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

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

#621

Post by three_legs » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #583

b112 wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manufact…

I mean I am vegan but I wear leather boots. I absolutely do not want leather boots but I work at a farm and do need boots. I found its very hard to find vegan boots and when you search for them you find boutique high fashion not work boots. I also drive an automobile which releases CO2 that is killing animals all over the planet through climate change. I still think mass animal farming is grotesque and that we should…

I agree about the life saving medicine aspect - my wife was dying in the hospital and accepted medicine that we knew contained lactose (we're vegan). But I don't see leather boots as life saving — are you buying them second hand?

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

#622

Post by bena » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #601

marricks wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean sure in a society where no one holds anyone accountable that would happen. That’s not what anyone is actually advocating for.

You cannot just give people stern looks. The end result is, you need to be able to use violence, against those willing to use it against you. Note, that can be a last step, but without it? Those who care not about stern looks, "talking tos", or cold shoulders will literally take everything you have, and kill everyone. So now you fall to mob rule, lynchings, and what? Power of the strong man? As soon as you organize,…

Thank you. Government is the logical conclusion of anarchy. The minute you have two people who want to do something together, you need rules.

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

#623

Post by gwerbret » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #610

b112 wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_for_the_Ethical_Treatme... You cannot oppose all animal testing, say it is morally wrong under all circumstances, then ... because you're fighting to end it, say in your special little case -- it is OK. PETA representatives have often said that killing animals, is not worth saving one human life. Such broken logic indicates that this person thinks that they are special. They aren'…

It feels perfectly consistent to say that we ultimately need to end animal testing but it is okay to use animal products for your literal survival in the meantime. Perhaps they don’t have such a position. But it feels pretty wrong headed to me to mock PETA because a diabetic uses insulin rather than take heed to their very real and very important message about the abuse of animals in our society. It feels like you’re…

> It feels perfectly consistent to say that we ultimately need to end animal testing but it is okay to use animal products for your literal survival in the meantime.

Out of purely academic interest, how are you not bothered by the clear contradictions in that logic?

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

#624

Post by praptak » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:33 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'd say that the minority of assholes is less of a problem. The big problems are variations on the tragedy of the commons where the reality itself creates incentives for reasonable people to behave badly.

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

#625

Post by TulliusCicero » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

thomasahle wrote: post #435

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] h…

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

Huh, that's not what I've heard. Anarchists I've seen talking are very strictly against explicit hierarchies, and prison obviously is very much that, since bare minimum you have prisoners at the bottom of the hierarchy there.

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

#626

Post by acephal » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #540

marricks wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe you've talked to any real anarchists, or at least listened to them. People like Noam Chomsky deal with that question extremely head on. Below is what I said on another comment... > Absolutely no form of government or system (anarchist 1000% included) will solve the problem of people being selfish or bad, all that anarchists contend (that I have seen) is that when there isn't those built hier…

> when there isn't those built hierarchies bad/selfish people don't amass power so everyone else can actually handle them on equal terms. This doesn't really ring true to me. In a society where hierarchy is removed, the bad people will form a hierarchy to create power. It being "not allowed" in that society doesn't mean it won't still happen, due again to the people being "bad" in the first place. Two bad people will…

This is the problem with much of the spectrum of political rhetoric in America, they're almost all somehow unrealistic in their basic, shared presumption of a world without some over-determining Other (a black box concept that is somehow causal of all social woes) is the goal: feminists, a world without patriarchy, anarchists, a world without hierarchy, Nazis and White Supremacists, a world without racial degeneration, so on and so forth).

Socio-political issues tend to be more complex in causal factors than political rhetoric can possibly bare.

Look at how conservatives re-evaluate the value of "BLM" at every opportunity since it represents all Black politics to them even though Official BLM is a distinct political group in the Black community of whom not every Black person agrees with the stated manifesto on their website, there being more than enough easily searchable YouTube videos to learn the opinion of various Black commentators.

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

#627

Post by cortic » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:39 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…

Consider there is how you want people to act and how you don't want people to act, to say that you are also reasonable implies that society collectively agrees with you, which would mean you are making a rule that everyone follows anyway. IF this isn't the case and you want people to act differently than they currently act then this is a social problem that can only be solved by engineering society to adopt your values. It just can't be done by dictating legally what people should do, some examples..

Prohibition; it works fine in countries that largely adopt religious values forbidding drinking.. but is impossible to be successful in countries who's society has not been engineered to accept it.

Woman's suffrage; laws banning women voting work fine in countries where the society already feel this way, in most western countries there would be outright revolt.

Even slavery can be legally enforced only to the degree society accepts it, from indentured servitude in societies that embraced laissez faire, to chain-gangs in societies that embraced philosophies of penance and damnation.

Rules and laws are only afterthoughts, put in place after society decides collectively how people should function. Because of this laws are largely superfluous to how individuals act.

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

#628

Post by haroldp » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

joseluis wrote: post #520

haroldp wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ancaps believe that street wars would be notably unprofitable, and competing "rights enforcement agencies" would quickly normalize their relations with one another, in the same way that we don't see Uber and Lyft shooting each other up. > in what way would private police be different from a Mafia? If you didn't like the service you were getting, you could stop paying for it.

Sorry Mr. Gangster we are not gonna need your business protection services any more... Yes, I can see it now. What could even go wrong with the privatization of violence?

I mean... what you are describing as a worst case is actually the current system.

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

#629

Post by TaylorAlexander » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

three_legs wrote: post #621

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I am vegan but I wear leather boots. I absolutely do not want leather boots but I work at a farm and do need boots. I found its very hard to find vegan boots and when you search for them you find boutique high fashion not work boots. I also drive an automobile which releases CO2 that is killing animals all over the planet through climate change. I still think mass animal farming is grotesque and that we should…

I agree about the life saving medicine aspect - my wife was dying in the hospital and accepted medicine that we knew contained lactose (we're vegan). But I don't see leather boots as life saving — are you buying them second hand?

It’s a fair question. I wish people weren’t so downvote heavy for asking legitimate questions like this.

No, the boots aren’t life saving. I bought them the first year that I became vegan, when I was focused on adjusting to a vegan diet. I got a new job and looked around but couldn’t find any suitable work boots that were vegan. I actually still have not been able to find them. I will say that I was experiencing some ankle problems including an incident where my ankle gave out on stairs, so it was important for me to get good supportive boots.

Two years in and the boots are still working well, but it is super frustrating that I can’t find work boots made from canvas or whatever. I am very happy with my vegan diet but I know I have more work to do rooting animal products out of my life.

Edit:

That said my problem may have been looking for “vegan boots” or “canvas boots” rather than “vegan work boots”, which seems to return some helpful results, including this nice page from PETA: https://www.peta.org/living/personal-care-fashion/vegan-work...

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

#630

Post by TulliusCicero » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

haroldp wrote: post #447

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…

For what it's worth, anarcho-capitalists substantially agree with this collectivist anarchist, but still consider police worthwhile for your edge cases. They just want to voluntarily pay for private policing instead of having a monopoly impose it.

> They just want to voluntarily pay for private policing

The idea of private policing being effective and reasonable is subject to the same ridiculous reasoning that anarchists use. At best you'd end up with some completely fucked up cyberpunk dystopian bullshit where corporations are governments in all but name.