Iām also a systems guy. It isnāt that people will spontaneously cooperate and just build roads or whatever. Itās about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyoneās voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
Also yes, not everyone can be involved in everything, so you need groups in charge of certain tasks. However, again, this does not need to be hierarchical. It just needs to be cooperative. Those groups will handle those tasks, and theyāre accountable to the people. They arenāt above them. Theyāre just filling a role for now, as everyone is also doing.
I thought the same thing as you about anarchism for a while too. I thought it seemed stupid and that it couldnāt work, and theyāre just reinventing the same things with different names. I donāt believe that anymore though. It turns out the structures we have in place lead us to a very poor understanding of alternative systems of governance, for some very mystifying reason.
Iām not even specifically talking about systems of governance, just systems of decision and production.
Itās about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyoneās voices.
How, tho? Once we get into the nitty gritty of implementation, how do you build that system? How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
This is what Iām talking about. You either have to assume that in an anarchist utopia, greed and malice will somehow spontaneously disappear from all humanity, or you have to have to devise a way to handle that.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesnāt work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, theyād be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyoneās voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
It turns out that getting parasocial apex predators to coexist peacefully is actually pretty difficult, and every system has to make compromises. I donāt see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with āWeāll figure it out through cooperationā, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
How, tho?.. How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
Have you heard of Community Policing before? Thatās an example of non-hierarchical cooperative policing, and itās effective all over the world. I donāt know if youāre trying to be obtuse or just really havenāt heard or thought about any of this, but it isnāt anything particularly revolutionary.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesnāt work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, theyād be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
I talked about this above. Yes, not everyone can be involved with everything all the time. The key is accountability and cooperation. Our current democracies are largely missing both of these. In an ideal world, sure theyāre accountable to voters, but power in that is unfairly controlled by the owner class.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
Absolutely, and they should be treated as human as anyone. They werenāt flawless gods. They thought weād have torn it apart and built something better by now. Hell, they threw out their first attempt in a few years (The Articles of Confederation). We should be inspired by their attempt and actions and try to fix the issues we can see in the current systems. Thatās could mean starting over, like they didā¦ twice.
I donāt see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with āWeāll figure it out through cooperationā, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
It does not hand wave it away. You hand wave away the solutions and just say āoh, they havenāt actually considered it.ā
Anarchism has been a philosophy for hundreds of years. Thereās solutions to everything youāve presented, and probably anything you could think of. Being ignorant of something isnāt the same thing as it not existing. It just means you donāt know about it yet. If you made a sincere attempt to understand Anarchist philosophy and though, and different forms of Anarchism, and theyāre solutions, you wouldnāt be so confused. You donāt have to do this, but if youāre actually curious you should.
I have. In actual implementation, itās still hierarchical, it just encourages outreach and communication between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
Yes, not everyone can be involved with everything all the time. The key is accountability and cooperation. Our current democracies are largely missing both of these. In an ideal world, sure theyāre accountable to voters, but power in that is unfairly controlled by the owner class.
We already have accountability and cooperation through democratic elections. If you think thatās insufficient, thatās a valid critique, but not in itself a replacement. Thatās the sticking point, developing a replacement that doesnāt fall to the same problems of the current system.
You said youāre a systems person. Have you ever actually implemented a system that replaces an existing one? So very frequently, the replacement is ambitious and idealistic, but itās not until implementation that the flaws become apparent. Building a stable system with effective checks and balances is much more difficult than anarchist literature suggests. And even if you do make a system that starts off stable, itās only a matter of time before people figure out a way to exploit the system.
You can have a system thatās democratic, responsive, or just. But you canāt have all three, they are functionally at odds with one another. You can design a system that appears to be all three, but implementation will expose the design flaws sooner or later.
They thought weād have torn it apart and built something better by now
I doubt it. I believe they expected weād change the system they built, and I agree that we should, but the foundation is pretty difficult to improve upon. Not saying itās perfect, but pragmatically itās fairly practical. If anything, it suffers mostly from the charges weāve made to it; capping the House and Citizens United have been particularly damaging changes.
It does not hand wave it away. You hand wave away the solutions and just say āoh, they havenāt actually considered it.ā
I respectfully disagree. Sure, solutions are considered, but not really the implementation of those solutions, which is my contention. The solutions exist, but theyāre not well developed. Again, they either assume greed and malice will spontaneously disappear, or kick the can down the road under the banner of ācooperationā.
