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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: September 8th, 2023

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  • So let’s say we do it. We transform our country and it becomes everything you hoped and then the neighboring country invades. How does the anarchist society stand against that? How do they have a militia that can operate beyond the immediate resources of each member (beyond begging door to door)? How do you maintain supply lines without people doing that full time? How do you buy supplies without taxes to pay for them? How do you administer supplies without someone doing that full time? How do we respond to rockets fired into our territory? Does Bob have an anti missile system in the barn?

    It just seems like a nice idea but too fragile to succeed.


  • Anarchism leaves no openings.

    The way I see it, anarchism leaves nothing but openings. Your egalitarian paradise only needs one family to want to seize power gather weapons and find like minded people to form a feudal military organization and they can start picking off and dominating families one by one. Individuals would not be able to stand against this centralized power and the time it would take to meet, agree, and mobilize a militia wouldn’t help.

    It isn’t that anarchism evolves into feudalism, it’s that it takes centralized power to resist centralized power. And as soon as you start concentrating power, having a standing army with wages, or other centralized systems to pool community resources, that’s government. Even, yes, a descentralized non-capitalist deregulated egalitarian democracy.

    It doesn’t bother me that people want this kind of system, it bothers me that people want to call this simplified form of community governance “anarchy” which is by definition “the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchical government” because as soon as you start imposing rules like “we can expell a murderer if everyone else votes to” it becomes a simple form of communal government and the definition no longer applies.










  • In the way the words are being used here, it absolutely does.

    There’s been a lot of propaganda for a long time that “socialist” countries are authoritarian, abusive, and usually dictatorships, so by that measure, of course you would have to make the argument you do, but the fact of the matter is that socialist policies are just policies where we pool resources as a group to provide a public good. It’s opposite would actually be free market capitalism, where you have to subscribe to a fire service to protect your house (it worked that way on the US once, feel free to Google it).

    The methods of governing are a completely separate axis, ranging between power vested solely in an individual or small group, and true democracy.

    It is absolutely possible to have countries that are democratically socialist, or free market dictatorships. Just because America is still mainly a democracy doesn’t mean we can’t look at it’s policies and see a clearly socialist component of public services. In my mind the truly perplexing thing is how people can label things like a tax to provide everyone access to free books and other media, taxes that support universal fire and police protection, and taxes that support free education for everyone (through high school only!) and say they are just normal non-socialist things, and then look at taxes that would pay for higher level education, for health protection, or for childcare so you are always able to go earn a living, and suddenly they are foaming at the mouth and screaming “socialism!”

    But trying to derail an entire conversation by arguing about one word is a lot easier than trying to actually address the points of an argument, so we see that a lot.




  • Priority 1: are there any things that will be less good if I don’t take action immediately? (Bills due, hungry, out of groceries, bad feelings)

    Priority 2: …if I don’t take action soon? (Cleaning up, planning transportation, mending or replacing clothes, setting aside money for future expenses, mental health and recreation)

    Priority 3: is there anything I could improve by making plans or making repairs? (Finding a better job, moving to a better home, repairing/improving your current home, investing in current/future relationships)

    Priority 4: what could I improve long term? (Education plans, strategies for improving standard of life)

    Remember, even though recreation is part of priority 2, don’t let it stop you from addressing priorities 3 and 4. Also remember that friends are an advantage, they expose you to new ideas and points of view, they can help you in times of stress and trouble, and they can help you relax and have fun. Invest time in friends and then continue to invest most in the ones that invest time in you in return.