[Repugnant Abomination]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Look around your daily social life, and I think you may rethink this statement, my friend. Most adults are still children, and still modeling their lives on the same highschool archetypes.

So therefore I (you) should too?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

This is something I struggle with a lot. I have a tent, and could probably live successfully in the mountains for some time, hunting or living off of canned food or things that I find. It's something I've seriously considered and not a completely unreasonable future. However, given the fact that I am probably going to lose my primary form of transportation, with no money, and winter approaching, this does not seem the most feasible at this moment of time.

Well at least you're sincerely considering putting actions behind your convictions. That's more than most people.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I consider storing what I do have at a friends place and becoming "homeless", with a buddhist-monk intent, on a daily basis. So yes, it's definitely something I've considered. I may benefit from society, but every day is an intense empathetic struggle that I live in a society where others do NOT benefit from society, and this makes me sick to my stomach. I would love to work in a way to help extend these benefits to others. But if it's going to be through bullshit politics, bureaucracy, etc. I not only will not do it, I will, in the spirit of Diogenes, blatantly insult and incite anger through speech towards those who insist that I do. This is my right as an autonomous human being. Who's going to stop me?

I appreciate your position. Obviously you're a very sensitive person who is concerned with the well being of others. I've always felt a strong pull to try and give more back, through volunteerism or just being a better person. I still want to do the Peace Corps someday.

The problem I see with your overall stance though is that while you don't like the current system you don't have an alternative in mind. So you disengage. You keep saying we should all be able to do what we want without oppression or illegitimate authority telling us what to do. Okay. But then what? If the government collapsed some sort of communal utopia would not suddenly take its place. The absence of power creates a vacuum that will eventually be filled, potentially with much worse institutions of power. That's not even to speak of foreign powers getting involved. So again, I ask, if you don't like the current system then what do you propose we replace it with?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think about the "long run" because the "long run" I had planned is "long gone". As I said in another thread, I'm off the rails and thus don't care where I end up. It's hard to really buy into the "long run" when I could die tomorrow.

Or you could live to be 100. I can't tell if this is a giving up on having a productive life sentence or a new definition for "productive life" all together. Are you searching or are you simply resigned?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

My goal is complete and utter autonomy from the tyranny of the government and over the tyranny over the minds of man, many of whom do not fully realize how imprisoned their own brains and thought patterns are, over thousands of years of allowing themselves "be ruled". You ALLOW yourselves to let other human beings have authority over you. Don't you see how insane that is?

Again, what is the alternative to law and order and government? Do you assume everyone would act as enlightened and benign as you? If there was no law against murder and no government to enforce it someone could walk up to you right now and shoot you in the head with no consequences. On top of that, government is not an entity that sprung up from some primordial ooze and now terrorizes us. We have elections. We have laws. We have a social contract. That's the whole point of the social contract. We allow the sovereign to govern with citizens we freely elect and if they abuse their power to an intolerable point then, well, that's when revolution happens. What you're advocating is what's really insane, because it would be a complete breakdown of civilization. Furthermore, government is not all tyrannical. If you have a stroke an ambulance will pick you up and treat you. If someone robs you the police will try to help you get it back. The public transportation you will come to rely on? That's a government service. You seem to cherry pick all the bad things about government you don't like while ignoring the good stuff because it's not 100% perfect.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I have thought about law school. Many have mentioned it to me. I could probably do a great deal of good. The problem is, law school as it is, is still a societal institution that has not evolved with the times and I refuse to spend even more years of my precious life doing something society has told me I "must do" before affecting real change. It is much more likely that will continue to disengage (or publicly mock) civil society and practice small acts of defiance, perhaps eventually leading to a big-enough one to make some real impact.

Why go to law school when I can just read all the same books on my own, for free? If it comes to that, that's what I'll do. Or if I received a full scholarship and stipend, also unlikely. But I'm not going to fall into the same student loan trap/time waste hole as so many who go to law school do.

You can take the bar exam without going through law school. That's not society telling you what to do, that's you having to prove competency in law before you can practice. And it would be a far more successful way to affect change than petty acts of rebellion.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I didn't pay taxes this year, although that's mostly just because I didn't feel like it. I'm not sure about next year. I'm prepared to spend time in prison for most of my beliefs, if they can catch me. The option of moving to Asia again is just a flight-ticket away, and i have no ethical qualms about escaping financial persecution through such means. Life is a game, at least that's how I look at it. If "they" are going to cheat and make up arbitrary rules about reality that I personally do not agree with, then I'm going to do the exact same. These are your natural, fundamental, human rights, people. The fact that people still think they can change them by "voting" in 2014 is absurd.

If you can't afford taxes that's one thing. If you can and just didn't pay then that is free-riding the system, a system we all pay in to for mutual benefit. It's selfish to take from the pie without contributing to it.

Laws are not arbitrary, they are a human construct based on rational logic that we do the best we can coming to a majority on, and often revise or re-interpret through the supreme court against the constitution. What is your alternative to this system?

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Apologies, I just get really defensive sometimes.

It's all good. I am challenging your ideas and doing my best to follow them to their logical conclusions, but I'm not looking down on you or being patronizing. The fact that I'm taking so long to respond to you shows that I take what you have to say very seriously, and I find it intellectually stimulating.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I'm detecting a psychology tone and I would recommend as a friend you stray away from this as it will only warrant intense hostility. I've dealt with more psychiatric/psychological "professionals" than you can even fathom to imagine and even reading this post makes my blood boil.

I'm just asking questions. I'm not trying to psychoanalyze you. I wouldn't even know how.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I don't blame society for rejecting me. I blame society for existing for thousands of years and being unable to overcome its own selfishness, greed, and exploitation for the betterment, happiness and equality for all beings. I'm intensely upset with society for not dealing with these problems at this point in history --- it's insane and makes me want to do things that I can't even talk about on public forums.

So why not get involved and try to be part of the solution? You could get more done changing the system from within. Or do you think that's hopeless? And as a result feel powerless? Because that's how I often feel.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I believe these are illusions to take us away from the ultimate reality, the ultimate question of existence and why we are here.

What is the ultimate reality? And why do you think we're here? Have you come to a conclusion or are you still searching? I'm still searching, myself.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

In fact, that last sentence is probably the #1 reason I consistently think about suicide. The sheer complete inability for most human beings to even pay attention to, let alone critically assess the world situation, and not see it as their PRIME DUTY to attain world peace. Everything else is secondary. Jobs, girlfriends, wives, kids, everything. There is simply no reason to exist in a world with so much violence and war, and it makes me look forward to death quite greatly.

It seems like you assume other people don't care as much about these things as you do, based on the fact that they get pre-occupied with lesser matters in their lives. But I'd argue there are a lot of people who really care. They work for NGOs, they collect money for the poor in church, they volunteer, they hold rallies, and they genuinely wish for the betterment of mankind. But they, like you, often feel isolated and unable to affect real change, because the world is big and its problems are bigger and what can one person, or even a small group, really do? That's the domestic side. Internationally speaking, with war and politics, well that's even bigger and more complex. As long as the nation state exists I don't think we'll ever have peace because the necessity of maintaining balances of power to check the ambitions of strong states. Do you have an answer to this problem? Because a lot of people have pointed it out before you. Pointing it out isn't good enough anymore.

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

So, again, in regard to the illusion of ape-animals with advanced consciousness (humans) needing a way to spend their ultimately meaningless existence, I am going to post this again:

So you're a nihilist?