> with the emotional appeal to a simple world with simple ideals and a connection to nature.
I mean, I can understand the appeal, but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I wonder if this is less a longing for "simpler times" than a longing for a society in which one has more power.
> Without real traumas and existential struggles, our emotional system starts attaching the coping mechanisms that exists for these things to other more mundane aspects of existence like politics and relationships.
This sounds a lot like the old nazi argument for "perpetual war": Without war, men will grow weak and complacent and society will become fragile, therefore war must never end.
I think this sort of reasoning can be easily be cured by talking with an actual veteran.
> I wonder if this is less a longing for "simpler times" than a longing for a society in which one has more power.
I always thought it was more about control and self determination rather than power for most, something many here running linux and avoiding cloud services can naturally sympathize with. It's a very old urge with even the aristocrats of ancient Rome had similar notions, farming and getting your hands dirty was held in high esteem for instance. We also see it in Tolkiens writing about hobbits who loved farming and never craved power. It's the sort of theme that seems to be a constant desire throughout history.
One of the recipients of the bitcoins is Luke Smith, I don't agree with his politics but from watching his youtube he seems to practice the self sufficiency he preaches to an extent, from growing his own food to running linux. He's a bit like Kaczynski but spends more time on his vim configuration than mail bombs.
> but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I think in the long run technology will become sufficiently advanced to solve this paradox, anyone that desires to will be able to become fully self sufficient, we'll fire up our 3D printers to make a pencil instead of relying on the global supply chains we do now. It's either that or our psyche has to adapt to being colony animals, but after 2000 years we don't seem to be getting much closer to that.
> anyone that desires to will be able to become fully self sufficient, we'll fire up our 3D printers to make a pencil instead of relying on the global supply chains we do now.
While probably unintentional, this sounds very similar to the practice of making high sulfur "pig iron" very inefficiently in backyard furnaces during the Great Leap Forward.
It would be the height of irony if these far-right, hyper-libertarian types took their ideology to the extremities where it begins to resemble Mao or Pol Pot's ideas about autarky.
I mean, I can understand the appeal, but it's sort of ironic that those fantasies are exchanged and amplified using the most unnatural and complex technology we have at our disposal.
I wonder if this is less a longing for "simpler times" than a longing for a society in which one has more power.
> Without real traumas and existential struggles, our emotional system starts attaching the coping mechanisms that exists for these things to other more mundane aspects of existence like politics and relationships.
This sounds a lot like the old nazi argument for "perpetual war": Without war, men will grow weak and complacent and society will become fragile, therefore war must never end.
I think this sort of reasoning can be easily be cured by talking with an actual veteran.