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[–] 54 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Okay, we just solve them one at a time using experimentation enabled by decentralization. Communities pick what works and discard what doesn’t, without a higher power dictating inefficiencies.

Boom. Done. Next question.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    How is that "boom done"?

    Sounds like it would be an excruciatingly long and possibly neverending process.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

    In 1999, when the Cape Hatteras lighthouse was in danger of collapsing into the sea, it was determined that it needed to be moved inland. The community was outraged, lawsuits and votes followed, and the local community determined that they did not want the lighthouse moved. The Army Corps of Engineers declared that the community of Hatteras was not in a position to win a war against the ocean, asserted the Federal Government's control over the lighthouse, and moved it anyway.

    The move was a huge success. The lighthouse is now safe from collapsing into the ocean, despite the efforts of the local community.

    I'm not saying submitting to a higher power (in this case a higher level of expertise) is always better... but sometimes it is.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Local communities are so much better than higher power that you needed to stretch for anecdotal evidence from the 20th century.

    More lighthouses are being destroyed by the climate change that the Army defends and creates directly.

    Gee thanks for the government, without it one lighthouse might have collapsed eventually.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 child)

    But if in one community you don't have anyone that has a sufficient level of expertise for some area or another, that might lead it to collapse into pseudoscience and bad decisions. I don't mean that you need a central authority, but you for sure need local authorities in X or Y question inside every cell of the federation.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    21st Century:

    Grafton, NH, AKA the "and then the bears came" town.

    Local community (demographically taken over by a bunch of libertarians) votes to slash town budget and regulations, including trash pickup.

    And then the bears came.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    A concentrated community of Right-wing libertarians/Anarcho-capitalists are destined to destroy themselves if they attain any sort of power, as they follow the Ayn Rand school of selfishness to the extreme. Grafton, NH isn't far off from how Bioshock explored the same ideas and how it would lead to societal collapse.

    left wing libertarainism/Anarchism, on the other hand, is mainly collectivist, and we have well documented examples of that political theory working extremely well when put into practice.

    1936 Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War organized an Anarchist society with over 3 million participants, and they documented much of how exactly they ran it, right down to how they kept the electric trams for public transport going (there is a fantastic book embedded at the bottom of that article, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval, which offers more details on other aspects of how they operated that society).

    It's a fantastic historical event we can learn from and build upon.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 days ago

    Libertarians aren't the brightest bunch to begin with, but regardless, saying "look at this community that was wrong" in response to people wanting to remove central authority is not really an argument against the idea.

    The entire point is that people are free to govern themselves. Governing well is up to the local communities. Some would do better than others, certainly. But with time, people would discover what works and what doesn't. They would make mistakes like these and learn from the natural consequences of their actions. It's imperfect because humans are imperfect.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    And a community would decide to prevent climate change more than a country would because...?

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

    climate change that the Army defends and creates directly

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

    Uh huh. You didn't answer the question. My town can't even successfully vote to keep the water district, there is no way we'd ban CFCs (let alone have done the necessary research) or fossil fuels. Everything you hate about the people of this country is because of the people who live in every town. It's the same people.

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  • [–] -3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    I did answer the question. Now you're moving the goalposts from lighthouses destroyed, as per the meme.

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

    Sure, specifically the authority of people dumb enough to reject physical reality and endanger others.

    Working lighthouses don't exist for the aesthetics.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago (1 child)
  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Well at least you're consistent

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  • [–] -1 points 2 days ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    There’s a lot to be said for consistency. And yeah yeah fucking saying anything. We get it, you’re edgy…

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  • [–] 0 points 2 days ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    Isn't that essentially what we as a species have done since the advent of civilization?

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

    Eh, if by very recently you mean the last 12,000 years. From when the agricultural revolution started, assholes with armies started existing and exploiting people working the land.

    It's the near 100% conquest of the planet by states, and the globalization of the power of companies that is more recent. It's the powerful trying to fully own everything, that is closer to 300 years old.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago*

    Was thinking on an evolutionary timescale with H. Sapiens first emerging 300,000 years ago.

    So yeah, maybe not "very recently" as the phrase would be commonly understood, but surely "relatively recently" if "humans existing" is the frame of reference.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

    This is anarcho-syndicalism, right? It sounds better and better every time I hear about it!

    Edit: wait i think i misread you

    I thought you said it was something like small organized communities each individually attempting to solve one problem at a time democratically and then everyone adopting the methods that work.

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  • [–] 16 points 3 days ago (1 child)

    Most anarchist schools of toughs use this framework. If you are interested in the complex system theory side of anarchism The Desktop regulatory state is a good read.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 days ago

    What works in one place may or may not work in another. What worked at one time may not function today.

    In order to find out, the local nuance needs to be taken into account while engaging in experimentation.

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