@jpaskaruk @szczur @Radical_EgoCom Stories of a past that was not nasty and brutish are literal archeology. The "nasty and brutish" story was made up of whole cloth by Thomas Hobbes to support the emerging world dominance of capital. It's not based on anything factual, it's a religious dogma of the capitalist world-system. David Graeber and David Wengrow make this argument in painstaking detail in The Dawn of Everything.

https://search.worldcat.org/title/1289231491

@jpaskaruk @szczur @Radical_EgoCom It's worth reading, and not hard for non-experts, which is a rare quality in science writing. Enjoy!

But what does the KR have to do with anything? Obviously without violent hierarchy there's no KR. Do you think capitalism has any fewer victims? They're just hidden away better instead of having their skulls on display.

@szczur @AdrianRiskin @jpaskaruk @Radical_EgoCom

Identifying social strategies that people have developed—and critically, implemented in ways that allow us to know that they work empirically—to resist hierarchy, authority, and violent self-aggrandizers should not be understood as “anti-technology.”

It’s a fallacy to presume that because something useful existed in the past, we must somehow “return to the past” in order to make use of it.

@szczur @AdrianRiskin @jpaskaruk @Radical_EgoCom

Anarchism certainly isn’t a “eutopia” in the sense of a perfectly good place, but it’s also not a “utopia” in the sense of an unobtainable ideal. A lot of people get the impression that anarchists believe anarchism is a panacea for all our social ills, but most anarchist thought is about *doing the hard work* to create and sustain anarchism while addressing conflict in the absence of coercive authority.

@HeavenlyPossum @szczur @AdrianRiskin @jpaskaruk @Radical_EgoCom I appreciate this description. It's probably the best one I've ever seen. My interactions with self described Anarchists usually involved a lot of hand waving on their part.

I do still worry that even with such a system in place some person(s) will attempt to exert authority. While I think most people could easily work within such a system, the narcissists will still plague our world. Maybe I'm just too cynical.

@CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom

Solipsistic individualism really only seems like a problem insofar as a) some people are institutionally empowered to act on others on the basis of that individualism and b) some people are institutionally constrained from defending themselves against it.

Without those institutions, it would be much harder for anyone to behave that way without fear of consequences, and I suspect we’d see a lot less of it as a result.

@CatDragon @Radical_EgoCom

I’m not sure why “doing nothing” would lead to the growth of solipsist individualism. And we have a great many tools for influencing the behavior of other people beyond ideological education. I’d rather rely on trusty tools like ostracism and shame and conviviality than trust to ideological education (which the individualists could just as easily try to do to you).

@Radical_EgoCom @hapbt @[email protected] @CatDragon

You sooner or later get that inevitably.

Regardless if Democracy, Syndicatism, Tribalism or Warlordism, you'll end up with structures of power and the need to enforce rules against the will of those that violate them.

And what are you gonna do then?

Obviously, you can't just banish people for very good reasons!

And even if you can you'd just offset the problem instead of fixing it!

@Radical_EgoCom @hapbt @CatDragon

Again: Ideally we'd all have non-violent and supportive and cooperating individuals, but sadly that's not always the case.

And at some point #Accountability and #Consequences must kick in, because otherwise this would be an open invitation for the few that are violent aggressors to murder and pilferage...

@kkarhan @Radical_EgoCom @hapbt @CatDragon

I'm part of a union organized on strong anarchist principles.

I sat on a disciplinary hearing for a fellow worker who had assaulted another fellow member. The offending member was given fair and due process based on rules agreed on and adopted by our branch. He refused reconciliation and was therefore expelled for a minimum period of several years.

I no longer debate if anarchism has accountability and consequences or not because it clearly does. Anarchism doesn't — and has never meant — no rules and no hierarchy. It means rules dictate that hierarchies scale according to need and are mandated to collapse and recede when the need expires.

This is a fundamental principle to many of the successful, worker-organized co-ops, social clubs, sports teams, and communities around the world, not to mention some of the structure of many open-source software projects.

I'm so tired of arguments that depend on indicting humanity as innately power hungry when the majority of us are not. And it doesn't mean no consequences for those who are. It just means those consequences are decided on directly by your peers instead of cops.

Because I no longer debate the efficacy or structure of anarchism with its opponents, I tell them to actively and intentionally join a local anarchist mutual aid group or union to see it work in action and participate.

If you like it: stay, contribute, and learn. If not: leave and continue going how you've always gone. If you don't want to try it, then the least you can do is leave it alone.