6 ms·

Note to self, get biggest guns, most people with guns, dominate society, set up theocracy with me as godhead, assemble harem, make sure sure court jesters are c

Note to self, get biggest guns, most people with guns, dominate society, set up theocracy with me as godhead, assemble harem, make sure sure court jesters are committed ideologues who thought reinventing feudalism was smart. I mean, really? Thugs don’t work together? That’s basically the history of humanity in the absence of a state, it’s what knighthood and aristocracies were. Thugs, working together to the bare chaotic minimum required to keep the peasants in line. Edit: How are you going to get the guns? Remember we're imagining an anarchy, where you can't get guns by taking over the military (there isn't any) or the government (there isn't any). You would have to either make them yourself (a productive endeavor, which thugs don't do--see below) or trade for them (which means you would have to have something worth trading, which again requires productive endeavor) or steal them (but how are you going to steal them when you don't have any weapons to begin with, but the people who make the weapons by productive endeavors do?). Unless your anarchist society has the tech to make all existing guns and weapons evaporate then they’ll be for the taking. If not, without a government my buddies and I can get a warehouse full of CNC machines and mill assault rifles until the go out of fashion. With no oversight, no need for secrecy, weapons are easy to make. Hell, I’d be shocked if quite a few people here couldn’t make their own nuclear pile if no one was there to stop them, and work their way back to nuclear weapons. Even barring that, again, many people here on HN have the information in their heads to make napalm, explosives, and a variety of poisons including nerve agents. The reason they don’t is sanity, society, and international controls. Take that away and it would be trivial to gas your annoying neighbors. Also, haven’t we already established that thugs can work together? See: all of human history. They just need aligned goals for however long it takes to crush dissent, then turn on each other. Even the Middle Ages has craftsmen and smiths, and they were essentially owned by thugs who used them like a resource. Basically, as I said in response to another poster downthread, you are imagining an anarchy as just like our society, but with government and governmental law enforcement suddenly removed. Unless you’re just entertaining a fantasy with no basis in reality and our lives, I’m thinking of anarchy at some time in the future, which means guns, bombs, aircraft carriers, ICBM’s already exist and can’t be wished away. If you propose a gradual turnover then you need every government and member of those governments to agree, sat which point you don’t actually need anarchy anymore, because you’ve already united the world. If you can conjure an anarchistic future not base on absolute fantasy, which doesn’t turn out horribly I’d be amazed.

pdonis 8y ago
> get biggest guns How are you going to get the guns? Remember we're imagining an anarchy, where you can't get guns by taking over the military (there isn't any) or the government (there isn't any). You would have to either make them yourself (a productive endeavor, which thugs don't do--see below) or trade for them (which means you would have to have something worth trading, which again requires productive endeavor) or steal them (but how are you going to steal them when you don't have any weapons to begin with, but the people who make the weapons by productive endeavors do?). > Thugs don’t work together? They work together at being thugs (though even that tends to be limited). They don't work together in productive endeavors, which is what I said. Basically, as I said in response to another poster downthread, you are imagining an anarchy as just like our society, but with government and governmental law enforcement suddenly removed. That's how you can imagine, for example, that there are all these guns lying around that you can just take (because previously government and law enforcement was preventing you from taking them, but that's gone now, and since government has largely disarmed citizens, they won't be able to resist you). But that's not what a functioning anarchy, in a society that had evolved to be an anarchy (as our current society has evolved to have governments doing lots and lots of things and micromanaging our lives) would be like.
- bena 8y ago
  You have a very naive view of other people. You're the one basically imagining our society but with government and "governmental law enforcement" suddenly removed. Everyone will just behave because we don't have police, but for some reason we all have laws we all agree on. But you coincidentally don't remove "laws", because those are important to keep. But we all enforce the laws because of reasons... Assuming your opponents are weaker, less intelligent, less organized, or less determined is how you end up with your back against the wall then the time comes. It doesn't take a group of "thugs", just a group of people with the means and motive to do it. And with nothing stopping them, they will. Government is the enforcement of the social contract on a large scale. At some point, we agree to follow certain rules in order to ensure others also follow those rules. It's funny, the people who most clamor for anarchy would be the ones most disadvantaged by it. And yes, certain communes "work", but they work by extension of being a part of a larger entity that does have a government. And you can talk all you want about "past societies", but unless you skipped half the words being said, those past societies are necessary stepping stones to what we get today. Those Icelandic villages are small-scale governments. The minute someone isn't allowed to do something, you've lost anarchy, you're building to modern government. Absolute freedom is absolute. There is no "anarchy but don't kill anyone".

pdonis 8y ago

> get biggest guns How are you going to get the guns? Remember we're imagining an anarchy, where you can't get guns by taking over the military (there isn't any) or the government (there isn't any). You would have to either make them yourself (a productive endeavor, which thugs don't do--see below) or trade for them (which means you would have to have something worth trading, which again requires productive endeavor) or steal them (but how are you going to steal them when you don't have any weapons to begin with, but the people who make the weapons by productive endeavors do?). > Thugs don’t work together? They work together at being thugs (though even that tends to be limited). They don't work together in productive endeavors, which is what I said. Basically, as I said in response to another poster downthread, you are imagining an anarchy as just like our society, but with government and governmental law enforcement suddenly removed. That's how you can imagine, for example, that there are all these guns lying around that you can just take (because previously government and law enforcement was preventing you from taking them, but that's gone now, and since government has largely disarmed citizens, they won't be able to resist you). But that's not what a functioning anarchy, in a society that had evolved to be an anarchy (as our current society has evolved to have governments doing lots and lots of things and micromanaging our lives) would be like.

bena 8y ago
You have a very naive view of other people. You're the one basically imagining our society but with government and "governmental law enforcement" suddenly removed. Everyone will just behave because we don't have police, but for some reason we all have laws we all agree on. But you coincidentally don't remove "laws", because those are important to keep. But we all enforce the laws because of reasons... Assuming your opponents are weaker, less intelligent, less organized, or less determined is how you end up with your back against the wall then the time comes. It doesn't take a group of "thugs", just a group of people with the means and motive to do it. And with nothing stopping them, they will. Government is the enforcement of the social contract on a large scale. At some point, we agree to follow certain rules in order to ensure others also follow those rules. It's funny, the people who most clamor for anarchy would be the ones most disadvantaged by it. And yes, certain communes "work", but they work by extension of being a part of a larger entity that does have a government. And you can talk all you want about "past societies", but unless you skipped half the words being said, those past societies are necessary stepping stones to what we get today. Those Icelandic villages are small-scale governments. The minute someone isn't allowed to do something, you've lost anarchy, you're building to modern government. Absolute freedom is absolute. There is no "anarchy but don't kill anyone".