No, if a bully beats you up, he is not the state

if i tell my dad on this island "i'm not giving you half the food i personally picked today" and he beats me up. why is he not the state?

Because you are both ultimately sovereign. His ability to control you only extends so far as he can beat you and you don't cause him sufficient harm

is that not true of the state?

Because words have definitions and 'state' is not just 'person or people who tell me what to do'

You cannot sufficiently harm a state

why not?

You on your own with a big stick are not going to dismantle social organization

so then the state is at least 2 people.

or the state is just an entity too large for me to take on solo and win against?

or well, at least part of it

Both because it extends beyond "he beat me up" and because it moves well beyond the scale you can feasibly deal with

As the state has a monopoly on "legitimate" force

@Dr.Wol that like the cells , organs, body thinngy I learned in biology

so then, if my family is big enough on this island. like 10 people, and everyone follows the hierarchy, dad>mom> oldest to youngest, its possible they become the state to me.

pretty much contro

if i, personally, am not strong enough to take on say, my dad and two oldest brothers who are his "police"

No, they dont

They don't fill the total roles a state does, they cannot defend your island against an outside force and so are subject to the whims of that force

They cannot even defend against you alone if you decide to murder everyone in their sleep

who says they can't?

This is literally "communism is anyone sharing" all over again

is cuba not a state? because it cannot defend its country against the us

what roles does the state have to perform?

Sorry, Cuba didn't defend against the US?

not without help

1 MOAB and its basically toast

They still defended against the US

you mean fight a losing battle?

so can my brother and dad against an invader

i mean, the state cannot defend against me killing everyone in their sleep. their only hope is that everyone is not asleep at once and i'm not too quick

sure, at US level its unlikely, but there are way smaller states than US where you could do some serious damage overnight

We've now moved into reductio ad absurdum

For the nth time

I think I'm done here

we have a few definitions in the dictionary of "the state" this one sounds the most broad:
"a body of persons constituting a special class in a society"

Society: "a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests"

now are just down to deciding how many people are needed to meet the bare minimum to be called "a community" I'd say the absolute min is 4. maybe 5. I would also say that as soon as there is someone who is part of the leadership class, which can be 1 person, and an enforcer class, which can also be 1 person, also the same person as the leadership class, you have " a state": A class ruling over your society.

whether you want to call that class "the state" seems to depend entirely on if you like them or not.

https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1032300120795176960?s=20

confirmed: Parrots are conservatives AKA nazis AKA alt-right

murder all the parrots

progressive thinking comrade