2FA is no good

[segaloco]

I don't owe any other living thing human or otherwise adherence to an arbitrary structure. If only I had a chance to agree to it, I probably would, but to do so freely of the influence rather than having been raised in all this. To have the choice. That if nothing else is what I lament, that ultimately there is a restriction on choice, that choice being whether to adhere to human society or not. One cannot merely choose to go "be wild" instead. It is untenable in the modern world.

I hate to even reference such a despicable character with such despicable views about the disabled but uncle Ted tried and failed to escape. I don't support his methods but I recognize the nuance of what all happened there, what with the remote forest being developed into a highway.

Still I'm a product of this empire as much as anyone else. It just feels like there could be something better, more egalitarian, rather than settling for good enough. I may not have the right answers, but I'm not satisfied with the current state of affairs, for myself or anyone else. I don't like to point out a problem without offering a solution and so yeah whatever maybe I have my oddball anarchist ideals. Still beats whatever we currently call a sociopolitical system in the U.S.

Hey to be real thanks for continuing to humor me in this. I know it's outlandish, I'm self aware, but frankly my social circle is already of the same stripe so I don't find myself contesting this subject very often. I wouldn't keep on if I didn't respect what folks have to say just know I see an am not ignorant of that. This sort of talk in my eyes it what progresses our relationship with the power structures in our lives. I'm sorry if I'm ever too dismissive but I'm kinda jaded surprise surprise. I've felt failed by structure but I can recognize where it has been beneficial to others.

My gripe is the lack of choice in the matter. The lack of self determination. Our affairs come close enough, but there's always a limit, kinda like an invisible wall in a game. Its not that there's anything out there, its the principle that you are limited in a limitless reality. It does have its tradeoffs in security, but the rest of the animal world on this planet makes those decisions freely on the hour, rather than en masse as a society for thousand year stints. I want to be prepared to judge security in the moment, what does the specific experience call for, rather than some socially derived concept of norms, laws, whatever. I'm not yearning for "crime" however the prevailing culture defines it, I just find it sad that we could do anything and this is what we landed on.

I won't discount that sounding like right-wing talking points but to turn a common phrase of theirs, its just a LARP. The talking heads in the right-wing sphere have probably never grown their own food in their lives. What happens when disaster strikes and their makeup artist isn't available. I would say more but I do seek to keep this civil. Still, I just reject all notion of that because what right-wing "anarchism" lacks is any concept of accountability. The idea that maybe its okay to tell your neighbor about something that's bugging you. Maybe its okay to critique someone who put you in danger. Maybe it's okay to bluntly communicate our grievances early and often so they don't devolve into senseless violence.

I don't want violence, I want a tight knit community where people respect each other because their needs are met and it's the right thing to do, not because some piece of paper says so. But that is cultural shift, not something that can be forced. I darn well can spout about it though, and once again differing opinions aside I do appreciate this and intend to be civil because its not worth it to spawn genuine hurt out of words on a stupid screen.

[creaothceann]

To have the choice. That if nothing else is what I lament, that ultimately there is a restriction on choice, that choice being whether to adhere to human society or not. One cannot merely choose to go "be wild" instead. It is untenable in the modern world

You do have the choice to choose any "arbitrary structure" of your liking though; just save up some money, learn their language, and move. Or try to change the local structure.

There's the option to go where the "modern world" doesn't exist - Haiti, regions in Canada or Russia that are only accessible by helicopter, etc. Or wait until a natural disaster disrupts the "modern world" and people are three meals away from reverting to apes.

I want a tight knit community where people respect each other because their needs are met and it's the right thing to do, not because some piece of paper says so

There are people who have no idea what they're doing and how it harms others. There are those who do know, but do it anyway - to survive, or for fun.
There are plenty of people who have unrealistic needs, and who will do anything to fulfill them. Any type of society would be good if all people were good.

People have all sorts of ideas of what is right and wrong.

