Some background on the individual in question may also be helpful. Inside the unit he was universally hated and despised, not just for his social awkwardness but for his blithering incompetence at anything practical. From what I gathered from those who knew him outside, it was the same in high school. We didn't want him around and so, inevitably, the 'pack mentality' attempted to 'code red' him out of the Forces with an unending barrage of heartless ridicule. Despite this he just kept on coming back for more, as though at some level he enjoyed being the butt of jokes, like a kind of emotional masochism. Possibly of importance was that he was (likely is) pathologically homophobic (he'd freak out at the merest same-sex casual contact), likely due to having been molested by a priest early in life. Despite this, he adheres to his childhood Catholicism.

It picks up where he joined in:

Him: "narcissists and psychopaths" - you mean the people most likely to want power?
Seems like a self-selection problem, no? provided that those trying to share power aren't killed or thrown in jail by a lone narcissist/psychopath in their midst...

Me: You've put your finger right on the central issue. As a general rule anyone who WANTS power is almost certainly psychopathic and should not be allowed to have it, under any circumstances.

As ***** says, power can be shared. In a meaningfully democratic society it is as widely distributed as possible, both economically as well as politically (and the two are of course inextricably intertwined.)

The notion that we need 'leaders' to tell us what to do is one of the Big Lies that we've all swallowed because why? Because it's very convenient for the powerful if we believe we need them. The truth is, whatever 'power' they have is only what they steal from us, and we can take it back any time we want. The problem is, we've been letting psychopaths run things for so long (kings, emperors, popes and financiers, along with their aristocratic hierarchies, religious mind control, and legions of indentured servants) that most of us can't imagine it can be any other way.

Merely acknowledging the reality of the problem of psychopathy, however, is a huge part of the solution.

Him:while I think we agree on the nature of our current system (i.e. an oligarchic kleptocracy) I can't say I agree with your response.
I have zero faith in pure democracy.

Why?
...(1) There is no evidence that the people, even in small, local groups, will be any less bullying, cruel, or greedy than the oligarchs. local democracy could simply degenerate into "two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for lunch".
The people can be ignorant, greedy, self-seeking, and lazy at different times - i'd prefer not to give the people absolute power. (so can leaders, of course)

(2) Pure partcipatory democracies, historically, have been prone to promoting populist demagogues (see: Athens) who became tyrants and feathered their own nest

(3) Local governments, especially democratic ones, would be too weak to respond to threats, both internal and external. Predatory powers from the outside (either states or corporations) could simply pick them off one at a time.

(4) collective action by several local democracies would be difficult, if not impossible - so they would be unable to react to major crises - and as a result, we would have chaos, follwed by mob rule and finally tyranny, when faced with a true crisis.

Summary: I share your dislike of the present system, but respectfully dissent from your solution.

Me: Fair enough. Mob rule is an ugly thing. Of course there's a world of difference between that, and a truly democratic system ... the latter is only possible with a population of educated and morally developed individuals, each of whom recogn...izes that they have freedom only insofar as they accept responsibility for their own, individual lives and actions.

Of course we aren't dealing with such a population. But then whose fault is that? See: korrupt kleptocrats.

Anyhow ... any ideas on a solution?

Him:
lol.... the solution is always the hard part, isn't it?

I don't necessarily agree that the lack of knowledge/moral development in the population is due to the oligarchs - I tend to think that people will be that way anyway (though circumstan...ces do contribute).

I would suggest that a basic starting point would be a simple acknowledgement that classes, castes, and differences in power exist - that we are not, at present, a society of equals.
Our current society is not a democracy- even in a representative sense- and time has come to admit as much.

Such a recognition would at least allow for meaningful negotiation and acknowledgement of mutual obligations between groups. Which is something better than the "anything goes" we get right now.
Hopefully the result would be a society where those with power at least had some socially enforced obligation to the common good - not perfect, but at least a start.
(Japan might be a somewhat instructive example of this)

Me:Good lord you're advocating a new feudalism! Which is what we're being led towards, ever so quietly, with those who points this out, if it's in the context of 'this is a bad thing!', being labeled a conspiracy theorist, while those who poin...t it out in the context of 'sounds like a good idea!' get Poli Sci research grants.

