You can have a state without having a (centralised) state. In that sense, Anarchia would be a stateless society.
In a sense -although the larger committees would only be composed of representatives of smaller entities, and not be entities to be chosen for in their own right.
Not in my Anarchia
Everyone.
So if there is no capital city, where do these people in the larger committees meet?
Wherever’s convenient. Might meet one city this month, another the next. Like the way the G8 and the like move around. They’re mostly getting together to set policy, after all, not run things bureaucratically.
Oh, by the way, my apologies for not acknowledging the long-term anarchists on the boards. It was merely that StS had brought up the topic repeatedly in every single thread for several weeks. No disrespect was intended.
An accurate statement requires, as a pre-req, accuracy. Being for ‘more than those in my monkeysphere’ (which is a silly term anyways) does not mean you are “for all”. Being “for” every divergent group of people is nonsensical pablum in the first place. One can not be “for”, for instance, the killers and victims in Darfur, except in the wishy-washiest abstract sense where “Gee, wouldn’t peace be nice?” If it ever came time to propose some sort of solution that involved more than finger wagging, one would not be equally ‘for’ both sides. Just like one cannot be equally ‘for’ murderers and murder victims. Or ‘for’ Stalin and his victims. Or so on.
Contributing to charitable works hardly makes one “for everybody”, and casting it in such a manner does not become accurate even if you’d like to believe it is so.
Except, you don’t actually do that either. Otherwise, you would be perfectly willing to give away anything you own to those who needed them. I’m sure I could suggest many poor American children who could really benefit from a computer, or the contents of your bank account. Will you give them away now? How about every mouthful of food you’d ever get for the rest of your life? There are many people starving all over the world, surely you would be willing to starve to death in one of their places, seeing you are totally selfless?
It is. Even your charitable work is done, in significant part, because you believe it is the right thing to do and it makes you feel good. If you gave away things you needed when you didn’t want to simply because other people might need them, and you hated the entire process, then you might have the beginnings of a claim to “selflessness”. As it stands, you don’t. You have a claim to limited acts of charity. Which of course are good and help other people out, but let’s not inflate volunteerism into sainthood.
And yes, selfishness is literally genetically hardwired into every animal on the face of the planet, humans are no magical exception.
FinnAgain, you go too far. **MrDibble **is probably a very selfless guy. There are people like him. Your argument that he doesn’t embrace a culture of selflessness because he doesn’t give away his computer and bank accounts is silly: as someone said to me the other day, putting your own oxygen mask on first isn’t selfish, you can’t help anyone else if you have passed out.
I still don’t believe however what Mr Dibble says at his post #57. The more selfless people there are, the greater becomes the temptation for someone to realise they can ride free and take advantage. The whole world is like that - a constant balancing act between co-operation and selfishness.
No, I don’t.
I object to hyperbole that conflates “volunteering and charity” with “selflessness”. Dibble is not, in fact, selfless.
Being selfless means having no concern for one’s self.
If Dibble wants to cast his argument in honest and accurate terms he can, but casting himself as “selfless” is an absurdity.
It’s also not an analogous situation to an airplane where one puts their own oxygen mask on so that they can help a child put theirs on. It’s much more like there being a limited number of oxygen masks and putting yours on with the idea that you’ll eventually do more good than some other people who might pass out since they can’t get any oxygen masks at all. And that’s a fine calculus, as well, but casting it as “selfless” is nonsensical.
For instance, Dibble could beg for alms on the street, donate 100% of his time to building houses (or what have you) give all his money/computer to poor school districts and sleep under a bridge somewhere. He’d still be helpful, and he’d allow others to do more good as well. But that’d be an absurd request, and behavior we’d only expect of someone who had no regard for their self and only cares about helping others.
Again, this is one of the reasons I can take anarchism as a viable political society very seriously. It requires what I tend to think of as “magical” thinking akin to those who believe in a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. I think we’ve reached an impasse in our discussion. I don’t believe anarchy is possible to achieve on any widespread scale.
I do want to thank you for answering my questions. I also want to make it clear that while I disagree with the viability of anarchy I don’t think you’re a bad person nor do I think you lack intelligence. I know that might sound incredibly condescending but debates can get heated on this forum and I wanted to be very clear that I’m not walking away in a huff and wish to remain on friendly terms.
