Trying to Untangle Anarchist Attacks On Scientists 333
bricko writes with an analysis at New Scientist of recent violence by self-described anarchists against scientists or scientific establishments, including the non-fatal shooting in Genoa in May of the head of a nuclear energy company. That attack "was the latest in a series of alleged anarchist attacks on scientists and engineers, including the attempted bombing of nanotechnology labs in Switzerland and Mexico. This wave of politically motivated violence has raised the question: why do anarchists hate science? Beyond the unsubtle threat of brute force, there are deeper issues that merit attention." The "hate science" line is just a line; the author is under no illusion that there is a single conspiracy, or that all who claim the "anarchist" mantle have identical (or even similar) views of science. "Despite the recent attacks and propaganda, anarchists actually have a complex relationship with science and technology. Some leading figures from anarchist history were scientists, notably Russian biologist Peter Kropotkin. Many hacktivists are anarchists who embrace technology; fiction authors sometimes look toward a future 'technotopia' based on anarchist ideals."
Maybe it's not science they hate (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the thing they hate isn't science, but corporatism. That would seem more in character than some general "hate science" rationale.The Genoa shooting was of the head of an energy company, not a scientist. Even nonprofit research labs are often funded and influenced by powerful corporations. Corporate control of science gives corporations a great deal more power, both directly and indirectly, than many other areas of interest.
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This would make more sense. It's still just a bunch of morons giving a bad name to anarchism. Proclaiming belief in anarchism and killing people just proves everyone's point that anarchy won't work. The peaceful anarchists, who are subversive through means of civil disobedience and the like, are the ones that actually act out what they preach in a realistic fashion. Most of these "anarchists" or more just obsessed with chaos, which is self-defeating anarchism and ridiculous.
I would consider myself an anarch
Re:Maybe it's not science they hate (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say it's even simpler than that. People hate things they fear or don't understand, and science is definitely one of them. A corporation engaged in scientific research just provides a convenient aggregated target. The difference is that an anarchist is more likely to act on his or her fear and ignorance than your typical man on the street.
Re:Maybe it's not science they hate (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say it's even simpler than that. People hate things they fear or don't understand, and science is definitely one of them. A corporation engaged in scientific research just provides a convenient aggregated target. The difference is that an anarchist is more likely to act on his or her fear and ignorance than your typical man on the street.
I'd say it's even simpler than that. It's not a fear of all science they don't understand, but a fear of nuclear research and operations.
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Perhaps the thing they hate isn't science, but corporatism. That would seem more in character than some general "hate science" rationale.The Genoa shooting was of the head of an energy company, not a scientist. Even nonprofit research labs are often funded and influenced by powerful corporations. Corporate control of science gives corporations a great deal more power, both directly and indirectly, than many other areas of interest.
This.
They don't hate/fear science itself, but rather the way that said science will be implemented by the fascists who run the world.
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And let's not forget government control of science. If a "scientist" isn't employed by a corporation, they are probably funded by the government either directly or indirectly. Even private colleges tend to run on government research grants and subsidies. There are very few Rube Goldbergs [wikipedia.org] out there anymore; doing independent research and then selling the result.
Cheers,
Dave
Re:Maybe it's not science they hate (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Think GMO foods - and most of the anger towards it goes towards basically one company - Montsanto. Especially when it affects something that's basically a necessity, people get really emotional about it. Montsanto basically hasn't helped their case either with their onerous licensing terms that you don't have to sign to be affected by.
It's not anti-science, it's anti-corporation, and science just happens to be in the way because corporations stir up feelings of doing it purely to make a profit off people. And it stirs up such strong emotions because the corporations are seen as uncaring profit machines (rightly or wrongly, that's a different debate) hell-bent on turning people into slaves dependent on everything from food to luxuries.
Enough so it's impossible to have a truly honest debate about such topics like GMO food, climate change, oil, etc. People are cynical - the future promised by science and technology has instead become a dystopia - they're working harder and longer for less pay which seems to be caused by all the scientific and technological progress.
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If these people are going out and killing people... There isn't much of a "Rationale". They got to an age where they found life isn't as nice as it should be, so they want to kill the people who they think are making life less nice. Not realizing they are doing more to make their lives and others much less nice in the process.
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Stockholm Syndrome: (Score:2, Troll)
TFA talks about establishing: "anarchist science" to make science conform more to what the anarchists can identify with.
