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[–] 6 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Your first comment is exhibiting the isolationist mindset of suburnites while simultaneously marking mutual aid as anathema to your world view. Seems completely captured by capitalism to me.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 child)

    Your first comment is exhibiting the isolationist mindset of suburnites

    Nah, they were just stating the reality. I know you'd like to keep your fantasy about an anarchist utopia intact, but in case you haven't interacted with many people lately, I'll just gently remind you that most people are not that altruistic.

    while simultaneously marking mutual aid as anathema to your world view.

    They didn't say anything about their personal worldview. Maybe they think that anarchist utopia of yours would be the dream. But they know that it is a dream and nothing more. Acknowledging the prevailing mindset in society and the limitations that mindset places on collectivist social reform is not an expression of personal conviction.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 child)

    The fact that society is an emergent property of humanity instead of us killing each other to extinction has already proved you wrong about humanity. Please do not add anymore shit to the conversation.

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  • [–] -2 points 7 hours ago (1 child)

    instead of us killing each other

    Um what. Where in the history textbook did you read this part about humanity not killing each other?

    The entire course of human civilization has been about humans killing each other, sects killing each other, kingdoms and nations killing each other.

    The only reason we've enjoyed relative peace for the last 80 years (and I understand how much weight that "relative" is pulling) is because of the rules-based-order that emerged as a result of human societies utilizing governments as a medium through which to engage in diplomacy. Which, in case you missed it, largely occurred due to each respective nation-state engaging due to self-interest.

    So no, we're not some essentially altruistic species that only survived to procreate and evolve due to our perfect selflessness. Humans are primarily egocentric, and as individuals develop they expand their "sense of self" to larger in-groups: to their family, to their neighborhood, to their schoolmates, to their subcultures, to their geographical region, to their nation, and if they don't stop there, the enlightened cosmopolitans among us might expand our sense of identity to humanity as a whole, or to the entire planet, or to all sentient life throughout the universe. But that is far from the default state of humanity, and the relative few who reach that level of collective awareness are a very small minority indeed. And most people who stop short of reaching that level of consciousness only end up killing whoever is left outside of their personal "in-group" anyway, no matter how small or large that in-group becomes.

    The altruistic few are mostly even regarded with suspicion by their peers and estranged from society, because most people simply don't trust the intentions of someone claiming to have a selfless motivation.

    Resting the fate of society as a whole on the good will and inclinations of the average member of it is a terrible idea, especially when billionaire oligarchs are already being allowed to basically live anarchistically, and they show you every single day what they're deciding to do with that. I'll give you a hint, it's not altruism.

    So no, you're wrong, and telling me to stop contributing to the discussion is not going to change that. Seriously, what kind of anarchist tries to win a discussion by bullying into silence anyone who shares a conflicting opinion? 👀 Hmmm...

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 child)

    Nice way to cut off "killing each other to extinction" so you could make your point. You had to misquote me to do this.

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  • [–] -3 points 6 hours ago (1 child)

    What part of

    So no, we're not some essentially altruistic species that only survived to procreate and evolve due to our perfect selflessness.

    did you miss?

    Humans didn't go extinct, not because we're altruistic, but because we're self-interested. The post-WWII peace period (again, very relative), the UN, the rules-based-order, nuclear non-proliferation; there's about four reasons why we didn't go extinct in just the last century, and every single one of those reasons only happened because of nations engaging due to self-interest.

    It's also too early to claim humans haven't wiped ourselves out yet, because so far it's looking like nothing is going to be done to stop climate change or AI from leading to our extinction, unless the oligarch-class decides it's in their self-interest to do something to stop it; or, ideally, concerned citizens acting in self-interest finally convince their political representative (who are also, by the way, acting in self-interest) to impose and enforce regulations to put a halt to that destruction.

    Humans didn't survive the past several millennia since the dawn of settled civilizations because of altruism. All along the way, civilizations have been conquering, overthrowing, dominating, colonizing, and enslaving each other. They keep the local people alive (when they do) only out of self-interest, because slaves and serfs are more valuable to them than corpses.

