My take on Bioshock is people became mutants and started killing each other because there were no laws or regulations aside from “you can’t stop others from profiting.” It was legal for them to become mutants. It was legal for them to weaponize and arm themselves before the inevitable revolution / civil war of Rapture. The closest thing to a law enforcer was the big daddy and he does NOTHING about the hordes of cannibalistic telepathic monsters. You know why? Because there are no laws against what they’re doing, the daddy was only made to protect the little sisters who produce profit for Fontaine.
Bioshock is steampunk scifi but it’s also anarchy in it’s truest form. People built whatever they liked, and they destroyed whatever they liked, and when violently mutating psychoactive drugs were introduced the latter succeeded over the former.
BioShock 2 revealed that Andrew Ryan had a secret prison to throw people into when they disrupted his control over the city. And more than once he decided he would burn it all down rather than let someone else win.
It may have masqueraded as anarchy, but the system was still rigged from the start. There was always a ruler.
And this, intentionally or not, is the real message. There’s no such thing as a real meritocracy, the system is always rigged in favor of the people who created it.
Rules require enforcement which requires people coming together to form a consensus and outfitting and maintaining the livelihood of enforcers, which is NOT ANARCHY.
No, what you describe is chaos. Anarchy means there are no rulers. People rule themselves and are also looking out for each other thus enforcing the minimum set of rules that are necessary to have a stable society. Rules can come from a consensus, yes.
A current example is the anarchist punk camp on Sylt where it was decided that dogs need to be on a leash when your are in the camp. If someone sees someone with a dog without a leash, they tell them of the decision and why it was made and that’s it.
Not to mention the obvious fact that a position of, “rule enforcer”, even where necessary like like tracking down and imprisoning a murderer, needn’t be a permanent role given to people that can then abuse others with that authority.
Anarchism doesn’t mean zero authority. It means no unjustified authority.
Since writing that last comment I have that funny thought of a diplomacy lottery in my head where it’s randomly decided who will join a trained diplomat or experts on state visits to represent the people. “… And this year… Dale will visit the environmental summit with our experts in …” followed by an AMA where Dale can share their impressions. I’d love it ;D
“I learned that it’s just a retreat for rich fucks to suck themselves off and pretend like they’re saving the world while changing nothing for the better.”
If no permanent rules are in place then those temporary role enforcers will just enforce whatever rules they want. Like the splicers are doing by harvesting your delicious liver.
No. They only receive the authority to do a specific thing. They go out of bounds? That’s OBVIOUSLY an abuse of authority and they’ll get themselves in trouble.
Anarchy is synonymous with Chaos. Every dictionary and every printed encyclopedia agrees on that. Fontaine and his horde of Splicers are all “looking out for one another.”
1: a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
1
a: absence of government
b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority
the city’s descent into anarchy
c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2
a: absence or denial of any authority or established order
anarchy prevailed in the war zone
b: absence of order : disorder
Yeah, those are definitions when used as a literary term, or an extreme example. You’re not wrong that anarchy can refer to no rules at all, but social contracts and agreements can exist and it still be anarchy just fine.
What happens when it comes somebody’s turn and they decide to stay in charge permanently? Well obviously the loss of the social contract means that individual isn’t protected anymore, either, so they kill him. Just like the splicers tried to kill Andrew Ryan.
The same thing that happens anywhere else? A power struggle between the people who want it and don’t? Are you implying this is unique to anarchism in some way? I don’t see why it would be.
A power struggle with no legal recourse except bloodshed is indeed specific to a system where there is no power structure or system of laws, correct. That’s what I said. It has never once proven false. And you came in here and demanded I retract my statement? What are you going to do about it, eat my liver?
There is a legal recourse, you’re saying someone with power ignored the law and attempted a coup… do you think coups don’t happen in non anarchist countries? How is this unique to anarchism in any way?
In non anarchist countries they can be arrested and face trial, and there are many barriers in place to prevent them from taking total control in the first place.
In Anarchy it’s literally handed to them and the only recourse is to abduct or kill that guy.
That’s why nations last hundreds of years and Anarchies last days.
You might wanna read up slightly on this, you’re quite far away from the consensus meaning of anarchism. While superficial, you could start with the first three paragraphs of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
rofl Bioshock is explicitly NOT anarchism in its truest form… Big Daddys existing at all disproves that by itself, let alone Ryan’s ruling of the city.
The issue is that finitebanjo has conflated the two different meanings of Anarchy. Donpiano is talking about contemporary anarchism, a mode of governance without authority structures. One that argues that hierarchies and centralized power is the root of most of humanities ails. Governance is still performed, but it’s on an individual level between peers where each member of the group is an active part in decision making.
