Yeah, think of it like a municipality -- but rather than voting on representatives to vote for what to do everyone represents themselves and can speak on what to do. I've heard this described as the "spokes and wheel" model of organization: where working groups are organized in accord with a central working group which deals with communications between working groups.

Or, if you'd like, think of it as a team at your workplace -- but rather than having a boss all the workers set the rules for the workplace. This would be a workers collective. — Moliere

Coming back to this I was on the phone with my mother today trying to explain some of what had been discussed here and when the question came from her, when I told her it is not just no laws and survival of the fittest style dog eat dog, of how are rules formed and such and such. I tried to explain this about local government but then she said "well we have that already" at which point I didn't really know what else to say as I thought the same.

So what is the difference then of current municipalities as you mention and the anarchist way? Also if there are no higher ups elected then how do the different small conglomerations communicate with each other if there is no spokesperson acting on there behalf.

She made the example of how in the current government you have a local councilor which you can go to if you have issues within their ward then they can then take it to the parliament to be heard by the other cronies there.

So how would that work in anarchy if hierarchies are not allowed and everyone has as much as a say as everyone else?

Would there be no central government at all then? It has been stated earlier, and I read it in The Conquest of Bread yesterday, that there would still be federation between these small groups. As such how would that happen?

that list on Reddit — Jamal

What 'that list' are you referring to here? but yes I was meaning actual real life organizations that call themselves anarchists.

Ok I was reading the anarchist library and things were looking good then soon hit upon the identity politics again:

What Anarchists Oppose

Heterosexism

Heterosexism is a natural outcome of the form of patriarchy that exists in the west and many other parts of the world. Gender in most modern patriarchical societies is constructed so that heterosexual behavior is the norm. Homosexuals deviate from how men and women are expected to behave and so are subjected to various forms of coercion as a result. There is thus a hierarchy between hetero and homosexuals. Anarchists are opposed to any sort of oppression on the basis of one’s sexuality.

I don't think you would read that in any of the canon texts. :lol:

Skipping over those obvious crowbarred in amendments there it does seem a lot of questions I have made above are answered there.

I don't think you would read that in any of the canon texts. — unimportant

Doesn't seem very objectionable to me. I'd make a couple of minor changes but I think it's basically right. It is not as it stands an endorsement of identity politics.

Sure on reflection I was being overly sensitive mainly due to the earlier priming seeing a whole front page almost devoted to stuff like that earlier on another anarchist website.

The issue I was having was not the subject matter itself but rather hogging the limelight for such things at the expense of core concepts, which I admit is not the case here from the looks of things. So a false positive on my part there.

As my edit above, there is a lot of good meat and potatoes explanations.

Would there be no central government at all then? It has been stated earlier, and I read it in The Conquest of Bread yesterday, that there would still be federation between these small groups. As such how would that happen? — unimportant

In the ideal there would be no central government at all. Federations could exist in various ways but they wouldn't be run by officers who are elected to the position for a set term, but rather it would just be someone's job to serve as a communication network.

So in our municipalities you have some representative that you can appeal to in the event that you have some political interest in the business of the city. Were a city run anarchically rather than going to a representative who would then bring whatever case they deem worthy of bringing before the officers of the city you would bring the proposal to the decision making body, and you would advocate for it.

The extremely exciting part of this is learning parliametary procedure through the thrilling epic known as Robert's Rules of Order, in terms of a practical blueprint for making collective decisions.

Basically there wouldn't be representatives, and what representatives do in our society would be all of our responsibility. How we go about that will be up to us, but there are previous ways of collective debate we can riff from and modify to suit the needs of a particular collective.

What 'that list' are you referring to here? — unimportant

The one I linked to earlier:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/1h7l2qk/good_leftist_critiques_of_identity_politicswokeism/

I haven't read it all yet but from the titles it looks to be covered in the link above. Big quote dump but the titles all seemed relevant. Still yet to read myself! just placing here for reference.

