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It wouldn't.
Anarchism (and communism) live and die by the idea that ALL people would have a completely unrealistic level of cooperation and selflessness. As fucked up as capitalism is, it can bend when people don't play nice and there's at least a theoretical possibility of anyone gaining power (money) to impact change in the system. Money itself doesn't inherently have preferences or moral opinions on what should be. Anarchism however breaks the moment someone behaves selfishly. It can work fine in small, like-minded communities where people can always leave (or be excluded) to find other systems that better fit their ideals. However, Anarchism on a societal level would demand that there is basically no other type of society available - which would lead to Sen's paradox. The reason we don't have true anarchist (or communist) countries is that they get wiped out by powers that function in sync with people's natural inclinations for self-interest (like capitalism). People like to argue that these attitudes are DUE to capitalism, not inherent in human nature. Even if I were to entertain the idea that that's true, we currently live in this world of self-interest. Unless you can press a reset button on humanity, this is what we are working with. Solutions that rely on the idea that we can just fundamentally change how ALL people in the world currently are, are not solutions. They're idle fantasies. The "argument" that "if the world wasn't shitty, we could have an amazing utopia", is not an argument at all, it's just a tautology with no power of utility.
The way db0 handled their defederation from feddit.org is a great example of how Anarchism fails even on small scale. They espouse ideals about democratic voting and rational discourse, but the moment the organizing body of the instance had opinions on how they think things "should" be, they used propaganda and political theater to get the result they wanted. Anarchist ideals couldn't function in a low stakes online space, it has little hope of functioning where people are driven by actual survival needs (and desire for power). Whatever ideological purity drove the db0 admins to present the "democratic vote" the way they did, will be the exact same drive people tend to fall to on larger scales as well.
Same thing can be seen in the Communist instances: they rely heavily on propaganda and people sticking to the "correct" narrative. Which also brings up the conflict: there has to be an organizing body that has opinions on what is "right" and what is "wrong". This organizing body will be the authority, no matter how people try to use rhetorical slalom to get around it and trick people into thinking the spade isn't a spade.
People can start to build small grassroots communities with these ideals. Please do, and once they gain enough power (money) in the system we are currently living in, perhaps they can impact policy changes etc. that are more humanitarian. That would be wonderful. But always be aware that the ideals are fragile and break under any corruption. Capitalism works with corruption (not merely despite of), which is why it's extremely effective at being the might that makes right.
(And because I'm aware how these discussions go: I'm absolutely NOT saying "capitalism good". I'm saying it has more functional power than Anarchism. And I find Anarchism to be far more ethical and appealing in theory.)
I really dislike the idea that anarchy doesnt work because people follow their own interest, because i think it is based on a bad understanding of what anarchy is. It is not a system based on simple good will and sacrificing yourself for others. It is a system where you share help, you give it and you receive it : one grows food, one builds houses and at the end of a day, everyone get a house with food. So you have an interest in helping people, so that they help you. It works the same way as our current societies, skipping the part where someone forces you to do so or where you add the step of giving money to each other for this. If people don't play nice, either it's a few people and that's no big deal, either it's a lot and they're defederating and that's a valid possibility, anarchist systems are precisely adaptable.
Now, I perfectly understands the fear that it's not stable enough to compete with states, but it's not the same thing. It does not mean that anarchy fails by itself, it means that it fails when a state destroys it, those are two very different points. Your concluding paragraph makes me think that you are actually thinking the 2nd point, while stating the 1st as an opening.
Also i don't really understand what is the big deal with db0 defederation. I mean db0 has issues, and this was a debatable and debated action, but defederation itself is not really bad is it? You make it sound like a definitive failure, and i don't really see the bad part of it. Or is it something else alongside defederation?
This is exactly the problem I was highlighting. It's nice to construct the idea where people get along but how do you incentivize them to actually do that without using coercive methods? "We can make this work if everyone just gets along" is just another tautology. Unsurprisingly, any system will work if all people would just cooperate.
