Takapapatapaka

For arts, [email protected] makes nice timelapses. [email protected] are a nice music duo.

For politics, [email protected] has relatively good content on anarchism.

For drinks, this dude publishes regularly nice cocktails recipes : [email protected]

For tech, i second Veronica Explains, and i'll add [email protected], great videos too on custom hardware and games.

For french speakers interested in news, there is also Le Média at [email protected] and Blast at [email protected]

Yup, but considering that you can "stack" up to 6 pixels, you can click every 3 minutes, and then go back to doing something else, so this could help make the whole thing a little more believable.

If i'm correct, it was one pixel every 30sec, so 2000 minutes, so around 33 hours. They or the bot probably didn't sleep much.

Thanks again for a fair reply, and specifically for the use of example which really helps to make it all easier. I think it's mostly misunderstandings that would make our final position be discordant, but respecting the possibility of each other.

Direct democracy / Disassociation after a crime

This kinda regroups with the justice part i think. I'll answer to both below.

Kids consenting / Kids abuse

Effectively, kids manipulation would be quite a problem, as well as manipulation of people in general. On the other hand, abuses committed on kids that are aware of those abuses could and are being greatly reduced when we stop considering their parents/teacher should have a full mastery of their lives.

I think that, as in our current societies, the best tool would be to have multiple groups dedicated to kids protection, that could follow kids education and step in when they feel there is some risk or anything, triggerring mediation processes.

Economics / Dencetralized distribution

First, even if economics were not the reason, it is true that the disassociation of any important group can be a problem, and food is a good one. One solution would be to have groups dedicated to feed everyone, as we already have.

Second, i think there is a slight misunderstanding here on the economics part. I'm not sure if free market can apply to what i think of if private property is reduced or abolished. In most anarchist systems, accumulation of wealth is seen as something to avoid, and then either prices should be fixed based on labour costs ony, either money use should be reduced to luxury goods or stopped entirely, either some other organization i'm not aware of. In both those systems, people provide the result of their labour in a non-wealth accumulative way, and expect people to do so in return. In this system, quitting the federation to start accumulating wealth would mean losing access to a free or cheap providing of services, which would be quite counter-intuitive. That is, unless you have ways to build a new federation or system that can function on itself, and then either it is purely some will of people to turn to an autonomous separate system, and that's ok, either it preys on the needs and work of people unwilling to participate, and then you fall back to the fight against authoritarianism.

Economics / Degrowth

We agree that degrowth is not the most shared desire. We also agree that it would be a bad thing to impose it on people.

But again, i'll probably pass for a nitpicking bastard, but not exactly "nobody wants to spend all day washing clothes by hand". We can agree on "very few people wants to spend all day .." though, but for this very few, the system i'm talking about has a meaning. Another argument for degrowth is that it will be necessary in any way (the actual system relies heavily on fossil energies, the production of which should or has started to slowly decrease, so appart from a new tech / energy source, the economic system behind will probably decrease too). Degrowth advocates also advance that mass consumption and especially capitalism produces the needs with the products. For example, we don't really need individual cars, except if living far from your work is the norm, We don't really need complicated washing machines unless we have complicated clothes, etc.

So degrowth is effectively something that may stir people away from anarchism, and for understandable reasons. But on the other hand, it remains good for people who accept or advocate for it, and there are good arguments if you happen to have to convince people to accept it. I fully accept if you take it as an additional argument in disfavor of anarchism, as long as you accept that it's not a complete dead end.

Economics / Money and labour

Well, i think we slightly disagree on what makes economy. I'm not sure what the exact definition of economy should be, but from what i guess, i'd make two categories. Some elements are kinda included in the very concept of economy and are there no matter what, even if in a very poor shape (i'd say organization, coordination, specialization, consumption). In that sense, there is some economy for gatherer/hunter societies. The other group is only needed for a good/growing/modern economy : technology, government, markets, capital, etc. They may be essential parts of some economies, but not of every form of them. I'd clearly put the workers in the first category, that is necessary in all forms of economy.

Now, i may misunderstand what you call economy, and it may be more than just the organization of labour. Then, i'll think i should have argued that it is not necessary as is, and simple organization of labour could suffice. The ability to product as much as capitalist societies would probably not be reached, but then we would fall back to the degrowth point.

