Realpolitiks, a grand strategy game from Jujubee will see day-1 Linux support

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThere is actually no irony in organized anarchism. An + archy = no ruler. Not, no rules. It's perfectly possible to be organized without a boss.

You won't find your definition in a dictionary.

You will find it in the traditions of Anarchism as a movement and in the basic derivation of the word. Please don't talk down to me on this issue, I have paid a good deal of attention to it over a large number of years; I may be wrong about it, but not in ways that can be got at with facile one-liners.

I had no intention to condescend. Sorry about that. I guess my experience with Anarchism as a movement has pretty much preconditioned me not to take it very seriously. A couple of my more impressionable friends from high school actually took up the ideology, hanging with a small group of self-professed anarchists. In reality the whole bunch were pretty much punk fans with angry slogans and a tendency to tag public buildings with their Circle-A logo, although they did read the literature and were very much part of a larger community as far as I understand. None of them seemed to know what they actually wanted though, beyond having no-one telling them what to do. They did like to call me a "slave to the system" and talk about the big brother and the police state, among other things.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: tuubiTake another look at the internal politics of these software projects. Far from anarchistic I'd say. More like highly organized and bureaucratic in Debian's case. And none of these projects have prospered without leaders.

Returning to my simple and basic point, it is perfectly possible--indeed, almost mandatory at any size--for anarchy to be highly organized and bureaucratic.
As to leaders . . . well, to some extent, but define "leader". Someone designated to do a task isn't a leader. Do policies get decided unilaterally by these leaders?
Heck, even in those Free Software projects, like Linux, with a benevolent dictator, the whole thing is kind of weird--these benevolent dictators have no power to coerce because not only is membership voluntary but the whole deal can be forked.

What would you call a democratically elected president? Or cabinet ministers? Surely they are leaders even if their power is not absolute? How about a hired CEO of a company?

To get back to the point, Anarchy with any sort of hierarchy or laws is surely bending the concept to a breaking point. I'd say this alone invalidates Anarchism as a political system (which was the original point of this discussion). I'll accept it as a philosophy, but the fact that the rejection of state and of hierarchy is central, I fail to see how you could even imagine an actual, functioning political system based on it.

If this were turn-based, I'd be on it like a Russian troll pretending to be a midwestern factory worker on a Yahoo News comment section.

As it is real time, I'll wait and see.

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThere is actually no irony in organized anarchism. An + archy = no ruler. Not, no rules. It's perfectly possible to be organized without a boss.

You won't find your definition in a dictionary.

You will find it in the traditions of Anarchism as a movement and in the basic derivation of the word. Please don't talk down to me on this issue, I have paid a good deal of attention to it over a large number of years; I may be wrong about it, but not in ways that can be got at with facile one-liners.

I had no intention to condescend. Sorry about that. I guess my experience with Anarchism as a movement has pretty much preconditioned me not to take it very seriously. A couple of my more impressionable friends from high school actually took up the ideology, hanging with a small group of self-professed anarchists. In reality the whole bunch were pretty much punk fans with angry slogans and a tendency to tag public buildings with their Circle-A logo, although they did read the literature and were very much part of a larger community as far as I understand. None of them seemed to know what they actually wanted though, beyond having no-one telling them what to do. They did like to call me a "slave to the system" and talk about the big brother and the police state, among other things.

There are certainly some young fools with no real idea what's what who profess Anarchism. It is awfully available as a thing to give your inchoate anger some respectability if you're at a rebellious stage. But then, there are young fools with no idea what's what who profess Capitalism, or one or other party within a Representative Democracy, despite having no idea what those things do or how they actually work. It doesn't sound as stupid because you know those things actually do exist and operate, but they'd seem pretty dim if all you had to go on was the way some teenagers ranted about them. Imagine you're in a feudal system and someone is ranting about how there should be something like the modern system only nobody explained it to them very well.
"So wait, you're saying everything should be run by merchants? Commoner merchants?! Who'd follow them into battle? How would they get castles built if nobody owes them any labour? Hire people with money they made from usury?! I think the Church would have something to say about that, don't you?"

But the longer Anarchist tradition, like with Anarcho-Syndicalism and stuff, is a bit more practical in my opinion. It's connected to the socialist tradition but where all-out non-market socialism generally is about taking capitalist owners' stuff and having the state run it on the people's behalf (that last bit being a bit of a problem in my view), Anarchism is more into taking both capitalist owners' stuff and for that matter State stuff and having the people own and run it directly. So unlike Libertarianism it is an egalitarian and even somewhat communalist approach; the idea is that people run stuff together, not as individuals in a war of each against all. It is in my opinion a very desirable vision, the real stumbling block being how workable is it in practice (and also, can it defend itself)?

