Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000)

Imagine there are two kingdoms on some continent. One is managed by some kind of democratic council, and resources are shared equitably; the other is ruled by a tyrant. Which one is more likely to make war on its neighbors? The tyrant, obviously- because the tyrant has something to gain by conquest (more subjects, wealth, and power) and the democratic society does not (assuming that the society stays democratic after the conquest, they now have to contend with the voices of a lot of angry new citizens). The same applies to any organization: an organization is aggressive and violent in direct proportion to how hierarchical it is.

There is a tragic principle of natural selection that plays out, however, if you imagine that continent and imagine a random arrangement of democracies and kingdoms, over time the kingdoms will make war and expand and the democracies will not. After a few hundred years, most of the citizens of the continent will be living under tyrants. And tyranny has to justify itself to its subjects, through religion or ideology; the subjects will be made to feel that obedience is virtue and that the king is a father figure and so forth. But popular freedom movements will constantly be popping up and have to be suppressed.

I give you: the modern world.

Try parenting with anarchist principles.

At some point you run into limits. The point is, what imposes those limits? Physics, gravity, society or yourself?

Ideally the limits you put on yourself should mean you never encounter (negatively or destructively) any of the other systems of limits. But, not all people are capable of always limiting or controlling themselves, and no...that's not the fault of their being "arbitrary restrictions" or "ludicrous laws" and it's not a "reaction against meaningless oppressive authority", it's just people are not perfect and not always good at acting in a way that doesn't put them up against the other sources of limits.

Even if someone has perfect self-control. Who says they have perfect knowledge of the limits, which if they were to cross them would bring about their destruction or detriment, in any given situation?

You should be the source of truth and guide for your life, but I don't think you can expect to know everything and avoid all risks if you only pay attention to what you think is OK and ignore signals from elsewhere. I think you need to balance it with acknowledging that other people and society has some fucking clue about that stuff as well. It's not perfect either, but you shouldn't not factor it into your decisions.

If anarchists were so clever at charting their own courses, how come they end up getting arrested for stupid shit? I suppose they're "not true anarchists".

Any ‘anarchist’ that is pro-capitalism is generally not regarded as anarchist by the wider anarchist movement.

Fun fact: befor the modern US meaning, libertarian used to mean anarchist-communist as a way around french authorities banning the word anarchist in the late 1800 if I remember correctly.