Economics / Works and unwanted jobs

Same as for washing clothes by hand, i'd make a distinction between what people don't want to do, and what they don't accept to do. In anarchist societies, there may be multiple ways to fill in works that no one wants : volunteering is the most obvious one, and the one you seem to "attack" (you were not aggressive, i just don't have a better word). Other ones, that can either be implemented from the start or considered fallbacks in case no one volunteers, are a rotation system or a random selection system. Every person able to do tasks could then partake. Now, it may rise some problems (like what if people have phobias, or really don't want to do things), and as it usually is with anarchism, the answer lies in individual adjustments : either people could do another task in replacement, either they could skip the task entirely if people are okay with that, either they could be accompanied, either if they really are reward motivated, they could get a special treatment if people are okay with that, etc.

I'd also like to point out that, at least here in france (which i'd consider as capitalistic), people doing unwanted jobs are not rewarded with incentives like a handsome salary or good benefits package. They're payed quite the same as most manual jobs, which is less than a lot of desk jobs. What drives them to do those jobs is the fear of not having a home or food.

Justice / Arbitrary + Bad faith actors

Answering to both your 1st and 4th paragraph on justice here, and the first part on direct democracy.

It seems at first a fine nuance to say that courts are there to provide the nuanced judgement needed for each individual case, but i think it hides the fact that this necessarily happens (possibly in a bad way). Laws don't apply themselves, and there is always someone to apply them, be it a judge, a cop, a bureaucrat, a mob, etc., and who decide how to apply them, be it severely, with clemency, abusively, etc.

Imo, laws are objectively providing an arbitrary reason for arbitrary decisions. It is indeed objective in the fact that it exists publicly, but the content of the law is decided arbitrarily (as in, by specific people and outside of context), and applying the law is making a personal, therefore arbitrary decision. Even if a machine were to apply it, the abrirary of people who created the law or built the machine would make the output arbitrary.

In the context i presented, no one is deciding the standard on a whim and pushing it onto others. There has to be an agreement between both parties, peoples who are mediating it, and optionally the communities it would apply to. If everyone is super friend with the murderer, there would not be a discussion in the first place. This is why i don't consider this to be arbitrary : it is not pushed by someone onto another, but is rather a decision made in agreement with everyone it will apply to. This is based on the idea that the closest thing we can get to objectivity is multiple subjectivities, so the only way to escape arbitrary is to 1) avoid making general rules and 2) not letting a subset of person decide, but letting them all decide.

Justice / Criminals

One misunderstanding is that you assume that a cooperative criminal means a criminal that roams the street. This is not the case, they don't just decide what happens to them if they are cooperative. It is an agreement with people, and apart from brain dead people, we could assume that they would like the criminal to be watched, or to go to a deradicalization institution, or anything that would significantly drop the chances of recidivism.

Now, you could say that a talented criminal could fool everyone long enough so that they agree to end those decisions at some point, but then it could happen in most judiciary systems, not just anarchist ones.

Good faith / Participation

I meant what i said about participation for people with bad "feelings/emotions" such as egoism or greed. It's okay to have someone that gets more than the other in a community as long as other people are okay with that. It's okay to have some meritocratic people who want to be rewarded based on their efforts inside a community. It just shouldn't be imposed on people who don't want it.

Now, for islamist/nazis/tankies, there is something quite different since they precisely want to impose it on people who reject it. Laws from a greater authority is not the only thing capable of stopping such groups from emerging. Education, discussion, negotiation and ultimately justice system that i described can be used as peaceful ways to prevent them. They're not flawless, as are state solution, and it can come to violence in the end. But it's also not pure tolerance and freedom of being a bad guy.

Multiplicity of states

My point is not that every state is the same, we obviously agree on this. It is not either that the entire concept of a state is bad because some failed. It is that in wars, genocides, repression, states are actually not failing : it is a part of their arsenal to maintain what you'd call stability and what i'd call their continuity.

I feel like the comparison with malpractice is unfair, because in malpractice it's not the actual advantages of medicine that's used to harm more. i'd more happily go with the example of the environment : states are like oil, it has a great list of advantages for humanity, and also has major disadvantages. Now to say if we should stop using oil entirely or just stop using it badly is another debate, and it's okay to assume that wanting it to stop completely is dumb, but i feel like it's more of a honest take since diasdvantages of oil are built into it.

Inevitability of monopoly of violence

I kinda disagree. I'd agree if you had said that violence is inevitable, but imo monopoly of violence is not built into humans. I'd agree to say that it's built into our current societies, but as we humans, they change and evolve, so it's not necessarily built in future societies. I still consider advocacy for monopoly of violence as radical, but i also recognize that it's okay to be radical, and it's a choice you have strong arguments for. I also thank you for your fair comments, you really try to understand something you don't seem to know much, and that's something i highly appreciate.

