Hacker News Reader

Comment by sixstringtheory | Hacker News Reader

> people know how to live their own lives and organize themselves better than any expert could

except, of course, for anyone that disagrees that anarchy can work?

> If we ever win the freedom to run our own lives, we’ll probably come up with entirely new approaches to organization

Didn’t take long to come out and admit that!

The truth AFAICT is that humans are animals and animals love a pecking order. You remove the “rules” and all you’ve done is remove the formalization of rule–providing ample opportunity for arbitrary informal rule systems to become established in an unwritten fashion. I’ve found that the people I know that advocate anarchy actually view it as a means, not an end. The real end is the system they think would work best (usually to their benefit, imagine that), and anarchy is simply the step that removes the old system.

View on HN

You're using language intelligently here in a way that obscures the deductive leap you're making. That some prominent examples of animals love a pecking order (or at least appear to do -- some of the previous conclusions have been refuted in more thorough studies) does not mean that all animals do.

Second, you're repeating a common argument that "if there will be informal cliques of power arising anyway, we may as well formalise and legitimise their power." That's not a universally accepted line of reasoning. It might be the case that flexible orders of informal power results in better outcomes than strictly defined hierarchies of formal power.

> “if there will be informal cliques of power arising anyway, we may as well formalise and legitimise their power“

I’m not saying we should legitimize any unjust system, I’m saying we should fly the plane while we fix it instead of crashing it into the ground, melting it down and recasting it into new parts.

I think it’s more likely we get to better forms of organization by moving forwards, not backwards.

> That's not a universally accepted line of reasoning.

Sounds like argumentum ad populum mixed in with a little “many people are saying…”

> It might be the case that flexible orders of informal power results in better outcomes than strictly defined hierarchies of formal power.

Sure maybe, but it’s on you to elaborate how that could happen, or provide examples.

> strictly defined hierarchies of formal power

My experience dealing with many different government agencies, from border patrol and customs to the IRS and DMV have shown me that government is anything but rigid and well defined; the insidiousness of bureaucracy lies in its fluidity, due to the fact that you’re at the whim of whatever agent stands before you, with all their human imperfections. They had a bad day? They’re off their game? You just might get the shaft.

Still, I think that’s a better place to start building from than square one.

> I think it’s more likely we get to better forms of organization by moving forwards, not backwards.

Now you're implying that anarchism, based on more egalitarian principles than what we have now, is "moving backwards"? Or did I misunderstand this?

> Sure maybe, but it’s on you to elaborate how that could happen, or provide examples.

I feel like research into system safety and performance -- some of it has disseminated into modern management training -- emphasises a low power gradient and a Westrum generative culture. In other words, what we know indicates we should move at least a little bit away from feudalism and toward anarchism.

Even the traditionally strictly hierarchical armed forces are moving toward decentralised control, "commander's intent", initiative on the ground, etc.

> My experience dealing with many different government agencies...

This is very observant! I think it would be better to recognise this explicitly and start from the assumption that power is flexible and informal, rather than keep trying to pretend it's something else.

> Now you're implying that anarchism, based on more egalitarian principles than what we have now, is "moving backwards"? Or did I misunderstand this?

I think it is not a given that anarchism is more egalitarian, especially if you think, like I do, that it provides easy cover for opportunists to exploit it. Pure egalitarianism means reverting to the lowest possible common denominator. Many people will not accept that.

When I say forwards and backwards, I mean getting closer to understanding and defining the power dynamics intrinsic to populations of humans. I think code of law is an output of that pursuit, much like software code is there output of the process of defining whatever system it is modeling.

I have to admit that you’ve brought me to the limit of my knowledge with Westrum, haven’t heard of that before. I’ll have to read some things and chew on that a bit.

Low power gradient sounds nice, but I’ll say two things about it OTTOMH: 1) that is not anarchy, and 2) even a very shallow gradient in a world of 7 billion still results in a very wide base of people at the lowest rungs and a very high rung for the upper crust. Ie it can still lead to large inequalities given a sufficiently large society.

I’m not saying that is fair or right, I’m just saying I’m not seeing convincing alternatives.

> it provides easy cover for opportunists to exploit it

I’ve always thought the opposite is true. A set of rules is bound to be gamed. More rules create more opportunities to exploit (regulation only benefits leechers). When rules are global, profit of exploitation is greater. Therefore, there are more exploiters and exploits. In anarchy, the extent to which a set of rules apply is limited. Therefore, there is less profit from exploitation, and in turn, there are less exploiters.

> low power gradient

What does this mean?

It means many things, but perhaps one way to put it is that ideas live on their own merit, rather than the rank of the person who proposed them.

You also notice it other ways: information (especially bad news) gets distorted as it tries to travel up a steep power gradient. In a steep power gradient, blame gets assigned downward and credit is claimed upward. Under a low power gradient, people share talk time in meetings more equally.