That piece of paper is just the written form of the agreement between the people to respect each other. It only exists and has any effect because people choose to honor that agreement.

[segaloco]

That piece of paper is just the written form of the agreement between the people to respect each other. It only exists and has any effect because people choose to honor that agreement.

My problem with that is do they choose after independently analyzing the situation and determining it actually meets their needs as an animal inhabitant of the earth, or do they fall in line because our society teaches that the prevailing way to be is the only way to be and to do anything else is at best unwise and at worst treated as a sign of mental illness? It still comes back to choice, and how free of duress are people really when they choose to accept say working for some other person to not die *in a world full of food*. How much individual forethought actually goes in to "Wait, do I want to subjugate myself to this arbitrary hierarchy because forces that existed before I was born and wholly unaccountable to me decided we work these things called 'jobs' for 'paychecks' to pay 'rent'". People don't get to make that decision, it is made for them, both structurally and through the might and power of getting parents to gleefully put their children on this pipeline to being treated like garbage by their bosses for procedural reasons.

Where is the choice? Agree to this or be persecuted by every angle of cultural control imposed by other humans is not a choice, it is an ultimatum.

[Pokun]

Why does anarchism have to automatically be strife and conflict? You're all the ones saying what if someone steals your things or tries to kill you or whatever. Do you really believe it is only laws keeping us safe?

Yes laws and morals. You need laws that prevents conflict and you need to foster morals so that people value the laws or no one would follow them.
As Joe said conflict is going to happen sooner or later because people have different values (which can be something as simple as a waterhole not being big enough to support two villages, each village would value their own right to the water). In anarchy you lack both law and moral, so you don't have laws to prevent power abuse and people won't have faith in that voluntary collectivism on any larger scale because of the lack of morals.

[segaloco]

Why does anarchism have to automatically be strife and conflict? You're all the ones saying what if someone steals your things or tries to kill you or whatever. Do you really believe it is only laws keeping us safe?

Yes laws and morals. You need laws that prevents conflict and you need to foster morals so that people value the laws or no one would follow them.
As Joe said conflict is going to happen sooner or later because people have different values (which can be something as simple as a waterhole not being big enough to support two villages, each village would value their own right to the water). In anarchy you lack both law and moral, so you don't have laws to prevent power abuse and people won't have faith in that voluntary collectivism on any larger scale because of the lack of morals.

And its my job to keep being limited because other people are sociopaths why? Why is it not the sociopaths, rather than myself, who have to take 100% accountability for their actions. If its not clear, I'm tired of having to do more and take on more cognitive load, arbitrary dependencies, etc. because *other people* aren't willing to be more self-regulated.

To use the example, if someone in the other village for instance makes THEIR own decision in THEIR head to use THEIR body to inflict violence on ME rather than using THEIR own choice to make THEIR own decision to approach ME diplomatically, why is that my problem? Why am I on the hook because SOMEONE ELSE chooses violence. Why do I face the punishment of my ability to determine my path being taken away in spite of the personal work I've done to not be an awful violent person. The other person is the violent aggressor, they are SOLELY liable for 100% of the consequences of their CHOICE to be violent. I did not make that choice for them, I am not fixing it for them. I am not throwing my ability to make my own choices in the garbage because someone else capable of rational, conscious thought chooses to not care. I. AM. NOT. THE. BAD. PERSON. No matter how much you think I am, I am not the one in that scenario violently attacking someone for a resource. I'm simply the one defending it for myself and for others.

I've done the work to learn that just running roughshod over other people to get what I want is not something that would work, even in a wholly anarchist system. I also believe in dishing what I want to receive, I'm not going to attack people over resources *because I do not want to be attacked over resources*. Again, I am not advocating for violent conflict to be the norm, quite the opposite, I'm advocating for people taking even the tiniest sliver of responsibility for their accounts and accountability for harm they cause. I'm just advocating too for not being *compelled* to accept some system to avoid the worst of *someone else's behavior*. I don't make them do bad things, unless you mean to suggest that simply by existing contrary to their selfish desires I am causing them harm, which of course is abuser logic 101, its my fault for being present to abuse rather than the abusers fault for their own actions.

