Live data from Hacker News

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

theanarchistlibrary.org

711–720 of 839 posts

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

#711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'…

> There's no real need to physically restrain them from the road because they don't have easy access to the road

And if they go there anyway?

What, are you going to setup a giant wall around society?

That's the point. You cant actually stop someone from being in society without using force.

> you aren't part of the society, you have no home, and no access to food

Sure they could have access to those things. There could be other people who choose to sell them a house or sell them food, in exchange for their labor, or other goods.

What are you going to do? Stop these other people from selling them food?

You'd have to use force to do that.

There would absolutely would be many people who would be perfectly fine selling them food or housing, in exchange for goods or labor. Or maybe even charity! That exists.

> They will either leave, join society

No, actually. The other possibility is that they refuse to leave, and other people continue to do business with them. Likely through engaging in trade with them for their labor.

You are not going to succeed with some sort of embargo against them, unless you plan on using force yourself.

> We're not building roads to random strangers houses

They don't need you to connect roads to their house. firstly, because roads are already connected, all over the world. And 2nd, they could just find someone who already has a house that is connected, and rent from them, by exchanging labor or goods that they have acquired.

Or maybe some people would perfectly be fine with letting them stay for free! Charity exists and is common in the world right now. I see no reason why it would stop.

What, are you going to send out "community" embargo squads, that follow people around, find where they live, and find who is hiding the secret tax evaders or something, so that you can enforce your embargo on both of them?

It would be exceeding impractical to enforce some sort of society wide embargo against people who refuse to pay taxes, because you are not only going to have to embargo the tax evaders, but you are also going to to have to embargo the people who refuse to follow your embargo. And then, what? You exile those people to? Who already have a house, and are already in the city, or connected to the roads, and are living in society, and the like?

Ridiculous.

You can't do that effectively, without using forces, lol

Or even beyond that, there could be a critical mass of people who refuse to leave society, and also interact with each other. IE, they still use your roads, but also trade with each other. And the trade between them is enough for them to sustain themselves (especially since they already get the benefit of the roads and stuff, but don't have to pay for it!)

.

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

#712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, as an anarchist, I never heard before that removing the government (or hierarchical use of violence) would remove violence from the world. There are plenty of ideas on how to keep law and order in an anarchic society. I recommend you to read The Machinery of Freedom (by David Friedman) or check out a summary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o TLDR: One way to keep order is having privat…

If you're an anarcho-capitalist, that's cool and interesting, but I think it's quite distinct from the more left-wing forms of anarchism people usually talk about (that revolve around self-organizing democratic cooperatives). I actually like a lot of things about Freidman's work, but I don't think it would actually function. The issue is that at the end of the day it's still just armed gangs living in tension with ea…

what are self-organizing democratic cooperatives?

how do they relate to anarchism?

and wouldn't a globaly organized democratic cooperative essentially eliminate anarchism?

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

#713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone else having similar structures. This is starting to sound less like good-faith questions than it did when it started. Are you trying to poke holes, or are you trying to understand how this is something someone could actually believe would work? Are you asking yourself how your questions are resolved in existing power structures?

I never realised, but I think my trying to understand something works by trying to poke holes. I generally found the idea of self governance very appealing, and didnt think much about it, since I thought people have figured out some good ideas how to make it work. When I was getting older, I got more doubts. My biggest doubt/worry currently is that these kind of ideas can actually prepare the grounds for (local) geno…

Consider direct democracy. If the populous directly proposes and votes for explicit genocide.. how is that a failure of the system? That's democracy in action. To believe in Democracy fundamentally is to believe that The Will Of The People should be done, whether it be noble or heinous. You have to trust the people to make their own decisions and to learn from their mistakes after they have borne the consequences of their actions.

If you concentrate power then only a few get to decide on the matter of genocide. Don't you want a direct say against genocide?

Currently the people bear no responsibility for the actions of their government. They can always say "I just voted for him I didn't know he was going to do that." They are never culpable, never responsible. How can society learn under such conditions?

