1500
rating
1
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#3123
Does anarchism make sense?
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After not so many votes...
It's a tie!
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- One day
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
1387
rating
34
debates
22.06%
won
Description
I'd be interested to go in whatever direction this debate goes, I imagine we'll likely end up on some version of nature vs nurture as idealistic ideologies often do, unless of course my opponent truly does desire nothing less than to see the world burn. Whatever the case might be, I hope me and my opponent can reach an agreement in the end!
I'm excited to see where this goes, this is also my first debate in an official format so I'd ask whomever read this to excuse inadvertent unprofessional behavior on my part.
With that, best of luck to everyone involved!
Round 1
Thank you Wylted for accepting my challenge, best of luck to you and may our debate be fruitful!
Disclaimer-y bit (entirely skippable):
I want to begin with a brief disclaimer to anyone especially bothered with punctual debate formalities, as stated in the description this is my first time doing a proper organized debate on any site such as this. If you notice the usual symptoms of faulty debate strategies, don't hesitate to point them out! It's likely an unintentional mistake on my part and I'll do my best to improve so it doesn't happen again.
Also, I'm not really aiming to win here. My goal is that we both end up on the same page based on the reasoning we give for both our sides of the debate, and that we have a good time doing it. So in that sense, I'm making a debate to have a discussion. Hope that's alright!
A1 - The Social Contract
It seems to me that there's a general agreement amongst the vast majority of people that government is necessary for order, and so they accept it as a necessary evil to submit themselves as the ruled to certain rulers. Of course ideally (or at least I'd assume ideally) this would be representative rulership, but it would nevertheless be rulership of one sort or another. Now, consensus has certainly been wrong before, and I'll be the first to admit that the vast majority of people are not generally extremely wise on subjects such as these, they are concerned with everyday life and the hobbies that interest them, not often extreme societal theories. However, I think it's fair to say there would have to be a good explanation for their widespread acceptance of authority if it isn't in their best interest. After all, people are generally looking out for themselves and you would think with a subject so broad they would ordinarily notice it, even in the hectic everyday life of the average person. Of course just because you (dearest opponent) can't provide a reason doesn't mean there isn't one, but I imagine if you support anarchism you would have one, do correct me if I'm wrong. I'd be quite interested to hear it and your thoughts on the social contract as a whole.
A2 - If it ain't broke...
Things seem to be running smoothly as they are compared to most periods in human history, of course the Corona virus has changed things but even that isn't so bad when compared to the war torn times of the past. Anarchism has been attempted before on a few occasions and it never seems to really work as anarchists usually theorize, at least not for long. For a time it works quite well as people live out their desire for freedom passionately, but chaos slowly builds and collapse (made clear by the fact that there are so few examples of it in modern times) always follows shortly after. Perhaps I'm wrong and I've missed some society? If so do tell, I'd love to research it. But as things stand, it just doesn't seem worth the risk to try something that has failed so many times when we're living in relatively good times.
A3 - Human Nature
Now I know, this is a contentious point to make indeed. But I feel with so many arguments against anarchism relying on some form of "human nature is..." usually followed by some fault like greed or laziness, it's only fair to ask on behalf of people doubting anarchism what you have to say on that. Why wouldn't people sit around and do nothing if they didn't have authority breathing down their necks? How would society function if it didn't have money, and if it does then how would you prevent the rich from turning into the new rulers? And probably the most common question, how would you prevent the dreaded "survival of the fittest"? What would replace things like law enforcement and military? If those things were in place, wouldn't that be the new state, essentially under whoever was at the head of those departments?
Final Thoughts (also entirely skippable)
I really hope you find the time to answer all the questions posed in the sections above, but I completely understand if you don't, I've asked a lot of what I believe to be the more common questions and most of them seem to lead down a long path of winding arguments and counter-arguments which I'm excited to explore!
I do have another question though, less to do with the argument as a whole and more one out of pure curiosity, what kind of anarchist are you?
Would you subscribe to one of the better known labels like anarcho-capitalist, -communist, -egoist, -primitivist, or not? And in either case, how would you describe your position specifically? I'll probably get a pretty good idea from answers to questions above, but any more minute details you can give would be great!
RESPONSES
“Also, I'm not really aiming to win here. My goal is that we both end up on the same page based on the reasoning we give for both our sides of the debate, and that we have a good time doing it. So in that sense, I'm making a debate to have a discussion. Hope that's alright!”
I hope we have a good time also. My goal is to win, but that doesn't mean we can't have an enjoyable experience.
Ending up on the same page, is not really the goal of debate. That is something better served in the forums or an intimate PM discussion. Generally it is impossible anyway. Rarely are minds changed, even when somebody is definitively proven wrong. Its also a myth that the truth lays in the middle. Sometimes it lays to one side or neither.
“I do have another question though, less to do with the argument as a whole and more one out of pure curiosity, what kind of anarchist are you?”
I’m not an anarchist at all. Luckily for you I can defend anarchism better than anyone else on the site though. Not that I will have to here.”
FORMAT
Since my opponent is new to debate, I’ll give her a sensible format I intuitively follow, but may confuse her.
Round 1 = Arguments from both sides
Round 2 = rebuttals
Then we’ll spend each round only looking at the opponent’s previous round usually, with the exception of the final round that typically concludes with a summary of what went on in the debate and a case for why each person should win.
FRAMEWORK
The debate is titled as a question. Which I find annoying, but will help us determine what each side is supposed to be advocating for.
The title is does anarchism make sense?
As pro I should be arguing it does make sense.
Make sense means “to be reasonable” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/make%20sense
Anarchism means “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/anarchism
My position is that it anarchism is a reasonable philosophy, not that it is correct or the best. Con has to prove it is unreasonable or as she puts it “makes sense”
Burden of proof
-------------------------
Burden of proof, of course is fully on con. She is asserting “anarchism makes no sense”. It is her burden to prove it doesn’t. I have no burden to prove it does make sense, if she fails to meet her burden, even if I present no argument I should win the debate easily.
ANARCHISM
Anarchy in the literal sense means, “no rulers”. It believes that humans can lead themselves and we don’t need government to impose any restraints on our freedom.
There are several types of anarchism that theorize about different ways to achieve this. The type of anarchism, I am going to promote here is known as anarcho-primitivism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-primitivism
To understand why I am promoting anarcho-primitivism as an antidote to the problems we see in society, I’ll need to show you both what the problems are, and where they come from. For that I am heavily leaning on the writings of somebody I have come to know as “Uncle Ted”.
