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

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

#551

Post by julesnp » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #316

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anacistic organisations, charities and protest movement have done a lot for the environment. In fact they are the only ones that have done anything at all. This is not true at all. Protecting the environment isn’t just about actions like planting trees and buying up the occasional extra property parcel to dedicate as a land reserve. It requires government scale regulation to impose negative consequences on people a…

I am just making a narrow argument that the current system is responsible for the environmental damage lock, stock and barrel. Do a mental experiment - imagine the only form of corporation we had was a cooperative, limited to 10,000 employees. Would you expect environmental damage to increase? I feel it takes large, hierarchical organisations, where the decision-maker is very removed from the consequences, to create…

I have two questions for this:

What is the basis for your belief that smaller groups of people will intrinsically care more about the environment than larger groups?

In an anarchic society, what mechanism would be limiting these cooperatives to 10,000 employees? How would this be enforced, and what would the consequences be for exceeding 10,000?

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

#552

Post by boomboomsubban » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

bccdee wrote: post #521

boomboomsubban wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voluntary association, not voluntary donations. People need roads, when this problem is brought up they will be willing to pay for roads. If you are unwilling, you aren't part of the society anymore.

That's how taxes work though. If you want to be part of society (have a job, employ others, own real estate or a business), then you have to pay taxes on those. After all, the well-being of the economy is a public good maintained by the state. If you don't participate in any of those ways, then you don't need to pay taxes. If you try to participate in society but don't pay the tax for doing so, you get punished.

There is no option to leave society and not pay those taxes, while that option is present in anarchism. You are forced to be a part of the state or you face strict punishment.

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

#553

Post by graeme » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #544

graeme wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is that when there isn't those built hierarchies bad/selfish people don't amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms But how do you stop a bad person from amassing power in an anarchist system? As a simple example, how would you deal with highway robbers? Those were omnipresent in societies before states gained strength.

I mean, did they rob peasants or the lords of the land with their amassed stolen wealth...? A community can decide to cast someone out, reprimand them, imprison them, etc. The whole idea of restorative justice can actually exist when a community is able to address it.

....any travellers. And the point is they were outside communities. Right now we take for granted that we can travel from point a to point b without worrying about such threats.

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

#554

Post by warning26 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

drblast wrote: post #538

I think in many ways it's impossible to have this discussion with a U.S. audience. The idea of force and violence being the solution to everything is deeply, deeply ingrained in U,S, culture. Simply suggesting that reason and cooperation can solve some of the problems we in the U.S. attempt to solve with more violence is usually met with the "starship troopers" ideology that violence is the actual source of legitimac…

> And it seems to be a one way trip. You can never suggest that we have gone too far. Apparently there can never be too many police, too much military spending, or too many people in prison. They only right answer is more of that, please.

Personally, I think it's not taken far enough. Leveraging force to eliminate ignorance would, I believe, benefit society. If we allow those who would push untruths for either personal gain or simply out of ignorance, what does society have to lose by ridding itself of them?

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

#555

Post by crispyporkbites » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

warning26 wrote: post #554

drblast wrote: post #538

I think in many ways it's impossible to have this discussion with a U.S. audience. The idea of force and violence being the solution to everything is deeply, deeply ingrained in U,S, culture. Simply suggesting that reason and cooperation can solve some of the problems we in the U.S. attempt to solve with more violence is usually met with the "starship troopers" ideology that violence is the actual source of legitimac…

> And it seems to be a one way trip. You can never suggest that we have gone too far. Apparently there can never be too many police, too much military spending, or too many people in prison. They only right answer is more of that, please. Personally, I think it's not taken far enough. Leveraging force to eliminate ignorance would, I believe, benefit society. If we allow those who would push untruths for either person…

How do you define ignorance?

That’s a rhetorical question by the way.

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

#556

Post by b112 » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

tekkk wrote: post #535

amscanne wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other flaw with that example is that there is obvious social pressure. If you try to cut the line, people will likely confront you. Situations where there’s no social pressure are different. During University, I was a believer in co-ops as a form of organization. I lived in and was actively involved in student housing co-ops. During grad school, I lived in a large house with 12 other people. I was the house organ…

That is the failing of any devout believers who walk the line between delusion and reality so much, that they become unable to see their own actions from a critical point of view. Those with more grounded views I'd say tend to drift off from the extremity and channel their energy into something else. It's sometimes a shame when the idea these believers, not just anarchists, present might be plausible yet they can't a…

Yes, like decades ago, when the Senior VP of PETA thought all animal testing was wrong, unless of course it was to help her, because who else would fight to stop animal testing?

