Hi Brad welcome aboard!  Nice to meet you!!  :P

We must go back almost 10 years now, eh?  Maybe 8?  Oh... and as far as your curiosity as to whether you'd be able to get away with talking smack on Jake, the way I see it if you accept me for liking Jake so much I got no problem with accepting you even though you have a problem with him.  

Very humourous intro. Big welcome! 

^^^ Fans at an Axes of Ego gig (abasement banned, very punny, lol)

Seriously, I think the only thing you'll have to worry about is not breaking the forum rules. But they're pretty open; it's hard to break them, you really have to put in some effort to do it. May be tough for an anarchist to take, but personally I think a few ground-rules can be a very useful thing for keeping communication open and honest (you do realize we get a lot of dicks who would love nothing more than to spooge over rational discussion, eh?). BTW, I'm not a mod or anything, this is just my personal take on things.

Aside from that, I think you'll find lots of people with similar ideas as you. So, welcome!

  Hello to you, too.  A very well written introduction, btw.   They're generally pretty cool here, just don't back and repeated edit your posts....

Dude, I don't know how I missed this thread before. Even so, there are some cool beans here.

I play bass myself. My main instrument is a Schecter Custom 5 with two soap bars and when I switch it is usually to my early 90's Fender 4 P+J. I* also have a Peavey millennium 5 J+J that I recently put Elixer Nanowebs on.

My huge power rig is:

Groove Tubes Trio (5 * 12AX7 tubes)>Boss GT Pro>Hartke HA 5500 (500 watts @ 4 ohms)>Genz-Benz Neox 2x12 (4 ohms).

I use a Hartke 120x15 kickback mainly as a monitor but also for gigs where big amps tend to come out.

For real gigs, I have a Marshall MG series 30x12. The digital effect on it are full of suck and fail but I have plenty of effects outboard for that anyway.

*listens to "Farrah Fawcett Hair"*

Welcome and thanks for the free music.

Welcome.

 I'm sure that this will be a good place for you to stretch (Your mind ) That was a good intro, I too consider myself a anarchist ( did you ever read Noam Chomsky on Anarchism ) a must read . Check out  Zcommunications.org  I don't like Ayn Rand's work ,I think of her as the architect of modern greed (former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan is a fan of her capitalist outlook) My favorite music is Jimi Hendrix with the Band of Gypsies.I also had a small neighbor hood garden (before my motorcycle accident ) I really dug planting and growing a lot of my own food.

Well, either I was being a total douchebag or Jake has mellowed a bit since then.  It must have been at least ten years ago, I'd think.

Maybe there's a third option somewhere, because Jake is about the same level of mellow today that he is now.  He still takes it personally if someone calls him a liar, since he's not one.  That's what Franc did, then Franc became part of Graveyard of the Gods.  So he didn't like Franc, I guess you were guilty by association or something.  I don't remember your involvement.  But I do know he doesn't mention it.

Yeah, I almost never mention it.  However, it's part of the history of the origin of the Graveyard so it does come up in that context.  Honestly, I don't hold a grudge against Jake anymore.  Life's too short for that.  The emoticon after the "fuck you Jake" was intended to indicate that it was in jest.

What I don't like about intellectual anarchism as you're describing is that they don't seem to have satisfying answers when I or others ask them about what happens when you have assholes who want to exploit others and how you prevent that. Market anarchists, for example, don't have an explanation of how to prevent the rise of monopolistic plutocratic monarchs. If you're surrounded on all sides by McMicromart Depot, and they decide to cut off your water supply, what can you do but die or fight a doomed battle?

Anarchism seems to me to *assume* that all government is bad, but their proposed solutions seem to require inventing self-imposed government, without calling it 'government'. It seems to me they simply haven't made a convincing case. I've never seen one anyway. IMHO.

In other words, how do you resist that which acts exactly like a government? 

I'd guess that the methods would be the same as those for getting rid of government: by violent or by non-violent means. I favour the non-violent, since it seems to me that violent revolution tends to turn the revolutionaries into the same sort of critters as those whom they're trying to oust.

At this time, combining Voluntaryist and Agorist methods seem to me to be the best option.

Voluntaryists "seek [...] to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which State power ultimately depends." -- from http://www.voluntaryist.com/

Agorists favour the development of grey markets and black markets to undermine the state (and corporate -- states and corporations are bedmates) monopolies on the provision of security and law services. See http://agorism.info/

These are not instant solutions, of course. 

Looking at the site, I see they have a libertarian bent. I'm more on the social democracy side of things. Ideally, I see gov't as a way of stabilizing conflict, improving quality of life, maximizing freedom. To me, government is just a system of rules. Different systems have different consequences. I don't see the anarchists making convincing cases that a) they have an alternative to rules; they just invent self-imposed rules b) proving that all explicit systems of rules are necessarily bad.

