"Everyone wants to be the king of the hill. That's international. But the number of aspiring kings always dwarfs the number of available hills. So in this country, we build more hills. We're geniuses, in fact, at building more hills."
If you want to live in a world subjected by a king or some fool on a hill, go ahead. I don’t pretend like you’re anything other than a peasant.
This is impossible, because in this scenario, someone will get weapons and will forcefully take over and rule everyone else. This is just how human nature works
I don’t see people getting weapons and taking over people in the streets, do you?
In this context, good luck showing how they are anything but particularly well armed and organized gangs.
That's because we've built some very large hills to prevent this - notably powerful governments with militaries and police forces. Lack of hills is essentially anarchy, where all of a sudden the strongest now become the ruler
The only way a person can absolutely reject authority is to live alone in wild territory (since managed territory is ruled by governing authorities). This scheme works until another person decides they want to live in the wilderness and happen to choose the exact same spot of woods as you, which is statistically probable since some geographic locations are more desirous than others. At that point, you will either find a way to coexist with this person or attempt to push them out. If you try to push them out, you're saying you're the ruler of the territory, so that option contradicts the objective of rejecting authority, for how can you say you reject authority and then become authority without being a hypocrite?
So, the only viable option is to coexist. Over time, more people who reject authority arrive, and you must coexist with them or pack your bags for somewhere else, which you really don't want to do. Presumably, you'll work the land in some way to provide for your own sustenance. One day, your neighbor accuses you of killing their livestock overnight. You obviously didn't, and you tell them that, but they just don't believe you because they know they saw you on their land the previous night. At this point, you're frustrated because you're innocent but can't demonstrate it, and the other people who reject authority like yourself are unable to decide who to listen to because neither one of you has more authority than the other. Someone comes up with the idea of writing down a common set of life principles and rules for dispute arbitration, so both legal and judicial systems are born. Down the line, someone decides to ignore the arbitration outcome, and the community decides that arbitration outcomes must be respected, so enforcement systems are created. At that point, everyone living in that spot of wild territory have created a government under the rule of law.
The point of all this is, at some level, we are all ruled by something, be it a single human or a government. Are you primarily taking issue with monarchy? If so, absolute monarchy exists in only a handful of places in the world, with most monarchies being constitutional monarchies which delegate much political authority to democratically-elected individuals. And yes, some people like trusting that the rulers will do a good job. If that makes them peasants, so be it, but consider that even the people in the wilderness community must hope that their government under the rule of law will be successful. If they aren't rooting for its success and actively work against it, the rule of law will eventually collapse.
You talk about absolute marquee like you don’t sell yourself to it every day when you walk into work.
Yes, this is what America is built on. American culture is winner take all, and we generally want to be the winner.
We don't deride his success, we deride the fact that he acts like a child on social media
I am not the person you are replying to, but I assure you that “I” never wanted to be a on top of anything. I don’t want celebrity or wealth. I want to be left alone most of all, and having just enough to achieve it.
Just telling you this so that your horizons of what people want open up a tad and you don’t assume that everyone around you is a different looking copy of you.
Cause that’s how you get Florida (and saltwater intrusion)
https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Berge...
Because the US government has a money printer and an insatiable appetite for debt. The day will come for us, our kids, or our grandkids where it catches up to us.
I guess it is possible that maybe in a generation or two Europe, Russia, China can fix their problems, get a solid working class and challenge the US.
But it really feels like the entire planet is sinking right now and the US is the best of the worst.
Maybe we need some aliens or something.
I don't think your non-sequitur bears even a passing resemblance to the subject.
I think the whole point of the thread you're replying on is mentioning the individualism and personal freedom that's the US's cultural basis, and that has a profound impact on the well-being of those who feel the need to be the best of what they do, regardless if what that might be.
A while ago I stumbled upon an Instagram account of a middle-age man who had a bunch of videos of him juggling random stuff in his back yard, and he made it his point to stress that he was the best at what he did and he made a whole career out of it. Such a random thing, and I'm sure there weren't that many competitors for the title of best pillow juggler, but that fit definitely the description of someone making his own hill to be its king.
Still though particularly in places like Appalachia or rougher cities, its terrifying. America is realky liberty or death with few in-betweens
If I sort this table by rate (and exclude a small territory), the US is 5th: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
But at some point, I don't know if it is the narrator or someone in the story, but they say something to the effect of: "Everyone wants to be king of the hill, but there aren't enough hills to go around. The US is particularly great at creating more hills."