The sad truth is, the population has been dumbed down through state 'education'; misinformed by the propagandizing corporate media; distracted by trivial entertainments and spectator sporting events; poisoned through toxic food and toxic pharmaceuticals; and encouraged to numb itself with alcohol and the various illegal drugs. This has all been done quite deliberately and then the same people who have spent the last century doing this to us (with, I admit and even emphasize, the grinning complicity of the masses) are now being heard to suggest that maybe, democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be because they people they've fucked up can't run their own lives. Maybe, we're hearing, it's time for a new system, one with an out in the open class structure, harkening back to the hereditary aristocracies of the middle ages.

As you say this has been the de facto reality for some time. It's just coming out in the open now because why? Because the aristos figure they've more or less got us by the balls, and they can afford to do it, safely. The long-range plan is, to me, fairly obvious: an underclass of medicated, 'enhanced' brain-chipped iZombies, no more likely to rebel than penned cattle.

In my view this is a terrible miscalculation on their part. The herd is getting restless, my friend; increasingly, those who still have functioning brains and working hearts are waking up, disengaging from the control system, deprogramming their minds and reacquainting themselves with their basic human faculties. They will not cooperate with their own enslavement. They are sick and tired of the lies, the brutality, and the bullshit and there are more of them every day. Where things go from here will be most interesting indeed ... if the Plan is to succeed, they will need to be culled, and soon, because a tipping point is approaching. 8% awake is all it will take to stop the Plan in its tracks.

So we come to this: for your prescription to proceed, a kind of genocide will be necessary. Are you prepared to countenance that? It would seem so as, from your words, you seem to approve of - or at any rate 'realistically' accede to - the political and economic domination of our species by psychopaths. I wonder if you really 'get' what that means?

As for me, my suggestion is far more humane (and not in the sense of putting a dog to sleep): dismantle the corrupt central banking institutions and institute a resource-based currency system that does not require money to be created as debt, thus discouraging the centralization of wealth.

There is no doubt that a new social contract is required, however, a hardening into law of the covert social contract we have lived under is not it. It is not 'new'. It is the Old World Order come back bigger and badder than ever before and if that's the world you want to live in, well ... enjoy. I'm sure your grandchildren will thank you.

Him:I appreciate your reply - but I think you've taken what I've said a bit too far.

(1) I think all societies tend toward aristocracy at some point - what makes ours unique is that the trend is entirely unacknowledged.
...Was there ever a point in modern history when there wasn't inequality of this type? when?

(2) What I am suggesting is that if we acknowledge that classes exist, at least there can be some grounds for negotiations between them- as it stands, the financiers are transnational - they have loyalty to no one and nowhere- whereas at other times, where class differences were acknowledged, there was at least some idea of reciprocity and mutual obligation. Since oligarchies will exist anyway, we may as well demmand that they pay social rent on the mansion.
Example: even in the middle ages, the lord was required to provide shelter and food for his serfs in time of war - imagine goldman sachs being told they had to fund food stamps - it would never happen.

(3) Now, while I would agree that there has been a significant distracting/anethetic effect of mass media - I fail to see when it was not this way- 100 years ago it was the same, though less sophisticated,and through different institutions.
Also, to suggest that corporations are the sole source, or even that they are the dominant source of it, is, in my view, an error - the state, unions, academia, and other social institutions have all contributed to the current system, and all draw benefits of it. Never forget: globalization, for example, was actively created and facilitated by states, not in spite of them.

(4) That said, I agree that some of the existing institutions need to be signifcantly reduced in size and political power - no bank should ever be "too big to fail" again, and financiers need to be more restricted in what they can do - but surely, such actions need a powerful state to do them- in effect a leviathan.

(5) I'm sorry, but I just can't agree that "the herd are waking up".

