"Men must be governed. Often not wisely I will grant you but they must be governed nonetheless."
"That's the excuse of every tyrant in history. From Nero to Bonaparte. And I for one am opposed to authority. It is the egg of misery and oppression."
"You've come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother."
And from the RT interview:
"The trouble is, a lot of it [network neutrality] has to be enforced by the government, and conservative types and libertarian types say 'government shouldn't have any say and control over that; that takes away our freedom.' Wrong. It takes away the freedom of the companies that are taking away the freedom from us."
I'd assume the clip from youtube is meant to reinforce the inherent necessity of an authority to enforce order. The "conservative types and libertarian types" would likely consider authority the "egg of misery and oppression." But Wozniak argues that "men must be governed. Often not wisely... but they must be governed nonetheless." Wozniak is addressing the oft-repeated mantra amongst conservative and libertarian types that government is inherently inefficient and should be limited in order to maximize freedom; his argument is to highlight the paradoxical observation that from a lack of authority grows the very oppression -- non-neutral networking -- that these types claim to deplore.
> "I for one am opposed to authority. It is the egg of misery and oppression."
I agree with that, but with the distinction of natural and force authority, as e.g. Erich Fried or Noam Chomsky make it. If a little kid runs on the street, and the parent (or even a random stranger for that matter!) grabs it by the arm to save it from harm, the kid has NO vote, and that is fine. Everybody knows and understands that.
In that sense I agree with some regulation being needed to stop people infringing each other's freedom; but I strongly have to disagree with governance for the sake of governance. CHILDREN must be governed, not free men. Free men govern themselves. That is an important distinction, and anyone who shrugs it off is certainly my enemy.
Governance is NOT the end, and actually, all authority which is justifiable should also always seek, or at least hope, to be obsolete some day. E.g. the child grows up, or people are too busy prospering in peace to deceive and oppress each other, and have inherited the values and methods you teached them. But as long as you have to "be the parent", you haven't solved the problem, you just made it possible for all parties to survive until it is solved.
And always watch out for secretly not wanting the other to grow up, your own authority becoming obsolete. Kafka said this about parents and their children, how parents tend to use them just based on petty ego - how much more is it true for structures of huge power, and insane profits. Sure, Apple ain't the firm I associate with grown up stuff and equals considering others equals; but even broken clocks get it right twice a day. Still, the devil is in the details. I'd rather have eternal vigilance and freedom than rounding a corner here and there.
> n that sense I agree with some regulation being needed to stop people infringing each other's freedom; but I strongly have to disagree with governance for the sake of governance. CHILDREN must be governed, not free men. Free men govern themselves. That is an important distinction, and anyone who shrugs it off is certainly my enemy.
This is silly non-sense rhetoric. Complex systems need organization. The more complex, the more organization is required. It's something you see throughout nature, at all scales. "Natural rights" and whatnot is just mumbo-jumbo with no empirical basis.
You are mistaking organization with authority, and go on about strawmen, none of which address a peep of what I said -- after accusing ME of non-sense rhetoric? The nerve.
"Children must be governed. Free men govern the selves." That's silly rhetoric. The traits that cause children to require governance persist throughout life. There is no magic biological distinction that allows the latter to be autonomous when the former is not.
As for organization versus authority, the latter is a means of implementing the former. So long as we are animals, and the only biological fact in play is that we are indeed animals, authority with the threat of force will always be necessary to organize us.
> "Children must be governed. Free men govern the selves." That's silly rhetoric. The traits that cause children to require governance persist throughout life. There is no magic biological distinction that allows the latter to be autonomous when the former is not.
Oh ffs. you really think I was talking about biological children? Or that parents are always right, and children always wrong, just because those are the roles? nah. I was just being brief. So congrats on making up a silly strawman, and pointing out it's silly.
> "the latter is a means of implementing the former"
I disagree. Justified authority is a result of organization, not the other way around.
> "So long as we are animals, and the only biological fact in play is that we are indeed animals, authority with the threat of force will always be necessary to organize us."
That's silly rhetoric ^^ Actually, only total sociopaths would only react to force.
And where did I say authority is automatically and always bad? I didn't, I just made a distinction between two types of authority , which obviously went over your head. Authority needs to always be questioned; justified authority survives the questioning.
Are you talking to/about me? If so, what do you base this on? Lazy typing?
And it's not a slogan either. What do you think democracy, in theory, is based on? On the souvereign citizens ruling themselves - we created and abide by the monopoly of power, we are governing us through it. In practice, it's kinda corrupt, but hey, it could be worse too, that's for sure, and exemplified all over the world.
Some people wish it was just a slogan though, I'll give you that.
Yes, I'm talking to you. For all the flag-waving about freedom and rights, you still haven't mastered sexism. Another thing I find funny is that when called on it, the excuse is always 'lazy typing' or 'that's just a term' or 'you know what I mean' or similar, never 'mea culpa', which shows a profound lack of understanding of issues of sexism.
Thing is, if you don't include women when talking about your ideology, it shows that there are some pretty fundamental issues about rights that you're not accounting for, so why should the rest of your commentary not be doubted?
"Men must be governed. Often not wisely I will grant you but they must be governed nonetheless."
"That's the excuse of every tyrant in history. From Nero to Bonaparte. And I for one am opposed to authority. It is the egg of misery and oppression."
"You've come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother."
And from the RT interview:
"The trouble is, a lot of it [network neutrality] has to be enforced by the government, and conservative types and libertarian types say 'government shouldn't have any say and control over that; that takes away our freedom.' Wrong. It takes away the freedom of the companies that are taking away the freedom from us."
I'd assume the clip from youtube is meant to reinforce the inherent necessity of an authority to enforce order. The "conservative types and libertarian types" would likely consider authority the "egg of misery and oppression." But Wozniak argues that "men must be governed. Often not wisely... but they must be governed nonetheless." Wozniak is addressing the oft-repeated mantra amongst conservative and libertarian types that government is inherently inefficient and should be limited in order to maximize freedom; his argument is to highlight the paradoxical observation that from a lack of authority grows the very oppression -- non-neutral networking -- that these types claim to deplore.