Why do most people think a state/government is necessary?
Actually I’m trying to point out that one needs evidence to support the assertion that the default belief, as in you take a person or group of people born totally void of external influences, totally isolated, will the concept of god even come up and if so will that be the default conclusion?
And silly me, there are very few studies done along these lines and as such, I have nothing to draw an opinion on except historically developing mythologies to explain the rhyme and reason to the world would seem to be the norm.
Because the alternative is anarchy. It’s the infrastructure we’ve developed that allows, let’s take the UK for instance, 60million people to exist for the most part fully sustained, rather than roughly 90% of that number. Among which, the most important thing to modern life, IMHO, are roads. With roads you enable trade, and with trade you take import the recourses you need to survive. Water and power are pretty tops as well, the ability to store water for long periods and deliver it to population centers.
Yes, but that is different to the matter of what is default in the realm of rational argumentation. It’s more of a descriptive problem. I think the bicameral mind hypothesis is one shot at answering that question.
-Jon
I’m pretty sure the concept of god requires language, and isolates won’t develop language (in fact, if they’re isolated only until the age of 7 or so, they won’t be capable of language). So: no.
Meaning…?
Sure about that, are you?
All that aside: what’s the real reason?
-sigh- I’m just going to respond to your first point… well first point after “FAIL.” Does english exist? My default position is no that it doesn’t but then I hear someone speak english, I see english text books, and then I’m finally taught english. Now my position is that english most definitely exists, BUT still by default my position was that it didn’t. Is this the same for a god? Yes and it is up to believers to provide evidence to support their claim.
Just as it’s up to you to support the claim that non-belief is the default position. Belief in god(s) exists. It’s quite the norm in modern society. I not only see the popular books on the subject, but there is a ton of material on older mythologies. If it’s not the default conclusion, where the hell does it all come from? Why do people believe in god(s)?
I’m an atheist, I don’t care about whether god(s) exist or not. If they do, they clearly don’t interact with me. No burning bush, no George Burns magically appearing in my life.
What, aside from the fact that we build our society city state model, expanded to nation states, felt the need to organize and improve conditions, took taxes to get rich and build roads, aqueducts, and created the foundations of modern infrastructure we need in our daily lives as without it the land without irrigation for farming, or roads for trade, a given region could only support a fraction of the population it does now.
You’re looking for another reason? People are lazy, and it helps to organize. It’s easier to pick someone to do this boring administrative stuff than to do it your self. Often times it doesn’t matter which solution you choose, so long as you pick a solution and go with it, rather than having thousands of people doing things their own way. Do we build a road over, around, or through a mountain? Often the choice is somewhat arbitrary or based on the lowest cost to highest benefit, or more often the long term benefits are ignored. But at least there’s a damn road there making it easier to come back and do it right the second time around.
Shifting the burden of proof fallacy.
No one said it didn’t.
Argumentum ad numerum variant.
You’ve exactly 0 support for that. And it’s quite superficial. Can’t you come up with something better?
You’re still not getting it: what has caused the notion of “the state must exist” (in the sense that it should exist) to be perpetuated?
I’m not “claiming” that false is the default position to an assertion of truth. It is so.
Roads, water, power, the very foundation of modern society superficial?
What happened to Europe after the loss of the Library of Alexandrea and the fall of Rome?
0 support for that? I’ll have to dig up some studies about the major impact of nuclear war, ignoring losses from the blast, and the possibility of nuclear winter, and radiation poisoning the real issue is the loss of infrastructure. With out the factories, power plants, water treatment, and roads there simply is no way, at least as I recall, to maintain the population.
It would seem to need to be perpetuated because we are so dependent on it.
But I would suspect that the whole idea started because of a need to organize. A given people in a given reason faced a number of threats, among them were animals and and other groups. There needed to be an effective system to protect the population. This might include picking people to act as guards and watchers alerting the people to threats so they have time to fight or run away. Probably most significant are those civilizations that started out on fertile river valleys Damn good for the food, but tended to flood from time to time. As such, there was a need to organize the data when things flooded to people could establish when they needed to pack up their shit and run to the hills. to help alleviate the flooding, damns, flood gates, and ditches had to be dug I.e. infrastructure.
So probably the reason why we need the state is because in order to make maximum use of our recourses, we need to organize. In every society you’re going to have people who have certain talents for one area, and deficiencies. Advance planning and basic improvements, most of all organizing the people to make thes improvements is paramount to maximizing the available resources.
Can we get by without the state. Well man can exist as a hunter gatherer. There are still a few Bushmen of the Kalahari for example, those who didn’t adopt technology and become rally racers. But can we? If we lost everything but our libraries we might be able to actually get knowledge enough to be able to till fields using a horse and plow, well if we are lucky enough to have a horse and plow. Again, with libraries, we might be able to establish what plants are edible and what ones are poisonous. But without the libraries, without the books or the ability to read them, a person in modern society’s chances of survive are pretty slim, it it’s at least possible.
And yet none of those require the state.
What happened to Europe after WW1?
No, still not fundamental enough.
And that’s still not fundamental enough, since organziation can happen without a government.
What I’m getting at is how the idea gets passed along.
HINT What do sunday school and public school have in common? They are both needed to provide an argument from authority towards the assertion of a supposed truth that has no evidence to support it.
What ? You don’t believe in the State ? How wicked…
City planing, civil engineering? Maps, surveys, census data? A centralized authority really helps put all this stuff together and have it work.
That’s what government is. It’s an organized body that administers a given region, i.e. organizes it. Fundamentally that’s exactly what government does, it organizes a city. In the modern western world it’s the divides up the area it governs into zones, commercial, residential industrial. They organize the establishment of basic infrastructure, roads, water, sewer, trash, communications, power. Governments delegates authority for civil defense (police), civil protection, (police, fire). Exact duties vary but the fundamental purpose is organization.
The great depression? World War II?
Certainly not as devastating as the loss of the major warehouse of knowledge in the western world.
So there is no way to plan a city except at gun point? Please provide support for this crazy claim.
No. And what causes you to believe that? Think fundamentally.
No, it’s not.
Oh, I think it was. But the question still remains, and you’ve yet to critically think about it. You’re stuck in a very shallow mode of thought.
Presuming basic civil services were governed by the private sector, that could be a corpocracy.
Even presuming a theocracy complete with caste system, that’s still at the most basic level “organization”.