Circular reasoning

It's probably the last point of disagreement we have, so it's quite sad to start with it. Anyway, though it was badly presented before, i think i'm still legitimate to maintain my circular reasoning claim, even or especially after your explanation.

I agree that throughout our discussion, you made those two separate points.

1. D->S : Domination of states implies Stability of states.
2. S->N : Stability of states implies Necessity of states. (or, as you put it, necessity of states because of advantages of states).

What's missing here, and that i have confused with Necessity of states (N) previously, is the People desire for stability (P), alognside with the assumption that what what people desire is necessary. Effectively, Stability does not imply necessity, it needs something else that says "X is necessary" and "X needs stability". I assume this X to be what the people desires, from the part We live in a world where people want stability and order. This is the proposition that makes the thing circular : People desire for stability (P) both needs to imply Domination (D) (as in We live in a world where people want stability and order.), and to be implied by D (as in stability [...] is what humanity favors given our history). D->P gives the strength of D to P, but for that it needs P->S->D to show the Domination is linked with people desires and not just another variable.

It is legitimate to make such a move, since there is a need to put a cause for domination of states, because if it was a bad one (like states are a predatory and self-perpetuating form of organization), then the consequences of it would inherit this bad foundation. My point is that the cause for domination that you can give are also deduced from this domination.

Pride

Not sure we actually are on the exact same page, but anyway we would be close enough. Thanks for expressing your content, it is shared.

Practice/Theory

To be fair, my point on practice/theory has been dismissed by your further comments, and only applies to what you said before. I should have pointed it out, my bad on this point too. Though i disagree with your linking of anarchists problems of coordination/communication and anarchist theory, i admit it is not unfounded and is a proper example of linking theory and practice properly. It was missing before, i think you'll convene of this. Therefore, i think we can also say we're on the same page now on this point too !

Strawmanning

I agree with most of your paragraph, especially on the misunderstanding rather than malice. The bad faith accusation i have made were pointing out a (alleged) lack of will to understand properly rather than a will to misrepresent. I have made similar errors, like my summarization, though if i recall correctly, it was not that wrong (some errors were minor, bigger errors like "current states" instead of "states in general" were a formulation error that didn't matter much for argumentation). I apologize for this one along others : if it's something you'd like to do, i'd be glad to have a list of the points i strawmaned. I'll try to refrain myself for discussing if they are strwman or not, i'd just like to see what i misunderstood.

History

1. This is an excellent summary of your point. I think it kinda misses mine, which was the cause/consequences rather than the responsability. When confronted about fascists destroying anarchists, the causation is for you that anarchists lack the mechanisms to resist, and is for me that states structures are dangerous. Both can be (and probably are) true at the same time, the question is on which to put the emphasis., and that's where we differ.

I also disagree on the association of actual problems in Spain with necessary flaws in theory, reporting them on the practical difficulties that were to face (urgency of the situation, lack of international support, chaos inherited from the failed coup d'état, etc.). That said, i concede that your deduction from the Spanish case of anarchist flaws remains legitimate and well-founded.

2. On the Red Terror, i thank you for bringing this to my knowledge, i did not know the detail of it. Your summary is very good, and i would just add that from what i just learned, it seems that those violences existed on the Nationalist side too, directed at reds, and that the Red Terror on the Republican side ultimately was turned against anarchist and non-stalinist themselves. We both agree that anarchists committed and failed to prevent atrocities.

3. I think we both agree that if Revolutionary Ukraine was a state, it would be the form of state closest to anarchy, and if it was anarchy, it would be the form of anarchy closest to state. The nitpicking would be about whether or not it crossed the line. I support that it did, and my arguments are that i do not have example of organizations defined as state with a military based on volunteering, election of officers and autodiscipline, and with a decision system based on federalism and immediate recall of mandatees. But in the end it really is nitpicking, and if we agree on the first part, it's more than okay i think.

4. Thanks for expressing the concession. I note and accept your stance that the low level of stability of anarchists experiments is not enough for you.

Kinda depends on the situation as always.

