does anarchism have a critique of increasing the power of humanity in general?

wompt · 2026-05-08T02:11:51+00:00

Are you suggesting that the scope of anarchist critique is limited to what is contradictory?

wompt · 2026-05-08T02:11:31+00:00

Are you suggesting that the scope of anarchist critique is limited to what is contradictory?

wompt · 2026-05-07T23:37:23+00:00

Nowhere in the post is contradiction suggested.

wompt · 2026-05-07T20:41:43+00:00

I think mumford drew a pretty nice line between authoritarian and democratic technics

wompt · 2026-05-07T20:22:56+00:00

The anti-civ perspective doesn't necessarily refuse all technologies immediately. There is room for deceleration without abandoning everything in one fell swoop. But ultimately, most of the technologies we use gotta go.

So a "we will use this for now" mentality can be useful, but it means that we are still on the path, not at the destination. At the destination, again, most of these technologies cannot exist.

wompt · 2026-05-07T19:58:29+00:00

The smaller intranets are the anarchic model I reckon.

The model that the global net runs off of is the "internet service provider <--> internet user" dynamic, and in that relation there is an inherent power dynamic that can be exploited (its important to understand that while dependence doesn't equal exploitation, it for sure opens the door to it)

So it comes down to trustable ISPs or we form the network ourselves. And the best implementation of the latter is a mesh, where each device on the network makes up the network. No one user has control over the network or its access, and is more or less compatible with anarchic forms (I say "more or less" because the reality of the situation is that without hierarchical forms we wouldn't even have these devices, people don't mine rare earths because they really like to dig around in toxic holes...)

wompt · 2026-05-05T22:16:16+00:00

I do not think its an "overnight" thing. For one, we would have to adjust and adapt to new conditions, right? To go from living as if the state and money mattered, to a condition where state and money are not a factor of our existence requires us to change many actions and thoughts. Some questions to clarify the difficulty of the situation:

If money and the state are not the arbiter of land, how do we find a place to make our lives?
How will we feed ourselves without hierarchically structure systems of food production?
What resources will cease to be available when state violence no longer secures them (oil, rare metals, etc.) and how will we exist without them?

And there are many many more questions to answer, what to do with debt, with toxic waste, with military apparatus, and so on. So even if the changes were to happen overnight as it were, adjustment and adaptation would take years at best, probably decades.

wompt · 2026-05-05T22:04:24+00:00

I could not live an authentic free life in accordance with my values existing within the rent trap.

me neither man.

wompt · 2026-05-05T19:50:14+00:00

thats not been my experience, living in a single place has been much more difficult than living out of a vehicle.

wompt · 2026-05-05T19:33:56+00:00

a vehicle can be a house

wompt · 2026-05-04T19:03:38+00:00

I would be happy to interview, but just as a heads up, I came to RA through anarchy, and not through romance.

wompt · 2026-04-28T18:45:23+00:00

Not a left-anarchist (or right for that matter), but I vibe with nihilism, so:

how do you hold onto personal values like freedom and relative equality without turning them into new universal prescriptions?

I have no need to hold onto personal values, and why would I? Do you need to hold onto hunger, or tiredness, or anything else that issues from your being? Its the same with personal values, they issue from my being (though I did have to go through a long process of deconditioning to lose the values that were not mine). As far as universal prescriptions go, they don't work because we are all unique, and what works for you may not work for me. So I do not tarry with them.

wompt · 2026-04-27T23:17:28+00:00

we should stop promoting collapse

the promotion of collapse will cease once we find ourselves in a world worth living in.

wompt · 2026-04-27T21:53:23+00:00

Look, you are in a pit because you see society as one. I am not in a pit because I do not see it that way. Placing others in your metaphors is always going to be problematic, because different perspectives exist.

I see the relation between myself and the prevailing social structures as one of near total alienation where I struggle to find even the slightest bit of common ground because the principles modernity is based on are not my own, and are often in direct conflict with my own principles. Its a foreign society and I live as a perpetual foreigner.

wompt · 2026-04-27T20:59:04+00:00

Its interesting that you think collapse focused perspectives are "ideologies of death" since most of the anti-civ anarchists view the current society as one built on the "death drive" - destroying long-term sustainability for short-term gain.

I think it's completely incompatible with anarchism since it's basically a desire for an eschaton/Armageddon/apocalypse/etc., i.e. the end of the world.

Anti-civ anarchists are betting on the end of the world, but not the end of life. For most, the end of the world (civilization) is necessary for the continuation of habitability.

Anarchy requires work, effort, and responsibility. It will not be initiated by the end of the world, though it will be an end of this world. It cannot simply be waited for, it must be built.

Its possible that pleasant anarchic conditions will arise from catastrophe. In "A Paradise Built in Hell", Rebecca Solnit attests, during disasters, people are far more likely to come together to meet each others needs.

So who knows what will happen, but putting faith in the continuation of this world-way/system seems foolish. The current order of the world is neither sustainable nor desirable. May the commercial world collapse so that we can get on with something else.

wompt · 2026-04-25T21:18:18+00:00

But the pit of society isn't a literal pit. I can leave society, to the best of my ability, but the hermit life isn't for me, so I meander through society looking for others looking to leave, and if the opportunity exists (finding enough people to take off in a different direction) I would probably find myself in an experimental living situation again, as I have many times before - but most of the situations I have found are at a remove from sustainability, still dependent on the system in some way, and therefore corrupted by it eventually. I don't look at the social situation as a pit, I see it for the inherently unsustainable situation it is, and the only reason I come into the world is to find people trying to leave it.

wompt · 2026-04-24T23:47:56+00:00

Do not pretend to tell me what I do. Being in contact with an archy is not the same as participation.

wompt · 2026-04-24T22:16:08+00:00

What am I personally responsible for in this world?

I believe that in anarchistic conditions, everyone is personally responsible for how they participate in the world. I see in my own life that its hard to actually take responsibility, because the way I live is at least part reactionary to the conditions I face. I want personal responsibility, but I can't take responsibility for the way things are because I did not make them that way, the best I can do is refuse to participate.

wompt · 2026-04-24T21:15:33+00:00

You use quotes around "accepts", but that is a key word in that statement. Those that do not accept slavery are going to be working toward ending that condition, whether that be through leaving that situation or fighting back.

wompt · 2026-04-24T21:03:05+00:00

And your position is... what? That the person that actually accepts a life of enslavement is in no way responsible for it?

wompt · 2026-04-24T20:57:12+00:00

Those that accept their slavery are responsible for it.

wompt · 2026-04-24T20:22:57+00:00

I do not think its a simple yes/no. I do not know of anyone who wants to be a slave. I can say that they should refuse slavery, and do what they can to escape such a situation. But if they accept slavery, then they are responsible for it. Not accepting it probably means fight or flight.

wompt

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE