No Stupid Questions

In the absence of other power structures (political, legal, religious, economic, etc) whoever has the means and willingness to do violence will exert their will over others. Unstructured societies always devolve into might makes right.

ITT: Nobody has any idea what any anarchist philosopher ever said or believed and simply thinks it means no rules

They then strut victoriously, thinking they are smarter than every anarchist philosopher who has ever existed because they know that rules matter in a society, not realizing that no anarchist thinker has ever said "let's just have no rules or organization and just see how it goes based on the vibes"

Anarchy sounds good to me then someone asks "Who'd fix the sewers?"

edit: This is lyrics from The Dead Kennedy’s “Where Do You Draw the Line?”

I think that if humanity can manage to survive long enough, anarchism is inevitable.

It's essentially the adult stage of human society - the point at which humans collectively and consistently, rather than just individually and situationally, can be trusted to generally do the right thing simply because it's the right thing and therefore the most reasonable thing to do.

For the time being and the foreseeable future though, humanity is nowhere even close to that. Through the course of history, human society has managed to advance to about the equivalent of adolescence. There's still a long way to go.

In spite of that, I do identify as an anarchist, but my advocacy is focused on the ideal and the steps humanity as a whole has to take to achieve it. I think it's plainly obvious that it cannot be implemented, since any mechanism by which it might be inplemented would necessarily violate the very principles that define it. It can only be willingly adopted by each and all (or close enough as makes no meaningful difference), and that point will come whenever (if) it comes.

Genuinely thought that said "anachronism" and was ready to go on a tirade about how cool cloaks are and how they should make a comeback

That it's basically the lefty equivalent to a libertarian. Both of those philosophies seem juvenile to me in a "I don't want to, and you can't make me" kind of way. Call me old fashioned, but I like structure as long as it's not totalitarian. I'm happy to pay taxes as long as they're going toward the benefit of society. Granted, that largely hasn't been the case, but I don't think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater either.

Recent events have also highlighted how much my taxes actually were going toward the betterment of society (though still not nearly enough), and that I had taken them for granted until they were recently axed/defunded.

A lot of people think it means total chaos, but it really just means an opposition to hierarchy.

People living comfortable lives will rationalize any critique of the system away, even if that comfort is built upon emiseration and exploitation.

It depends on the definition

It was the way for most of human history. And I’m not saying that in a good way, like “it’s totally normal, we should not be afraid of it.” I think the past was a uniformly awful time that’s slowly been getting better.

Anarchy working well depends on the people involved. Though at this point, we live in such a rules based world that I wonder if anyone would be able to function entirely without.

People calling themselves anarchists seem to reliably be less of a red flag than when they call themselves communists.

I think there's a lot of sentiment to sympathize with and a lot of ideas to learn about.

Implementation of anarchism seems hard and maybe sometimes a bit naïve, but on the other hand I don't actually understand the specifics nor is there any one opinion.

Anarvhism refers to a vlass of ideologies moreso than any one in specific.

The end goal of civilization.

Stateless, Egalitarian societies.

It seems foolish and young to me. Same as libertarian rules or rule by religious doctrine. None of that shit works. Just shiny little playthings to keep people distracted from real and genuine problems that cause an existential threat to all species living on earth.

When I was younger, I believed that it was an ideal worth striving for. Now I don't have that much faith in people anymore and I think that the best you can ask for is to try to live life your way and stay true to your beliefs and morals as best you can, according to whatever circumstances that you've been given.

Pls no anarcho capitalism. A good breakdown of the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN64g9lA2g&t=1

I think it's one gun away from a dictatorship.

For power to be safely devolved to the people there need to be resilient structures in place to prevent a bad actor from simply wresting control by force.

Also, I think that while it solves societal issues well for the most personal of personal liberties it fails to properly add in protections from the liberties of others that may be imposed on you... i.e. a spouse trying to escape an abusive relationship will find sparse services to support them.

Lastly, I like trains. Trains don't happen in a reasonable time-frame without a strong centralized government. In the UK a coop recently opened a new train line... I think it took them 30+ years.

I don’t think practically you could end up with a state of anarchism because it implies that humans can exist in a power vacuum. Something will always fill that vacuum. Now, the question is what is that thing? It can take a lot of forms. The goal should be to make it serve the qualitative needs of most people - food, shelter, well being, safety. People advocating for true anarchy are usually doing so from a naive idealism. Idealism is often good, but sometimes ignores other factors that make the ideal impossible to achieve.

Technically the whole world runs on pure anarchism. No rules, only those created by local groups. With agreements between some of the groups. Most of it enforced by violence.

Laws only exist because most people believe in them. For the rest they are enforced with violence. I believe that anarchy would result in a similar system. Most people would behave but some would not. To protect everyone eventually some kind of police and laws would form again.

coupled with communism it's the real shit