I am not ignorant of the solutions, Iāve read a great deal of theory. I just didnāt find them compelling. I have made a sincere attempt, I am not confused. I just have too much experience implementing human systems to be convinced by the solutions provided.
We already have accountability and cooperation through democratic elections. If you think thatās insufficient, thatās a valid critique, but not in itself a replacement. Thatās the sticking point, developing a replacement that doesnāt fall to the same problems of the current system.
Nothing ever completely replaces everything. Yes, it shares components of democracies. Should the US have not tried to do what it did because, for example, taxes are still collected like a monarchy and they didnāt totally remove it for something new? Some systems work well and should still be used. This isnāt a criticism. Youāre just being obtuse.
You said youāre a systems person. Have you ever actually implemented a system that replaces an existing one?
A government? No. Only a handful of people in human history have. What kind of a question is that? Should this never be done because those people hadnāt done it before? I guess we should just let the status quo remain, because no one has the experience to change it.
So very frequently, the replacement is ambitious and idealistic, but itās not until implementation that the flaws become apparent.
Which is why you need to build it. This isnāt an argument against doing it. Itās an argument for it. You can think about the issues all day, but you wonāt find them all until you try it. Again, the founding fathers of the US tried once and utterly failed, because they didnāt forsee the issues. They then tried again and did much better, though still flawed. You canāt succeed by doing nothing. You have to try, fail, and adapt.
They thought weād have torn it apart and built something better by now
I respectfully disagree. Sure, solutions are considered, but not really the implementation of those solutions, which is my contention.
Are you kidding me? The implementation is probably the thing thatās debated most. The thing about the left is they mostly all agree on what they want, but they donāt agree on how. Some want a revolution, because they think thatāll create a better foundation. Some want gradual change to existing systems. Etc. You have an idea in your head that you want to be true, and you assume it must be true, but you donāt actually want to find any knowledge to (dis)prove it.
Thatās kind of my point. Anarchy is more an idealistic aspiration than a practical system. Weāll get to anarcho-communism eventually, itās practically a certainty, but thatās probably a century or two in the future. We need a lot of fundamental cultural and material shifts before the average individual will embrace the concepts, and there arenāt any shortcuts in geopolitics.
Have you ever actually implemented a system that replaces an existing one?
A government? No.
I didnāt say a government, that was not the question I asked: a club function, a group project, a large event, a project team; any coordination of people for the purpose of performing some task or making some decision. The basic principles are similar to a government, though difficulties multiply with scale. But the difficulties intrinsic to organizing humans are present in some form at every scale. If youāve ever organized humans, youāll understand the difficulties Iām referring to. If you havenāt, this topic might be beyond your expertise.
So very frequently, the replacement is ambitious and idealistic, but itās not until implementation that the flaws become apparent.
Which is why you need to build it.
Again, the hand-waving. āThe answer is to just give it a shot!ā That completely ignores the fact that politics is inherently social and emotional. A poorly implemented experiment will sour the public on the concept, and ultimately do more harm than good.
Any political strategy without an eye for optics and effective persuasion is useless. Action for actionās sake is literally one of Ecoās features of fascism. We didnāt need to fall for that trap. We are an experiment, we need a carefully constructed, detailed, tested plan to generate buy-in. Politics without buy-in is nothing but theory.
A new charter, a new direction for the system, a new iteration of the system with revised mandates. I donāt think he would have anticipated total rejection of the basic model.
The implementation is probably the thing thatās debated most. The thing about the left is they mostly all agree on what they want, but they donāt agree on how. Some want a revolution, because they think thatāll create a better foundation. Some want gradual change to existing systems. Etc. You have an idea in your head that you want to be true, and you assume it must be true, but you donāt actually want to find any knowledge to (dis)prove it.
I agree that this is the general condition of the left, and a tad ironic for you to say. Iāve explored most of the clades of political theory, particularly on the left. Iāve read a lot, and agreed with a lot, but I have too much experience organizing people to accept the rose-colored glasses endemic to anarchist theory. Again, maybe in a century or two, but thereās too much intermediate growth as a species necessary to actually operate that way.
It just doesnāt offer much of substance which isnāt addressed more thoroughly elsewhere. Even the central concept of āhierarchyā is difficult to pin down. Iāve heard definitions so liberal that modern western democracies technically count as anarchic since representatives are voted in, and definitions so conservative that they couldnāt even convene a public works task force.