Ted Kazynski is a hero, who at great personal cost went to war with what he saw wrong with this world and tried to make a positive difference for future generations, until his brother decided ratting him out to the cops was more important than creating a better world.
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND IT’S FUTURE
Uncle Ted says
“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.”
The environment was a big concern when Uncle Ted wrote those words, but it is even truer now. Industrialization has caused global warming, pandemics and factory farming which harms untold animals every year. There is also the problem with over population due to longer life spans, causing humans to be a cancer on the planet, instead of living in harmony with it, when we were a more primitive species.
Uncle Ted gives some examples of the problems with industrialization and it’s consequences below.
“Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are oversocialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people. [2]26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.”
Modern society (AKA industrial society), forces this sort of over socialization that is so harmful to many of us individually.
Uncle Ted says that with over population density caused by industrialization we have the following problems
“Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe.48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and aggression. The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation of man from nature are consequences of technological progress. All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The Industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because it puts increased disruptive powers in people’s hands. For example, a variety of noise- making devices: power mowers, radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people who want peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their use is restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated by the regulations. But if these machines had never been invented there would have been no conflict and no frustration generated by them.)49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore a sense of security. In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable framework.”
With no security comes anxiety and a life very stressed out all the time. This isn’t even half the problems uncle Ted listed with industrial society, but it shows that we are made to fit the system as opposed to the system fitting us, and it causes great psychological distress.
You may argue that perhaps industrial society can be reformed to fit the modern man. Perhaps we don’t have to resort to becoming a primitive species to have more happy, fulfilling and worthwhile lifes, but as uncle Ted explains below, you are incorrect.
“We are going to argue that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But, because “freedom” is a word that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make clear what kind of freedom we are concerned with.94. By “freedom” we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one’s environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one’s own life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72).”
Uncle Ted explains some principles of history to show the inability to really reform the system.
“FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that affects a long-term historical trend, then the effect of that change will almost always be transitory—the trend will soon revert to its original state. (Example: A reform movement designed to clean up political corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect; sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps back in. The level of political corruption in a given society tends to remain constant, or to change only slowly with the evolution of the society. Normally, a political cleanup will be permanent only if accompanied by widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the society won’t be enough.) If a small change in a long-term historical trend appears to be permanent, it is only because the change acts in the direction in which the trend is already moving, so that the trend is not altered by only pushed a step ahead.101. The first principle is almost a tautology. If a trend were not stable with respect to small changes, it would wander at random rather than following a definite direction; in other words it would not be a long- term trend at all.102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is sufficiently large to alter permanently a long-term historical trend, then it will alter the society as a whole. In other words, a society is a system in which all parts are interrelated, and you can’t permanently change any important part without changing all other parts as well.103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies have passed through the same change and have all experienced the same consequences, in which case one can predict on empirical grounds that another society that passes through the same change will be like to experience similar consequences.)104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to do.105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity of human societies. A change in human behavior will affect the economy of a society and its physical environment; the economy will affect the environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far too complex to be untangled and understood.106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and rationally choose the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of social evolution that are not under rational human control.107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other four.108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally speaking an attempt at social reform either acts in the direction in which the society is developing anyway (so that it merely accelerates a change that would have occurred in any case) or else it has only a transitory effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old groove. To make a lasting change in the direction of development of any important aspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution is required. (A revolution does not necessarily involve an armed uprising or the overthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a revolution never changes only one aspect of a society, it changes the whole society;.”
Conclusion
The return to primitive through revolutionary aspects are the only solution to industrialization. I can’t go into detail about how to achieve this because of site rules, but great changes can be made from revolutionary forces of a small segment of society. Returning to the primitive state of humanity would fix the above listed problems and give us all better lives, as well as better lives for animals and the Earth and future generations.
Round 2
I hope we have a good time also. My goal is to win, but that doesn't mean we can't have an enjoyable experience.Ending up on the same page, is not really the goal of debate. That is something better served in the forums or an intimate PM discussion.
Indeed, in regards to the goal of debate I differ slightly. The reason I don't only take my interests to forums or PM discussions is because a debate offers a clean concise format for a lot of information which isn't as easily achieved by either of the other two methods.
Generally it is impossible anyway. Rarely are minds changed, even when somebody is definitively proven wrong. Its also a myth that the truth lays in the middle. Sometimes it lays to one side or neither.
I'd disagree that it's generally impossible to change minds, but it's certainly generally quite difficult. I think that's largely because most people are quite close minded, they have a belief system of some sort that contradicts points that are brought to their attention and so subconsciously want to see nothing more than destruction for the idea they're faced with contemplating. I wholeheartedly concur that it is a myth that the truth always lays in the middle though, very often it lies far from there.
I’m not an anarchist at all. Luckily for you I can defend anarchism better than anyone else on the site though. Not that I will have to here.”
Fair enough, with confidence like that I'll eagerly await what you have to offer!
FORMATSince my opponent is new to debate, I’ll give her a sensible format I intuitively follow, but may confuse her.Round 1 = Arguments from both sidesRound 2 = rebuttalsThen we’ll spend each round only looking at the opponent’s previous round usually, with the exception of the final round that typically concludes with a summary of what went on in the debate and a case for why each person should win.
Now I would like to mention one thing here, that being that I don't recall being a female, that being said feel free to call me as you wish.
I agree with the reasonableness of the format you propose.
FRAMEWORKThe debate is titled as a question. Which I find annoying, but will help us determine what each side is supposed to be advocating for.The title is does anarchism make sense?As pro I should be arguing it does make sense.Make sense means “to be reasonable” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/make%20senseAnarchism means “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/anarchismMy position is that it anarchism is a reasonable philosophy, not that it is correct or the best. Con has to prove it is unreasonable or as she puts it “makes sense”
Apologies for titling the debate as a question.
Now, I believe I agree with the framework stated so far, there's just one detail I think needs addressed. I think we both agree anarchism makes sense from a semantical perspective, that being that the philosophy is coherent and understandable. The intent of my making this debate is to see whether or not it is reasonable in the literal sense as something implemented on a societal scale. I believe you understand this, just want to make sure to avoid any future complications!
Burden of proof-------------------------Burden of proof, of course is fully on con. She is asserting “anarchism makes no sense”. It is her burden to prove it doesn’t. I have no burden to prove it does make sense, if she fails to meet her burden, even if I present no argument I should win the debate easily.