What An Anarchist Society Would Look Like

There have been many different visions of what an anarchist society would look like. Any vision that abolishes the things anarchists are opposed to and is consistent with the earlier stated principles of anarchism is compatible with anarchy. There are, however, many institutions that have been proposed by anarchists to run a non-hierarchical society. Most of these are not based on idle speculation but by looking at how actually existing anarchist societies have worked. Some of them are:

Popular Assemblies

Also called general assemblies or mass assemblies. In any organization people can come together to meet and discuss whatever common problems or activities they face. At these assemblies everyone should have an equal opportunity to participate in both the discussion/debate and the final decisions. These can be formed in workplaces where they would take over the running of all workplaces. Worker assemblies would then meet regularly to plan production, divvy up the tasks that need to be accomplished, etc. They can be formed in each neighborhood in order to deal with whatever particular issues confront that neighborhood and organize to deal with them. These are based on free association so whenever a group of people wants to get together to accomplish some goal they can simply form a general assembly to organize it. Free association also means that no one would have to participate in an assembly if they did not want to. Such assemblies can be formed to organize around anything — not only around workplace and neighborhood issues but potentially also universities, clubs, space exploration, etc. Worker assemblies, neighborhood assemblies, university assemblies, community assemblies and the like can all be formed to run society without hierarchy, based on self-management.

Councils

The different assemblies can coordinate their activities through the use of a council system. This is done by each assembly assigning a contact person(s) (sometimes called a spoke or delegate) to meet with other contact people from other assemblies which they want to coordinate things with. The meeting of contact people is called a council or spokescouncil. Position of contact person should rotate frequently. Each contact person is mandated, meaning that they are instructed by the assembly that they come from on how to deal with any issue. The contact people would be given binding instructions, committing them to a framework of policies, developed by their assembly, within which they would have to act. If at any time they violate their mandate their assembly would instantly recall them and their decisions revoked. Decision making power stays in the assemblies; contact people simply convey and implement those positions. Contact people do not have any authority or special privileges. Councils are organized from the bottom up, with control staying in the assemblies. They are not hierarchical organizations but simply coordinate the activities of the assemblies without authority. Instead of hierarchy there are decentralized confederations and networks. This differs from representative institutions in that decision making power stays in the assemblies whereas representatives can make whatever decisions they want and have authority over others. These councils can be formed to coordinate the activities of assemblies on whatever level needed. Worker councils can coordinate the activities of the worker assemblies; neighborhood councils can coordinate the activities of different neighborhood assemblies, etc. They can also do this on a regional scale — forming regional worker councils, etc — and those regional confederations can use the same method to coordinate with each other. In all cases decision making power stays with the assemblies upon which the councils are based — the assemblies would be the core of any organization.

Decision Making Processes

Any decision making process in which everyone has control over their own life and all members have an equal say, rather than dividing people into order givers and order takers, is theoretically compatible with anarchism. Although there are many different ways in which this can be done, there are two main methods of non-hierarchical decision making which are advocated by most anarchists:

Consensus

In consensus everyone in the group must agree to a decision before it can be put into action. All contributions are valued and participation is encouraged. Any member can block consensus, stopping a decision they strongly object to. Members may also “stand aside,” allowing a decision they do not like to be made without blocking or supporting it.

Direct Democracy

Decisions would be made by directly voting on the options — the option with a majority of votes is implemented. Anarchists who advocate direct democracy do not believe in a mechanical process whereby the majority just votes away the minority and ignores them. It is intended to be a dynamic discussion process where different people listen to each other and exchange ideas. Direct Democracy is combined with free association as well — meaning that anyone who is out-voted does not absolutely have to abide by the decision. They can simply leave the group.

These decision making processes would be used in the popular assemblies, councils, etc. There are many variations on them and it is also possible to synthesize consensus and direct democracy. Some groups could use direct democracy but require the majority be of a certain size (such as 2/3rds or 3/4ths) instead of a simple majority. Another variation is to attempt to achieve the largest majority possible.

Yup. That's a true description of the big picture in various attempts.

Also, if it wasn't clear, do not read Robert's Rules of Order unless you want to kill your desire to learn anything ever(at least at first -- it's a much later book if you're still interested in further study). It's important, but damn parliamentary procedure is a snoozer to read.

