Yes, I’m sure that all the people you have an agreement with agree with you.

oooor, they know that they can demand my (and every other admin’s) recall, and the fact that they haven’t proves they just trust us.

Of all the political people, you think it’s anarchists that would be loathe to call out bad power structures? Are you sure this is the argument you want to run with?

Again, effort. Why bother with yet another power tripping admin when they can just hop on to another instance (or ideally, save their energy to actually do something meaningful in real life). It’s just a niche online forum run by neurodivergents.

You declare that by the fact that we have a red A next to our name, it gives us some massive boost in pushing our ideas through, even through democratic decision making, which if you knew anything about real-life anarchists, and particularly the neurodivergent sort we go to great lengths to attract, you’d know that people in position of undesired authority (even thouse imposed by the software) are given even more scrutiny than most.

Except that people have already chosen to get into your system. If they didn’t desire your system, they wouldn’t be in it. They have already chosen for you to have some authority.

You should try to be more charitable instead of superficially trying to gotcha people.

Who are you to tell me what to do?

indeed we self-organize around anarchist principles

You didn’t tho. Despite who organized the vote etc. the post stands posted by an Admin, and the post is in clear violation of your own stated Code of Conduct.

We already do that. But we’re not going to avoid all democratic decision making until everyone is “enlightened” or some whatever shite you’re positing.

The “shite” was following prominent Anarchist thinkers (Bakunin, Chomsky) in making the point. I never argued for infinite theoretical education, I argued that critical thinking and awareness of power dynamics are necessary to prevent informal elites. Without tools to recognize bias, framing, and authority signals, “self-organization” becomes a tool for the charismatic or well-connected to dominate.

You can jump up and down all you want about how we “abandoned the ideals of anarchism”, but the mere dint of the matter that actual anarchists choose to voluntarily continue associating with us (and not raise a shitstorm), rather than the armchair theorist with the most superficial understanding of the theory (like you), is all the proof we need we’re going in the right direction.

Unsurprisingly, the people who choose to associate with you agree with you. Have you considered that perhaps anarchists who don’t agree with you simply don’t feel that it’s worth the effort to try to challenge your power structures? Judging by the way you respond to me, it would be futile as anyone who disagrees with you isn’t a true anarchist.

I wanna reply to this one more time (if you still care to read) because I’ve thought about this whole exchange a bit and realized that in lacking the spirit of charitability, I missed that from the perspective of db0 admins, it’s likely that they think that because of Anarchist egalitarian ideals, representing the situation in any way they want - even extreme bias - is fine. Because from the principle of egalitarianism, they also do not have any particular responsibility to present the case “objectively”.

However, it still completely fails to follow the Anarchist Code of Conduct, falling into decidedly “Unacceptable” behavior and definitely not heeding the invitation for rational discourse, which propaganda, by definition, is not. In the case of the original post on db0, it may have indeed been a human error, but after it’s been pointed out and unacknowledged, I’d say it has become an explicit rejection.

Of course from my perspective it also runs into the ideal world problem inherent in Anarchism. The fact is that the posts in the community appear in a certain order (a hierarchy, if you will), and thanks to cognitive biases, what people see first is what will impact their thinking. Add to that the subtle but still existent authority signal, ironically, the red A (for Admin) next to the username. Considering the low stakes situation, there isn’t much pressure to think about the matter deeply either, so it’s just likely the first and loudest person wins in any case. Which gets to the larger problem in Anarchism where the Charismatic will become the new authority. An informal hierarchy, but a hierarchy none the less.