To some degree I would agree with this BOP placement, I did after all make the debate and thus form the assertion. However on the fundamental technicality of the matter, I believe the BOP rests on anarchists as a whole, as they are stating that their ideology with the obvious associated risks is worth pursuing in some way over modern society. Modern society is tested, it's what we've got going now and people generally don't like change unless it gives a lot of benefits. Anarchism is change, it's not nearly as tested and has a lot of obvious risks associated with it. Though ultimately the beginnings of where the BOP lies doesn't matter a whole lot, as I've stated most of the arguments I have in mind against anarchism in question form, asking what solutions anarchists would propose to a lot of problems the average person has that come to mind. So, unless those can be answered to sufficient degree, I think it's reasonable to say that modern society is a safer option than anarchy.
“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.”
I completely agree this is an issue, however there is a problem here. It's unrealistic (and thus unreasonable) to suggest dropping technology considering how attached we as a species have become with it, it's not a viable strategy.
“Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are oversocialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people. [2]26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the oversocialized person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to conform to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.”
This is certainly an issue as well, however without hierarchy wouldn't this socialization be replaced with peer pressure of one kind or another? And can't we avoid the over-moralization without getting rid of hierarchy and thus introducing a lot of risky concepts?
“Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe.48. It is well known that crowding increases stress and aggression. The degree of crowding that exists today and the isolation of man from nature are consequences of technological progress. All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The Industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before. (Also, technology exacerbates the effects of crowding because it puts increased disruptive powers in people’s hands. For example, a variety of noise- making devices: power mowers, radios, motorcycles, etc. If the use of these devices is unrestricted, people who want peace and quiet are frustrated by the noise. If their use is restricted, people who use the devices are frustrated by the regulations. But if these machines had never been invented there would have been no conflict and no frustration generated by them.)49. For primitive societies the natural world (which usually changes only slowly) provided a stable framework and therefore a sense of security. In the modern world it is human society that dominates nature rather than the other way around, and modern society changes very rapidly owing to technological change. Thus there is no stable framework.”
While there wouldn't be frustration generated by the devices, there also wouldn't be the pleasant sensations they offer either. I know very few people who would want to give up their precious technology, even if it meant going back to a world where there wasn't such technology. Of course perhaps they simply don't know what's best for themselves, but nevertheless the question comes up again: is this really a viable strategy? If so, how?
With no security comes anxiety and a life very stressed out all the time. This isn’t even half the problems uncle Ted listed with industrial society, but it shows that we are made to fit the system as opposed to the system fitting us, and it causes great psychological distress.
I agree, but wouldn't anarchy offer even less security? If Chad, your anarcho-primitivist neighbor decides to murder your wife, you don't have any sort of law enforcement to stop him from doing that. So you would either have to take him out yourself, or rely on others' good will when they have their own problems to focus on, especially without things like organized farming...and in a survival-of-the-fittest environment, the fittest survive. If your neighbor killed your wife, chances are he's pretty fit. And that probably means people support him quite a bit, and that's of course assuming he didn't kill you as well because he wanted your house and your food and he didn't want to risk any future conflict.
You may argue that perhaps industrial society can be reformed to fit the modern man. Perhaps we don’t have to resort to becoming a primitive species to have more happy, fulfilling and worthwhile lifes, but as uncle Ted explains below, you are incorrect.“We are going to argue that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom. But, because “freedom” is a word that can be interpreted in many ways, we must first make clear what kind of freedom we are concerned with.94. By “freedom” we mean the opportunity to go through the power process, with real goals not the artificial goals of surrogate activities, and without interference, manipulation or supervision from anyone, especially from any large organization. Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a SMALL group) of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence; food, clothing, shelter and defense against whatever threats there may be in one’s environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one’s own life. One does not have freedom if anyone else (especially a large organization) has power over one, no matter how benevolently, tolerantly and permissively that power may be exercised. It is important not to confuse freedom with mere permissiveness (see paragraph 72).”
This is assuming that the modern man needs freedom, which sounds at first like something that should be taken at face value, but after giving it some thought I'm not sure I can comfortably do so. Clearly most people find it alright to give up their freedoms for security, so the modern man is not someone incompatible with the future of industrial society if man can prevent it from completely destroying the planet, which could plausibly be done via regulations and general socioeconomic comprehension.
“FIRST PRINCIPLE. If a SMALL change is made that affects a long-term historical trend, then the effect of that change will almost always be transitory—the trend will soon revert to its original state. (Example: A reform movement designed to clean up political corruption in a society rarely has more than a short-term effect; sooner or later the reformers relax and corruption creeps back in. The level of political corruption in a given society tends to remain constant, or to change only slowly with the evolution of the society. Normally, a political cleanup will be permanent only if accompanied by widespread social changes; a SMALL change in the society won’t be enough.) If a small change in a long-term historical trend appears to be permanent, it is only because the change acts in the direction in which the trend is already moving, so that the trend is not altered by only pushed a step ahead.
I agree a small change won't suffice, so let's move on to the big changes and what Ted thinks of that.
102. SECOND PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is sufficiently large to alter permanently a long-term historical trend, then it will alter the society as a whole. In other words, a society is a system in which all parts are interrelated, and you can’t permanently change any important part without changing all other parts as well.
I agree with this as well, no disagreement thus far.
103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies have passed through the same change and have all experienced the same consequences, in which case one can predict on empirical grounds that another society that passes through the same change will be like to experience similar consequences.)104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to do.105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity of human societies. A change in human behavior will affect the economy of a society and its physical environment; the economy will affect the environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far too complex to be untangled and understood.
It seems to me that given a good enough socioeconomic understanding, one could predict future events even if they hadn't specifically happened in other societies, though I suppose in that case it wouldn't be new, simply a new pattern arising from a bunch of old repeatable strategies. In whatever case, I don't think the interlinking web of subjects and facts would be too complicated to give a near enough estimation such that it would be more worthwhile to pursue modern societal change rather than anarchic dreams Which, given that approach, should make reforming modern industrial society to the extent necessary to make a likely better outcome than anarcho-primitivism possible, at least until you address the major risks associated with anarchism as a whole.
ConclusionThe return to primitive through revolutionary aspects are the only solution to industrialization. I can’t go into detail about how to achieve this because of site rules, but great changes can be made from revolutionary forces of a small segment of society. Returning to the primitive state of humanity would fix the above listed problems and give us all better lives, as well as better lives for animals and the Earth and future generations.
This simply doesn't make sense thus far given all the unanswered questions I've got, not only from my initial argument but from this response as well.
I look forwards to your response, perhaps you can clear this up!
Bonus question: How would you prevent future hierarchies from emerging from an anarcho-primitivist system?
