Devices containing private images can become a sexist weapon in this Middle Eastern country. When a phone breaks, the user can go years without fixing it, for fear of suffering blackmail...
Little known fact, cats never get sick. This is the only thing they do at the vet. They just spout a bunch of medical babble at you to maintain a facade of legitimacy
Pretty interesting video that does a good job summarizing and explaining the rationale behind anarchism. Thought it’d be a good piece for those interested in learning more. Couldn’t find any community guidelines for this page so if videos aren’t allowed, please let me know!
Elizabeth Hanna says she was fired by the American Diabetes Association after refusing to approve recipes heaped with the additive made by a major donor...
How much are all those shiny new jobs paying? What’s the cost of living in the areas those jobs are? How many jobs have been made? Does any of this have anything to do with the Tesla layoffs?
You are falling for the “liberal bootlicker talks confidently about things they haven’t actually looked into”
The job, stock and work numbers are at record lows for the decade? I thought they were better than ever! Don’t let doublethink get in the way of your ability to critically assess the steaming pile of shit we’ve all been given
According to my huge Tolkien nerd mom serkis completely botches the elvish pronunciations. Can’t corroborate that personally but she’s been neck deep in LOTR shit for as long as I can remember
You have a very skewed idea of anarchism. I won’t deny the existence of anti-organizational and pacifist anarchist groups but they’re not a majority. Social anarchism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, communalism, Marxist autonomism, council communism, neozapatismo, and especifism are all libertarian socialist ideologies that espouse the necessity of organization and self defense. I’m sure I’m missing a few too. You’re taking a silly comic as serious commentary on the ideological substance of a deep and diverse body of political theory.
Do you wait your turn in line at the store under the threat of violence? Do you only drive the speed limit because if you didn’t you would get pulled over and have your license suspended? Do you give money/food to the homeless despite it being againstl local bylaws that could land you with a fine?
Enforcement in day to day life is an illusion. People don’t need to be forced to “behave”. By and large, most of us just do because we want to get on with our day. If there is no social incentive to harm others, for the most part people.wont harm others because we simply have no desire to harm others. There are ways to account for fringe cases that don’t require a hierarchical, domineering system
We don’t need to incentivse not selling people out. Heirarchy creates a set of incentives TO sell people out. Remove those incentives and people will for the most part not sell people out. You’ve got it exactly backwards.
Ask your buddy mao about anarchist fighting forces. He literally took anarchist tactics around decentralized militias and used them to great success. The Vietnamese as well. Or have a look at the Spanish revolution, rojava, the Ukrainian black army, or the zapatistas if you need more proof that decentralized militant forces are effective and capable. It doesn’t warrant an in detail explanation because “but how fight if democracy???” is weak as fuck.
This is a great time to bring up elite panic. TL;DR in emergency situations (fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, bombing, etc.), it’s been proven time and again that individuals are not only capable of organizing impromptu mutual aid and direct action networks, but that they’re better at disaster relief than state bodies. When heirarchical enforcement rears it’s head in the form of state and military bodies, things get awful for everyone quickly. A podcast on the topic. A book on the topic.
This is a time and place where all social paradigms are shattered. You can “steal” all you want and fuck over everyone else if you so please without any threat of punishment from above. People don’t do that. They help each other, they directly distribute what they have to those who need it most and work together to ensure everyone’s wellbeing.
It’s not surprising either. Mutual aid is baked into existence. Humans are capable of both cooperation and competition. Our society is built around competition. And even still you see people doing what they can for one another when they’re able to. I feel a lot of social ills are caused by alienation from community and not being able to exercise our cooperative impulses enough.
If there were no authority, people would wait in line. By and large, people want to help and labor. Most of us want to work, especially if we feel it is meaningful. If there were no authority, I think the majority of us would be better off for it
What’s your plan to “remove those incentives” because think we’ve got more than enough sample data on what happens when a government falls and the disappearance of all crime and hostility is not part of it.
Are you the one that said not to say “go read theory”? Because the urge to tell you to go read theory is pretty fuckin strong. I’m not going to summarize 200 years of political philosophy and history for you. Especially because I know you’re just gonna go “no you’re wrong and my heirarchical realism is right” no matter how compelling my points are. I’ll give you a couple of places to start, I guess.
Also, the Spanish revolution is a lot more complicated than “the fascists won btw”. Your tone again suggests it’s not worth the effort of breaking it down for.you. I don’t have any specific recommendations on that other than to open a book. Have a good day and go fuck yourself
But sure. Look through this thread for my comment on elite panic. It’s more or less the answer to your questions about crime, failing government, etc. With some more handy links that you might find useful if you’re ever determined to not be as ignorant as you currently are
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires. People spontaneously formed networks of mutual aid and direct action. They autonomously conducted firefighting, medical, food distribution, and rescue efforts to those afflicted. When the military showed up to provide disaster relief they were met by people managing their own affairs and clamped down on it. Killing several victims of the earthquake, jailing many more, and inadvertently starving people by not providing enough food and water to the victims. This was all made worse by the military severely punishing people who “looted” abandoned stores for food and other resources in reaction to the states failure to help effectively. The military even went as far as to level and burn entire blocks to prevent people from “stealing”.
In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, people again formed mutual aid networks to help those in need. The state cracked down on looting (people taking what they needed from abandoned and flooded stores), killing a few. Rescue efforts by the national guard were delayed because they weren’t able to have an armed person on every rescue boat. So instead of just sending them out unarmed or only sending the armed ones, they just didn’t send any. This killed people. Rich racists went on killing sprees in their neighborhoods any time they saw black people nearby. This was ignored and in some cases encouraged by local police as “protecting their property”. The anarchist black cross was the only organized body to effectively deliver aid and defense for the people affected.