And thatās really the central point. With every logistical difficulty, anarchism either hand-waves āThe people will agree cooperativelyā, or introduces a provisional acceptable hierarchy that looks an awful lot like existing structures at scale. Itās just not a strong foundation at this stage of human civilization.
I didnāt say a government, that was not the question I asked: a club function, a group project, a large event, a project team; any coordination of people for the purpose of performing some task or making some decision.
Ah, then yes Iām an eagle scout, so I did a lot of that then. I was also an officer in a game development club in college with about 100 members. Yes, organizing is challenging. Thatās what rules are for. Robertās rules of order is a good point of reference for it for meetings, and does not require hierarchy.
Iām finished with this conversation I think. You donāt want to discuss in good faith. You just want to say āit canāt workā and then ignore anything else. āYou shouldnāt implement it, because if it goes wrong people will be upset, but you canāt improve it because it hasnāt been done before, and you canāt use existing ideas because then it isnāt totally revolutionary.ā Very productive.
Thatās what rules are for. Robertās rules of order is a good point of reference for it for meetings, and does not require hierarchy.
Thatās what I mean when I say āhierarchyā is a slippery term. Robertās rules donāt function without a president authorized to adjudicate.
You just want to say āit canāt workā and then ignore anything else.
My experience has been exactly the opposite. You just want to say āit can workā and then ignore anything else. You completely ignored my points about popular tyrants, that was a pretty significant and topical concern to disregard.
And even what you do address, is obtusely vague. āHave rulesā, not what those rules are or how you enforce them. āCooperate and make decisions by consensusā, not how that cooperative structure is organized, how it obstructs exploitation, or how such a functional structure differs substantially from existing āhierarchicalā structures.
Again, you need councils and stuff, but those can be done without hierarchy. Sure, someone temporarily presides over functions, but that position can rotate and not give anyone real power. Thatās all been considered and there are solutions. Itās nothing complicated.
My experience has been exactly the opposite. You just want to say āit can workā and then ignore anything else. You completely ignored my points about popular tyrants, that was a pretty significant and topical concern to disregard.
Popular tyrants can happen anywhere. It isnāt an argument against anything other than humanity. Iād argue that anarchism makes it harder for them to establish power, not easier. Trump can just walk in and take power, because we already set it up for him, for example.
And even what you do address, is obtusely vague.
No shit itās obtuse and vague. Iām not writing a constitution here. What do you expect. Hell, even constitutions are obtuse and vague. Thatās why the Supreme Court ended up with the power to interpret laws, and why they sometimes disagree. You can never address everything, even when youāre trying to, which Iām not.
Youāre arguing with me and asking for ridiculous degrees of information, yet you arenāt trying to figure anything out for yourself. There are dozens of competing anarchist views, each with different solutions to different problems. You arenāt so smart you thought of issues 200+ years of incredible thinkers havenāt considered.
Iām also a systems guy. It isnāt that people will spontaneously cooperate and just build roads or whatever. Itās about creating systems that can solve these problems, but systems that listen to everyoneās voices. Yes, there will be disagreement on some things, but the solution with the most agreement will be enacted.
Also yes, not everyone can be involved in everything, so you need groups in charge of certain tasks. However, again, this does not need to be hierarchical. It just needs to be cooperative. Those groups will handle those tasks, and theyāre accountable to the people. They arenāt above them. Theyāre just filling a role for now, as everyone is also doing.
I thought the same thing as you about anarchism for a while too. I thought it seemed stupid and that it couldnāt work, and theyāre just reinventing the same things with different names. I donāt believe that anymore though. It turns out the structures we have in place lead us to a very poor understanding of alternative systems of governance, for some very mystifying reason.
Iām not even specifically talking about systems of governance, just systems of decision and production.
How, tho? Once we get into the nitty gritty of implementation, how do you build that system? How do you defend that system from roving hooligans? From popular tyrants? When the people agree on basic laws, how are they enforced? Are they just supposed to meet in the town square to hunt down thieves and killers?
This is what Iām talking about. You either have to assume that in an anarchist utopia, greed and malice will somehow spontaneously disappear from all humanity, or you have to have to devise a way to handle that.
Logistically, getting the whole town together to make every decision just doesnāt work. There are too many little fiddly conflicts for total democracy, no one would have time to do any of the important stuff, theyād be in councils all day. So we assign representatives (legislators, judges, police, etc) with cumulative referred power to enforce the democratic will of the people. Follow that process a few steps and you wind up right at a modern liberal democracy.