If this were a 4 round debate I would respond to round 1 and 2 here, but as a 5 round debate I'll limit my responses to round one.
I also apologize for my format here, this is rushed and on cellphone.
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The social contract
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The social contract is often used as justification for laws in general and the authority of the government to enforce them.
For example we outlaw murder, because we feel it will make us all safer to know that murderers will be punished if they attack us.
It is a common misconception that anarchy means eradication of the state or eradication of laws. Anarchy really means no rulers and in fact America was founded as a type nk of anarchist state, shaking off the chains of kings and queens who ruled people prior.
You would still have law in an anarcho primitivist society . Me and my family might live near the same pond as yours in our huts. You might not like that I shit in the pond, because it is your drinking water. Perhaps I don't like you raping my wife. In this case I would come to an agreement with you that if you stop raping my wife, I will stop sitting in your drinking water, now we have formed an agreement (laws) based on the social contract.
With a primitive lifestyle, families will be closer together and and larger. Some families may join together in tribes and elect people responsible for enforcing the social contract.
Anarchy doesn't mean we can't freely accept to follow some leaders, it means no rulers. If you don't want to accept the tribal leader. You just find somewhere else to set up your hut and live a life of freedom without that asshole.
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If it ain't broke. My opponent claims anarchism usually fails. I would like to see some citation on this and challenge the judges not to take her at her word.
Anarcho primitivism has worked before. Humans lived like that just fine for thousands of years before the invention of agricultural societies, and in fact can go back to that again if they so feel like it.
The fact is society is broke. Our freedom and ability to move freely is overly attacked. I have listed the problems with over socialization from industrial society in my last round. Not just to humans but to animals in factory farming and their untold suffering and the environment which effects every species on the planet.
Society is extremely broken. We literally have dudes cutting off their dicks right now as a part of a popular fad among young people. we have a pandemic that really only spread because of globalization. If we were all in remote tribes, this would be unlikely to have happened.
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Human nature
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My opponent asks
"Why wouldn't people sit around and do nothing if they didn't have authority breathing down their necks?"
They would. They would have more time pursuing leisurely activities like "doing nothing" and spending time with loved ones and focused on what truly matters.
I'd like to know why society collapsing, a society that caused all the harms listed in this and my previous round,bis a bad thing. I want to know why individuals enjoying freedom to be with people they love, doing things that are fulfilling, is considered a bad thing for my opponent.
Con asks essentially, "if there were no rulers who would rule us"
They sadly seem confused at what a life not under the boot would be like. We don't need cops. In a tribal pre agricultural society. If we kept the population low and very spread out, people would only come into contact with those outside of very close circles whenever they felt like. The family members who keep the peace like our moms so often do, will take the place of police.
My opponent asks "wouldn't some rulers just rise up"
Perhaps. Perhaps a tribal warlord will temporarily enslave a small group of people. I don't know that the very tiny chance of some rival tribal warlord doing that outweighs the 100% chance that your life is being ruled by overlords as we speak. Some not even human but computer models determining how you live your life.
Round 3
If this were a 4 round debate I would respond to round 1 and 2 here, but as a 5 round debate I'll limit my responses to round one.I also apologize for my format here, this is rushed and on cellphone.
No worries - understandable!
It is a common misconception that anarchy means eradication of the state or eradication of laws. Anarchy really means no rulers and in fact America was founded as a type nk of anarchist state, shaking off the chains of kings and queens who ruled people prior.
I agree it's a common misconception that anarchy means eradication of laws, but I can't think of an instance where anarchy hasn't involved eradication of the state, as it seems the state inherently involves rulers. [1]
Also of course using the definition for anarchy that you gave earlier. [2]
And I have to disagree that America was founded as a type of anarchist state, since the two terms again seem contradictory. Even if they weren't, there were clearly representatives which even if they do fairly represent the people are still a kind of ruler. [3]
You would still have law in an anarcho primitivist society . Me and my family might live near the same pond as yours in our huts. You might not like that I shit in the pond, because it is your drinking water. Perhaps I don't like you raping my wife. In this case I would come to an agreement with you that if you stop raping my wife, I will stop sitting in your drinking water, now we have formed an agreement (laws) based on the social contract.
That would not be based on the social contract, as there would be no controlling authority under which our mutual agreement would be enforced. [3]
However that is the ideal outcome of an anarchic gathering, unfortunately ideals rarely describe reality and so I'm obligated to ask what such anarchic societies in the past have existed like this.
With a primitive lifestyle, families will be closer together and and larger. Some families may join together in tribes and elect people responsible for enforcing the social contract.
If people began to elect other people to rule, then this wouldn't be anarchy by your own definition. [2]
Anarchy doesn't mean we can't freely accept to follow some leaders, it means no rulers. If you don't want to accept the tribal leader. You just find somewhere else to set up your hut and live a life of freedom without that asshole.
Unfortunately the differences in this case between "leaders" and "rulers" are too difficult to pinpoint. I agree that anarchy doesn't necessarily mean a rejection of leaders, but if people are electing people to enforce certain rules, I think that's a ruler rather than a leader. [5] [6]
The specific reason I don't accept your attempt at differentiating the two in this case is that technically all rulers are voluntarily followed. There's no reason we absolutely have to follow the law other than a monopoly on violence which the state has, and if your leader didn't have this then he wouldn't have the usage you're describing in this example. If he did have it, then he would be a ruler, not a leader.
If it ain't broke. My opponent claims anarchism usually fails. I would like to see some citation on this and challenge the judges not to take her at her word.
Fair enough! Here are references to a couple specific examples: [7] [8]
And if you're looking for a list: [9]
Anarcho primitivism has worked before. Humans lived like that just fine for thousands of years before the invention of agricultural societies, and in fact can go back to that again if they so feel like it.
Well it's quite clear we can survive with anarcho-primitivism, but that's hardly enough to prove that it makes sense to give up hundreds of years of technological progress which makes things like this debate possible. It certainly has it's disadvantages as well, but I haven't seen enough evidence to suggest that it would be a worthwhile sacrifice.
The fact is society is broke. Our freedom and ability to move freely is overly attacked. I have listed the problems with over socialization from industrial society in my last round. Not just to humans but to animals in factory farming and their untold suffering and the environment which effects every species on the planet.
