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It was one of those ordinary days when I was checking what was new on Facebook. I came across several posts by friends who mentioned something called...
![[image loading]](http://www.socialistworld.net/img/20120320Grafik3259342051001894541.jpg)
Kony. I didn't know what that meant, so I opened that youtube video they shared to see what the deal was. While I was watching it, I understood that Jason Russell, the film creator, is trying to achieve what seems to be a noble goal to capture Joseph Kony and to stop his crimes. However, a few things came to my mind.
First, Jason uses various ways to persuade people in taking part. One is the conversation with his son to discuss Kony and what he has done which is touching and a very useful tool. It's debatable whether Jason intended it or not, but children have always been brilliant when it comes to soften people a bit.
Second, Jason Russell presents some people from Uganda. They clearly seem unhappy, especially that little black kid to whom Jason makes a promise to find Kony. If Jason's kid didn't move you, this sad black guy as well as Ugandan people should do the job to convince you.
Finally, the film director tells everyone how they can help. Some ways are to spread his video and donate every month. Another is to put up posters in cities on April 20, 2012. Cool, now idle guys can suddenly turn into human rights activists because Jason says humankind is tested if it can change the future. I will get back to this later.
On the other hand, there is this group called..
![[image loading]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AUhEmMGnvsM/TWQu0YTDj8I/AAAAAAAAFLs/P67Wehg9hL0/s200/anonymous.gif)
They also act like some kind of saviours, but they're said to have no leader and to be decentralised. I know little about them, but what I know is they've released video messages (kind of like 'you should do this, else ...') and they also support some kind of anarchy and freedom. However, I have some concerns about them and Kony which I'm going to share below.
Jason Russell:
While he seems to be good at speech and presentation, he's recently got detention. According to Wikipedia:
On March 15, 2012, Russell was detained by San Diego police and taken to a local hospital after allegedly vandalizing cars, making sexual gestures, and publicly masturbating after removing his underwear. The police said he was not arrested but detained and hospitalized.
While fame is tough to handle, I'm not sure if we should trust such unstable people like him.
Anonymous:
I'm going to ignore my personal personal belief that anarchy is wrong. There is something more than that. As you know, 'Anonymous' use masks to send messages. They also hide their IPs, faces, ID, etc. They don't take any responsibility as well. There come two major problems:
A. Anyone can act like they're a part of 'Anonymous' to send messages. While obvious fake messages might be distinguished, there are some well made, so anyone can abuse their greatest 'strength' (anonymity) which is also their weakness to trick people into thinking something.
B. Even if something is clearly wrong, they wear masks. Can you actually say this X guy did it? No, he may always say: 'It wasn't me'. Masks and lack of ID are misleading.
Therefore, I'm asking you: are Internet revolutions potentially dangerous? Do you think anyone can abuse Internet to do serious damage in the future? As you've seen, Anonymous and Kony quickly spread. Should more people start investigating before blindly believing in such revolutions? Should we trust people who don't want to reveal themselves? If they're honest and freedom activists, why should they hide?
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The Kony fad lasted about 3 days, I wouldn't call that a revolution at all.
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United States24775 Posts
I don't know how you missed such a glaring error when you made the thread title but I fixed it for you.
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On April 06 2012 07:37 micronesia wrote:
I don't know how you missed such a glaring error when you made the thread title but I fixed it for you.
Thanks mate. <3
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No, and you can't start trying to restrict them or else you risk starting another internet revolution reactively.
The internet lets people spread ideas fast, very fast, way faster than ever possible, between each other. We used to rely on big media corporations who "fact checked". The problem is now those big media corporations "selectively fact check", aka, advertisers more or less direct the content, especially news which tends to be horribly biased in favour of their sponsors. For example, CNN doesn't have a lot of bad press on vaccines or pharmaceuticals - check their advertisements, surprise surprise.
So basically now we're at a point where we either listen to mainstream media (untrustworthy, bribed) or we listen to internet media (untrustworthy, anonymous/unaccountable). Bummer. But you can't say that "internet revolutions" are dangerous based on some bad apples.. they're likely the only thing holding back tighter laws regarding internet content.
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Define what you mean by anarchy. Most people have a misunderstanding when it comes to anarchy, and believe that it is total chaos - But what it is, is a society without ENFORCED rules. This is important to understand because anarchy is another way of saying, what i have come to refer to as, volunteerism. Basically, volunteerism is people volunteering to follow certain rules and regulations because they believe it's the right thing to do - not because there is a DEFINITE negative consequence of not doing such a thing.
An example of what i mean would be Taxes. Simply put, taxes are there to help a community to pay for whatever things the community as a whole needs. However, in it's current state, taxes are FORCED on people, instead of letting them choose whether or not they want to pay for said things their taxes would go towards. In an anarchist society, taxes would be a volunteered, and people would simply not be able to take advantage of the things taxes would normally give them.