As major recessions go, this one has seen the least political upheval - and the greatest political resistance to the state has come from the populist right (i.e. the Tea Party) not the left.
There is less chance of a revolution from the left now than there has been at any point in the last 200 years or so.
To the extent that there are demmands for the sort of reforms you advocate, they come from a very small segment of the population, and it's a segment with little power (no offense)

(6) as for "genocide" - i think you take things much too far.
Now, all states are based in some degree on the threat of force - but I would suggest that 99.9% of the time, that is all that is needed.

Basically, I think that the current order can be managed more humanely than it is, and with greater concern for the common good - but to do so requires that some uncomfortable truths be admitted.

Power will always be held by the ambitious, the greedy, and the deceptive- it has always been such- at the present we pretend it doesn't exist - I would rather just make those who have power pay everyone else for it.

Me:For the majority of recorded history, it has been thus, to greater or lesser degree and today, it is to a greater degree than ever before. To see a time when it was not we need to look to the prehistorical peoples. You seem to be suggesting... we take a page from the tyrannical feudalism of the dark ages; I would suggest we look deeper still, to see how humans organized their societies before tyranny was even possible.

The overwhelming majority of the people continue to sleep, and quite deeply. But I have noticed that when I suggest that the elites are waging undeclared war against us, numerous people tell me, "A year ago I would have called you a crazy conspiracy theorist, but...."

It does not take a majority to give birth to a new kind of society. The vanguard whose minds lie on the bleeding edge has always been a small minority, and society always follows their lead, eventually. Doubtless you consider yourself to be among that vanguard; so do I. You promulgate a message of a more open, more comfortable servitude: "Accept your new masters", you seem say, "And they shall treat you well. Sure, they might be evil, deceptive, power-mad demon-spawn, but hey, they've always been running the world anyways. Might as well get used to it and get on with life." Very pragmatic I'm sure. And very dangerous.

I am not interested in negotiations with evil. That is pointless, and self-destructive. Evil cannot be reasoned with, for it is by definition insane. It can only be recognized and then, once seen, cut out like the cancer it is. What use does our parasitic elite serve? What use has it ever served in the collective survival machine that civilization was meant to be?

A new way is rising up from the edges of human consciousness. You do not see it? Then that is because you do not want to, for to those of us who do - who are already living it, every moment of every day, in the secret spaces of our reclaimed minds, in our spontaneous interpersonal interactions - it is all too obvious. It is not a revolution, it is an evolution.

One final point: your description of things in terms of 'left' and 'right' betrays your implicit acceptance of the old order. There is no left and right, politically; it is just another illusion, meant to divide the culture against itself. It exists only inside our minds, and for those of us who are evolving (precious few at the moment, I grant you, but more every day) left and right have been transcended entirely. But by all means, go on pretending that this artificial division matters: here in the full fluorescence of imperial decay, the illusions are louder and more brightly colored than ever before.

Him:I enjoy this talk, especially because we have managed to discuss big political ideas without invective- thank you.

(1) I agree with you that "left" and "right" are intellectually bankrupt terms - I suppose it was just the easiest sch...ema to use - but yes, perhaps a better statement would be that the current popular movements are mostly "reactionary" rather than "revolutionary"

(2) I reject "good" and "evil" as political terms. There are merely different classes, each self-seeking. Now, some can/are more dangerous than others, but only because they are more powerful at the moment. I think it is necessary to accept that people are generally self-seeking in order to live with them.

(3) My message is not so much "accept your new masters" as "if you deny that there ARE masters, you cannot demmand anything of them" - in the same way, the masters much acknowledge that they ARE being served, and had better start paying the help if they wish the arrangement to continue.
Every complex society for 5,000 years has had an elite of some kind - they will exist whether we want them to or not.
I oppose a revolution because I do not want to pay in blood to trade one master for another.