I'm a programmer. If I wanted, I could write a computer virus, or I could write a useful tool. I prefer the latter. I hear anarchists as saying, "All programs are viruses." I just don't get it. Just because all current gov'ts have flaws and corruptions doesn't mean they are all equally bad, nor that they are worse than no gov't. Anarchists seem to be saying, "Let's not have programs, let's have each person voluntarily choose to write their own algorithms on their own computers." But an algorithm is a program. And if each person writes their own, how do you ensure that there is protection against viruses?

Democracy can actually be improved. There are many possibilities. Ever looked into Condorcet methods of voting? They provide better 'will of the people' than our current 'first past the post' methods. Say there was a group of people who decided to follow the voluntaryist method of non-violent non-cooperation, and they decided that in their group they would resolve conflicts of opinion with a condorcet system of voting. This is clearly a form of gov't. How would an anarchist reply to this? Would they say that's wrong? I don't think it's wrong. I just think it's a system for improving cooperation within a group. It's a group governing itself. Not all government is evil. And some are better than others. IMHO.

Yah, that was my mistake. I figured that your introduction thread would have been a bit older. Oh well.

Yah, I could wish that I could claim that. I suppose that I am a bit of a gear head. Even so, I got all of that gear one bit at a time by trying to fix individual problems. For example, when I first started working with other people, we were all using small amps that were fine for the living room. Then we ended up with my first guitarist from hell (GFH from here). He insisted on showing up with a 300 watt amp and playing into 6x10 and too damned loud. Because of him, I have the 120x15 combo.

Later I had to deal with a different GFH. He actually taught me a good bit of stuff but he had a bad attitude towards bass. He thought that bass only existed for the rest of the band but it had to be kept from the audience so that he could be “the guy”.

In dealing with him, I ended up spending USD $1,000 on the half stack, only to find out that he was using an HPF on his camera to remove my sound from all recordings. Fucker.

More recently, I got the Marshall combo as an amp that I could carry easily. Several blocks with an axe on my back if need be.

On that, I tend to agree with you. What effects I do use, I tend to keep them turned down. The whole “all knobs on 10” thing is way overdone unless you are doing metal or industrial. Since you mentioned that you like to cook, let me use that as the comparison.

To me, effects are like spices. If the food under the spices is good, then spices can make it better. However, if the food is not good, then the spices only make poor food spicy.

BTW: in my family, everyone who is tall enough to stand in front of the stove is old enough to learn how to cook. Hence, I happen to have more years cooking that most of the chefs on the cooking channel have being alive. But I digress...

I also agree with you that chorus is the least useful effect. Honestly, I can't even hear it unless it is maxed out, which, of course I don't much care for.

As far as the Boss GT-PRO, I got that because my BOSS ME50B, while really good, had limitations that I wanted to get past. The ME50B has some good effect but it also has only three foot switches. Each foot switch can be on or off but then it controls a dozen or more effects. Also, the topology is fixed at one thing.

It has a crapload of stuff but getting to each thing is pretty hard to do and impossible in too many cases.

In my experience, using non-standard definitions generally doesn't contribute usefully to a discussion.  Government is an organization claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a specified territory.

Straw man.  Anarchists don't claim to have an alternative to rules.

In one of my previous messages, I compared those who argue against anarchism without having a decent understanding of it to creationists who argue against evolution without knowing much about what evolution is actually about.  That's what you seem to be doing here.

That's the fatal flaw in your analogy and it is a consequence of your having made up your own definition of government.

That's the definition favoured by anarchists, but it's not the only one. My definition as a set of rules for running society is just as legitimate. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/government

By the way, on the same page, anarchism:

Still don't see how anarchists solve the problem of keeping assholes in check.

According to my definition of gov't, and the anarchists claiming to want to get rid of gov't, and the failure to provide a method for keeping assholes in check, my point stands. They don't have an alternative to the rule of government.

Evolution has evidence to support it. Big difference. The only thing I have to go by with anarchism is what arguments they make in the absence of any evidence. If they can't make a good argument, that's not my problem. I have yet to see a good argument. Why don't you propose one here?

Since you brought up evolution, let me explain how this situation looks to me. It looks very similar to the intelligent design argument: "Look at all the flaws in the theory of evolution! God must have done it!" Unfortunately, that's not a scientific theory. It's not even a rational argument. The anarchist argument appears to me like this: "Look at all the flaws in today's governments! Anarchy must be the way!" Same thing. No evidence. Not even a rational argument.

Until I see a good argument, especially one that explains how to keep assholes in check, I'm going to have to score the game: Democracy 1, Anarchy 0.

I've examined many claims/arguments by many anarchists. I have always found them lacking. If you have a better argument, I'm listening. Specifically, I'm looking for ways to keep assholes in check. That is a game deciding question for me. Failure to explain that means failure for anarchy in my eyes.

That's because you've not made a decent effort to understand anarchism before writing in opposition to it.  I'm not willing to tutor you.

Think, man.  Think!  If anarchists say they are opposed to government, they are very obviously telling you that they are opposed to government as they define it.  If you choose to use some alternate definition of government, then you're not arguing against what anarchists are saying.

