/lit/ - Literature

>>16300408
The state and human rights give me nice things in life

It took me about under 20 years of my life to refute it (lots of other life issues to deal with in between of course). People are just stubborn thinkers, or even anti-thinkers. To persuade them away from capitalism, you must first promise to protect their “private” (personal) property and not take any of their hard earned money. And even then you have to make a strong case in the middle of an economic meltdown.

This book any good?

>>16300451
>20 years of my life to refute it
Belief in god

>>16300408
I know the answer to it (serious) but I won't say it here

>>16300422
Just the state. Human Rights is only ever a vague pretext to condemn others or justify coercion. The rights are so broad that every state acknowledges (different) "reasonable" exceptions to apply internally.

I'm a little unclear what OP means by calling the state a spook though. It definitely exists, is pretty well-defined, and interactions with it are reasonably predictable.

>>16300408
Maybe it has something to do with the state and human rights being real legal entities

>>16300575
States exist only by legal decree. They (and their economics) are just as “spooky” as religion and rely on faith. Whole chapter in Stirner’s book

>>16300585
>real legal entities
As in, it’s on paper so it’s real?
Just like Harry Potter. Law is fiction.

>>16300618
That's not how it works fake butterfly.
Stuff like money is real by convention, but that doesn't make them fictitious.

>>16300605
I guess I've failed to grasp the concept then. I mean, yeah obviously they rely on faith to exist. But very much unlike a god I can pretty well count on the state to do me after me in a timely fashion if I transgress certain of its commandments or miss the wrong sacraments.
Sure, it stops existing if everyone stops believing in it at once, but most people (in its influence) have a material interest in keeping it up, and my belief has almost as little impact that joint belief as on the weather .

>>16300657
That is exactly how it works. That’s all these things are ever based on and that’s why people are so derisive and hostile to Stirner. /lit/ pointed me toward him years ago. I asked what the differences were between him and Rand, asked about Nietzsche, and if having read them this makes me “fake”, so be it. I am literally a different person from the woman I once was. Everyone is after such a length of time.

>>16300728
Well Stirner does point out the limits of the individual’s power over such things. Statism is a union of the spooked. Socialism would have to be a union of egoists or I’m afraid it will be just another coup

>>16300408
Belief in spooks is a spook, bucko.

>>16300408
The self, The State, Human Rights, Morality.

What else is on the spook list?

>>16300408
Smaller social investment

Obviously the Gods, spirits, spooks, are real - I have seen them give people special powers that I cannot access myself. I cannot access them because I have not lived their lives and have not chosen to feel their existence. Why would I want to miss out on special powers? Why would I not want to forgive like Chris and carry whatever cross I need to? I do wish to live for more than myself. Who doesn't want peace like the Buddha, why wouldn't I take from it what I can and draw closer to my loved ones through suffering? Even philosophers like Kant, it makes sense if you know where it makes sense. Fish don't swim out of the water, so obviously Kant's rules don't work in the places they don't work, but in the places they do work, they work beautifully! Why does everyone want to make everything true all the time? It's insane behavior. It's akin to thinking that every piece of fruit should taste and nourish you like an apple.

>>16302491
Who is Chris?

>>16300865
Anything that causes a person to serve an ideal before they serve themselves is a spook. People serve "humanity" but is serving humanity actually good for the individual?

>>16300408
probably because those things are backed by 300 years of dazzlingly sophistry?

>>16302496
hahaha, Christ!

I think I mean to say that spooks are often bad and harmful to an individual when they are taken too far (serving humanity before you serve yourself), but as an individual, I easily ascertain where to stop, what is enough, what is harmful. So many spirits and spooks actually have great ideas, and I'm not afraid to use them. People often become poisoned and die from Christianity. These people are unlucky enough to be allergic to peanuts. Other people may have allergies to peanuts, but I don't. I don't have to be afraid of Christ or peanuts simply because other people are.

>>16300408
the cops or military will beat your ass

Because I don't see them as things that have their own, objective existence. They are just concepts that we came up with, that are supposed to make our lives better.
God on the other hand is a being that is said to objectively exist, in many religions it's a being similar to a person, with a will, a personality even. I find it unlikely that something like that exists.

>>16300451
you can't disprove a belief...

>>16302497
>People serve "humanity" but is serving humanity actually good for the individual?
I serve my ethnic group, and yes it makes me feel good so it's good for me.

>>16300408
My politics professor used to do this joke where he'd go
>you want to hear a joke
>international law

Good stuff.

>>16303174
Hmmm, do you really want to be a person who thinks that because something makes them feel good it means it is good for them? I think that's incredibly dangerous and things must be understood at a greater level, we must be more aware of ourselves than that.

>>16303082
Not the word I used.