From The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman:

And as a contemplation, to answer your original question, @ageedizzle@piefed.ca: if we accept the way the db0 admins are running their instance as a form of Anarchism (rejecting the Code of Conduct), we are already living in an Anarchist society. This is what it looks like, taken to its logical conclusion. People will exercise their freedom to do what they want, by any means necessary, as the fact is that ultimately, nobody is inherently more valuable than another. There is no superior power inherent in reality to keep people in a hierarchy, we may only impose human-experience created hierarchies. And imposing hierarchy is by definition, an exercise of authority - the question is how intentional it is. Anarchy leads to unintentional, implicitly imposed hierarchies, which is what we have and which we actively try to remedy with intentional, explicitly imposed hierarchies, so that the seemingly arbitrary advantages of the charismatic or the strong do not function as an unchecked, default mandate for authority within the community. And in order to impose explicit hierarchies, those who want to do so need to have enough Charisma (however that manifests) to impose their implicit authority on others :^)

@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Deceptichum@quokk.au @Takapapatapaka@tarte.nuage-libre.fr

You think the red A stands for Anarchism?

Also you’re clearly not reading what I wrote so, not much point in replying further. I already covered the points you attempt to make.

Holding belief that people are rational and able to follow logic :')

You’re purposefully sidestepping the extreme bias with which you presented the case, which is something you need to account for considering the privilege you have of establishing the leading argument (creating the thread and the vote in the first place) - If you were to actually follow Anarchist ideals.

You “pulled out some choice morsels” from modlogs to illustrate your point. By selecting which data the community sees, you are using your technical power to dictate the level of information available to voters - exactly the “disparity of education” Bakunin warned about. You argue that obedience to anarchist principles is enough. But anarchism is not a set of rules to be obeyed; it is a method of self-organization. You cannot have “self-organization” if the “self” does not have the tools (education/critical thinking) to organize. By claiming education isn’t necessary, the you’re essentially saying: “You don’t need to understand the system, you just need to do what “WE” (“the authority that’s totes not an authority”) call “mutual aid” and vote the way we set up the ballot.” This is Vanguardism, not Anarchism.

Also, in the spirit of mutual aid, would it not be in your best interest to try your best to educate the people in your community and empower them to think for themselves?

And again, you are free to do as you please but then represent yourself accurately. You’re merely demonstrating that you like the vibe of Anarchism but as per my initial point, Anarchism lacks functional power. As a result, you abandoned the Anarchist ideals in order to gain functionality.

It seems to me you just dislike how the vote went and are deciding that everyone who voted against the way you want, is too stupid. I.e. you’re an elitist.

I haven’t said a single word about what I thought the result of the vote should have been. I have no inherent problem with the way you conducted the vote either, or what the outcome was, when stripped from the pretense of Anarchism. You are free to run your instance as you like, and people in it are free to interact with it however they want. I’m merely using it as an example of the point I’ve been making: Anarchism needs people to cooperate, yet lacks functional power to make cooperation to happen and so, people such as yourself will use some type of coercion (authority) to force cooperation the way they (the authority) wants.

To @Deceptichum@quokk.au:

While Orwell was a democratic socialist who fought with anarchists (the POUM and CNT/FAI) in Spain, Animal Farm is a critique of how a revolutionary vanguard (the pigs) uses their monopoly on information and language to gradually assume the same powers as the former masters.

The pigs didn’t just use force; they changed the “Seven Commandments” (the rules) and controlled the narrative to ensure the other animals “voted” or agreed with their direction. When an admin says, “We asked for a vote,” but provides a biased framework for that vote, they are acting as the “pigs” who manage the “farm” while claiming everyone is equal.

You don’t have to be enlightened centrists, you are quite free to have whatever opinions you like. However, given your position as the organizing body of an anarchist community, the question is: why should your opinion carry more weight? Is your opinion more equal than that of others?

“The abolition of authority means, the abolition of the monopoly of force and of influence; it means the abolition of that state of affairs for which social power, that is the combined forces of society, is made into the instrument of thought, the will and interests of a small number of individuals, who by means of the total social power, suppress, for their personal advantage and for their own ideas the freedom of the individual” -Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

You have certain power and you specifically used that power to impose your own ideas on others.

that person doesn’t understand anarchism whatsoever and uses that failed understanding to claim it doesn’t work.

