| > It is not possible to "enforce" a "value system". That's not what I said. What I said was that you can't enforce a value system "that benefits us all"--because "us all" will never agree on what value system that should be, at least not once you get beyond small groups of people. But of course you can just declare by fiat that your preferred value system "benefits us all", and ignore objections, and if you have enough brute force at your disposal, you can enforce it. You just won't be enforcing a value system that actually "benefits us all". > We must have webs of trust Yes. > within those webs there are power hierarchies. Only if you let that happen. But in a sane web of trust, you don't--because in a sane web of trust, everybody understands that power--in the sense of someone you trust doing something that harms you, simply because you're unable to prevent them--is a betrayal of trust. > This is a problem that has been wrestled with, and solved, several times in human history. I disagree. I certainly don't see the Republican Militias in the Spanish Civil War as solving this problem. > that does not mean we cannot work together for good things Of course we can. But our ability to do that without violating any trusts is limited, often very severely, by how many people we can get to agree with us, without any force or coercion being applied, on what "good things" to work together for. Unfortunately utopian dreamers and "revolutionaries" throughout human history have failed to recognize this basic fact, and their attempts to make a better world have always resulted in mass suffering and death. |
There is s hierarchy. Generally in my experience it is the person on the tiller who will bark commands as the boat moves across the wind.
A hierarchy, temporary, amongst friends.
Everybody gets good things.