On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 08:36:24PM +0000, Sean Lynch wrote:

On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 6:51 PM Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 09:45:40PM -0300, juan wrote:

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On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:43:12 +0300 Georgi Guninski wrote:

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one another as we so choose. So in Georgi's case here,

FM corporation ~= business ~= economic activity association

And of course, where there is no government, there shall be no "corporations" as created by governments. Any group calling themselves a "corporation" would have a meaning different from the current meaning, thus "FM corporation".

Even without a government, I think an anarchic society will still need institutions to function,

It is certainly natural for humans to associate for mutual benefit.

even if those institutions are entirely voluntary. I can imagine sets of institutions that would allow corporations in a similar sense to how they exist now, i.e. limited liability and some form of "personhood."

'limited liability' means that the owners of the company cannot be personally sued. An anarchic company only exists by those who freely agree to it, and someone wanting to attach an individual (legally, financially, personally) may not have agreed to be part of that company, may vehemently disagree with "the corporate veil" of protection by "statute fiction". It's a different way of thinking - we are so schooled in current 'realities' (real fictions, or shared common delusions) of "Western style democratic fascist government".

The most likely such institution would be some kind of court system where, in order to have access to the court as a means of seeking restitution, you must agree not to go outside it to go after any other participant, and must not have done so before.

Your initial wording is fine on the face, but whilst my "aggrieved self" might be willing to agree to 'court' arbitration, "limited liability fictional entity" may well not even make sense, and yet in the current world we are 'bound' by government statutes giving that real protection to those owners/ directors of that fictional entity.

I see revolutions as a symptom of a broken society. Reform, or evolution, is certainly preferable.

Revolution arises when too few attempt to stand in peaceful (or other) political protests, in personal non-compliance (driver licenses, vehicle rego, paying tax to the war machine, not running off in the army to shoot brown people) and the situation deteriorates to the point that the ideological extremists collectively agree that there is no option but revolution. Unfortunately, revolution is the usual way of things, since the majority are too shit cowardly to rock any boat, even a dinghy cause "gotta go to the footy this weekend", "gotta pay the mortgage/ car loan", "gotta live my useless irrelevant life", when deep down it is truly fear, mostly unacknowledged fear.

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We must always remember it is never the arm chair pundit ("oh I wish our democracy elected representatives actually represented us") crowd who will change the world.

So historically, revolutions seem to be more a devolution than an evolution of the status quo. If you have counter examples, please highlight them now.

The French and English revolutions both resulted, after a while, in better societies than they started in, as far as I can tell. The Haitian revolution ended slavery there. I don't consider the American revolution, on the other hand, to be a counter example, though it clearly inspired the French revolution. Not to say that the French revolution and other reforms of European monarchies wouldn't have happened anyway.

As I've said, by the time the ex-convict Aussies wanted more control from the "Crown", the English monarchy was well and truly on the page - a genuinely peaceful transition (yes, not for the Aboriginies being slaughtered since 100 years prior).

One of the pieces of evidence used against Ross Ulbricht was a post of his in which he stated, "I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force." Whether or not Silk Road was that "simulation", the general statement is exactly what we need to do, in my opinion. Create systems of "law" and "governance" that do not require the use of force.

Although I prefer revolution to evolution, I do not agree that force has no place. Force has different dimensions too - we think superficially about physical and violent force. But consider that our white Western oligarch's use the courts to force us to comply with an endless litany of evil and unfair laws (yes they are backed up by police with guns, but 10,000 people just saying "no" is a challenging number of people to put in jail in a two month time frame - for not paying tax for example).

These systems do not have to be all-encompassing; they can be small and narrow in scope. They just have to make it so people don't feel like they have to resort to government (i.e. force) to achieve their ends.

There is obvious low hanging fruit - eg. legalising all plants and substance ingestion by (naturally experimental and contrarian and rebellious) humans. I heard Portugal became an example of this to a degree, but perhaps the person saying this to me mixed it up with Amsterdam.

Security of property and computer systems is an area that's pretty ripe for non-government solutions.

Sorry, in most cases today, it is government legislation/ statutes/ protectionism which causes the problem. For example, try establishing a minimum cost wireless internet access provision 'FM enterprise' - even Google is having trouble against the telecomms giants, and Google has plenty of money for lawyers. One has to go -really- grass roots to avoid the despotism of government - neighbour to neighbour/ N2N community mesh networks may be possible to do in the face of corporations and governments (who naturally oppose and gang up together). Regarding "private" networking, I have seen no comms protocol research showing that you can achieve anonymity in the face of the global passive/active adversary (GPA), which we know the western "5 eyes" governments and spy agencies are. Longer term, we need our own physical N2N mesh network.

On Wed, 3 Aug 2016 10:51:30 +1000 Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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even if those institutions are entirely voluntary. I can imagine sets of institutions that would allow corporations in a similar sense to how they exist now, i.e. limited liability and some form of "personhood."

'limited liability' means that the owners of the company cannot be personally sued.

Yes. And the idea that a libertarian society or a truly free market is going to copy mercantilistic devices from the 'ancien regime' is unwarranted. I'm not surprised that Sean said that though, since Sean has a rather 'naive' view about current fascist 'institutions' like apple, facebook, uber, the tor project and other jewels from the establishment's crown.

