House passes DOGE cuts to USAID, NPR, and PBS. If it passes the senate it looks like the opposition will no longer be able to use tax-payer dollars to fund their propaganda.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-12/house-passes-doge-cuts-to-pbs-npr-aid-in-win-for-musk-trump?srnd=phx-politics

Are you saying that the fly walking inside a Venus flytrap does not cause the Venus flytrap's jaw to close?

If the action potential is in the plant, then yes, the biology of the flytrap causes it to close if and when such a stimulus happens.

So?

That means they are not autonomous.

They can if we build them that way. But also: so?

But the fact that we have to build them, program them, etc negates their autonomy.

But the heart beat is not an application of agent-causal libertarian free will. And neither is the sense organ's response to stimuli. So there is no good reason to claim that the behaviour of the sense organs in response to stimulation is any less determined than the behaviour of a radio receiver in response to stimulation. You can't simply hand-wave this away by saying that in other circumstances the organism does have agency.

I can and will hand wave it until you can show that something else in the universe beats the heart. Until then there is nothing else that can be shown to determine the heart beat.

Taking a step back for a moment, and re-addressing this, do you at least accept that my speech can cause a voice-activated forklift to lift a heavy weight, and so that the above comment of yours is completely misguided?

I do not accept it.

You're equivocating. It is true that the human organism is responsible for its heart beat and digestion but it is not prima facie true that its heart beat and digestion is an example of agent-causal libertarian free will, comparable to the supposedly could-have-done-otherwise decision to either have Chinese or Indian for dinner.

So even if you want to consider humans – but not plants and machines – as being agents, its agency does not prima facie apply to everything the body does.

You need to do more than simply assert that humans are agents to defend the claim that the behaviour of the sense organs is an application of agency and not simply a causal reaction to stimuli.

I never said it was an application of agency. I used “agency” to distinguish between the human being and your analogies. But the fact remains that the heart beat and digestion is caused by this same agent. So it is with the operation and maintenance with everything else occurring in the body.

And the same is true of the Venus flytrap and the remote control car (albeit with machinery in place of biology).

Venus flytraps, yes, but machines no. Machines are designed, built, and operated by human beings. They cannot change their own batteries or plug themselves in.

You the entire planet Earth and all living things. It’s basically what you said.

I thought you wanted social breakdown in the US. Didn't you?

Where do you come up with this stuff?

This is a vacuous answer. You can’t simply assert that because the human organism as a whole can “choose to do otherwise” then the behaviour of its sense organs is not causally influenced by a stimulus and its source.

Even the interactionist dualist accepts that some of the body’s behaviour is not “agent-caused”, e.g our heartbeats and digestive systems.

I’m not a dualist. The behavior of the sense organs, the brain, the nervous system etc. is the behavior of the whole. I reiterate this because pretending one and then the other are discreet units outside of the scope and control of the whole is abstract nonsense.

If not the agent, then what causes the heart beat and digestion? Is the Sinoatrial node a foreign parasite or something? Like I said, abstract nonsense.

And how do you maintain this whilst endorsing eliminative materialism? Agents are physical systems and agency is a physical process and like every other physical system and physical process in the universe its behaviour can be and is causally influenced by physical systems and physical processes external to itself, whether that be deterministic causation or probabilistic causation (e.g quantum indeterminacy).

In the case of human sensing, the transduction of one form of energy to another, as in the conversion of outside stimulus to internal chemical and electrical signals, is performed by the human organism. No external system involved in the event of listening performs such an action. And when I look at what changes the force of a soundwave can possibly cause inside the human body the effects are exactly the ones I said the were and no more. Past the transduction, that force is simply no longer present and therefor neither is its “influence”. There is no soundwave or words banging around in there like billiard balls.

All subsequent movements occur due to the potential energy stored in the system itself, in this case the body, as determined by the internal process by which your body expends energy and burns calories. The energy and ability to move, or do the work involved in listening, or speaking, or any activity, is converted, stored, and used by the body and no other system. It determines any and all activity involved, and in fact is physically identical to that activity.

What does it mean to “move on their own accord”? Does the Venus flytrap closing its jaws “move on its own accord”? Does the robot left to its own devices to navigate a maze “move on its own accord”?

It just means autonomy: the energy and force required to move is provided by that which is moving, generated by itself, and wholly determined by the biology, not by external forces.

Why is that relevant? Matter is matter. All physical systems operate according to the same physical laws.

