How to actually start an anarchy?

[ronimacarroni]

I'm sure you can find land nobody cares about in the US.
That or you can buy some for cheap from an evil land owner that inherited it from the ancestors of native american rapists imperialist white cis male cowboy.
/sarcasm

Ha ha.

But seriously, no; not even land owners own their land, it's all owned by government.

Take your pick.

[Mike Christ]

Take your pick.

The land known as the United States of America, with its every border, is where government is present; to start a society without government, the USA would need to not be present in a specific area.  There is no land, within American borders, or out, where all the other nations are, where a society without government can take place.

Anarchism = without rulers.

And what I meant before; because you pay property tax on the land you own, you never actually own your land; you are only renting it from the government.

[Melbustus]

One little thing that might help: Stop calling it anarchy. How about "decentralized capitalism", or even, "decentralized governance".

People too closely associate the word "anarchy" with chaos/disorder. That right there makes people stop listening.

[Loozik]

There is a good anarchist website and radio show http://marcstevens.net/ It is fun to read and listen.

Marc is a self-educated lawyer who helps people defend against statist attacks in courts.

[Mike Christ]

One little thing that might help: Stop calling it anarchy. How about "decentralized capitalism", or even, "decentralized governance".

People too closely associate the word "anarchy" with chaos/disorder. That right there makes people stop listening.

They call this libertarianism, but it's still anarchy   I agree with you though, there is a lot of confusion about what anarchy actually is; since the schools are biased, anarchy is the death of society, while government is the savior, and that's as much anarchy as anyone really learns.

Libertarianism is actually how I was introduced to anarchy.

[Melbustus]

One little thing that might help: Stop calling it anarchy. How about "decentralized capitalism", or even, "decentralized governance".

People too closely associate the word "anarchy" with chaos/disorder. That right there makes people stop listening.

They call this libertarianism, but it's still anarchy   I agree with you though, there is a lot of confusion about what anarchy actually is; since the schools are biased, anarchy is the death of society, while government is the savior, and that's as much anarchy as anyone really learns.

Libertarianism is actually how I was introduced to anarchy.

Indeed.

In any event, I think it would be more difficult (or at least take a while) to build the same animosity/misunderstanding around the term "decentralized" as there is around "anarchy" today. For one, in software circles, decentralization is obviously considered good, and there are a lot of people in, or adjacent to, the software space who are aware of that. Instead of being turned insta-hostile by the term, hearing something like "decentralized governance" may actually spark a little interest.

Gotta start somewhere. I feel like the term "anarchy" is absolute poison at this point and requires revision to even hope to get the conversation going.

[Mike Christ]

Indeed.

In any event, I think it would be more difficult (or at least take a while) to build the same animosity/misunderstanding around the term "decentralized" as there is around "anarchy" today. For one, in software circles, decentralization is obviously considered good, and there are a lot of people in, or adjacent to, the software space who are aware of that. Instead of being turned insta-hostile by the term, hearing something like "decentralized governance" may actually spark a little interest.

Gotta start somewhere. I feel like the term "anarchy" is absolute poison at this point and requires revision to even hope to get the conversation going.

We can certainly try it; I'll go ahead and refer to it as decentralized government from here on out and see if the reaction to there being no central government is any lighter.

[ronimacarroni]

One little thing that might help: Stop calling it anarchy. How about "decentralized capitalism", or even, "decentralized governance".

People too closely associate the word "anarchy" with chaos/disorder. That right there makes people stop listening.

They call this libertarianism, but it's still anarchy   I agree with you though, there is a lot of confusion about what anarchy actually is; since the schools are biased, anarchy is the death of society, while government is the savior, and that's as much anarchy as anyone really learns.

Libertarianism is actually how I was introduced to anarchy.

Indeed.

In any event, I think it would be more difficult (or at least take a while) to build the same animosity/misunderstanding around the term "decentralized" as there is around "anarchy" today. For one, in software circles, decentralization is obviously considered good, and there are a lot of people in, or adjacent to, the software space who are aware of that. Instead of being turned insta-hostile by the term, hearing something like "decentralized governance" may actually spark a little interest.

Gotta start somewhere. I feel like the term "anarchy" is absolute poison at this point and requires revision to even hope to get the conversation going.

Well there is decentralized networks like the mesh network that work on small scale, but for big scale networks hierarchichal topology is a must.

