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

theanarchistlibrary.org

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

#681

Post by JackFr »

luckylion wrote: post #89
JackFr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people do behave "decently" in this sense. It’s even worse than that. Most people believe that they act decently. But to paraphrase Feynman, the easiest person to deceive is ourselves. No one (or at least vanishingly few) believe that they are the villain in their own narrative. And yet evil persists in the world.

I'm not sure that is true. While I don't know (or rather, I don't know that I know) anyone who's actually a villain of some sort, I know quite a few people in SEO affiliate marketing. Their businesses generally don't add any value, they buy links, use cheap copy writers that produce mediocre content often full of factual errors, Google eats it up like it was the best thing ever (because of the links they bought), peo…

I think people rationalize. Stealing from faceless corporations who treat customers poorly is OK. Stealing from people who are “too rich”. People who “need to be taught a lesson.” People who create a narrative of their own victimhood.

I would say about the SEO affiliate marketers, that they would tell you that they’re no different than other marketers, they just operate in a specialized space.

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

#682

Post by lefrenchy »

acephal wrote: post #626
noodle wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 degeneratio…

Your argument can be applied in the same way to the current economic system in the US (capitalism). The free market capitalist system has the shared presumption that free markets are efficient and will allocate resources effectively. This shared presumption is unrealistic in that same fashion, since entirely free markets are not possible (market manipulation, monopoly, etc...). No reasonable anarchist will say their solution solves all problems, but they would argue their ideal society would be better and would solve problems we are faced with today.

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

#683

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #221
tuesdayrain wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently I behave because it's in my interest to abide by laws, even those I don't agree with. If all authority disappeared overnight, I believe my best course of action would be to immediately assemble an armed militia so we could enforce a set of rules within a community that we believe are the best. I would still respect many social norms, but definitely not all of them. One thing that comes to mind is that "inno…

Right, so you agree that it's better for you to have very limited power and exist without authority, in which case you'd have to confirm to most social norms or suffer consequences, than for authority to exist and for people like you to accede to it? Because in our system, if you were to accumulate enough authority it wouldn't be in your interest anymore to follow laws.

[deleted]

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

#684

Post by [deleted] »

sudosysgen wrote: post #387
username90 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It matters a lot if the authority is big enough that a random militia cannot topple them. A lone village can be raided with impunity, id the village is a part of a big country then soldiers will move in to protect them.

There is no reason to have such a small authorities. Anarchic societies managed to maintain armies strong enough to deter state actors. It comes with some small sacrifices, but it's still much better than otherwise. In practice, your village can come to an agreement with other small villages and do military exercises together while still maintaining autonomy, and you can then maintain complex weapon systems and large…

[deleted]

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

#685

Post by boomboomsubban »

stale2002 wrote: post #671
boomboomsubban wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "road tax," if you don't choose to be a part of society, you can't be a part of the society. You are free to leave. The concept of "kicking people out" implies that they have some natural right to be part of that society.

> The concept of "kicking people out" implies that they have some natural right to be part of that society. Thats still force, though. You are just saying that the force is justified. But thats still force to physically prevent someone to have access to those roads. It is force, in that you are physically, using a threat of violence against someone else, because you don't want them using your road. I am not saying th…

>You are just saying that the force is justified. But thats still force to physically prevent someone to have access to those roads.

These people aren't members of society. There's no real need to physically restrain them from the road because they don't have easy access to the road. We're not building roads to random strangers houses, and we can refuse their attempt to connect to our road.

>It is not that they "can't". Instead, it is that other people will use violence/force against them, in order to prevent them from being a part of society. That is force. that is violence.

>And if they refuse to leave? What are you going to doing about it? Answer: you will probably use force against them

There is no need to use force first. If you aren't part of the society, you have no home, and no access to food. They will either leave, join society, die, or use force to try and steal what they need. The only time force is necessary is in the fourth example, where they instigate the use of force.

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

#686

Post by mindslight »

pandaman wrote: post #670
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…

I figure that you imply, that you are the real anarchist or at least familiar with their way of thinking? I have a question for you then and please disregard if you are not a real anarchist. How is the current system of any consequence for you to live the anarchy dream? Why can't you just ignore it and do what you wanted to do in the hypothetical anarchy? If I had these beliefs (i.e. the lack of social hierarchy and…

Any ideal model can be used to describe the current state of affairs as its pathological case. In the ancap paradigm, the existing government can be viewed as a really powerful corporation. In a left-flavored anarchist paradigm, the existing government is a large scale social contract. Or as you've said, an othered government is just a hostile group to be avoided. What matters is the overall heuristic of trying to shrink the structures to be more local and manageable. Anarchism in all its various flavors isn't a prescription, but rather a rebuke of prescriptivism.