"Instead all that happens in the world is done by people; and government qua government, contributes nothing of its own apart from the tendency to convert everything into a monopoly for the benefit of a particular party or class, as well as offering resistance to every initiative which comes from outside its own clique. " -Errico Malatesta, Anarchy

The anarchist code of conduct says that it’s “unacceptable to … degrade, insult etc. another person/group because of their… acceptance of any unfavorable or disfavorable group, whether this group is political, economic, social, or cultural.”. Further you failed to provide grounds for rational discourse, another anarchist ideal.

For Anarchism to work, there needs to be consensus, and an Anarchist community needs to do it’s utmost to ensure that all people in the community have roughly the same level of education both in terms of knowledge and ability for critical thinking. Without these, informed consent is impossible. While I appreciate that you as a Lemmy admin can’t make sure that everyone goes to school, you still could’ve done your best to give people the tools to think about the matter from the level of education they have. Instead, you presented the vote from the level of information and opinions you have - driving for the result you wanted.

“It is natural that he who knows more will dominate him who knows less. And were this disparity of education and education and learning the only one to exist between two classes, would not all the others swiftly follow until the world of men itself in its present circumstances, that is, until it was again divided into a mass of slaves and a tiny number of rulers, the former labouring away as they do today, to the advantage of the latter”

“It is very often the case that a highly intelligent worker is obliged to hold his tongue when confronted by a learned fool who defeats him, not by dint of intellect (of which he has none) but by dint of his education” -Michael Bakunin, Integral Education

“In other words: educate them the “right way” — to be obediently passive and accept their fate as right and just, conforming to the New Spirit of the Age. Keep their perspectives narrow, their understanding limited, discourage free and independent thought, instill docility and obedience to keep them from the Masters’ throats.” -Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

My main goal is to get you and people to a nuanced take on anarchy, notably that it does not fail inevitably on its own, but is very likely to fail because of capitalism, and is likely to fail on its own if you want (but not inevitably, that’s the absolute i’m trying to fight here).

As I’ve said multiple times in different words, Anarchism would work beautifully in ideal, perfect conditions.

1st point : how to motivate people to do useful things ?

Because as i stated, they have an interest to do so. If they help, they get help in return. You have an interest to do your job and voluntary work because in return people will help you…

If someone decides to take without giving, how does your system stop them? Social pressure? Then you’re admitting coercion exists. Violence? Then you’re admitting authority exists. Might makes right. Or do you just let them freeload until the system collapses? Yes, people do help others - but not universally, not equally, and not without incentives or consequences. Capitalism and states channel self-interest into productive outcomes (even if imperfectly). Anarchism relies on self-interest magically aligning with collective good. This is not a mechanism, it’s an ideal, a fantasy.

power

If anarchists need armed struggle to prevent power, they’re admitting that violence (i.e., coercion) is necessary to maintain their system. But if coercion is allowed, what makes this different (to the point of superiority) from what we currently have?

Again, your comments make me think that you don’t think that anarchy does not work, you think it does not stand against power, which is different, and which i perfectly understand.

Like I said in my first post: I’m absolutely NOT saying “capitalism good”. I’m saying it has more functional power than Anarchism.

If it was an anarchist system, they would be mandated, they could be revoked, etc., and people submitting an idea to assembly vote could be very vocal for it, to defend it

“Who watches the watchdogs” issue.

So the problem you identified has to do with power, not with anarchy. Eventually with power used by people promoting anarchy, but not anarchy itself.

The thing is that now we get to the territory where Anarchy always stays pure and perfect, because the moment people drop anarchist ideals in favor of an actually functional alternative, it’s no longer Anarchism. Ideals are nice and all, but lack functional power, which I’ve been saying all the time.

Anarchism would work beautifully - if everyone would just agree and cooperate.

It is a system where you share help, you give it and you receive it : one grows food, one builds houses and at the end of a day, everyone get a house with food.