Hi,

Sean Lynch: Google

I thought you were that TapEngage guy :P Wordlife, Spencer

Hi,

Sean Lynch: recruiter pings for product manager

XD Wordlife, Spencer

Whoops, this got buried among other cpunks threads because your mail client apparently supports "list reply" (of which I'm a fan, don't get me wrong), and Inbox apparently isn't smart enough to pop out threads I've replied to if they don't have me in the recipients list. While I've been considering going back to running my own server for some time, I'm afraid I am currently using Gmail via the now deprecated/grandfathered free tier of "Google apps for your domain," which makes me feel like something of a second class citizen because it tends to get various products last, for example it does not work with Google Fi, and you can't set up a Google Play family account. Which seems idiotic since families seem like a pretty major use case for Apps for your Domain... but again, the free tier is deprecated :-/ Of course, I can't complain too much about it; it's already a huge problem in SIlicon Valley that we tend to build solutions that work well for us and far less well for the other 99.999% of the population. But it would be nice if we could figure out how to make something as important as an email address more portable for regular people by making it super easy to have a custom domain that you use for just yourself or your family or whatever. On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 11:07 PM Georgi Guninski wrote:

On Thu, Aug 04, 2016 at 10:15:20PM -0700, Spencer wrote:

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Sean Lynch: Google

Isn't this ironic: google employee not using gmail, some google bashers here use gmail?

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 6:03 PM Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 08:36:24PM +0000, Sean Lynch wrote:

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On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 6:51 PM Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 09:45:40PM -0300, juan wrote:

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On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:43:12 +0300 Georgi Guninski wrote:

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even if those institutions are entirely voluntary. I can imagine sets of institutions that would allow corporations in a similar sense to how they exist now, i.e. limited liability and some form of "personhood."

'limited liability' means that the owners of the company cannot be personally sued.

An anarchic company only exists by those who freely agree to it, and someone wanting to attach an individual (legally, financially, personally) may not have agreed to be part of that company, may vehemently disagree with "the corporate veil" of protection by "statute fiction".

It's a different way of thinking - we are so schooled in current 'realities' (real fictions, or shared common delusions) of "Western style democratic fascist government".

Agreed. I'm just saying that such an arrangement is not inconceivable in an anarchic/voluntary society. And without the state to force it on everyone, assuming no single "court" system comes to dominate and abuse its monopoly position, I doubt it could be nearly as harmful. And even if some court does become a monopoly, since opting out of even a monopoly voluntary court system is far easier than opting out of a state.

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The most likely such institution would be some kind of court system where, in order to have access to the court as a means of seeking restitution, you must agree not to go outside it to go after any other participant, and must not have done so before.

Your initial wording is fine on the face, but whilst my "aggrieved self" might be willing to agree to 'court' arbitration, "limited liability fictional entity" may well not even make sense, and yet in the current world we are 'bound' by government statutes giving that real protection to those owners/ directors of that fictional entity.

Agreed. Though even under the status quo there are situations where corporations lose their limited liability, such as in certain criminal scenarios. Limited liability can only apply in a voluntary society where a transaction has taken place. Third parties can always sue in some court that does not recognize the limited liability, and it may well be that even within the same court system, they decided to drastically limit the scope of limited liability, for example only to situations where a transaction has taken place. Not sure what that would mean to, say, product liability where a third party is injured, though. But unlimited product liability could result in a far smaller number of products. Who'd make a car, for example? Or an airliner? Sure, the airline could require passengers to agree not to sue, but they can't do that for people on the ground. Under the status quo there's blanket indemnification for airlines and aircraft manufacturers. That is probably not the best solution, but I also don't know what is or how one would implement it in a purely voluntary society. Intuitively I think (hope) it must be possible, but I am by no means certain. Or maybe unlimited liability is just no big deal and limited liability has always just been a way for some people to gain advantage over others. Perhaps without a system like the US's that encourages frivolous lawsuits, there would be no need.

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I see revolutions as a symptom of a broken society. Reform, or evolution, is certainly preferable.

Revolution arises when too few attempt to stand in peaceful (or other) political protests, in personal non-compliance (driver licenses, vehicle rego, paying tax to the war machine, not running off in the army to shoot brown people) and the situation deteriorates to the point that the ideological extremists collectively agree that there is no option but revolution.

I think by the time revolution happens, people HAVE done these things, and the government's response has been to crack down rather than reforming. Exactly what is happening in the US right now with police brutality. Perhaps if more people got involved, the government could have been convinced to reform rather than cracking down further, but it is a central tenet of governing that you need to have a reasonably large and productive class that is happy with its modicum of control, i.e. the "middle" class. Keep them happy and protected from the lower class, and you can keep society under control.

Unfortunately, revolution is the usual way of things, since the majority are too shit cowardly to rock any boat, even a dinghy cause "gotta go to the footy this weekend", "gotta pay the mortgage/ car loan", "gotta live my useless irrelevant life", when deep down it is truly fear, mostly unacknowledged fear.

I suppose it depends on how you're counting. Reform happens all the time. Not often reforms the size of what you get from revolutions, but I'd say far more positive change happens through gradual reform than directly from revolution. But perhaps I'm setting the bar too low by qualifying it with "directly."

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We must always remember it is never the arm chair pundit ("oh I wish our democracy elected representatives actually represented us") crowd who will change the world.

