Ideologies? Going In The Other Direction, Because I Want To Know, Where It Leads To
So I have soon finished my first three months on Steemit. What do you want me to tell you about it?
Am I serious about that question? No.
Do you want to read a post about how proud I am about my 700 followers? No? Good. Because I don't want to write a post about it. Because I am not proud. I have no idea where these people came from. It's not like 700 people are constantly upvoting my posts!
If you have been reading some of my posts, you may have noticed, that they were mostly about Steemit: how it makes me feel, how I see it... blablabla.
As if there were not enough posts here doing the same shit!
Somehow it often felt kind of not completely right. And so it is this time. But until now I wasn't aware why.
Can I put it into words now?
I'll try it: It is strange living with this feeling, that I care so much about something, I have seen critically right from the start. I am not a fan of capitalism. And where am I now?
On a social media or blogging or crypto (who the hell knows what this thing is, I guess it's all of that) platform, that is a pure capitalistic system itself!
I can sympathize with anarchy.
But only sympathize.
It's a nice idea that can help making the world less globalism-like. I would appreciate more decentralism and more power to the people since our democracies are still not about the people ruling (what they are meant to be), but about people voting rulers for a couple of years.
What I'm absolutely not sympathizing with is anarcho-capitalism!
What anarcho-capitalists are up to, is that everyone should be free.
Until this point it sounds nice.
They are also up to that nobody should be forced to spend money to the community.
So taxation is robbery in this idealogy.
And it IS just an ideology, sorry. It is nothing I would even imagine becoming true in just one state on earth during my lifetime.
When I have the choice of spending my time into an ideology or in doing what seems to be the best option FOR THE FUTURE RIGHT NOW, my decision should be clear, but it is often not.
Although an ideology can never be the best option to follow
Most of our problems on this planet are based on ideologies. No matter whether they are religions or they are politically motivated. When we have fights and wars on this planet, we fight because of ideologies. And one of these is capitalism.
("We need oil and the state that has it has a dictatorship, so we can make it look like fighting for freedom and when we are finished with it, we will make a contract with them to get the oil cheap")
Ideologies are always in some way extremistic: "How I think and how I see the world is right! How you see it is wrong!" And thinking like this is always some kind of an ideology.
Everybody does it. It's not like: I am far better than you. But is there a chance of developing?
So Steemit is supposed to be free?
Then you are not allowed to force me into some kind of ideology! I am sorry, I don't want to follow the capitalistic rules this platform provides. I won't upvote my own posts, I won't use voting bots, I won't upvote witnesses who think these things are just a fun part of the system! I won't call myself democratic or an anarchist or anything else anymore. Will I feel myself free with this? Yes! I just maybe won't make lots of money.
So will it provide more freedom to my personal life? When I don't care about money so much then yes. But of corse I need money. I have three kids and just a part time job.
In my opinion what some people around here understand as freedom is only their personal freedom of being able to do whatever they want.
But what we are is a community!
A community is not about the personal freedom of every individual. It is about achieving the most freedom possible for all of us together without doing harm to others! It's the best we can achieve. Anything else will be taking away the freedom of somebody.
So am I a f***ing communist? When caring for the community means being a communist, then I am a communist! Shame on me! You need to make me fit in some kind of anarcho-capitalistic ideology? Have fun with it, I don't care! I choose my freedom now.
Peace!
This post has been inspired by a wonderful conversation with @liveyourdream
main image: pixabay.com
I agree on the first part. It is often more important to change the current state than dream about the far away future. But in my opinion dreaming is also an important part as it provides our moral compass. It shows us the road that might eventually lead to the future we dream of. Can reach it? Probably not, but we need some guidance on the direction we should move now.
I think you example for resource wars as capitalism is not accurate. Capitalism would be to trade for the oil. Regime change and resource wars are not a consequence of capitalism but of statism.
The word capitalism has many meanings. In our media it means something different than when I use it. For me it is just the idea that interactions should be done on a voluntary basis. The appearance of money follows from that naturally.
As a convinced ancap I obviously love capitalism. But that does not mean that I base my decisions on greed. I love communities and people, I don't love money. Anarchism is very diverse and inclusive. You can be any religion, care for yourself or others, .... Its fine living as a community of hippies and not using money at all. Its about personal freedom, beeing who you are and not having to fit in. The only unifying part is rejecting all forms of violence.
The problem is not caring for the community, it is wanting to support that community by force. When I buy flour and bake bread, do you gain a right to some of my bread? Do you get it should you be starving? If I don't want to bake bread, do you get a right to force me bake bread? As ancap I would answer no to all of these questions. I just hope that we are friendly enough to share on our own when others are in trouble. I am trying to live in this way and I think most ancaps are actually very friendly and caring people.
