Control or Chaos?

[olicon]

Anarchy in the UK, baby! (Not that I'm in the UK, mind you.)
The funny thing is, a LOT of people are already experiencing both cases in present world. And in general, the ones under oppressive regime loses out much more than the ones from anarchic non-regime. Why, look at those damn politicians sitting on Capital Hill and what not! They live in an anarchic world--they do not have to respect any rule of law, and they do not have to bow down to anyone. And from what I can tell, they are the happiest people in the world! (If money translates directly to happiness, that is.)

And extreme chaos and order always wraps right around to the other side anyway.

 

[Limos]

Chaos, glorious chaos.

Some people think a windmill an object of beauty. Others think it is only beautiful when in motion. I say it is beautiful when you get to watch it burn.

 

[John Galt]

1) People aren't made to be completely controled. They would inevetably and eventually rebel.

You ought to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The gist is that society has become completely controlled, and people are conditioned to love it. Not only do they know no other way, but they are trained and manipulated even before birth to love whatever job is chosen for them.

The masses are kept happy through drugs and sex. People have just enough intelligence to complete their assigned labors. No need to think. No need to worry.

Scary, scary stuff.

More like utopia. As long as I'm happy, I don't care what happens to me. Know why? Because I'm happy!

 

[ffxfriek]

sorry go rules. safer lives and in the end you know its better then no rules

 

[Hunde Des Krieg]

Well anarchy would be fun, but eventually a group would form to bring order. But with the control a different group would form to end it. It just goes in circles!

 

[ObadiahBlack]

Well anarchy would be fun, but eventually a group would form to bring order. But with the control a different group would form to end it. It just goes in circles!

This is the simplest truth. Friedrich Nietzsche said once from chaos, comes order.

I really should read more of his stuff, I've been told he's fascinating...

 

[zen5887]

Yeah man!! Anarchy! Woo

I would love a world with no rules where people could do whatever they want including murder, theft and rape! That would be brutal! I don't care that anyone bigger then me would beat me up and steal everything I own just cause they can! It would be sick! I can do whatever I want! WOO

Idiots...

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

More like utopia. As long as I'm happy, I don't care what happens to me. Know why? Because I'm happy!

Scary, but true. The only people that are unhappy in Brave New World are the unfortunates that haven't been properly conditioned to love their environment. Whilst the conditioning and everything in Brave New World is abhorrent, how great would it be to be able to accept your lot in life and be happy with what life has given you?

Screw free will and intelligence! Mindless acceptance is the way of the future!

 

[John Galt]

More like utopia. As long as I'm happy, I don't care what happens to me. Know why? Because I'm happy!

Scary, but true. The only people that are unhappy in Brave New World are the unfortunates that haven't been properly conditioned to love their environment. Whilst the conditioning and everything in Brave New World is abhorrent, how great would it be to be able to accept your lot in life and be happy with what life has given you?

Screw free will and intelligence! Mindless acceptance is the way of the future!

If you've got happiness, then what else do you need? Everything we do is to create some sort of personal happiness. Reading, learning, working, sleeping, it's all to make us comfortable and happy! I see Brave New World as a utopia because it's able to combine both hierarchy and self-fulfillment into one society. What's not to love about it? It's secure, the standard of living is high, the people are content, there's no illusions about how things are supposed to be run, they know how they're being controlled and they accept it. Everyone is happy except for those who don't like the control, and even then they have the Savage Preserves for those who prefer freedom to happiness.

 

[JMeganSnow]

It is impossible for a controlled society to achieve prosperity or happiness for anyone--they can and do only achieve universal devastation. This is why tyranny is evil--if it worked, it'd be good. If this thread is about wishing for the impossible, then I want a pony and I want to be able to fly by flapping my arms.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

In the case of extremes, I would pick total Anarchy. Absolute freedom is better than no freedom any day, no matter how you slice it. Life in a Big Brother society simply wouldn't be worth living.

