Yes, I agree, it's never just one person. And yes, there's probably going to be violence when someone threatens the food supply. But that's exactly one of the things that bugs me about anarchy. It seems to me that it is vulnerable to a group that is willing to use violence in greater intensity (or with greater organization) than the anarchy is able to employ in return.
And if you're going to say that anarchy can decide to do violence, yes, I agree. But it seems to me that centuries of experience have shown that those most effective at doing violence are very thoroughly organized, which seems to me to be kind of the opposite of anarchy.
> So if we're counting up societies that permit extreme wealth differences and those that don't, in the first group we have: today's global society and a handful of historical and invariably brutal kingdoms and empires; in the second group we have: all "small" societies today and the vast majority of human societies before encountering early modern European expansion.
I think that's a rather ahistorical perspective. Take, for example, China or India around 1000. Or Mali, whose emperor Mansa Musa is believed to have been the wealthiest individual in history. Or the Aztec or Inca empires. Or...
I'll give you that the Aztecs and Incas were brutal. I don't know about Mali. But if you're going to say that China and India were brutal, then you're going to have to say that most of history was brutal.
> But do you think that many people prefer associating with people with much different skill, intelligence, education or income? For example, would you like to be on a programming team where you could clearly rank skill from worst to best? If so, I'd be interested in having you walk me through why you think that.
I'm in an ultimate frisbee group where there's some fairly clear distinctions in skill level. It's not quite a strict hierarchy, because skill has multiple axes - someone could be slower but have a better handle. Still, there are definitely better players and worse players. But we just divide into approximately equal-strength teams, and go have fun.
> > Don't put words in my mouth (or reactions in my emotions), especially ones I don't agree with.
> That was a rhetorical statement, a more cutesy way of saying "A, therefore B." I'm sorry if it bothered you.
Well, others here do it sometimes with malice, or at least with manipulative intent, so I've become rather sensitive to it. Sorry if I jumped on you.