Which one are you?

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[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

/u/Canbot, /u/Jesus, /u/Tom_Bombadil, /u/useless_aether, et alia,

I really like the idea of voluntarism / anarchism with absolute freedom (and Natural Law, aka do not harm nor deceive others).

Yet I find a fundamental paradoxical problem with anarchy. If everyone is free, then they are also free to form groups, tribes, mobs, mafias, etc. Just as there are good folks, so too, there are bad folks, and inherently they will root each other out.

Everyone believes they are justified, and everyone in a mob feels justified too not to mention less responsible with the consensus. Form a mob to get fair trade when you feel you've been shorted. Form a mob to stop the town upstream from polluting your water. Form a mob to run the Jewish pornographer from your Catholic community. Form a mob to keep the strange ones at bay (even if they're kin). And of course mobs can take things too far and beyond, whether good people or bad.

Since I despise big government and tribalism in general, yet have this issue with voluntarism, I find myself trying to consider minarchism as viable. But who/how to decide on what is minimal and viable?

Writing my Bittersweet Seeds story that includes an emerging benevolent global A.I. hive mind minarchist alternative, I'm now partly stumped because I don't have it all perfectly figured out. (And writing this I just realized I can't make perfection the enemy of good. I love sci-fi when done well and despise the majority that is trash, so I want to get it right. Even if the majority is stuck in my head unwritten, unexplained, I just need to finish a first draft to share and get feedback, to focus on the glaring issues first, as I expect there are countless things I've been excessively dwelling on that are for the most part inconsequential details only suitable for a detailed lengthy novel or series.)

So I ask you friends, what do you think about minarchism and/or the anarchist paradox of freedom to tribe? Maybe since both are impossible ideals so similar that the distinction is moot? And what to do about fairness, justice, and punishment? I value your thoughts.

[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There is a spectrum between Anarchy and Totalitarianism. The closer you are to Anarchy the more unstable it is. There is no point in fantasizing about a form of government that is too unstable to exist for any worthwhile amount of time. Libertarianism is about as close as I think we could ever successfully get.

[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

There is no point in doing anything then, since aiming for perfection is always futile.

Totalitarianism is also an impossible abstract ideal too. Also unstable.

Yet we live in the spectrum. We can affect the spectrum. We need to understand it, even at its extremes.

Why look at other galaxies? To learn about our own.

If I can fantasize about a minarchy in my hard-sci-fi, then maybe that might inspire people to actually try to shift on the spectrum, if only a little. And maybe it might become an alternative to the dystopian Brave New 1984 Worlds.

Aim high, and even if you fall short, you're still higher than you were.