[b!z]

You could gather a group of Bitcoin Talk members and release them into the wild. I'm sure that would work.

[Mike Christ]

Well there is decentralized networks like the mesh network that work on small scale, but for big scale networks hierarchichal topology is a must.

I disagree; there's no single overhead ensuring all fast food chains are doing business well.  They all work just fine as their own separate entities.

And even then, non-chain restaurants do perfectly fine without any overhead at all.  Though they are all a part of the same food network, they don't necessarily have to be herded under one ruler.

You could gather a group of Bitcoin Talk members and release them into the wild. I'm sure that would work.

What good would that do?

[ronimacarroni]

Well there is decentralized networks like the mesh network that work on small scale, but for big scale networks hierarchichal topology is a must.

I disagree; there's no single overhead ensuring all fast food chains are doing business well.  They all work just fine as their own separate entities.

And even then, non-chain restaurants do perfectly fine without any overhead at all.  Though they are all a part of the same food network, they don't necessarily have to be herded under one ruler.

You could gather a group of Bitcoin Talk members and release them into the wild. I'm sure that would work.

What good would that do?

like he who has never eaten greasy fast food cast the first bun.

[Peter Lambert]

I think the best way to move toward anarchy, or put another way, more freedom, is to stop utilizing the current government and establishing parallel private services which fulfill the functions currently monopolized by the government.

Some examples of ways to get around government functions:

Welfare/charity: Everybody should help contribute to charities, and stop accepting financial assistance from the government. I earn about the median US income, but I am still eligible for some government financial assistance. This is just crazy. The government is making it so more and more people become dependent on them, the people who are dependent on the government will be less likely to let the government go away.

Contracts and wills: Why do I need to have the government get involved with my contract or will, when I can instead us gpg signed documents to do the same thing. Distribute the appropriate public keys to family and friends, make sure they know how to use them to verify the documents, and publish your gpg signed will to a couple different places.

Money: Obviously, we should utilize bitcoins as our base currency instead of the government inflated fiat currencies. Perhaps systems like Ripple can also be used among trusted parties. I like the idea of gold and silver as physical money, but I personally have never used any since they have high costs and demanding storage requirements.

Schools: For those who are up to the task, homeschooling can be a way to get around the government propaganda machine public school system.

[ronimacarroni]

Ah come on cheer up mike christ.
maybe I was a little harsh.
Nobody knows what will happen in the future, its all just speculation.
One thing I do know is that people are more open to ideas than they used to.
Having money that's out the reach of the government is a start though.
Also you know what they say, think globally act locally.
Maybe you can start a graphic design cooperative or something.
You wouldn't want a "top down solution" would you?

[Melbustus]

I think the best way to move toward anarchy, or put another way, more freedom, is to stop utilizing the current government and establishing parallel private services which fulfill the functions currently monopolized by the government.

Some examples of ways to get around government functions:

Welfare/charity: Everybody should help contribute to charities, and stop accepting financial assistance from the government. I earn about the median US income, but I am still eligible for some government financial assistance. This is just crazy. The government is making it so more and more people become dependent on them, the people who are dependent on the government will be less likely to let the government go away.

Contracts and wills: Why do I need to have the government get involved with my contract or will, when I can instead us gpg signed documents to do the same thing. Distribute the appropriate public keys to family and friends, make sure they know how to use them to verify the documents, and publish your gpg signed will to a couple different places.

Money: Obviously, we should utilize bitcoins as our base currency instead of the government inflated fiat currencies. Perhaps systems like Ripple can also be used among trusted parties. I like the idea of gold and silver as physical money, but I personally have never used any since they have high costs and demanding storage requirements.

Schools: For those who are up to the task, homeschooling can be a way to get around the government propaganda machine public school system.

Good suggestions, but with one huge problem: with federal taxation taking a meaningful chunk of people's wages, that leaves very little left over for charity for most people. My wife and I donate a little - we'd donate a lot more if we didn't have to pay taxes. We take pride in the causes we support, and it'd be great to do that at a larger scale. But taxation crowds out private charity in our lives, and in society in general. People don't help their neighbor for a couple primary reasons: 1 - they don't have much extra money because it's been taxed away, 2 - they assume someone-else/gov will do it.

Chicken and the egg problem. Don't know how to solve it. It cannot be demonstrated (or even real attempts made to demonstrate) that private charity could ultimately take care of the less-able better than government without taxation dropping to near zero, and that can't happen until such private charity success is demonstrated (among many other reasons, obv).