This sounds like having the scientific community embrace "creation science" in order to conform more to what the creationists can identify with.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anarchists (Score:5, Insightful)
Could be that 'anarchist' is just one label that stupid, uneducated, violent people who are nonetheless bright enough to want to label themselves as being something better than 'garden variety scumbag'?
It could be that stupid, uneducated, and educated people label political radicals they don't like as anarchists.
Re:Anarchists (Score:4, Interesting)
I see where you're coming from, but you've not met many anarchists. We're doctors, lawyers, teachers, parents, and every other group you can think of. We count among our number great thinkers and speakers and writers. You may have heard of Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Noam Chomsky. All are anarchists of one stripe or another, although Thoreau never used the term for himself -- it was quite a while before Pierre Joseph Proudhon took the insult "anarchist" and began wearing it as a badge of honor, in the same way that civil rights pioneers claimed the term "black," which had been treated like a slur for many years prior.
The worst thing about anarchism is that through various avenues, it has acquired an aura of glamor and danger that attracts young people who don't know anything about it, but think it sounds cool. They spend a few years calling themselves "anarchists" before discarding their half-baked notions of what anarchy is, and then I inevitably get stuck talking to their smug, brainless adult counterparts who casually dismiss me and the centuries of thought behind my philosophy with a sneering "I used to be an anarchist, too. Then I grew up!" (They outgrow the anarchy, but not the attachment to unformed opinions and a vague feeling that they ought to be right about things without having to think them through or discuss them with anyone.)
These folks also color the general public's perception of anarchism, and hide us (the actual anarchists) behind a smokescreen of dumb kids who put the circle-A on their denim jacket because they think it'll get them that girl they're interested in, and our ideas get shut out without a fair hearing.
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And what exactly has government done about the richest .1% of the population taking the wealth of the rest of the country?
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"wealth" is not a zero sum game. It can be created. There are many ways wealth can be created or accumulated that are both ethical and legal. The government does attempt to stop theft, fraud, extortion, and other methods that are illegal. What legal means of acquiring wealth would you like them to stop?
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The government does attempt to stop theft, fraud, extortion, and other methods that are illegal.
Only when it gets caught.
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The government does attempt to stop theft, fraud, extortion, and other methods that are illegal
When can I expect indictments against Lloyd Blankfein, John Corzine, Jamie Dimon, Angelo Mozilo, etc?
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> Can I get some of that?
Buy some JPM stock if you want a piece of the action.
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How so? The earnings seem to go exclusively to executive's bonus. Stockholders get barely enough to justify financing them in good times, and lose eerything in bad times.
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Look up the properties of good money, you'll learn something. Being able to eat your currency is a terrible idea.
The past 7,000 years of history has something to say about your objection. Even if it were somehow wrong, the rules are the rules until they're changed. If a government doesn't follow its own rules, it's just lawlessness with fancy buildings.
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And what exactly has government done about the richest .1% of the population taking the wealth of the rest of the country?
Concentrated the wealth to create more power for themselves and the oligarchs (reciprocally), exactly as Hamilton had designed it to do.
Marking 'works as intended' (faerie tales they tell children about it, notwithstanding).
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Re:Anarchists (Score:4, Insightful)
Least stable (Score:4, Insightful)
Anarchy is the least stable form of government. As soon as one person says "Hey, let's...(x,y.z)" and some others say "OK", it's broken; there is now a leader and followers.
Re:Least stable (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that our own evolution has programmed us to be followers. We are behaviorally predisposed to follow a charismatic leader, because doing so provided enormous survival advantages for the tribe (if not necessarily for individual members) in human pre-history.
Anarchists have always struck me as a bunch of frustrated closet leaders who are all operating under the implicit assumption that things will be run their way one day. The only thing that unites them is their desire to tear down the existing power structure. If they ever succeeded, they would immediately turn on each other.
Re:Least stable (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention the fact that our own evolution has programmed us to be followers. We are behaviorally predisposed to follow a charismatic leader, because doing so provided enormous survival advantages for the tribe (if not necessarily for individual members) in human pre-history.
Evolution has also permitted us to pummel our charismatic leader to death when he abuses his position or leads us to ruin. Now, when power is abused, you can do nothing. You are no longer following a charismatic leader. You're following a master. You're an unwilling servant...a slave.
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Anarchists have always struck me as a bunch of frustrated closet leaders who are all operating under the implicit assumption that things will be run their way one day. The only thing that unites them is their desire to tear down the existing power structure. If they ever succeeded, they would immediately turn on each other.
