Poll: Anarchism

[xxcloud417xx]

Anarchy would bring down a nation for it would fail to support a school system capable of teaching our children to write an opening post and a poll without making several grammatical errors per damn sentence.

 

[stefanbertramlee]

Anarchy would bring down a nation for it would fail to support a school system capable of teaching our children to write an opening post and a poll without making several grammatical errors per damn sentence.

God sakes does it matter I assume you could read it so whats the problem.

 

[concrete89]

In smaller groups.
WE need an apocalypse of some kind, then, there might be a chance.

why do we need an apocalyspe?

To kill off society and most of the people.

why would that be a good idea?

It's not, it's an awful idea.
But that is what is needed for anarchy to work.
Sorry if I were unclear.

 

[Fud]

An anarchic system could not support humankind on the scale that it exists today. It just takes too much organization and administration to support a civilization of even 10000 people, let alone 6.75 billion. Perhaps one day we might not need government in the modern sense, but it would require a massive and basic restructuring of society. Even then, there would have to be some form of administration.

Yes, thank you for illustrating why I said to break the community into towns.

You can have a cookie now.

The only problem with this is that individual towns don't have the wide diversity of resources that we use today. The towns would have to conquer or trade, which would lead to alliances.

An example of this effect in reverse is the beginning of the iron ages. During the iron age, all that a group needed to war was iron, a single resource. This led to the Bronze Age collapse, and such eras as the Greek Dark ages. Before this, the fact that copper and tin had to be obtained to make weapons. This required trade, which helped to build the mighty civilizations of the Bronze age.

In modern times, we require a much wider array of resources for even a fraction of our technology. Anyways, the concept of a town pretty much requires a government.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

An anarchic system could not support humankind on the scale that it exists today. It just takes too much organization and administration to support a civilization of even 10000 people, let alone 6.75 billion. Perhaps one day we might not need government in the modern sense, but it would require a massive and basic restructuring of society. Even then, there would have to be some form of administration.

Yes, thank you for illustrating why I said to break the community into towns.

You can have a cookie now.

The only problem with this is that individual towns don't have the wide diversity of resources that we use today. The towns would have to conquer or trade, which would lead to alliances.

An example of this effect in reverse is the beginning of the iron ages. During the iron age, all that a group needed to war was iron, a single resource. This led to the Bronze Age collapse, and such eras as the Greek Dark ages. Before this, the fact that copper and tin had to be obtained to make weapons. This required trade, which helped to build the mighty civilizations of the Bronze age.

In modern times, we require a much wider array of resources for even a fraction of our technology. Anyways, the concept of a town pretty much requires a government.

Who says we couldn't trade? By what arbitrary designation would we not have access to all the boats, planes, and resources needed to do so?

 

[TankCopter]

Letting people do whatever the hell they want is stupid because when given the chance to do whatever the hell they want, they will be dicks.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Now, since I'm sober, it's time to dissect all the arguments put forth:

Anarchism: Having read Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which seems to be something of a hypothetical on how an anarchist society would function, I would say it might work. It, in essence, relies on the regression to the most primitive form of justice: You kill me, my family kills you and so on. This works quite well for open-and-shut crimes, such as murder or arson, where it becomes in other people's interests that the 'perp is punished. However, it is decapitated by the simply fact that a lot of crimes, including sexual crimes and crimes against children, go unreported.

This is a problem. A big, big problem. Firstly, one must question how exactly we would protect children from abusive parents and/or carers. Possibly in the same way we do now - by means of keeping an eye out for abuse, and then dealing with it yourself. It could work, but the problem lies in the fact people often find it difficult to spot abuse. Another is that it could well develop into outright vendetta between, say, the family of a accuser, and the family of the accused. This is a problem that exists with the entirity of anarchism, in that you cannot have an effective justice system, so you can never be sure of punishing the right person. Also, it becomes heavily against the interests of society in general to report anyone, simply because without the protection of the law, there will be serious problems and feuding between the accused and the accuser.

On a second point, and I shall address anarcho-capitalism. My point is that the two are mutually incompatible. Capitalism requires laws, anarchy demands none. Quad Error Demonstradum, as Oscar Wilde put it.

 

[Fud]

Spoiler

An anarchic system could not support humankind on the scale that it exists today. It just takes too much organization and administration to support a civilization of even 10000 people, let alone 6.75 billion. Perhaps one day we might not need government in the modern sense, but it would require a massive and basic restructuring of society. Even then, there would have to be some form of administration.

Yes, thank you for illustrating why I said to break the community into towns.

You can have a cookie now.

The only problem with this is that individual towns don't have the wide diversity of resources that we use today. The towns would have to conquer or trade, which would lead to alliances.

An example of this effect in reverse is the beginning of the iron ages. During the iron age, all that a group needed to war was iron, a single resource. This led to the Bronze Age collapse, and such eras as the Greek Dark ages. Before this, the fact that copper and tin had to be obtained to make weapons. This required trade, which helped to build the mighty civilizations of the Bronze age.

In modern times, we require a much wider array of resources for even a fraction of our technology. Anyways, the concept of a town pretty much requires a government.

Who says we couldn't trade? By what arbitrary designation would we not have access to all the boats, planes, and resources needed to do so?

By no means am I saying we couldn't trade. I am merely pointing out that trading connects and leads to administration and alliance. I gave the example of the collapse of the large bronze age empires from the marginalization of trade.

 

[Archaeology Hat]

In the beginning, society was of an Anarchist state (at least ouside of a family and tribal ties). If, in the current economic cycle, we were to revert to anarchism there would be an inevitable cycle where we end up with people slowly gaining power, deciding to rule over the land they have conqured, inspiring revoloutions for democratic, organized governments and presto we make no progress.