This is exactly the problem I was highlighting. It’s nice to construct the idea where people get along but how do you incentivize them to actually do that without using coercive methods? “We can make this work if everyone just gets along” is just another tautology. Unsurprisingly, any system will work if all people would just cooperate.

Not to even get to the general logistical difficulties with deciding how many carrots one should get for building a house, and if that’s fair. And the free rider problem.

If people don’t play nice, either it’s a few people and that’s no big deal, either it’s a lot and they’re defederating and that’s a valid possibility, anarchist systems are precisely adaptable.

And what if the people who disagree decide to subjugate (and possibly erase) the anarchist system? What if (as is likely) people decide that they want is personal power and authority over others?

It does not mean that anarchy fails by itself, it means that it fails when a state destroys it,

It fails internally due to it’s fragility in the face of corruption. And when scaled, it would have to compete with anyone who decides that might makes right (by any means necessary). Pure, non-coercive anarchism inherently cannot withstand an attack from anyone who is willing to be coercive in order to gain power.

Also i don’t really understand what is the big deal with db0 defederation.

(Also to @ageedizzle@piefed.ca)

They can defederate all they like. The problem is in the way the “democratic” vote was presented. Their method of conducting the vote (with very clear bias) shows that the Admins had a strong opinion on what the correct result of the vote should be. This is abuse of power - which should not exist in an actual Anarchist setting. The exact same driving forces can be copied and pasted to other scenarios: the organizing body of an Anarchist community has a Strong Opinion about a matter, and they put the matter to vote “democratically”, but they use extremely loaded rhetoric to push their own agenda so that people vote the way they want. It’s consent manufacturing, and thus, not Anarchism. I highly recommend reading Animal Farm.

And to be clear: I’m fine with db0 admins doing whatever they like, but calling it an “Anarchist” instance is then misleading. It’s rather just another informal, progressive oligarchy where the appearance of democracy is used to mask centralized platform governance. Anarchism failed, because the moment they created that farce of a vote, they stopped being anarchists and became authoritarians. Anarchist ideals did not do what they needed to do for the db0 admins to get the results they wanted.

It wouldn’t.

Anarchism (and communism) live and die by the idea that ALL people would have a completely unrealistic level of cooperation and selflessness. As fucked up as capitalism is, it can bend when people don’t play nice and there’s at least a theoretical possibility of anyone gaining power (money) to impact change in the system. Money itself doesn’t inherently have preferences or moral opinions on what should be. Anarchism however breaks the moment someone behaves selfishly. It can work fine in small, like-minded communities where people can always leave (or be excluded) to find other systems that better fit their ideals. However, Anarchism on a societal level would demand that there is basically no other type of society available - which would lead to Sen’s paradox. The reason we don’t have true anarchist (or communist) countries is that they get wiped out by powers that function in sync with people’s natural inclinations for self-interest (like capitalism). People like to argue that these attitudes are DUE to capitalism, not inherent in human nature. Even if I were to entertain the idea that that’s true, we currently live in this world of self-interest. Unless you can press a reset button on humanity, this is what we are working with. Solutions that rely on the idea that we can just fundamentally change how ALL people in the world currently are, are not solutions. They’re idle fantasies. The “argument” that “if the world wasn’t shitty, we could have an amazing utopia”, is not an argument at all, it’s just a tautology with no power of utility.

The way db0 handled their defederation from feddit.org is a great example of how Anarchism fails even on small scale. They espouse ideals about democratic voting and rational discourse, but the moment the organizing body of the instance had opinions on how they think things “should” be, they used propaganda and political theater to get the result they wanted. Anarchist ideals couldn’t function in a low stakes online space, it has little hope of functioning where people are driven by actual survival needs (and desire for power). Whatever ideological purity drove the db0 admins to present the “democratic vote” the way they did, will be the exact same drive people tend to fall to on larger scales as well.

Same thing can be seen in the Communist instances: they rely heavily on propaganda and people sticking to the “correct” narrative. Which also brings up the conflict: there has to be an organizing body that has opinions on what is “right” and what is “wrong”. This organizing body will be the authority, no matter how people try to use rhetorical slalom to get around it and trick people into thinking the spade isn’t a spade.