So historically, revolutions seem to be more a devolution than an evolution of the status quo. If you have counter examples, please highlight them now.

The French and English revolutions both resulted, after a while, in better societies than they started in, as far as I can tell. The Haitian revolution ended slavery there. I don't consider the American revolution, on the other hand, to be a counter example, though it clearly inspired the French revolution. Not to say that the French revolution and other reforms of European monarchies wouldn't have happened anyway.

As I've said, by the time the ex-convict Aussies wanted more control from the "Crown", the English monarchy was well and truly on the page - a genuinely peaceful transition (yes, not for the Aboriginies being slaughtered since 100 years prior).

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One of the pieces of evidence used against Ross Ulbricht was a post of his in which he stated, "I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force." Whether or not Silk Road was that "simulation", the general statement is exactly what we need to do, in my opinion. Create systems of "law" and "governance" that do not require the use of force.

Although I prefer revolution to evolution, I do not agree that force has no place.

Force has different dimensions too - we think superficially about physical and violent force. But consider that our white Western oligarch's use the courts to force us to comply with an endless litany of evil and unfair laws (yes they are backed up by police with guns, but 10,000 people just saying "no" is a challenging number of people to put in jail in a two month time frame - for not paying tax for example).

"If only enough people would resist". But keeping people from resisting en masse is government's specialty. This is classic prisoners' dilemma. As Mike explains in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, sometimes you have to make things worse before they get better. I.e. convince people to revolt by making it so they are no longer comfortable.

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These systems do not have to be all-encompassing; they can be small and narrow in scope. They just have to make it so people don't feel like they have to resort to government (i.e. force) to achieve their ends.

There is obvious low hanging fruit - eg. legalising all plants and substance ingestion by (naturally experimental and contrarian and rebellious) humans. I heard Portugal became an example of this to a degree, but perhaps the person saying this to me mixed it up with Amsterdam.

I think Uruguay is actually on the forefront of drug legalization. Colorado is ahead of Amsterdam, even, because drugs have never really been legal there. Buying and using is legal, but a bunch of other necessary parts like growing & transporting are not. The authorities just look the other way, but can change their minds at any time and have cracked down in the past.

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Security of property and computer systems is an area that's pretty ripe for non-government solutions.

Sorry, in most cases today, it is government legislation/ statutes/ protectionism which causes the problem.

For example, try establishing a minimum cost wireless internet access provision 'FM enterprise' - even Google is having trouble against the telecomms giants, and Google has plenty of money for lawyers.

Indeed, and even if/when it succeeds, Google will just become another vertically-integrated telecomms giant.

One has to go -really- grass roots to avoid the despotism of government - neighbour to neighbour/ N2N community mesh networks may be possible to do in the face of corporations and governments (who naturally oppose and gang up together).

Regarding "private" networking, I have seen no comms protocol research showing that you can achieve anonymity in the face of the global passive/active adversary (GPA), which we know the western "5 eyes" governments and spy agencies are.

Research can never prove something is secure, only that it's insecure. Low latency onion routing is about as crappy as you can get when it comes to anonymity, just a step above a chain of proxies. I see no reason a high latency mix net couldn't be made sufficiently secure with, say, operators in mutually antagonistic countries.

Longer term, we need our own physical N2N mesh network.

Maybe. Definitely if you assume that government will eventually outlaw all anonymous use of the Internet. Of course, then they could always phrase the legislation in such a way that an N2N mesh network is also covered. Are you forwarding packets from your neighbor to a different neighbor? Well, you're "providing a public communications service" or some such bullshit.

On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 12:34:07AM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:

On 07/29/2016 09:36 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 09:45:40PM -0300, juan wrote:

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On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:43:12 +0300 Georgi Guninski wrote:

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THE QUESTION: The question I think always shall be, is how to transition to an anarchic society, in consideration of existing interests. I.e. how to peacefully transition existing entities/ structure/ interests into an anarchistic/ truly free market reality.

How can one "peacefully" tear the dominant syndicates ruling an entire civilization to pieces?

By creating better alternatives which appeal to individuals, and grow over time into alternative large and dominant syndicates. The great challenge in doing this peacefully is not the existing syndicates per se, but the anti-competitive, protectionist rackets called "statute laws", which are lobbied for and abused by, these existing mega syndicates. In the democratic fascist model we see dominant today around the world, the mega syndicates lobby 'governments' for special privileges - e.g.: - the right to tax humans driving on public roads (please, if anyone wants to debate this, start a separate thread) - the right to compel corporations and owner-operator individual 'business persons' to sink inhuman amounts of fiat dollars into licensed superannuation funds - the right to use the courts to punish anyone trying to compete with your overpriced, poorly serviced telecomms network (wired or wireless) - etc etc And so we see endless protectionist rackets, in every field of human endeavour, all around the world, under the pretense of being "democratic". Oh, and by the way, when I use the term "right" above, I use it in the sense of "predatorial right" (in case it weren't obvious).

