[jim-greer]

> You can't fight it. It's like fighting aging with plastic surgery.

It's more like fighting crime. Aging is an irreversible process that happens to one person. Crime and corruption are background processes that happen to societies.

You can fight it. You can't eliminate it, of course.

Here's a good book on the subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/books/review/zephyr-teacho...

[brokenmusic]

Crime too. If you look at what are most of the crimes that are committed in any given country, it quickly becomes obvious that those are mostly victimless crimes or crimes that are invoked by governments declaring something to be illegal (while it harms no one): like drugs being illegal provokes a lot of violence, gang culture etc. The only true systematic source of evil in any country is its government. Without it, you'd still have bad things happening, but it won't be on the same level.

[jim-greer]

Uh, violent crime exists. And it's worth fighting. Right? As is corruption? Or do you think we should give up on both?

[brokenmusic]

What I'm saying is, governments foster violent crime by criminalizing many peaceful things. The best thing you can do to dramatically decrease violent crime rates is get rid of governments.

[afarrell]

You can't get rid of governments though. People would spontaneously form states either to protect themselves, or to take advantage of the opportunity to set up protection rackets and tax others.

[Retric]

I find it amusing how people who dislike governments rarely move to failed states. You can easily move to an area without regulation or taxes but there not actually places you want to be.

[brokenmusic]

A failed state doesn't mean absence of government. Similarly to how if you burn a church, it wouldn't make all the people in the village atheists.

What people who dislike governments can realistically do is not comply and ask for no permission. Don't pay taxes, use Bitcoin, ignore stupid laws, don't send children to government schools. Peacefully disobey.

[etherael]

Where? Rules instituted by force of arms (which you refer to as "regulations") and extortion backed by same (which you refer to as "taxes") are global. Short of war, Antarctica or establishing a seastead, you cannot escape them, period. And in the latter two cases, you stand a very high chance of simply inviting war at any rate.