 

[Strafe Mcgee]

If you've got happiness, then what else do you need? Everything we do is to create some sort of personal happiness. Reading, learning, working, sleeping, it's all to make us comfortable and happy! I see Brave New World as a utopia because it's able to combine both hierarchy and self-fulfillment into one society. What's not to love about it? It's secure, the standard of living is high, the people are content, there's no illusions about how things are supposed to be run, they know how they're being controlled and they accept it. Everyone is happy except for those who don't like the control, and even then they have the Savage Preserves for those who prefer freedom to happiness.

Yup, I was agreeing with you. When everyone's happy within a society then you're doing something very right. It's the process that you need to go through to get to that society, that's the kicker.

 

[John Galt]

If you've got happiness, then what else do you need? Everything we do is to create some sort of personal happiness. Reading, learning, working, sleeping, it's all to make us comfortable and happy! I see Brave New World as a utopia because it's able to combine both hierarchy and self-fulfillment into one society. What's not to love about it? It's secure, the standard of living is high, the people are content, there's no illusions about how things are supposed to be run, they know how they're being controlled and they accept it. Everyone is happy except for those who don't like the control, and even then they have the Savage Preserves for those who prefer freedom to happiness.

Yup, I was agreeing with you. When everyone's happy within a society then you're doing something very right. It's the process that you need to go through to get to that society, that's the kicker.

Ah, my bad, sarcasm detectors went off while going down through your post. I've got to get those things re-calibrated.

 

[Amnestic]

Yeah man!! Anarchy! Woo

I would love a world with no rules where people could do whatever they want including murder, theft and rape! That would be brutal! I don't care that anyone bigger then me would beat me up and steal everything I own just cause they can! It would be sick! I can do whatever I want! WOO

Idiots...

People can murder, thieve and rape now. They just have to get away with it. Returning to anarchy would return a "survival of the fittest" mentality to humanity, it'd be one step further along the road to creating a stable, non-extreme government than Big Brother is and honestly I dislike the idea of being restricted, watched and monitored all the time a la 1984.

Anarchy is sick, anarchy is nasty, a lot of bad stuff would go down, but I still view it as preferable to having our free will removed by Big Brother and being forced to live under 'His' iron thumb.

 

[Caimekaze]

Big Brother didn't control the society. Big brother was the figurehead (and a fictional one)

On another topic, I was thinking of starting a 1984 discussion thread a while back; If I were to, how many people would participate?

Apologies for the long, detailed explanations; I've put a lot of thought into this.

Yes. Very much so.

It is impossible for a controlled society to achieve prosperity or happiness for anyone--they can and do only achieve universal devastation. This is why tyranny is evil--if it worked, it'd be good. If this thread is about wishing for the impossible, then I want a pony and I want to be able to fly by flapping my arms.

Ah, but if it were controlled in the way it was controlled in 1984, then they would be. The people in that book didn't rebel because they had no idea what life was like prior to the control.


By control, do you mean purely physical, or that of Ingsoc, which controlled history, thought and emotions rather than physical restrictions. If so, anarchy. Otherwise, probably control.

 

[JMeganSnow]

By control, do you mean purely physical, or that of Ingsoc, which controlled history, thought and emotions rather than physical restrictions. If so, anarchy. Otherwise, probably control.

I didn't know anything about life prior to living in my family and I sure as hell rebelled against *them*. You don't have to have direct experience of something in order to be able to identify what's wrong with what you have. This is a constant problem in politics, with people easily shredding the stupid ideas of their opponents without having a clue what to offer as an alternative--so we get more and more of the same crap.

The only real way to prevent people from rebelling against an authoritarian state would be to lobotomize them so that they *can't* think, which would quickly result in the obliteration of the species because human beings *have* to think in order to survive. Oh, but some sort of omniscient "philosopher-king" would do all the thinking for everyone. Yeah, right. It's been tried. It doesn't work. Why? Because there are just too damn many variables for one person to deal with.

You can state it in evolutionary terms if you like: homogenous systems are vulnerable. Heterogenous ones are robust.

It's no good claiming that if magical gremlins granted everyone's wishes then we could all live a life of perfect peace and harmony. Magical gremlins don't exist. You have to actually look at the facts before you form your ideas.