(4) " new way is rising up from the edges of human consciousness"

While your idealism is well-meaning, to be sure. But the quest for a new conscience, or a "new man" has been the slogan that drove the revolutions that put Pol Pot, Stalin, or Hitler in power.
Transforming human consciousness has usually involved prison camps and heaps of bodies.
This is "dangerous thinking".
I don't fear those who seek power - i fear those who seek to transform us - because they can never be satisfied.

Fundamentally, I am fine with ceding political power to an elite - provided that in return, they let me think as I please, write as I please, and basically live life as I please, and give me a decent chance of advancement. Call it "constitutional hierarchy" if you like.

My objection only rises when they break the deal, or the old deal becomes obsolete (a condition we no doubt agree has been reached).

I find the talk of "reclaimed minds" unnerving, because goverments that demmand that people improve their minds have generally been the most totalitarian.

(5) "You do not see it? Then that is because you do not want to"
I must disagree - to that there is such a movement, there is only minimal evidence of it in larger society, and what evidence there is suggests that it is getting weaker, not stronger.
If I may suggest, respectfully, that your emotional involvement in such a movement has caused you to overestimate it's strength.
But I suppose time will tell.

(6)"To see a time when it was not we need to look to the prehistorical peoples"

There are plenty of examples of paleolithic societies that were every bit as cruel and hierarchical (often more so) than our own.
Yes, wealth inequality was perhaps less (because there was less total wealth) but what wealth existed was acquired by brutality- death rates by violence in native american societies, for example, was estimated at 1 in 3.
where people moved beyond such conditions, it was specifically because they were intolerable. This progress was "soaked thoroughly in blood and for a long time".

There is no sense looking for an ancient "golden age" - there never was one - and there won't be as long as people seek power.

Me:It's certainly possible that I overestimate the movement's strength. Self-delusion is the greatest enemy of any who seek truth (actually it's everyone's greatest enemy ... just not everyone realizes it.) As you say, time will tell but do ke...ep in mind that NO significant change in the human condition has ever been visible until well after the fact, save to those participating most directly.

The piles of skulls mounded up by the totalitarian ideologies of the past century and more were a consequence of utopian ideologies that attempted to force themselves on the world. Consciousness cannot evolve this way. When I say 'our consciousness is evolving', I am not saying, 'or else the revolution will kill you'. Recognition of free will is a central tenet of the new paradigm. The revolutions of the past resulted in slaughter because they sought to replace one set of masters with another. The evolution we are now undergoing has no place for masters of any sort, for none can participate who wishes to be a master of anything but himself.

This is how I see it unfolding: those who 'get' the new paradigm will coalesce together and explore it, while leaving those who don't to experience further the consequences of the collapse of the old. It will get increasingly ugly in that regard. Hence the tipping point.

This is not to say there will not be blood. The sad, brutal truth is that the rule of the powers that be is sustained by blood, and as their power collapses they will undoubtedly lash out, increasingly paranoid and vicious, in a doomed effort to prop up their tired, corrupt order. That the minion class will be going insane as their world crumbles about them will add to the chaos. Mixed among this will be so-called 'revolutionaries' who in truth, belong every bit as much to the old paradigm as the psychopathic rulers they supposedly oppose.

Speaking again of psychopathy, if entities (I do not honor them with the title 'human') that: do not feel empathy; lie, cheat, and steal without even the possibility of remorse; are focused solely on their own self-aggrandizement and appetite gratification; and get off on the pain and suffering, both emotional and physical, of others ... are not evil ... than what is? Because I'm pretty sure I just defined it.

Your attitude is an implicit surrender to these beasts in human skin, an acceptance of the notion that THEY should be our masters. It is obvious that you misunderstand the dynamic here: they cannot be reasoned with, negotiated with, for there is no common ground. Our only desire is to go about our lives (I speak here of ordinary human beings, those who have the capacity for empathy, possess a conscience, and can be creative in directions other than the ways of manipulation, torture, theft and war); their only desire is to dominate and feed. Without us they cannot live; without them, we thrive. Are you starting to get this or do I need to be more explicit? The idea that we need masters is a lie, a trap laid by the intraspecies predator. The notion that they are reasonable, that they're just like us, that they can be negotiated with in any meaningful sense is another lie. No social contract they propose can be trusted because it is in their deepest nature to renege before the ink is even dry. It has always been thus.