> a common argument that "if there will be informal cliques of power arising anyway, we may as well formalise and legitimise their power."

There is no "we" here.

If someone has the power to remove the power structures, people will start organising themselves in power structures pretty damn quickly. And those who are organised enough that can accumulate more physical power will immediately start enforcing those structures on others.

It always comes down to physical power, and although I would love to se a society where every single member follows the principles of non-violence, I can't even imagine a world without it.

> The truth AFAICT is that humans are animals and animals love a pecking order.

And the slaves love to get food and shelter for their work.

> I’ve found that the people I know that advocate anarchy actually view it as a means, not an end. The real end is the system they think would work best (usually to their benefit, imagine that), and anarchy is simply the step that removes the old system.

There has to be a name for a "No no true scotsman" fallacy. No true strawman? No system is an end to itself, it serves something or someone. Can we find systems that serve more people or better? Or do you just want to throw tour hands in the air and say "well, people are corrupt haha"?

> And the slaves love to get food and shelter for their work.

We’re skirting awfully close to Godwin’s law here aren’t we?

One of the deepest insights I found in Caste by Isabel Wilkerson was that most people, when put in the position, would capitalize on the opportunity to subjugate their fellow humans. I’m not saying I want to do that, I’m just saying that is reality as I have seen it play out.

> Or do you just want to throw tour hands in the air

Quite the opposite, see my reply to your sibling, I think we can do get farther by working in the systems we’ve evolved vs throwing them all away. I’m not sure anarchism is a good approach to avoiding path dependency in the search for an optimal government, which may not even be possible –as you said, no system is an end itself. We’re going to keep discovering new problems to solve, and I think we’d be better equipped with advanced forms of government. That doesn’t mean they can’t be made simpler or be organized better than they are today.

> One of the deepest insights I found in Caste by Isabel Wilkerson was that most people, when put in the position, would capitalize on the opportunity to subjugate their fellow humans. I’m not saying I want to do that, I’m just saying that is reality as I have seen it play out.

Isn't this basically because they feel forced to, since they're subjugated to someone else?

"If I don't do it someone else will"

"May as well get mine"

I don’t think you could say that about everyone. I’ve known unreasonably sociopathic people.

And even then, the buck stops somewhere. To whom is the king of the hill beholden?

> One of the deepest insights I found in Caste by Isabel Wilkerson was that most people, when put in the position, would capitalize on the opportunity to subjugate their fellow humans.

that’s the crux of it though isn’t it? democrats (lowercase d) don’t trust any individual to wield direct power over another so they limit their own power and transfer it to the state and then distribute control over the state. anarchists don’t trust others to wield power over them so they seek to remove themselves from obligatory power relations altogether.

i’m not convinced there isn’t a non-destructive path from democracy to anarchy. start where we are today, and increasingly make more systems “opt in”. “you want the power to buy/sell things without FDA approval? fine, but you’ll have to settle disputes outside of our court system.” and keep doing that until you’ve granted the diehard anarchist the legal freedom to legitimately opt out of all prior power relations, and start his village in the woods, no police, no taxes, no restrictions on exchange. actually i’m a little fuzzy on what proportion of anarchists would be satisfied by this, or if it would more likely be rejected as being ancap or libertarian.

I think that pecking order is a poor substitute for any unhierarchical way of interacting. The best team efforts I ever had the honor of being part of, be it creative projects, software projects, music bands, project groups always had a flat power distribution. Having a ruler was not necessary there.

I also had good groups with hierarchies, but never because of the hierarchy, but despite it. These projects were never as fulfilling as the freeform ones, where we collectively decided who needed to do what and what needed to be done. Hierarchies can be very bad when taken too seriously, because your superior is usually not the best at understanding the problem domain at any given point in time and it is very easy to loose the motivation of your subordinates if they don't feel in control of their domain.

That being said the interesting test for any system of power distribution is always scale. Small groups, communes, villages or cities are something else than countries.

The drawbacks of freeform, "structureless" organization do often emerge as the group becomes large, and not directly oriented towards any short-term goal. They're not going to be visible in small project-like settings.

Commenting to go against the current replies who seem to deny obvious social and biological facts.

It's interesting that those types of comments usually come from the same people who would call animals "non-human animals" to show that humans are "just" another animal. Yet when you remind them Nature doesn't keep things that haven't found an equilibrium, they freak out...

Yes, any human group will naturally or forcefully get hierarchically ordered. "Anarchy" is just a fancy idea that doesn't pass reality's test. Or that won't be real "anarchy".

Anarchism doesn’t reject “rules”. It’s certainly not rulelessness. It advocates freedom of self-organization of communities. So, communities will have their own rules.

> animals love a pecking order

This is about as convincing as Peterson and his lobsters argument lol

You don't see the objective benefits of a pecking order? Really ?

> except, of course, for anyone that disagrees that anarchy can work?

ie 99 percent of human beings

Reply on news.ycombinator.com