Odesio
The thing is, all the committee meetings and consensus building imagined by anarchists sound pretty horrible. What’s the difference between that and the sort of government we have now? The biggest difference is that decisions would have to be made over and over again, ad hoc, because God forbid we decide anything. And the process of consensus only works when everyone wants the same sorts of things. God forbid we have an iron-assed curmudgeon who refuses to go along with the consensus of the group, because that means the meeting lasts as long as the most stubborn jerks hold out. And that makes the iron-asses the real rulers of the world, because everyone else just gives up and lets them have their way rather than waste time arguing with the unpersuadable.
Piffle. A perfectly valid definition of “selfless” is “unselfish”. But the semantic nitpicking doesn’t counter the core of my argument - there are people in the world who help those beyond their immediate family, friends, and even nation. It is not impossible for the proportion of such people to grow. So to contend that everyone is selfish, and that … unselfishness is not a basis for a political philosophy, is not a sound argument.
I resent the comparison. Yes, it requires a belief in there being some good in some people, and from there it extrapolates that such good may be made the norm by socialization, educaion, hell, even genetic modification in the future. But none of that is “magical” in the way religious beliefs can be. Optimistic, sure, but like I said, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
That’s because you haven’t been raised to see public service, any public service, as the greates good. If everyone is raised that way, then the hardass becomes the object of shame, ridicule and ostracization from an early age, not the object of admiration like in modern society. I don’t see them getting much power in such a situation, anymore than an Amish person who wears colourful jackets would today.
But why would that be a good thing? Stalin, Mao and, yes, Hitler, were all dedicated to extending the benefits of their particular belief system to “help those beyond their immediate family, friends, and even nation”.
This doesn’t make such people selfless. It isn’t evidence of being altruistic. It doesn’t demonstrate altruism. And that was your whole point with introducing this example, to demonstrate that you are selfless in an uncommon way.
Personally I’m not seeing any evidence that you are any less selfless than myself or Bill Gates or billions of others. We all help those we choose to help to within the limits of our own comfort. None of us are seriously sacrificing in order to do this (we all own still computers for example). We all help people in foreign nations or societies.
So seriously, why do you believe that you are anymore selfless than the billions of others who donate time and money to charities that help people they will never meet living in other societies?
And if you aren’t special then why do you think that anarchism will work when everyone becomes like you, whenit clearly can’t work no when billion of people are like you?
Yeah, it is. Until you can provide some evidence that an unselfish person exists or a plausible evolutionary mechanism by which a reproductive organism can not be selfish then the argument is extremely sound.
I suspect that you’ve fallen into a privative ;). You seem to be just rehashing the old saw that that since you do good, you must be good, while when you do evil that does not make you evil. Or in your case, since you do selfless acts, you must be selfless, while when you do selfish acts that does not make you selfish.
That line of argument is completely invalid. The fact is that you, like all human beings, are both selfless and selfish depending on the time and motivators. The problem with this for your argument is that anarchism requires that all humans be selfless all the times. If yourself or anyone else is selfish for even a small amount of time or in response to just a single motivator the entire system will collapse.
Yeah, it is. It rests on something that isn’t currently possible and for which you can propose no mechanism. Handwaving “genetic modification” as apanaceae is no different to the flower children handwaving “telepathy” as a panceae. It is magic simply because there is no plausible scientific mechanism by which it could occur. You might choose to call it fantasy or science fiction, but it remains entirely dependent on a wish to alter the universe in that way, rather than any actual mechanism by which to achieve such alterations. And that is the very definition of magic.
Cite. Seriously, this is GD and you sttate this as fact. Can we please see the evidence for this claim? Where is this control society where children are raised to see public service as the greatest good and where hardasses are shamed as a result?
Because if you can’t produce such an example then this is just begging the question.
The problem with this analogy is that an Amish person who doesn’t wear colourful jackets does indeed get power. So rather than implenting anything resembling anarchy all you’ve done is changed the ruling and victim classes. Ave bossa nova, similis bossa senecio.
I don’t think I’m any more selfless, but I think “billions” is a serious overestimate.
Because I don’t believe it is “billions”. “A couple hundred million” at most, and that’s a small percentage of 6-7 billion.
We must not be using the same definition of “unselfish” here. I’ve already provided evidence for 1 unselfish person, and you’ve cited at least 2 individuals.
Again, it depends on the sense you mean “selfish”. I don’t do “selfish” acts, I don’t consider eating, living in a house or owning a PC selfish.