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: tuubiTake another look at the internal politics of these software projects. Far from anarchistic I'd say. More like highly organized and bureaucratic in Debian's case. And none of these projects have prospered without leaders.

Returning to my simple and basic point, it is perfectly possible--indeed, almost mandatory at any size--for anarchy to be highly organized and bureaucratic.
As to leaders . . . well, to some extent, but define "leader". Someone designated to do a task isn't a leader. Do policies get decided unilaterally by these leaders?
Heck, even in those Free Software projects, like Linux, with a benevolent dictator, the whole thing is kind of weird--these benevolent dictators have no power to coerce because not only is membership voluntary but the whole deal can be forked.

What would you call a democratically elected president? Or cabinet ministers? Surely they are leaders even if their power is not absolute? How about a hired CEO of a company?

To get back to the point, Anarchy with any sort of hierarchy or laws is surely bending the concept to a breaking point. I'd say this alone invalidates Anarchism as a political system (which was the original point of this discussion). I'll accept it as a philosophy, but the fact that the rejection of state and of hierarchy is central, I fail to see how you could even imagine an actual, functioning political system based on it.

Hierarchy yes, laws no. It's a matter of where you get the laws from. Anarchism to me is basically direct democracy all the way down--both on the political side and the work side. Everyone with an equal opportunity not only to have a vote and voice in decisions, but to propose them in the first place as well. Of course in practice not everyone can be involved in every decision or you get complete paralysis--I think in a broader scale anarchy you'd have to settle for splitting things up some, but leaving it possible for anyone to be involved in any decision they choose. This isn't probably the place to get really detailed . . . but as to laws.
If you elect representatives and they decide on laws for you, that is clearly not an anarchistic thing. But if someone suggests a law, and it's debated and modified and finally voted on by the people in general (or some self-selected subset of them if it's a relatively specialized law), that would be an anarchistic thing--if it wasn't decided by some leader/boss but directly by those the law will affect, that's leaderless governance and Anarchism in action.

@Purple Library Guy:
I see what you getting at, but I don't think you have even begun to describe a workable political system there. More like an utopia where everyone has a common goal, completely disregarding the fact that our personalities, needs and desires differ. Just like the utopia of perfect Communism, this idea of an Anarchistic society falls down when you realize that no group of actual, thinking human beings is or wants to be a homogeneous mass of drones. The fact that individualist anarchism is a thing boggles the mind.

History has shown time and time again that even if everyone's basic needs are perfectly covered, people will want something more and look for ways to better their lot. We're curious, selfish, irrational and impulsive (although not equally so), which is probably the reason we thrive as a species, but also the reason we will never attain a perfect, equal society. All we can hope for is one that provides well-being for as many of its members as possible.


I think I'm happy leaving this discussion here. I don't pretend I'm an authority on the subject matter, and I'm not really interested in learning more about Anarchism. Real world politics is boring enough, political philosophy doubly so.

Fair enough. I'm not quite sure where you get from "Everyone getting to make decisions" to "homogeneous mass of drones", but it's cool.

For today, yesterday a Demo was announced. Don´t know if this is for Linux, too:

QuoteAnd of course, a gentle reminder - the public demo will be available tomorrow!

-> http://steamcommunity.com/games/553260/announcements/detail/572357653491481764

Quoting: KuJoFor today, yesterday a Demo was announced. Don´t know if this is for Linux, too:

QuoteAnd of course, a gentle reminder - the public demo will be available tomorrow!

-> http://steamcommunity.com/games/553260/announcements/detail/572357653491481764

Unfortunately the demo seems to be windows only currently :/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/553260/discussions/0/135508489637749515/

Quoting: Lakorta

Quoting: KuJoFor today, yesterday a Demo was announced. Don´t know if this is for Linux, too:

QuoteAnd of course, a gentle reminder - the public demo will be available tomorrow!

-> http://steamcommunity.com/games/553260/announcements/detail/572357653491481764

Unfortunately the demo seems to be windows only currently :/
http://steamcommunity.com/app/553260/discussions/0/135508489637749515/

Good news, the linux demo will be available beginning next week:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/553260/discussions/0/135508489637749515/?ctp=2#c135508662495137481

QuoteGood news, the linux demo will be available beginning next week:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/553260/discussions/0/135508489637749515/?ctp=2#c135508662495137481

^_^