Oolite Bulletins

Diziet Sma wrote:

That's the fun thing about being an Anarchist.. I don't need to offer an alternative...

Well, at least we know which kind of planetary systems you call "home"...

Diziet Sma wrote:

That's the fun thing about being an Anarchist.. I don't need to offer an alternative...

Seriously?

So then, if you get to live in an Anarchy, how do you prevent it from becoming a dictatorship or a series of little feudal patches with slavery in during the course of the next five or so days, thereby losing the "no heteronomy, no government" status again?

(RL question, not Oolite )

JohnnyBoy wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

That's the fun thing about being an Anarchist.. I don't need to offer an alternative...

Well, at least we know which kind of planetary systems you call "home"...

Well, my in-game character, Diziet Sma, certainly does.. as a Random Hits bounty hunter climbing the ranks, the only time she visits other system types is when pursuing a target.

Decent RL anarchies are, sadly, currently non-existent on Sol 3...

Lestradae wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

That's the fun thing about being an Anarchist.. I don't need to offer an alternative...

Seriously?

So then, if you get to live in an Anarchy, how do you prevent it from becoming a dictatorship or a series of little feudal patches with slavery in during the course of the next five or so days, thereby losing the "no heteronomy, no government" status again?

(RL question, not Oolite )

People living in anarchies are very protective of their freedom and tend to be violently opposed to those who seek to inflict their will on others.. as such, attempts to instill any form of government or control are usually brief and end rather bloodily..

Diziet Sma wrote:

People living in anarchies are very protective of their freedom and tend to be violently opposed to those who seek to inflict their will on others.. as such, attempts to instill any form of government or control are usually brief and end rather bloodily..

Which people would those be? I am not aware of any non-trivial stable anarchic systems (in real life).

People, as with most social animals are naturally hierachy forming. It seems quite unlikely to me that it is possible to form any kind of functional non-hierarchy society. There will always be charismatic, bloodthirst, strong or intellegent people that end up in taking a leadership role, and then you are no longer an anarchy.

Cmdr James wrote:

Diziet Sma wrote:

People living in anarchies are very protective of their freedom and tend to be violently opposed to those who seek to inflict their will on others.. as such, attempts to instill any form of government or control are usually brief and end rather bloodily..

Which people would those be? I am not aware of any non-trivial stable anarchic systems (in real life).

People, as with most social animals are naturally hierachy forming. It seems quite unlikely to me that it is possible to form any kind of functional non-hierarchy society. There will always be charismatic, bloodthirst, strong or intellegent people that end up in taking a leadership role, and then you are no longer an anarchy.

As you pointed out, there aren't any... so, in order to answer the question as put to me, I was forced to hypothesise on the likely character and behaviour of the individuals making up a functional anarchy... in retrospect, instead of saying "people in anarchies are...", I should have said "people in anarchies would be...

Re your second point, true.. which is why (sadly, I feel) the experiment as to whether a functional anarchy could work will likely never be tried.. The closest I've seen postulated was in Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a harsh mistress"

Surely the best approximation we can hope for is a proper democracy, where each person has one vote, and everything is done by referendum.

Except, most people will not want to be involved in the minutea, so we should instead elect representatives, who hold our beliefs, and vote on our behalf.

Wait, this is starting to sound familiar...

Methinks an anarchy, if it worked and could be got to be stable, would be the ideal form of government: None.

But, the above already illustrates the two problems imho. First, how to get it stable; and second, getting it to work would also involve to have some sort of solidarity between the anarchees - otherwise, it would again be the strongest who had most resources while the weaker people would suffer along.

Anarchies with strong, intelligent and physically & mentally healthy people would be a cool idea, but what about old people, mentally or physically ailing people, generally weak people?

Those would me my counter-arguments in a nutshell.

Cmdr James wrote:

Surely the best approximation we can hope for is a proper democracy, where each person has one vote, and everything is done by referendum.

Except, most people will not want to be involved in the minutea, so we should instead elect representatives, who hold our beliefs, and vote on our behalf.

Wait, this is starting to sound familiar...

Yup.. and then the special interest groups and corporations start wielding too much influence... political parties end up being just opposite faces of the same coin, with neither side having the interests of the people they claim to represent at heart... and we're right back at the mess we have today..

which is basically why I no longer vote.. to me, the choice between being shpxrq over by criminal 'A' or being shpxrq over by criminal 'B' is no choice at all.. I refuse to participate in a rigged game.

So vote for an independant. If enough people actually vote the way they believe, instead of opting out, then change is possible.

Its a critical mass problem, not enough people vote for change -- meaning agents of change are not viable for election, and so voting for them is a waste. Viscious circle. So put your X in the box, and it makes it easier for others to do the same.

From what I've seen of independents, if the unthinkable happened and the independents actually held a majority, the result would be pretty damn close to anarchy.. although the term 'gridlock' also seems apt.. most of 'em have no policy beyond their own pet hobbyhorses.. beyond whatever drum they're beating, they have no clue about what's needed. Choosing between greedy self-interest and incompetence isn't a choice either.. I've yet to see a politician I could feel respect for.. if they're genuine when they begin, a few years in office is enough to make them into just another bottom-feeder..

I dont think the intention is to get an independant government, essentially a hung parliament/broad coalition as this is both chaotic, and unlikely to happen.

The real objective is to use the growth of independants to influence the major parties, who will move towards the popular policies to prevent themselves being eaten away from the sides.

