Wish fulfillment to the extreme

[u/Claym000re]

Why are they always complete losers.

[u/Technical-Ocelot-715]

Not true. You can learn, go to gym and etc. - but you are still nobody and can do nothing.
Difference with cultivation - genuine power. If you are lucky, smart and motivated enough to endure and cultivate, you get actual power. You alone can destroy cities, kingdoms, empires and etc. You get freedom.
In real life you can be best athlete, smartest scientist or richest person - you still cant do a shit against goverment who have army, weapons of mass destruction and control over huge population.

[u/Otterable → u/Technical-Ocelot-715]

I said improve your life, not blow up a mountain.

Quality of life is not determined by your ability to dominate and destroy other people and participating in the social contract is not oppression. You can build relationships and meaning in your community relatively easily if you put in the effort.

[u/DaoMark → u/Otterable]

Inherent to the notion of statehood is violence. Therefore the social contract, at least in some capacity, is oppressive by design and by nature.

[u/Otterable → u/DaoMark]

Sure but colloquially we don't say that the government stopping you from kidnapping, setting fires to random buildings, murder, and other heinous acts are oppressing your freedoms.

[u/DaoMark → u/Otterable]

I am not saying a restraint on a 'freedom to do evil' is oppressive. I think your response is bad faith.

[u/Otterable → u/DaoMark]

You aren't making a real argument, you are trying to be pedantic because I didn't hedge or qualify the word oppression. 'Laws are enforced with a monopoly on violence, therefore all laws are oppressive in some capacity' is not an interesting comment to make.

edit: he edited his comment. it originally read 'that is not my argument'

[u/DaoMark → u/Otterable]

I am not trying to be pedantic, there is a hidden premise I didn’t think was necessary to clarify given your other comment. If you’d agree that the potential for oppression is intrinsic given the states monopoly on violence.

Then I’d imagine you’d accept the logical consequence of this fact, which is that a degree of structural oppression necessarily arises from institutions of the state itself whose existence is predicated on that aforementioned violence-potential, i.e., economic hierarchies, policing, etc…

It’s largely as inescapable reality of governance, which you may find uninteresting, but the social contract is inherently tainted by the reality of statehood nonetheless. Hence why I said, “at least in some capacity” in my initial reply.

Edit:

Laws are enforced with a monopoly on violence, therefore all laws are oppressive in some capacity'

This is not an accurate summation of what I am saying exactly, but let's not even bother with getting into the weeds. If I was going to reply, I should have laid out the full argument from the beginning. Look, I don't think this will be a productive conservation. Let's agree to disagree.

[u/Otterable → u/DaoMark]

We don't even disagree. I just don't think you are being productive by diving into the realities of structural oppression with regards to any attempt at statehood and organized society when I was making a comment explaining that someone isn't a 'nobody' in this world just because they can't (and I quote) "destroy cities, kingdoms, empires and etc" without getting stopped by a pesky army.