It's easy for many to ask "What if someone does bad?" under a proposed alternate political system while over looking that representative Democracy is just rebranded tyranny.

Instead of one king we have thousands. Kings of law, kings of the court, kings of action. The people who decide the system have no checks on their power. Once elected we have no hold on them, we can only say "Well we won't elect you again." But only after unjust law had been created. How can any person claim to speak for another? Don't you deserve a direct hand in shaping the rules and priorities of the society you live in? Why should you surrender that power to some random person? How much would you pay someone to undertake a complex and critical task for you without a contract? Would you pay them all of your share of power that is rightfully yours to shape the order of the world you live in-- receiving no guarantees in turn?

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

#714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confused about what the discussion here concerns.

No. You think that there are some people incapable of living reasonably without force, and that group does not include yourself. Presumably they are the people that are incapable of living reasonably with force.

>You think that there are some people incapable of living reasonably without force, and that group does not include yourself.

Yes I think so. Are you arguing there are no bad people in the entire human populace?

Regardless, it doesn't make me "special."

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

#715
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because the KKK itself represents a coercive power structure acting without the consent of those it attempt to enforce power over, which is inherently not anarchist. If the KKK only tried to harass or harm people who had consented to be subject to them, then you'd have an argument.

This doesnt tally with the previous comment. Then you are saying anarchy has laws, but they cannot be enforced. So your interpretation is no laws (which can be enforced): then how would you prevent the KKK in forming (violating your rule) without a government to enforce "no minority killings, please"

To call the KKK anarchist is to ignore that they had the tacit approval of the state and contained within their ranks many state actors. It seems odd to me to ask how Anarchism would prevent the rise of the KKK when the state permitted the creation of the KKK.

One view is to see the KKK as basically raiders/marauders who left their own communities to terrorize other communities. Without a state to intervene on their behalf obviously the affected communities would have to rise up in self-defense. So, what really happened? The state didn't intervene on the behalf of black communities. The state would've brutally put down any attempt to resist the KKK with force, black communities were not permitted to use force. The KKK were a state sanctioned paramilitary group carrying out a mission of terror with the aim of preserving the racial hierarchy at the center of the south's the social order.

You might ask "How would this be better with Anarchism?" but I find myself asking "How could it be any worse?"

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

#716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Since you bought them during a time of transition, I'd say that's not so bad. If you bought them new now I think it'd be more of a problem. And I am not a vegan that thinks you should just throw them away all of sudden - it's difficult to explain to people since they might see your leather boots and think you're a hypocrite, but better to keep them and wear them since you have them.

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

#717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my question! How is "free" land is different from any other? It's just a convention established by the government i.e. if you try to settle on somebody's land then eventually armed people will show up and make you go. So how is it different from the anarchy? Who will provide the "freedom" of the land and is incapable to do it now?

I'm struggling to understand what you're trying to argue, to be honest.

Not the same poster, but I think his point is:

Consider a world where society lived by the anarchist principles. In that hypothetical world, most people self-organized in a large group where:

- They decided to democratically appoint representatives that flesh out large-scale agreements and called it law

- They decided it is necessary to have people dedicated to securing the lands where they live from both internal and external threats

... and so on and so forth, until they effectively self-organized into the equivalent of our current society.

Is there any difference between that world and ours? Why can't an anarchist assume that this is what actually happened (there's some merit to the idea) and be happy to live in an anarchist world, our world?

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

#718
post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anarchism is a form of self-governance.

Which has nothing to do with a government.

But it has everything to do with "A "community" which makes "communal decisions"", whatever you call it.

I hope Merriam-Webster clears that up:

"Definition of government

1 : the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization"

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

#719

> 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…

> capable of behaving in a reasonable fashion without having to be forced to. It is really a very simple notion.

That "notion" also goes against all available evidence.

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

#720
post #556
post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manufact…

I'm pretty sure there wasn't any "synthetically manufactured" insulin in 1990.
Post reply on HN