I mostly agree, though "broke" is a bit of a strong word to use here. Our freedom and ability to move is overly attacked, and we do face issues with over socialization in industrialization. But we also face a lot of benefits from things such as medicine, available food/water/shelter/automobiles and other useful technological inventions. The thing is, we don't have to give up the state to fix a lot of the problems we face. If we can educate the people enough on things that matter and make slight changes to how we handle socioeconomics, I see no reason why we have to give up our modern luxuries for the lifestyle of a caveman. It seems possible to educate people, if at times difficult. But would it not be harder to convince people to give up all the luxuries they have? I think it would. I also agree that the unethical behavior to animals has gone too far, and that's why I'm a strict vegetarian that plans to stay that way for the rest of my life. But once again, I don't see why we have to remove the state to fix that problem. In fact, if we change our collective outlook on life we could entirely eliminate our horrible animal treatment and environmental devastation with technology.
Society is extremely broken. We literally have dudes cutting off their dicks right now as a part of a popular fad among young people. we have a pandemic that really only spread because of globalization. If we were all in remote tribes, this would be unlikely to have happened.
I won't comment on the cutting of dicks, but you're entirely right on the pandemic working it's way around the planet because of globalization. The thing is, if we didn't have this globalization then we wouldn't be able to fight it off either, so random pandemics would be tormenting individual tribes consistently. Perhaps not to such a great degree, but then we've got to take into consideration the other medical advancements we've made which make it possible to easily treat wounds which might get infected and kill people or perform complex surgeries. Maybe just take care of someone who's got broken limbs, there are a great deal of medical achievements that have saved hundreds of millions of people. It's a tradeoff that once again I don't believe to be worthwhile, perhaps you can provide evidence for why it would be?
My opponent asks"Why wouldn't people sit around and do nothing if they didn't have authority breathing down their necks?"They would. They would have more time pursuing leisurely activities like "doing nothing" and spending time with loved ones and focused on what truly matters.I'd like to know why society collapsing, a society that caused all the harms listed in this and my previous round,bis a bad thing. I want to know why individuals enjoying freedom to be with people they love, doing things that are fulfilling, is considered a bad thing for my opponent.
That question was directed more towards the kind of anarchist I was expecting, either an anarcho-capitalist or anarcho-communist. With anarcho-primitivism it doesn't really apply, I have no problem with people doing nothing if the society running doesn't demand their action, and even then it might ultimately be beneficial, I just don't find it realistic. Take for instance if all American people decided they wanted to do nothing for the rest of their lives, other countries would jump at the opportunity to invade and take control and a more fiercely state-controlled society would likely follow.
This is why I think society collapsing would be a bad thing, I don't see it leading to the anarcho-primitivist ideal you're seeking. Even then I'd question if it would ultimately do good, but I'd be making a fatal mistake if I overlooked the fact that anarcho-primitivism is a very difficult idea to sell. One which aims to solve problems that could be solved by other means that are much more easily sold to the average person.
Con asks essentially, "if there were no rulers who would rule us"They sadly seem confused at what a life not under the boot would be like. We don't need cops. In a tribal pre agricultural society. If we kept the population low and very spread out, people would only come into contact with those outside of very close circles whenever they felt like. The family members who keep the peace like our moms so often do, will take the place of police.
I can't seem to find where I essentially asked this, can you provide a direct quote?
Also, I can certainly imagine how life would be without living "under a boot", and it makes sense that violence wouldn't ordinarily break out without a good reason. If people chose to keep the peace, then peace would be kept, and I'm willing to accept that as a realistic possibility. I just don't know if that's entirely worth the technological sacrifices, and I don't know if it's even slightly realistic. I cannot think of a single method for getting people to the type of lifestyle you're imagining.
My opponent asks "wouldn't some rulers just rise up"Perhaps. Perhaps a tribal warlord will temporarily enslave a small group of people. I don't know that the very tiny chance of some rival tribal warlord doing that outweighs the 100% chance that your life is being ruled by overlords as we speak. Some not even human but computer models determining how you live your life.
Well, I think that it does outweigh the 100% chance. Not because of the chances obviously, but because these warlords are at least consented to at some level and manage things better than a tribal dictator probably would. Somalia seems to be the common example of this.
References:
2: "Anarchy in the literal sense means, 'no rulers'. It believes that humans can lead themselves and we don’t need government to impose any restraints on our freedom."
I appreciate con's rebuttals. I do feel con has not taken the time to understand the entirety of my arguments though and has instead just made a bunch of off the cuff responses to.the pieces of my arguments she has found interesting or particularly objectionable to her senses.
I do want to point out I have been referring to my opponent as "her" this is because instead of looking at the fact she claimed to be male on her profile, I did a psychological profile based on word usage, phraseology and mindset and have determined with 100% accuracy she is a female. I do apologize for blowing her cover if she was claiming to be a male though. Blowing her cover was totally unintentional on my part.
Perhaps later I can go into how to do these profiles to determine the sex of the individual you are talking to. For now, we'll just stick to the debate and stay on topic.
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FRAMEWORK
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Burden of proof
"To some degree I would agree with this BOP placement, I did after all make the debate and thus form the assertion"
I am happy that con has agreed to take on the entirety of the burden of proof. I wouldn't have accepted the burden of proof in her shoes, but she has and judges should put their personal views aside and assign her burden of proof even if they personally disagree with who actually should hold the BOP.
Interpretation of the Resolution
". I think we both agree anarchism makes sense from a semantical perspective, that being that the philosophy is coherent and understandable."
That's good. In round 2 I argued that the resolution should be interpreted so that I only have to prove the above points to win. Judges should take this statement as a concession and award me the win. I'd actually urge the judges to stop reading right here and just go ahead and award me the win, but if you wish to read on, I won't stop you.
"The intent of my making this debate is to see whether or not it is reasonable in the literal sense as something implemented on a societal scale. I believe you understand this, just want to make sure to avoid any future complications!"
I'm sorry the debate did not turn out as you expected. I gave a reasonable interpretation of the resolution and you have not argued for why any other interpretation should be accepted, so my interpretation of the resolution is the one we will be using for the debate, regardless of your intent.
Voters should not feel bad con did not receive the debate she was hoping for, this will actually help her in the future either form more coherent complete resolutions or to make the debate unrated so her opponent cares less about winning and she can have more of a conversational tone in her debate.
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Pro's objections
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Pro hasn't really taken the time to understand my arguments I feel, so her entire rebuttal round seems dedicated to objections that actually she probably should have used as her main arguments in round one. The objections seem to fall under the following themes.
- Most people love technology, and shouldn't be forced to give it up.
- It isn't possible to successfully roll back the clock so we could form a primitive anarchist society
- Once anarchism is formed, it will just naturally subvert back to rulers forming.
I'll address her more direct rebuttals in the latter part of this round, but ai want to focus in these objections.
