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.

Then my interpretation is as valid as yours.

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.

This process creates a hierarchy, a majority in-group that gets their way and a minority out-group that does not.

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

And a rich man is equally not allowed to steal bread or sleep under a bridge. Starting from a level playing field does not mean that things remain equal through the process.

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.

If it only works by removing people you disagree with then it requires buy-in, you’re just removing everyone who isn’t engaging in good faith so you don’t have to count them. This does not refute my initial claim. There is nothing intrinsic to anarchism that defends against bad-faith actors from hijacking the process, there are no checks against greedy thugs with lots of friends.

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 went through this half a lifetime ago and ultimately decided anarchism didn’t make sense to me. I think something akin to a Leninist vanguard party is a necessary evil, and I think some kind of rigid law-and-order structure will always be necessary.

I would recommend being open to the idea that your beliefs of what Anarchism are are wrong or what’s the point?

If I wasn’t open to it I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I think you’re earnest even if I disagree with some of your assertions and I’m sorry that I’m sometimes a dick. It’s rare that someone outside the big three lefty domains will engage like this.

It’s not bad faith I’m just not taking you very seriously because you aren’t saying anything. “I’ll take ruined fun over ruined lives” is a noncommittal platitude that avoids having an actual stance or argument, it’s vague enough to let you fill in post-facto whatever context helps you while being morally untouchable because obviously nobody is on the side of ruined lives. It’s intellectually lazy at best.

So I pushed, and you stayed noncommittal and only addressed the first part of my response instead of the part about the role of government in this thread about the role of government in regulation.

So I pushed again, and instead of having a thought when pushed you went right into accusing me of engaging in bad-faith. I am reading the text and there’s nothing there so I’m trying to provide you with anything to grab onto. “How much of that danger should be blocked by the state and how much left to the individual to manage?” was not a rhetorical question, it was a natural continuation of the dialogue within context.

Alright, I’m at an actual computer now so I’m to go through bit by bit and you can tell me where my apparent misunderstanding is.

Your sources do a lot of dancing to avoid defining their principle ideas, and mutual understanding of concepts is integral to constructive discourse, so I’m going to do my best here: Anarchy opposes coercion, authority, and hierarchy, particularly that which comes from a state.

It’s a lack of hierarchy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have government, rules, and protections.

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?

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

Government is heirarchy [sic]

It is not. It can be, but it is not a fundamental aspect of it.

Government is a tricky thing to nail down because it covers a wide range of scales and intents. At its most basic the idea of governance is the codification and/or centralization of rules and processes. This can be the bylaws of a small cooperative or the many branches and layers of a nation. The single common thread is that the body exists to do something in lieu of or at the behest of a greater population, it is an alternative to direct democracy. This means that the government body has the authority, granted or taken, to represent its constituents.

Compare this with a think-tank, where the group exists to make recommendations but has no power to create policy or enforce on their own. This is not a government.

People can cooperate without the need for a hierarchy.

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

They can agree that some actions are bad and to punish people without an elite doing so.

So they grant themselves the right to enforce their will on others, and you say this isn’t “authority”? This not a hierarchy of power, an organized group coercing behavior through violence? What of the consent of the governed?

I like the ideals, and I support them inasmuch as this kind of cooperative and stateless utopia is the theoretical goal of classic Marxist Communism, but this freedom requires a much higher level of trust and knowledge than I think humanity is capable of. Opposing all forms of authority now, when we’re facing the existential threats of climate change and broad resource mismanagement, is a mistake. Now we need people with the means to reverse course, with the power to enforce policy, and with the speed and focus to work before it’s too late.

Government is heirarchy, it is the step of organization beyond a cooperative where people are making decisions in lieu of the whole. An elected representative has de facto authority. If someone can opt out of being governed in this way then there are no rules, just suggestions.

You don’t need an “elite” for there to be a heirarchy. I know what anarchism is I just disagree that it’s an effective ideology for post-industrial humanity. 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.

