Comment by SequoiaHope | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SequoiaHope | Hacker News Reader

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Same! I emailed him asking for his thoughts on robotics and anarcho-communism and he replied pretty promptly. He said it was an important subject and that he was moving offices (this was his move to Arizona), but I could ask again another time. I never quite had the time to prepare for what I would have asked for, some kind of discussion I could record, which he was doing a lot at the time, but I was very happy just to have gotten a supportive reply the first time.

For anyone curious, here is Chomsky in 1976 discussing the relevance of automation and anarcho syndicalism to modern productive economies: https://youtu.be/h_x0Y3FqkEI

I truly believe we can build a world where everyone benefits from automation, getting the freedom and time to do what we will that every person deserves. The reason I develop open source farming robots is to explore concepts of community ownership of the means of production and community oriented engineering. Noam Chomsky’s work heavily inspired the thinking that got me where I am today.

That's definitely a big question. I asked a pretty open ended question about how he thinks the internet (and filter bubbles in specific) might have changed some of his thoughts in manufacturing consent as the main media went from TV / newspapers (broadcast) to internet (personalized). He said that basically the big companies own it all anyway.

What makes you believe this would work? Specifically any form of anarchism? Have you seen groups of people operate for large periods of time successfully like this? Anything I've looked into shows me human nature would make any anarcho-anything system fail due to infighting.

What makes you believe anything would work? Things take people wanting them.

There's many years of evidence of other systems and how they work and their trade-offs, so you can read about them. I haven't read about a successful anarchistic system so I asked for more info in case they had it.

Grand ideas about structuring a society based on a premise or an ideology or ideal end up being disasters when attempts are made to put them into practice.

It should be pretty simple to understand why: no one person or group of people can predict all eventualities or contingencies and it is not possible to design a system based on rigid ideals that can fail gracefully.

Grand ideas about structuring society often have an egotism problem. The ego behind the ideas turns its critical lens outward without looking inward. Naturally it ends up telling the world what to do.

which is why education, to nudge people in the right direction is the only way to achieve lasting change

Spain, the Paris Commune...

The problem with anarchism is never infighting it just wasnt good at defending itself from external military threats.

Stalinism on the other hand, was a perfectly crafted machine for dealing with external military threats, but wasn't very nice to live under.

Historically, there have been a few examples of radical egalitarianism in revolutionary movements but like the Paris Commune they generally are short-lived – or never even become the dominant force, e.g., the Levellers during the English Civil Wars. It was the accomplishments of the CNT/FAI in organising one million members in 1930’s Spain that inspired me to become a libertarian socialist. However, since then I’ve come to the conclusion that the more egalitarian and democratic a society is, the more vulnerable it is to external and other threats.

Have you seen what the current system of bourgeoisie corporate rule is doing to us?

Is that system “working”?

In June 1888 Peter Kropotkin wrote “Are we good enough?” on the subject of human nature and anarchism. It’s well worth a listen: https://youtu.be/jytf-5St8WU

Thanks for sharing. I don't need to think we have a great system to have questions about something else not working, I'm just curious if it has because when I read about most anarcho-* philosophies I seem to see gaps in them. It doesn’t mean I'm right, just trying to learn more. There's already two good shares to read up later :)

edit: thanks again, your linked video is perfect, I have held this exact view that "we're not good enough" for communism/anarchy, so this is the perfect challenge to my current beliefs!

peter kropotkin was right about the then state of things, but he missed the true solution. if i understand it correctly he is saying that in light of us not being good enough, a communist system is better than a capitalist one. and yet, communist systems largely failed.

the real solution is to fix the "are we good enough" problem and change education such that we actually become good enough. this requires moral education to a degree that is not happening anywhere yet. the reality is that as peter says in the beginning, if we were good enough, then the system would not matter. and has history has shown, as long as we are not good enough, any system remains exploitable. communism brought a temporary relief but ended up failing because we still were not good enough.

so lets forget this arguing about which system is better. it does not matter. what matters is that we learn to become good enough. that should be our goal. that's the only way to eliminate all problems.

Lip's history. My father knew Neuschwander, so maybe i'm biased, but Lip was truly an example of what anarcho-syndicalism can and should be, and survived 5 years despite fighting both a government and all the industry leaders, because it couldn't be allowed to work.

I think US historians wrote books on it, but often fail to mention that after (or really, a bit before) Neuschwander took control, the metal and steel industry that sold them metal gave them structurally deficient steel, poor quality copper and were largely inconsistent in their metal delivery, being late for months, then giving them all the late commands at the same time, stretching or overflowing their storage. The luxury store and industry wasn't any better (one more reason to hate LVMH and never support them as a French), leaving their products in inventory and not in display, rejecting previously accepted commands, and limiting foreign exports to less than the number of exported goods than when Lip watches had to be smuggled. The courts and police didn't help and (according to what i heard: this is a biased account) refused to take any declaration.

A lot of the US government would be called anarchist if it was a proposal from a radical rather than the current state of affairs:

1. Criminal trials via random lottery of jury with the charged being viewed as innocent until proven guilty.

2. Checks and balances, where governmental power is intentionally limited and weakened.

3. A system of federated governments that elect representations, with a design favoring minority members of that federation.

Anarchism is always a balancing act between legitimate power and limitations on that power. Most forms of Anarchism do not reject all forms of power as illegitimate but rather place a heavy burden of proof on the claim that legitimate of the use of power.

I disagree with a lot of what Chomsky has said but I do think his definition of anarchism was very well stated:

"Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying. They have to give a reason for it, a justification. And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just." - Noam Chomsky

That sounds great but how do you deal with the fact that robots require mass-produced electronics and the infrastructure for those is currently in the hands of, well, let's say not anarcho-communists?

How about the environmental costs of all that automation?

Is there a realistic path for getting to what you propose from where we are now?

[Edit: realistic in the sense that e.g. the Alcubierre drive is possible but requires exotic matter, therefore "not realistic").

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