One aspect is obviously the civilians lives at hand. If we are speaking of a city, there's people to protect from the war. But then, what about the people living in the territories that are to be given back ? Are they at risk of a high persecution ? Then maybe it's worse a shot protecting them too. And even if not, will the states really hold back ? On a military basis at first, but also on an economic basis : won't they try to create a blocus to end the separatism ? How many time do you think it will hold as is ? Multiple years is already a quite longer time than most anarchists uprisings, so if that's somehow guaranteed, agreeing could be worth a shot.

Some deal would have to be done with some state at some point i guess, from a pragmatical point of view, every state won't fall at the same time. So if it appears you can't go further anyway, maybe it would be the right time.

That would make sense ! When i heard about it, it was florists advising to buy an even number from the start, so the meaning of it probably got lost somewhere, but i like the explanation.

It is also present in France, i heard about never making an even bouquet, and judging by the internet, it's because it's also meant for funerals.

I had the same problem, ended up login in with a lemmy account. Maybe piefed being still relatively new means it's not yet integrated in the Fediverse Auth system ?

Which would make that moment around the 80s, when the Groenland population reach a relatively stable 50k and the US + CCCP warheads make a peak from 50k to 65k (excluding other nuclear arsenals)

it sounds like you're just an advocate for true direct democracy.

I equate true direct democracy with anarchism. If there is a central authority, as in someone making decisions about me without me being able to either oppose their mandate either switch to another federation, then it's not direct democracy.

You're still in favor of a central authority, just one that's structured differently.

As far as i'm aware, there is no central authority in what i described.

Consent

This is a very good question, and has multiple answers, as multiple groups can have multiple standards. Handling kids is an especially tricky part, but you could suppose having different schools with different systems, allowing kids to vote or not, and kids could choose where to go.

Economics

Your first paragraph is just you not understanding i guess ? You just seem to be unable to think outside of capitalism or marxism. Ultimately, you don't give any reason as to why decentralized distribution of ressources is impossible, other that it is not either capitalism, either marxism ?

We also clearly miss eachother on a point, as i deduce from the cars, planes, and smartphones.. My view of anarchism is coupled with an anyway necessary degrowth. Complicated objects like cars, planes and smartphones can obviously not be obtained on the same scale as current capitalist system. They could be obtain in a much much little number though, and then be distributed to people needing it most, and the repair/reuse system would fill in the rest (which would be the majority i guess). We'd also need less cars since you would be more free to choose where you live and work.

On the how much labor goes into building a modern house i clearly think it could be done in a communal way. I mean, the trickiest part are the spread of knowledge meaning many people have to intervene, and the machines used to accelerate the process, which could ultimately be transformed in either time or workforce. Sure, it's a long thing to do, not saying the opposite. But in the end, it's all made by workers, not by money or organization.

Your talk about capitalism shows that capitalism favors profit, not efficiency. Those two aspects may intersect, but not all the time. For example, having multiple intermediaries in the process of selling food is good for profit, but is clearly not efficient.

Justice

You still think of laws as general object, the whole point that i made was to have no general laws, and rather local rules and decisions specific to each case, to adapt at best to every situation. This is precisely the more down-to-earth approach, rather than thinking that applying the same rule to thousands is going to have the same positive effect, we try to get the best result according to each situation.

Yes, there are criminals that acknowledge they did bad things, and are cooperative with people, even outside of people doing bad things out of emotions or other situation where they do not control themselves. They have an interest in doing so, since it would appease everything and enable them to live a normal life again. Ultimately, their main interest can be that if they are not cooperative, then the whole process gets stuck and they could be de facto kept in prison by their own choice, which is more ridiculous that what you describe.

People who [...] want to reestablish a central authority ?

You take a huge step in a wrong direction here. Anarchist societies do not need everyone to be of good faith, they need everyone to partipate. There is room for greedy, egoistical, selfish, healous, contrarian people, even hateful, evil and violent in some contained ways. We don't need everyone to be nice, we need everyone to participate to groups where they feel confident, which i think you'll agree is a way more common trait than just good faith. There is of course still room for a lot of problems, but it's not based on good faith.

It's also wrong to say that in anarchy bad faith actors have no filters and are set loose.. They also face consequences as people will try to stop them : the difference is that they know they won't have to face an arbitrary punishment, but a kind of repayment that they'll accept. You can't say that there won't be consequences, you can say though that there won't be forced consequences.

And in the end, states do not prevent such violence either : once again, wars, genocides, arbitrary violences and murders, organized crime, mafia, pedos etc. also exist, and worse than that, they may be amplified by state itself. So, while it will probably exist in anarchy, it exists in states too, in a different way, sometimes better, sometimes worse. Amusingly, These people have no issue with violence or forcing others to do what they want, and so they will use violence to enforce their standards on to normal people and onto each other. is like the exact definition of monopoly of violence.