For lack of a better term "identity politics" is largely viewed favorably by anarchists I've worked with.

From a theoretical standpoint it makes a lot of sense, though. Racism is a hierarchy where white people are held as higher than black people. Patriarch is a hierarchy where men are held as higher than women. And all the other -ism's mostly follow that same pattern.

And, really, it's not like it's backed up by nothing. Minority issues are nothing new, they've just been rebranded as "woke", somehow. There are statistics about violence against minorities and all the rest we can go into if we're wondering if there's something objective about these stances, or if they're just ways of identifying one's tribe.

But generally anarchists have soft hearts for the lesser, and so such language isn't hard to pass muster among anarchists insofar that it looks like the oppression they're used to seeing everywhere.

I don't think anyone on the Left generally disagrees that they are noble causes on paper.

The problem is they get hijacked like other noble causes so that it is no longer about x minority getting on equal footing but instead how much attention can I get using this cause so I can look good/virtuous.

Typical example is how politicians will take up a cause only when it will further their career or improve their image and obviously don't care about what they are giving lip service too.

Oh, for sure.

Bad actors abound.

But just to warn you, it is fairly popular in my experience in this subgroup.

Which subgroup are you referring to? This forum, or the far left in general or anarchists? Unclear. :)

Oh, sorry. Anarchists.

I appreciate the sentiment and remember that it's never personal. — Martijn

Indeed. And we all come to different conclusions. :up:

So how would that work in anarchy if hierarchies are not allowed and everyone has as much as a say as everyone else?

When I was younger I used visit a remote beach to surf with some squatters, some of whom were old homesteaders and anarchists. They had a little community there. It was small, but there were disputes, and they were settled all by deliberation. Not a single incident of violence in the decades they stayed there, at least until the government came in, forcibly evicted them, and burned down their homes.

What's a better or worse simplification shouldn't be an emotional question, so apologies for my part for that. — boethius

S'all good. I could have been less snarky and more friendly. But no need to apologize for expressing peevishness; we understand one another better through it.

These themes also highlight the focus in anarchism of individual example. Being willing to be the first one to refuse military service on moral grounds (and so be immediately executed) is just as, if not more, important to the anarchist movement as writing a book or being involved in party politics in one way or another. Likewise being willing to be the first one to not beat your children to see what happens, put the hypotheses that they will literally go insane to the test. — boethius

That's a good point. A fellow worker noted to me the importance of the IWW could be seen by its continual involvement in new issues that then became normal. That it wasn't the number of shops organized or membership numbers but the overall effect and continual vigilance at being at the front of positive social change that made it important.

That mirrors my experience with anarchist spaces. Disputes, yes -- violence? No. It's all handled by talking through it with everyone. (EDIT: I ought mention that "violence" means "killing, or trying to kill, in order to reach a political objective" -- sometimes disruptive individuals have to be dealt with. But at most what I've seen there is removal from the premises by a group carrying out the disruptive individual. No death, or imprisonment)

I was just looking up local anarchist forums and the front page of the first one I click is full of trans and queer stuff. Certainly nothing, apart from having anachist in the name, would indicate it had anything to do with the kinds of topics which have been discussed in this thread. — unimportant

In the same way you may walk into a Mormon temple and fail to identify the teachings of Christ, or fail to see it in a popes golden hat for that matter, or be perplexed about the fiscal conservatism at work in a trillion dollar deficit spending for the military, or be unable to locate liberal democracy ideals in the financing and arming of a genocide and so on.

In short, hypocrisy is very much the norm and not the exception.

Of course I don't know these anarchists you're talking about, but what I can say about the anarchism I've been talking about is that it's essentially an elitist intellectual movement which doesn't seek to found or manage organizations under the name of anarchism. By elitist I mean wealthy enough to be able to read at least a thousand books that together at least scratches the surface of the accumulated recorded history, wisdom and knowledge of humanity as a whole. From such a perspective ethics plays out intergenerationally and one's capacity to contribute is fairly limited.