You are engaging in special pleading when you assert that “the entity takes over” applies to human organisms but not machines (and not plants?).

Physical systems vary in properties and behavior. Why would that be irrelevant?

Firstly, are you arguing against determinism and in favour of libertarian free will? If so, how do you maintain this whilst also endorsing eliminative materialism?

I don’t need to believe in non-physical substances to believe objects can move on their own accord.

Which are you endorsing? If the latter then we’re still dealing with causal influence, albeit probabilistic causation.

I’m inclined towards sourcehood arguments and agent-causation of libertarian free will.

Secondly, where does decision-making occur? In the inner ear? Or later in the “higher-level” brain activity? If the latter then you must at least accept that the causal power of stimuli extends beyond the immediate interaction with the sense organs, being causally responsible for the signals sent to the brain and the behaviour of “lower-level” neurons.

I consider the body to be one holistic system. It is only this system in its entirety that decides, or can decide.

The same is true of the machine with a radio receiver. But it’s still the case that if I send it the appropriate radio signal, e.g telling it to self destruct, then I am causally influencing its behaviour.

The fact that the human body and sense organs are organic matter and not metal is of no relevance.

But you set up the receiver and bomb. You programmed it to self destruct. It didn’t grow organically and learn to deal with the environment and others through years of experience and learning. It cannot choose to do otherwise should it desire to do so. You have no such influence over human beings as you would over a radio receiver.

The "protests" are spreading to other cities. It looks like Americans are in for another “summer of love”, just like in 2020.

The question is “why”? Why do Americans have to suffer yet again the destruction of their cities, the people in their roadways, the curfews, the violence and looting, the waving of foreign flags on American streets?

It’s not like there hasn’t been mass deportations before. Over 3 million individuals were removed from the country during the Obama administration. In 2013 alone over 83% were expelled without due process. Where were the activist judges? Where were the highly-televised protests and riots then?

Not only that, but around 1500 “No Kings” protests are planned across the country on June 14th, coinciding with the Army’s 250th birthday and the military parade. Why? I suspect the anti-Trump imagination sees in its soy-colored narrative the military parades of Russia or China, soldiers goose-stepping about, and assume Trump was inspired with his dictatorial aspirations. But the inspiration came from watching France's popular Bastille Day parade.

And of course, like everything, Trump is to blame. The great demiurge has entered the brains of rioters and now moves them like marionettes to inflict violence upon their countrymen. It's going to be an eventful summer!

This whole foray in LA is amazing in its effects. Anti-Trumpism has reduced them to defending illegals, MS-13 members, mobs waving foreign flags, riots, law breaking, and routine violence.

I am saying that NOS4A2's claim that speech has no causal power beyond the immediate transfer of kinetic energy in the inner ear is a complete misunderstanding of causation.

You might be right; I do have issues with causation. But you furtively leave out the body as much as you can. You don’t mention that it is the body that does the listening. In fact, the body does all the work: produces all the components required, converts all the energy, guides the impulses to their destination, directs each and every subsequent bodily movement long after the sound wave has had any impression. Sound waves do none of that stuff.

To get back on point, no government should regulate whatever I am saying now and whatever you said or might say in response to me.

But if you and I were conspiring to commit murder, just flinging murderous thoughts and plans at each other, and one of us takes one affirmative step according to those plans, like buying guns or something, then both of us could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder and potentially jailed, not for buying the guns, but for the words we shared as the reason for buying the guns.

That would be government regulating speech but because of its consequences, not because of its content.

What consequence? You haven’t murdered anyone. It’s true, you definitely could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, even though your crime is moving your mouth and breath in certain ways as to form sounds called words, which harmed exactly nothing; but that’s indicative of how superstitious man is.

Descriptors can come from any angle, from any mouth, and can vary in degree from similar to opposite according to whomever describes it. Therefor it is necessarily distorted by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

It is enough that the work itself is objective, and anyone can view it and come to their own conclusions. In that sense, that a work is objective is itself an objective quality, and probably the only one that matters.

Can you not do otherwise?

Butting in here, but isn't you responding to FO proving their point to a degree? They post, you respond. Obviously as adults we are responsible to how we react to things, but it is also clearly possible to say things that will get people to react in semi-predictable ways. I believe this means there can be some gray areas. An example that comes to mind is how "fighting words" are not legal, as they encourage other people to fight.

