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

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

#431

Post by jtolmar » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #404

jtolmar wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system a convention uses of having volunteers watching for bad behavior is actually already similar to anarchist concepts of community self defense. Under an anarchist society, the folks tasked with handling these sorts of things would be volunteers elected by the community (in a con they're instead volunteers screened by the con committee). There would also be an expectation that, in public spaces, it's everyone…

I posted this already to a different question, but tell me: according to what you said, isnt the KKK a good example for this? It came from the community, was supported by the community, also they were very outspoken against (falsely accused) sexual harassment. Playing the devils advocate here, but I really would like to know why this is not an example of anarchy; of course answers like people will behave differently…

The KKK enforces law outside of its community. It's not like they're involving black people in the decision of who gets lynched.

Anarchists are on the opposite end of the inclusion spectrum, even including the wrongdoer in the decision process for what the punishment is, when possible.

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

#432

Post by miki123211 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

While I believe a vast majority of people will behave reasonably without law enforcement, there's that small minority who wouldn't, and that's what the government is protecting us against. That small minority can do a lot of harm, think of an internet forum with 100 reasonable users and one troll, posting at a rate of 1 post per minute, just for the fun of it. That troll can easily ruin discussions for anyone else.

With that said, I agree with the anarchic notion of pushing power down, though. Push most decisionmaking power as low as possible. The higher you are in the hierarchy, the less power you should have. Make lots of small communities that self-organize and are very easy to leave, that last part is important. Accept the notion that some people are evil, no matter what you do. Instead of fighting against the incentives, embrace them. Those thinking about power grabs should know that, even if they succeed, it's trivial for nonconsenting people to leave, so it's not worth the trouble.

Any given level of hierarchy should only deal with two things, conflict resolution between lower level units that can't come to a voluntary agreement; and possibly removing units that disproportionately affect others from the hierarchy (not sure about that one). Internal decisions should be made internally. A higher level should only coordinate when absolutely needed.

In other words, members of communities should be able to do whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt other people. All voluntary agreements are fine. Only when something can't be voluntarily resolved, or when a member starts behaving violently, the community leadership step in to fix the situation. When someone grabs too much power and does bad things with it, either members leave, or other communities decide to stop associating with the bad one, which might cause members to leave. Same for all other levels.

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

#433

Post by soperj » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

username90 wrote: post #428

sneak wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main criticism is that centralizing the “legitimate” use of force to, as you say, “keep everyone in line”, is that you get all of the downsides of a violence-based society, and none of the upsides of freedom: such societies still enslave, torture, steal, violate privacy, and mass murder. Indeed, we’re witnessing an unprecedented wealth transfer right now in the US as a result of such centralization of aut…

USA is one of the worst example though, there are plenty of societies which have well behaved police forces and still aren't anarchist.

name one.

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

#434

Post by baconandeggs » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #371

boomboomsubban wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you only make reasonable choices because you are forced to?

Here is the thing... a reasonable choice for an individual is not the same as a reasonable choice for a group. A classic example is something like fishing. As an individual, it is entirely reasonable for me to catch as many fish as possible. I won’t put a dent into the fish population, and the more fish I catch, the better it is for me. However, if everyone fishes as much as they want, the fisheries will be depleted.…

Your example is wrong.

All situations should be evaluated and re-evaluated at every instance, at every moment in time to account for new information and not only once at the beginning thinking it'll be the same forever.

Fishing as an individual its fine until too many people start doing it, then it becomes even bad for the individual. It becomes harder to fish, the fish get smaller, the prices drop, etc. Some of those things might be even good for society but not for the individual. At that point you've got to re evaluate your position, and even change your occupation. This is what happens all the time. Individual choices lead the way, society only acts after enough individuals have been affected, not before.

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

#435

Post by thomasahle » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #354

> 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…

I think lots of anarchists are perfectly fine with putting some people in jail.

Chomsky usually defines anarchism [1] by saying powers and hierarchies have to justify themselves. Keeping people safe can be a reasonable such justification. The point is just that such powers should never be taken for natural, and always be questioned. If jailing doesn't probably make people safer, then it loses its justification.

[1] https://youtu.be/2G6kf7XM9Nk

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

#436

Post by AsyncAwait » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

auggierose wrote: post #350

aarpmcgee wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems that you seem to be imagining anarchy only within the context of the current state of reality with the sole difference of anarchy being set to ‘true’. I think a world in which anarchy were dominant would be structured quite differently and involve humans with fundamentally nonviolent dispositions. My belief is that this is possible.

Anarchy means that the law of the strongest rules. Not sure why you think that this is somehow aligned with non-violence.

> the law of the strongest rule

Not so different to today then, is it?

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

#437

Post by conception » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

runjake wrote: post #412

They lost me in the first paragraph with: “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.” Having dealt with the dark side of humanity, there are lots of people who will not behave reasonably if left unchecked, due to one reason or another. And there are a lot of these people. Some of them lifelon…

Your comment ties into the idea that some large percent (1-5%) of the population are sociopaths. (Link has some sources https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-people-are-psychopa...)

Quite simply many people behave without remorse of empathy and those traits are useful for gaining and taking power and using it against other.

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

#438

Post by username90 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #417

username90 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an organized society a psychopath can kill a few in a murder spree. In an unorganized society the psychopath can gather and organize a lot of thugs to loot and burn millions of homes. Has happened many times in history. I know which one I prefer. The gun argument actually works here, if you ban good guys from organizing then all organizations will be bad ones. And an organized group of people always wins against u…

> In an organized society a psychopath can kill a few in a murder spree. In an unorganized society the psychopath can gather and organize a lot of thugs to loot and burn millions of homes. Has happened many times in history. I know which one I prefer. I think this should be re-examined through the view of the ~1 million Iraqis recently murdered by one such “organized society”. I don’t think the (violence-based) organ…

When the good guys practices anarchy then the bad guys are free to create huge violent organizations. Our modern societies aren't perfect but violence is lower today than ever before.

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

#439

Post by username90 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

soperj wrote: post #433

username90 wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is one of the worst example though, there are plenty of societies which have well behaved police forces and still aren't anarchist.

name one.

Norway. I live in Sweden, our police has gotten a bit worse lately but still very good.

USA has problems, but you don't solve them by becoming an anarchy but by fixing the issues it has. For example instead of 3 months police academy maybe do 3 years like most of the rest of the developed world.

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

#440

Post by sneak » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #425

sneak wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s precedent for human beings cooperating on matters like this to, say, prevent overfishing. What makes you think such coordination would be impossible in the absence of a hierarchy that boils down to “obey these rules or we’ll put a gun in your face”? Most humans are reasonable and cooperative.

No, I am not saying the threat of violence is the only way to coerce people. I am saying there will need to be coercion of some kind, and relying on individuals making the best choices for themselves does not solve all the problems.

I think that’s the point of the article. There are better, safer, kinder, and more efficient ways of coercing people (with kindness and strong social ties and obligations and contracts, for example) than using top-down laws.

If you believe that the threat of violence isn’t the only way to organize a society’s rules, you’re most of the way there.