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Pigeons flocks have hierarchy.[0] Also, to state the obvious, nonhuman social structures aren't always applicable to human social structures. Very often, the h
by jonathankoren 8y ago
Pigeons flocks have hierarchy.[0]
Also, to state the obvious, nonhuman social structures aren't always applicable to human social structures. Very often, the have very limited applicability to human organizations, for the simple reason that they're biologically based.
Instead you should turn to history and anthropology, not biology for advice. Sadly, there are very few (if any) examples of long lived leaderless / flat human organizations. Inevitably, a small cadre form an elite core (either through influence (Politics! Gasp!) or force / intimidation (politics by other means! Double gasp!) You can see this with various anarchist organizations, intentional communities such as communes, protest movements, even the tragedy of the commons.
[0] http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/04/when-pigeons-flock-whos-command http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2010/04/when-pigeons-flock-wh...
- ekianjo 8y ago> Instead you should turn to history and anthropology This is equally flawed since this is a field swamped with risks of survival bias in anything you study.
- KineticLensman 8y ago> Sadly, there are very few (if any) examples of long lived leaderless / flat human organizations. I think this point still stands though.
- sverige 8y agoExactly. There is survival bias precisely because flat organizations have never survived long enough to become the dominant form.
- kofejnik 8y agoit's not survivor bias if you're studying long-term survival
- rapind 8y agoExactly. We're just a blip. To say we've figured out how to survive ling term is unbounded ego. I wonder if a small number of our species will come to terms with the fact that we're basically a virus cursed with short term thinking and come up with some means of actual long term survival before we're wiped out. I'm optimistic.
- sverige 8y agoI'll never forget the hilarity I felt when I heard about the gigantic political fights happening at a big convention of anarchists in Minneapolis in the 80s. I was a college student working on a history degree and remember thinking, "Wait, why are people who want a society with no laws or rules holding a convention? And what is the fight about? Rules? Goals? Leadership?" I still can't do anything but laugh when someone tells me they're an anarchist. No you're not, what you mean is you don't like the current structure, whatever it happens to be. You have an idea of what you think it should be, even if you can't clearly express what that is exactly or how to get there.
- thecrash 8y agoAnarchism as a political philosophy does not "want a society with no laws or rules". It wants a society where power (social, political, economic, etc) is not distributed based on a hierarchy. Some misinterpret this as meaning that anarchists oppose the structuring of power in general (a.k.a. chaos), but in fact power can be organized through all kinds of non-hierarchical forms. Anarchism as a broad philosophy is not prescriptive as to how power /should/ be organized, only how it should not. There are many complementary and competing ideas about how a society or group can best structure itself to minimize hierarchical power, and anarchists argue about these a lot. They also actively experiment with them, and often the experiments fail. But sometimes they succeed, and those discoveries help all of us expand our possible modes of social organization. So basically I think even if you don't subscribe to anarchist philosophy, you should not be so dismissive of it.
- jonathankoren 8y agoAnarchist Club Meeting Tuesday Elections To Be Held