NOS4A2, post something, anything, anywhere on TPF.

You are my slave now.

The rooster crows, the sun rises. Therefor the rooster causes the sun to rise.

Like I said earlier, post hoc ergo propter hoc. I respond if and when I want to. Sometimes I do not respond at all, or even read a post for that matter. A series of words, written or spoken, have no special force over and above their mediums, which are themselves not words. So how can you move a human being with words?

It’s obvious to me that my words cause others to take specific actions and so I can be held responsible for the outcome of the acts of others because they listened to my words.

Repeatedly talking about motor cortex’s is having no affect on the arguments. Motor cortex’s are how. They are not why. You are not talking politics and the question of free speech is a political one.

Then let’s try it. Use your words and cause me to take specific actions.

What's the relevant difference between a radio receiver and a sense organ such that I can be said to be the cause of what happens after the radio receiver converts radio waves into electrical signals but cannot be said to be the cause of what happens after a sense organ converts sound waves into electrical signals?

Human beings are organic, living, beings that have the capacity to move, think, and act, among many other activities. Radio receivers cannot do any of the above and have no such capacities. Humans use their environment to sense while radio receivers cannot.

You bring up the term “agent”, but what does that mean? If I say that the drought caused the famine am I putting the drought in the role of “agent”?

An agent is a general term in philosophy of mind denoting “a being with the capacity to act and influence the environment”.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency

Your language reeks of folk psychology, which I thought you were against? We should only be addressing the physics of the matter, so commit to it. And when addressing the physics of the matter there is no good reason to believe that the human body’s response to sound waves is any different in principle to a bomb’s response to radio waves.

And on the example of the drought causing the famine, this once again shows that causal influence ought not be understood so reductively as only the immediate transfer of kinetic energy, as you try to do when misinterpreting what it means for speech to influence behaviour.

You should just accept that this approach you're taking to defend free speech is entirely misguided. You'd be better served arguing in favour of interactionist dualism and libertarian free will, or if that is a step too far then just that the causal influence speech has does not warrant legal restrictions.

No, it appears I don’t need to concede to anything you say because nothing you’ve said has been convincing. All you can do is use agency in your analogies, then remove it when it comes to your physics, or when it’s otherwise convenient.

Sorry, I thought you asked why I was posting here.

The point of a constitution is to define the founding principles of a state.

Do you think you can be responsible for the actions of others?

No. No one cannot control another’s motor cortex with words.

Trust me, don’t yell “fire!” in a crowded room. Some people might hold you responsible for what other people do, that they will say was based on what you yelled.

As I wrote to you earlier in the thread, the “fire in a crowded theater” phrase was just an analogy, never a binding law. The ruling in which this analogy was used was overturned nearly 60 years ago. The constitution of the US does not forbid it yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Watch Christopher Hitchens dispel this myth at the outset of his delightful speech on free speech.

It's simply special pleading to claim that my biology "governs, controls, and thereby determines" transduction but that a bomb's machinery doesn't. Flesh, blood, and bone is in principle no different to metal.

So, once again, I can cause a bomb to explode by flicking a switch and I can cause someone to turn their head by shouting their name. All your talk about transduction and the kinetic energy of speech is utterly irrelevant. Whether man or machine, I can and do causally influence another entity's behaviour, as can other men and machines causally influence mine.

The reason you won’t make the bomb the agent of causation and put it in the subject position in your event is because it’s absurd. The switch touching your finger does not “causally influence” your behavior any more than any other switch touching your finger.

It’s the same with words. The agent who reads or listens or flips switches has certain capacities that neither soundwaves, scribbles on paper, nor switches have. The words you’re reading don’t causally influence you to read them anymore than they cause you to stop reading them.

Then what is the point of a constitution or a law? About anything? Such as “free speech?”

On another (but now related) topic, why are you bothering to post here?

I enjoy posting here. I enjoy thinking and arguing about such topics.

Sounds like folk psychology to me.

What's the relevant difference between a radio receiver and a sense organ such that I can be said to be the cause of what happens after the radio receiver converts radio waves into electrical signals but cannot be said to be the cause of what happens after a sense organ converts sound waves into electrical signals?

I’ve stated this before but each one of your analogies invariably put the human being in the subject position as the agent of causation. Man does something to computer; man flicks a switch; man blows people up. That is until it comes to the topic of discussion, where it is words do something to man, soundwaves do something to man. Why do keep pulling this switch?