You're making the logical error that all Anarchists have the same political philosophy.
What you write may well be true of Bakunanites, but wouldn't hold up for Rothbardians. Understandin
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Similar to libertarians, I think they all imagine that if not for the awful government holding them back they'd each become billionaires and live like dystopian sci-fi villains (minus the end where they are defeated).
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Anarchy is the least stable form of government. As soon as one person says "Hey, let's...(x,y.z)" and some others say "OK", it's broken; there is now a leader and followers.
It's not a government until some others are forced to participate. People work together better when there is consensus instead of coercion. Anarchism is simply this observation writ large. Nothing about this prohibits organization or leadership.
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I don't know where people come up with these kinds of claims. Anarchy isn't an opposition to organization (in fact anarcho-communists are all about organization). Depending on the form of anarchism it's about the opposition of violence and coercion or hierarchy all together.
Those in the former group oppose the state (what is commonly referred to as the government) because it is necessarily violent. Everything it does is backed by the threat or actuality of violence. For example, failing to pay your taxes wi
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It's a government as soon as the organization asserts control over others.
Wrong (Score:2)
Nearly all apes are perfectly capable of conspiring against each other. Even the ones taht don't walk upright.
Not Anarchists (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they're Luddites, not anarchists. They call themselves anarchists because it sounds cooler and they probably don't know what a Luddite is.
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Do you really know who the Luddites actually were and what they wanted? According to the fact that almost everyone here seems to believe that "anarchists hate science" I have my doubts...
Hint: the answer is not just "they hated machines"....
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Exactly and there's nothing political about their actions either. From their point of view it's as practical as destroying an enemy weapons designer.
Anarchy is a conspiracy... (Score:4, Funny)
So... since fiction is always true, I contend that anarchy is probably just a bunch of people who are trying to infiltrate anarchy.
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Man, I loved Deus Ex.
Anarchists don't hate science (Score:2)
These illiterate fools just don't know what anarchist means.
Science brings order into chaos (Score:2)
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Anarchists like order just as much as anyone. We only recognize that order enforced by violence is no order at all.
Jacques Ellul - La technique (1960) (Score:2)
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Welcome to the era of techno-economical enslavement.
Working for a paycheck and having technology everywhere is not the same as being enslaved.
It's a meme to say "X is slavery", but that really diminishes the plight of real slaves, especially the ones who actually are slaves today.
"The "hate science" line is just a line..." (Score:2)
And yet he uses it, adding the myth that all anarchists hate science to the myth that all anarchists advocate violence.
"Why are are journalists jerks?" Don't be offended: I am under no illusion that all journalists are jerks. It's just a line.
Its just a cover claim... (Score:2)
for governments killing off scientist who are solving real world problems, so governments can continue fabricating their own dictatorships technology is undermining.
Or that's one facet of application of the abstract word/term anarchist. For others see MSM
Key phrase "self described" (Score:2)
These people don't know what Anarchy really means, and they're just using it as cover for their own ends.
If they would just describe themselves as Republican, they'd be a lot more accurate.
Think of all the grief we hackers have taken over the past 30 years because of self-described "hackers"
Scientists are anarchists (Score:2)
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First the anarchists (Score:3)
Came for the nanotechnologists,
And I did not speak out because I was not a nanotechnologist.
Then the anarchists came for the computer scientists,
And I did not speak out because I was not a computer scientist.
Then the anarchists came for the machinists,
And I did not speak out because I was not a machinist.
Then the anarchists came for the blacksmiths,
And I did not speak out because I was not a blacksmith.
Then the anarchists came for the farmers,
And I did not speak out because I was not a farmer.
Then the anarchists came for the people who whittled pointy sticks,
And I did not speak out because I did not whittle pointy sticks.
Then the anarchists came for the people who used rocks,
And I did not speak out because I did not use rocks.
