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That's not "within the system". That's returning to the state of nature.
If indeed it is true that there is less petty crime in Nairobi than in San Francisco, and that this is because the sovereign is too weak to prevent self-help on the part of intended victims, that's an argument AGAINST Hobbes's absolute sovereign. If there is less petty crime in Nairobi because the sovereign in Nairobi is wiser and allows self-help on the part of intended victims, it doesn't contradict Hobbes. But it is also no help for the people of San Francisco. Their choices remain to allow themselves to become victims, or to commit the much greater crime of treason against the sovereign.
The social contract is a vague or porous concept, hence the need for a large and expansive legal system to help interpret it.
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Well yes, you note correctly that the alternative to having a social contract is not having a social contract.
San Francisco deciding it doesn’t want the social contract instead of being incapable of having a social contract will not stop the place from turning into Nairobi, because Nairobi is the way it is due to not having a social contract. Intent really doesn’t matter that much, elsewise Mao would have done what Deng did, to paraphrase an earlier post of mine. Yes, it sucks to live there in the anarcho-tyranny phase, but the behavior of the masses of cops, janitors, clerks, bus drivers, cooks, waitresses, and all the other people that commute in from Oakland is not that of a computer programmed by some pinkos in the DA’s office. It’s that of people, in all their self-interested and mildly retarded glory.
Well said.
Clapping "I agree" is low effort. You know this.
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It's not "returning" to the state of nature because the state of nature had already been arrived at.
As @hydroacetylene says below, "someone is going to keep order even if it's not the government" and if that someone is the one keeping order, who are you to claim that they are not "the legitimate government"? Again, it is not royal blood, divine right, or even a crown that makes a man a King. It is the obedience of other men that makes a man a King.
No. Being subject to a bad sovereign who allows some of his subjects to commit crimes against others is not being in a state of nature.
Yes, it is, a big chunk of Hobbes' whole thesis is that the sovereign's primary purpose (and the reason you should obey him) is to prevent precisely this outcome, if he isn't able to do so then he is not the legitimate sovereign.
It seems like it's actually worse than being in a state of nature, since in a state of nature you could retaliate by picking up a big rock and smashing your enemy's head (and maybe his family's heads), while being a disfavored group under a bad sovereign means you'd have to successfully smash the heads of your enemy, his family, the entirety of the city, state, and federal law enforcement to achieve the same result.
That it seems worse does not make it less true, wear a helmet.
Can you try to put in a bit more effort? I don't know why you seem to constantly get away with these pseudo-profound one liners. I'm pretty sure most other users would get modded.
A state of nature would be an absence of authority, it would just be might makes right at the individual or, at most, clan level. Anarcho-tyranny is worse than might makes right if you're part of a disfavored group. You can have a mighty clan, but modern states have an incredible amount of muscle and intelligence at their disposal. It doesn't matter how many sons or cousins you have, nor how strong they are, the US Government is going to come down on any members of your clan like gigaton of bricks.
Into what? As @Dean points out, That you would prefer that things were different does not make them so. I would prefer to be billionaire and to still have the body I did in my 20s. So it goes. That it seems "worse" is not actually a rebuttal to anything I've said.
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An effort-response would be warranted if your response actually address the point being made. In lieu of that, reasserting that the point still stands is all that is required to a non-rebuttal.
Hlynka's post that you responded to was an assertion of what the state of nature and the consequence thereof is. Your response is a position based on preferable state. This is not a counter, a rebuttal, or even a subversion of Hlynka's position on Hobbes, anymore than a person who prefers not to suffer the consequences of falling off a bicycle without a helmet is countering an assertion that doing so will hurt them, because the position is not an argument based on preference, but on nature of the mechanism and consequence.
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