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Pretty sure archists have argued about all your examples too. A lot of things hinder software development: laws and regulations; skepticism of the community; l

Pretty sure archists have argued about all your examples too. A lot of things hinder software development: laws and regulations; skepticism of the community; lack of resources; technical constraints of existing hardware; trade secrets and patents to maintain an edge against competitors; ethics and morals incidental to the organization of society... hell we're already in a place where people reflexively look at centralized services (and even decentralized services) and see future hierarchy. not all hindrances are equal but a) do you imagine anarchism to be a uniquely strong hindrance b) do you consider that hindering of software development to be a sufficient issue to object to anarchy.

Avshalom 8y ago
Now that said I am not trying to convince you to be an anarchist, I'm just asking you to reflect on whether your questions (and their possible answers) are actually meaningful to you or if you actually want to ask some things more fundamental but can't quite figure out what.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Yes they are meaningful questions to ask, and they are not new questions. There’s already enough hot air on the internet about them.
  - Avshalom 8y ago
    There's a difference between 'meaningful' and 'meaningful to my actual thoughts/concerns', is what that follow on was trying to express. As you say plenty of ink has been spilled on them. Is it then questions from a position of never having had/seen/read this conversation or from what they've seen not being satisfactory or from not actually being what they want but they're running off the script they have seen.
    - garmaine 8y ago
      What I mean is I’d rather go about creating such systems than spend minutes on a pointless back and forth.
jancsika 8y ago
> a) do you imagine anarchism to be a uniquely strong hindrance The hindrance is a developer reflexively prioritizing criticism of some centralized part of a design without fully understanding the design, because "centralized" necessarily equates to "bad" or "wrong." Some of the back-and-forth with Moxie over federating Signal looked suspiciously like a case of that. I see a lot of similar discussions wrt FLOSS privacy/security software. To the extent that anarchy is responsible for the ideological bent that "centralized" is "bad,", I'd say yes, it's a problem that wastes a substantial amount of time and effort. > b) do you consider that hindering of software development to be a sufficient issue to object to anarchy. Maybe you can help me come to a conclusion. Where does the ideological bent come from that "centralization" equates to "bad" in FLOSS privacy software? For all I know, it could be that most anarchists are opportunistic and savvy in how they use computers, and it's only the anarchist software developers who have the ideological bent I described.
- Avshalom 8y ago
  ---ETA--- Although again none of the concerns below are necessarily anarchy specific nor do they necessarily (this is a statement of hypothetical, not a statement of fact: as far as I know we have no data in any direction about anything) have an significant effect on software development when compared to almost any other concern, source of friction or limitation --- I'm at best anarchist adjacent in as much as the circles I run in are concerned so I am not the one to diagnose them all (and there's an enormous variety of them) But I would suspect that they see history as pointing to centralized architectures as significantly more vulnerable to being corrupted/controlled. And in many cases unauditable or unaccountable until it is too late (lavabit seems relevant here). In addition to that vulnerability centralization puts broad power in concentrated hands which is kind of a necessary precondition for hierarchy and it easier to head things off at the pass then start down the slope and hope people don't succumb to momentum. And worrying about architecture need have no effect on non-network oriented software, which outside of communication software is basically all of it if you haven't drank the SaaS koolaid.
  - jancsika 8y ago
    > But I would suspect that they see history as pointing to centralized architectures as significantly more vulnerable to being corrupted/controlled. But unless there is a workable decentralized alternative the point is moot. I don't see any good reason to avoid using Wikipedia just because it is centralized. I don't see any good reason for Snowden to have avoided using Lavabit (nor its other 400,000 users). Again, I'd speculate that anarchists who aren't technically-minded would probably agree by their actions. Moreover, well-designed, stable decentralized alternatives like git seem to have no problem overtaking their centralized counterparts. So what is the use of equating "centralized" with "bad?"

Avshalom 8y ago

Now that said I am not trying to convince you to be an anarchist, I'm just asking you to reflect on whether your questions (and their possible answers) are actually meaningful to you or if you actually want to ask some things more fundamental but can't quite figure out what.

garmaine 8y ago
Yes they are meaningful questions to ask, and they are not new questions. There’s already enough hot air on the internet about them.
- Avshalom 8y ago
  There's a difference between 'meaningful' and 'meaningful to my actual thoughts/concerns', is what that follow on was trying to express. As you say plenty of ink has been spilled on them. Is it then questions from a position of never having had/seen/read this conversation or from what they've seen not being satisfactory or from not actually being what they want but they're running off the script they have seen.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    What I mean is I’d rather go about creating such systems than spend minutes on a pointless back and forth.

jancsika 8y ago

> a) do you imagine anarchism to be a uniquely strong hindrance The hindrance is a developer reflexively prioritizing criticism of some centralized part of a design without fully understanding the design, because "centralized" necessarily equates to "bad" or "wrong." Some of the back-and-forth with Moxie over federating Signal looked suspiciously like a case of that. I see a lot of similar discussions wrt FLOSS privacy/security software. To the extent that anarchy is responsible for the ideological bent that "centralized" is "bad,", I'd say yes, it's a problem that wastes a substantial amount of time and effort. > b) do you consider that hindering of software development to be a sufficient issue to object to anarchy. Maybe you can help me come to a conclusion. Where does the ideological bent come from that "centralization" equates to "bad" in FLOSS privacy software? For all I know, it could be that most anarchists are opportunistic and savvy in how they use computers, and it's only the anarchist software developers who have the ideological bent I described.

Avshalom 8y ago
---ETA--- Although again none of the concerns below are necessarily anarchy specific nor do they necessarily (this is a statement of hypothetical, not a statement of fact: as far as I know we have no data in any direction about anything) have an significant effect on software development when compared to almost any other concern, source of friction or limitation --- I'm at best anarchist adjacent in as much as the circles I run in are concerned so I am not the one to diagnose them all (and there's an enormous variety of them) But I would suspect that they see history as pointing to centralized architectures as significantly more vulnerable to being corrupted/controlled. And in many cases unauditable or unaccountable until it is too late (lavabit seems relevant here). In addition to that vulnerability centralization puts broad power in concentrated hands which is kind of a necessary precondition for hierarchy and it easier to head things off at the pass then start down the slope and hope people don't succumb to momentum. And worrying about architecture need have no effect on non-network oriented software, which outside of communication software is basically all of it if you haven't drank the SaaS koolaid.
- jancsika 8y ago
  > But I would suspect that they see history as pointing to centralized architectures as significantly more vulnerable to being corrupted/controlled. But unless there is a workable decentralized alternative the point is moot. I don't see any good reason to avoid using Wikipedia just because it is centralized. I don't see any good reason for Snowden to have avoided using Lavabit (nor its other 400,000 users). Again, I'd speculate that anarchists who aren't technically-minded would probably agree by their actions. Moreover, well-designed, stable decentralized alternatives like git seem to have no problem overtaking their centralized counterparts. So what is the use of equating "centralized" with "bad?"