Then they came for me,
Which was okay because my cold dark cave was getting kind of boring anyway.
the last time anarchism was on an uptick (Score:5, Interesting)
was the late 1800s. this was a period of workers demanding rights, as the gilded age saw the plutocrats consume all of the productivity of society
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anarchism#The_First_International_and_Collectivist_Anarchism [wikipedia.org]
so now we see another uptick in anarchism, in a new gilded age, as worker's rights sink lower and lower and the predatory make off with vast sums of money
it's a pendulum in history, swinging back and forth
the next step, if we see historical parallels, is the rise of communism again
of course, social darwinistic capitalism, and communism, are both absurd brutal ideologies, on either end of a spectrum. the intelligent ideology is the middle road: socialism with capitalist engines attached, or capitalism with social safety net. but the communist see any sort of capitalism as a vile evil, and the free market fundamentalists see any sort of common sense social policies: healthcare, education, etc., as a vile evil, and so the middle road does not prevail, depending upon the politics of the day. either one or the other extreme leads to suffering, and the pendulum experiences pressure to swing back the other way
so, if the historical parallels play out, anarchism is really just the initial indicator of a change in direction of the pendulum, a sort of groping for some sense, what is the point of civilization? the point according to the predatory corporatists: enrichment of a moneyed class, is obviously not a valid meaning of existence. anarchists don't have the right answer, but they do have the right sense to know what is happening now as plutocrats gobble up everything is not right, the plutocrats enabled by this ridiculous quasireligious faith of free market fundamentalist fools who are blinded to the simple fact that markets without rules leads to dominance by a monopoly/ oligopoly, and society and the common man suffers
the ideal would be a society that locks in some simple rules: social darwinistic capitalism, and communism, are two extremes that both destroy society. therefore, economic and social policies must always hew to a middle road. but we will never get this common sense, as long as the fools who fervently believe in the extremes of capitalism (on the upswing now, in the past dormant) or communism (dormant now, on the upswing in the past, and perhaps the future) are allowed to exert influence. until the fools on either end of the pendulum are clamped down on with governmental rules about the kinds of economic and social policies that can be passed, we will constantly suffer this historical pendulum swing back and forth, back and forth, creating nothing but pain for us all
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the last time anarchism was on an uptick [in Anarchism] was the late 1800s
Wow, did you miss the 60s? You might want to reassess your theory there, because it seems to be based on facts that aren't quite true.....there have been other times as well.
We aren't going to see another rise in communism unless you can find a way to do it without taking away people's liberty. And you can't do that.
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well, you can take away people's liberty by putting them in grinding poverty so the moneyed class can make even more $. that's where our current political climate is headed
in a society where there is no route to get ahead, because somebody with lots of cash wants to make more, the sting and sourness and unfairness of that is going to lead people to believe in ideologies with communist principles. might i note, communism is just as bad as rapacious capitalism, and just as essentially stupid. the point is to
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Wealth distribution is worse now than in the first gilded age. But don't worry, everything's OK...in your imagination.
Who says they're anarchists? (Score:2)
Let's call terrorists 'Hackers'! (Score:2)
Why not, it would make as much sense (except it doesn't serve a current political agenda).
If you want to read what actual anarchists think, try here [whiskeyandgunpowder.com].
Personally, I think it's a stupid term, but there are some who cling to it.
why not read the source? (Score:4, Interesting)
Bakunin pretty much lays it out for you:
(NB: I'm not endorsing Bakunin, just relating what one of the first anarchists had to say about it. Keep in mind that he was reacting to communism, a political system that claims to use scientific principles as the basis of government.)
Read up, please. (Score:2)
Yes, there are violent people who call themselves anarchists. There are anarchists who oppose a caricature of science (in my experience, they're much-confused about the history of science, especially the Enlightenment). Ask yourself these questions: How much violence has been done by self-proclaimed Christians and capitalists? How many Christians and capitalists have tried to attack or twist science?
Although "anarchist" has become a byword for "
Guilty by association is not usefull (Score:2)
The full name of the Nazi party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
So if you imply that because a group claims to be an Anarchist cell attacks one specific person who is NOT a scientist should taint all people who present themselves as anarchist of with anarchist sympathies you can just as well hang the shoah on:
- All nationalist (called patriots in the US)
- All socialist (from "new labour" to "North Korea")
- All German (even the one born 50 years after the period and whose parents where opp
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Where in TFA does it mention anonymous?
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Anonymous are anarchists, thats kinda the whole point. However, you are correct that not all anarchists are "Anonymous."
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Re:Anonymous is against scientists now? (Score:5, Insightful)
anarchists != Anonymous.
Where in TFA does it mention anonymous?
They're not even real anarchists, anarchists want to deconstruct government, not science. These are actually bat-sh!t loonies.
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Re:Anonymous is against scientists now? (Score:5, Informative)
The ancom line against property is hardly even really radical, historically. They have basically the same view that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin had: that personal possessions are natural property in a sense, but beyond that, e.g. when we're talking about owning hundreds of acres of land as an absentee landlord, "property" is a social construct that can only exist through the power of the state, and should be judged by its effects.
