#anarchy101

[liiittlehand]

Anarchy 101 DTIYS!

Go check out this masterpiece by @anarchy101comic I still remember how excited I was when I first read Anarchy 101 on Webtoon. It's such a good story! The character design is unique and beautiful, and the storyline has so much potential!!! I'm really looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds! (No pressure though. As we all know, making comics takes a huge amount of time and effort.) poker card that I put too much effort into：

[anarchafeministcollective]

[anarchopuppy]

I know others have already recommended it to hell and back, but for real, if you have any interest in anarchism, please read Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos. It's so compelling to see a defense of anarchism that isn't just hypothetical ideas for how such a society could work, but real historical examples of stateless societies, with the sociological examinations serving as explanation rather than justification. It's hard to say anarchism couldn't work when it clearly has and does

And since the chapters are pretty short, named after the common questions/objections they answer, and clickable on the Anarchist Library version, it also serves as a really great FAQ! If you like the idea of anarchism but are held up by "what about _____?" questions, please check it out!

[intherainyseason]

Yes, there are always going to be people trying to set up governments. Perhaps it is in the “human nature” (of at least some humans) to try to seize and hold onto institutional power. The job of anarchists is not to categorically prevent that from ever happening; the job of anarchists is to keep knocking them down when they do. Maybe if there are enough of us knocking them down fast enough, authoritarians will eventually get tired and give up and go farm alfalfa or something. Meanwhile, conscientiously protecting each other from power-hungry authoritarians creates more space for everyone else to work collaboratively on non-hierarchical solutions to our shared problems.   Call that a “transitional state” if you want. The ideal is simply that, as society gets better and better at doing anarchism, we will “transition” out of new authoritarian regimes faster and more easily, and maybe one day so fast that we’ll barely even notice the authoritarians were there.   But the point is that anarchism is not some pie-in-the-sky hypothetical future ideal. Anarchy is here and now. The struggle against tyranny is here and now, today. We don’t hope to replace the tyranny of tyrants with the tyranny of anarchists. We simply hope to keep knocking down tyranny whenever and wherever it pops up. Like we’ve been doing for a long time. Like we’ll keep doing for a long time. As long as we have to.

Anarchy as Whack-a-Mole

[anarchopuppy]

I saw your post on giving up paper plates and it got me thinking about bigger things. Like I know the components that go into making even a solar powered car are a disaster for the environment, so how would we travel great distances. I have friends who live all over my state and many don’t have a bus or train station within a few miles or if they do we aren’t on the same route so I would have to go to a central hub like NYC first before traveling back to them.

It’s hard to say how extensive public transit networks would become if costs weren’t externalized. There definitely wouldn’t be as much of a push for speed, especially for small populations - saving a couple dozen people a couple hours by building a direct route between small towns rather than routing through NYC wouldn’t be an efficient use of time, space, or resources. So yes, I think a lot of transportation over long distances would be through sail.boats, airships, and multiple trains, and would take considerably longer. Sorry about that - but, as I’ve already argued, I don’t think you’d want it any other way

Personal transportation could definitely still exist, though. The problem with cars isn’t just that they burn gas or carry big wasteful batteries, but that they’re horribly inefficient. Even just by getting rid of unneeded weight, my scooter is 3x as fuel efficient as most cars while going just as fast. This can be taken to the extreme with something like an electric velomobile

But let’s revisit the solar-powered car. When you say they’re a disaster for the environment I assume you’re talking about one of two things - the solar panels, which require a very high energy input to create, and the battery, which is typically made of lithium and relies on wasteful mining practices and creates toxic waste. There are lots of new photovoltaic solar cell designs being developed aimed at reducing the energy input, but that may not be necessary. Modern PVs are made mostly of silicon, which is just sand and heat - the sand obviously isn’t a problem, whereas the heat can be obtained from solar itself. If and when we have solar thermal production on a large scale, silicon PVs actually wouldn’t be much of an issue

As for the battery, it could be made much smaller with the addition of solar panels, of course - as well as with the drastic possible increase in efficiency I was talking about before. In addition, we might have to get used to driving slower, less far, or just less during cloudy days or nighttime. With a much smaller battery from all that, it might be feasible to swap it out for a more sustainable but less efficient alternative to lithium

Another thing to note is that we’d also be traveling less overall. Decentralization would mean that not only do you not have to commute as far to get to what you need, but you would be less likely to have to relocate for a job or a school. If you’re guaranteed a good quality of life wherever you live, you might instead just live closer to all the people you love. I’ve talked about that and other aspects of transportation before

[anarchopuppy]

how do we design cities that encourage use of public transportation, walking, and biking?

A lot of the strategy for this overlaps with my road safety post, since a large part of the answer is making it safe to bike (bike lanes separated from main roads by medians) and walk (sidewalks, raised crosswalks marked with retroreflectors, crossing signals, and shared space design in areas with lots of foot traffic, such as community centers and neighborhoods). As for public transit, actually having it available would be a start. Expanding the options to be faster, more far-reaching, and more reliable is another important step, as is making it cheap(/free) and convenient enough to not make driving just objectively a better idea

Also, anarchist society would naturally encourage alternatives to driving, since decentralization would drastically reduce how far you need to travel to do anything. Most activities would be centered in your local community, including work, and so you’d rarely have to go outside of biking distance. And “biking distance” could be greatly expanded with more widespread adoption of the more obscure advancements in bike technology, such as solar-powered electric bikes, self-driving bikes, velomobiles, and cargo bikes!