Finitebanjo is talking about anarchy, the state of lawlessness that arises when the state fails to perform its governing duties. Most associated with riots and looting. The problem is when they call it “anarchism in it’s truest form”, they’re conflating the state of lawlessness when the state abandons an area with a system of governance. It is not the same thing.
Contemporary Anarchism doesn’t actually exist even in fiction, though, unless there is only one person because otherwise there will always be disputes between the people until a centralized power structure forms.
I thank you for trying to mediate but both me and my opponents know exactly what I am saying.
Anarchism is full of rules and laws, though. Arguably, one aspect of anarchism is replacing rulers with rules as far as possible, but that’s possibly a contentious phrasing.
I don’t think you’re engaging in good faith here, not sure why. For what it’s worth, in your example, the negotiation of rules with the goal of consensus finding and avoidance of unjust exertion of power plays a major role in anarchist practices. Anomic states of existence and anarchic ones are far apart. The former leads to kings and conquest, the latter to tedious discussions about minutiae of daily existence.
There are reasons why anarchist groups are hard to infiltrate by cops
What’s good faith about me describing a horde of lawless cannibal spleen collectors and you coming in here and argueing “um actually the orphan spleen harvesting has a complex and fair system of distribution so actually its a good thing superior to regulated capitalism”.
My take on Bioshock is people became mutants and started killing each other because there were no laws or regulations aside from “you can’t stop others from profiting.” It was legal for them to become mutants. It was legal for them to weaponize and arm themselves before the inevitable revolution / civil war of Rapture. The closest thing to a law enforcer was the big daddy and he does NOTHING about the hordes of cannibalistic telepathic monsters. You know why? Because there are no laws against what they’re doing, the daddy was only made to protect the little sisters who produce profit for Fontaine.
Bioshock is steampunk scifi but it’s also anarchy in it’s truest form. People built whatever they liked, and they destroyed whatever they liked, and when violently mutating psychoactive drugs were introduced the latter succeeded over the former.
BioShock 2 revealed that Andrew Ryan had a secret prison to throw people into when they disrupted his control over the city. And more than once he decided he would burn it all down rather than let someone else win.
It may have masqueraded as anarchy, but the system was still rigged from the start. There was always a ruler.
And this, intentionally or not, is the real message. There’s no such thing as a real meritocracy, the system is always rigged in favor of the people who created it.
That’s fair, and to add onto that Ryan did have a self destruct button in his office that would wipe out the whole city.
On the other hand, though, Fontaine and Lamb both rose to power despite Ryan’s head start on authoritarianism.
Anarchy is explicitly against “profits”.
And it doesn’t mean that there are no rules but no rulers.
Rules require enforcement which requires people coming together to form a consensus and outfitting and maintaining the livelihood of enforcers, which is NOT ANARCHY.
No, what you describe is chaos. Anarchy means there are no rulers. People rule themselves and are also looking out for each other thus enforcing the minimum set of rules that are necessary to have a stable society. Rules can come from a consensus, yes.
A current example is the anarchist punk camp on Sylt where it was decided that dogs need to be on a leash when your are in the camp. If someone sees someone with a dog without a leash, they tell them of the decision and why it was made and that’s it.
Not to mention the obvious fact that a position of, “rule enforcer”, even where necessary like like tracking down and imprisoning a murderer, needn’t be a permanent role given to people that can then abuse others with that authority.
Anarchism doesn’t mean zero authority. It means no unjustified authority.
Since writing that last comment I have that funny thought of a diplomacy lottery in my head where it’s randomly decided who will join a trained diplomat or experts on state visits to represent the people. “… And this year… Dale will visit the environmental summit with our experts in …” followed by an AMA where Dale can share their impressions. I’d love it ;D
“I learned that it’s just a retreat for rich fucks to suck themselves off and pretend like they’re saving the world while changing nothing for the better.”
If no permanent rules are in place then those temporary role enforcers will just enforce whatever rules they want. Like the splicers are doing by harvesting your delicious liver.
No. They only receive the authority to do a specific thing. They go out of bounds? That’s OBVIOUSLY an abuse of authority and they’ll get themselves in trouble.
They receive authority from themselves or it isn’t anarchy.
Anarchy is synonymous with Chaos. Every dictionary and every printed encyclopedia agrees on that. Fontaine and his horde of Splicers are all “looking out for one another.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchism
1: a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy
1
a: absence of government
b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority the city’s descent into anarchy
c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2 a: absence or denial of any authority or established order anarchy prevailed in the war zone
b: absence of order : disorder
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
1 : in a literal sense or manner
2 : in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible
Yeah, those are definitions when used as a literary term, or an extreme example. You’re not wrong that anarchy can refer to no rules at all, but social contracts and agreements can exist and it still be anarchy just fine.