Those who own and administer those syndicates have devoted their lives to the acquisition and retention of power, at the expense of others and in competition against a broad spectrum of rivals and adversaries. The modern Democratic State exists for the sole purpose of protecting and advancing the interests of dominant economic syndicates and their owners by any means necessary, with deadly force topping the go-to list.

indeed

A whole art and science of nonviolent strategic conflict addresses methods of applying coercive social and economic measures to modify the behavior of dominant syndicates including their State sponsor/clients. But an existential threat to these syndicates will ultimately result in their application of deadly force, and a response in kind.

at some levels, or in some cases, yes BUT, not in all cases! That is a part of the brainwashing - oh "they" are all so powerful, there's nothing "we" can do without being shot. BOLLOCKS. (I know that's not exactly what you said - point is, we have to bust our programming if we are to have any hope of making collective progress in useful directions.)

Anarchy is not a proposed form of government or social order;

I disagree..

it is an informed critique of governments and social orders.

..political anarchy is much more than a critique - it suggests principles for principled ways for us to interact with one another, regardless of domain of activity.

Or it is a delusional belief system indoctrinated by propaganda. Or it is violent opposition to social order of any kind. Depends who you ask.

Sure. But not one of the definitions you've suggested is particularly useful - add to that list "direct democracy" - perhaps not the best definition, but one I saw once and got an "ahah" moment. Perhaps "opt-in direct democracy" would be a better way to define "political anarchy" so that lay-persons can grok the concept, rather than get caught up in the common meaning of 'anarchy == chaos'.

If you want an anarchistic society, you will need to keep units of sovereign governance small enough that everyone can observe and play an active role in their governance.

And those units, however they each choose to operate, may syndicate as a syndicate of units. And those syndications of units may syndicate ... ... And, it certainly does not have to be a pyramid - whichever unit, at whichever level (individual human, or a greater syndication of some sort), can choose to be part of/ syndicate with, any other unit of their choice, for whatever broad or limited purposes they choose... ... Why limit the concept?

You need to govern that State in a manner that never delegates decision making power; decision making by consensus assures that very few non-emergency decisions will be made at all; thus, State interference in private affairs will be very limited.

I'm not quite understanding what you're saying here. It sounds like you are speaking from a "we need a traditional 'democratic state'" concept, just without realising it... I could agree that our tendency to not only speak, but to think in our 'traditional western schooled concepts' is a hard habit to break :)

In short, you need to model your State as Bands, Tribes and Nations governed by open Councils acting on consensus only.

Watch my lips carefully, as I'm only going to do this once: I don't need to model or otherwise do shit ! Got it? It's a simple concept. In fact, it is foundational to political anarchy theory, from my very limited understanding.

And you need to site it on a world where no other kind of State exists or can arise, because hierarchal governance in a caste system includes efficiencies that will enable other States to take yours over shortly after they see advantages in doing so. At best your Anarchistic State may survive by imitating the organizational methods of antagonistic States - - but then, you will no longer have an Anarchistic State.

Ok, statement of a potential problem clarifies your point. It is good to clarify potential problems. But, step 1 is to: - clear our heads of our existing schooling/ concepts/ think - refrain (!!) from putting words in the mouths of another - regrain from telling others what they 'need' to do Yes, we Westerners are so very very schooled, from childhood by our parents, and onwards, and so breaking these old communication patterns won't be easy. But we have to start.... There are too many assumptions in your above stated problem, and so at the moment I suggest tidying up our languaging (I'm no exception either) so that when we state a perceived problem, we at least do so using terms concepts and assumptions we can agree on.

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I am implying evolution. Revolution - we see how well that went after the fall of the Tzar, to the various CIA instigated revolutionary coups from Lybia to Syria, Ukraine to Yugoslavia, none of which resulted in nor were intended to result in an actualisation of an anarchistic society.

The problem with revolution, is that it is ideological extremists who give enough of a shit to pick up a gun and start shooting (for example) police, citizens and government officials, and the outcome is that the ideological extremists end up holding the seats of power and institute something -other- than anarchism. Such extremists as our world's history have seen, tend to sociopathy, rather than the benevolent, side of dictatorship.

The problem with "revolution" is semantic: We are taught that a revolution is an armed conflict that replaces one gang of rulers with another gang of rulers, who may or may not bring plans for a new social and economic structure with them.

It is much more than semantic - history shows us many examples of "bloody revolution", with vast millions of humans ending up dead in the process of "transition".

My favorite definition of "revolution" equates it to "the world turned upside down."

We are taught that revolutions initiate radical changes in social and economic systems, but I maintain that revolutions are the end result of radical changes in social and economic behavior. We are taught that Great Leaders with Great Ideas change the world, but I maintain that changes in technology, population and environmental conditions change the world: Those Great Leaders with their Great Ideas show up /after/ irreversible changes in social and economic life have already taken place. They represent new dominant syndicates, seeking to displace institutions of governance created by and for the exclusive benefit of earlier dominant syndicates. Their role is to modify the institutions of State power to codify, control and exploit the new order, for the sole benefit of the new dominant syndicates.

According to this model, the "shooting war" phase of a real revolution serves the sole purpose of removing dead-end resistance to rule by new dominant syndicates that have already eclipsed the power of previously dominant syndicates.

A new syndicate does not start out "dominant". I guess you mean "new, soon to be dominant syndicate". And that's why the banks (the oligarchs) have funded all sides of every war in history - very profitable business, war. So before going to war, ask yourself if you are selling your soul to the existing syndicates...

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We must always remember it is never the arm chair pundit ("oh I wish our democracy elected representatives actually represented us") crowd who will change the world.