Here's Benjamin Franklin, one of the more prominent early American scientists, with the view that you allege "grates on common sense to such an extent that no sane person can realistically believe in and subscribe to it":
It's interesting that this was already evident to people who thought carefully about the matter in the late 18th century, before Proudhon and the more in-depth anarchist critique of property even came on the scene.
The main differences between Franklin and anarchists are on policy grounds, not philosophical grounds. Franklin was basically a moderate liberal, who thought that, although property is a state-created fiction, it's a useful fiction to a certain extent, so long as we ensure that it's instituted for the benefit of the general public. Whereas, anarchists think it's a harmful fiction.
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Your post doesn't really seem to be responding to Franklin's views. He supports possessions, which he (elsewhere) defines as basically what you can actually, in fact, possess around you: your house, its contents, your work tools, your personal effects, etc. What he considers state-created is property that rises to such sizes that it can only be maintained via a central state registry. For example, if your uncle dies and you inherit 10,000 acres in Texas, and you've never visited that land, there is no real
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In a stateless society, if you "stole" land from someone who had never in his life been within 1,000 miles of the land, nothing would happen, because the person isn't there, or anywhere close!
Not necessarily true. Yes, you have to have some kind of indirect, multi-personal mechanism for asserting and projecting force to maintain "ownership" of land, but that mechanism doesn't have to be anything resembling a modern political "state". It could just as easily be a multinational corporation like GlaxoSmithKline or Monsanto. It could be a private security coporation like Group 4, Xe or the Pinkertons. It could be an organised crime syndicate or gang like the Mafia, Zetas or Crips/Bloods. It could be
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Anarchist is a label for people who refuse to be constrained by society's limits. And one of those limits is not to kill.
Re:Just a label. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anarchist is a label for people who refuse to be constrained by society's limits. And one of those limits is not to kill.
Wrong, Anarchism in it's truest form is closer to socialism than chaos. Anarchism and lawlessness aren't the same. Anarchists don't want to abolish government so that they can go push old ladies down the stairs, that's a rebllious teenager's point of view. Anarchists just want everybody to be equal no person above or below any other in terms of power or pull. An anarchistic society would still have rules, but they would be decided by the community, there would be no police because the people of the community are responsible for it, every man, woman, and child. Please don't comment on things you know nothing about.
Re:Just a label. (Score:5, Insightful)
While classical anarchists were considered close to socialism, that was in a time when everyone who didn't want monarchy was called leftwing. In fact, they were kicked out of the First International fairly quickly. In practice, anarchists are basically very radical liberals. True, that is a rebellious teenager's ideology, but most anarchists are teenage punks so I don't see a contradiction.
Re:Just a label. (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words you view of Anarchism is the same for everyone? You use that as a Label to explain your vision of a Utopia...
There is a fruit tree, I climb the tree and get the last piece of fruit. I now have a piece of fruit and you don't have a piece. I am hungry so I plan to eat the fruit. You are hungry too. We are no longer equal.
I currently have more power over you.
Now the choice you have?
1. Ask for the fruit from me. You are now in a position where you conceded power or pull and asking for mercy from me.
2. Steal the fruit from me. To accomplish this you will need to assert more power then I have to take the fruit... I may fight back and assert additional power too. So we end up fighting.
3. Bargain for the fruit. Now you will need to convince me that you have something that I will value more then the fruit. This may be something else of scarcity, that gives you additional power. Or you choose to be subservient for some period of time (hence relinquishment of your power to me)
4. Go Hungry.
For me I have more power. I have something you want.
1. I can choose to share.
2. I can give it to you.
3. I can fight you
4. I can choose to accept or reject your bargains.
5. I can just leave you to go hungry.
Say I choose options where I still maintain the power of having the fruit. I have eaten it and it has gave me more energy. This extra energy may be used to help me find more fruit, and give myself the means to have more power over other people.
Now we have a community to determine what we should do?
If they say I must share. (A Tax) Then we need to take into account that I was the one who did the work and got the Apple.
If they say I must give it away. Then I have expended energy in a fruitless endeavor (Pun indented) and the community has pulled power away from me.
If they say that you must steal it from me, and I have to fight to keep it. We are both using extra energy and we both loose.
If they say I must accept particular bargains, if these are not fair then I will go underground (Black market) or hoard fruit.
