Anarchists?

[Danny Ocean]

In anarchism, there are no countries.

There are nations and countries, but no states.

 

[Ampersand]

I am. I'll leave it at that.

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Wrong.

Not really, anarchy can only really work on a small scale, it could never run a country, there's just too much stuff to deal with without some sort of structured higherarchy.

Well I won't argue on that. We humans are stupid after all.
But when you said that Anarchy is nothing but Chaos, that's where I utter wrong because it isn't.

I suppose it can be considered CHAOTIC but if anything, it lies within the neutrality field.

I would argue that a genuine anarchist should be striving for harmony and understanding, not chaos.
Because that is the only way an anarchic society could or rather should work.

 

[Dezmond]

Yes anarchy does mean without masters, but without any form of government there are no established rules other than what the individual has decided for themselves.

People don't need rules. There's morality for that. People don't go around killing people because it's against the law, but rather because they feel that it is not right. Well, the majority anyway.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Um....what?
Your a kid, are you not? No offense, that was just a kids version of anarchy. Anarchy has nothing to do with being against organization, it's usually just against a government that is too powerful.
Communities deciding what's best for the community, that would be anarchy.
It's not about chaos and destruction and murder like people seem to think.

BTW, your comment "I laugh at anarchy" is pretty silly when you have proven that your view of anarchy is the stereotype we are fed by television and angsty kids.

Post above yours makes a good point. Anarchy almost always results in chaos, people are not ruled and therefore do anything they desire, whether it be raping, killing or simply keeping to themselves, at the end of the day, nothing gets done, humanity doesn't progress and we're sent spiralling back to stone age tribalism.

Right, and why do you believe that?
Maybe we get fed that on tv but I don't buy it. The world isn't filled with serial killers and rapists, most of us are appalled by these acts being committed on helpless people.
Believe me, we would keep order.
Tribalism? Really? First of all, what's so bad about that? Oh that's right, they didn't have tv and the internet to entertain themselves all day.
I get your point but I would rather live gathering food for my people, a group that I can respect, rather than working every day for a corporation I hate just so I can eventually reach my breaking point and blow my brains out or rot my brain out with idiotic television. Call me crazy, I guess I like tribalism.

Of course things can go bad, but things could also go good. We could start from the beginning and rebuild society again, one that values human life over gold and one that doesn't see a slaughter as another statistic or news report to be ignored.

Yes the "sociopaths" of the world could organize (unlikely but it has happened before) and enslave us and force us to follow their rules, but we already have that. It's called a government.

Anarchy in general really has no real downside for me. Sure I would probably die (I have no delusions about the kind of person I am, I'm part of the feeble nerd generation) but if I do, I would die happy and free.
I would rather be killed in my prime in a moment of intense violence than work all my life only to get a break if I make it to 60 (or whatever they're changing it too) so I can slowly die in my own filth.

I think I've come across as hating anarchy, which I don't. In an ideal world anarchy would work, as would communism, but human as we are, there are people who are not satisfied with working with others on an equal level, it could succeed from a sociological standpoint, but from an evolutionary standpoint, people want to be better than other people. It could work, but only in a parralel universe where human sociology developed differently.

 

[Ampersand]

In anarchism, there are no countries.

There are nations and countries, but no states.

I don't think so. Who would define where the borders are?

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

What did people do during that in-between period? They decided that this would be a good time to loot warehouses and publically humiliate or murder anyone who was remotely suspected of collaboration, without even a chance of fair trial. Sure, not everyone acted like that, but the point is that without a system to prevent and/or punish crime, only a few people actually can fuck it up for the rest of the community. There are always people who will do whatever they can get away with, and anarchy allows them to get away with anything.

As caveman stupid as it sounds. It's the communities fault for not killing the crazy fools off. That's the reason I like the IDEA of Anarchy. You get to handle your problems directly. Only problem is if you get handled as well.

That, to me, is the best part of anarchy. I geuss some would call it vigilantism (did I spell that right?). People work out their problems on their own and no one else gets involved. But like most of the people here have said anarchy has about as much chance of working as communism

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

but what if it wasn't organised? if we just didn't need laws anymore? is that any less anarchical in nature than a revolutionary approach?

personally, i think that anarchy, as in a state with no laws and no government, is preferable to anything we have now.

 

[No One Jones]

In anarchism, there are no countries.

There are nations and countries, but no states.

I stand corrected, thank you.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Not an anarchist myself but I'd like to throw in that it might work in the far future when humanity has evolved through cybernetics and we discover some way of instant long range communication, though that's highly theoretical and has no bearing on what we do today.

Until then, anarchists are free to go to Somalia where the notion of a country is absurd, where the government is practically nonexistant, and where they can observe the consequences of their beliefs when put into practice in a country today.

 

[Dezmond]

Yes anarchy does mean without masters, but without any form of government there are no established rules other than what the individual has decided for themselves.

People don't need rules. There's morality for that. People don't go around killing people because it's against the law, but rather because they feel that it is not right. Well, the majority anyway.

By the way, it's funny how killing for personal reasons (not that I would condone it) is seen as wrong and society will call you evil. But work for the government, you're given a gun, told where to point it and kill as many people as you want and society will call you a fucking hero. Morality changes when it suits the government.

 

[No One Jones]

I am. I'll leave it at that.

I laugh at anarchy. It's a contradiction in itself. You can't 'organise' an anarchic takeover without becoming a massive hypocrite. True anarchy is chaos, complete and utter chaos.

Wrong.

Not really, anarchy can only really work on a small scale, it could never run a country, there's just too much stuff to deal with without some sort of structured higherarchy.

Who said there would be countries?

Never heard of a higherarchy.

Ay! You know what he meant. We address people based on the veracity of their argument, not the quality of thier spelling.

Evidently.

 

[II2]

Good point, its why humanism falls flat on its face every single time. The "realistic" goal of an anarchist society would be to make individual profit preferable to violence.

Aren't you just describing Libertarianism? I suppose if that's your take on Anarchy, then it's all just semantics.

Alan Moore has some salient, if perhaps a bit wishful, points:

I think more essential to the working success of the notion than any political or anti-political scheme is something both more specific and less tangible - the evolution of human physiology. The things that kept us alive running from tigers and bringing down bison are the same savage impulses that deny us the fundamental ability to coexist peaceably without enforced rule. In particular, though it's a much more complicated picture than this, we would need to see a dramatic reduction in our adrenal glands and a significant growth of our pre-frontal and occipital lobes.

This is my point of view based on my understanding.

Also, for what its worth, all systems resist change. This is a universal truth. The deeper/longer ingrained a system of being is, the more violent/resistant the reaction to its change in respective proportion to how fast the change occurs. An real world example of this, wherein democracy and the rule of law became a-systematic anarchy would be in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of hurricane Katrina:

Violence, looting, murder, rape, gangs / family / tribal ties strengthening, etc. Basically a vicious regression to the most base survival instincts of human nature in the sudden vacuum of the established system of law and order.

--

So, in conclusion, won't work now, but I like the idea of individual liberty. Smart money's on the transhumanists.

 

[dark-amon]

I personally see it as quite a dumb belief. Humans need a "leviathan" who keeps them in order.

Although I don't 100% agree with Hobbes, I prefer the leadership as presented in "leviathan" above that of anarchy. Humans are way to selfcentered for anarchy to work.