Voluntary Japan On The Streets! 4 Questions @ Sensō-ji Temple (personal thoughts, YouTube Version, and Tokyo event summary)

in anarchy •  6 years ago  (edited)

Hey, all you fine cats that read this blog. Back from Tokyo now and wanted to give a short breakdown of what I got into, and share the new video of my "man on the street" interviews!


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This trip:


  • Tokyo Weekly BCH Meetup @ Nem Bar
  • On the street interviews about government/voluntaryism/human nature @ Sensō-ji Temple grounds
  • Interview and dinner with ALIS (Japan's first blockchain-based social media site) core team members in Shibuya.
  • Endless photographing of interesting shit

First, here is the video from Sensō-ji. I thought people's answers were quite intriguing. Each individual interviewed believed they were a "good person," and a good portion believed that people could manage in peace without top-down coercion, given that certain conditions were met.



I notice that it is not a problem for most to trust themselves to be basically "stand up," moral individuals, but that when it comes to others, the issue--understandably so, of course--seems to become more convoluted. While most individuals believe themselves to be basically good, it is not so easy to say the same for other individuals. This sense is important and critical to our survival. If we were to blindly trust every single individual we encountered, we would eventually (and perhaps fairly quickly) find ourselves in danger or violated.

That said, much of the "fight or flight" instinct born over hundreds of thousands of years of running from very real threats--such as tigers or other predators in the jungle, for example--is no longer serving us as human beings when received and acted upon to such extreme degrees. The mass media and the state love to play on this primal emotion to stir up distrust amongst we "non-elite-class" human beings (which results in greater reliance on the state, in lieu of being in interdependent harmony and relative peace with one's neighbors and community) for their own parasitic purposes.

It is my feeling that the interviews in the video above demonstrate that this mass fear and mass distrust is largely synthetic, anymore. A very real and important primal survival mechanism, is now simply being manipulated by the state in modern culture to keep individuals from developing into autonomous, compassionate, interdependent and happy human beings. Happy, capable human beings in sound community with one another need no coercive state. This is the great secret, and the great blasphemy. Namely, that individuals, when their basic needs are met, overwhelmingly act for compassion and the good of others (thanks to enlightened self-interest and the reality that to truly benefit oneself, it is required that one supply some sort of value to those surrounding oneself), and do not wish to harm other individuals.

Thanks for watching/reading! Stay tuned for more on BCH (Bitcoin Cash) developments in Japan, the ALIS interview, and other such delicious and vibrant, freedom-inducing madness!

~KafkA

!


Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DLive and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)

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"... So we do need some guidance and direction from the levels above."

I think about this a lot myself. He's right, that there has to be something above us. But that something cannot physically or philosophically be us.

It is objective morality that we need to be in line with. That's what needs to be over us. What is over us, whether we like it or not.

The dude is right, but he needs to stop looking to man for that guidance.

Also, that old guy's voice is awesome.

Haha. For sure. I love it as well.

The interview​ was very excellent. People consider their own good. That's why you like to go there that is a very good place. Good questions.

Interesting interviews and answers...

I would hazard a guess that the responses to these same questions would vary considerably, depending on which society you ask them in. Specifically, the more wealth disparity, the greater the mistrust.

As a Danish national, when I go back to Denmark (from living in the US) I notice that people are FAR more trusting in Denmark... which is also far more egalitarian (philosophically) than the US. Conversely, when my Danish relatives visit the US, I have often heard things like "Why do so many Americans think someone is out to GET them?"

I would imagine Japan would fall more towards the "trusting" end of the spectrum; I also imagine a society where almost EVERYone is dirt poor would be more cooperative. In societies that have a blatant Uber/Underclass, probably less so, and more cheating and deception.

Just theorizing, though.

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