If someone is going to be violent, its not my fault, and I didn't ask for a suffocating societal order as a mitigating factor. I'm not this eager criminal I'm treated as, thats the other person messing things up. I just want to grow food and facilitate clean water, I'm not the one threatening others lives over a resource I could just ask to share.

[Fiskbit]

You idealize nature and animals while bizarrely ignoring the fact that animals kill each other and compete over limited resources like food, territory, and mates. Real animals suffer and die because of conflicts you think magically don't apply to you. You're not special and you don't live in a bubble; by sharing a planet with other living things, you have to learn to live with those living things. You also falsely attribute any violence you may encounter to sociopathy; while that may factor into some violence, there are real causes for conflict that are not merely this. The post you replied to even pointed out the hypothetical of there not being enough water to go around. Two parties may rightly view this conflict as 'simply defending it for myself and others' without being sociopaths.

You seriously need to face reality, because for all this talk of being animals, you don't seem to understand animals.

[creaothceann]

It's even debatable if many animals, like ants, can make any conscious "decisions" at all, or if they're purely driven by instinct.

[segaloco]

The post you replied to even pointed out the hypothetical of there not being enough water to go around. Two parties may rightly view this conflict as 'simply defending it for myself and others' without being sociopaths.

Those parties are being completely ignorant of nature then. There is no such thing as "not enough water" there is just people not willing to put in the work for the resource. It's not like water magically disappears, the earth isn't constantly offgassing water into space, our biochemical landscape is a relatively closed system, like an economy, there is never an excess nor deficit of resources, merely those who have too many and those who have too few. A balance can be struck on any matter, it is up to the parties involved to actually think about it and figure it out. All this intelligence and we can't talk out sharing some water *of which there is enough for life on earth*. Human greed aside, by definition the biosphere must have enough water to sustain itself or it would've died out hundreds of millions of years ago. This entire thing is a moot point because statistically the existence of life is proof there are enough resources on earth to sustain life. It's not like there is a constant stream of new biological matter or a constant loss of matter to space, we are mismanaging what is an abundance of resource. Limitations are made by our own hands or maintained by our own laziness.

[Pokun]

We live in abundance because we have laws and morals so that we can work together and gain access to the resources we need. Some years ago I heard there are even more people in the world dying from obesity than from starving nowadays, because we are so good at producing food in general.

Of course resources don't just disappear unless drastic changes to the environment happens. But when there is more food, species multiply more and eventually starts having to fight over the resources until one party moves out to look for new hunting grounds. The resource amount may not have decreased, but the demand has increased. This doesn't mean the species is about to go extinct, on the contrary it means it's about to expand, yet conflict is central to it. So conflict doesn't mean resources are disappearing to space, only that the conditions has changed and conflict has become unavoidable for choosing who to leave and who to stay.

This has been the case for animals and humans alike (and other forms of life). Since we started to grow food we were able to multiply a lot more than before.
Water doesn't disappear, but in warmer areas water is more scarce and waterholes becomes important places for both humans and animals to seek out (that's likely why waterholes have often been enshrined and offered coins and other things into in many cultures). In colder areas water is seldom a problem but energy is, for keeping oneself warm, so access to meat is important.

As Fiskbit said it doesn't have to be about food or water either, the waterhole was just a simple example. Say someone likes the same girl as you do but she picks you. If we don't have any laws or moral there is nothing to stop the other guy from trying to kill you or kidnap her. He is not a sociopath, he just sees a good opportunity to get what he wants as is perfectly normal in a world without laws. I guess we could call it a sociopath's world if we go with that rhetoric.
Kidnapping brides was actually a very common pattern throughout history, including of the sort were the bride consented to a "kidnapping" (you might have heard that weddings are done with the bride on the left so you can have your right hand free to draw your sword and fight off her brothers, her father and other male relatives that might rush in to oppose your union).