Not to even get to the general logistical difficulties with deciding how many carrots one should get for building a house, and if that's fair. And the free rider problem.
And what if the people who disagree decide to subjugate (and possibly erase) the anarchist system? What if (as is likely) people decide that they want is personal power and authority over others?
It fails internally due to it's fragility in the face of corruption. And when scaled, it would have to compete with anyone who decides that might makes right (by any means necessary). Pure, non-coercive anarchism inherently cannot withstand an attack from anyone who is willing to be coercive in order to gain power.
(Also to @ageedizzle@piefed.ca)
They can defederate all they like. The problem is in the way the "democratic" vote was presented. Their method of conducting the vote (with very clear bias) shows that the Admins had a strong opinion on what the correct result of the vote should be. This is abuse of power - which should not exist in an actual Anarchist setting. The exact same driving forces can be copied and pasted to other scenarios: the organizing body of an Anarchist community has a Strong Opinion about a matter, and they put the matter to vote "democratically", but they use extremely loaded rhetoric to push their own agenda so that people vote the way they want. It's consent manufacturing, and thus, not Anarchism. I highly recommend reading Animal Farm.
And to be clear: I'm fine with db0 admins doing whatever they like, but calling it an "Anarchist" instance is then misleading. It's rather just another informal, progressive oligarchy where the appearance of democracy is used to mask centralized platform governance. Anarchism failed, because the moment they created that farce of a vote, they stopped being anarchists and became authoritarians. Anarchist ideals did not do what they needed to do for the db0 admins to get the results they wanted.
1st point : how to motivate people to do useful things ?
Because as i stated, they have an interest to do so. If they help, they get help in return. You have an interest to do your job and voluntary work because in return people will help you, either because you give them money or because they help people as volunteers.
Also people do things in their lives, mostly things helpful to themselves or others. They don't sit there waiting unless they are forced to do stuff. This point of view is obviously false, and is a premise used by bourgeois propaganda to legitimate exploitation.
2nd point : what if people try to recreate power ?
This is a whole debate, it can come to education, groups looking out for power situations like ngos do with corruption, and if need be armed struggle. But this falls under the "how to destroy power" problem rather than "how to live when there is no power", and you're right to point it out, this is one of the big problem. It's even bigger than what you point out, because we have to get rid of actual existing powers, which we'll agree is far harder than preventing new ones to emerge.
3rd point : corruption/weakness against power
I agree that anarchy is weak against power, because power is predatory and anarchy is not or is less. Preventing rise of authoritarianism would be one of the big problems, we agree. Now, again you make it seem quite absolute, like "one dude using violence would make the whole system fall" : this is not that easy, violence can be in the hands in the anarchists too if it's used against them. If one dude wants to use violence to take power, you can simply stop them with a bunch of people. Now, if they armed themselves or got a bunch of people to follow them, you get a semblance of power again, and it calls for struggle against it : either discussion to find a common ground, either violent struggle if previous is not possible.
Again, your comments make me think that you don't think that anarchy does not work, you think it does not stand against power, which is different, and which i perfectly understand.
4th point : on db0
OK, my bad for mistaking your point. Indeed, the db0 admins are quite intense about their positions, but i do think that it is fine. The problem is that they hold power over the instance, not that they state their opinion. But it has to do with how tech works rather than anything else.
You cannot have anarchy when someone or a group physically has the system, and/or the ability to do whatever to do with it. If it was an anarchist system, they would be mandated, they could be revoked, etc., and people submitting an idea to assembly vote could be very vocal for it, to defend it (and typically would not be part of the mandated organizing people). db0 is indeed not that, it is a anarchist-themed or anarchist-leaning instance functioning by non-anarchist means. So the problem you identified has to do with power, not with anarchy. Eventually with power used by people promoting anarchy, but not anarchy itself.