It doesn't have to continue. Some of us have figured that out. And we're telling everyone we know, even as we put the new paradigm together - scientifically, spiritually, technologically, culturally, artistically, philosophically, and yes, politically - it is taking shape from the distributed efforts of hundreds of thousands of inspired individuals everywhere in the world, operating outside the boundaries of the control structure and within it, too ... permeating it like mycelia. Time was this all would have been coopted long before it had a chance to make any meaningful change, but what's different this time is the psychological awareness: we know it is not a system, not a culture, not an ideology, not a foreign enemy or any sort of outside threat ... we see the psychopaths for what they are, we've figured out their tricks, and we are setting out to tame those beasts as we've tamed every other.

Him:While your passion is impressive, you must forgive me for taking a more cautious tone.

My pessimism is not directed at you, personally, but arises merely from a reading of history - many, many revolutions have promised exactly what y...ou promise, and none have ended well.
No doubt members of the committee for public safety or those who stormed the winter palace felt much as you do.

You do a very impressive job of demonizing your class enemy (no doubt Schmitt would approve of your friend/enemy distinction) - but you fail to see that every base quality you ascribe to them can equally be ascribed, at times, to people as a whole.

The "powers that be" are not demons - they are people, as you and I are. Which means they can be, at times, everything you suggest.

The only difference between them and us is that they have more power. We are no more angels than they are.

Indeed, your dehumanization of "the Powers that be" implicitly permits inhumanity towards them - meaning that if they were defeated,those who defeated them would have an excuse to be as cruel to them as they have been - perpetuating the cycle. Your ideas contain the seeds of their own refutation.

I make no moral distinction between those who have power and those who seek to overturn it, because they inevitably act the same way.

Now, can we trust that any power-granting or power sharing arrangement will be self-enforcing? No. Any arrangement, even among equals, requires armed enforcement. Who is to do this enforcement?
Everyone? That would be a paranoid, anarchic bloodbath.
To avoid such a bloodbath, an entity is needed to enforce the social contract, hence the state, and hence the need for one or many people to rule it.

But since such contracts WILL exist, we had better make them explicit - the great lie of liberalism is that power will be shared equally.

And it is not a matter of whether one class of people "should" rule - it is an acknowledgement that one always DOES. Will that class be corrupt? OF COURSE. Not because they are all psychotic (we all are, at some point) but because they are human.

Now, what you are proposing sounds like advanced anarchism ( i do not intend the term pejoratively) - an idea, like classic communism or libertarianism, would only work if people, as a whole, ceased to be as they are and somehow became better.
This has never happened, and I profoundly doubt that it will.

You state that it will be "different" this time.
How many movements have made the same claim? How many were just the same?

The corrupt, bloody, deceptive, and cruel struggle for power IS human history - and it will continue forever, until we cease to be human or wipe each other out.
My only hope is that the struggle can be delayed or inhibited as long as possible.
It is not as ambitious a plan as yours - but I believe it to be more realistic.

Me:Read up on psychopathy. You clearly don't understand it and that lack of understanding is deadly to your theory of the world. The notion that we all have the capacity for evil is a deeply misleading one: the vast majority must be tra...ined up to it and traumatized into it; the small minority is born to do it.

This isn't ideology. It's science. Just look at PTSD rates. WWII: relatively low, considering. The overwhelming majority of soldiers shot to miss, not wanting blood on their hands. Most kills were due to a small number (~2%) who had no problem with killing, even enjoyed it. Result was 20,000 bullets per dead enemy soldier.

So the militaries of the world (principally the Pentagon) utilized behavioural conditioning to get their recruits to shoot to kill by instinct (jungle lanes and such). Result: far better kill ratios, and exponentially worse PTSD. Obvious conclusion: almost anyone can be broken to evil, but if it doesn't come naturally, it will fuck you up hard in the long run. You know, once your conscience kicks in.