Irrelevant.  You're arguing against a set of ideas without understanding those ideas very well and that is the relevant similarity.

Why should I?  You have not given any indication that you are prepared to argue knowledgeably or fairly.  Go educate yourself.  If you're not willing to do that, then stop expecting me to deal with your ignorance for you.  I've got better things to do.

I've heard that many times. And still have not heard or read any good arguments for this crucial issue. If they existed they should be easy to recite, summarize, link to, whatever. None so far. I'm not the only person who has this problem with anarchism.

Look, the def'n anarchists use is a mischaracterization of gov't. It makes gov'ts appear to be a monolithic 'other'. But in a well-run democracy, the 'other' isn't an 'other' it is the people themselves, simply deciding on which rules they want to use to run their society.

As far as I know, anarchists are against democracy as well, even the well-run kind.

As an alternative to this kind of 'explicit' government, they propose that people should self-impose their own rules, "But don't you dare call that 'government'! It's anarchy, man."

Now, there's two ways this can go. Either the self-imposed rules deals with the issue of assholes, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then I don't want anarchy. If it does, then the anarchists are just proposing government (as I define it, a set of rules to run society) without using the name 'government'.

All because they have this twisted definition of 'government' which seems like this giant monster. But not all governments are like that.

That is my entire point.

And you could easily refute the whole thing by pointing to a rational argument which shows how to deal with assholes without 'government'. In other words, better than a well-run democracy.

So go do them. No one's forcing you to continue to reply. I have stated my position. That is all. You seem to want to defend anarchism, so it's natural for me to suggest a way that would convince me of its merits: Show me how they deal with assholes. If you don't want to do that, why are you arguing with me?

Then it is pretty obvious to me that you haven't made much of an effort to find out about it.

Look, I'm not here to convert anyone to anarchism.  I very honestly don't give a shit about whether or not you think anarchism is legitimate or respectable.  In my opening post, I described myself as politically apathetic.  I meant that.  I don't care enough about the topic to put a lot of effort into answering the questions of someone who has chosen to remain ignorant about the topic.  If you really want to discuss this with someone who is willing to put some work into it, I suggest that you find yourself an anarchist board and discuss it there.  As far as I'm concerned, that is the end of my discussion about this with you. 

Obviously, you are free to paint my refusal any way you want.  I am unconcerned about that.

No worries. As I said, I was only stating my position and replying to replies about it.

For the record, the asshole question is my standard question to anarchists. Never got a solid answer. When we get an anarchist coming on here in the future to debate anarchism, I will pose the same question as usual. I hope you'll take note if they fail to answer rationally. Maybe I've just never come across an anarchist who is willing to defend an answer. Maybe I've just never come across a theist who can defend theism. It's possible. I just doubt it.

OK natural, I really don't think that you are even trying to hear what is being said. Rather, I see a few strawmen in your position. Apart from noting that fact, let me move on.

You want to know how anarchism deals with assholes? To a major degree it doesn't even have to. Honestly, what I am talking about here is not chaos. Rather it is about structured society developing out of shared needs.

There is a great programmers model for anarchy. Free Open Source Software (FOSS). Firefox, Open Office and Ubuntu are all open source. You can grab the source code and tweak it all to hell.

The bad ideas are marginalized and the good ideas tend to go into the beta versions until conflicts with other good ideas are resolved. Then what is left becomes the next numbered version.

Against that, how does democracy deal with assholes?

If you compare democracy with monarchy and communism, then I grant your point.

Evolution refutes you. Good and bad are irrelevant. All that matters is successful strategies. Hitler was very successful. The fact of the matter is that by its very nature there is no defense mechanism for anarchy against internal and external forces. I have studied it a lot, and it's a simple fact. You can presume that everyone's going to work together like programmers working on code, but it's wishful thinking. I have yet to see a single strategy from anarchists to prevent their own end. Yes, every political philosophy suffers from the potential to be affected by changes that radically change the society, but anarchism can't even stop it short term. At least democracy forces the majority of voters to agree with the change. With anarchy it can come from a minority which just happened to get a leg up on the competition, which can happen at any given moment.
Now maybe an anarchist has come up with such a strategy. But as Oxfords companion to philosophy says:

A democracy where the people have say on the propositions of politicians, instead of on the politicians themselves. A democracy with an educated public, instead of one fed propaganda. A democracy where if the people don't vote, the vote is no by default. A democracy that lays out quite clearly that there are some things almost everyone can agree on, and that those should be constitutional (eg: murder, rape, assault, education). Yet recognises that other things may never be agreed on, and that they should be regional to protect minorities from the majority (eg: abortion, traffic, language, smoking).

There's something screwy with the link.  You'll get to the page I had in mind of you go to http://search.mises.org/ and paste this into the search box:

Chapter 1?Defense Services on the Free Market

(select "All" in the category field)

The first result it brings up should be the right one.