- People Love Technology
I have shown why technology is not worth it. How in a tribal society a pandemic will be very limited to how far it can spread, and how we are killing the environment with global warming that will cause a planet level extinction.
We have factory farming which destroys and tortures animals. The following has been described about their practices.
"Pigs:
Nevertheless, these traits of nonhuman animals do not matter to the slaughterhouses. Pigs, for example, are highly intelligent animals and highly social animals. In a factory farm, for a pig's entire life she lives in a cage so small she can't turn around. She is forced to wallow in her own defecation. She will never see the sky. She is so fat and her legs so weak that her heels snap. She has one of the sharpest noses in the animal kingdom, but she constantly smells godawful. She is so bored that she becomes neurotic and gnaws on her cage bars until her teeth break. Before she dies, she is forced to receive a rod in her private areas while a worker fondles her sensitive nerves to ease its passage [2, 3]. That way, she can give birth to another child that will experience the same Hell, and the same assured death. All of these pigs are convicted to life imprisonment, torture, and death row for absolutely no crime whatsoever. The human supervisors do not care about the pigs' lives, but only their bodies. They and their children are the living dead--living in a perpetual nightmarish existence, all so they can be used for their bodies.
Poultry:
In America, chickens are not given even the legal status of "animal" [4]. This means that literally any cruel action may be taken against the chicken, and it would be legal. They have been bred to be too fat to walk, and live their entire existence in extreme pain [5]. Turkeys are also bred to be too fat to walk or even breed. That's right: humans have made turkey's so unnaturally fat (x300%) that they cannot even have sex [6]. The solution? Humans spread the turkey's legs and gives them artificial insemination. This problem of turkey breeding is across factory -style farms and non-factory-style farms. Both chickens and turkey's are eventually crushed to death under their own weight [7]. Poultry also do not get to see the sky, but are bred and killed in utter captivity. Here's a really sick fact: Because there is no federal protection for chickens, "almost all chickens are conscious when their throats are cut, and many are literally scalded to death in feather-removal tanks after missing the throat-cutter" [7].
Veal [8,9]:
I don't think I need to mention the extraordinary cruelties of veal. Cows are slaughtered when they are very young. When a male cow is born, rather than be given to a live of imprisonment as a dairy cow, he is slaughtered to produce veal, which is prized for its tenderness. The diary cows have strong attachments to their children, and yet their children are stolen away hours after they are born. We drink their stolen milk, and eat their unnaturally tender male young." https://www.debate.org/debates/Animals-should-be-slaughtered-to-provide-people-with-food./1/
As you can see, billions of sentient beings are undergoing massively cruel things to maintain society as it is. Sure people may love technology, but probably in a way a crackhead loves crack. The constant anxiety, loss of autonomy and torture of billions a year is not worth it.
Will we defend industrialization until the hole in the ozone rips wide open and exposes us to enough solar radiation to kill of every last living thing on Earth?
I have a question for con, since con likes questions.
How much destruction should we tolerate so you can have some temporary, and yet unfulfilling comfort that also costs you your happiness?
- We can't roll.back the clock
We can roll back the clock and there are a few ways to do it. Provoke a nuclear war against nations is one way.
We could also do it peacefully. For example there is a solar flare that happened about 150 years ago that scientists have determined if it happened today it would practically wipe out all technology.
This same type of solar flare is expected to happen at any random time within the next 100 years. If this solar flare happened we would lose electricity, satellites would stop working, the internet would seize to exist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2150350-a-tech-destroying-solar-flare-could-hit-earth-within-100-years/
We just need to be apathetic to the threat and allow this to happen. This debate is about if anarcho primitivism is feasible if implemented, not if it is feasible to implement, but it can happen. Even if 1% of the population started becoming extreme luddites, it doesn't take much to create blackouts or start attacking centers of technology.
- Won't we just go back to a government
Humans were hunter gatherers for thousands of years and stayed in groups no larger than 50 people for that long. Before humans did this for thousands of years, our caveman ancestors literally lived hundreds of thousands to millions of years in peaceful anarchoprimitivist like cultures. https://www.quora.com/How-long-were-humans-in-the-hunter-gatherer-era-How-arent-any-prejudices-about-men-and-women-related-to-them-wrong-since-their-time-period-made-up-only-very-little-of-humanitys-whole-evolution
If these societies can literally exist for millions of years with no governments popping up, I think it is fair to say that, governments are an anomaly, and we shouldn't be overly concerned about the risk of them forming.
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Responses
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"I completely agree this is an issue, however there is a problem here. It's unrealistic (and thus unreasonable) to suggest dropping technology considering how attached we as a species have become with it, it's not a viable strategy."
I'm going to let Uncle Ted handle this response.
"THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS
121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can’t get rid of the “bad” parts of technology and retain only the “good” parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can’t have much progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it.
122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.
123. If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous. " https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm
Con says
"without hierarchy wouldn't this socialization be replaced with peer pressure of one kind or another? And can't we avoid the over-moralization without getting rid of hierarchy and thus introducing a lot of risky concepts"
The problem is with oversocialization. Humans are a cooperative species, but we are also a competitive one, and when we are over socialized it brings great psychological distress as Uncle Ted points out in the text you quote, and it leaves people as door mats that some prey on. Certainly in a primitive anarchist society a lot of socialization will occur, but over socialization is going to be dramatically reduced in favor of a more moderate amount of socialization that will bring about psychological happiness.
In industrial society, socialization is geared towards fitting in the system, while in a tribal society it will be towards the expectations of family and friends who love you.
"wouldn't anarchy offer even less security?"
What I am referring to is feelings of insecurity. If you read uncle Ted's work, you would know a sense of security comes not from actual security, but from your co evidence to be able to deal with any situation that arrives.
A modern man can as easily find himself starving as a primitive man, but primitive man feels secure, because he feels competent in his ability to hunt and fish.
Con later asserts that maybe people don't need freedom, that they would be happier without it. However it seems history would disagree. African americans have formed a couple of revolts prior to the civil war, knowing they would lose, just to have a chance to fight for freedom from slavery. In fact not long before these rebellions Americans risked their lives to fight for their freedom from british rule.
Before that settlers to the united states risked a high chance of death on the open sea to find religious freedom in America. History is peppered with people willing to face almost certain death at the chance for freedom.
In fact we know that people who care for nothing else love their freedom and that is why it is our go to method to punish criminals. We take their freedom.
Conclusion
Con has dropped my argument for how the resolution should be interpreted.
Con has dropped the arguments I made for how much humans and animals suffer from industrial society.