    Now, before you misattributed evil inclinations to me, I'm not saying there's anything morally right or good or just about that. But no honest reading of history will tell you anything to the contrary.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    If the natural instinct of human fucking beings was to just murder and cheat each other we would never have formed society to get into wars in the first fucking place. It takes trust and mutual aid to build society. I dont need to read your madman eugenics scrawlings about the finality of evil to disprove this. The world we live in literally would not even exist in the capacity it does if human society was built on deception instead of trust. This is factually why it is falling about now.

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  • [–] -2 points 6 hours ago* (1 child)

    If the natural instinct of human fucking beings was to just murder and cheat each other we would never have formed society to get into wars in the first fucking place.

    Yes we would have. And we did. It was all in self-interest.

    It takes trust and mutual aid to build society.

    That's just the expansion of in-groups due to expediency. Show me the society, in history or modern times, that reached the level of perfectly altruistic cosmopolitanism, inclusion, tolerance, multiculturalism, diversity, or whatever else you want to call it. Because that's what you seem to be claiming humanity is and has been from the start.

    I dont need to read your madman eugenics scrawlings about the finality of evil to disprove this.

    See, I knew you would try to attribute some weird shit like that to me. Nothing I said was in support of eugenics. In fact I outright reject them as I consider them an atrocity. But if you think eugenics hasn't featured prominently in human history, then you haven't been paying close enough attention. And denying that reality is a disservice to all of its victims in past, present, and future.

    I also said nothing about "the finality of evil." I said it's not the default state of humanity. I never said it can't be our destiny. I would love to believe it is. I don't know the future, but I certainly believe it's possible. I feel less and less convinced as time goes on that it's even remotely likely, at least in the next several hundred years. But I'm certain that it's not a guarantee.

    The world we live in literally would not even exist in the capacity it does if human society was built on deception instead of trust.

    Yes it would. And I hate to break this to you, but, it is.

    This is factually why it is falling about now.

    Yes. Finally a statement I can agree with.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    I see you have nothing rational to add to the discussion.

    Observing a characteristic of society is not a statement of my personal dispositions. And this is at least the third time in this short conversation that you've attempted to conflate the two.

    It seems that in order to be a considered a good person in your view, someone has to believe that all humans are perfectly good and just beings and human society has never had a flaw worth mentioning. That's called "toxic positivity" and ironically enough is a tool often used by fascism.

    It's the same thing as when magats deny that slavery and genocide played a prominent role in the founding of the United States. But you probably think me pointing that out is an expression of support for those atrocities, so I can't expect you to have anything rational to say in response. I don't know why I even try.

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  • [–] -1 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    This is a lot of words for "I'm sorry I sling eugenics bullshit and think most people should die"

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    What a blatant fucking strawman you're constructing there. You are not a serious person, and you are not arguing in good faith. You've shown yourself multiple times throughout this conversation to be incapable of rational discussion.

    Living in an anarchic society with someone like you would be god-awful, because you'd be exactly the one to go around bullying people for having the audacity to publicly disagree with you, and you would make shit up about people to accuse them of to try to get them ostracized by their peers and rejected from the herd. In short, your version of anarchy is tyranny. Only, in your fantasy, you get to be the tyrant.

    You're an anarchist in name only.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago (1 child)

    Your first comment is exhibiting the isolationist mindset of suburnites

    I don't think you can narrow that general mindset down to suburbanites. People in all kinds of population densities form in-groups and outgroups, it doesn't matter if they are in suburbia, a big city, or out in the country. I lived in Baltimore for a year, and that was probably the most socially isolated I've ever been. The east coast of the US is just a bucket of crabs, everyone trying to climb over everyone else. The people there wouldn't even spit at you for free. My partner grew up in a very rural environment, like "outside city limits, and that city only had one traffic light of the blinking yellow variety" rural. The help they got growing up was from family. They would do odd jobs for neighbors and neighbors would do likewise, but there was always some expectation of barter or compensation for materials and services. They definitely had a concept of private property, and knew their tools, time, and expertise were valuable assets necessary to continue their desired lifestyle.