So historically, revolutions seem to be more a devolution than an evolution of the status quo. If you have counter examples, please highlight them now.

The French and American Revolutions removed the institutions of Monarchy to make way for a New World Order where insurgent Mercantile and Industrialist factions share power with the older "landed" Aristocracy. That New World Order developed under Monarchy; its revolutions only restructured political power to reflect a new arrangement of economic powers already in place, and establish the new dominant syndicates as its "legitimate" rulers.

I am consistently reacting to what I am hearing from you as a fatalism, that "new syndicates" are already dominant before they even topple the existing syndicate, does not make sense. And I don't think in history it has generally been black and white (new vs old syndicate) either - the banks (old syndicates) funding both sides is the kind of 'armed revolution' we usually see in history... My reaction is because you seem to deny (by assumption in the words you choose) these possibilities, for just some examples: - a new syndicate can start small, probably --should-- start small! - a new syndicate can be organically built. - a new syndicate might be just two women starting a computer repair "shop" - a new small syndicate, if it genuinely represents an improvement over the status quo (Uber), ought naturally grow into a large syndicate

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So it is that I hold far greater hope for a better/ anarchistic/ direct democracy type of future, via the pathway of evolution, and not revolution.

No evolution, no revolution. Unless by "revolution" one means overthrowing the State to replace it with a new State administering the same social and economic systems the old State evolved to control and exploit. In this case, revolutionaries are those who seek power for its own sake through violent means; that is not likely to end well.

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And so it is also that we owe it to our future generations to consider pathways to peaceful transition of existing interests, into that better future.

The real future includes the collapse of industrial economies, accelerated looting of under-defended territories, and a major human population crash. This is the picture presented by current and historical geophysical data. Any plan or strategy that does not work in this context does not work.

Catering for likely contingencies is sensible. I'm pretty sure the USD is gonna go down hard, and then the existing oligarchs will go into looting overdrive - those who've positioned themselves to be able to, of course. Such is the sad state of human affairs we usually see.

Absent a paradigm shift that replaces "progress" with "disaster mitigation, management and recovery," application of political theory and practice can only produce worse outcomes, not better ones.

It is all very well to start at the end goal, but not at a fatalistic "guaranteed" bad outcome - if that's all you envision, either get another vision, or start at the other end of the scale (how we can usefully form small syndicates, from 2 humans upwards, to work towards a possible better future). I will -not- accept your fatalism and your presumed horrific outcomes. I will -not- accept that there are no pathways to productively and usefully evolve towards political anarchy in broad action.

My proposed solution is radical decentralization of industry and agriculture; adaptation of "low technology" not dependent on centralized heavy industry to replace "high technology" where and as it has real survival value; moving as many people as far away from population centers as possible; and distributing field tested strategies and technologies for the above as widely as possible while the networks and economies to do so are still up and running.

Sounds great. Sounds grand. Sounds like there are possibilities for action by individuals and small syndicates that could arise from this viewpoint. I think this could be useful.

Large scale industrial processes that systematically destroy the essential survival resources of future generations have to be halted as soon as possible. Hydraulic fracturing to harvest petrochemicals permanently destroys water tables. It is now decades too late to "stop" global warming, but not too late to limit the rate of onset, severity, and duration of large scale climactic disruptions on the way to a "new normal." Genetically engineered 'food' crops destroy topsoil ecologies, poison water supplies and threaten the genetic integrity of plant species necessary to large scale human survival. The longer these and other grossly destructive industrial activities continue, the lower the resulting long term carrying capacity for human population in affected regions.

Sure, ACK. "We" the human race, need to, must do better.

Preparation for and mitigation of the "end of the world as we know it" provides more than a lifetime of challenging, satisfying, useful work.

:)

Any real progress in these areas will produce a better future, sooner, for more people.

Ready? Go!

:o)

ACK. Great chatting :)

On Wed, 3 Aug 2016 14:16:01 +0300 Georgi Guninski wrote:

Dude, your main critical error is that you consider people "honest actors" or in other words "rational".

IIRC I trolled juan about this in another thread.

I would point out that regardless of people being good or bad, the argument against government stands. If people are good you don't need government. And if people are bad, then having a government that's going to be composed of bad people is a pretty dumb idea.

People (AKA sheeple) are just meat to the oligarchs that will survive the next revolution.

That has happened in the past, yes, but it doesn't need to be always so. But you are entitled to your pessimistic, or, I guess you could say realistic views... =P

They are easy to manipulate, eating the most delicious shit the election offers them.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 2:41 AM Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 12:34:07AM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:

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On 07/29/2016 09:36 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

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On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 09:45:40PM -0300, juan wrote:

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On Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:43:12 +0300 Georgi Guninski wrote:

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THE QUESTION: The question I think always shall be, is how to transition to an anarchic society, in consideration of existing interests. I.e. how to peacefully transition existing entities/ structure/ interests into an anarchistic/ truly free market reality.

How can one "peacefully" tear the dominant syndicates ruling an entire civilization to pieces?

By creating better alternatives which appeal to individuals, and grow over time into alternative large and dominant syndicates.

I haven't yet been able to convince myself that "large and dominant syndicates" are even necessary. Do we really need large scale coordination separated into different cliques like that, or is it possible to have a single large network (in the abstract sense) of distributed transactions? If transaction costs get close enough to zero, the optimal firm size goes to one. So the question becomes how much we can reduce transaction costs.