Not that I'm saying they should be wiped out violently. Such bloodthirst would make 'us' no better than 'them'. They are living beings and have as much right to exist as any other, whatever their crimes. A crocodile has as much right to exist as I do; doesn't mean I'm going to stick my head in its mouth.

Which is what you propose we all do.

All I'm suggesting is that we stop swimming with them.

To reiterate: while a certain proportion of psychopaths are genetically so, others can become that way to varying degrees through interactions with them at an early age, ie through trauma. I could start psychoanalyzing your own Stockholm-syndromish beliefs along these lines but I'll leave the implications for you to mull over.

Him:I must disagree with your reading of military history in this matter - yes, I am familiar with th studies you cite regarding kill ratios - however, I would suggest that the differences in PTSD rates are primarily due to better diagn...osis. How many WWI or WWII vetrans carried the undiagnosed scars of PTSD?
My suggestion is: a whole lot of them.

"the vast majority must be trained up to it and traumatized into it; the small minority is born to do it"

Right. No disagreement there.
But do you really suppose that all those in the "powers that be" are born into it? Or even that they are traumatized into it?

We are not born with a specific set of moral beliefs: they are learned - both normally and through trauma.

Now, some people will be more prone to seek power- and within that set, some will be conditioned in such a way as to inflict punishment - probably more than in the general population, I would argue.

If you are taught and conditioned to believe that, say, child labor or human sacrifice are right, without any trauma, then you will believe as much - and may even invent elaborate justifications for such practices.

Indeed, there have been plenty of studies that suggest that people will believe almost any act to be right if instructed to do so by an authority figure - see the post-war electric shock administration experiments for evidence of this.

This does not make such people "crocodiles" - no more than the rest of us- it makes them normal humans - products of their environment.

I would suggest that the only difference between your preferences and mine is that I prefer one big, easily identified crocodile - whereas you prefer millions of small, concealed, ones.

I would suggest that my preference is safer.

As an aside, If you believe that all people in positions in power (or most) self- select into such positions because they are psychotic, then haven't you just invented a great argument for hereditary monarchy? or maybe leader selection by l...ottery?

after all, if power is awarded on an arbitrary basis (birth or lottery) then it removed the chance that dangerous people can self-select, no?

Me:I am only too aware of the experiments you mention. The Stanford Prison Experiment is another great example. What these show is that a) the moral sense can be deactivated if authority figures tell people to do so and b) those placed in arbi...trary positions of authority will behave in a psychotic fashion towards those beneath them. In both cases you have likely non-psychopathic individuals acting in this fashion; in neither, however, would they have acted so had they not been placed in this situation.

And who places them in that situation? In the real world, I mean, not in the mob.

Hereditary rule is great, assuming the family that gains the throne aren't genetic psychopaths. Generally, this is not the case.

Rule by lottery doesn't suffer from this problem. However, it doesn't do much to prevent psychopaths from gaining power, either; nor does it keep fools out of power, who are easily manipulated by psychopaths. Even, perhaps especially, intelligent fools.

Neither argument addresses the issue of, why do we need people to be in power? Just what, precisely, do they do that is of benefit to anyone but themselves?

They've set up our world as a giant Stanford prison, hidden out in plain sight. I see it and suggest we escape; you see it, and suggest we make it more comfortable. That marks you out as something of a coward.

If the crocodiles are identified, then why should we let the crocodiles run and own the world? How does that make any sense at all? Your willingness to allow this, given that you seem to understand the issues at hand, is deeply disturbing, indicative that your reason has been hijacked by paralogic and paramoralism. Google political ponerology if the terms are unfamiliar. I refer you also to the final part of my last comment and suggest you may have some introspection to do, and lest you feel I'm being insulting: don't feel special, we all do.

Him:I'm familiar with the phenomenon you describe - political ponerology - and it is among the many reasons that I am no fan of the current liberal order - in a society where leaders must market to everyone, naturally those most adept at the de...ceptive arts of marketing will lead.
Which is why I propose ending the deception and openly acknowledging the reality of power.