    Please, contrast my experiences with yours. I'd love to hear a first-hand account from someone living in a current anarchist society.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    So you're saying rural America survives off of mutual aid and community welfare while smacking anarchists with the same hand? You just blow in from Stupidville?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago* (1 child)

    No, I'm saying that your reading comprehension abilities and your lofty ideals of a utopian society where no one needs property and everyone contributes as best they're able with no concern for getting value out of an exchange proportional to the effort put in, is indicative of a failed home-school education and a lack of real world experience.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 hours ago (1 child)

    everyone contributes as best they're able with no concern for getting value out of an exchange proportional to the effort put in

    How much effort went into contacting your neighbor about their roof and how much value did you get out of it?

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  • [–] 0 points 8 hours ago* (1 child)

    Maybe an hour of time between checking around the house to make sure no one was home, checking with my other neighbors to see if they had his contact info, calling the non-emergency police line, chekcing the country records for property info, digging up my neighbor's linkedin profile, calling the corporate office (getting stuck on hold) then thinking to check the Zillow listing and call the agent that last sold the house.

    What was it worth to me? I didn't have to spend the rest of my day wondering if he was going to come home from a day of work and find that his house needed major repairs that could have been mitigated if only he'd known a few hours earlier. He was able to get a crew out there the same day to get the tree out of his roof and get some temporary coverage up to weather then next few days of storms.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    So despite your earlier claim that expecting people to help others without getting something out of it themselves was "indicative of a failed home-school education and a lack of real world experience" you have a story where you spent an hour of your time and effort to help your neighbour without getting anything out of it yourself.

    Did you do all that for your neighbour because of your failed home-school education? Or your lack of real world experience?

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  • [–] 2 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

    Bytemeister's anecdote related an example of his personal altruism. Which, I assure you, makes him the rare exception rather than the rule. Most people would not care or go out of their way to do that much or even think about it at all.

    That does not contradict his statement that you cannot base a society entirely off of the expectation that everyone will always be that caring and altruistic to the point where we can all rely on and expect the altruism of others to always be able to meet our personal needs.

    Bytemeister can simultaneously be altruistic himself, while acknowledging that the average member of society is not altruistic enough to make a system like that work for any length of time.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 hours ago (1 child)

    Which, I assure you, makes him the rare exception rather than the rule.

    Using someone unnecessarily peppering insults into all their responses to people who disagree them as a "rare example of someone who cares" is an odd choice.

    They don't care enough to be civil with people they disagree with and even they can be altruistic. How much more altruistic can we expect all the people who don't insult everyone who disagrees with them to be?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    I didn't see him peppering his comments with insults. Do you think disagreement and criticism is the same thing as an insult? Besides, the person he was mainly arguing with was being unnecessarily hostile right from the start. If anything, he was the one peppering insults. I don't blame Bytemeister for getting exasperated with that.

    How much more altruistic can we expect all the people who don't insult everyone who disagrees with them to be?

    Do you... do you believe those people are the norm? If so, I'd love to live in your country because it sounds quite pleasant.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    I don't even think it was that altruistic. I have a saw, and a ladder. I could have risked myself to try to remove the tree and fix up the roof... Not to mention the potential lawsuits from screwing it up, since I'm not trained in tree removal or roof repairs, or getting arrested for trespass for messing around in a house I don't own.

    I put in an amount of effort to satisfy my own concerns about how devasted I would be if my house was destroyed and no one even lifted a finger to let me know about it before I got home.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    That's because you have empathy. Which makes you an exception, not the norm.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 hours ago (1 child)

    Some empathy is normal, but I don't think my level of empathy is, and I'm certain that there isn't enough for an anarchist society to exist at a scale larger than a few thousand people.

    I think would rather enjoy living in an equitable society where everyone helps everyone else, and there is no property, but as soon as your society needs to have modern amenities (water, sanitation, electricity, roads, etc) setup or repaired, you're going to involve a chain of people so large to support that infrastructure that your society will extend beyond it's stable size.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago

    Empathy among one's in-group is certainly normal. Even hitler loved his dog. But empathy for one's out-group is a rare exception. And it's not altruism unless it encompasses one's out-group.

