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

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

#351

Post by wholepicture » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #315

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #209

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…

What you mean is people need to be forced to do what you think is reasonable. As you think their reasons for doing things are irrelevant. This kind of thinking leads down a scary road because who is the arbiter if what is reasonable? 10 years ago it would have been reasonable to consider that marijuana is dangerous as all the experts and legal system backed that up. They were wrong. So you have to leave room for peop…

'No! I don't remember that nobody is better than anyone else' ? um P-:

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

#352

Post by username90 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #342

username90 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is nothing more than wishful thinking. There is a reason unions has to force its members to pay dues and not just live on donations.

"wishful thinking" alone isn't a good enough argument to consider the case settled. The American democratic system is "just wishful thinking," in reality powerful oligarchs control many of the day to day levers through lobbying and outright bribery, while other oligarchs slowly transform entire swaths of the population into willing sheep (rupert murdoch). But america still works, kinda, so it's not enough to say "it'…

Ultimately the rulers of USA are decided by the people. You might have a lot of trickery and corruption behind the scenes, but every politician still needs to get votes from actual workers so they can't be too alienated. This isn't optimal, but it works well in theory and is fairly robust since if the system gets too corrupt people will vote in an unsanctioned candidate.

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

#353

Post by komali2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #309

sudosysgen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anarchist argument is distribution of power. Take the example of pollution. Say you're an employee of a fossil fuel cooperative. Is it in your interest to continue polluting? Yes, because you after all own some of the ressources of that company and control it. So what is the anarchist solution? Well, it's in the interests of everyone to stop pollution, right? So you'd need people to come together, decide that pop…

So, the "anarchist solution" to the tragedy of the commons - the avoidance of centralized power - entails a majority of the population banding together and acting as some sort of agent, with the power to set rules and redistribute wealth? I see.

No the anarchist solution is to remove the need for that pollution at all. Why frack when wind power works? Sure you don't get as much power but when the whole world isn't spending 1/5 of their day driving from home to office to modify spreadsheets, you'll find some power savings.

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

#354

Post by TulliusCicero » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

> Anarchists are simply people who believe human beings are capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion.

This can sound reasonable when you think of it in terms of, "most people behaving in a reasonable fashion, most of the time". But anarchists don't want to eliminate hierarchical use of force for most cases, but for all of them.

Any time I've heard anarchists try to explain how they would deal with the subset of people who are just real shitty in various ways, the responses have been either, a) in our utopia, you wouldn't have those problems, because hierarchy causes all of them, or b) increasingly convoluted and implausible-sounding ways to deal with crazy assholes without using force.

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

#355

Post by rmrfstar » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #309

sudosysgen wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anarchist argument is distribution of power. Take the example of pollution. Say you're an employee of a fossil fuel cooperative. Is it in your interest to continue polluting? Yes, because you after all own some of the ressources of that company and control it. So what is the anarchist solution? Well, it's in the interests of everyone to stop pollution, right? So you'd need people to come together, decide that pop…

So, the "anarchist solution" to the tragedy of the commons - the avoidance of centralized power - entails a majority of the population banding together and acting as some sort of agent, with the power to set rules and redistribute wealth? I see.

I don't think that's a fair characterization at all. To use a network analogy...

Central Planning: [1 Figure 1a]

Functioning Capitalism: [1 Figure 1b]

Anarchy: [1 Figure 1c]

The optimal design lies somewhere between the extremes. 1a seems to be an absorbing boundary condition, so we need stabilization mechanisms to keep the system running near optimal dispersion.

In the past, we had stabilization mechanisms like antitrust law, public jury trials for torts (as opposed to closed-door arbitration), and the tax code. All of these stabilizers have been severely degraded in the neoliberal era.

[1] https://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/ufiles/i...

[2] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/new-mental-model-comput...

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

#356

Post by elindbe2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #39

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…

That assumes that the presence of lawful order makes things better, which is sort of the whole question this article is about. You can construct a pretty good argument that, say, absent the structures of "lawful order" around which large corporations grow, fewer people would be driving hours to work each day, drinking water out of plastic bottles, flying across the country on business trips, producing pesticides in B…

Maybe. Or maybe a band of like-minded people get together, arm themselves and take over the "individuals leading happy and fulfilling lives", declaring themselves monarchs and killing all those who oppose them.

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

#357

Post by erinnh » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #333

erinnh wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It is very relevant. You only need someone to behave unreasonable even once to destroy multiple peoples lives. There are enough psychopaths in the world to fuck up any kind of system that's not completely based on separation of powers. I would posit that communism would probably also be pretty nice for most people, if it actually worked. So far it hasn't, and its pretty unrealistic that it ever will. That…

What examples of communism are you looking at that "haven't worked?" I really hope you aren't about to suggest the soviet union, that would be silly, considering it had a state, social classes, currency, and no general ownership of the means of production, and therefore wasn't communism. Might surprise you to learn that communism is working this very day, on communes all across the world. Also, the basic tenants of i…

If a system doesn't work in a larger society it's not a system that can replace our current one that somewhat works on that scale.

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

#358

Post by RandoHolmes » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

csours wrote: post #133

I don't understand anarchy. Take littering for an example. Would an anarchist system (oxymoron alert) have fines for littering? How about signs and a slogan? TV advertisements? Another example: I regularly volunteer at conventions. Somewhere between 90 and 95% of people follow the rules without much prompting. 5-10% of people don't... but I sincerely believe that without volunteers watching, that number would go up s…

> I regularly volunteer at conventions. Somewhere between 90 and 95% of people follow the rules without much prompting. 5-10% of people don't...

This was my problem with the article. Yes, most people do act exactly as you say. But what if you get that entitled asshole who does actually cut in line? Because there are people out there who will do that. Now what do you do? Resort to mob justice?

There's a segment of the population that won't act that way towards others, and that segment is WHY we have those laws in place.

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

#359

Post by komali2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #341

qntty wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assumption that being (the traditional kind of) conservative is the opposite of being an anarchist would be strange to many anarchists. Noam Chomsky has said that he considers himself a conservative in the traditional sense. Also see the essay by the '60s anarchist Paul Goodman called "Notes of a Neolithic Conservative".

I believe the parent comment's point wasn't about conservatives specifically, but rather that you can just change a word or two and insert any ideology you'd like by saying that since $ideology has [insert some words here] and therefore would also form a queue at the bus station.

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree. I think this is more an indictment of artificially striated political beliefs than this article. I also believe that most of where conservatives and liberals disagree are in how to deal with exactly the sort of mechanisms that anarchy seems to say are the problems in the first place, i e. Bureaucrats, the military, police, law etc.

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

#360

Post by komali2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

RandoHolmes wrote: post #358

csours wrote: post #133

I don't understand anarchy. Take littering for an example. Would an anarchist system (oxymoron alert) have fines for littering? How about signs and a slogan? TV advertisements? Another example: I regularly volunteer at conventions. Somewhere between 90 and 95% of people follow the rules without much prompting. 5-10% of people don't... but I sincerely believe that without volunteers watching, that number would go up s…

> I regularly volunteer at conventions. Somewhere between 90 and 95% of people follow the rules without much prompting. 5-10% of people don't... This was my problem with the article. Yes, most people do act exactly as you say. But what if you get that entitled asshole who does actually cut in line? Because there are people out there who will do that. Now what do you do? Resort to mob justice? There's a segment of the…

This happens today, what do we do about it today?

Are laws preventing mass shooters? Sociopathic killers?