There's no way to "make people better" so anarchists of my kind don't seek to make organizations to "make" more anarchists and we are disinterested in creating partisan followings. Doesn't mean anarchists don't make organizations or participate in party politics, just that it doesn't make sense to call these collective projects "anarchism". The conditions of equality of effective power in the political process is what we'd call anarchism, and that is essentially an all-or-nothing proposition.

So anarchism is the goal, and "the people" can make it at anytime if they on the whole realize they don't need to accept subjugation (the "states in people's heads" doctrine), so in the meantime it maybe, or may seem to be, one party is definitely better than another or that it's still necessary to make money and so do business. But it doesn't make much sense to call a party in a representative system "anarchist" as party leaders and elected representatives and their unelected bureaucratic colleagues have vastly more effective power than anyone else, so maybe less insane than the other guys but the result is not anarchism. Makes even less sense to call a business operating within capitalism some form of anarchism.

You can of course have individually anarchist principles and trying to make your individual contribution towards anarchism while doing business or making organizations of one form or another or even doing party politics.

The only exception being the day people are demanding the abolition of private property as we currently know it and a complete dismantling of the state and recreating governing processes along equal and devolutionary principles. When that day occurs an anarchist party would make sense to have. Of course, until then, standing up this proposal in the party system wouldn't be a bad thing, it's just so unpopular it's not financially sustainable whenever a few anarchists attempt it (and anarchists getting together and money being involved tends to result in madness, so even if the wider culture was willing to accept and even support it, it may not be possible to do); but perhaps it is not so impossible today or then in the near future.

Identity politics seems like a product of capitalism with its obsession with being recognized as x,y,z that seems far from what a radical left movement should be concerned with. Just a materialist thing. — unimportant

The mainstream calls liberals the left and simply ignores anyone more left than that.

For self-described "leftists", and especially socialists, identity politics is a divide and conquer ploy by the power structure.

I forget who made the following analogy first, but basically the image to have in mind is the domination structure is a pyramid (slaves / wage-slaves on the bottom, oligarchs on the top) and the goal of all leftists is to organize the bottom to basically get rid of the top.

Identify politics cuts the pyramid vertically, from the very top to somewhere on the bottom. Feminism (when formulated as a conflict between men's interests and women's interests) cuts the pyramid in half. This not only creates division on the bottom layer of the pyramid making collective action harder, as importantly it creates sympathy and organization vertically along the pyramid, as there are women at all layers of the pyramid; so, under this form of feminism, when a female oligarch makes even more money this is now somehow a victory for all women; the interests of most women (who are poor) is not to improve their lives by advancing their interests as poor women along with poor men, but their interests are now served (not for real of course, just in their heads) by applauding the exploits of rich women.

Same with homosexuality, there are poor gays and rich gays and federating them together makes a clique at odds, not with straight rich people but with poor straight people (even if it's the rich that made all the anti-homosexual laws in the first place, doesn't matter if they can point to homophobia sentiment among the general population). Same of course for race and any identifying feature that crosses class lines of the pyramid.

End result is classic divide and conquer strategy of pitting one's opponents against each other in order to weaken them collectively and facilitate domination.

Of course, in all these identity politics movements there is always a base of real oppression and genuine desire for justice, the trick is to extract that conversation from economic conditions. It is not the system that is making women's lives poorer and harder and less meaningful, nothing to do with capitalism at all if a women needs to work two jobs while trying to raise kids as a single mother without a wider family or community support structure while being poisoned by most if not all products needed for survival, it's men's fault!

Which is all an example of a more general theme of capitalism called "co-opting". Anything and everything that happens, whatever the original intention of who started it, will be transformed or then copied into a perverted form that serves the interests of the oligarchy. There's examples of this all of the place, such as "incel" was originally coined as a term to form a support group of sexless people, who suffered from being sexless and a forum was created for mutual support.

Which is not to say don't do anything because capitalism is going to co-opt, but rather definitely do the things but just don't be surprised and ideally be prepared to need to advance among perverse doppelgängers of whatever it is you're doing.

People who are fighting the good fight on the contrary should only identify with the party! Anyone is welcome but don't be selfish and demand attention because you are xyz. It should have no bearing on party membership. — unimportant

That's more definitely a soviet sentiment. In anarchism the idea is to identify as yourself, develop your own beliefs, and if you collaborate with others it's insofar as that's more effective than alternatives to advance your goals, ideally moving ever so slowly towards a future truly equal society.