If someone decides to take without giving, how does your system stop them? Social pressure? Then you’re admitting coercion exists. Violence? Then you’re admitting authority exists. Might makes right. Or do you just let them freeload until the system collapses? Yes, people do help others - but not universally, not equally, and not without incentives or consequences. Capitalism and states channel self-interest into productive outcomes (even if imperfectly). Anarchism relies on self-interest magically aligning with collective good. This is not a mechanism, it’s an ideal, a fantasy.
If anarchists need armed struggle to prevent power, they’re admitting that violence (i.e., coercion) is necessary to maintain their system. But if coercion is allowed, what makes this different (to the point of superiority) from what we currently have?
Like I said in my first post: I’m absolutely NOT saying “capitalism good”. I’m saying it has more functional power than Anarchism.
"Who watches the watchdogs" issue.
The thing is that now we get to the territory where Anarchy always stays pure and perfect, because the moment people drop anarchist ideals in favor of an actually functional alternative, it's no longer Anarchism. Ideals are nice and all, but lack functional power, which I've been saying all the time.
Anarchism would work beautifully - if everyone would just agree and cooperate.
On people giving without taking : Someone taking without giving would be someone sitting around without doing anything. It does not exist, people do things, and most of them are useful to the community. But let's admit some people just sleep and eat, or let's admit that you consider people that give less than they take a problem (which it isn't in anarchy, it is not a meritocratic system) : if that's just a few (closest to reality), probably not a problem. If it is more than the community can support, then it's a problem the community has to solve with anarchic means : try talking to get some of them to do stuff, try getting help from other communities,etc. If in a very weird world, it does not change anything, then you just have the possibility to provide help and resources for participative people first.
On preventing power : Your point is that armed struggle is necessary to prevent power, and you then equate prevent power to make the system work. Again, preventing power is not about how the system works, it's about how the system survives. The difference between current systems and anarchy is that coercion is not needed to make the system work day to day, it is needed in its most primitive force when the system is threatened. Also, you directly skipped all the solutions to try beforehand (educating the people to what power is and how and why to prevent it, watching out symptoms of power, etc.) to just sum it up to "violence", which is the last resort option. Another difference from the current systems.
On capitalism : it's all good, i get your point of "it's the more likely regime to survive, so be it", and i'm fine with it, it's a valid point of view, especially nowadays. I'm just struggling with why you need to establish that anarchy has to fail on its own (rather than against power/capitalism) to prove it.
On "pure" anarchism : You could be right to call out "purity" behaviours, they are common in far left movments, i acknowledge that, especially for myself. But here that's not the case : they are clearly not functioning with anarchist principles, like i explained it's simply impossible to do because of the concept of server. They are anarchists using non-anarchists means, just like some royalist parties take part in republican systems.
As you are very cautious about what your intentions are, i should be too, my bad if it comes late in the discussion : i'm not saying anarchy is the best system for every one, i'm not saying it's viable as it is, i'm not saying it is a perfect thing that hurts no one. I think it is the best for me, would be the best for most people weren't they born under capitalism, and that's it's one of the less dangerous form of politics. I understand it has to face powers far more violent and dangerous and therefore far more likely to survive, and i also understand that it has to be conceived from within societies full of capitalist and pro-state assumptions. My main goal is to get you and people to a nuanced take on anarchy, notably that it does not fail inevitably on its own, but is very likely to fail because of capitalism, and is likely to fail on its own if you want (but not inevitably, that's the absolute i'm trying to fight here).
As I've said multiple times in different words, Anarchism would work beautifully in ideal, perfect conditions.
dbzer0 has recalls, if the userbase doesn’t like the mods or admins they can literally vote them out.
So yes you can even have anarchy when a group physically holds the system if they’re willing to let go of holding it.
Interesting, thanks for sharing ! I didnt know much about db0 system, i get from this post that db0 themselves consider it not to be a perfect system (both for the fact that they are the sysadmin and it is still based on their goodwill and the fact that they have to restrict to people donating to prevent manipulation from fake accounts). So to my eyes, there still is bigger problems than just the fact that mods and admins are vocal about their opinions, but I admit that i was too quick to judge that "physical servers = no possibility for anarchy", there probably is a way to have far closer to anarchism organization than i thought. How does quokk.au works about that ?
