Dear John,

This morning around 5:30am, as commonly lately, I was violently woken by a neighbour's motorcycle, revving for several minutes until it finally drove off, only this time they really revved it all the way like a heavy truck so I thought it was the water-people fixing a burst pipe in my street. The noise was utterly debilitating, it didn't even allow me to think.

I could have screamed, I could have banged; thrown objects; gone and punch them in the face; break their motorcycle with a sledgehammer, I could have called the police,...

But no, instead I thanked God, saying, "why should I bless You only when pleasant things happen but not when the painful comes?". Undestanding that we live in a cosmos, not in chaos, I knew that this was happening due to something similar I've done myself earlier and soon came to mind that air-conditioner that I use in summer which might possibly drive my neighbour mad.

"Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me" - both: knowing that I already have a shepherd, the best there could ever be, the infallible perfect judge from whom no detail is hidden and whom no bribe can influence, what need have I for another shepherd?!

If I want my neighbour to permanently stop revving their motorcycle, then what I need to do is to stop using my air-conditioner or somehow find it another location that will not disturb the neighbour as much. There is no other way around. Even then, the motorcycle revving may not cease immediately because it could take a while until the penalty for my use of the air-conditioner is fully paid.

Had I gone to the police in an attempt to block the consequences of me using the air-conditioner, only fresh violence would be created and my rightful penalty would have reached me in some other way - perhaps by a snoring partner, perhaps even by tinnitus.

Violence simply means disturbing others.
If I disturb others, then I'm bound by cosmic law to be disturbed in turn, in a similar fashion and extent.

[continued...]

[...continued]

If you can find me a way to govern large societies without disturbing other people (well, nor animals either), then you will deserve every praise and then I too will likely support you.

It's no secret that most, perhaps 99% of contemporary population choose to uphold violence. I'm not going to turn the tide, I don't pretend that I can, not in what remains of my lifetime, but that doesn't mean that it was always the case: history is biased towards those who cared to write it within the last few millennia, which happen to be those who lived in large complex societies and found them interesting/titillating enough to write about, while those who lived peacefully and happily in small groups never bothered to write history.

Regarding "transition", people in general are addicted to that false-security and don't like their heroin taken away: should I try to change them forcibly, what could I achieve? replacing one form of violence with another? that has been tried already...

The first step is always education and yes, I'm not afraid of that word: discrimination! Knowing the way up from down! Once people understand that states do not and cannot protect them, they will gradually let go of them: why would you want to hold onto something that you know isn't working? But yes, it's an addiction, so it will be gradual and take the time.

Many diseases and physical pains are caused by unnecessary muscle tension.
We hold tight, fearful that if we loosen up we will fall and break our neck.
As we do so, we constrict the blood flow, thus also damaging internal organs and our immune system.
That is why guided relaxation or "body scanning" is so useful,
lying down and becoming aware of our limbs one by one then allowing them to relax.
We might fear that we will fall, but in reality the ground is already holding us firmly and we will only sag down a few millimetres.
No need to construct a floor when it is already there beneath us.

P.S. My plastic bags arrived today.

Yuyutsu,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. This format makes your position much easier to understand! There are a few problems with it, though.

Firstly, your use of the word "violence" to describe any form of disturbance is unhelpful. Violence refers to physical harm or coercion, not everyday inconveniences. By broadening it to include any disruption, you diminish the seriousness of true violence and make it too difficult to address or discuss actual harm. Equating minor disturbances with genuine violence only serves to confuse the ethical issues.

Secondly, our understanding of history is based more on archaeological and anthropological evidence than it is on written evidence. So, your dismissal of it as biased towards larger, governed societies is futile. Archaeology has shown us that violence (in many forms) existed even in small, non-literate societies. To suggest that peaceful groups existed but didn’t record their existence doesn’t hold up to the physical evidence.

Thirdly, I presume your claims that states "do not and cannot protect" is in the context of your belief in cosmic law. That being said, your beliefs about the cosmic law (as I currently understand them) assume that a person who is raped deserved to be raped. While you might then say that a victim may not necessarily have deserved to be raped, and that the rapist would therefore get their just deserts, that only makes the cosmic law reactive. Governance, on the other hand, is also proactive and may have prevented the rape in the first place.

Finally, governance isn’t a crutch people cling to without reason; it’s a framework that has evolved because it works to safeguard individuals and maintain social cohesion. Dismissing preferences for governance as mere addiction ignores the historical and empirical evidence that shows how governance has prevented chaos and exploitation, creating stability in complex societies.

I’m glad your plastic bags arrived promptly. I use the environmentally-friendly reusable bags, but I still forget to take them to the shops with me! I have so many now that I think I might just go and chuck ‘em all in the creek.

John,

You're a prime example of a user of misinformation and disinformation on this forum with your frequent false claim that you have already addressed questions. The truth is that you never do so.

You claim that fact checking is a simple exercise, almost mechanical. This is not the case. Albo was annoyed that Australian voters could not be bullied and intimidated into supporting the Voice, blaming the result on a campaign of "misinformation and disinformation". The conduct of the fact checkers during the referendum was highly biased and portrayed legitimate criticism as misinformation and disinformation, almost unanimously supporting the PM's accusations.

It is highly probable that Albo would use the misinformation legislation to silence legitimate criticism with biased fact checking. I'd suggest that the fact checking would be much like the accident investigation done after Chairman Dan and the missus collided with that kid on a bike.

Fester

John Daysh just says 'no' to everything.

ttbn,

If John has legal training he should realise that establishing non-trivial "facts" acceptable to everyone is impossible.

Albo's approach to establishing "facts" via a government agency reminds me of Stanley Milgram using authority figures to coerce test subjects in his famous shock experiments. Using the authority figure convinced about two thirds of subjects to deliver what would have been lethal shocks. I'd reckon that cult leader Albo would be hoping that his truth agency would be equally convincing.