I think this is more the rule than the exception. The idea that states exist to serve the individual would be laughed at for most of human history. Be it God or the state, man exists to serve. Conscripting and killing young men for the sake of the state/God/glory has been one of humanities favorite pastimes.
Theres a lot I don't know about the Soviet Union but the "Enemies of the People" were the leaders of the Constitutional Democratic Party, not supporters of the party.
I agree that people like Giuliani and even people like Ted Cruz who indirectly bolstered the attack on the capitol building should be prosecuted but going after Trump Supporters themselves is dumb and these comments shouldn't even be made in jest as they are quite dangerous. Most of them are victims of predatory media companies. You sound like the gestapo.
The government imposes its will all the time. It prevents you from shooting me or overthrowing the government. Surely this imposition is just? Surely this is more benign then letting you shoot me or letting you overthrow the government.
Why? Because it reduces human suffering.
Also surely with better technology we will be able to transform prisons into rehabilitation centers and thus reduce our countries prison populations and thus become a FREER country, albeit one with less rights?
I think comparing our government to a beehive or a pack of wolves is ridiculous I guess you can call governments "natural." Even if we consider this government natural, surely it doesn't have a natural state. What is the "natural state" of a government of 350 million people?
We can definitely make systemic changes that help people make better "decisions." I don't believe in free will and you clearly do so we're kinda approaching this problem from fundamentally different frameworks. Stupid people shouldn't be culled but rather shepherded. Governments are artificial constructs so asking them to act "naturally" doesn't make sense to me as they have no natural state.
Also reducing human suffering seems to be a pretty good thing to do and your natural system doesn't seem to do that.
"They also estimated we would have flying cars 20 years ago."
My number comes from a collection of AI researchers from the future of life institute so I can't imagine a better "they" to defer to. That said, we are bad at predicting the future so who knows?
I never said we should forget about the average people or normal people as Yang calls them in his book "The War on Normal People."
Even if we don't have AGI we will have narrow AI such as self driving/factory stuff/textiles which will displace millions. I'm all for UBI or some sort of equivalent social safety net (I'm not an economist so I don't want to be prescriptive here as I have heard some drawbacks to UBI).
The technocrats have already created platforms that are tearing our social fabric apart by promulgating conspiracies and radicalizing our youth while reducing long-form literacy an increasing anxiety and depression.
What we need is some sort of social revolution that in my opinion could only be obtained by an authoritarian government that protects people from themselves and the exploitive tech corporations. Ban facebook to reduce conspiracy promulgation. Ban tiktok and ever increasingly addictive video games to prevent our youth from becoming dopamine junkees. Ban drugs so the listless and ever-growing welfare class remain mostly docile.
None of these changes are feasible in a country whose identity revolves around personal freedom/choice.
The people who are on this forum are cogs in a machine that, over the next 40 years, will displace millions of American workers. It seems where we are headed into a bifurcated society part overeducated technocrats part gig economy task rabbits.
Seeing the former group beginning to consider the effects of their work is dystopian.
Its pretty crazy how no one is talking about how only 18% of the stimulus bill is going to individuals. I'm by no means rich but I made 80k passively this year so I don't know which side of the wealth transfer I'm on.
If there is no way to work, there must be no way to provide value to others. Correct? If there is no way to provide value to another then there is no inequity.
Maslow put "employment" in his hierarchy of needs. As a trust fund kid I've never had to worry about living in the streets but found that without the purpose of work I felt pretty worthless. If you live in the first world you basically have food water and shelter taken care of for you if you're resourceful. The rest seems to be climbing status hierarchies and opulence.
This is a pretty first world-centric perspective. There are slightly higher rates of dissatisfaction and hopelessness but quality of life is drastically improving in the second and third world. More efficient production results in better and more stuff even if the stuff isn't distributed perfectly.