• chaogomu
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    11 year ago

    A truly stateless society is only possible when everyone is 100% self-sufficient.

    This can mostly be done on a community scale, provided that the communities number no more than about 150 individuals. After that, you need to start forming some sort of governing body.

    People can come together in amazing ways when there’s a desperate need, and often the community response to a disaster is better than the government one. But when the roads need paving and the sewers need fixing, you turn toward the government to handle it.

    Or, here’s a big one. Environmental protection. That really needs government backing. You as a single person cannot do it. But we as a collective can, and that collective is a government.

    • @unfreeradical
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      1 year ago

      You are not understanding the essence of stateless society.

      The ideal entails no objection against organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community.

      • chaogomu
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        11 year ago

        Do you know what those “organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community” are called? They’re called governments. i.e. the State.

        The simple truth is that the whole “stateless society” falls apart the second you have communities larger than 150 people, because our brains literally can’t handle it. We have physiological limits to the number of relationships that we can maintain.

        And spoiler, humans like to live in cities that have vastly more than 150 people.

        Now, think about all the people who have full time jobs maintaining the infrastructure to keep a city going. Do you think “the community” could come together and do all that? No, they’ve got shit to do. I personally can’t sit in hours of planning meetings per day to schedule sewer maintenance so that the entire city doesn’t get cholera and die.

        Which is why I vote for people who do have time for that shit. And then I trust that the people I vote for will have the power needed to close streets as needed to get things done.

        Now, I have issues with the process of voting. But that’s because First Past the Post is flawed and easily abused. I have notes, and would like a better voting system, but I still want a voting system.

        • @unfreeradical
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          11 year ago

          Do you know what those “organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community” are called? They’re called governments. i.e. the State.

          No, a regional or even international body is not necessarily a government in the sense of your objection, as a state power that asserts authority through coercion.

          I am sorry, but you are conflating various distinct concepts as one. You have not adequately understood the ideas against which you are asserting strong objections.

          • chaogomu
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            01 year ago

            And you’ve not actually put forward anything different beyond “organizational bodies at a scale above the level of the community”, which is a government.

            Yes, these bodies will have the power of coercion, because that’s how you get shit done at scale.

            Imagine a farm or factory is dumping chemicals into a watershed. There are very few options for stopping that shit without some sort of coercion, and I prefer my coercion to not be in the form of mob justice, which requires a functional government.

            But that’s just me. Why don’t you enlighten me on how the above scenario would work in your dream of a stateless society.

            • @unfreeradical
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              1 year ago

              Why don’t you enlighten me on how the above scenario would work in your dream of a stateless society.

              Stateless society is not a dream, but rather an objective, or an ideal toward which to struggle.

              If you want to understand how it might be structured, then I encourage you to investigate and to discover.

              At the moment, however, you are engaged in shifting of the burden of proof.

              You have also entered into several instances of a false dichotomy, including through your insinuation that all societies are either disordered, or must be kept orderly by a coercive authority.

              I feel you are more likely to benefit from explanation of certain ideas if you are not encumbered by such kinds of fallacious reasoning.

              • chaogomu
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                01 year ago

                So you have no clue how a stateless society would actually function. Thank you for clearing that up.

                • @unfreeradical
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                  1 year ago

                  There is not only a single way a stateless society may function, just as there is not only a single way a state may function.

                  A member of a hunter-gatherer group might lack knowledge of states, but they still occur, in all their variations.

                  The topic of stateless society is obviously large, just like the topic of states, or any other topic in politics. It is not suitable to be expounded in a discussion thread.

                  Again, if you genuinely are interested, then I encourage you to seek resources from which you might gain meaningful understanding.

                  Meanwhile, please stop whining that actual possibilities are somehow limited by your own personal frame of experience, knowledge, or imagination.

                  • chaogomu
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                    11 year ago

                    The fact that you’re unable to link to any of these “resources” says that you don’t know them.

                    The only stateless societies you can point to seem to have less than 150 people (hunter-gatherers) Because that’s all that the human brain can support. Anything more requires bureaucracy. And that is the beginnings of government.