261–270 of 839 posts
"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 an anarchist!" No. This fails at scale. People are prosocial in small groups and in person but when this scales it goes away. This is a slight of hand the author is making to silently embed a false premise into the argum…
You've done the same (or it has been done to you). Can you spot it?
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Sure, but that still directly goes against the argument that humans are naturally hierarchical, because they aren't. And there are ways to have agriculture and industry and compounding scientific advancements without having rigid hierarchies, are there not?
They are hierarchical. All primates are. Agriculture just revealed the need for a level of social structure no other species on Earth could achieve before. Regarding your follow-up question, maybe there are ways to achieve the same thing with a radically different social structure. The problem with social changes on this scale is that they are extremely disruptive. I'd rather reform and improve iteratively than rewri…
Primate dominance hierarchies are weak, accountable, and constantly challenged, and not even necessary in humans which exhibit other behaviors depending on nature. As a consequences, hierarchy is not necessary in humans and not inherent.
That being said, there are ways to move into anarchism that aren't that disruptive as long as the dominant power structure doesn't decide to violently repress it. Syndicalism into market socialism into anarchism is a common one.
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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.
> you can also have technological anarchic societies and indeed they exist. Where?
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Regarding humans being organized very loosely until agriculture personally I wouldn't consider that as a plus. We're on HN, just think about the pace of human development before agriculture and after. We were pretty much doing the same thing for half a million years and then in 10000 years: rockets in space! ;-)
Sure, but that still directly goes against the argument that humans are naturally hierarchical, because they aren't. And there are ways to have agriculture and industry and compounding scientific advancements without having rigid hierarchies, are there not?
Sure, the absence of rigid heirarchies with strictly top-down authority in favor of fairly fluid ones with something like circular authority where the top of heirarchy is selected and changeable by the people subject to it is a hallmark of liberal society, realized to varying degrees throughout much of the world.
But that's not what anarchism is about.
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In Boston the majority of everyone I saw wore a mask before it was mandatory. The shame was (and still is) very strong for those who don’t wear one. I see junkies (drug addicts) who don’t give a fuck but I assume that’s because they have given up on life. All normal people are wearing masks that I can see.
And for a counter observation I saw lines out of nail/hair salons and bars in Atlanta the day Kemp dropped shelter in place at the beginning of May. I'd say I see 1 in 8 people wearing a mask anywhere that doesn't explicitly require it, and then people mostly wearing them improperly otherwise.
Seeing one place where people are not wearing masks is not a reasonable sample, and doesn’t show a complex story that is happening.
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 c…
I think this argument loses a lot of nuance. The idea behind anarchism, I think, is that people will generally be good to each other and support each other when left to their own devices. In fact, if you think about it, the capacity for doing harm is only very large when you have highly centralised power structures. The fact that people aren't perfect and can do harm at all means, to anarchists, that we should not gi…
Yeah, and when doing so they create organizations with quid pro quo behavior and ultimately form new countries. Anarchy is therefore impossible. Not because we can't handle being left on our own but because we handle being left on our own by creating new organizations.
Certainly not all but it only needs a few so I guess I'm not an anarchist I accept reality even if I don't like it.
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You mean, decide by voting and agree on penalties for people who break the rules?
Yes! But in a way that works via consensus and that doesn't establish unnecessary hierarchies. For example, you could have people coming in voluntarily agree to the penalties and have the primary stakeholders vote on penalties.