The great challenge in doing this peacefully is not the existing syndicates per se, but the anti-competitive, protectionist rackets called "statute laws", which are lobbied for and abused by, these existing mega syndicates.

This feels right to me. Which is to say I think it's right but don't know enough to make a good argument for it.

In the democratic fascist model we see dominant today around the world, the mega syndicates lobby 'governments' for special privileges - e.g.: - the right to tax humans driving on public roads (please, if anyone wants to debate this, start a separate thread)

I don't know if I understand the point well enough to debate it, but I'm interested to know what your definition of "public" is. Does such a thing exist with respect to government? Aren't they really government roads? Please forgive me if that's the exact kind of discussion you want to go onto another thread.

- the right to compel corporations and owner-operator individual 'business persons' to sink inhuman amounts of fiat dollars into licensed superannuation funds

Yes. Which will be the trigger for the next financial crisis or the one after (since I think real estate is still fucked).

- the right to use the courts to punish anyone trying to compete with your overpriced, poorly serviced telecomms network (wired or wireless)

Or just lobby the government to require the use of your products.

- etc etc

And so we see endless protectionist rackets, in every field of human endeavour, all around the world, under the pretense of being "democratic".

Yes.

Oh, and by the way, when I use the term "right" above, I use it in the sense of "predatorial right" (in case it weren't obvious).

Obvious to me, perhaps not some others.

Those who own and administer those syndicates

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have devoted their lives to the acquisition and retention of power, at the expense of others and in competition against a broad spectrum of rivals and adversaries. The modern Democratic State exists for the sole purpose of protecting and advancing the interests of dominant economic syndicates and their owners by any means necessary, with deadly force topping the go-to list.

indeed

I've been slowly slogging my way through Robert K. Massie's _Dreadnought_, and it struck me how openly the government of the British Empire considered themselves primarily protectors of the commercial interests of British companies. I suspect future historians will think us terribly naive to think that capitalism and mercantilism are different things. Capitalism, for the most part, seems to be just mercantilism with less transparency and the more competition for the government's favor. "Competition" being competition to see who can give the most political donations to the right people, etc.

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A whole art and science of nonviolent strategic conflict addresses methods of applying coercive social and economic measures to modify the behavior of dominant syndicates including their State sponsor/clients. But an existential threat to these syndicates will ultimately result in their application of deadly force, and a response in kind.

at some levels, or in some cases, yes

BUT, not in all cases!

That is a part of the brainwashing - oh "they" are all so powerful, there's nothing "we" can do without being shot.

BOLLOCKS.

(I know that's not exactly what you said - point is, we have to bust our programming if we are to have any hope of making collective progress in useful directions.)

I think most of the time it's not even fear of being shot, though. It's fear of losing privileges. Anyone can be blackballed in any industry at any time. Just associate them with kiddie porn or name them as a "person of interest" in some investigation.

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Anarchy is not a proposed form of government or social order;

I disagree..

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it is an informed critique of governments and social orders.

..political anarchy is much more than a critique - it suggests principles for principled ways for us to interact with one another, regardless of domain of activity.

I think it's both, really. You qualify it with "political" here, and I think that's right. Unfortunately it's a pretty "charged" term, though, so it will only convey your meaning in particular circles.

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Or it is a delusional belief system indoctrinated by propaganda. Or it is violent opposition to social order of any kind. Depends who you ask.

Sure. But not one of the definitions you've suggested is particularly useful - add to that list "direct democracy" - perhaps not the best definition, but one I saw once and got an "ahah" moment.

I haven't yet been able to figure out how much of a collectivist or individualist you are, but "democracy" strikes me as a fairly collectivist term. It's rule by the people over all the other people. I prefer rule of oneself by oneself. To the extent possible, at least. Perhaps "opt-in direct democracy" would be a better way to define

"political anarchy" so that lay-persons can grok the concept, rather than get caught up in the common meaning of 'anarchy == chaos'.

I'm a fan of "polycentric order" or "polycentric law" myself. Though that may assume certain factors that you don't think are warranted.

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If you want an anarchistic society, you will need to keep units of sovereign governance small enough that everyone can observe and play an active role in their governance.

And those units, however they each choose to operate, may syndicate as a syndicate of units.

And those syndications of units may syndicate ...

How about families or even just individuals? ...

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In short, you need to model your State as Bands, Tribes and Nations governed by open Councils acting on consensus only.

Watch my lips carefully, as I'm only going to do this once:

I

don't

need

to model or otherwise do

shit

!

Got it?

It's a simple concept. In fact, it is foundational to political anarchy theory, from my very limited understanding.

The temptation to design is a very hard one to avoid. It took me a long time to break myself of it. In fact, it was an individualist anarchist who finally broke me of the habit.

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And you need to site it on a world where no other kind of State exists or can arise, because hierarchal governance in a caste system includes efficiencies that will enable other States to take yours over shortly after they see advantages in doing so. At best your Anarchistic State may survive by imitating the organizational methods of antagonistic States - - but then, you will no longer have an Anarchistic State.