----------------------------------------------------------------
However, I would sugguest that our entire disagreement turns on one issue:

"Neither argument addresses the issue of, why do we need people to be in power? Just what, precisely, do they do that is of benefit to anyone but themselves? "

This is the core of our argument.

We need leadership because we live in a complex society. There are roads to be paved, taxed to be collected, businesses to be regulated, and, when need be, armies to be commanded. All of these require decisions - and therefore decision-makers.

Now, we could have every person participate in every decision - which would be possible only at local levels (as I think you accept) and would lead to endless blunders and probable bullying of every local minority by every local majority. Moreover, it would not stop bribery or sophistry from ruling at the local level.

Unless you think we can turn everyone into ethical philosophers - a prospect I see as remote- this would rapidly degenerate into a hobbesian war of all against all.

I assume that this is not your preferred outcome.

Of course, you wanted to, you could enforce total equality at the local level to prevent such things - but this would require some strong coercive mechanism to do so - i.e. a state - which would necessitate people to run it.

This is the paradox of trying to eliminate political power from a society - such an arrangement would require power to enforce it.

So to answer your question: We need leaders with some coercive power because it is the only thing which can prevent people from killing each other. We need people with the power to make decisions because our society has too many decisions to be made for everyone to participate in all of them.

Now, how do we select those leaders?

We can accept the liberal fairy tale that the people really get to make a free choice, that we all have an equal chance of ruling, and that if you fail to do so, you have only yourself to blame.
Or we can admit that we have classes, each with different (and equally necessary) social functions - and arrange things along the lines of mutual obligations with some notion of interdependence.

Now, I cannot conclude without remarking on one thing you said:

"I see it and suggest we escape; you see it, and suggest we make it more comfortable. That marks you out as something of a coward."

Wrong. You are NOT proposing an escape - only... that we end the distinction between guard and inmate.
There IS NO escape - we are stuck with other human beings in our society, with all of their faults.
In such a scenario, if attacked, we would have no guards to call upon - we would just have to trust that our fellow inmates had become enlightened in their new equality.
You are prepared to ignore the result of every such experiment in the past - that new "guards" invariably appear from among the inmates- on the grounds that "this time it is different."
No offense intended, but this is simply reckless.

Me:If we are to accept a hierarchical society, in which one set holds power over others, to me this can only be accepted if psychopaths can be kept out of those positions. Some form of rigorous psychological screening, for instance.

The system... we have now - a so-called 'democracy' - is really one that is guaranteed to put psychopaths in positions of political power. Those who lie most effectively will most easily win the hearts of enough to get elected.

An oligarchy or explicit class system, however, is not the answer. Historically, such systems have always been established by psychopaths, for psychopaths.

I reiterate: they have a right to be. They do not have a right to rule, in any form. That they do is one of the biggest lies we have been sold. As it stands they have essentially all the power; but this can be reclaimed. Merely recognizing them for what they are will go a long way towards removing their influence.

If you are comfortable formalizing your servitude to these creatures, so be it. I confess I have never encountered someone who is aware of ponerology, and uses that as an argument for cementing the open dominance of deviant psychological types. That is most deeply disturbing.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Some background on the individual in question may also be helpful. Inside the unit he was universally hated and despised, not just for his social awkwardness but for his blithering incompetence at anything practical. From what I gathered from those who knew him outside, it was the same in high school. We didn't want him around and so, inevitably, the 'pack mentality' attempted to 'code red' him out of the Forces with an unending barrage of heartless ridicule. Despite this he just kept on coming back for more, as though at some level he enjoyed being the butt of jokes, like a kind of emotional masochism. Possibly of importance was that he was (likely is) pathologically homophobic (he'd freak out at the merest same-sex casual contact), likely due to having been molested by a priest early in life.

