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

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

#201

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

windsurfer wrote: post #185

otherme123 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking littering: how littered is your home? Your work place? What about a Comercial Center? In an anarchy society, the littering is limited to your own property. Yes, you can live like a pig, as long as you don't litter properties of others. If you throw trash in other people property, you don't face a fine, but you will be expelled from the property and face a trial. In our current society, littering is a problem i…

Could you expand on how one could face a trial for littering in a society that has no government?

There is no reason not to have government, as long as there is no state and no master/slave relation.

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

#202

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #157

oblio wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the real world is about compromises and lesser evils. Formal authority is quite often better than arbitrary, informal authority. And make no mistake, humans are social, their natural congregations are hierarchical.

I'm not sure this is true. Not only were humans very loosely hierarchical essentially until the invention of agriculture, but anarchism doesn't advocate for arbitrary and informal authority, but for limited in any authority at all unless absolutely necessary, in which case it must be directly kept in check.

> Not only were humans very loosely hierarchical essentially until the invention of agricultur

Even if they were both this and peaceful then, this would only imply that we merely need to dismantle agriculture and the civilization dependent on it to return to that state, which I submit is an unacceptable trade-off to most people.

And even if it was acceptable to most people, it would take only a small minority opting out to retain the power to subjugate everyone opting-in and ruin the whole effort.

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

#203

Post by jancsika » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

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…

> It is painfully obvious that we would act much worse under anarchy.

You're rankly speculating, and that puts me in control of the board.

I choose Barcelona, 1936.

Now is the part where you read the relevant Wikipedia entry and attempt to find the intersection between the facts there and what I quoted from you above.

And just to keep the conversation focused: the inability to defend a city against an impending attack from fascists and communists is a completely different problem than the people in the city "acting much worse under anarchy."

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

#204

Post by tuesdayrain » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #132

tuesdayrain wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How do you behave when you yourself have authority? Would you stop respecting social norms and expectations if you did, and go on an egomaniacal power trip?

Currently I behave because it's in my interest to abide by laws, even those I don't agree with. If all authority disappeared overnight, I believe my best course of action would be to immediately assemble an armed militia so we could enforce a set of rules within a community that we believe are the best. I would still respect many social norms, but definitely not all of them. One thing that comes to mind is that "innocent until proven guilty" goes out the window. If I perceive someone to be a threat then I will use whatever means I have to neutralize them, rather than waiting for some kind of arbitration.

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

#205

Post by vidarh » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

murgindrag wrote: post #163

Mary-Jane wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tens of thousands of years of human history. Feuding warlords, and slaves, rather than everyone acting together in unity. ummm, both of your specific examples are actually examples of those with power abusing it.

> ummm, both of your specific examples are actually examples of those with power abusing it Precisely. Those are examples of how, unless you place explicit constraints on people's ability to amass power and abuse it, people will amass power and abuse it. The whole history of progress in political systems could be oversimplified as a search for laws, structures, checks, and balances to prevent this from happening. In…

If someone is allowed to amass power to to abuse others, it is not anarchy.

You seem to assume anarchy implies no rules, but fundamentally to ensure minimal rules the bare minimum is to shut down any attempt at aggression against others.

An anarchist would argue, however, that protecting society against aggression does not require a top down state.

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

#206

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #57

scandox wrote: post #8

Most people do behave "decently" in this sense. However some do not. Under an open system, these outliers will eventually eat the decent. It strikes me this is likely the exact journey we have come on to arrive where we are. We have created a structure in which the monsters can eat a certain proportion of us in order that we may not be eaten.

this the most intolerant wins : https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

That article doesn't actually support your argument. The dictatorship of the small minority is a case of simple accommodation, some people want things much more strongly than others and those things are not very costly to the majority, so they get universally accepted to reduce friction. It doesn't mean that intolerance wins, just that democratic societies are accommodating of minor but strongly desired things for certain groups.

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

#207

Post by dingdingdang » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

This is such demagogue reasoning that it is hard to know where to begin.

A good indication of something being off is when it is trivial to rewrite the points to support the exact opposite point. I.e.

"Are You A Conservative? The Answer May Surprise You!"

"If there’s a line to get on a crowded bus, do you wait your turn and refrain from elbowing your way past others even in the absence of police?"

"If you answered “yes”, then you are used to acting like a conservative! A most basic conservative principle is that there exists an enduring moral order. Thus voluntary community is an important aspect of human life leading to reasonable understandings with each other and to treat each other with dignity and respect."

Etc. etc.

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

#208

Post by andi999 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

prrls wrote: post #56

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…

Anarchy doesn't mean "absence of law". Absence of law is anomie. One is often confused for the other, but there is a slight difference. Anarchy is more about you and your community having the autonomy to decide your own rules, not a central authority. I believe "autonomy" is the key word here, not "law".

So I am playing a bit of devils advocate here, but then isnt the KKK a good example of Anarchy? The community agreed that part of the residents should not live there anymore, they made there own laws and tried to enforce them.

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

#209

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

I have never believed in anarchism, as I don't believe that "human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to". But with COVID-19, I am seeing more proof than ever.

In my country (but I guess it's the same in most, except perhaps some Nordic countries) bars, pubs and discos only reduce seating or close indoor spaces when forced to by law, in spite of the evidence that they cause lots of outbreaks. A large chunk of people only started wearing masks when forced to by law, and take any chance the law allows to remove them. The government recommended remote work whenever possible but many companies just ignored it in spite of having many workers that could perfectly work remotely, and just implement it when forced by law. And so on.

Tell me again that "human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to"... it's not that "most politicians are selfish, egotistical swine", it's that many people are. I'd rather have a politician mandate masks or restrict bar/pub capacity (not because politicians are any better than the average person, but because they tend to have at least a bare minimum of education, access to advisors, some positive incentives -the next election- and no high stakes on the decision like, say, a bar owner) than have mask deniers and careless people spread the virus around by gathering in closed spaces without masks.

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

#210

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #202

sudosysgen wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true. Not only were humans very loosely hierarchical essentially until the invention of agriculture, but anarchism doesn't advocate for arbitrary and informal authority, but for limited in any authority at all unless absolutely necessary, in which case it must be directly kept in check.

> Not only were humans very loosely hierarchical essentially until the invention of agricultur Even if they were both this and peaceful then, this would only imply that we merely need to dismantle agriculture and the civilization dependent on it to return to that state, which I submit is an unacceptable trade-off to most people. And even if it was acceptable to most people, it would take only a small minority opting…

That doesn't follow from the principle. We don't need to dismantle agriculture or anything else, you can also have technological anarchic societies and indeed they exist.

What it means is that hierarchies are not necessary for human organization.