Ask an Anarchist

[Flying Pig]

Oh, I'm not saying the projects are without any purpose or benefit. I'm saying the decision to do them as "large scale projects" usually reveals thinking and reaction to problems of a modernity focused around centralization.

The comparison I was drawing is not one of Three Gorges dam or no Power, or Notre Dame and no churches. But is Three Gorges Dam a decision made as a result of the problems of making "China?" Is Notre Dame better than dozens or perhaps hundreds of humble churches throughout France?

I'd say that there is something qualitative in Notre Dame which makes it more than the sum of a hundred or a thousand churches, but I take your point that it's a question of allocating resources - it's not immediately obvious that a Notre Dame isn't worth (almost lapsing into Civ terms) an Oxford University or a thousand hospitals. I also take your point that many projects are made with the intention of benefiting the state - my point, though, was that despite that they're still useful and helpful to the people living in the state. We may safely assume that Three Gorges Dam is a more efficient way of generating power than the same amount of money in little dams, otherwise the Chinese would have built a massive dam network.

 

[Mouthwash]

What would an anarchist think of this?

 

[Borachio]

What I especially love about Bitcoin is how easily it's subverted in various criminal ways. Right up the anarchists' street, imo.

http://www.cnet.com/news/bitcoin-is-ripe-for-fraud-and-ponzi-schemes-warns-sec/

 

[Tahuti]

The more governments try to repress it, the more it ends up being used by criminals. The more it is being used by criminals, the more it is repressed.

One knows banning stuff is craziness once that adage holds true.

 

[Borachio]

Governments are just criminal gangs who call themselves legitimate, though. (Assuming a certain level of cynicism.)

 

[gay_Aleks]

Aren't criminal gangs illegitimate by definition? Once they become legitimate, they stop being gangs but yet another enterprise.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. But a lot depends on who's doing the defining.

 

[gay_Aleks]

That's true, especially here, where "legitimacy" isn't given much credit, if any.

 

[Tahuti]

Governments are just criminal gangs who call themselves legitimate, though. (Assuming a certain level of cynicism.)

The Dutch word for government is 'overheid', which means literally something akin to 'over-ness' or 'Abovehood'. It almost seems to be made to be an antonym for underworld.

That inspires the question: If governments are gangs, which authority labels them so? If an authority is necessary to label criminal gangs, then some authority above governments would be needed to label governments gangs. God? If so, anarchism must have a theist element, unless that is against the anarchist spirit, in which case, anarchism just collapses.

 

[Borachio]

Lol. Well, yes!

And I agree anarchism just collapses. I think it's meant to, after all.

My position is, largely, that a state of anarchy exists now (more or less). And yes, it does keep collapsing.

I'm not quite sure about the theist element, though. A lot depends on how you define God, and whether you think (as most people surely don't) that God represents the social glue that keeps us together, or not. So in that sense, yes. In other senses, no.

 

[Tahuti]

Governments exist because governments have no effective contenders, contrary to what Anarchists like to argue.

 

[Borachio]

Do they? I thought governments were more to do with protecting the interests of an elite. An elite, moreover, which achieves power in the first place largely through what would normally be considered criminal activity.

Wait a hundred years or so, and see if the drug cartels of Columbia, and the like, haven't metamorphosed into some transnational government body. Then, get back to me, and tell me I was right.

 

[Tahuti]

Only governments can define criminal activity.

Every functional polity must have protections for minorities to some degree. The elite is a (model) minority that needs to be protected, not only for their own good but for the good of society as they are a model minority, who are responsible for allowing culture and technological development to thrive. In fact, protecting minorities from the mob is exactly what a state has to do in other survive and therefore, what a state should do.

Democracy weakens the state, since it alters negatively a state's ability to protect model minorities. Organised crime are pretenders to government control. Often, the elites of conquered states become criminals themselves.

 

[Borachio]

Hmm. Maybe.

I've been reading some Tolstoy essays lately. He says that the elites are composed of the worst elements of society: the worst people simply rise to the top.

I think he's got a point. I can't think of any major political figure that wasn't a really nasty piece of work. Someone suggested Gandhi the other day as an exception. But I'm not so sure even about him.

 

[Tahuti]

Hmm. Maybe.

I've been reading some Tolstoy essays lately. He says that the elites are composed of the worst elements of society: the worst people simply rise to the top.

I think he's got a point. I can't think of any major political figure that wasn't a really nasty piece of work. Someone suggested Gandhi the other day as an exception. But I'm not so sure even about him.

Are they? If they risen to the top, isn't that simply how the world works then? You just can't look the other way and pretend they do not exist.

I much prefer political figures who fought their way into power than talked their way in (as is the case in democracies). Talk is cheap. Fighting directly is always honest, in that you cannot use BS talking to gain power.

 

[Borachio]

No. I don't think that's how the world works at all. Well, not ideally anyway. I agree it's how the world has mostly worked in the past, though. But since when was the past a reliable guide of how to manage the present? It's more like an object lesson in what not to do.

 

[Tahuti]

No. I don't think that's how the world works at all. Well, not ideally anyway. I agree it's how the world has mostly worked in the past, though. But since when was the past a reliable guide of how to manage the present? It's more like an object lesson in what not to do.

For some reason, people still have a lot of success following those guidelines of 'what not to do'.

 

[Borachio]

As Tolstoy says: the worst people rise to the top. It may be inevitable, for all I know. Though he seemed to think not.

 

[Tahuti]

As Tolstoy says: the worst people rise to the top.

He was just jealous of those on the top.

 

[Borachio]

I don't why you might think so. If you do.