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> Yeah the book I talk about here makes the case that
> for the vast majority of human history our social
> arrangements did not have things like coercive penal
> apparatus and that is largely an invention of recent
> vintage that happened, but isn't even necessary for
> "civilization" as we conventionally understand it
> and is decidedly *not* connected with the rise of
> agriculture and sedentary life, contrary to how
> we've been taught in broad strokes.

I'll take it on faith for now, because I definitely *want* to believe.

But given said case(s) being convincingly made *in a book*, how does believing/knowing such lead to meaningful change *in a society*?

Isn't a certain critical mass of believers-in/knows-of such necessary for any hope of a return to a civilization not predicated on "coercive penal apparat[i]"?

If so, what do you think it would it take to garner/accumulate such mass?

For example, I occasionally hear of instances of backing off the policing aspect of The Coercive Thang, but the results seem closer to chaos/mayhem than a more enlightened civilization. I suspect it's one thing for enlightened elders to teach children more enlightened ways/paths, but another when the raw materials are arguably massively fucked-up adults.

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~calgacus wrote (thread):

Well that's the trick, isn't it? "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." I have some idea of how we might go about doing that, but I'm sure it's nothing you haven't heard before, as I have the distinction of being a Marxist. I agree that as raw materials we are uniquely unsuited to a non-penal society, our minds having been hollowed out and transformed by the hell we currently inhabit. I think the best we can do is forge a path to something better for the people not yet born—a truly better world is one they will build, something we can't even imagine in our current state. Unfortunately these things take time, and revolutions often backtrack, get diverted down different paths, etc. I don't have any easy answers.