Thanks for the splitted answer, it is a very nice choice. So here we go on the meta-discussion, cuz i think we still have disagreements on the nature of what we both said.

A - The circular reasoning

We indeed agree on the fact that human history shows that states have won out over their alternatives during the last 5 000 years, approximatively.

You seem to pretend that i dismiss the causes of this. As i said two comments ago in the summary, i simply hold a different explanation : you think states dominate because they're efficcient for stability, i think states dominate because they prey on other forms of organization. If you really think i dismiss this, i just give another explanation.

I maintain the circular reasoning part : to sum up how you turned it in your last answer, you say 1) states are the norm because states are necessary, and 2) states are necessary because they have advantages. But why do they have advantages that the other forms of governement do not have ? Your proof before that was "there is only states that succeed, the other forms disappear". So you just add one step, but in the end it's the same thing : on one hand, you explain the dominance of state by their necessity, on the other you explain their necessity by their advantages, which are prooved by their dominance. Either i misunderstand some part of your position, either it is circular.

B - The pride & the pride of being part of something greater

I owe you an apology here, as my last comment taken as is was indeed focusing on pure pride. I should have added that not only did i claim only some people lack it and not humanity as a collective, but more than that, i did not talk about pure pride, but "pride of being part of something greater", which we both agree is less common than pride itself. I don't know why i didnt, probably just skipped to another part. This makes my strawmaning complaint stronger though.

C - Practice and theory

I dont say that practice and theory are entirely separate categories. They are different level of debate though, and you cannot answer one with the other. You can support one with the other, but not answer one with the other. To explain better, in your example of anarchy being a failure, there should be an actual problem (misorganization, miscommunication, etc) that leads to anarchy failure, and this problem could be linked to theory. Exactly as you said in your islamists example, the actual problems of islamists systems can be linked to qoran theory.

Funnily enough, the point i criticize you for is exactly what you criticize islamists for : when you give an answer on the practical side, they jump to the theoric side, and vice-versa. It's strange that you can see that for them, but not for you.

D - Strawmaning

There is a misunderstanding here. My accusation of strawmaning is on the pride part, not on the arbitrary distinction of how to classify violence.

E - On historical matters

Thanks for acknowledging the historical examples. We indeed have a very different definition of stability and order (especially on political unstability, and internal fighting), but it's not the only explanation to our difference of explanation here.

One of them is the way you attribute the causes of events. When you say "Anarchists were crushed by Franco's fascist troops", it seems that you take it as a proof that anarchy leads to unstability. But to my eyes, the people responsible for unstability here are the state troops. I guess the first one is true on a broader sense, and the second one on this specific situation.

Another one is on the knowledge we have of it : i'm not sure what you mean by A lot of people tried to enforce their own justice and take governance into their own hands and thousands of people died because of this.. If it's about war, yes, anarchist armies are as other armies, they cause a lot of useless death. If it's about something else, i'd be glad to learn about it !

Last one is a bit of nuance, especially on the Ukrainian part : there was indeed a system of governement backed by an active military, and this leads to a form of monopolization of violence. But i would not call it a full monopolization of violence, as the military government did not take every decision, and let the regional committees take a lot of decisions, and the local soviets organize freely. Also, all of those systems (both military and governement) were organized along anarchist principles : direct election of delegates, immediate recall, autodiscipline (this one specific to army). To be clear, what i challenge precisely is : the extent of centralization of power (it existed, but it was quite diminished compared to actual state), the extent of monopolization of violence (it existed, but as there were fewer decision to enforce, the monopolization was less important), the non-anarchist aspect of the movement (it is clearly an anarchist movement using partially non-anarchist methods (but not only non-anarchist methods)).

Lastly, and i'm sorry to bring the language part again, but here you're giving good examples that the examples i gave were far from perfect. But the point you made before was that you never get stability or order at any point. I claim that you did, during a few months in the Commune, a few years in some regions of Spain, and by short intermittences during the Ukrainian revolution. Sure, it's not much. And the reason why it's such little is another topic we discussed. But not much is not the same as nothing. This is, i think, the main explanation of our disagreement here, beyond slight adjustments (causes, knowledge, nuances). In the end, we are saying the same thing : i say "there is a little bit of stability and order", you say "there is not much stability and order".