Btw, I find it funny that you end your post by saying "I choose my freedom now" which is exactly what I do, just based on a different philosophy :)
You are absolutely right. That's why I sympathize with anarchy. Maybe anarchy is more like a personal attitude. I think there are many people out there who think they are anarchists. But to me it's like: as long as many mean their personal freedom and not mostly the freedom of everybody, it just can't work. I think with the people here who are commenting this post, it would work. :-) I already got to the point another time, that maybe anarchy is in fact what we all want even without even being aware of. Maybe it is the point where development of mankind will automatically goes to. And the major problems within reaching it are aby kind if ideologies. Though anarchy is also one. That would lead to, that improving our democracies and talking about this big word "freedom" would be the next step? So we are already on the way and must be aware about what have to follow next and which developments would cause harm on this idea?
I guess both of us might had some kind of epiphany yesterday. At least that’s how your post sounds to me like.
You’re doing absolutely right about not giving anything to follower numbers because they mean nothing. You will see if you take the time and scroll through them that most of them are bots, follow for follow people and stuff like that.
@sergiomendes made a video some days ago where he said “Please unfollow me” because he has more than 1,200 followers and sometimes gets 7 upvotes for his content.
I don’t understand why some people still think communism is something bad. All of those ideal concepts would work properly if there was no abuse within the system and everybody would play by the rules. But it seems that this is part of the human nature and that’s why none of those concepts will ever work.
My German teacher always told me “German is a very precise language” and English is as well. Or is it just an accident that “communism” and “community” do have the same root?
But it’s strange that one of them seems to be okay and the other one doesn’t...
The difference is that the one is a system of violence and force.
And the other is an organigly formed voluntary living together, where violence is not justified to force your opinion on someone else.
The problem with not forcing anyone is, that you will always have lots of greedy people who don't care about community. And those will be the ones with the most money and following that they will also be the ones with the most power. I don't believe that there can be freedom, when there are people who have lots of power. They will automatically be some kind of "rulers" or "government". I don't want to live in a society everything is determined by those who have money. Isn't it something we already see everywhere in the world: that for some it will never be enough and that they will do anything to get more money? So they would not do, what is the best for the community, but the best for them? And that would determine the lives of all others. What will mean, those on top will be free, while the rest struggles? In fact I think this is already happening everywhere and I don't like it. It's not that I don't understand your moral point of view. But I have problems with believing that everybody will act morally enough that the wealth and freedom of the whole community are more important than the own freedom and wealth. In fact it leads me into thinking that it's nearly impossible to create something where everybody feels free.
Does making some future predictions on the world not behaving according to your will give you the right, to make me obey (or make me do forced labor), and escalate your violence until I obey or pay, and if I don't obey you have the right to violate, lock me up, or if i resist.. kill me?
^^ I also noticed the similarity of those words, that's why I put them so close together. I like that you mention it. :-) Communism is associated with the dictatorships we have seen, build on this ideology. I guess that's the reason why nobody likes it. But I have also seen anarchists here, that believe, the best way of creating anarchy, is forcing others into it. That's a contradiction. I now believe we can't achieve something like "everybody is free". Isn't freedom more like a feeling than a political system? It depends very much on the own attitude, if someone feels free or not. I think money is very important to feel at least a little free. So everybody should at least have enough to survive? As I said, I meanwhile don't agree to any ideology. So I think democracy is really the best we can achieve. But our democracies are poor ones. More like "pre-democracies". Democracy itself is something becoming more and more unpopular. But I think it's more because they are not democratic enough. So people now are searching for something better and start liking ideologies again. Since democracy is meant to be, that everybody should be free in thinking and the people should be the rulers, to me it isn't something bad. It's just done bad. The older our democratic systems get, the more they don't fit to our time anymore. I guess, this is what we see everywhere in the world at the moment.
Hey, thanks for speaking your truth. Less and less of us are doing that these days. As long as you’re speaking from your heart, you’ll get the right followers who’ll upvote you because they appreciate your content. Stay true to you .✌️
Thank you. I think you hit it. Until now I wasn't really myself here. I don't think I am a negative person. Though I want to share controversial thougts. I really like this peaceful attitude of this community. :-) So maybe I am a hippie? I would just call it: peace is cool! ^^
No need to even try and fit yourself into somebody else’s box. I like to think our energy can be fluid from one post to the next. Cheers to standing in our own unique light.
Yes. Our world is made of boxes. Mankind created them. And nobody fits in them completely. We steal our freedom with trying to fit ourselves into these boxes. This is such a sad thing.
What do you personally believe should be done to me personally if I don't pay the demanded tribute, via taxes, to the political ruling class. Please be literal and specific.
Okay I think my reply to your post under @liveyourdreams comment should bring an answer to this. In general: nothing should be done to you. Until we have reached anarchy you just should pay your taxes. ^^ I could even imagine that paying taxes in an anarchistic system could be fine.
Tax is paying involuntary if you pay voluntary for the things you want not forcing others you could still call it tax but it would be more like charity or friendly societies or so.
But that is not an answer to the question, what do you advocate should happen to me if I don't pay?