People can start to build small grassroots communities with these ideals. Please do, and once they gain enough power (money) in the system we are currently living in, perhaps they can impact policy changes etc. that are more humanitarian. That would be wonderful. But always be aware that the ideals are fragile and break under any corruption. Capitalism works with corruption (not merely despite of), which is why it’s extremely effective at being the might that makes right.

(And because I’m aware how these discussions go: I’m absolutely NOT saying “capitalism good”. I’m saying it has more functional power than Anarchism. And I find Anarchism to be far more ethical and appealing in theory.)

It really, really isn’t. Most people (think they) know Christianity and then pattern match everything else to it, instead of looking at other religions as arising from completely different frameworks, with very different philosophical assumptions about the world.

Absurdity of all religion

I’m willing to bet they only know Christianity and think all religions are like Christianity, just with a different looking skydaddy.

I hear you, is all I can say. I hope you find our way!

People want borders for exactly the same reasons you want a yard to do stuff in. You can direct that question right at yourself. Why do you want to have your own space? If someone comes along and tries to force you to give up your space, would you try to “get along” and just relinquish your space, or would you defend it? Why do you think you have more rights to that space than the other person? We don’t tend to like it but there is no ultimate law in the universe that says that people can’t acquire a space with violence.

You’re asking questions about human nature that you yourself are equally subject to.

I do get the frustration. Best solution I can offer is just working on the level of the self. Like I said, non-attachment. Read some philosophy. Look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism (also https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKUeOXz8J87Q9qi-YfBfkT1KlKyhdKhrj). That was the only way I was able to finally come to increasing amount of acceptance of reality without losing my will to try to have at least small positive impacts on the world while I’m here. Actually I’m more effective at it because it helped me significantly reduce endlessly chasing after pointless dopamine fixes and trying to get “more” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill).

Not that I disagree with the sentiment but you are veering close to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox

You can buy a piece of land in bumfuck nowhere and try to live off it. Or you can join a community that tries to do that (more realistic). There’s the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-grid thing

Problem is that most people want the conveniences of modern, globalist life, and many people don’t have a realistic choice.

Personally I try to find a balance between Buddhist non-attachment and making do with the life I got.

It’s a treacherous intoxicant. People love recreational outrage but for many people it turns into active, seething hate that colors every interaction they have. It’s the lens through which many view the world and it becomes self-perpetuating. People will have angry and hateful interactions with others, begetting more hate, begetting more hate, begetting more hate.

The fury feels good in a moment. Makes you feel strong. Find some like-minded people angry at the same things and you get to feed off each other’s rage. You’ll not only get more reasons to hate, but you’ll feel justified in the hate. You are in the right. The others are wrong. How dare the others be wrong. You must hate them because they are evil. See how they respond to your hate with more hate, further proving how justified you are in your own hate. It warms your chest, it rushes through your veins like the best alcohol you can imagine and you’re not feeling so helpless. It makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something. It masks the feeling that you are just one, small person faced with an impossibly complicated world, that is often filled with incredible injustice. It keeps you from realizing that you’re a tiny little cog in the same machine that causes both all the suffering and all the joy in the world. It tricks you into thinking that you are both apart from the world, yet powerful enough to impact it.

Every hateful comment you leave adds more hate into the machine. Every act of kindness adds more kindness. But hate is easier. Kindness feels weak. It’s vulnerable. It’s fragile. Even if you’re kind, the hate that others keep adding may reach you and bite you. Most people can handle having their teeth kicked in only for so many times. It’s easier to shut down and hate. But that doesn’t mean that commitment to kindness is impossible. It’s just harder.

And so it goes, and so it goes.

Tell me you had a certain experience without telling me you had a certain experience.

Were you taught to not talk in certain terms about how your world “shattered”? Because I was.