Concretely, most anarchists still have a sense of justice, possibly even a stronger one. Murdering someone and then succumbing to (possibly organized) violence makes sense. Smoking a plant and then being attacked does not.

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

#687

Post by komali2 »

RandoHolmes wrote: post #663
komali2 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but at what cost? Perhaps they're creating far more problems than they solve? To take from your argument, freedom comes with risks. If we have to risk the occasional sociopathic murderer and in return not have to worry about being shot by the national guard for the crime of standing on our porch, maybe that's a valid trade off.

You asked a question, I answered it. I'm not interested in going on a tangent because you had a political agenda behind your question. The question has been answered.

A political agenda? We're here discussing politics. The bad faith version of what just happened is "look, slavery just works, ok? Is it cheap labor? Yes. Question answered."

To try to wade into this discussion with an absolute refusal to look at a broad picture of small pieces is nonsensical. How can you talk about preventing mass shootings with a simple statement of "yes, obviously laws and police prevent mass shootings?" You know what else does? A lack of guns. Or, maybe, really good mental health care and social welfare. Or, common sense gun control laws. Or... Etc.

By the way, I reject the notion that the FBI actually prevents these things. You look into the story and it's like, they found some vet with PTSD ranting about Jewish conspiracy theories on obscure web forums, then they reach out to the guy and foment him into a terrorist, then arrest him when he tries to buy a gun. Meanwhile 3 schools have been shot up by kids with guns.

Political agenda, come on. What an obnoxious thing to have said to me on this forum.

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

#688

Post by alexpetralia »

lapinot wrote: post #676
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…

> Why would you assume that we would act righteously in the absence of law? It is painfully obvious that we would act much worse under anarchy. You seem to be conflating anarchy with chaos (to be fair most people do, the word "anarchy" itself was probably used as an insult before it was even picked up by anti-authoritarian communists). The weight of laws in our societies is so big that and it's meaning so large that…

Most lucid defense of anarchy I've read so far. Thank you!

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

#689

Post by pandaman »

mindslight wrote: post #686
pandaman wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figure that you imply, that you are the real anarchist or at least familiar with their way of thinking? I have a question for you then and please disregard if you are not a real anarchist. How is the current system of any consequence for you to live the anarchy dream? Why can't you just ignore it and do what you wanted to do in the hypothetical anarchy? If I had these beliefs (i.e. the lack of social hierarchy and…

Any ideal model can be used to describe the current state of affairs as its pathological case. In the ancap paradigm, the existing government can be viewed as a really powerful corporation. In a left-flavored anarchist paradigm, the existing government is a large scale social contract. Or as you've said, an othered government is just a hostile group to be avoided. What matters is the overall heuristic of trying to sh…

Well, everyone has a sense of justice. Some people think that murder for "dissing" them or being too rich/white/gay/smart/stupid/etc is just and some think that smoking evil plants like tobacco is abomination and kills everyone who gets a whiff of smoke. We already have a solution for reconciling individual views on justice that works much better than what anarchists managed to show in their CHAZ/CHOP, for example.

This does not answer my question though. Why anarchists are not happy? Why can't they live in their desired society right now?

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

#690

Post by RandoHolmes »

komali2 wrote: post #687
RandoHolmes wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked a question, I answered it. I'm not interested in going on a tangent because you had a political agenda behind your question. The question has been answered.

A political agenda? We're here discussing politics. The bad faith version of what just happened is "look, slavery just works, ok? Is it cheap labor? Yes. Question answered." To try to wade into this discussion with an absolute refusal to look at a broad picture of small pieces is nonsensical. How can you talk about preventing mass shootings with a simple statement of "yes, obviously laws and police prevent mass shoot…

We went from an article about the philosophy of anarchism to a question of how laws prevent crimes, then onto slavery I guess?

I would almost bet your next post will include a comparison to either hitler or nazi's.

Either way, I'm certainly done engaging. Not of fan of escalation because you lost the point.

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