I don’t view public service as selfless in the “self-sacrificing all” sense you and others seem to be using it. I mean it in the “generous, giving” sense. I am not saying Anarchia expects others to give up all their lives to the commune, just a little of their time.
Again, this all hinges on the sense you mean “selfish” by. If I skive off one committee meeting to go for a walk in the woods, Anarchia will not collapse. If I do it habitually, it will.
It was a throwaway addition to a list of cultural modification methods. And no, I don’t think there is no plausible mechanism for it, look at e.g. the behaviour changes induced by parasites. That is one conceivable pathway that relies on mechanistic changes or substances that could be gene-engineered in to be self-produced.
Like I said, mechanisms for induced behaviour changes do exist. Not magic. Not the route I’d choose to go, as I’d prefer social adjustment, but who know what we’ll mess with in a possibly posthuman future.
Please. Don’t try the cite badgering approach with me - I was clearly speculating.
You might want to revisit your list of logical fallacies. I’m speculating, not giving a syllogism
Meh. This objection is, IMO, reduntant when “the ruling class” = “everyone…except a throwback minority of hardasses”.
So you are no more selfless than anyone else. And we have demonstrated that anarchism couldn’t possibly work with humans at our current standard of selfishness. So what exactly is your point when you note that you are just as selfless as most other people?
Once again, you have fallen in the privative. Just because we sometimes behave selflessly doesn’t mean that we mostly behave selfishly. Yet your Anarchism doesn’t work so long as any person behaves selfishly.
Then provide a reference to support the claim. 86 percent of Americans said they had contributed to charities in 2002. If we assume the same rate for the rest of the developed world that gives us 1.2 billion right there. For it to be less than two billion requires that the charity involvement rate in the developing world is so low that they can not equal that.
But it’s a quibble at best. Indisputably hundreds of millions of people are as “selfless” as you.
We are using the same definition. The only difference is that you have fallen into a privative. You insist that because I act selflessly sometimes I must therefore never be selfish. Let me assure you, I’m a selfish sonofabitch despite my occasional acts of selflessness.
self•ish Concerned chiefly or only with oneself
How is your ownership of a computer or a house concerned chiefly with anything but your own contentment? It is by definition selfish. A selfless personwoudl have donated the money to the poor, who could make much better use of it then piosting on the SDMB.
Anyone posting here who claims that the action is not chiefly for their own benefit is going to have hard time being believed. Of course you post here because you enjoy it. You have no higher motive in doing so. And because the act is done chiefly or only because of the benefit brought to yourself it is of course selfish.
But that’s not what the word means. Selless means Having, exhibiting, or motivated by no concern for oneself.. Anyone who posts on a message broad for entertainment is obviously exhibiting and motivated by concern for themself. You sure ain’t helping anyone else when you post in MPSIMS
If you mean that you are generous then say that, don’t misuse the word selfless. This sort of misuse simply leads to a tower of Babel situation where nobody can understand you.
But as has been demonstrated, if people act in self interest even some of the time your whole system collapses.
Exactly. And this is the whole point people have been trying to get you to see. If people can get resources or sex by producing one faulty CAT scan machine every day then they will produce one faulty CAT scan machine every day. The system requires that people act unfailingly selflessly all the time regardless of the profits for not doing so.
But that doesn’t make the host selfless. It’s no more plausible a mechanism than telepathy.
Just like magic.
IOW your Anarchia depends entirely upon magic to achieve a change in humans which you speculate might allow us to be abl to exist in an Anarchic society. But you have no evidence ewwhatosoever for the mechanism of the change nor the actual reusltin humans.
Colour me unimpressed. I’ve seen it all before with the “When everyone engage sin free love there will be no sexual hang-ups” nonsense. And we know how well that turned out.
You are attempting to convince people that anarchism can work because when people are raised to value public service, selfishness will be castigated, but you have no reason to believe that when people are raised to value public service, selfishness will be castigated.
That’s classic question begging.
But the ruling class won’t be everyone. They will be the people who desire power sufficiently you seek it. Exactly as in our current non-Anarchic society. Unless of course you are proposing someone coerces people who don’t want it into taking positions of power and responsibility. But that in itself seems antithetical to Anarchism.
That’s a completely self-serving misinterpretation of what I said. I am more selfless than most, yes, I feel no hesitation in asserting that. I am less selfless than, say, Gandhi, but certainly more so than the average person in modern society.
