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Comment by null0pointer | Hacker News Reader

Is this anarchism? That being naturally emergent formal processes for things which would normally be handled by the government/legal system.

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It ceases to be anarchism the moment it becomes involuntary. Otherwise it's just another system of authority.

Isn’t any system of governance in a given region (geographic, or virtual) involuntary? Unless you just mean “you can leave if you don’t like it,” but that’s true for all systems of governance.

Yes, that is why many anarchists consider government a coercive system and seek alternatives to that coercion. Of course, coercion can't be eliminated, but we can acknowledge the right of legitimate self defense against that coercion.

Not an expert on the topic, but my understanding is that anarchy rejects governance in general - there wouldn't be any "elevated decision-making body". It's not as much "you can leave if you don't like it" as it's "if you're here then you can change things".

I'm not prepared to defend this but that's the view - if you have a system of governance it isn't anarchy so if the argument is "all systems of governance are at least partially involuntary" then that may be true but doesn't say anything related to anarchy

When I say "governance" I mean in the broadest sense possible: the ways in which interactions between people are organized. If there's a better term for this I will happily use it!

Anarchism rejects imposed hierarchy of authority. It does not reject governance in general.

Maybe we're just getting philosophical about word meanings here but how can you have governance that isn't imposed/hierarchical/authoritative? If whoever is making the rules says you can't do something and someone wants to, then the governance is the process that stops them. If someone is prevented from doing something, that implies a hierarchy capable of preventing the action, and that capability would have to be imposed by an authority.

> “you can leave if you don’t like it,” but that’s true for all systems of governance.

Is it? Can you just leave North Korea if you please?

Okay, fair enough. It's true for most systems of governance.

Not in practice. For example, not issuing an international passport effectively amounts to a travel ban, and many countries do it for all kinds of reasons (e.g. to combat conscription or child support evasion, or for "national security" reasons).

It's even worse if you look at history. For example, US routinely denied passports to "communist sympathizers" until 1960s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_v._Dulles).

The best explanation of anarchy I've heard is by debunking the common view that people think anarchy is when a a disaster happens and a warlord takes over - but it's really when a disaster happens and neighbors start checking on each other to make sure everyone is alright and see if anyone needs help. If the community isn't voluntarily doing it then it isn't anarchy

People have forgotten that the circle in the anarchy symbol stands for Order.

I wouldn't describe this as involuntary. The losing party can simply leave (be banished) at any point, rather than face the consequences prescribed by the group. There's no threat of violence or imprisonment, at least as described in this article.

If you take "involuntary" to mean "faced with consequences for one's actions within a group", then maybe it is involuntary, but that's not how the word is used with relation to anarchism as I've seen it.

I don't think it's naturally emergent. It's just another case of a centralized entity making some rules people need to follow or else they get banned. It's not too dissimilar from what would happen on eBay if someone complains about a seller.

What if centralized authories are naturally emergent because individuals demand them?

I'm happy to call it naturally emergent as long as we also call Amazon and eBay's policies naturally emergent, but doing that would be rather vacuous.

Turns out, all of existence is naturally emergent.

maybe we could avoid that issue by saying that some sort of minimal central authority is naturally emergent

Closer to a gang style parallel government structure. The penalties are backed up by banishment from the group rather than violence.

Yeah, one might say the anarchists are forming a government.

I wouldn't say so. This is all opt-in, they're not forcing anyone.

This is just a private dispute resolution system, not too dissimilar from what can be offered by private companies on clearnet (think eBay).

No. There would need to be many more meetings and countless committees from groups of random people who all acclaim to hold some sort of power.

> There would need to be many more meetings and countless committees from groups of random people who all acclaim to hold some sort of power.

That's a description of our statist status quo :)

I think that’s the joke

Yes, it's the free market taking over and providing a service that is in demand, in this case arbitration.

Doesn’t anarchism require no hierarchies? A court system is a hierarchy. So no. This isn’t anarchism.

No, it requires no unjust or involuntary hierarchies. This is all voluntary, as far as I can tell.

Most anarchist theories revolve around formal power structures, just decentralized ones, but, they are all voluntary. This seems to be involuntary, as being are being "brought" to court.

There doesn't seem to be an involuntary component; it's a virtual court so 'brought to court' just seems to mean that proceedings have started. You can simply not show up anymore and sort of self select for banishment (once again, from a purely virtual marketplace, not a physical location).

Seems pretty anarchist to me.

Maybe, but how do you distinguish it from the natural emergence of a government and legal system?

By it being opt-in.

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