Despite probably being the "wrong" kind of anarchist according to many here, Hans-Hermann Hoppe does a pretty good job of obliterating the notion that voluntary societies cannot defend themselves from traditional nation-states in _The Myth of National Defense_. In any case, though, Zen (and I) expect such a society to evolve alongside and among traditional nation-states, so it has to be able to protect itself or it could not exist in the first place. So there's no need to "site" the society anywhere. If we do get access to our own planet, though, it might help things along a bit. Of course, then you run into the problem that all intentional/constructed communities run into, which is that they have an extremely low probability of success. This is one of the reasons I've mostly gotten over the idea of seasteading as the answer to our problems. Of course, while an *individual* seastead might have very low probability of success, tens of thousands might produce a couple of interesting ideas. ...

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The problem with "revolution" is semantic: We are taught that a revolution is an armed conflict that replaces one gang of rulers with another gang of rulers, who may or may not bring plans for a new social and economic structure with them.

It is much more than semantic - history shows us many examples of "bloody revolution", with vast millions of humans ending up dead in the process of "transition".

And a "transition" or "emergency" government that's really just a dictatorship and lasts a very long time.

My favorite definition of "revolution" equates it to "the world turned

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upside down."

And often this is "literally" true - the old servants become the masters and the masters become worm food. And then the old servants are just as brutal of masters, if not moreso, than their old masters. Especially if the new masters really did comes from the lowest echelons of society where they have no experience at all with leadership. At least internal coups don't tend to have this problem quite so badly. But they also don't tend to change much.

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We are taught that revolutions initiate radical changes in social and economic systems, but I maintain that revolutions are the end result of radical changes in social and economic behavior. We are taught that Great Leaders with Great Ideas change the world, but I maintain that changes in technology, population and environmental conditions change the world: Those Great Leaders with their Great Ideas show up /after/ irreversible changes in social and economic life have already taken place. They represent new dominant syndicates, seeking to displace institutions of governance created by and for the exclusive benefit of earlier dominant syndicates. Their role is to modify the institutions of State power to codify, control and exploit the new order, for the sole benefit of the new dominant syndicates.

According to this model, the "shooting war" phase of a real revolution serves the sole purpose of removing dead-end resistance to rule by new dominant syndicates that have already eclipsed the power of previously dominant syndicates.

A new syndicate does not start out "dominant". I guess you mean "new, soon to be dominant syndicate".

And that's why the banks (the oligarchs) have funded all sides of every war in history - very profitable business, war.

So before going to war, ask yourself if you are selling your soul to the existing syndicates...

Personally, I don't plan to go to war at all, ever, if I can avoid it. And by "avoiding" I mean "can physically escape with my loved ones," not "I've tried everything else to effect change and now must take up arms." I care enough about my home to kill an individual or small band who try to invade it, and even to band together with my neighborhood to do so, but not to go to war. I'm not sure I could tell you what the crossover would be in terms of level of organization, but I'd guess it's at the level where we need to resort to any kind of abstraction.

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We must always remember it is never the arm chair pundit ("oh I wish our democracy elected representatives actually represented us") crowd who will change the world.

So historically, revolutions seem to be more a devolution than an evolution of the status quo. If you have counter examples, please highlight them now.

The French and American Revolutions removed the institutions of Monarchy to make way for a New World Order where insurgent Mercantile and Industrialist factions share power with the older "landed" Aristocracy. That New World Order developed under Monarchy; its revolutions only restructured political power to reflect a new arrangement of economic powers already in place, and establish the new dominant syndicates as its "legitimate" rulers.

I am consistently reacting to what I am hearing from you as a fatalism, that "new syndicates" are already dominant before they even topple the existing syndicate, does not make sense.

They are not on the bottom, though. They are the bourgeoisie. They typically form alliances with those on the bottom by promising to make their situation better, though never better than their own. Go with us to war and we'll share the spoils (unequally) with you.

And I don't think in history it has generally been black and white (new vs old syndicate) either - the banks (old syndicates) funding both sides is the kind of 'armed revolution' we usually see in history...

My reaction is because you seem to deny (by assumption in the words you choose) these possibilities, for just some examples: - a new syndicate can start small, probably --should-- start small! - a new syndicate can be organically built. - a new syndicate might be just two women starting a computer repair "shop" - a new small syndicate, if it genuinely represents an improvement over the status quo (Uber), ought naturally grow into a large syndicate

Historically, it's been very hard for small syndicates to grow into large ones without winning favor from the existing players. Today we have Ubers that can grow without having a revolution. It used to be much harder.

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So it is that I hold far greater hope for a better/ anarchistic/ direct democracy type of future, via the pathway of evolution, and not revolution.

No evolution, no revolution. Unless by "revolution" one means overthrowing the State to replace it with a new State administering the same social and economic systems the old State evolved to control and exploit. In this case, revolutionaries are those who seek power for its own sake through violent means; that is not likely to end well.

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And so it is also that we owe it to our future generations to consider pathways to peaceful transition of existing interests, into that better future.

The real future includes the collapse of industrial economies, accelerated looting of under-defended territories, and a major human population crash. This is the picture presented by current and historical geophysical data. Any plan or strategy that does not work in this context does not work.

Catering for likely contingencies is sensible.

I don't consider this a likely contingency. The trend has been toward LESS violence, and there is no particular reason to believe that there's a simple inverse relationship between income and fertility rate. Doesn't mean I am not hedging against such a possibility, but I'm certainly not betting on it, just making it more likely my family and I could survive it if it happens.