Thanks for your input. This convo between you and @asofon@discuss.online is very interesting
What bias was done in the voting? People voted and it was tallied up.
The admins can hold whatever view they want, and they can try to state their case as much as they want, as can every other user, what matters is the overall community vote. Which voted to defederate.
That was entirely democratic, you're being entirely dishonest and in bad-faith here.
Oh and Animal Farm was written by someone who fought for Anarchists in Spain, and supports Anarchism. It’s a rebuttal of the authleft, not anarchism.
Interesting comment, thanks.
Was there some funky business with the vote or are you more referring to the fact that the mod conducting the vote had a clear preference for banning feddit.org?
I wanna reply to this one more time (if you still care to read) because I've thought about this whole exchange a bit and realized that in lacking the spirit of charitability, I missed that from the perspective of db0 admins, it's likely that they think that because of Anarchist egalitarian ideals, representing the situation in any way they want - even extreme bias - is fine. Because from the principle of egalitarianism, they also do not have any particular responsibility to present the case "objectively".
However, it still completely fails to follow the Anarchist Code of Conduct, falling into decidedly "Unacceptable" behavior and definitely not heeding the invitation for rational discourse, which propaganda, by definition, is not. In the case of the original post on db0, it may have indeed been a human error, but after it's been pointed out and unacknowledged, I'd say it has become an explicit rejection.
Of course from my perspective it also runs into the ideal world problem inherent in Anarchism. The fact is that the posts in the community appear in a certain order (a hierarchy, if you will), and thanks to cognitive biases, what people see first is what will impact their thinking. Add to that the subtle but still existent authority signal, ironically, the red A (for Admin) next to the username. Considering the low stakes situation, there isn't much pressure to think about the matter deeply either, so it's just likely the first and loudest person wins in any case. Which gets to the larger problem in Anarchism where the Charismatic will become the new authority. An informal hierarchy, but a hierarchy none the less.
From The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman:
paljastus
FORMAL AND INFORMAL STRUCTURES
Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved. The very fact that we are individuals, with different talents, predispositions, and backgrounds makes this inevitable. Only if we refused to relate or interact on any basis whatsoever could we approximate structurelessness -- and that is not the nature of a human group. This means that to strive for a structureless group is as useful, and as deceptive, as to aim at an "objective" news story, "value-free" social science, or a "free" economy. A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society; the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can be so easily established because the idea of "structurelessness" does not prevent the formation of informal structures, only formal ones. Similarly "laissez faire" philosophy did not prevent the economically powerful from establishing control over wages, prices, and distribution of goods; it only prevented the government from doing so. Thus structurelessness becomes a way of masking power, and within the women's movement is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not). As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules. Those who do not know the rules and are not chosen for initiation must remain in confusion, or suffer from paranoid delusions that something is happening of which they are not quite aware.
For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not implicit. The rules of decision-making must be open and available to everyone, and this can happen only if they are formalized. This is not to say that formalization of a structure of a group will destroy the informal structure. It usually doesn't. But it does hinder the informal structure from having predominant control and make available some means of attacking it if the people involved are not at least responsible to the needs of the group at large. "Structurelessness" is organizationally impossible. We cannot decide whether to have a structured or structureless group, only whether or not to have a formally structured one. Therefore the word will not be used any longer except to refer to the idea it represents. Unstructured will refer to those groups which have not been deliberately structured in a particular manner. Structured will refer to those which have. A Structured group always has formal structure, and may also have an informal, or covert, structure. It is this informal structure, particularly in Unstructured groups, which forms the basis for elites.