Bombs do not have the capacity to govern, control, and thereby determine their behavior. That’s why it is a false analogy.

And the bomb only explodes if it was built a certain way and contains the necessary catalyst, and so on. It's still the case that I caused it to explode by flicking the switch.

Unless you want to argue that human organisms are special in some way that allows them to defy the natural laws of cause and effect that govern every other physical object and system in the universe you're still engaging in non sequiturs.

You don’t believe a sensory receptor causes the transduction of the mechanical energy of a soundwave into electrical impulses? Then what converts the mechanical energy of a soundwave into electrical impulses?

Well, you set the bomb, put it in a place that would kill people, wired the whole thing up, flicked the switch, and so on. You didn’t just flick a switch. The way it is framed is misleading, as these false analogies often are.

To be clear, I have never denied that the light from writing or the sound waves from spoken words do not “causally influence” the body.

But no, no one has made the case how a spoken word can “causally influence” a human being any differently than any other articulated, guttural sound. No one has made the case how the written word can "causally influence" a human being differently than any other mark on paper. The sound-waves of the spoken word, and light bouncing off the ink, do not possess any special properties, different energies, so it must be assumed that they have similar effects as other similar sounds, similar marks on paper, and with very little variation.

The only thing that can explain the variation in behavior, why one person might be “incited” by a word and another will not, is the person himself. This necessarily includes his biology, but also his history, his education, and so on. For example, he must have first acquired language. He must understand what he is hearing. It’s the person, not the word, that fully determines, governs, and causes the response.

If I flick a switch on a radio detonator causing a distant bomb to explode and kill people then I caused a distant bomb to explode and caused people to die; I didn't just cause a switch to change position.

There is more to "A causes B" than just "B is the immediate effect of A's kinetic energy". I don't know why you insist on persisting with this absurdity.

Because I think you’re wrong. And your false analogies with machines and computers only illustrate the lengths you will go to continue it. Bombs don’t require language acquisition, education, and communal living to develop language in the first place, let alone to let it affect them. All of this history and growth has much more to do with the response to a word than the shape of a sound wave.

Correct.

Rather, sound waves cause my ears to send signals to the brain which causes certain neurons to fire in certain ways, and this just is what it means to hear and understand a word. And this in turn causes other neurons to fire in other ways, sending signals to the muscles causing them to contract or relax.

I just don’t see it. Even if I assume your description, I don't see how we can get from this to "words causally influence behavior", or "words incite my action", or any sort of conclusion that words produce any effects beyond causing my ears to send signals.

We have to mention that the sound wave hitting your eardrum is the sole interaction it has with your body, and is therefor the only movement determined by it. That's the only "causal influence" it can have. The rest is all produced, structured, controlled, directed, moved, by the body.

The rest is fully determined by the body of the listener. This is even more evident with acts of reading.

I have no idea how we'd measure the relative degree to which they are involved. The best we can do is ask the question "would I have responded this way had X not happened?", perhaps leading us into the counterfactual theory of causation.

We could sum up the amount of interactions or “causal influences” on your behavior produced by either the word and the body and find out who had more or less influence on result.

The sound is meaningful because the neurons in the brain react in a certain way to it, differently to how they react to other sounds. As to why the neurons react in this way to these sounds, again this would require an absurdly complex model that cannot be explained in a few words - or even a few pages - and certainly not by me. Even the most knowledgeable neuroscientists in the world probably can’t explain it yet.

So nothing is in the sound wave itself that makes it meaningful. Meaning isn't transferred from one person to another.

They all play a part.

Do they all equally play a part?

The brain reacts differently to different sounds. Loud bangs elicit different responses to soothing music. Meaningful expressions elicit different responses to meaningless noise. The specifics of how and why the brain reacts differently would require an absurdly complex and comprehensive model of the brain’s neurons and their interactions with each other and other peripheral aspects of the central nervous system - including the sense organs and environmental stimuli. Trying to explain and predict the weather is child’s play in comparison.

How can a meaningful expression causally influence you differently than a meaningless expression? What is it in the word itself, and what besides surface-level kinetic energy transfer, causes you to respond differently?

All of it does, given that these things determine the existence and relative placement of the neurons and neural connections that make up my brain.

Is it these things that determine your response, or is it the word?

Who said anything about blame? Enough of the folk psychology. You've made it very clear in the past that you're an eliminative materialist. So commit to it.