The structures we have in place are flawed, but not by lack of trying. The founding fathers seemed to have made a sincere attempt at developing
It turns out that getting parasocial apex predators to coexist peacefully is actually pretty difficult, and every system has to make compromises. I donāt see anarchism as a mature system that has taken these difficulties seriously. It hand-waves the difficult parts with āWeāll figure it out through cooperationā, without serious consideration given to how that cooperation manifests in implementation.
Have you heard of Community Policing before? Thatās an example of non-hierarchical cooperative policing, and itās effective all over the world. I donāt know if youāre trying to be obtuse or just really havenāt heard or thought about any of this, but it isnāt anything particularly revolutionary.
I talked about this above. Yes, not everyone can be involved with everything all the time. The key is accountability and cooperation. Our current democracies are largely missing both of these. In an ideal world, sure theyāre accountable to voters, but power in that is unfairly controlled by the owner class.
Absolutely, and they should be treated as human as anyone. They werenāt flawless gods. They thought weād have torn it apart and built something better by now. Hell, they threw out their first attempt in a few years (The Articles of Confederation). We should be inspired by their attempt and actions and try to fix the issues we can see in the current systems. Thatās could mean starting over, like they didā¦ twice.
It does not hand wave it away. You hand wave away the solutions and just say āoh, they havenāt actually considered it.ā
Anarchism has been a philosophy for hundreds of years. Thereās solutions to everything youāve presented, and probably anything you could think of. Being ignorant of something isnāt the same thing as it not existing. It just means you donāt know about it yet. If you made a sincere attempt to understand Anarchist philosophy and though, and different forms of Anarchism, and theyāre solutions, you wouldnāt be so confused. You donāt have to do this, but if youāre actually curious you should.
I have. In actual implementation, itās still hierarchical, it just encourages outreach and communication between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
We already have accountability and cooperation through democratic elections. If you think thatās insufficient, thatās a valid critique, but not in itself a replacement. Thatās the sticking point, developing a replacement that doesnāt fall to the same problems of the current system.
You said youāre a systems person. Have you ever actually implemented a system that replaces an existing one? So very frequently, the replacement is ambitious and idealistic, but itās not until implementation that the flaws become apparent. Building a stable system with effective checks and balances is much more difficult than anarchist literature suggests. And even if you do make a system that starts off stable, itās only a matter of time before people figure out a way to exploit the system.
You can have a system thatās democratic, responsive, or just. But you canāt have all three, they are functionally at odds with one another. You can design a system that appears to be all three, but implementation will expose the design flaws sooner or later.
I doubt it. I believe they expected weād change the system they built, and I agree that we should, but the foundation is pretty difficult to improve upon. Not saying itās perfect, but pragmatically itās fairly practical. If anything, it suffers mostly from the charges weāve made to it; capping the House and Citizens United have been particularly damaging changes.
I respectfully disagree. Sure, solutions are considered, but not really the implementation of those solutions, which is my contention. The solutions exist, but theyāre not well developed. Again, they either assume greed and malice will spontaneously disappear, or kick the can down the road under the banner of ācooperationā.
I am not ignorant of the solutions, Iāve read a great deal of theory. I just didnāt find them compelling. I have made a sincere attempt, I am not confused. I just have too much experience implementing human systems to be convinced by the solutions provided.
Nothing ever completely replaces everything. Yes, it shares components of democracies. Should the US have not tried to do what it did because, for example, taxes are still collected like a monarchy and they didnāt totally remove it for something new? Some systems work well and should still be used. This isnāt a criticism. Youāre just being obtuse.
A government? No. Only a handful of people in human history have. What kind of a question is that? Should this never be done because those people hadnāt done it before? I guess we should just let the status quo remain, because no one has the experience to change it.
Which is why you need to build it. This isnāt an argument against doing it. Itās an argument for it. You can think about the issues all day, but you wonāt find them all until you try it. Again, the founding fathers of the US tried once and utterly failed, because they didnāt forsee the issues. They then tried again and did much better, though still flawed. You canāt succeed by doing nothing. You have to try, fail, and adapt.
āJefferson went further, proposing that the nation adopt an entirely new charter every two decades. A constitution ānaturally expires at the end of 19 years,ā heĀ wrote to James MadisonĀ in 1789. āIf it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.āā
Are you kidding me? The implementation is probably the thing thatās debated most. The thing about the left is they mostly all agree on what they want, but they donāt agree on how. Some want a revolution, because they think thatāll create a better foundation. Some want gradual change to existing systems. Etc. You have an idea in your head that you want to be true, and you assume it must be true, but you donāt actually want to find any knowledge to (dis)prove it.