Party politics maybe a means to such an end at different times in different parties.

Diem25.org I'd say is the place to be today to oppose capitalism in the West. I don't expect it to "win" but such a network may have unexpected results.

I guess with those kind of opinions I won't be making many friends if I aired that at local communist/anarchist groups and be shouted out as a fascist or somesuch. — unimportant

In general most people in Western society is sick and mad, and slapping a label of socialist or anarchist or marxist on your forehead doesn't change that. It's rare person that can advance party politics in a representative system without being corrupted; why anarchists tend to not associate with party politics. However, at least so far, Yanis Varoufakis seems to me the real deal. I don't agree with everything he says, unlikely he's going to "win" anytime soon, but an important example of someone not obviously corrupt and involved in party politics (which we definitely want as much as possible; tiny differences in corruption can make the difference between an extremely bad time and total destruction, when the system comes under stress).

S'all good. I could have been less snarky and more friendly. But no need to apologize for expressing peevishness; we understand one another better through it. — Moliere

All is well.

That's a good point. A fellow worker noted to me the importance of the IWW could be seen by its continual involvement in new issues that then became normal. That it wasn't the number of shops organized or membership numbers but the overall effect and continual vigilance at being at the front of positive social change that made it important. — Moliere

Yes indeed, propaganda of the deed can be big and small actions.

At the same time, all this has failed to prevent or even mitigate a genocide or the destruction of the natural world, so all of the various Western humanist-ecological movements in the broadest sense, including everyone with the same "make the world a better place" general goals, and all the strategies have clearly failed (perhaps not failed in a way that things are even worse now, but clearly failed to reach the objectives as such).

Hence the attraction to the elitist intellectual anarchist school mentioned above in that it takes a perspective of the entire history, past and future, of humanity and moral agents generally speaking.

So in dark times this school of anarchy can content itself with being keepers of the flame of defiance.

At the same time, politics is not constrained to the West and I have lots of hope, and I think good reasons for hope, of what is possible in regions outside the West not currently benefiting from the current system. In this Global South movement I am more a student than a teacher, but do feel there are nevertheless important contributions to make even from the Imperial core, such as developing local solar thermal technologies, and pointing out the hypocrisy of not only my government but fellow citizens; that the intellectual merit of nearly all Westerners, from the lowliest bar keep to the loftiest corporate or university board, is absolute hypocritical trash and can simply be dismissed; that intellectualism in the West is more a mental disease than something to take seriously.

The problem is they get hijacked like other noble causes so that it is no longer about x minority getting on equal footing but instead how much attention can I get using this cause so I can look good/virtuous. — unimportant

I didn't see this, but we are clearly in agreement already on the co-opting.

Also notable, identity politics is nearly 100% corporate power.

Forming an outrage group, getting someone fired is the fuel of identity politics. Obviously no due-process, not even "platforming" the accused to make their own defence can be tolerated.

This whole dynamic is 100% dependent on corporate power. If corporations didn't fire people (aka. sacrifice to the moloch of symbolic catharsis) then no one would much care about these outrage groups, and they would just face the tiniest bit of litigation and basically go away.

How it is framed in the minds of identity politics warriors is that they have power over the corporations, but that is as far from the truth as one can possibly get. It is corporate power that throws fresh meat to their dogs either because it creates a lot of noise and so provides free advertisement, virtue signals to and more importantly disciplines their employees to not step out of line the tiniest bit (really best remove oneself from public life altogether) as well as serving this broader oligarch strategy of dividing the people to keep them fighting amongst themselves for scraps.

Identity politics, for the most part, is simply corporate politics and corporate advertising. It's not even hidden in anyway; plenty of corporate media material out there explaining how political identity consumers are the most loyal and profitable consumers.

really best remove oneself from public life altogether — boethius

Yes but do you suggest becoming a hermit like a Buddhist monk living in a cave?

The rest of the world will still be capitalistic so will have to navigate it to a certain degree.