Only if you’re an edgy teenage dumbass who just watched A Clockwork Orange…
Who is gonna stop them?
usually anarchists advocate for elected or rotational positions for policing.
What happens when it comes somebody’s turn and they decide to stay in charge permanently? Well obviously the loss of the social contract means that individual isn’t protected anymore, either, so they kill him. Just like the splicers tried to kill Andrew Ryan.
The same thing that happens anywhere else? A power struggle between the people who want it and don’t? Are you implying this is unique to anarchism in some way? I don’t see why it would be.
A power struggle with no legal recourse except bloodshed is indeed specific to a system where there is no power structure or system of laws, correct. That’s what I said. It has never once proven false. And you came in here and demanded I retract my statement? What are you going to do about it, eat my liver?
There is a legal recourse, you’re saying someone with power ignored the law and attempted a coup… do you think coups don’t happen in non anarchist countries? How is this unique to anarchism in any way?
In non anarchist countries they can be arrested and face trial, and there are many barriers in place to prevent them from taking total control in the first place.
In Anarchy it’s literally handed to them and the only recourse is to abduct or kill that guy.
That’s why nations last hundreds of years and Anarchies last days.
Core ideas of anarchism: mutual aid, no hierarchies, stateless moneyless society, free association.
This person: anarchism is capitalism without rules
You’re probably thinking Anarcho-Communism or some other convoluted trite. Dictionaries all say the same thing: no laws, no leader, no order.
Surely you know better after skimming through a dictionary than me, an anarchist that has read dozens of anarchist theory books
Even antivaxxers have their own books, your theories mean nothing in the face of the consensus.
You might wanna read up slightly on this, you’re quite far away from the consensus meaning of anarchism. While superficial, you could start with the first three paragraphs of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism
Three paragraphs may be too long of a read for that person
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lol nice mobile website link
To say an example of a place and people with no laws is not Anarchy, you’re kidding yourself.
Which anarchist philosophers or anarchists agree with you?
Oh god I hope none of them lmao
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rofl Bioshock is explicitly NOT anarchism in its truest form… Big Daddys existing at all disproves that by itself, let alone Ryan’s ruling of the city.
Big Daddies were owned by Fontaine, not by Ryan. Fontaine and Ryan were literally opposing faction leaders in the Rapture civil war.
I even mentioned how Big Daddies do NOTHING to stop the hordes of cannibals because they’re not there to enforce any laws.
They are still a de-facto authority regardless of their purpose. De-facto authority is by definition NOT anarchism.
That’s not anarchism you’re describing, maybe you’re thinking of "anarcho"capitalism?
Anarchy:
No order, no laws, no rulers.
Obviously the existence of Ryan and the city council defeats that ideal, but that was only true before the fall.
The issue is that finitebanjo has conflated the two different meanings of Anarchy. Donpiano is talking about contemporary anarchism, a mode of governance without authority structures. One that argues that hierarchies and centralized power is the root of most of humanities ails. Governance is still performed, but it’s on an individual level between peers where each member of the group is an active part in decision making.
Finitebanjo is talking about anarchy, the state of lawlessness that arises when the state fails to perform its governing duties. Most associated with riots and looting. The problem is when they call it “anarchism in it’s truest form”, they’re conflating the state of lawlessness when the state abandons an area with a system of governance. It is not the same thing.
Contemporary Anarchism doesn’t actually exist even in fiction, though, unless there is only one person because otherwise there will always be disputes between the people until a centralized power structure forms.
I thank you for trying to mediate but both me and my opponents know exactly what I am saying.
A democratic power structure is decentralized.
Thank you for adding nothing to yet another exchange.
Ah yes, such trivialities like the answer to your conundrum are meaningless to someone as proudly ignorant on a topic as yourself. My bad.
Indeed, you’re bad, I’m glad you finally took the hint, troll.
Anarchism is full of rules and laws, though. Arguably, one aspect of anarchism is replacing rulers with rules as far as possible, but that’s possibly a contentious phrasing.
And when your rules conflict with your neighbor’s rules? I guess they’ll just have to murder you. Just like Rapture.
I don’t think you’re engaging in good faith here, not sure why. For what it’s worth, in your example, the negotiation of rules with the goal of consensus finding and avoidance of unjust exertion of power plays a major role in anarchist practices. Anomic states of existence and anarchic ones are far apart. The former leads to kings and conquest, the latter to tedious discussions about minutiae of daily existence.
There are reasons why anarchist groups are hard to infiltrate by cops
What’s good faith about me describing a horde of lawless cannibal spleen collectors and you coming in here and argueing “um actually the orphan spleen harvesting has a complex and fair system of distribution so actually its a good thing superior to regulated capitalism”.
No they’re saying the spleen harvesters are NOT anarchists at all.