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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • Your sources do a lot of dancing to avoid defining their principle ideas…

    No they don’t. It’s just a very broad political viewpoint with a ton a varied opinions within it. No two anarchists will believe the same thing, and that’s true for all political beliefs, which is why they’re all like this and hard to define specifically.

    Right away we have problems. The concept of free-association does mean there are no rules or protections. Not real ones anyway. Rules and regulations require an enforcement authority or else they are merely suggestions. You are free to make a rule and someone else is free to ignore it. What gives you the right to enforce your rule?

    Mutual cooperation and direct democracy are ways to come up with agreed upon rules. Not everyone will agree with all of them, but it will be agreed that the majority want something. There will still be a need for enforcement, yes. That doesn’t require a hierarchy. Everyone will be equal in voting and equal in how it’s enforced.

    If something does grant you the right or ability then that thing, whatever it is, is a hierarchy of power.

    No, because everyone will be equal in its creation and decisions. A flat plane is not a hierarchy.

    Yes, this is what I mean when I said "Anarchy [is] only possible if everyone engages in good faith.

    No. People who don’t engage in good faith will be removed by the cooperation of everyone else. Just like the" Paradox of tolerance" is not a Paradox, because it’s based on a social contract and breaking it means you’re no longer protected by it. The same applies here. If you break the social contract then punishment must be applied.

    You are coming to this conversation with prior assumptions, not an open mind. I’m not an expert on Anarchism, but there is plenty of information out there that can answer your questions better than I can. I would recommend being open to the idea that your beliefs of what Anarchism are are wrong or what’s the point?




  • You don’t need an “elite” for there to be a heirarchy.

    Yeah, someone has to be. That’s what a hierarchy is. Someone is above others and has control. That’s basically the definition.

    The world is too complex, our choices have too many consequences, for individuals to make good decisions without ceding some responsibility of knowledge to specialists. This means regulatory bodies, lobbyists, and ideally a democratic means of appointing people to these bodies without being at the short-sighted whims of whoever is suddenly mad that they aren’t allowed to fill in a bunch of marshes to build a commune.

    This does not rule out Anarchism.

    To go back to this:

    I know what anarchism is

    I’m not so sure. It can be a vast number of things. It does not mean no rules, no government, no regulations, or whatever else. In fact, I would argue those are essential to some degree or it’d be gone in an instant.



  • The media uses the term for any change of opinion. For example, I think I recall hearing some media saying Biden “flip flopped” from the position he held on crime 20+ years ago since he realized it wasn’t effective.

    What the term should mean is you changing your opinion flippantly, whenever it’s useful. It shouldn’t be when you adjust your stance on a topic (for any reason) to a new one. It’s when you go back and forth and aren’t consistent with a new position.



  • Our media now rails on politicians “flip flopping” if their opinion is different than it was in the past. I always get angry when I hear them say that because, to me, it’s a good thing. I want someone who has new experiences and changes their opinions with that. I don’t want someone who learns something and dismisses any information they gained because it doesn’t match their current beliefs.


  • Anarchism can. Anarchism is not the stupid “no rules” thing the media portrays. It’s a lack of hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have government, rules, and protections. In fact, I think any Anarchist would agree they’re required or else people can be exploited and lose their freedom, or things like your example can happen. We should just do it in a more cooperative form, not with a ruling class making the rules for us peasants.


  • They don’t just think companies have the right to do that. They also think companies have a right to create restrictions that prevent you from doing anything. If you go to a protest you may be fired, for example. It creates a situation where the ruling class can prevent dissent because you need food, water, and shelter at minimum, and they can take that away if you are a dissident.



  • When I was younger I called myself a libertarian. This was progression from a somewhat conservative family, with my ideal that people should be left to do what they want as long as it doesn’t harm others. I eventually progressed towards a leftist mindset and now consider myself an anarchist. Same idea, except libertarians mostly want no protections and are pro-hierachy, which leads to a lack of freedom not more freedom. If companies are free to do what they want they will use their position to remove the freedom of workers to make choices freely, for example.

    I still hold most of the same ideals as I did then, as I’m sure Penn Jillette probably does too. I just have a better view of the consequences of the policies that they push for.


  • Hey man, cis doesn’t mean anything besides you identify with your given gender at birth. Just like male/female are useful terms for communication, we have a term for that. In fact, cis isn’t even just for that. It’s just Latin meaning you’re in the same side of something. For example: cisalpine, meaning on this side of the alps (the side of Italy). No reasonable person would be offended by the term. It’s been used for over 100 years in this way. The only reason to be offended is if you’re told to be offended.

    -sincerely: a cis-gendered man






  • The issue is laws must be written to cover more than just a single case. I may agree it would be fine for this case, but the law must be written to cover other future cases. Then it’s up to the discretion of judges to rule on future cases and apply the law as they see fit.

    The issue is that we can’t write perfect laws that will never produce bad outcomes. We can’t trust all judges to be perfectly moral and upstanding and also perfectly accurate in their judgment. In a world with perfections, I could maybe agree with it. That’s not the world we live in.



  • It means properly educated and trained, and also the weapons were stored in armories, not at home, and organized into regiments and ready to be called up for active duty. Essentially, what the national guard is, with less organization between groups.

    I did not mean regulated by laws. I meant that home gun ownership without any training or organization is not part of a well regulated militia, so it is not protected by the second amendment. Random people just owning guns at home is not “well regulated” by any definition.