That is why I was asking about seeking out other 'real' anarchists but things do not look hopeful on that front.

One might end up a 20 year anarchist posting rambling megaposts on an obscure philosophy forum. I jest. :)

It might not have to be a case of finding those who have fully adopted the True Way but those open minded enough to be persuaded to do so.

Yes but do you suggest becoming a hermit like a Buddhist monk living in a cave? — unimportant

Although the hermit is certainly suitable for some people at some times, my point was about removing from public life was a criticism of corporate power and how identity politics, of the perverse kind we're discussing, is used to discipline corporate workers. You don't know what the next corporate backed rage mob is going to be about and what sentence you said 20 years ago is going to get you fired, so best to say nothing in public at all.

Arbitrary unpredictable discipline is the best kind of discipline in an oppressive system as it on the one hand allows targeting anyone at anytime (if mere accusations of "man bad" gets a man fired and ruins his life, it is super easy to either coax such accusations out of people by making it understood there will be huge rewards and virtue showers if they re-remember entirely legal events as "I felt uncomfortable") along with straight-up fraud (but mostly once the train gets going there's plenty of legitimately opportunistic, cluster-B or otherwise deranged people that are going to want their 15 minutes of fame, so if there's no consequences to throwing down accusations, and only benefits, plenty of people are going to line up to do that).

So, the system of corporate identity politics allows getting rid of anyone who is of genuine threat to oneself or a corrupt system in general (not only gets rid of them but ruins their reputation), while also disciplining everyone else in the corporate system to just not participate in public life in the slightest, and so act in every way like perfectly bland automatons in complete and unquestioning servitude of corporate power.

That is why I was asking about seeking out other 'real' anarchists but things do not look hopeful on that front. — unimportant

In my original posts, I understood your question to be comparing Anarchism to Marxism historically, so my first focus was on the Soviet Union, as it's obviously relevant historically and starting with the most famous examples avoids the "no true Scotsman" fallacy; as a mature mind can handle what is or has been popular is not necessarily true.

However, for contemporary times, the Soviet Union is gone, and Marxist / Socialism has reemerged as the the main label opposing Neo-liberalism; mainly because MAGA / Republican partisans are going to call anything they don't like socialism and Marxism anyways, so these brands are adopted not really for philosophical reasons but a "flip the script" strategy. In a "perfectly rational world", if my political philosophy differed by even one single word to yours, the solution is just to call mine political philosophy 3387239753808 and yours political philosophy 3387239753809; then things are perfectly clear.

But we do not life in such a perfectly rational world, so there is always multiple levels to discourse.

One level is to try together to reach a better understanding of reality that is independent of the words used to describe it, in which we're as comfortable with any label over any other label for anything, and if we want to recast all variations of all political philosophies into a long numbered list then we would be perfectly comfortable in doing so (and perhaps making such a dictionary, though of course not complete, would be a useful exercise to do).

Another level has nothing to do with understanding and is a battle over what words generally mean and their connotations. If I can transform the words you tend to use to express yourself into something else I will frustrate all your interactions with society and sow disarray among your allies and more importantly would-be-allies if they had a clue what you were talking about. If I can rebrand something that has lost favour, such as war, as something else, such as defence, and doing so changes people's emotional relationship to exact same war methodology entirely, then that's what I'm going to do if I love war and want to continue the usual practice.

In short, there is a struggler for material changes in the real world, but this is mediated and often even effectuated by a struggle over the symbolic representation of the real world (which is often more fantasy than anything else).

All this to say, on one level it doesn't matter who's calling themselves what, and what you call yourself, but who's doing what and how to enter into collaboration with people striving for the same objectives.

On another level, there is no way to avoid everything you say also participating in an endless battle over symbols and prestige and deference.

Therefore, there are many consequences to things and it is the task of the elite intellectual anarchist, or whatever name they choose to go by, to parse them all and integrate over all these possible outcomes to arrive at some optimum course towards the liberation of humanity. For with enough understanding one realizes one is truly free because one has always been truly free and the choice is presented whether to share or whether to steal more of the freedom of others.

