Suffering - Lemmy.World

The scariest part is that real world is, in fact, a hardcore free-for-all PvP realm.

I’m not talking competition or something. A random person can absolutely come to you at any time, stab or shoot you and you’ll be dead. Forever. No respawns.

It’s only because people don’t really like being murdered that led them to make and enforce rules on what violence is legitimate that curbed the violence. But even still, anytime, anywhere, by anyone, you can absolutely be killed. And if one day something breaks in the chain that makes police work, we’re super screwed.

It’s not the police that keep us from killing each other, or even laws that do so. Check out law and authority sometime if you’re able. It’s very short and worth a read. We don’t kill each other because we don’t enjoy being killed or killing. We’re social creatures, and don’t want to be shunned. Crimes of passion don’t really change based on laws, but the way we organize society may actually be increasing the number of murders, because some people are desperate enough to kill for food or shelter
Law and Authority

Pëtr Kropotkin Law and Authority 1886 Printed by the New Temple Press, Norbury Crescent, Norburt, S.W.

The Anarchist Library

I read half of it. It seems to overidealize the pre-law era to a large degree. Before law we had mass slavery, constant raiding of nearby tribes and nothing to prevent anybody from taking everything from a person. There is definitely a case where laws can become draconian and force people to break them but I’d argue that in most countries law prevent more unwanted behavior than cause it.

This especially doesn’t apply in modern times since you just need one person to create a private mercenary group to essentially create a mini kingdom within a loosely organised society. That person will very quickly be able to form a successful dictatorship by raiding, enslaving and demanding tribute from nearby settlements.

Even a laissez faire government with everything legal except violence will essentially make it legal to dump toxic waste on your front lawn everywhere without policing and laws. Toxic waste is currently being dumped with laws just under woefully loose law and I’d argue that we need more laws and regulation to prevent people from doing so.

I feel like anarchist theory quickly forgets that we had anarchy before law and people quickly formed kingdoms around settlements to defend themselves and aggressive kingdoms where more successful than passive ones.

When did we possibly have anarchy before law? Genuinely
Up to first civilizations, and also up to, like, XIX-XX centuries in many rural areas.