I don’t think heirarchy intrinsically means class divide, which is the part I see as important. Full disclosure: I most identify with authoritarian-leftism with sympathies to anarchism as a utopian ideal. My education in ecology taught me that people are not to be trusted without strong regulatory agencies, as much as I’d like to believe that individuals generally want to do right.

It’s not even about monetary efficiency. Ruined fun/ruined life. You said you were on the side of “ruined fun” but how much fun are we talking about? I assume you have some kind of stance because you joined the conversation.

How can rules be enforced without a heirarchy of privilege? What stops someone from saying “I don’t consent to being told what to do”?

IMO petrochemical textiles are a way bigger moral and existential problem than wool or even leather, so while there are many genuine concerns with the livestock industry I cannot support “full” veganism. We might get there eventually with biodegradable plastics but we aren’t there now.

Why limit it to direct harm? There’s tons of easily avoidable ways to indirectly cause harm. The most obvious to me are about our natural world: taking anything in an unsustainable way deprives others of opportunity, up to and including their ability to feed themself. Reckless hunting or fishing, poisoning water with agriculture runoff, introducing invasive species for personal gain or through negligence, even just cutting down all the trees around you can have loads of consequences with the impact to animal habitat and increased soil erosion.

The extreme forms of Libertarianism or Anarchy are only possible if everyone engages in good faith. They have no built-in protections against bad actors. Someone wants to divert a river for any reason? Sucks to be downstream.

Where do you draw the line? Because that’s what it’s about: how much risk is acceptable for efficiency, personal freedom, etc. The answer is obviously not “zero” or else we wouldn’t have room for cars, construction, stairs, public beaches, the list goes on. Most of life is inherently or potentially dangerous, how much of that danger should be blocked by the state and how much left to the individual to manage?

That isn’t how loanwords work, linguistically.

Greek, sorry, point stands.

My money is on ivy but there’s a chance they form a symbiotic mass.

Most college students are, functionally if not legally, still children. And dormitories are an efficient way to provide housing for a large group in a concentrated area. Neither case can or should apply broadly to the unhoused.

Sharing space with a stranger is a great way to get robbed or just made uncomfortable with no recourse. Students have RAs and can apply to live alone, off-campus, or swap dorms. Your theoretical slumblock going to have that flexibility? Nevermind that a single-purpose housing complex is just an instant ghetto. Best outcomes come from integration, not segregation.

The current American political climate is fucking hostile and watering down any movement to try and fit in is the wrong call. It’s like haggling by starting with concessions. And why couldn’t it be viable? It isn’t luxury housing I support. Most people have some amount of personal pride and don’t want to subsist on welfare if they have another option, and I’m perfectly happy to let some people permanently use those properties if it lessens the strain on public resources for everyone else.

Letting people suffer just to get (re)elected is intolerable.

Reources are artificially limited. There are more vacant houses in this country than homeless people. We don’t need to build new complexes to sweep the problem into one neat pile, just start seizing vacant lots held by absent investors. It wouod be cheaper than the police and medical costs we’re currently paying. Ideally pair this radical housing initiative with job training programs, optional rehab/drug counseling, mental healthcare, and other slightly-left-of-global-center communist ideas.

It means that in Latin but we aren’t speaking Latin.

Sweet, then we can secede and form new alliances with Canada, Mexico, the EU, and the rest of the civilized world.

You have roommates, but only one or two, and you get a place to safely store things.

These clauses are mutually exclusive. Has to be accessible only by one tenant for actual privacy and security, that’s one of the complaints against existing shelters. Also, “make the housing just shitty enough that it might be better than sleeping outside” as a replacement for means-testing and incentive not to rely on it is diarespectful. Just provide standard studio apartments, tiny homes, or literally whatever vacant property is available and stop trying to find the minimum acceptable dehumanizing conditions.

Fun fact: you can peel and eat young raspberry canes! Harvest when green and flexible, eat raw or steamed. Same for most blackberries and such, as far as I know.

Well, “thrive” might be overstating it because they’ll be much more susceptible to drought with shallow roots.