Topic: How long would it take for Anarchy to start working? - page 21. (Read 16391 times)

I don't understand where you're going... 

According to your own logic there should be no "law providers", otherwise at the end of the day you will get where you started at, i.e. you will have a new ruler and a new set of rules...

I'm enjoying this discussion, I don't mean to insult or offend you, hope that is clear


Now I get what you're saying. Yes, I agree that if we consider "human nature" to be something which sets humans apart from other living beings, then adaptability is not it.
Neither is forming social hierarchies, though - you can observe that sort of behavior in primates, packs of wolves, elephants.


I don't see this as a dualism. Like "universal set of rules means everything sucks" and "no universal set of rules means everything is great". What I am saying is that if you have lots of options to choose from, you're more likely to find one you like and agree with, compared to a situation where you have only one set of rules forced upon you.

To be honest I don't come at this from a moral "what is right" perspective at all. Instead I tend to look at it from a pragmatic, process-oriented perspective. What is most likely to yield positive results? (yes, positive results is a moral value-judgement as well)

EDIT: response to hawker


But that's like, you know, just your opinion, man. 

Seriously, I won't try to persuade you that the statement of "people are not trustworthy by default" might not be true, you seem to have made up your mind about that and that's OK.

I might try to persuade you to think about the possibility that even if that statement is true, the implications of it are still better served in anarchy than in the present situation.


I sympathize with your conviction in moral ideals. But you see there is a problem with this approach, don't you? Who gets to decide which moral standard to enforce? It's quite easy for most people to agree on an issue like genital mutilation (but still it exists...), yet other issues are less clear. And don't forget: people are NOT trustworthy. How can we trust them to set and enforce the right moral standards, then? Seems to me, they'd be enforcing crooked standards - which seems to be going on today. I'd just argue that it's mostly because the system (environment) has corrupted the individuals occupying its seats of power, not because the people in the system are inherently crooked.

I realize I probably won't convince you of anything, there's no need to. I'm just typing out my thoughts. Maybe someone will enjoy them.

I think what you are doing is ignoring human reality in pursuit of a dream species.  People are not trustworthy by default.

Right now its a legal requirement for schools and doctors to report female genital mutilation or signs of it like girls being prevented from having sports lessons or medical examinations.  So the government does inspect vaginas and it does prosecute anyone who does it.  Quite rightly too.  

The anarchist position does not make sense.  If you believe it is immoral to cut a girl's clitoris off, then wittering on about "Her dad has his own protection force and they are OK with it" is bullshit.  Either you enforce the moral standard or you support the damage done to the victim.

There is no universal law now.   Where is the world ruler and his/their laws that we all have to follow?

We currently have competing law providers that we are "contracted" to.  I use contract loosely of course, because there is no such thing.

Why should a law provider be bound to a certain patch of land and no other law providers be able to operate in the same territory?  If we had competition we could make actually choices about what we deem to be good laws and if we don't think our provider is doing a good job, we can end the contract and pick another law provider, without having to go through the hassle of emigration.

I think it is evident from my post that adaptability is not something specific to humans only but inherent in all living beings. It is not a trait of human nature which distinguishes it from other creatures (the context was about what makes human nature so peculiar), that's all

In short, you'd better stop nitpicking 

Ok, there's no ruler, no universal laws anymore, and so why do you think there will be a new shiny set of rules everyone on the block agrees upon? People are different and even between two people you will get a disagreeing minority...

This thread continues to be a great resource for common misconceptions about anarchy. Like this one, for example:


The idea of anarchy means, "no ruler", remember? A ruler might be anyone or anything, which enforces a given set of rules (laws). This means, that when anarchy suggests, getting rid of rulers, it suggests getting rid of universal laws. - a single set of rules being enforced on everyone in a given territory and opening up the debate to multiple, competing, voluntary sets of rules.

Look at it this way: in the past, there have been fought religious wars over the idea, that there simply can't be more than one religion (set of rules) in the same place. In the present, wars are fought over the idea, that here simply can't be more than government (set of rules) in the same place.

EDIT: just noticed this:


Adaptability = trait of all living beings. Humans = living beings => Human beings have the trait of adaptability. Right? As much as dislike Aristotelian either/or logic, I think his syllogism works within that framework.

The bolded part is what really interests me. I disagree with that statement and instead tend to subscribe to the 8 circuit model of consciousness, which would argue that all we are programmed with before we are born is the ability to perceive and live in hierarchical social structures (2nd circuit in that model), but the actual approach towards these structures is programmed into us during periods of "imprint vulnerability", meaning the time, when that particular circuit of intelligence first kicks into action as we grow up and evolve as individuals. And it is programmed into us mostly by chance exposure to our environment. You can also create a controlled programming environment by using rites of passage (as many tribes still do). Or you can learn how to re-program yourself, which would be my preferred option.