[Mike Christ]

Ah come on cheer up mike christ.
maybe I was a little harsh.
Nobody knows what will happen in the future, its all just speculation.
One thing I do know is that people are more open to ideas than they used to.
Having money that's out the reach of the government is a start though.
Also you know what they say, think globally act locally.
Maybe you can start a graphic design cooperative or something.
You wouldn't want a "top down solution" would you?

All I ask is that you take the time to understand what you're arguing against before you begin arguing against it.

[hayek]

According to some people, Anarchy is all around us.

According to some other people, Anarchy is limited to small group of people with power/wealth.

According to me, the state is a gang enforcing it's will on us and allowing a privileged group to participate in the market while the rest of us are handicapped

[halfawake]

Starting an anarchy is easy, but unless you only have like 2 - 20 well behaved people and a way to get more people from ever joining, it's probably not a good idea.

Here's how to start an anarchy:

1) Save up enough money to buy a private island.
2) Buy said island.
3) Renounce your citizenship of where ever it is you live and go live on that island.

Sounds good, so far, right?  It gets harder.

4) If anyone decides they want to live on your private island, you have to let them live there.  It's an anarchy, that means no rules.
5) If someone steals from you, it's theirs now.  You can't put them in jail because there's no such thing as prisons in an anarchy.  Of course, you can always try and steal it back again.
6) If anyone gets decides to kill someone else, if they have the means, they get to do so without any consequences.  See second point above.  Anarchy means no rules, which means, eventually, might makes right takes over.

Still want to start an anarchy?  Even the societies in the United States before there was a United States had rules and "government", it's just that their government looked nothing like ours does.  They had clear well defined rules, and if I remember my history well enough, if people broke enough of the rules, they get banished from the Native American tribe they were in.  Given how necessary cooperation was to survival back then, banishment usually meant death, unless they could get another tribe to accept them.  I tend to think they had a better system than they do now, but my point is that it wasn't anarchy, they still had rules and government, they just looked nothing like modern day government.  

[d5000]

Anarchy ≠ no rules
Anarchy = no ruling power / no hierarchy / no law (in the sense of "state-imposed" law).

[Mike Christ]

Anarchy ≠ no rules
Anarchy = no ruling power / no hierarchy / no law (in the sense of "state-imposed" law).

Exactly; halfawake, the largest flaw in your argument is that anarchism necessitates a lack of rules, but it's actually government which leads to a lack of rules (see: North Korea.)  Anarchism means no rulers, which means everyone has rules; because the rulers aren't subject to rules, as they invent the rules, the whole point of anarchy is to stop those people from being above the law.

The other flaw is the private island thing; the island is still owned by government, you only rent the island.

[halfawake]

Anarchy ≠ no rules
Anarchy = no ruling power / no hierarchy / no law (in the sense of "state-imposed" law).

Exactly; halfawake, the largest flaw in your argument is that anarchism necessitates a lack of rules, but it's actually government which leads to a lack of rules (see: North Korea.)  Anarchism means no rulers, which means everyone has rules; because the rulers aren't subject to rules, as they invent the rules, the whole point of anarchy is to stop those people from being above the law.

The other flaw is the private island thing; the island is still owned by government, you only rent the island.

I'm more than a little bit confused by your argument here.  North Korea, lack of rules?  No, North Korea is a totalitarian society, that means they have WAY, WAY too many rules.  I know I'm in the minority on these boards since I'm not a libertarian, but even I would prefer anarchy to that kind of society.  I don't live there though, thankfully.

In any case, I looked up anarchy and the definitions I found seem to back up my arguments.  But I do acknowledge that I was taking the argument to a bit of a logical extreme, I just think the cases I outlined there are the dangers of living in a place where anarchy is the system. 

Here's one of the definitions of anarchy, according to dictionary.reference.com: "A general lawlessness and disorder, esp when thought to result from an absence or failure of government."  Here's another: "confusion and disorder"  Of course, there's also this one, which backs up your logic: "a state of society without government or law."

I don't know why you're stuck on the idea of governments owning all the land in the world.  There are islands that are owned by private individuals that aren't part of any nation state.  Such a concept does exist.  It's just that they aren't that common, so most of them are probably already owned by some rich individual who you'd have to persuade to sell it to you if you wanted to start said anarchy.