Are you an anarchist? The answer may surprise you (2000) • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #113

zozbot234 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> humans already come from nature with capacity for ... conflict resolution ... Um, I don't think so. Conflict resolution is the main obstacle to the viability of entirely voluntary ("anarchist") organization. That's why it's the self-defining function of any government, even the most minimal.

How often do you find yourself needing third-parties to arbitrate your interactions? Because for me, outside some formal processes I do for my job, it has been well over a decade since I needed someone to mediate my interactions with someone else. People are very good at conflict resolution. They only see the cases where it doesn't work out.

People are very good at conflict resolution because third-party arbitration is available as a last resort. They aren't nearly as good at it in e.g. the average Third-World country, where fair and impartial courts are not generally available.

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

#122

Post by JKCalhoun » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

ozborn wrote: post #103

pmachinery wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Demonstrably how? The existence/necessity of laws to deter bad behaviour.

I think it is more complicated than that, although I agree in some circumstances laws deter bad behavior. However many laws are passed to protect the bad behavior of the powerful. Moreover, under better environments people may organize themselves effectively with only cultural norms - not laws. Think happy families living together without any laws governing their behavior or tribes with cultural norms protecting a co…

But families also suffer spousal abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse.

That in and of itself should make it clear that anarchism is a fairy tale.

Sure, I'm a good person that wants to do good by society, you probably are too. Nonetheless there are rapists.

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

#123

Post by ClumsyPilot » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #106

anarch1c wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious what makes you so sure the laws on the books are what’s keeping the majority of billions from randomly shooting each other. Just because laws exist doesn’t mean they’re what’s keeping your neighbors from randomly gunning you down given they could snap biologically despite the law. Anarchism doesn’t mean no laws or rules. Anarchism as a lawless violent mess is the movie version. One could even keep the Con…

What you're saying looks a lot like reform, not anarchy.

I think what you meant to say is that sounds like its just tweaks to the existing system

The antonim of reform is revolution.

It does not matter what you reform towars: You could reform democracy to nazism, or communism to market capitalism. In fact such reforms have happened before.

You could peaceeacefull and managed change of existing system is called

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

#124

Post by ozborn » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #92

onion2k wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line you quoted doesn't say that people will act reasonably, but rather that they are capable of acting reasonably. The interesting (and massive) problem is figuring out why some people act unreasonably in the same situation as someone else who doesn't. If it's something that can be addressed through mechanisms like the provision of healthcare, UBI, equality, or addressing inequality then perhaps society can be s…

The provision of healthcare, UBI and the like is itself incompatible with "very minimal" government - each of those would involve government control over a non-trivial fraction of GDP. I'm not saying that these things aren't worth doing; some of them may well be. We should be mindful of the costs, however. For that matter, anarchist thought hasn't historically shown much awareness wrt. the importance of, e.g. social…

There has actually been a great deal of thought (and some practice) on provision of services and community grassroots organizations by some strains of anarchism. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism

However whether a bottom up, decentralized, participatory democracy still counts as government... I will leave up to the reader.

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

#125

Post by tuesdayrain » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

learnstats2 wrote: post #111

oxymoran wrote: post #11

“Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to.” My anarchist sympathies want this to be true but this is a demonstrably false fairy tale. Just look at how we treat the planet and other living things in the presence of lawful order. Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? It is painfully obvious th…

Your assumption that people must behave better in the presence of authority - and therefore worse in the absence of it - is exactly the assumption that is under question.

I certainly behave better in the presence of authority. It's unlikely I am the only one.

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

#126

Post by vidarh » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #91

woko wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do anarchists really work as professors at the London School of Economics? And Yale? I know a banker who is communist. It does not mean that he behaves like a communist in his actions, but he does in his words. From my perspective, he takes the best (or the worst) of both worlds: the quality of life of a very rich man who can afford living in the most expensive places and whatever leisure he wants, and the ability…

> I know a banker who is communist. That's an incontinent position to hold and he must have high cognitive dissonance of schizophrenia. Except if he is duplicitously self-serving, ie happy to receive the payments but not the opprobrium that comes with a high paying system position.

You'd be very surprised how many socialists and communists there are in banking.

On one hand one of the things Proudhon and Marx agreed on was that driving down the cost of credit is an inherently radical act - the cheaper credit becomes the weaker the hold of employers over employees becomes, as it becomes easier to start for yourself.

On the other hand in finance you see the mechanisms at work laid bare.

Nowhere else than in finance and in far left groups have I seen the same extent of shared fear (AND optimism - people tend to be unaware the Communist Manifesto starts with fanboy-level praise for the advances brought by capitalism) about the long term societal effects of automation for example.

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

#127

Post by jkhdigital » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

> Everyone believes they are capable of behaving reasonably themselves. If they think laws and police are necessary, it is only because they don’t believe that other people are.

I believe this is missing an important distinction between two kinds of law: common and statutory. If anarchists had laws, they would be common law, which simply represents accreted experience and wisdom about dealing with human conflicts that inevitably arise in any society.

I absolutely think common law is necessary, because it provides a long-term consistency and stability to human relations. Instead of individuals coming to ad hoc decisions about how to redress wrongs and grievances, they can rely on precedent which ensures some measure of fairness.

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

#128

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

elgfare wrote: post #80

This was interesting, I learned something. The problem with anarchy is that everyone must be a good anarchist for it to work. Our current society is also dependent on most people being good anarchists, but it's also more resilient against non-anarchists. Also, removing state power structures will not remove all power structures. There will still be people with lots of material or social capital providing them with po…

Anarchism would also remove private property, and for it to work people would have to organize in ways to minimize social capital.

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

#129

Post by tuesdayrain » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #104

lucideer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a demonstrably false fairy tale Demonstrably how? > Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? What is a demonstrably false fairy tale is that we don't act righteously when law enforcement is present. So asking what would happen in its absence seems irrelevant. > It is painfully obvious that we would act much worse under anarchy. Above you said it was "demonstrable" but now se…

> Self-regulating organisations are possible, the only real condition is the removal of external incentives for those organisations to misbehave. And how do you remove those incentives?

Of course such things are possible! All we have to do is .

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

#130

Post by it_was_cool » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #29

I don't often read anything from anarchists. Whenever I do, it always comes off as sophomoric. Pretentious sophistry. When you boil down his questions, they're not serious questions about anarchy, they're lame excuses for him to keep talking. - Do you wait for your turn on a crowded bus? - Are you a member of a sports team or small group without a leader? - Do you think politicians suck, and people are selfish? - Do…

The thesis of the article is that anarchism is not particularly violent or exotic, but a natural extension of very common moral beliefs and practices. One could argue this is interesting in its own right, given popular depictions of anarchism, but the article goes even further, articulating an anarchistic view of human nature. You can reasonably disagree with this view, as others here have, but to criticize these "talking points" as "generic" seems precisely to miss the point.