[anarchopuppy]

hey so stupid question: in an anarchist world people would still have like, their own houses right? and how would technology be produced? would we use the technology already made and make it more sustainable? or would that be something that isn't used as much. also, how would like the really bad people (rapists, murderers, etc) be taken care of in a world w/o police? im not being a Cop Lover and i agree that it's an institution that needs to not exist anymore, i'm just kinda wondering what (1/2)

This is a lot at once! If you want me to go in depth I’d prefer single, self-contained questions - it sounds to me like what you need is more a general introduction to anarchism as a concept. Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos is a great introduction that goes over most of the misconceptions and objections - I’d definitely recommend it if you’re interested in anarchism. If you want a quicker description though, Teen Vogue of all things did a pretty good article on it this very week. I’m gonna try and give a quick answer to everything here though

Yes, you’d still have your own house. This misconception stems from the conflation of private vs. personal property, which is summed up pretty well by this infographic. Nobody wants to take your house or your toothbrush

It’d be made by people who are passionate about it. It’s interesting that technology is always people’s go-to for this question, because we already have passionate people inventing and building things for free in the enormous maker/open-source movement. All sorts of software and tech are being produced for free, often by people with dayjobs, just because they believe in making the world a better place and like doing it. How much more would that happen if those people didn’t have to work for someone else to survive, and had access to everything they needed for free?

Typically, throwing away something that works fine to replace it with a new, sustainable alternative isn’t actually the sustainable thing to do. What’d probably happen is the old tech would be salvaged, modified, upgraded, and repaired as long as possible before we start manufacturing brand new stuff. So something like a gas-powered car would have its engine replaced, for instance

Ask yourself this: is putting people in cages the best way to handle our problems? Will there always just be a percentage of the population that we’ll have to keep perpetually locked up because there’s just no way to avoid it? Or is there a better way to go about it? Anarchists tend to believe that violent activity stems from people not getting the material and/or social support they need, and that with a cultural shift most if not all of it can be prevented. It’s called transformative justice, and it’s a pretty complicated topic, so I’d suggest looking up some further reading if you’re interested

All anarchists are socialists, so no, bosses wouldn’t be a thing. At the very least, workplaces would be democratized - where all workers vote on group decisions - though some (like me) believe it’d be possible and preferable to have all work become voluntary, as I touched on in the technology point above

Education and child rearing is a complicated topic and I try to avoid talking too much about it, but I can say with certainty that the Prussian model (i.e. most modern schools) is authoritarian and abusive and would definitely be thrown out. I think instead a more community-focused, voluntary, ongoing style of learning would form, where children (and adults) are given all the resources they need to learn, and people to learn from, and then let their natural curiosity and passion drive them. But again, developmental psychology is real complicated, so I don’t know what exactly is best for education

Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, or want more specifics, please feel free to ask! I’ll be happy to help as much as I can ✊💕

[anarchopuppy]

how would an anarchist society deal with road safety, since there wouldn't be traffic laws? this isn't supposed to be a weird "gotcha!" type question, i'm learning about anarchism and i really do want to know

First, I feel like any anarchist society would naturally shift towards more and more public transit, since it’s just safer, more efficient, and easier to manage overall. The vehicles would be operated by well-trained drivers under the supervision of all of their passengers, and with no motivation to go faster than is safe or take unnecessary risks. For extra safety, use trolleys and trains rather than buses, to eliminate much of the human error involved - that is, if self-driving vehicles aren’t perfected by then (but let’s assume they’re not, because that alone would make this entire problem trivial and I have more shit to say)

While it would be possible to physically block human-driven low-passenger vehicles from even entering the roadways, I feel like for at least the foreseeable future there would be too much backlash from people who just love driving. In that case, it’s worth noting that the American road system is shockingly poorly designed, and could be made much safer with some structural changes. The best example of this I could find is in the Netherlands, who has a system that I’ve seen called “Sustainable Safety” or “Systematic Safety” (probably both translations of the same Dutch phrase), or “Vision Zero” for that extra scifi flare. Here’s a video with a run-down. Off the top of my head I also know that roundabouts are much safer than the typical cross intersection (and move faster to boot), plus there’s the diverging diamond interchange which is the subject of this oddly captivating video

Shared space design is another great option for areas with a lot of foot traffic, hearkening back to when cars shared the road with pedestrians. The idea is that by removing any distinction between “this place is for cars” and “this place is where pedestrians can walk”, drivers will never feel safe driving recklessly and, instead, always be aware of others

Of course, the answer to questions like this is always “it depends.” We don’t need to make a strict Articles of Anarchy beforehand that every area needs to follow - there will be experiments and adjustments for need in every community, and when a great design is found the word will spread and it will be adopted elsewhere as needed. So I don’t know how any given anarchist society would solve this problem! All I can do is offer a few ideas, but I hope that at least gave you an idea for how it is possible