    I think your vision of a potential society seems nice. And that it would only be possible to establish and maintain to assure perpetuity if there is some formalized system of governance to define precisely how aid is rendered, how needs are met, and what the mutual rights and obligations of each member entail.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (1 child)

    you have a story where you spent an hour of your time and effort to help your neighbour without getting anything out of it yourself.

    everyone contributes as best they’re able with no concern for getting value out of an exchange proportional to the effort put in

    If you read a little slower, and tried a little harder, you might understand what I actually wrote. I'm gonna go ahead and lay it out here, since you seem to be struggling...

    I am not everyone, you are not everyone. Everyone is not me, and everyone is not you. People are individuals, and as individuals, they have different experiences in life. Those different experiences cause those individuals to behave differently. Some people do like helping others, (like I me), but not everyone does. You'll note in my story that not all my neighbors worked together to find this guy and let him know about his house, I doubt any of them did except me. I called the police about it, and they tried to help, because they are paid by my city (and by extension, me and my neighbors) to help if they can. I do not hold a social view that depends on everyone being as altruistic (if not more so) than I am. I have a personal philosophy that you should help people, and prioritize helping them based on how close they are to you. I put myself first, a little selfish, sure, but it's the old "put your mask on first, then help others" logic. You can't help others effectively if you need help yourself. After that, it's my family first, then friends, neighbors, residents of my state, countrymen, neighboring countries, continent, and then the rest of the world. However, it would be foolish of me to think that everyone has this same willingness to help, or the same logical progression of altruism for their fellow man. That is why I as an individual can help others with no expectations of direct compensation without characterizing myself as a naive fool who flunked out of homeschool, because I didn't actually state anything about the education of individuals that help others freely. Your comment is a strawman, where you build a different argument, and attack that, rather than debate what I have actually said.

    Now, I'm asking you a question to make sure you are arguing in good faith. Please be sure to address it in your reply. Did you build a strawman intentionally, or did you do it accidentally?

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  • [–] 0 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

    To start with, someone arguing in good faith does not open with: "If you read a little slower, and tried a little harder, you might understand what I actually wrote. I'm gonna go ahead and lay it out here, since you seem to be struggling..."

    That's a sign of someone lacking a good argument and trying to hide it behind insults. Either the person gets offended and doesn't respond, or they focus on the insult instead of the argument. Either way it's a weak attempt to get them to focus on something other than the actual argument you are making.

    Secondly, speaking of Strawmen: you are insisting something cannot work unless 100% of the people are maximally altruistic, which simply isn't true. If you have 100 people, 99 are altruistic and 1 isn't, things will work out just fine. Now, what that minimum percent of autistic people needs to be is up for debate, but it does not need to be 100%. So I agree that not everybody is altruistic, but not everybody to be.

    Which brings me to the third point: you going on about your own personal altruism while claiming people aren't altruistic is a bizarre choice, and if you don't see how that undermines your argument I can't help you. My guess is you do see how obviously it undermines your argument and that's why you're trying to hide it under insults. You probably also want to feel like you're very special and nicer than everyone else, but given how rude you present yourself to people who disagree with you this undermines your argument even further. Most people are not this unnecessarily rude to people who disagree with them. So if even someone like you who is below average on politeness can be altruistic, it would imply people who care enough about others to be civil during a disagreement would be at least as altruistic if not more.

    You being altruistic while also being a dick implies the majority of people are altruistic; as the majority of people are not dicks, and even dicks are altruistic.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    That's a sign of someone lacking a good argument and trying to hide it behind insults.

    No, it's a sign of someone arguing with a person who refuses to see reason (i.e., bad faith), who is no longer willing to repeat himself by restating the things he already said that were ignored and mischaracterized...

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  • [–] 2 points 3 hours ago

    Didn't address the strawman that you created, and instead went to ad-hominem attacks.

    You at least put forth some effort to make another point, but I see no reason to waste my time defending against it until we are cleary having an honest discussion on even terms.

    Please address why you made a strawman in the first place, and I will address the points you made in your last reply.

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