We're talking about physics and causality, and it is a fact about physics that the behaviour of one material thing can – and does – have a causal affect on another material thing. It doesn't matter if these material things are organisms or machines or if they're human or plant. And causal influence is not to be understood so reductively as surface-level kinetic energy transfer.

We’re talking about speech. How does speech produce a different causal affect and response than any other sound?

Does none of you, your body, your education, your lexicon, and so on causally influence what you read and write in response?

"Entirely up to me" and "causally influenced by you" are not mutually exclusive. See compatibilism.

It is a proven physical fact that my brain activity is causally affected by what some external stimulus causes to happen to my sense organs. That's what it means to sense things in the environment.

You're playing word games when you interpret "A causally influences B" as only meaning "B is the immediate effect of A's kinetic energy". It's ridiculous.

The fact is you read the words. You scanned your eyes over them, considered them, and formulated your response. You understand the language, know how to type, reply, quote, use the website, turn on the computer. Your education, your lexicon, your intelligence, your aptitude. Your body, your brain, your lungs, your hormones, your heart, your genes. All of this “causally influenced” your response but for some reason you want to blame the words for what you write. It’s bizarre.

Nice post again, Count. You’re an enjoyable read.

The "common sensibles" (shape, size, extension, rest, motion, and number) are viewed as "most real" because they can be validated by many senses, including sight and touch, which have priority in human experience.

At the outset I am inclined to believe that these “sensibles”, too, are not sensible, but the abstractions of a sensible object: “properties”. The referents here invariably reside in the mind. But like you said, this sort of materialism is doomed to waiver between the insensible and the sensible insofar as it is about the measurements of objects considered, in abstracto, where we begin to examine the measurements more so than we do the object.

I have read the entire response and will make further comments. But I am telling you mate, this is the only reasonable answer you have given. That's fine, but it does absolutely nothing for the arguments you've been presented with, regardless of you either not getting htem, or pretending they aren't there.

I thought I’ve addressed most if not all of the arguments but I’ll be happy to address any that if I’ve missed them.

This is equivalent to saying "Preventing crime is violating people's rights to eat fresh Apples from the corner near my house". Utterly preposterous and non sequitur. There is absolutely no connection between criminalizing speech and the (obviously nonsensical, in context) "sacrifice" or "another's" right to "live and survive with others". These are non-arguments.

Preventing crime? I’m speaking about preventing someone’s speech, which I stated was “harmless and relatively innocuous behavior required to live and survive with others”. Is crime “ harmless and relatively innocuous behavior required to live and survive with others” in your book? Your equivalence is utter nonsense. I’ll repeat it for you and anyone else you think are moved like a marionette by your sophistry. “Speech is a harmless and relatively innocuous behavior required to live and survive with others. So criminalizing speech—any speech—is to sacrifice another's right to live and survive with others.”

Tell me why defamation is acceptable? Repudiating contract? Misleading commercial dealings? Politicians lying about their policies? Police lying on their reports? Judges lying about evidence in their command? Perjury? Trademark violations? You truly think these should not be regulated?
If so, you want communism. Plain and simple.

I don’t think any of them are acceptable. The problem is you’re equivocating between illegal, regulated, and acceptable behavior in a dramatic display of complete casuistry. I say none of it should be criminalized so you repeat the question, moving the goalposts, to where you are now asking if they I think they should be regulated. Or if I believe they’re acceptable. Why ask if you can’t handle the answer?

I don’t think your sophistry is acceptable and I think you should have at least enough respect for yourself to regulate your bad faith, but in any case I would never criminalize your behavior, punish you for it, or seek your sanction. It’s much better to let you express yourself so I and others can know what kind of person we’re dealing with, whether I should take you seriously, and so on. As proven, it appears I don’t need to.

But even reading words can literally cause irresistible chemical urges in the brain and these are known mental conditions.

Reading words! Finally, the reader is causing it. As long as you say the writer didn’t cause it, you’re thinking more clearly.

It is not a coincidence or magical thinking you read my words and respond to them. That’s entirely up to you whether you do or not. It’s magical thinking to believe I cause you to respond.

In any case, I am more interested in your defense of not making things like contractual lies, slander/defamation, trademark violation, perjury etc... illegal rather than 'private speech' as it were (bad wording, but hopefully says what I want). Is there something for you to say here? Why would we want to allow the chips to fall where they may in these areas?