One might end up a 20 year anarchist posting rambling megaposts on an obscure philosophy forum. I jest. :) — unimportant

It's fair point, but these posts are only one part of my anarchist activities. It's also not necessary, and usually counter productive, to put on an anarchist activity the label of anarchism. In nearly all situations it's not such a useful thing to do. Do the thing and let people make up their mind about it. For example, the likely only difference between one person volunteering to feed the homeless and another person volunteering to feed the homeless and tattooing an anarchist symbol on his or her forehead, is that one person is an idiot and the other is not but hopefully the hungry are still fed either way.

Reason I refer to anarchism here is because it points to authors I feel are worth reading.

But my main anarchist task has been the development of open source solar thermal devices that can be build locally. Also, exposing international blood diamond money laundering for Isabel Dos Santos, daughter of the ex-dictator of Angola, as well as fucking with da PoliCe, as seen in this hilarious video: https://youtube.com/shorts/xb_KNzv_U20?feature=share

Why cops in Finland (and European Public Prosecutors Office, the EPPO) are helping to coverup all this obvious evidence of money laundering from Africa to the EU:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SXU6VkygIWM14S4O-IQQUhlz41qYBjFH?usp=sharing

And harass me instead, instead of doing something even half-way competent even for totally corrupt people (aka. the limited hang out and clean up the situation) is unclear. It seems cops and prosecutors and judges in Europe have become so unaccountable they are not even accountable to do corruption well in their corrupt system. But people tolerate it because people lick boot, so it is what it is.

However, definitely the most important anarchist thing I do is the solar thermal, and since you've mentioned interest in Open Source software the most anarchist thing that can happen at this juncture in the conversation is that you take this software:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16eIpgNP7vvBcm_P6nfFzywqjcHuTV9qD?usp=sharing

Make it work and understand what it does.

A top level view of what the software does is contained in this patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015004330A1/fi

And then describes a bunch more that was done closed source to build the automated CNC methods, which is still nice to have but the real revolution is building with the hand methods. Software isn't strictly necessary to build by hand but is incredibly useful to accomplish the following things:

A. Software simulation allows to get some idea of how much power will actually be delivered by the device and at what times. A solar device that performs well at high noon in summer may not perform well at literally every other time. So it's way better to actually test out a design in simulation against a real use case, than to figure it out trial and error.

B. Even if the technology is built by hand, a jig can be used to set or drill the correct angles for each individual reflector, which is cheaper (as allows articulated joints required for manual calibration to be eliminated) and more pleasant to work in the shade than calibrating everything by hand in the blazing sun.

Why the software is so old is because all this was published along with step by step guides and even videos, like this one: https://youtu.be/CXJgAmft2jI

And yet super few people were copying the technology at the time. Eventually I concluded that was because no one had really proven the technology commercially successful to drive demand and the arguments of why this kind of technology is critical to the future of humanity did not interest enough people for that to matter. So I decided the quickest path to development was just prove the business case myself, create the demand.

I made sure all the previous open source stuff was findable / reconstructable and also described right in the patent what had been open sourced, assuming that once some commercial success had been demonstrated people would then start copying in open source.

But that never happened because it's slightly too complicated to do.

Thanks to the money laundering and being fired as CEO and the government backing off harassing me for a while due to failing to One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nesting me, as shown in this audio: https://youtu.be/4xdVpbGHdds

I finally had time to find the open source software in my own archive.

It may seem like such a small thing, but history demonstrates again and again what a small group of people with the right ideas can accomplish.

Furthermore, if one considers the entire history of humanity, past and future, what people will be saying about this time in a hundred thousand years or more, as is the anarchist way to do, the most important thing happening right now is the transition to local solar energy to power exosomatic energy processes, in both harmony with nature as well as placing the means of production, which is exosomatic energy for the most part, in the hands of the labourer.

It might not have to be a case of finding those who have fully adopted the True Way but those open minded enough to be persuaded to do so. — unimportant

Ideally I would suggest you find both, but it may not matter much what they call themselves.

What is best to do right now is a far more important question than what is best to call what is best to do right now. People who fight over the latter is usually inspired by not doing the former.