On one level, this is beyond the scope of this discussion, because we're talking about the feasibility of Anarchy, but on another level it is deeply connected to the discussion and seems to me to be at the root of the ideological debate between, let's say "authoritarians" and "libertarians". Both camps seem to come from different assumptions: the first being that people have a fixed human nature, which is slanted towards selfishness, evil, and similar concepts and can not be changed. The second being that humans either are of a permanently good, benign and cooperative nature, or that their character is fixed only a little or not at all and is thus subject to influence from the environment.

Anyway, let's keep the discussion going, this is providing me with an excellent framework for an article I am planning to write about human nature and anarchy

Working... Probably more of being vast majority to be adapted...

Probably one scale would be for median to have have as good or better standard of living than in current society. If that's even achiavble. Which I have my own doubts...

Adaptability is not human nature, it is a trait of all living beings. Human nature is hierarchical because humans are social beings, i.e. tending to organize into hierarchical societies. And yes, it is programmed into us before we are born...

House cats are true anarchists!

I'm still curious how are you going to make all people universally agree on these laws? Who actually adopts a law and what would happen to those who will be against the adopted law?

Anarchy > working.
There is something in this title that bugs me.
How can you have a scale of "anarchy" working or not?

What you're referring to is called a constitutional state where everyone is bound to keep the law and in which the power of state is constrained by the law in order to protect citizens from an arbitrary exercise of authority...

This is complete bullshit. Domectic cats kill mice often for fun without any intention to eat them, lions kill hyenas whenever an opportunity arises (not saying that they often kill their own kittens if they want to bang their mom), bottle-nose dolphins have been proven to kill porpoises without any purpose, even ants wage wars and capture slaves making them work against their will...

i had a long discussion with an anarchist and he seemed hell bent on converting me. to me, he just sounded like a crazy idealist. it just won't work.

you can give me one example of an anarchist society out of hundreds.. or thousands. i'd tell you that eventually they collapsed, probably because they were not organized enough.. while neighboring groups WERE organized. it's like saying "we don't want any guns," but your neighbor buys them all and eventually dominates you.

Good!


Personally, no - I'm actually a pacifist. I would break into Muslim homes and try talking to them reasonably, haha. Anyway, what is your alternative? Let government agents break into Muslim homes and inspect vaginas? Like I said before: if you don't like something in your environment or culture, you - yes YOU - that tiny, powerless, inconsequential existence, which needs to be protected and guided by authority (or so they say) are responsible for doing that. If you delegate this responsibility to some sort of higher power (God, government, etc) you have no business making moral judgements about - that's how I see it.


It's my choice to trust people. I find it makes for a more friendly, exciting and optimistic reality-tunnel than choosing to view people as crooked. Both are valid views, though and I'm not sure it's possible to definitely prove one or the other, so I'll just make my choice and take it with all that it brings. But notice, my position has consistent logic. I trust people to be generally good (with the limiting factor here being their cultural environment, which might turn any of us into sociopaths) and thus they don't need to be ruled over by an authority by force.

Your stance on the other hand, seems to be that people are NOT to be trusted by default and that is why they need to be ruled by force. By other people. Who are also not to be trusted.

Do you see the flaw in that?

If you are really convinced that people are crooked by nature, you should be supporting anarchy as this limits the amount of damage they can do collectively thanks to withholding the possibility of acquiring huge centralized power.

No, the price of anarchy is that if you want to make this your cause, you do so yourself, at your own expense, and you recruit help through persuasion, not force.

Take Nazism in the 20th century, for example.  You want to fight it, more power to you, but drafting and taxing other people to do so was wrong.  Others might have seen it as evil but not as evil as, say, Stalinism.  Or may have felt there were better ways to combat it, or whatever.

Likewise with Islamic extremism in the early 21st century.

And many, many other causes.

Just because something is evil does not mean you have the right to use force to make other people fight it.

I am not personally obligated to right every single wrong in the world at my own expense.  Those who are concerned about this evil should apply their own resources and manpower to do something about it. While I might be said to "allow" some evils because I am not personally giving my wealth or time or efforts to fighting them, I would also be "allowing" you to use force to do something about it, because I certainly wouldn't stand against you.

Personally, if I'm given a choice, I would be a lot more likely to give my efforts and wealth to help people escape from jurisdictions where these things are allowed to jurisdictions where they are not, rather than to efforts to try to go in to use force to stop such wrongs, which I consider to be a little bit impractical and utopian.

Who knows, it could be decades or even millenniums. It all depend in what direction the human race will go. But all you can do at the moment is to improve yourself as a person and set a good example to the others, because the only thing you can change is yourself.

And how long is that?

Are we talking about years, decades, centuries or millennials?

I'm intrigued.

First, female genital mutilation is done by mothers to daughters.  Are you seriously saying you are going to break into Muslim homes and inspect vaginas? And based on what you find start "mutilating bastards?"

Second, what is the basis for your "trust people?" You think fgm and bride burning are carried out by robots?  These are done by people.