For my own tastes it's because of principle. Namely, I do not think any person nor group of people should have the power to pick and choose what the rest of us can say, write, and think. Far better to let the chips fall as they may than to give anyone that power. I'll outline some other principles below, but there are plenty more.

Speech is a harmless and relatively innocuous behavior required to live and survive with others. So criminalizing speech—any speech—is to sacrifice another's right to live and survive with others.

But worse, the reason's stated as to why a censor might criminalize speech are entirely superstitious. In fact I would argue that the censor's superstitions are the most prevalent, ancient, and at the same time, most disastrous of superstitions of the entirety of human existence.

The evidence of this is in their reasoning, where they invariably waiver between the actual and the figurative when making their claims (this word literally"triggers" that action, where "trigger" in the literal sense means "to fire by pulling a mechanical trigger". They must be figurative because they cannot explain how it actually occurs). One can read historical accounts of censorship (the trial of socrates for example) to see how this is the case. Physically speaking, speech doesn't possess enough kinetic energy required to affect the world that the superstitious often claims it does. Speech, for instance, doesn't possess any more kinetic energy than any other articulated guttural sound. Writing doesn't possess any more energy than any other scratches or ink blots on paper. And so on. So the superstitious imply a physics of magical thinking that contradicts basic reality: that symbols and symbolic sounds, arranged in certain combinations, can affect and move other phases of matter above and beyond the kinetic energy inherent in the physical manifestation of their symbols. So in my view, to choose to censor is to tacitly believe in superstition and sorcery. Personally, I refuse to do so. Far better to let the chips fall as they may.

But also I wish to possess knowledge. Speech, and therefore our knowledge of history, is as fragile as the Herculaneum papyri. If we were able to gather the sum-total of human speech into a vast pile of writings, art, and artifacts, imagine if some censor was allowed to have his superstitious way with it. What works have already been robbed from humankind we'll probably never know, but in this sense censorship is a form of robbery, perhaps of the worst kind. (Think of what was stolen from mankind with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria). Knowledge of human history must also include lies, fabrications, insults, hate speech, and anything else that is speech. So far better to let the chips fall as they may than to engage in robbery of that kind. Far better to possess knowledge than to be ignorant.

I have plenty more arguments and could go on ad nauseam but I'll refrain for now.

I still prefer "How do we use the word real?"

Charles Pierce claimed that the term “real” was invented by scholastic philosophers to signify “that which is not a figment”, in order to close the debate around the problem of universals. I’m not sure if that is true or not, but I thought it was neat. Before then the word “real” already had its use in “real property”, something like “immovable property”, which we know today as real estate.

So how would that work in anarchy if hierarchies are not allowed and everyone has as much as a say as everyone else?

When I was younger I used visit a remote beach to surf with some squatters, some of whom were old homesteaders and anarchists. They had a little community there. It was small, but there were disputes, and they were settled all by deliberation. Not a single incident of violence in the decades they stayed there, at least until the government came in, forcibly evicted them, and burned down their homes.

A minor setback. There are plenty ways around it.

Hey, I don't know what's wrong with the rest of the world but reading old translations of 150 year old political theory is :fire: -- keeps me up all night.

There are some good writers who tend towards anarchism. Less philosophical, systematic, more poetic, but enjoyable to read at least. Oscar Wilde, Percy Shelly, Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau, and Albert Jay Nock come to mind.

In fact, Tolstoy’s “On Anarchy” fits nicely into this thread topic. He is more of an individualist anarchist, where the revolution occurs within the individual, offering a different path for the aspiring anarchist than the Marxist and the violent anarchists of his own day.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-on-anarchy

5,000 years of recorded human history where wars are waged and the stronger or larger force takes and destroys from the weaker or smaller force is an "assumption?"

Like, it's just something I randomly made up one day? Are you serious? :rofl:

Bruh. Nah. Just nah. Come on, you're not that dense.

You don’t mention that these forces were more often than not managed, armed, and employed by states. Political scientist Rudolph Rummel estimated that around 300 million people were killed by governments in the last century alone. He coined the term “democide”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide

That’s another distinction between the statist and the anarchist: they’re assumptions of human nature. Hobbes’ bellum omnium contra omnes rings true or false depending on one’s degree of statism.

That’s why I fear the statist more, because they believe humans require authority and absolutism to keep their wildest impulses in check. Presumably, this includes themselves as well. So if authority and absolutism were to collapse, we know who to look out for.