Con has ignored the overarching theme of my arguments and essentially concedes the debate to me.
Round 4
I appreciate con's rebuttals. I do feel con has not taken the time to understand the entirety of my arguments though and has instead just made a bunch of off the cuff responses to.the pieces of my arguments she has found interesting or particularly objectionable to her senses.
The bits of your arguments I haven't addressed were almost definitely parts I agreed with, not a neglect to address them, though I'm not sure if that's what you mean. Not sure how my responses were off the cuff either, since they had everything to do with the biggest issues I've encountered with the arguments you've presented...it's true I haven't spent a whole lot of time pondering those things, but that's largely because I've pondered them before and they don't take a lot of thinking to see the fallacious reasoning in some of what you're saying, at least that's my point of view. Also not sure what you mean by senses? I haven't exactly been tasting anarcho-primitivism to see how salty it is.
I do want to point out I have been referring to my opponent as "her" this is because instead of looking at the fact she claimed to be male on her profile, I did a psychological profile based on word usage, phraseology and mindset and have determined with 100% accuracy she is a female. I do apologize for blowing her cover if she was claiming to be a male though. Blowing her cover was totally unintentional on my part.Perhaps later I can go into how to do these profiles to determine the sex of the individual you are talking to. For now, we'll just stick to the debate and stay on topic.
Hahahahah, you're not the first person to come to the conclusion that I'm female from the way I type. I understand the likelihood of you having the ego necessary to make a "100% accurate" assumption is less likely than you trying to provoke me into giving up logic in favor of emotional reaction so I'll have a weaker argument in the long run, which isn't a bad strategy if a little unsportsmanlike. The truth is, I type in an "enthusiastic" and "nice" tone in cases like this for two reasons, firstly because I want to avoid unfortunately consequences of the unlikely-but-still-plausible outcome that voters will vote based on emotions instead of logic, and secondly because I was attempting to befriend you to some extent for the purposes of eventual resolution. Unfortunately from the tone you've taken that last goal no longer seems realistic, but I have nothing to gain and much to lose to drop the tone now. Of course, ultimately the tone shouldn't really matter for the purposes of debate, just wanted to address that. I also find it interesting that earlier you imagined a scenario with me "raping your wife", that seems more fitting if I were male than female and suggests that this is indeed an attempt at provoking emotional response, but I'll leave that final assessment to the judges.
"To some degree I would agree with this BOP placement, I did after all make the debate and thus form the assertion"I am happy that con has agreed to take on the entirety of the burden of proof. I wouldn't have accepted the burden of proof in her shoes, but she has and judges should put their personal views aside and assign her burden of proof even if they personally disagree with who actually should hold the BOP.
Unfortunately this is a strawman argument, either you intentionally put words in my mouth or failed to recognize the "To some degree" at the beginning of the sentence. Doesn't really matter which, or even where the BOP belongs, since I've already made the argument that anarchism cannot make sense without significant and reasonable responses to a good portion of the more difficult questions I've asked, given the consensus of people and the fact that we've tested authoritarian structures much more than anarchic ones and they seem to work to some degree at least. I would agree that the judges should put their personal views aside however, reading into the matter for themselves rather than listening to either one of our interpretations of events.
Interpretation of the Resolution". I think we both agree anarchism makes sense from a semantical perspective, that being that the philosophy is coherent and understandable."That's good. In round 2 I argued that the resolution should be interpreted so that I only have to prove the above points to win. Judges should take this statement as a concession and award me the win. I'd actually urge the judges to stop reading right here and just go ahead and award me the win, but if you wish to read on, I won't stop you.
If the judges want to interpret it so, then so be it. I don't see how that interpretation would be enjoyable given it's victory by semantics rather than actual logical argumentation for how effective an anarchic society would actually be, but we'll see what their view on the matter is.
"The intent of my making this debate is to see whether or not it is reasonable in the literal sense as something implemented on a societal scale. I believe you understand this, just want to make sure to avoid any future complications!"I'm sorry the debate did not turn out as you expected. I gave a reasonable interpretation of the resolution and you have not argued for why any other interpretation should be accepted, so my interpretation of the resolution is the one we will be using for the debate, regardless of your intent.Voters should not feel bad con did not receive the debate she was hoping for, this will actually help her in the future either form more coherent complete resolutions or to make the debate unrated so her opponent cares less about winning and she can have more of a conversational tone in her debate.
I'm afraid I must object to a couple statements here, firstly that you gave a reasonable interpretation of the resolution. The reason I object to that is that the definition of "reasonable" involves being in accordance with reason, and you haven't given a reason for interpreting it semantically rather than literally. [1]
I do concede that I should have provided a reason for why I wanted to argue for a literal debate rather than a semantic one though, I thought it would be self explanatory but clearly that wasn't the case. The reason why I want to debate this literally is because it has meaning for life as we see it now, depending on who's right it changes how we should live our lives and what would ultimately provide us happiness in the long run as humanity. Debating semantics can be useful, but in this case it would serve no significant purpose compared to debating it literally. Again I think we both agree it makes sense as far as coherence, I think nearly everyone would agree with that, it just doesn't make sense to argue against that and thus it doesn't make sense to have a debate on it. Even if I could pull some sort of technicality which expressed why it wasn't coherent, that wouldn't change how we should live our lives. It would be a meaningless debate about meaningless definitions for words, and I must admit I'm not a fan of those kinds of debates. I agree judges shouldn't decide the purpose of this debate based on either of our intentions, but it seems to make a lot more sense to take this debate literally rather than semantically.
Secondly, and this is more a nitpick than anything worth typing about, losing this debate would not aid nearly anyone in my position here. I've already learned the lesson that I need to be extremely specific with my definitions and wording to satisfy certain people on this site, no need to provide extra negative reinforcement.
Secondly, and this is more a nitpick than anything worth typing about, losing this debate would not aid nearly anyone in my position here. I've already learned the lesson that I need to be extremely specific with my definitions and wording to satisfy certain people on this site, no need to provide extra negative reinforcement.
Pro hasn't really taken the time to understand my arguments I feel, so her entire rebuttal round seems dedicated to objections that actually she probably should have used as her main arguments in round one.
The former statement is fair, feel as you like in that regard. The second statement I agree with completely! I should have used the objections brought up on my rebuttal in my main arguments at the very beginning, however I didn't know enough about your specific direction on anarchism to know which points I should argue against. Even excluding a lot of the points I wanted to bring up because I thought you might not be an ancap (and I turned out to be right in that regard) I still let a few slip through by sheet habit. So to argue points against every anarchist ideology would have been tiresome and useless, and unfortunately I can't tell the future to the degree necessary to foresee specifics such as what anarchic ideology you would be in support of.