You talk a lot about human greed and other vices. Greed is a vice according to laws and moral which says it should be restrained. If we don't have laws and moral we only have what our instincts says about greed, which is a tool for our own survival. So you obviously wants a world where greed is restrained, but you also want a world without laws. That's where the problem is, you can't have both.

It's even debatable if many animals, like ants, can make any conscious "decisions" at all, or if they're purely driven by instinct.

Yeah and it doesn't help that we don't really know what the consciousness is. Can you even be sure that anyone but yourself even has a consciousness the same way you do yourself? There is no way to prove it, you can just assume that as the same species they would reasonably have the same possibilities as you.

[segaloco]

You talk a lot about human greed and other vices. Greed is a vice according to laws and moral which says it should be restrained. If we don't have laws and moral we only have what our instincts says about greed, which is a tool for our own survival. So you obviously wants a world where greed is restrained, but you also want a world without laws. That's where the problem is, you can't have both.

I feel like it's hard to have both, but it's not impossible. It takes effort, yes. It takes intentionality, yes. It takes involvement, yes. I guess the difference is whether the end justifies the means, whether the end of having a more egalitarian and voluntary society is worth all that effort. I think so, but others seem to think otherwise, that the effort isn't worth the outcome. In the end I guess we can only see where the ebb and flow of our sociopolitical systems go, but I just don't accept this "its impossible" angle, rather, I see it possible through effort, and if it is possible, I want to give it a chance. I can only try my best to be a regulated, conscientious person, I only hope that others would tend towards that more than anything else. Hey, if they don't, and removing the limitations does really lead humanity to endless violence and such, then is that really a society I want to be in anyway? One that the second the structure is gone starts eating each other? No thanks, I don't like the idea that the only thing keeping my neighbor from violently murdering me is laws. Living in a society knowing that it is so fragile to me is infinitely more terrifying than having to find my own food.

That fragility doesn't change so long as we keep building this house of cards.

[Pokun]

I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm also not saying that written laws is the only thing that keeps us safe. I've been saying all along that a culture for moral is needed or the laws, written or unwritten, wouldn't be upheld for long.
And you do seem to agree, you seem to be saying that we need some sort of mutual agreement to work towards a common goal for a better world for us all. And that's exactly what we call moral.

[segaloco]

I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm also not saying that written laws is the only thing that keeps us safe. I've been saying all along that a culture for moral is needed or the laws, written or unwritten, wouldn't be upheld for long.
And you do seem to agree, you seem to be saying that we need some sort of mutual agreement to work towards a common goal for a better world for us all. And that's exactly what we call moral.

Yes, I don't discount that we need agreements, I disagree with how we go about that. Yes, I understand I have to agree with my neighbors to be at peace with them, but I don't believe that agreement has to be a blanket statement someone who is long dead made over one hundred years ago on some piece of paper signed by a bunch of other long dead guys just to have an agreement with my neighbors who I can see in front of my face and talk to intentionally in the moment. I can decide to love and respect my neighbors without the government or some other faraway unaccountable body being the one to set the terms.

For instance if my neighbors came over and asked "hey do you agree to not steal our pumpkins", my response would be "absolutely, I agree to not steal your pumpkins." And that would be that. There doesn't need to be a piece of paper in some filing cabinet somewhere. There doesn't need to be a congress of corrupt business people putting kids in cages. There simply needs to be two parties actually respecting each other intentionally. I would feel infinitely better if that was a decision the two of us made because we wanted to, not because we were compelled to by some third party. That's all it is, I don't discount having standards, having morals, whatever, I discount that being treated as a matter of fact and unavoidable reality. It's not a fact, it's an invention, it isn't unavoidable, it is arbitrary. Doesn't mean I'm against having standards, just those being forced and assumed, implied, hoisted on me rather than chosen by me. Hoisted on all rather than chosen by all. I want to know my neighbors respect me because they respect me, not because the government says they have to. If they government says they have to, then they stop when the government goes away. If they respect me because they choose to, then it doesn't matter what disasters befall our structure, we have decided we are stronger than that autonomously.