And as a contemplation, to answer your original question, @ageedizzle@piefed.ca: if we accept the way the db0 admins are running their instance as a form of Anarchism (rejecting the Code of Conduct), we are already living in an Anarchist society. This is what it looks like, taken to its logical conclusion. People will exercise their freedom to do what they want, by any means necessary, as the fact is that ultimately, nobody is inherently more valuable than another. There is no superior power inherent in reality to keep people in a hierarchy, we may only impose human-experience created hierarchies. And imposing hierarchy is by definition, an exercise of authority - the question is how intentional it is. Anarchy leads to unintentional, implicitly imposed hierarchies, which is what we have and which we actively try to remedy with intentional, explicitly imposed hierarchies, so that the seemingly arbitrary advantages of the charismatic or the strong do not function as an unchecked, default mandate for authority within the community. And in order to impose explicit hierarchies, those who want to do so need to have enough Charisma (however that manifests) to impose their implicit authority on others :^)
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Deceptichum@quokk.au @Takapapatapaka@tarte.nuage-libre.fr
I mostly agree with this, especially the fact that anarchy may lead to implicit charisma-based hierarchies, whereas current systems relies on explicit hierarchies filled with implicit hierarchies.
I say may because, while you're right to point out that this has realistic chances to happen, anarchism is also the best tool to point out and attack those hierarchies, even implicit. History of left libertarian groups (at least in France) is mostly a drama of constant scissions and mergings of little groups : while some mock it as a proof of militant puritanism and useless bickering, I see it as a sign that anarchists have a sane tendency to oppose situations where a group could impose onto others, even in most implicit/vague situations.
The post was basically:
feddit.org is a Nazi/Zionist-Bar, let's vote if dbzer0 should block the community xyz (it was not a vote about defederation).
And the "voting" was done by upvoting/downvoting the post, not through comments. Funnily enough the top comments were complaints against the situation and when this was pointed out it was put aside as "only upvoted because of feddit.org Trolls". I actually counted and while there were upvotes from feddit.org, the upvote/downvote ratio from only dbzer0-users was 2:1.
Then they said if enough people want to defederate they will put that in consideration. After multiple comments calling for that they decided on it without an extra vote.
It's like putting an ad on TV with a heavy bias and asking people to press a button on a remote. My idea was that anarchists are supposed to inform themselves about topics that get voted on but I'm pretty sure a lot of them just went with the flow.
There was no funky business that person doesn't understand anarchism whatsoever and uses that failed understanding to claim it doesn't work. Ridiculous statements that the admins should be enlightened centrists or some shite.
You don't have to be enlightened centrists, you are quite free to have whatever opinions you like. However, given your position as the organizing body of an anarchist community, the question is: why should your opinion carry more weight? Is your opinion more equal than that of others?
"The abolition of authority means, the abolition of the monopoly of force and of influence; it means the abolition of that state of affairs for which social power, that is the combined forces of society, is made into the instrument of thought, the will and interests of a small number of individuals, who by means of the total social power, suppress, for their personal advantage and for their own ideas the freedom of the individual" -Errico Malatesta, Anarchy
You have certain power and you specifically used that power to impose your own ideas on others.
"Instead all that happens in the world is done by people; and government qua government, contributes nothing of its own apart from the tendency to convert everything into a monopoly for the benefit of a particular party or class, as well as offering resistance to every initiative which comes from outside its own clique. " -Errico Malatesta, Anarchy
The anarchist code of conduct says that it's "unacceptable to ... degrade, insult etc. another person/group because of their... acceptance of any unfavorable or disfavorable group, whether this group is political, economic, social, or cultural.". Further you failed to provide grounds for rational discourse, another anarchist ideal.
For Anarchism to work, there needs to be consensus, and an Anarchist community needs to do it's utmost to ensure that all people in the community have roughly the same level of education both in terms of knowledge and ability for critical thinking. Without these, informed consent is impossible. While I appreciate that you as a Lemmy admin can't make sure that everyone goes to school, you still could've done your best to give people the tools to think about the matter from the level of education they have. Instead, you presented the vote from the level of information and opinions you have - driving for the result you wanted.