Now who’s making the mistake of extrapolating too far? While I caould’t quickly find hard and fast absolute numbers, it’s generally well known that Americans give more to charity than other countries.Cite
But not enough to tip the balance
Well, that’s your loss…
Anyone reading the link can see that there are more than one definition, Blake.
I don’t own a house, and I use my computer for all sorts of community-minded acts.
No. Doing so would be a selfless act, but you’ve just amde the same mistake you accuse me of, jumping from act to person.
I’d say what makes you a selfless person is if you generally try to perform more selfless acts than not, and if you are mindful of the harm that your selfish acts could do. Not “being a perfect doormat”, which seems to be the strawman you would like to argue against.
You conveniently left out the last part of that definition:“unselfish”. And what do we get when we look up “unselfish” on the same site? “Generous or altruistic”.
This is the problem with argument by pedantry. It completely misses the intent of what’s been said.
But I’m done pointing out the strawmen in your semantic nitpick-fest after this post.
Check the last time I posted in MPSIMS, why don’t you?
Only pedants. I qualified my statement with example and exposition. The only people who “misunderstand” me are those who find that kind of “misunderstanding” suits their side of the argument. I’ve already explained what I mean, yet here you still are, nitpicking away.
No, that has not been shown
Not when the penalty (public scorn) is worse than the reward (it’d have to be the sex, because Anarchia is a non-capitalist society, so livelihood is not tied to production)
It’s induced behaviour change. I’m reasonably confident that research will find out exactly how to fine-tune which behaviour to change. Not magic.
Get back to me when inducing behaviour change breaks the laws of physics, then your analogy might work.
A posthuman future is not magic, and doesn’t become so just by your assertion.
You want evidence that people can be socialised into certain behaviours, now?
Well, it’s kind of inherent in raising people to believe in public service, isn’t it? Demonizing the alternative? I thought that would go without saying, but obviously not
Not someone - something. The drive to public service instilled in everyone.
All this talk of committees and collectives sounds an awful lot like the multiple tiers of government that exist today - from a lay perspective the only thing missing is a direct copy of national governments. It sounds as if we’d wind up with more layers of bigger government and bueracracy all be it under a different name.
I read your posts twice and I still don’t see what the big difference in governance is beyond terminology.
Wait a minute. The only way to ensure that everyone will be raised to see that public service is the greatest good is to have some mandatory instruction. Of course you’ll have to design a curriculum or at least a message, and ensure that all the instructors are on the same page. And then what happens to people who don’t agree with the idea that public service is the greaest good? Suppose they go so far as to refuse to take their turn as a “volunteer”, forcing others to do more than their fair share?
What if, in the face of shame, ridicule and ostracization, the hardass becomes more deifant, not less? Does society then expel the hardass from the community? If not, doesn’t that show the others they don’t really have to take their turn? If so, what do those members of the community do who agree (or at least sympathsize) with the hardass?
And hasn’t every utopian community eventually collapsed?
The difference as I see it is the bottom-up vs top-down nature of the structure, and the elimination of a professional politician class. Combined with the replacement of private property with usufruct, there should be a lot less scope for the growth of the kind of bureaucracy prevelant in both democratic and authoritarian governments extant today.
All you’re saying here, ISTM, is that Anarchia won’t arrive instantly. I don’t disagree.
No. Why would we want to? But the ostracization isn’t just functioning to change the hardass’s behaviour, but also to minimise the imact of the hardass on community function. Ostracization means that the hardass doesn’t, in fact, take over the committee by stubbornness.
Also, nowhere have I said that decisions must be made by unanimous consensus, so marginalizing hardasses is a good model to me.
I think you are underestimating the degree of socialization I’m thinking of. Think of Japanese society, where public rebellion against social mores really is dealt with in this sort of fashion, or the Amish.
Every community has eventually collapsed, or else evolved into something different. But Anarchia as I’ve outlined has only been approached a couple of times that I’m aware of, and in both instances, outside forces were the reason for the collapse, not internal factors.
post #10 is interesting because all of these things happen between states & where states exist but are weak.
Anarchy is an underlying truth. It is the fundamental reality upon which we build systems of order. The more I learn about what people get up to in the name of their company, tribe, or nation, the less I like it.
Well, that would be silly. Manna rains down from the sky. Mana emanates from the land, doesn’t it?