First off, this isn't about this forum in particular, but rather whether price signals could be useful in online discourse in general.

Here is a concept for a forum moderated by money:

- Each post costs a small fee (paid to a community reward pool)

- Replies cost a small fee (paid to a community reward pool)

- Upvotes cost a small fee (paid to the poster)

- Post visibility/ranking is determined by sum of community investment (total money spent on the post from all users) -- halved every x hours so as to keep things fresh.

- Community reward pool divided among most "valuable" users (valuable might be users who post things that get most upvotes or users who spend money to upvote things that others go on to upvote, etc)

What do you think of this idea? Where could it fail or cause friction? What dynamics might be interesting to add?

I've debated statists for quite a long time, whether it was friends, strangers, or people online, and I have yet to find a singular logical statist worldvie. Every time you question their notion that the state needs to exist, you never find a valid reason. In fact, I'd dare say they use similar apologetic patterns like you'd might find a christian or muslim use. All of this, in me, cultivates a certainty in my believes regarding anarchism, and, I've come to see statism not as a rational belief, but as a secular religion, the biggest one, the most violent one, and the one that brought the most suffering, an organised religion that brings other cultists to shame, and like every cult, it's built on fraud.

1. The Origin: The Human Farm

If you look at the very states, like the ancient Ur, they weren't formed by people signing a contract, the state doesn't birth itself through negotiation, it came through coercion and fraud. They were formed by roaming raiders, who realised something revolutionary for their careers: it is that pillaging is inefficient. So instead of raiding, they decided to build a giant wall, settle down, and farm the productive, non-aggressive humans. They had to protect the village from other raiders, as that threatens their income, but that doesn't mean they are merciful providers of safety, just like a farmer protecting his slaughterhouse and barns with pigs isn't a symbol of safety to them. This, this revelation in around 4000 BCE, kickstarted the 6000 years of this devastating cult enabling systemic coercion and treating the peaceful as cattle. I did not live 6000 years ago, I cannot see into their minds, but it's safe to say, these anarchist farmers wouldn't let that slide that easily, the statesmen know man is not like any other animal, they needed a mythology, which brings us to the next point.

2. The State of the Gaps

Because the statesmen are a very tiny minority of narcissistic psychopaths compared to the rest of the populace, they had to convince their "livestock" to worship and "need" their "farmer". And as human knowledge progresses, the state has to constantly shift its mythology to survive, once again, a pattern we see in organised religions. The original conception, like Ur or Egypt, these were the states in their purest form, the statesman was god, and he has to be worshipped, obeyed, and given tribute just for existing, when people slowly realised those people clearly aren't gods, the mythology shifted into divine right, now the statesman is not a god, but god wants him to farm you all, so you once again must worship, obey, and give him tribute, and when science and englightenment killed any rational belief in the divine, they dropped the mysticism and pivoted to a secular religion, saying: "You actually chose us to rule you. By simply existing on this side of an imaginary geographical line, you signed an invisible contract agreeing to be farmed."

And I don't know about you, but I know damn well I haven't chosen shit, I never agreed to be threatened by kidnapping and violence if I won't allow them to dictate how I should live and let myself be stolen from. And I know you also never agreed to it, depending on your ideology, you may have ad-hoc decided to accept it, or if an anarchist, trying to withdraw yourself from it the most you can, even if a little, like me. So how is this pretty fragile idea so dominant?

3. The Pivot: From Church to State Schooling

This section hopes to answer that question, because coincidentally, just as the divine was losing its credibility to anyone rationals, the statesmen noticed. And they concluded they need a new indoctrination method, and that became public schooling. The modern public education system is modeled after the Prussian model whose goal was to numb the individual and reward docility and obedience. All of us are conditioned since birth to be dependent on authorite and revere it, it only depends on your mental strength to start questioning it, and there is nothing wrong hearing it from someone else if you cannot get to it yourself. The thing however is, many could, should they not be conditioned against by normalised cultural adultism institutionalised by the state.

4. Adultism: the Psychological Primer

(Adultism is an ageist institutionalised or cultural discrimination against the young, I am mainly referring to how little rights do children have, but adultism is so culturally deep even you most likely take anyone younger than you less seriously.)

As I hinted, the conditioning starts way before school, and that is through institutionally supported cultural adultism. From early childhood we are taught that authority replaces reason when said authority demands it. "Because I said so" therefore, becomes a valid argument. By normalizing a dynamic where rights are just privileges granted by a superior based on age, society conditions children to accept the exact same authoritarian dynamic when they grow up. The Parent/Child dynamic is seamlessly swapped for the Government/Citizen dynamic. We are trained to remain psychological children our entire lives. You can see that how in our modern society, the distinction between an adult and child usually is only a question of age and the ability to produce, not about actual maturity, which I see many adults lack. Adultism is destructive both towards the old and young, because it is useful to the state, it is instituionalised, and culturally promoted, the state never was your friend, it cares about the treasury being filled.

5. Anarchy is Knocking

Anarchy is much closer than you think. In 1577, Étienne de La Boétie wrote about the concept of "voluntary servitude." He pointed out that the ruling class, the politicians, the bureaucrats, the enforcers, are a microscopic minority. They literally do not have the physical power to enforce their will on millions of people. And in our case it's billions, which is why I think the state likes population control but that's for another post entirely. The state rules because you give it attention, privileges, and docile acceptance. If you simply stopped participating in the religion, stopped validating their rituals, and started treating these politicians exactly like the fraudsters, thieves, and human traffickers they actually are, the state would evaporate overnight.

And that is the goal of this post, it is a wake-up call, it is a reassurance to those feeling lonely when faced against the machinery, and it is a very brief summary of my opinion on every single world government. As the ending I'll choose a fitting,and honestly my favorite quote from hoppe:

“If measured by the standards of natural law and justice, all politicians, of all parties and virtually without any exception, are guilty, whether directly or indirectly, of murder, homicide, trespass, invasion, expropriation, theft, fraud, and the fencing of stolen goods on a massive and ongoing scale. And every new generation of politicians and parties appears to be worse, and piles even more atrocities and perversions on top of the already existing mountain, so that one feels almost nostalgic about the past.
They all should be hung, or put in jail to rot, or set to making compensation.”
― Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Getting Libertarianism Right

Goods News Everyone (Farnsworth voice) - Francesca Hong lost the Democratic primary (barely) for the Wisconsin governor. The opposing democrat even seems moderate- rejecting tax increases and wanting a business friendly environment. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/left-wing-francesca-hong-locked-in-tight-race-for-democratic-nomination-in-wisconsin-f76dbd5f