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The real issue is people's willingness to believe ANYTHING they read/hear without doing any independent research on the issue.
Also, in terms of anonymous hiding their identities. When your activism involves illegal activities, obviously you can't reveal your identity or you will be thrown in prison and become restricted in your ability to protest.
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On April 06 2012 09:33 hoby2000 wrote:
Define what you mean by anarchy. Most people have a misunderstanding when it comes to anarchy, and believe that it is total chaos - But what it is, is a society without ENFORCED rules. This is important to understand because anarchy is another way of saying, what i have come to refer to as, volunteerism. Basically, volunteerism is people volunteering to follow certain rules and regulations because they believe it's the right thing to do - not because there is a DEFINITE negative consequence of not doing such a thing.
An example of what i mean would be Taxes. Simply put, taxes are there to help a community to pay for whatever things the community as a whole needs. However, in it's current state, taxes are FORCED on people, instead of letting them choose whether or not they want to pay for said things their taxes would go towards. In an anarchist society, taxes would be a volunteered, and people would simply not be able to take advantage of the things taxes would normally give them.
seems like a pretty romanticized version of anarchy. The main flaw, is you can't stop people from using things like streets, benches, etc, and you run into a lot of free riders, lowering the standard of living of the country considerably.
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On April 06 2012 10:54 Rice wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2012 09:33 hoby2000 wrote:
Define what you mean by anarchy. Most people have a misunderstanding when it comes to anarchy, and believe that it is total chaos - But what it is, is a society without ENFORCED rules. This is important to understand because anarchy is another way of saying, what i have come to refer to as, volunteerism. Basically, volunteerism is people volunteering to follow certain rules and regulations because they believe it's the right thing to do - not because there is a DEFINITE negative consequence of not doing such a thing.
An example of what i mean would be Taxes. Simply put, taxes are there to help a community to pay for whatever things the community as a whole needs. However, in it's current state, taxes are FORCED on people, instead of letting them choose whether or not they want to pay for said things their taxes would go towards. In an anarchist society, taxes would be a volunteered, and people would simply not be able to take advantage of the things taxes would normally give them. seems like a pretty romanticized version of anarchy. The main flaw, is you can't stop people from using things like streets, benches, etc, and you run into a lot of free riders, lowering the standard of living of the country considerably.
I thought about this argument before I even read your post, and the only reply I have is I'm talking on an abstract level. Of course you're going to run into problems when putting volunteerism into modern society, as it is now. Just like if we were talking about something like communism, it would only be on a theoretical level and of course would include a complete overhaul of how society works right now.
But the "romanticized" version of anarchy I presented is not what you called it - "romanticized." It's true anarchy, and other forms anarchy (chaos which leads to inevitable destruction apparently) are misrepresentations of the idea. Mostly exaggerated to scare people from even considering it as something that would work.
If anyone has read The People's History of the United States, it talks a bit about how native american tribes before colonists started plaguing them, ran very similarly to anarchy - in that they had no enforced rules where a definite punishment was inevitable - but instead decided as a community for punishments. Most of the time these punishments never even included things like a fine, or time in a sort of prison. Most punishments where banishment from that community until you could prove that you wanted to actually be apart of their community.
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On April 06 2012 09:33 hoby2000 wrote:
Define what you mean by anarchy. Most people have a misunderstanding when it comes to anarchy, and believe that it is total chaos - But what it is, is a society without ENFORCED rules. This is important to understand because anarchy is another way of saying, what i have come to refer to as, volunteerism. Basically, volunteerism is people volunteering to follow certain rules and regulations because they believe it's the right thing to do - not because there is a DEFINITE negative consequence of not doing such a thing.
An example of what i mean would be Taxes. Simply put, taxes are there to help a community to pay for whatever things the community as a whole needs. However, in it's current state, taxes are FORCED on people, instead of letting them choose whether or not they want to pay for said things their taxes would go towards. In an anarchist society, taxes would be a volunteered, and people would simply not be able to take advantage of the things taxes would normally give them.
If you trust other people, why does it matter what system you use? I guess the idea of anarchy is that forcing people to do something gives them a reason to rebel / something to disobey. Or maybe that structure breeds corruption somehow.
Not to say that you are an anarchist yourself. You're probably just being sassy and saying 'anarchy doesn't actually mean chaos, it's a political ideology!' but there's a pretty good reason anarchy came to be synchronous with chaos. It's because it is the worst idea to trust people, especially a lot of people, especially a lot of people you've never even met or will ever interact with. Everyone just becomes selfish, something like how game theory works. It is so much easier to contribute your time and resources when you know everyone else has to as well, rather than worrying that you might be giving to people who don't give back. So what I mean to say is that most people actually are aware anarchy is an idea about how society could be run (because when they were a teenager they knew some self-proclaimed anarchist dolt), but still use it to mean chaos because that's basically what it is.
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They are dangerous - for the very fascists who we are fighting against. We should invade Uganda and cause a regime change there to get rid of these fascists.