Thatās kind of my point. Anarchy is more an idealistic aspiration than a practical system. Weāll get to anarcho-communism eventually, itās practically a certainty, but thatās probably a century or two in the future. We need a lot of fundamental cultural and material shifts before the average individual will embrace the concepts, and there arenāt any shortcuts in geopolitics.
I didnāt say a government, that was not the question I asked: a club function, a group project, a large event, a project team; any coordination of people for the purpose of performing some task or making some decision. The basic principles are similar to a government, though difficulties multiply with scale. But the difficulties intrinsic to organizing humans are present in some form at every scale. If youāve ever organized humans, youāll understand the difficulties Iām referring to. If you havenāt, this topic might be beyond your expertise.
Again, the hand-waving. āThe answer is to just give it a shot!ā That completely ignores the fact that politics is inherently social and emotional. A poorly implemented experiment will sour the public on the concept, and ultimately do more harm than good.
Any political strategy without an eye for optics and effective persuasion is useless. Action for actionās sake is literally one of Ecoās features of fascism. We didnāt need to fall for that trap. We are an experiment, we need a carefully constructed, detailed, tested plan to generate buy-in. Politics without buy-in is nothing but theory.
A new charter, a new direction for the system, a new iteration of the system with revised mandates. I donāt think he would have anticipated total rejection of the basic model.
I agree that this is the general condition of the left, and a tad ironic for you to say. Iāve explored most of the clades of political theory, particularly on the left. Iāve read a lot, and agreed with a lot, but I have too much experience organizing people to accept the rose-colored glasses endemic to anarchist theory. Again, maybe in a century or two, but thereās too much intermediate growth as a species necessary to actually operate that way.
It just doesnāt offer much of substance which isnāt addressed more thoroughly elsewhere. Even the central concept of āhierarchyā is difficult to pin down. Iāve heard definitions so liberal that modern western democracies technically count as anarchic since representatives are voted in, and definitions so conservative that they couldnāt even convene a public works task force.
And thatās really the central point. With every logistical difficulty, anarchism either hand-waves āThe people will agree cooperativelyā, or introduces a provisional acceptable hierarchy that looks an awful lot like existing structures at scale. Itās just not a strong foundation at this stage of human civilization.
Ah, then yes Iām an eagle scout, so I did a lot of that then. I was also an officer in a game development club in college with about 100 members. Yes, organizing is challenging. Thatās what rules are for. Robertās rules of order is a good point of reference for it for meetings, and does not require hierarchy.
Iām finished with this conversation I think. You donāt want to discuss in good faith. You just want to say āit canāt workā and then ignore anything else. āYou shouldnāt implement it, because if it goes wrong people will be upset, but you canāt improve it because it hasnāt been done before, and you canāt use existing ideas because then it isnāt totally revolutionary.ā Very productive.
Thatās what I mean when I say āhierarchyā is a slippery term. Robertās rules donāt function without a president authorized to adjudicate.
My experience has been exactly the opposite. You just want to say āit can workā and then ignore anything else. You completely ignored my points about popular tyrants, that was a pretty significant and topical concern to disregard.
And even what you do address, is obtusely vague. āHave rulesā, not what those rules are or how you enforce them. āCooperate and make decisions by consensusā, not how that cooperative structure is organized, how it obstructs exploitation, or how such a functional structure differs substantially from existing āhierarchicalā structures.
Again, you need councils and stuff, but those can be done without hierarchy. Sure, someone temporarily presides over functions, but that position can rotate and not give anyone real power. Thatās all been considered and there are solutions. Itās nothing complicated.
Popular tyrants can happen anywhere. It isnāt an argument against anything other than humanity. Iād argue that anarchism makes it harder for them to establish power, not easier. Trump can just walk in and take power, because we already set it up for him, for example.
No shit itās obtuse and vague. Iām not writing a constitution here. What do you expect. Hell, even constitutions are obtuse and vague. Thatās why the Supreme Court ended up with the power to interpret laws, and why they sometimes disagree. You can never address everything, even when youāre trying to, which Iām not.
Youāre arguing with me and asking for ridiculous degrees of information, yet you arenāt trying to figure anything out for yourself. There are dozens of competing anarchist views, each with different solutions to different problems. You arenāt so smart you thought of issues 200+ years of incredible thinkers havenāt considered.