Right there are the clues. He certainly matches Lobaczewski's description of a pathocratic academic. If the pretense of democracy were ever lifted, he would be one of the pathocracy's staunchest defenders!

 

[psychegram]

Some background on the individual in question may also be helpful. Inside the unit he was universally hated and despised, not just for his social awkwardness but for his blithering incompetence at anything practical. From what I gathered from those who knew him outside, it was the same in high school. We didn't want him around and so, inevitably, the 'pack mentality' attempted to 'code red' him out of the Forces with an unending barrage of heartless ridicule. Despite this he just kept on coming back for more, as though at some level he enjoyed being the butt of jokes, like a kind of emotional masochism. Possibly of importance was that he was (likely is) pathologically homophobic (he'd freak out at the merest same-sex casual contact), likely due to having been molested by a priest early in life.

Right there are the clues. He certainly matches Lobaczewski's description of a pathocratic academic. If the pretense of democracy were ever lifted, he would be one of the pathocracy's staunchest defenders!

Yes, exactly. I learned a great deal from the interaction. One thing to read about it ... another to encounter it directly, in such a pure form.

 

[anart]

People are disengaged and feel powerless to change things. I do not get the sense that most have really thought these things through very much, and are basically in a state of denial.

I think that pretty much sums it up. People simply do not know what to do. They would have no clue how to react to that because they are so far away from any basic understanding of their government and life in general, that they'd be like cows herded into a smaller field.

If such an announcement were made, and part of the change of government was the suspension of all income taxes for those who make under $250,000 a year, it would likely be greeted with shouts of joy and total acceptance - no matter what came along with it.

There are very few who think of the larger picture, of consequences, of 5 years down the line. They're too hypnotized, dumbed down, and physically marginalized or down right sick to put up any sort of 'fight'.

 

[Joe]

The fact that practically no one knows that their vote has not counted for the last 40 years is evidence of the scale of the deception, so yeah, I suppose it's a bit much to expect that anyone could do anything. I suppose we arrive at the old adage of, the only thing people CAN change is themselves. Strangely enough, if everyone started working on that, change on the macro level would likely come as a result.

 

[Nicholas]

Interesting you bring up the vote counting fraud Percival. RT released today this 1 hour documentary on voting count fraud.

Whistleblower Clint Curtis spills the beans to journalist/blogger Brad Friedman (Bradblog.com) about the election fraud associated with George W. Bush's first presidential ballot. Beautifully shot, in a style described as "60-minutes-noir", Patty Sharaf's acclaimed film has been called the "Alfred Hitchcock of election fraud movies". Friedman pokes at the seamy side of democracy, uncovering the story of computer programmer Clint Curtis, who recounts being asked before the 2000 election by a prominent Florida legislator to create vote-rigging software for electronic voting machines. The vote-rigging scandal devolves into a murder mystery, with Friedman shaking down the facts. With electronic voting machine companies aggressively selling all over the globe, the implications for democracy worldwide are profound.

 

[psychegram]

There are very few who think of the larger picture, of consequences, of 5 years down the line. They're too hypnotized, dumbed down, and physically marginalized or down right sick to put up any sort of 'fight'.

And those very, very few who aren't, who are actually still benefiting from the system (at least materially), would smell one thing and one thing only: an opportunity to further improve their own lot. As to those who have successfully disengaged (I like to think just as many who benefit) to one degree or another, I think they by and large are starting to understand what Perceval just said:

The fact that practically no one knows that their vote has not counted for the last 40 years is evidence of the scale of the deception, so yeah, I suppose it's a bit much to expect that anyone could do anything. I suppose we arrive at the old adage of, the only thing people CAN change is themselves. Strangely enough, if everyone started working on that, change on the macro level would likely come as a result.

It's fun to wonder how much might change if people would seriously question their reality. But with so few willing to entertain 9/11 truth or even admit to the evidence that the 2004 election was every bit as stolen as 2000 (and just look at what happened with the Ron Paul rEVOLution in 2008!), whilst still declaring themselves in opposition to the war, to the policies of the government, etc, well....