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On April 06 2012 11:28 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2012 09:33 hoby2000 wrote:
Define what you mean by anarchy. Most people have a misunderstanding when it comes to anarchy, and believe that it is total chaos - But what it is, is a society without ENFORCED rules. This is important to understand because anarchy is another way of saying, what i have come to refer to as, volunteerism. Basically, volunteerism is people volunteering to follow certain rules and regulations because they believe it's the right thing to do - not because there is a DEFINITE negative consequence of not doing such a thing.
An example of what i mean would be Taxes. Simply put, taxes are there to help a community to pay for whatever things the community as a whole needs. However, in it's current state, taxes are FORCED on people, instead of letting them choose whether or not they want to pay for said things their taxes would go towards. In an anarchist society, taxes would be a volunteered, and people would simply not be able to take advantage of the things taxes would normally give them. If you trust other people, why does it matter what system you use? I guess the idea of anarchy is that forcing people to do something gives them a reason to rebel / something to disobey. Or maybe that structure breeds corruption somehow. Not to say that you are an anarchist yourself. You're probably just being sassy and saying 'anarchy doesn't actually mean chaos, it's a political ideology!' but there's a pretty good reason anarchy came to be synchronous with chaos. It's because it is the worst idea to trust people, especially a lot of people, especially a lot of people you've never even met or will ever interact with. Everyone just becomes selfish, something like how game theory works. It is so much easier to contribute your time and resources when you know everyone else has to as well, rather than worrying that you might be giving to people who don't give back. So what I mean to say is that most people actually are aware anarchy is an idea about how society could be run (because when they were a teenager they knew some self-proclaimed anarchist dolt), but still use it to mean chaos because that's basically what it is.
I consider myself an anarchist, and wasn't just being sassy. The problem you described seems to me to be more about people not knowing other people... but alas, anarchy is not for everybody, nor every community. I think in order for an anarchist community to work you have to have people who truly believe in such a system. You can't have people who are going to freeload because that would destroy the whole system. It would only work, like I said, if people truly believed in the system, and didn't abuse it. I'm not saying that those people don't exist, nor am i saying that eventually they won't. Again, I think that this system would only work with people who ALSO think it would work.
But before I trailed off about that, I was going to say that the problem you describe where people become selfish is more of a product of both people not really knowing other people (and with that, not caring) and also, capitalism itself produces people who are selfish. That's what capitalism is all about - the strongest business surviving while the others suffer and eventually dwindle into nothing. Capitalism teaches people to be selfish, and the people who think capitalism is a good idea should never be part of anarchist society.
But yes, I am an anarchist, and I do think that as long as people understand the idea, and implement FULLY into their lives, it wouldn't be a problem.
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Probably a better example, OP, would be to mention the revolution in Egypt a while back. That took advantage of social media and whatnot to serve its purpose.
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On April 06 2012 11:26 hoby2000 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2012 10:54 Rice wrote:On April 06 2012 09:33 hoby2000 wrote:
Define what you mean by anarchy. Most people have a misunderstanding when it comes to anarchy, and believe that it is total chaos - But what it is, is a society without ENFORCED rules. This is important to understand because anarchy is another way of saying, what i have come to refer to as, volunteerism. Basically, volunteerism is people volunteering to follow certain rules and regulations because they believe it's the right thing to do - not because there is a DEFINITE negative consequence of not doing such a thing.
An example of what i mean would be Taxes. Simply put, taxes are there to help a community to pay for whatever things the community as a whole needs. However, in it's current state, taxes are FORCED on people, instead of letting them choose whether or not they want to pay for said things their taxes would go towards. In an anarchist society, taxes would be a volunteered, and people would simply not be able to take advantage of the things taxes would normally give them. seems like a pretty romanticized version of anarchy. The main flaw, is you can't stop people from using things like streets, benches, etc, and you run into a lot of free riders, lowering the standard of living of the country considerably. I thought about this argument before I even read your post, and the only reply I have is I'm talking on an abstract level. Of course you're going to run into problems when putting volunteerism into modern society, as it is now. Just like if we were talking about something like communism, it would only be on a theoretical level and of course would include a complete overhaul of how society works right now. But the "romanticized" version of anarchy I presented is not what you called it - "romanticized." It's true anarchy, and other forms anarchy (chaos which leads to inevitable destruction apparently) are misrepresentations of the idea. Mostly exaggerated to scare people from even considering it as something that would work. If anyone has read The People's History of the United States, it talks a bit about how native american tribes before colonists started plaguing them, ran very similarly to anarchy - in that they had no enforced rules where a definite punishment was inevitable - but instead decided as a community for punishments. Most of the time these punishments never even included things like a fine, or time in a sort of prison. Most punishments where banishment from that community until you could prove that you wanted to actually be apart of their community.
Yes, societies like this can work, on a small scale. But as population gets higher it becomes unfeasible
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EPT