If they say I can do whatever I want. Then I have more power then you.
Now if I decide to break the community rules. People who are physically stronger then me, or in some other ways who have collective more power then me will need to find a way to stop me. Being that these people over time will be good at stopping people who break the rules, they will be compensated for doing such actions as it causes them from doing other things they may need to do.
But right now we live in a world of rules. People who feel these existing rule, and the people who follow them, are unfair, will try to exert more power to get what they want. Anarchist who live in a world that is different then from their ideals, is under a lot of stress and would like to change it. Murder is often effective.
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You're both wrong. Anarchist is a label to try to instil fear and give some false sense of an organized group of people with the same motives. It's just people pissed off for one reason or another that don't really have any sort of common ideology other than a rejection of "something".
The article is stupid in trying to group all "self labelled anarchists" together into one group, as if they have conventions, vote on what "the anarchists should do next", or are organized. All these people have in common i
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Anarchist is a label for people who refuse to be constrained by society's limits. And one of those limits is not to kill.
Wrong, Anarchism in it's truest form is closer to socialism than chaos. Anarchism and lawlessness aren't the same. Anarchists don't want to abolish government so that they can go push old ladies down the stairs, that's a rebllious teenager's point of view. Anarchists just want everybody to be equal no person above or below any other in terms of power or pull. An anarchistic society would still have rules, but they would be decided by the community, there would be no police because the people of the community are responsible for it, every man, woman, and child. Please don't comment on things you know nothing about.
Correct. People seem to be confusing anarchy with nihilism; they are not the same.
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Anarchism in it's truest form is closer to socialism than chaos
I don't see how it can be anything close to socialism without and government or laws. But regardless, pure Anarchism is an unachievable utopia in which everyone is happy happy, there are infinite resources to be shared, and everyone is totally altruistic. Personally I prefer that as a society we decide what the rules are and how to enforce them; it's called Democracy
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Personally I prefer that as a society we decide what the rules are and how to enforce them; it's called Democracy
The problem with democracy is whether "we" has much concern for "them". Two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
As I understand it, Anarchy tries to limit the power anyone can have, including the majority.
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Personally, I don't like that very much. I am ok with democracy but, unlimited democracy is tyranny just as bad, if not worst, than with traditional tyrants.
The community should only be voting and making rules about the things that it must, the things that, without regulation, will cause seriously dangerous lack of social order.
For example, prohibitions on all manner of wanton violence (not that its actually a common problem) violence for profit (a bigger problem), these make sense.
However, I see no reason
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It depends on the particular flavor of anarchism. Some are fine with the rule of the majority, everyone is equal and if over 50% of the people can agree on a law then it is just (this not technically different from democracy). But other definitively do not believe that the majority have any right to force their will on the minority or even one single person. Which makes laws very hard to make, because you need 100% agreement (and the laws that are created are not really laws, since if someone murdered someo
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Please don't comment on things you know nothing about.
Yeah, because that would lead to anarchy!
I'll be here all week.
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Re:Just a label. (Score:4, Insightful)
no...a community is deciding that they're communal rules are more important than yours
Sounds like government to me!
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I would say that one of the fundamental differences is that when a government tells people to do something, most people just do what the government says without giving much thought to whether the government's demands are good for society, or even moral for that matter. The anarchist will not obey a person or group of people just because that have a badge or a paper that says they have some sort of authority. In the absence of government the anarchist goes on about his life mostly the same as before. If t
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The fundamental nature of anarchy is that it is a heavily localized and the society that emerges will only reflect the values of those who form it.
That's trivially true, and in fact is a null statement - every form of society reflects the values of those who build it.
So we're already anarchists, everywhere in the world! And you can't say we aren't, because who are you to tell us what to think? You can't even tell us not to follow centrally-planned state orders, because we've obviously chosen to do that, and your opinion has no moral right over our choice.
This is why anarchism needs more thought. It claims ideological purity, but in its pure form it me
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You have things pretty backwards there, young man.
Re:Just a label. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anarchist = left-wing Libertarian
LIbertarian = right-wing Anrachist
Re:Just a label. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Anarchist is to libertarian as Communist is to socialist. Libertarians want less government in both realms of society (personal and economic), where anarchists want ZERO government. Intelligent anarchists realize that even in the absence of government, society remains ordered. It is just that the order is now emergent and non-violent. Those who produce rise to the top, those who fail fall to the bottom. Those on top can not oppress those on bott
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What happens with your society when those who "fall to the bottom" become violent?