In 1964 an earthquake struck Anchorage, Alaska, levelling large portions of the city. People spontaneously organized into mutual aid and direct action networks. They were so effective, only 9 people died from injures related to the earthquake. The death toll would have been significantly higher if it weren’t for the actions of residents. It was a subject of study for years due to the swift and effective response of the locals. The police in the area scrambled in a state of panic. They attempted to enforce the rule of law. Even granting civillians with the temporary position of deputy. They gave them a gun and marked them as deputies using lipstick. These “deputies” were a gaggle of drunks in a local bar. The residents of Anchorage kindly told them to fuck off. When the military arrived to aid in rescue efforts a few days after the earthquake, there was no one left to rescue. The residents saved everyone themselves.
There’s 3 examples of what happens when people are not subject to the rule of law. When there are no power structures to enforce it’s will on the people. When they do get reintroduced, its often violent and cruel.
Obviously not. That’s why most anarchists advocate for pre configuration and organization. If you’ve already got mutual aid networks, horizontal systems of distribution and production in place before shit goes down, your odds of a successful transition to a stateless society are much higher. The examples of elite panic were there to highlight the cooperative impulses of individuals and the malignancy of the state on those impulses
I think timescale is the important factor for spontaneous organization. As you noted with climate change, despite us feeling the effects of it every day, it’s still “abstract” to many of us. That’s a problem for later, we don’t need to deal with it now. And even then, if you asked the average Joe if we should act immediately around climate change I think you’d find there’s enough of us out there who are willing to do something. We just aren’t sure what or how. We’ve been prevented from acting with self determination for most of our lives and the practice isn’t familiar to us.
A quick aside, because I don’t want to forget about your mention of cooperation in conflict. That impulse is still present and practiced in times of political strife and war. You see it all the time without realizing. People react in much the same way after a series of bombings that they do in natural disasters. I don’t have any examples off the top of my head but it should be easy enough to dig up a few stories on the subject.
I was writing earlier about the importance of prefigurarion organization to build a successful stateless society. These practices not only put egalitarian power structures in place (neighborhood councils, unions/syndicates, co-ops) and forms the basis for direct distribution in a moneyless economy, it also allows individuals an opportunity to practice self determination, direct action, and exercising real political power. And that’s part of my reasoning as to why I think time is a more important factor.
All of these things will be important as climate change progresses. As Peter Gelderloos highlights in his book “The Solutions are Already Here” (couldn’t find a free copy, otherwise I’d link it) the state is incapable solving climate change. Many of their grand projects have been either unnecessary, inappropriate, or abject failures. Grassroots efforts have been far more successful and long lasting. The best thing the state can do for climate change is to get out of the way and allow people who know what they’re doing to work.
People are able to act and react, but we’re not permitted to meaningfully act in our day to day lives as a consequence of various forms of heirarchy. Have you ever had to stand by and watch something awful/dumb/misguided happen because the reaction from those with power over you may have been more severe than just letting the thing happen? Stuff like that is happening on a mass scale every day because those above us hold a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and are happy to use it if the “threat” you present is great enough.
I’d keep rambling but I have to get ready for work haha. Feel free to reply or DM me, I’m happy to talk!
Thank you, I appreciate it. If you feel like diving back into the whole human nature thing, I think you would enjoy an anarchist perspective. Peter kropotkin and David graeber are great people to start with. Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid is a foundational book in evolutionary biology that holds up quite well despite being written over a century ago. And I wouldn’t be a real anarchist if I didn’t recommend The Conquest of Bread. It’s less “human nature” and more “societal change is possible”. David Graeber was an anthropologist and anarchist who’s written a number of fascinating books. His most famous being Bullshit Jobs. If history is your jam he and David Wengrow wrote The Dawn of Everything in 2016 and it’s an amazing (but dense in parts) read. It’s been criticized for being idealist (in the ontological sense) so take it’s rationale with a grain of salt. It is however, very informative and thought provoking, especially in the “social life and nature of humans” department. Another notable mention is Debt: The First 5,000 Years. The title is pretty self explanatory haha. Either way, I wish you well on your search!
If all kernel bugs are security bugs, how do you keep your Linux safe? (www.zdnet.com)
Hospital staff plead with bite victims to stop bringing snakes to emergency departments (www.abc.net.au)
Archive/mirror: archive.ph/lEZn5
What my dad sees. What I see. (lemmy.ml)
Yemeni women become mobile phone technicians to curb sextortion (english.elpais.com)
Devices containing private images can become a sexist weapon in this Middle Eastern country. When a phone breaks, the user can go years without fixing it, for fear of suffering blackmail...
ALL HAIL THE KING (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
Video: Anark | The principles of anarchism and how they lead to human liberation (youtu.be)
Pretty interesting video that does a good job summarizing and explaining the rationale behind anarchism. Thought it’d be a good piece for those interested in learning more. Couldn’t find any community guidelines for this page so if videos aren’t allowed, please let me know!
jorasik pork (mander.xyz)
She was fired after not endorsing Splenda-filled salads to people with diabetes (www.theguardian.com)
Elizabeth Hanna says she was fired by the American Diabetes Association after refusing to approve recipes heaped with the additive made by a major donor...
Tesla asks shareholders to approve Texas move and restore Elon Musk’s $56B pay (arstechnica.com)
Tesla board calls June 13 shareholder vote on Musk’s pay and move to Texas.
Silmarillion Reader's Guide (lemmy.world)
(Not OC)
Texas has so much space (lemmy.ml)
Oh no, Anarchists! (slrpnk.net)