Maybe other people have crappy neighbors but personally my neighbors are dope and give me faith that this view of everyone as selfish and amoral is a little off-base. There are certainly selfish and amoral people, but our current systems have a knack for elevating those people into arbitrary positions of power over others with no accountability or recourse. Some would say that is what hierarchy does best. I would defer to their sense of authority if they gave me a reason to trust that authority, but they don't. No authority figure has ever shown me anything other than that they're yet another person who did nothing to deserve getting to dictate the terms of someone else's life besides being at the right place at the right time (often times due to their own manipulation). Sure, in a less hierarchical system, someone could try and manipulate power structures, but good luck convincing a bunch of anarchists to do some awful thing you just come up with if you're not able to withhold food, water, or shelter from them. Most of what people agree to is because human power structures have long since decided that withholding food, water, and shelter is an acceptable form of forcing conformance. Oh you won't work to generate excess value to pad someone else's pockets with profit? Good luck supporting yourself, we're going to cover up all the arable land with roads for people's private vehicles and you're SOL if you want to just grow food and sleep under the stars.

[Joe]

There are certainly selfish and amoral people, but our current systems have a knack for elevating those people into arbitrary positions of power over others

Selfish and amoral people will put themselves into arbitrary positions of power over others regardless of the system of government.

with no accountability or recourse.

What accountability or recourse is available under anarchy?

but good luck convincing a bunch of anarchists to do some awful thing you just come up with if you're not able to withhold food, water, or shelter from them.

I think you might have cause and effect backwards somewhere. Anarchy doesn't make people empathetic; empathy makes people anarchists. You'd have pretty good luck convincing a bunch of people who follow the system without questioning it to follow you without questioning you, even if the system is anarchy.

[segaloco]

There are certainly selfish and amoral people, but our current systems have a knack for elevating those people into arbitrary positions of power over others

Selfish and amoral people will put themselves into arbitrary positions of power over others regardless of the system of government.

Then we fight and resist. That isn't a desire for violence, more, a recognition that some may be necessary to secure an equitable future. I don't want to fight anyone, but I will if it is for the good of my community.

with no accountability or recourse.

What accountability or recourse is available under anarchy?

The accountability of anyone else can and will act against you if you cause harm. I'd rather fear persecution and exile from my neighbors whith whom I have rapport than from an unaccountable organization with qualified immunity as for instance the police. If I can solve conflict with my neighbors that means less cops.

but good luck convincing a bunch of anarchists to do some awful thing you just come up with if you're not able to withhold food, water, or shelter from them.

I think you might have cause and effect backwards somewhere. Anarchy doesn't make people empathetic; empathy makes people anarchists. You'd have pretty good luck convincing a bunch of people who follow the system without questioning it to follow you without questioning you, even if the system is anarchy.

But I *don't* want that. People blindly following due to some misplaced faith is the antithesis of self-determination and no masters. I don't want people to just devolve into directionless drifters with no moral compass. Rather, I want the conditions to prevail in which people actually choose to be moral and care about one another autonomously because that is the most beneficial mindset to not only our survival as a human species but to the survival of the world as a whole. I've said it before and I'll say it again, life need not be the enemy of life. Two people in need of a resource need not automatically be adversaries. We can overcome that and recognize that we are stronger together. But until the ties that bind are mutual respect and self-determination, even mutual effort will forever bear the stink of toxic individualism and "competition" that doesn't need to happen. The ego needs to die, we can have something so much better than what we have now.

[Pokun]

You mean conflict and selfish acts generally won't happen in anarchy because it's naturally working against the greater good?
In that case why does it happen in a more developed system?