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Re:Why do anarchists hate science? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent troll is not entirely wrong. There is a stream of anarchist philosophy about the benefits of living without a government. That philosophy is completely ignored by the vast majority of people who call themselves "anarchists".
Anarchists in fact, as opposed to theory, are violent braindead hooligans who are only interested in destroying whatever mainstream society finds beneficial, either as a protest against the very notion of trade or just to show how tough they are. "Anarchy" has become a tribal identity of war against the people for no specific cause, with the claimed cause fluidly changing to whatever is trendy at the moment. "Anarchists" happily wave Communist flags, endorse Islamic fascist movements like the Palestinians and the Iranian government, promote foreign state-controlled media as "alternative", and shout totalitarian slogans without any sense of cognitive dissonance. "Anarchists" protest the social influence of megacorporations by smashing the windows of locally owned coffee shops and Chinese restaurants. "Anarchists" oppose it when the police lawfully and peacefully arrest people who commit crimes, because their "FUCK DA POLICE" attitude requires them to oppose anything the police do whether it is good or bad. "Anarchists" oppose the notion of copyright but get angry if anybody republishes information from Wikileaks or takes GPLed code closed-source. "Anarchists" support the "occupation" and destruction of Berkeley's research into sustainable, organic, non-GMO farming, and if you ask why the hell did they do that, they'll say they destroyed the organic farm to promote sustainable, organic, non-GMO farming.
Ever seen an anarchist protest? Ever read an anarchist website? It is all agitprop rhetoric and questionable or easily disprovable facts. They're idiots.
"Anarchists Are Idiots?" Get The Popcorn, Sally... (Score:4, Insightful)
They're idiots.
Of course they are. (Actually, anyone who uses the word "hacktivist" with a straight face pretty much is as well, but I digress...) But ever since Alan Moore made mass murder romantic with a comic book and iconic Halloween mask, geeks have had a soft spot for confused and cowardly killers who hide in crowds. So this discussion -- Anarchists Hate Science! -- promises to be an entertaining one.
It'll be kind of like a discussion on "Religious Fundamentalists Found to Be Early Open Source Adopters!"
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There are anarchist who seek ways to make the society work without being more or less a tyranny of a more or less permeable oligarchy.
Then there are useful idiots who went some frustration and give the authorities a tool to discredit their opponents.
About Religious Fundamentalists as Open Source Adopters in many cases you'll see that the same blindness that makes them fundamentalist means that they prefer to use pirated copies of proprietary software. Free Software activist even when somewhat blind are far
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Alan Moore did nothing of the sort. The V from the comics is shown to have very personal motivations for his killings.
The Wachowski brothers, on the other hand, achieved that by writing a completely twisted version as a screenplay, which loses all the context of the character and of country's situation.
The central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn't want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history. (...)
[The movie] has been "turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country.... It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives â" which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England.
-- Alan Moore
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Re:Why do anarchists hate science? (Score:4, Interesting)
Modern economists are the very incarnation of the term "baffle them with bullshit". It's all lies hidden in complex math that literally no-one understands. You can prove this empirically by asking a set of so called modern economists to predict the future of the economy given the current state of affairs. They will come up with dozens of proposals, and all of them will be wrong. Ask any number of Austrian economists to do the same and you will get a much more unified answer, and it will be right most of the time. Once the event they predicted has occured, you will be able to trace it back to the reasons they used to make the initial claim. This is why Ron Paul was able to talk about the housing bubble in 2002, and why all those "Peter Schiff was right" videos are so popular.
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The funniest thing in the world is that people think they know what's going on, while accepting intermediaries for versions of events, that have a vested stake in the narrative. When this is explained to them in any way, the situation is dismissed as "conspiracy theory" or "wingnuttery".
Have you ever considered these "Science Hating Anarchists" to be targeted assassinations by corporate/state actors who choose to smear an "anti-state" movement - which almost doesn't actually exist? :-)
Operation Gladio
Opera
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I'm guessing that is because your definition of Anarchism is different than the definition held by the people you are talking about. Under your definition (apparently the "Everybody does what they want! No rules!, No Hierarchy! Yay Chaos!" definition), their act of organizing would be absurd and un-anarchist. Under their definition, it is likely an ideology (or group of ideologies, libertarian socialism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.) you can see some points to here and there, but just generally disagree wi