"It is natural that he who knows more will dominate him who knows less. And were this disparity of education and education and learning the only one to exist between two classes, would not all the others swiftly follow until the world of men itself in its present circumstances, that is, until it was again divided into a mass of slaves and a tiny number of rulers, the former labouring away as they do today, to the advantage of the latter"
"It is very often the case that a highly intelligent worker is obliged to hold his tongue when confronted by a learned fool who defeats him, not by dint of intellect (of which he has none) but by dint of his education" -Michael Bakunin, Integral Education
"In other words: educate them the “right way” — to be obediently passive and accept their fate as right and just, conforming to the New Spirit of the Age. Keep their perspectives narrow, their understanding limited, discourage free and independent thought, instill docility and obedience to keep them from the Masters’ throats." -Noam Chomsky, The Common Good
It doesn't. We asked for a vote for a reason. If people's opinion changes in the future, they can ask for a vote to reverse it as well.
How did I impose my own ideas on others? By adding more members to the team? By a member of our team asking for a democratic vote? Sounds like you have some perverted ideas about what "imposing one's ideas on others" means.
The voting thread had plenty of rational discourse.
No, actually. For anarchism to work, people just need to do learn to do direct action for mutual aid and reject hierarchical authority. Same level of education and critical thinking is not required.
It seems to me you just dislike how the vote went and are deciding that everyone who voted against the way you want, is too stupid. I.e. you're an elitist.
You're purposefully sidestepping the extreme bias with which you presented the case, which is something you need to account for considering the privilege you have of establishing the leading argument (creating the thread and the vote in the first place) - If you were to actually follow Anarchist ideals.
You "pulled out some choice morsels" from modlogs to illustrate your point. By selecting which data the community sees, you are using your technical power to dictate the level of information available to voters - exactly the "disparity of education" Bakunin warned about. You argue that obedience to anarchist principles is enough. But anarchism is not a set of rules to be obeyed; it is a method of self-organization. You cannot have "self-organization" if the "self" does not have the tools (education/critical thinking) to organize. By claiming education isn't necessary, the you're essentially saying: "You don't need to understand the system, you just need to do what "WE" ("the authority that's totes not an authority") call "mutual aid" and vote the way we set up the ballot." This is Vanguardism, not Anarchism.
Also, in the spirit of mutual aid, would it not be in your best interest to try your best to educate the people in your community and empower them to think for themselves?
And again, you are free to do as you please but then represent yourself accurately. You're merely demonstrating that you like the vibe of Anarchism but as per my initial point, Anarchism lacks functional power. As a result, you abandoned the Anarchist ideals in order to gain functionality.
I haven't said a single word about what I thought the result of the vote should have been. I have no inherent problem with the way you conducted the vote either, or what the outcome was, when stripped from the pretense of Anarchism. You are free to run your instance as you like, and people in it are free to interact with it however they want. I'm merely using it as an example of the point I've been making: Anarchism needs people to cooperate, yet lacks functional power to make cooperation to happen and so, people such as yourself will use some type of coercion (authority) to force cooperation the way they (the authority) wants.
To @Deceptichum@quokk.au:
While Orwell was a democratic socialist who fought with anarchists (the POUM and CNT/FAI) in Spain, Animal Farm is a critique of how a revolutionary vanguard (the pigs) uses their monopoly on information and language to gradually assume the same powers as the former masters.
The pigs didn't just use force; they changed the "Seven Commandments" (the rules) and controlled the narrative to ensure the other animals "voted" or agreed with their direction. When an admin says, "We asked for a vote," but provides a biased framework for that vote, they are acting as the "pigs" who manage the "farm" while claiming everyone is equal.
I'm not misrepresenting anything. You declare that by the fact that we have a red A next to our name, it gives us some massive boost in pushing our ideas through, even through democratic decision making, which if you knew anything about real-life anarchists, and particularly the neurodivergent sort we go to great lengths to attract, you'd know that people in position of undesired authority (even thouse imposed by the software) are given even more scrutiny than most. The fact that our instance community went with the vote (which as others mentioned, was raised by a member of the instance, not the admin team) goes to show how overwhelmingly desired the defederation was. Despite all your "But you lead these sheeple by the nose" degrading of the intellect of our members.