Another book that I thought of that you may enjoy because it's explicitly a history of anarchism: Demanding the Impossible

The following is a discussion between a self described anarchist and a sociology professor who explains super well where we're at global police state wise (why I put so much effort into my own personal battle with police helping to launder money in Finland).



you'll find in this discussion a lot of socialist concepts with their academic analogues.

Really good explanation of how identity politics and wokism are a tool of domination to divide people, as well as how the profession of sociology is made to contribute in that you can get funding to show white male nurses are paid 80 cents more than black female nurses (hundreds of thousands if not millions to find that out) but you could never get a single dollar to study how 14.50 an hour and 15.30 an hour make both groups super poor, are fundamentally exploitative wages that produce obscene profits for private capital in a system that under delivers health care outcomes even for those that can afford it, and that both groups of nurses are still far more aligned in demanding higher wages for all nurses than fighting against each other for "equality" (which the male nurses don't work for themselves and don't set the wages and there may turn out to be perfectly good reasons they get higher wage on average anyways).

So just one part, but overall super clear description of the current situation and what can be done about it.

Thanks. After we covered the bases with this thread my motivation for it was suddenly sapped out as I thought how futile it is since we are still stuck in a capitalist system aren't we?

It just hit me that it felt like 'mental masturbation' to theorize over things that are never likely to be realized.

Heh, fair enough. No worries.

For myself the end-goal isn't as important to be achieved -- organizing with likeminded people was enough for me to want to know how it works. But it's not like you're going to earn a living or achieve anything immediately practical by studying it -- you'll improve your mind, which is good, but in terms of whether you ought study other things or not I can understand saying "OK, sounds interesting, but I'd rather deal with something more realistic"

Useful if starting a commune, which I may want to do.

Well I am not saying "I only want to do x that will get me y" that sounds too capitalistic! It is just depressing to think it is all a pipe dream. Like ogling over someone your heart desires but is unattainable, better to squash those desires. :)

You are right that just discussing things like this with like minds is reward in itself.

I had certainly enjoyed learning in this thread.

Useful if starting a commune, which I may want to do. — unimportant

Now that you mention it -- one of the most practical ways of practicing anarchy in our world today is through the housing collective. Finding one and joining would be a way to learn from people actually doing the practice rather than reading a lot of long books, and you said you were interested in meeting up with people so that would be a good route.

For an organization that's alive today which will put you in contact with anarchists I'd suggest Food not Bombs -- it has a diverse group of people and it's activist work so it's quite literally putting the ideas into practice. I know lots of anarchists tend to frequent that organization because of how it's run, and they'd know what possible institutional resources -- such as a housing collective -- might be in your area.

BUT

I can understand that the fruit might just look too juicy to be true, and dreaming big dreams can bring one down. I'd only do it if you enjoy it rather than out of a sense that one must accomplish the mission.

Hello again.

I came across the website redpepper.org.uk today which seems heavily anarchism inspired.

It has given me some more fuel to add to the discussion.

Part way through this article: https://www.redpepper.org.uk/law-police-justice/civil-liberties/the-police-are-not-here-to-protect-you/

The reality is that the police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing the behaviors of poor and non-white people: those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.

Bayley argues that policing emerged as new political and economic formations developed, producing social upheavals that could no longer be managed by existing private, communal and informal processes. This can be seen in the earliest origins of policing, which were tied to three basic social arrangements of inequality in the eighteenth century: slavery, colonialism, and the control of a new industrial working class. This created what Allan Silver calls a ‘policed society’, in which state power was significantly expanded in the face of social upheavals and demands for justice.

An interesting claim is made that the main purpose of the police, despite what propaganda may say to the contrary that they are there to protect the general public, is to suppress social movements and the tool of the elites to keep power. I am not sure I am buying their premise police only came about at the time of colonialism? Policing has existed in some form or another as long as humans have gathered I would imagine?

With the first sentence in mind this means that the police are in direct opposition to the anarchist idea of overthrowing authority then aren't they? I always found it pretty childish how masked up people would attack police 'just because' but this does offer a new dimension to it.

I do still think most rabble rousers are doing it mindlessly though when they say "f*ck the cops" and such and throw bottles at them.