I'm pretty sure the USD is gonna go down hard, and then the existing oligarchs will go into looting overdrive - those who've positioned themselves to be able to, of course. Such is the sad state of human affairs we usually see.

The economies of developed countries are too intertwined for USD to "go down hard" without taking a lot of other economies with it. What do you think will happen to the Chinese economy if, for example, the US suddenly stops buying their products? They'd have a bunch of saved dollars to spend, and the best way to spend them would be on American goods. More likely it would be gradual and we'd see a shift in the US back toward manufacturing. The US government actually *wants* the dollar to decline in value. It makes US products more competitive both domestically and abroad. It causes inflation and thus reduces real incomes and debt. It would put a bunch of people back to work. Sure, skyrocketing oil prices would hurt the US economy, but look how much US investment there is in electric cars, solar, etc. And nobody in the US is going to be buying Chinese solar panels when they're no longer cheap. They'll be buying American ones.

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Absent a paradigm shift that replaces "progress" with "disaster mitigation, management and recovery," application of political theory and practice can only produce worse outcomes, not better ones.

It is all very well to start at the end goal, but not at a fatalistic "guaranteed" bad outcome - if that's all you envision, either get another vision, or start at the other end of the scale (how we can usefully form small syndicates, from 2 humans upwards, to work towards a possible better future).

I will -not- accept your fatalism and your presumed horrific outcomes.

Yeah, I don't see history as a series of disasters either. Just paradigm shifts. But I guess I'm fundamentally a "progressive" and not a neoreactionary. But then again, I don't see how anyone who understands evolution can think it can't apply to human knowledge & culture as much as it does to genomes. Unless they're predisposed to believing there's nothing they can do anyway, because they would otherwise feel back about NOT doing anything. Most of us do seek meaning, after all, and it can be hard to accept that your life thus far has had none. Or maybe I'm just more sanguine about it because I have my backup strategy: kids. And I want to believe they're not destined to live in a world that's shittier than the one I grew up in.

I will -not- accept that there are no pathways to productively and usefully evolve towards political anarchy in broad action.

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My proposed solution is radical decentralization of industry and agriculture; adaptation of "low technology" not dependent on centralized heavy industry to replace "high technology" where and as it has real survival value; moving as many people as far away from population centers as possible; and distributing field tested strategies and technologies for the above as widely as possible while the networks and economies to do so are still up and running.

Sounds great.

Sounds grand.

Sounds like there are possibilities for action by individuals and small syndicates that could arise from this viewpoint. I think this could be useful.

I'm not opposed to "radical decentralization of industry and agriculture," provided there is not a significant reduction in productivity, which with improvements in technology there doesn't have to be, especially when you account for the increase in resilience & the reduction in the (presently hidden/subsidized) cost of transporting food/goods over long distances. I suspect this is the direction technology is already leading us, though. Take steel mills as an example: they reached peak scale in the 1950s or so and then got outcompeted by smaller, more flexible mini-mills with smaller machines with less up-front investment. Farming equipment is getting smaller and smaller, and I suspect a lot of the current scale of farming is a result of artificial barriers to competition, *not* the technology or genuine economies of scale. Get rid of those barriers, and the scale will naturally fall as smaller, more flexible firms and individuals jump into the market.

Large scale industrial processes that systematically destroy the

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essential survival resources of future generations have to be halted as soon as possible. Hydraulic fracturing to harvest petrochemicals permanently destroys water tables. It is now decades too late to "stop" global warming, but not too late to limit the rate of onset, severity, and duration of large scale climactic disruptions on the way to a "new normal." Genetically engineered 'food' crops destroy topsoil ecologies, poison water supplies and threaten the genetic integrity of plant species necessary to large scale human survival. The longer these and other grossly destructive industrial activities continue, the lower the resulting long term carrying capacity for human population in affected regions.

Sure, ACK. "We" the human race, need to, must do better.

I think the only thing I'd add here is that it's important not to lump all genetic modifications together. While some of them may be "gratuitous" and dangerous, others may turn out to be vital, like salt tolerant crops, more nutritious grain varieties, etc. I suspect patent reform would go a long way toward reducing the problems with genetic modification.

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Preparation for and mitigation of the "end of the world as we know it" provides more than a lifetime of challenging, satisfying, useful work.

:)

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Any real progress in these areas will produce a better future, sooner, for more people.

Ready? Go!

:o)

I would submit that progress toward a more voluntary society would ALSO produce greater resiliency. How do you propose to convince a large fraction of the population to move away from cities, farm, and make their own stuff? How do you propose to get them to stop using computers, or to decentralize the manufacture of computers? I'm not saying this is not doable. In fact, I think it IS doable, but it's going to take the development of new technologies. I'd love a chip fab that I could own as an individual or in a partnership with a few friends. I'd love a robot gardener that could turn my back yard into a farm without my needing to spend a significant fraction of my time doing it (which is also known as "subsistence.") And without a global market for food, how do you propose we deal with local disasters? Shall we force societies to rely on charity in cases where under the present system they would have just increased their imports slightly? "Eat local" doesn't work when there's a "local" drought.

Hi,

juan: Mercantilism

Is trade. You thought merchant, you XD Wordlife, Spencer

Hi,

Sean Lynch: [corporation]*

1. formed into one body 2. a protruding pot belly *separate from a legal definition Wordlife, Spencer