The same is true, at least in the uk, of the green party. Noone expects a green government any time soon, but by stealing votes from the majors the idea is that the main parties will swing greenish to get those votes back.

Cmdr James wrote:

The same is true, at least in the uk, of the green party. Noone expects a green government any time soon, but by stealing votes from the majors the idea is that the main parties will swing greenish to get those votes back.

That's also what I like to believe. Better vote someone who cannot win than not voting at all. However, it was the german greens who brought us into war, and it was also them who created Hartz IV to drop wages for those who still have work (together with SPD who claim to be social *laugh*).

Today is even worse. I've just read that the government is trying a filter program for the internet to protect children from bad content. The filter list contains government critic media, the greens, the pirate party and other "left" parties Recently they did arrest a group of 20 students and reporters at a cafe who tried to talk about planned protests in the next month because they did not get governement allowance to talk about that. For another demonstration, they arrested those who used small flags with the demonstrations slogan, claiming that those would order attacks on the police by giving flag signals. The mainstream media did not bring anything about these incidents and those who did are amongst those blacklisted by the internet filter

To me, that's no democracy at all. Call it Lobbycracy or such...

Screet

Screet wrote:

Cmdr James wrote:

The same is true, at least in the uk, of the green party. Noone expects a green government any time soon, but by stealing votes from the majors the idea is that the main parties will swing greenish to get those votes back.

That's also what I like to believe. Better vote someone who cannot win than not voting at all. However, it was the german greens who brought us into war, and it was also them who created Hartz IV to drop wages for those who still have work (together with SPD who claim to be social *laugh*).

Today is even worse. I've just read that the government is trying a filter program for the internet to protect children from bad content. The filter list contains government critic media, the greens, the pirate party and other "left" parties Recently they did arrest a group of 20 students and reporters at a cafe who tried to talk about planned protests in the next month because they did not get governement allowance to talk about that. For another demonstration, they arrested those who used small flags with the demonstrations slogan, claiming that those would order attacks on the police by giving flag signals. The mainstream media did not bring anything about these incidents and those who did are amongst those blacklisted by the internet filter

To me, that's no democracy at all. Call it Lobbycracy or such...

Screet

Wow - and I thought things were getting bad here!

Cmdr James wrote:

I dont think the intention is to get an independant government, essentially a hung parliament/broad coalition as this is both chaotic, and unlikely to happen.

The real objective is to use the growth of independants to influence the major parties, who will move towards the popular policies to prevent themselves being eaten away from the sides.

The same is true, at least in the uk, of the green party. Noone expects a green government any time soon, but by stealing votes from the majors the idea is that the main parties will swing greenish to get those votes back.

Screet wrote:

Cmdr James wrote:

The same is true, at least in the uk, of the green party. Noone expects a green government any time soon, but by stealing votes from the majors the idea is that the main parties will swing greenish to get those votes back.

That's also what I like to believe. Better vote someone who cannot win than not voting at all. However, it was the german greens who brought us into war, and it was also them who created Hartz IV to drop wages for those who still have work (together with SPD who claim to be social *laugh*).

Today is even worse. I've just read that the government is trying a filter program for the internet to protect children from bad content. The filter list contains government critic media, the greens, the pirate party and other "left" parties Recently they did arrest a group of 20 students and reporters at a cafe who tried to talk about planned protests in the next month because they did not get governement allowance to talk about that. For another demonstration, they arrested those who used small flags with the demonstrations slogan, claiming that those would order attacks on the police by giving flag signals. The mainstream media did not bring anything about these incidents and those who did are amongst those blacklisted by the internet filter

To me, that's no democracy at all. Call it Lobbycracy or such...

Screet

And here we see the core of the problem..

The methods you are talking about, Cmdr James, bring slow change at best in a few (at most) policies of the major powers. At the same time as the voters are being (deliberately) distracted by political dog-and-pony shows, those major powers are busy eroding your rights and freedoms at a much faster rate, rendering any gains ineffectual and probably temporary. Once the Corporate Masters of our governments have consolidated enough powers, you can bet those green anti-profit initiatives will be rolled back. Of course, lip service will be paid to 'being green', but they will be (as we are already seeing) more about appearance than substance. The same applies to any other arena in which we might accomplish meaningful change.

And that is only one small instance of the problem we face... there exist those who regard the last few hundred years as a mistake. They see true democracy as an aberration which needs to be subverted and destroyed before the Ultra Privileged lose their Rightful Place as masters of all... They are doing a damn good job too... every 'democracy' on earth has been reduced to a travesty of what it ought to be...(witness what was once a shining beacon to the world.. the USofA) and there isn't time to bring about gradual change in a system designed from the ground up to resist change with all its might. By the time voting independent might make a real difference, we would be living under a Corporatocracy (disguised as democracy, with elections to make the people think they have a say -actually, that perfectly describes what we have now-) which stifles all dissent and bears more than a passing resemblance to some of the more unpleasant visions of science-fiction.

Do I really think it will come to that? no... but then, I believe we're living in the last days before the collapse of civilisation as we know it. I give it 10-15 years tops.

And no, I am NOT about to go into all that here.. I come here for diversion, distraction from what I see going on under our noses, not to depress myself.. Do your own research if you want to go down that path.. but remember, to paraphrase Helen Reddy, then you will know too much to go back and pretend...


sorry for the rant... won't happen again.

edit to add.. re the internet filter in Germany.. here in Australia, we were the guinea-pigs for that filter.. dissent and discussion censored under the guise of 'protecting the children'. I predicted it would spread to other countries.. didn't think it would happen that fast..