Which goes to show that you're merely upset the vote didn't go the way you wanted. If this was merely "some choice morsels" I guarantee our comm would have unearthed the rest and rubbed them in our faces.
Not what I'm saying at all. When I say we need no education, I mean one does not need to read infinite amount of theory before engaging in anarchism, like Marxist-Leninist vanguardists claim for their own movement. People can just do anarchism, and its praxis radicalizes them and invites more education. You should try to be more charitable instead of superficially trying to gotcha people. In our case, indeed we self-organize around anarchist principles, and one of those principles is the right of association (where people choose to associate with other members of our instance and not to associate with zionists), and the right of consensus making through democratic means.
We already do that. But we're not going to avoid all democratic decision making until everyone is "enlightened" or some whatever shite you're positing.
You can jump up and down all you want about how we "abandoned the ideals of anarchism", but the mere dint of the matter that actual anarchists choose to voluntarily continue associating with us (and not raise a shitstorm), rather than the armchair theorist with the most superficial understanding of the theory (like you), is all the proof we need we're going in the right direction.
You've yet to point out any form of coercion except your pet definition of "Well, you're so much more charismatic by being an admin, you led everyone by the nose" which flies in the face of reality.
Except that people have already chosen to get into your system. If they didn't desire your system, they wouldn't be in it. They have already chosen for you to have some authority.
Who are you to tell me what to do?
You didn't tho. Despite who organized the vote etc. the post stands posted by an Admin, and the post is in clear violation of your own stated Code of Conduct.
The "shite" was following prominent Anarchist thinkers (Bakunin, Chomsky) in making the point. I never argued for infinite theoretical education, I argued that critical thinking and awareness of power dynamics are necessary to prevent informal elites. Without tools to recognize bias, framing, and authority signals, "self-organization" becomes a tool for the charismatic or well-connected to dominate.
Unsurprisingly, the people who choose to associate with you agree with you. Have you considered that perhaps anarchists who don't agree with you simply don't feel that it's worth the effort to try to challenge your power structures? Judging by the way you respond to me, it would be futile as anyone who disagrees with you isn't a true anarchist.
oooor, they know that they can demand my (and every other admin's) recall, and the fact that they haven't proves they just trust us.
bed-time is authoritarian, amirite?
Nu-uh. Lol. Ok you're stuck in a loop, buddy. You're gonna have to try harder than that.
Mate, it's an niche online forum run by neurodivergents. Charismatic and well-connected we ain't.
Of all the political people, you think it's anarchists that would be loathe to call out bad power structures? Are you sure this is the argument you want to run with?
Again, effort. Why bother with yet another power tripping admin when they can just hop on to another instance (or ideally, save their energy to actually do something meaningful in real life). It's just a niche online forum run by neurodivergents.
True. It just so happens that all the other anarchist instances also happen to like us. Funny how that works, huh?
Yes, I'm sure that all the people you have an agreement with agree with you.
The voting process was started not by an admin but a user.
You are 100% misrepresenting what happened with the communities vote to push your biased narrative that it was undemocratic.
And the staff are allowed to have their own opinions. They do not need to be stoic bastions of neutrality, they’re members of the site and get to argue their position as much as anyone else.
Matter of fact is the majority of the community voted in favour of defederation, and not one user has proposed a vote for refederation.
You may not like the result, but it was a 100% fair and open form of governance.
You think the red A stands for Anarchism?
Also you're clearly not reading what I wrote so, not much point in replying further. I already covered the points you attempt to make.
The initiative was started by Draconic Neo, who made the post is irrelevant.
I’ve read what you’ve said, and it’s clear you’re a dishonest shitstirrer than anyone with a legitimate complaint based on why factually happened.