Anarchism in the form it took it took in the Mesolithic was pretty much wiped out by the rise of Agriculture in the Neolithic. As long as we have a surplus based economy where someone can possibly have "more" than someone else we'll always end up with complex society, unfortunatly. The price of living without a hierarchical society is living like the !Kung or Nanamuit, which means no economic specialisation which means no real technological advancement which means we're hunter gatherers. In every Ethnographic example of a non-hierarchical society we tend to see that humans are actually naturally admirably meritocratic.

The only way we'll ever have an Anarchist society in the future is if we end up with a post-scarcity economy where we're advanced in the way that the Culture of Iain M Banks's novels are.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

Spoiler

An anarchic system could not support humankind on the scale that it exists today. It just takes too much organization and administration to support a civilization of even 10000 people, let alone 6.75 billion. Perhaps one day we might not need government in the modern sense, but it would require a massive and basic restructuring of society. Even then, there would have to be some form of administration.

Yes, thank you for illustrating why I said to break the community into towns.

You can have a cookie now.

The only problem with this is that individual towns don't have the wide diversity of resources that we use today. The towns would have to conquer or trade, which would lead to alliances.

An example of this effect in reverse is the beginning of the iron ages. During the iron age, all that a group needed to war was iron, a single resource. This led to the Bronze Age collapse, and such eras as the Greek Dark ages. Before this, the fact that copper and tin had to be obtained to make weapons. This required trade, which helped to build the mighty civilizations of the Bronze age.

In modern times, we require a much wider array of resources for even a fraction of our technology. Anyways, the concept of a town pretty much requires a government.

Who says we couldn't trade? By what arbitrary designation would we not have access to all the boats, planes, and resources needed to do so?

By no means am I saying we couldn't trade. I am merely pointing out that trading connects and leads to administration and alliance. I gave the example of the collapse of the large bronze age empires from the marginalization of trade.

What's wrong with administration and alliance? As long as there's no government, it's all good.

 

[SsilverR]

think of it as "natural selection" ... only the smartest and strongest will survive ... if you die, that's natures little way of saying "you fail as a human .. go be a lobster or some shit"

only the best genes will be passed on and soon from the death, ashes, pain and war will remain perfection and from that something awesome will begin to develope because only the best will still be around

 

[Del-Toro]

Humans always desire power. It's a fact of life. Within minutes, someone would rise up and attempt to grab power for them self.

Right and then instead of the one centralized government (preferably democratically elected) that kept order and peace we have a bunch of warlords and roving bands of raiders fighting for territory, power and materiel*. Anarchy basically exists so assholes can smash things without the man keeping them down anyway so it's not even worth bothering with.

*Materiel includes food, livestock, wood, metal, water, items such as weapons or tools, fuel, and depending on who you ask, slaves, be they of the labour or sex variety (giving new meaning to the phrase "Human Resources").

 

[SsilverR]

**CUT**

before i make a serious reply i just want to ask .... are you seriously convinced that a retarded bunch of overpowered rock swingers have what it takes to survive complex clan wars .. did you REALLY think your response through? did you really understand what i was saying or were you in so much of a rush to argue that you just completely failed to see my point

 

[SsilverR]

**CUT**

before i make a serious reply i just want to ask .... are you seriously convinced that a retarded bunch of overpowered rock swingers have what it takes to survive complex clan wars .. did you REALLY think your response through? did you really understand what i was saying or were you in so much of a rush to argue that you just completely failed to see my point

Make your serious reply. I am seated.

answer my question first

 

[Fud]

Spoiler

An anarchic system could not support humankind on the scale that it exists today. It just takes too much organization and administration to support a civilization of even 10000 people, let alone 6.75 billion. Perhaps one day we might not need government in the modern sense, but it would require a massive and basic restructuring of society. Even then, there would have to be some form of administration.

Yes, thank you for illustrating why I said to break the community into towns.

You can have a cookie now.

The only problem with this is that individual towns don't have the wide diversity of resources that we use today. The towns would have to conquer or trade, which would lead to alliances.

An example of this effect in reverse is the beginning of the iron ages. During the iron age, all that a group needed to war was iron, a single resource. This led to the Bronze Age collapse, and such eras as the Greek Dark ages. Before this, the fact that copper and tin had to be obtained to make weapons. This required trade, which helped to build the mighty civilizations of the Bronze age.

In modern times, we require a much wider array of resources for even a fraction of our technology. Anyways, the concept of a town pretty much requires a government.

Who says we couldn't trade? By what arbitrary designation would we not have access to all the boats, planes, and resources needed to do so?

By no means am I saying we couldn't trade. I am merely pointing out that trading connects and leads to administration and alliance. I gave the example of the collapse of the large bronze age empires from the marginalization of trade.

What's wrong with administration and alliance? As long as there's no government, it's all good.

But any stable and effective administration or alliance (basically any good one) is much closer to a government than anarchism. You could argue that today's corporations are what really control and are the government. Just because there is no official government does not mean that there is no de facto government.

 

[Fud]

**CUT**

before i make a serious reply i just want to ask .... are you seriously convinced that a retarded bunch of overpowered rock swingers have what it takes to survive complex clan wars .. did you REALLY think your response through? did you really understand what i was saying or were you in so much of a rush to argue that you just completely failed to see my point

Do you really think that a bunch of overpowered rock swingers could survive in the modern world as anything substantial? Anarchy would led to a society and species suited to anarchy. But is that really the best society and species for the species? Seeing as how we've already passed through that situation of anarchy, I think not. Genes are not the only thing that the concept of 'natural selection' can be applied to.