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DissidentRage wrote

That may be true... or it may not.

Historically it always has been.

If you assume it's true and prepare for a bloody fight... you will get one, whether it really was true or not.

How does attitude affect the outcome? That's like saying you can improve your odds of getting a job you applied to online by being more positive.

If you assume it's not true and you're wrong, then you will have prepared a peaceful movement only to have it met with violence. At that point, you win.

That's assuming the media apparatus and historians don't whitewash your struggle, and that the opposition doesn't utterly snuff out any adherents who actually have a chance of acting on the ideas. Observe any number of peaceful protests where adherents were tried, beaten or even killed, only to have the memory of the public look favorably still on the oppressors, or at least have the message of the protesters scrubbed of any nuance that goes against official narrative. Most of the public in the US probably does not know that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a self-described democratic socialist.

I question the reasoning of anyone who advocates building a better world through murder.

It must be anticipated is all I'm saying. Human history is filled with countless examples of rulers being unrepentant dicks to the people below them. Who's to say it's going to be any different now just because some governments are more "civilized"?

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indi wrote

Historically it always has been.

I've already explained why history is a poor guide for what might happen in the future.

But I could make the point in a much more pithy way by pointing out that, historically, no armed revolution has ever produced an anarchist society that lasted for more than a couple years.

How does attitude affect the outcome?

I've already explained that, too. It's not "attitude", it's preparing for a fight that's the problem. I don't mean "mentally preparing", I mean literally preparing. If you prepare for a fight against a state, then even if the state has no other beef with you, the state will treat you like an enemy.

That's assuming the media apparatus and historians don't whitewash your struggle, and that the opposition doesn't utterly snuff out any adherents who actually have a chance of acting on the ideas. Observe any number of peaceful protests where adherents were tried, beaten or even killed, only to have the memory of the public look favorably still on the oppressors, or at least have the message of the protesters scrubbed of any nuance that goes against official narrative.

I've also already explained why that reasoning doesn't fly. If you have an educated, informed population, propaganda doesn't work. Most propaganda is based on logical fallacies, so a population trained in spotting them are less vulnerable (this is the reason why I advocate for teaching reasoning skills in early education). And of course, there's the issue of outright lying, but that's mitigated by modern communication technologies that allow people to either record what actually happened, or get the various stories of what happened directly from the people who were there.

Once again, you're looking at history but ignoring the future. It was easy in the past for regimes to spin or outright rewrite incidents, and control the story the public heard. Even when there wasn't straight-up state media, media outlets tended to be controlled by state collaborators. But that's no longer true; now anyone can publish whatever they please, and reach everyone. States no longer control the message, and that's arguably what's caused all the populist chaos of the last few years. The "media apparatus" is dying; the Internet - the land of anarchic, free communication - is killing it. We're not there yet, but that's where we're going.

Just look at what's happening in the world today. In many cities, we're actually getting police to wear frickin' body cameras to record everything they're doing! Yes, yes, yes, there are still problems we're dealing with, like cops "forgetting" to turn them on or just "losing" the footage. But these are the early days, and we're already seeing cops being held to account by what their cameras captured. That is the future; a future where information is trivially captured, stored, and shared, and the excuses of the state for hiding crimes will no longer fly. Again, we're not there yet, but that's where we're going.

Most of the public in the US probably does not know that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a self-described democratic socialist.

In my opinion, the US is a poor example of modern social progress. Most of the public in the US doesn't know their head from their asshole.

But for those of us who aren't chin-deep in our colons, the truth is out there, and we can get it if we want. We can find King's speeches. We can even view videos of them. We can access his writings freely. We can talk directly to the people who knew him and marched with him. All of those things were either totally impossible or very difficult just 30 years ago. It was easy for states to spread stories of King being a free-market capitalist because the average person couldn't track down the evidence to refute it... now it's pretty much a click away for everyone - hell, with a smartphone, you can literally fact check the claim as you're hearing it, wherever and whenever you are.

That's all new stuff, and we haven't perfected the art yet. Most people still haven't figured out how to use the Internet properly, and the end up trapped in ideological bubbles (and companies like Facebook and Google are not helping; quite the opposite). We're still figuring all this out... and it's possible that I'm wrong and we'll never figure it out, and the future is one where we all live in balkanized ideological echo chambers. But that doesn't seem sustainable to me. I believe that it may take a generation or two, but we'll figure this instantaneous access to all information thing out, and when we do, states beware.

It must be anticipated is all I'm saying. Human history is filled with countless examples of rulers being unrepentant dicks to the people below them. Who's to say it's going to be any different now just because some governments are more "civilized"?

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing. You say "anticipated", but that's a vague word with two very different meanings. I can anticipate an attack by recognizing the possibility and choosing a different route to avoid it... or I can anticipate an attack with a preemptive strike while walking directly into it.

To be clear, I am not an idiot; I am well aware that states can and have reacted violently to having their authority challenged. I am also not saying anything even remotely like that governments have become more "civilized". I know what governments are and what they have done... and what they might do in the future.

What I am saying is that populations today have tools to monitor and control their governments that they didn't have in the past. In the past, guns (or the threat of guns) were the only practical tool to keep a government in check. The average person either wasn't educated enough to get into power or understand what power was doing, or informed enough to keep tabs on power. That's changing. We're still not there, but in the future with initiatives like open government and open data, the average citizen could keep close tabs on the minutia of what's going on in the halls of power. Even today, we're already exercising more control over our governments than people only a few generations ago could have dreamed of. I see no signs of that trend slowing down.

I am not saying that governments today are more "civilized", I am saying that we are civilizing governments; we are forcing "good" behaviour on them. They are not any better or different (in principle) than they've ever been. What's changed is that we have the tools now to keep government on a much tighter leash.

And following the trends and considering foreseeable future technological developments, as time goes on we'll get even more and better control over our governments. Which means that when the day comes when we decide we no longer need them - or, at the very least, we decide we no longer like the way they're currently working (supported by mercenary capitalism, for example) - we may... and I stress may... be able to use the control we have to get what we want non-violently.

What I am saying is that should be our goal. That's what we should work toward. We should not be blind to the possibility that the government will respond violently, but we should not assume that's inevitable. If they do... and only if they do... then we should start considering adding violence to our tactics. But violence should not be a tactic in our playbook unless and until they use it first. We should not start collecting guns until they use them first.

It's the difference of "anticipating" violence between considering the possibility of violence... versus expecting violence. It's the difference between choosing a path without violence, knowing that if that path becomes blocked you will have to change to a new path where you resort to force... versus choosing a path where you believe violence is inevitable. It's the difference between "we may never need guns, so let's not bother with them until and unless we do"... versus "we'll probably need guns, so let's start stockpiling them now". Choosing the latter path will provoke the government so you will almost certainly never end up with a non-violent revolution that way. Choosing the former path may lead to a non-violent revolution... but if the government does respond with violence, there's no expiration date on a revolution, so you'll always have plenty of time to prepare for war in response.

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