--

https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2004/08/2628-hyperbolic-hypo...

PETA Senior Vice President MaryBeth Sweetland on her use of insulin, which was tested on animals:

    “I’m an insulin-dependent diabetic. Twice a day I take synthetically manufactured insulin that still contains some animal products — and I have no qualms about it … I’m not going to take the chance of killing myself by not taking insulin. I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals.”

    —Glamour, January 1990

--

Such people, generally people on the extreme side of any debate, are often not rational. Not always of course, but.. often.

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

#557

Post by bserge » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

ooobit2 wrote: post #444

jchook wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK anarchy is not the abolition of the use of force, but rather the lack of a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. The federalist papers spend a bit of time debating inevitable rise of factions and pluralism without a dominant faction ordained by the people.

In less time than it takes to read those papers, a tyranny would rise in place of whatever power it succeeds, and that would be insurmountable monopoly. Imagine the American government disbanding. The kingpins would be Silicon Valley and other West Coast Tech executives because of the sheer convenience afforded by us depending on their hardware (their ideas too) for most communication. People would adapt over time, b…

You're forgetting the real kingpins: the (ex?) military members who have the willpower, training and actual hardware to project the ultimate force - actual violence.

Your tech execs with all their modern technology can't do anything against a well trained, well organized group of people who will imprison or kill you if you don't do what they say. Or they can work together for an even worse dystopia.

That's anarchy. A few people will work out any issues with diplomacy, while most will band under some leaders and take what they want by force.

It's the same right now, except groups who have an oligopoly on violence (i.e. governments) are few and really big - everyone does what they say and in turn live in relative peace and decent conditions.

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

#558

Post by SilasX » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

jchook wrote: post #379

mc32 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree. Psychopaths are an unsolvable problem. People like them is “why we can’t have nice things”. If it weren’t for psychopaths we would not need passwords or encrypted passwords or security protocols, etc, etc., because everyone would behave in good fashion. But we don’t so we can’t.

That said, locking people in cages, treating them with inhumanity and violence, then releasing them into a world where they now have a harder time functioning in society and finding legitimate work doesn’t sound like a genius plan to solve psychopaths.

That's an argument for having more humane prisons, not for abolishing prisons in the sense of "place where you are confined from interaction with the non-sociopaths until you can be less sociopathic".

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

#559

Post by djur » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #385

oblio wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious where anarchism was applied on a large scale for more than a generation and the result was good. Regarding the code analogy, I'd rather have a million pushes to prod than one huge force push that rewrites history;-)

But as I said, it's possible to transition to anarchy. You don't need to do it in one bit push. The issue is when the underlying code base is so bad that there is nothing else, but we can certainly try incrementalism. In theory, there's no reason you couldn't go towards and anarchic society via a million small reforms, but in practice you get executed for using your already existing rights if you state that your goal…

Is it possible to transition to anarchy in a geopolitical environment of competing nation-states? How would an anarchizing state in the process of gradual self-dismantlement outcompete more centralized states in economic and military terms?

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

#560

Post by ssalazar » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

warning26 wrote: post #554

drblast wrote: post #538

I think in many ways it's impossible to have this discussion with a U.S. audience. The idea of force and violence being the solution to everything is deeply, deeply ingrained in U,S, culture. Simply suggesting that reason and cooperation can solve some of the problems we in the U.S. attempt to solve with more violence is usually met with the "starship troopers" ideology that violence is the actual source of legitimac…

> And it seems to be a one way trip. You can never suggest that we have gone too far. Apparently there can never be too many police, too much military spending, or too many people in prison. They only right answer is more of that, please. Personally, I think it's not taken far enough. Leveraging force to eliminate ignorance would, I believe, benefit society. If we allow those who would push untruths for either person…

In the US ignorance and overuse of force go hand-in-hand, so I don't think this is going to work out too well.