I have shown why technology is not worth it. How in a tribal society a pandemic will be very limited to how far it can spread, and how we are killing the environment with global warming that will cause a planet level extinction.We have factory farming which destroys and tortures animals. The following has been described about their practices.
You go on to describe a lot of tragic animal farming practices, and I agree entirely that they are tragic and they do need to be addressed.
However, as stated in a previous argument, it's a false dichotomy to place anarcho-primitivism at one end and tragic farming practices on the other.
In fact, once again, I think it would be easier to end tragic farming practices via changing our perspective on life than going back to anarcho-primitivism, but I understand you address my opinion on that later, so I'll continue.
Sure people may love technology, but probably in a way a crackhead loves crack. The constant anxiety, loss of autonomy and torture of billions a year is not worth it.
Not quite the same way, as technology does long-term good for humanity as well. And the vast majority of reasons for anxiety and loss of autonomy aren't due to technology but the social structure we've built alongside technology. This is evident by the fact that democratic schools exist with an entirely different culture, one that's very autonomous and without much anxiety, and yet they still have technology. [2]
Will we defend industrialization until the hole in the ozone rips wide open and exposes us to enough solar radiation to kill of every last living thing on Earth?
I don't believe I've defended industrialization, I agree that's a problem but again it could be solved better by education than by completely abandonment of technology.
How much destruction should we tolerate so you can have some temporary, and yet unfulfilling comfort that also costs you your happiness?
None if that were the case, but I simply don't think it is. Many uses of technology are fulfilling, don't cost happiness to keep, and don't have to be temporary.
We can roll back the clock and there are a few ways to do it. Provoke a nuclear war against nations is one way.
Now, I'm not an expert, but as someone who's supporting the environment...wouldn't provoking a nuclear war be just a little counterintuitive? Especially considering the nightmare of domino-effect nuclear warfare showcased so well in movies like Dr. Strangelove?
We could also do it peacefully. For example there is a solar flare that happened about 150 years ago that scientists have determined if it happened today it would practically wipe out all technology.This same type of solar flare is expected to happen at any random time within the next 100 years. If this solar flare happened we would lose electricity, satellites would stop working, the internet would seize to exist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2150350-a-tech-destroying-solar-flare-could-hit-earth-within-100-years/
I mean that would be great for temporarily disabling technology worldwide, but what's going to stop people from building it back up again?
We just need to be apathetic to the threat and allow this to happen. This debate is about if anarcho primitivism is feasible if implemented, not if it is feasible to implement, but it can happen. Even if 1% of the population started becoming extreme luddites, it doesn't take much to create blackouts or start attacking centers of technology.
There is no reason why the debate should be about whether anarcho-primitivism is feasible if implemented, it's relatively meaningless compared to the alternative point of view, whether or not it could actually be implemented. By that logic I'd say you're wrong and some sorta monarcho-transhumanism (yes I know that isn't a thing but you can imagine what it means) is the correct way to go because humans are going to be entirely benevolent in my imaginary parallel universe where I'm right and you're wrong. Also, 1% is a big number, how are you going to get 800 million people to agree with your point of view on the matter in a world dominated by technology?
Humans were hunter gatherers for thousands of years and stayed in groups no larger than 50 people for that long. Before humans did this for thousands of years, our caveman ancestors literally lived hundreds of thousands to millions of years in peaceful anarchoprimitivist like cultures. https://www.quora.com/How-long-were-humans-in-the-hunter-gatherer-era-How-arent-any-prejudices-about-men-and-women-related-to-them-wrong-since-their-time-period-made-up-only-very-little-of-humanitys-whole-evolution
I never contested this, I understand that people can survive with this system, but I believe people can survive with the modern system too if it's reformed a bit.
If these societies can literally exist for millions of years with no governments popping up, I think it is fair to say that, governments are an anomaly, and we shouldn't be overly concerned about the risk of them forming.
The problem is, if you wanted to prevent them from arising again you would have to wipe peoples' memory of them, as it's the fact that people know about it that makes them a possibility of rising again, not pure chance. The chance bit is us learning about the methods for forming them, now that we know them it's much harder to go back.
THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can’t get rid of the “bad” parts of technology and retain only the “good” parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can’t have much progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it.
I agree it's a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another, however some parts (all faulty parts I've done research on) are exchangeable with methods that wouldn't cause nearly as much if any damage to ourselves or the environment. Here are some examples: [3] [4] [5]
122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic degradation of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.
That's true for as long as examples like diabetes are a problem. The thing is, diabetes is largely only a problem because of our horrible diet. So, while diabetes as a whole might not be curable (though I suspect it is) it's still not a massive problem and still isn't worth getting rid of so many technologies which could do so much good for us. The same case is usually true for other diseases too, though I know that's a controversial opinion and I honestly don't have enough sources to completely prove that beyond the shadow of a doubt, I've simply found that a natural way of living doesn't ordinarily allow for the types of problems we're accustomed to calling "natural". Still, it would technically be possible to set up a eugenics program without going back to caveman days as this paragraph suggests, so even if I'm completely wrong here it still doesn't work to prove your point. And our changing ourselves doesn't necessarily have to alter us to a great extent in areas that matter, so while we might not be exactly the same as what we began as, I don't think it's fair to say it's not worthwhile based on that alone. [6] [7]
123. If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous. " https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm
This is indeed something to avoid, however it's easier to convince people to demand it stay a voluntary matter than to completely rid themselves of technology and government.
The problem is with oversocialization. Humans are a cooperative species, but we are also a competitive one, and when we are over socialized it brings great psychological distress as Uncle Ted points out in the text you quote, and it leaves people as door mats that some prey on. Certainly in a primitive anarchist society a lot of socialization will occur, but over socialization is going to be dramatically reduced in favor of a more moderate amount of socialization that will bring about psychological happiness.In industrial society, socialization is geared towards fitting in the system, while in a tribal society it will be towards the expectations of family and friends who love you.
I think this is the best point you've made yet, It's a really good one and I don't think I have a direct counter argument to it. You're right, it would be a very good solution to over socialization. I just think it would be easier to achieve a society where we reduce over socialization without giving up hierarchy and risk chaos, and I think it would be better to keep technology as it does us so much good.
What I am referring to is feelings of insecurity. If you read uncle Ted's work, you would know a sense of security comes not from actual security, but from your [confidence] to be able to deal with any situation that arrives.
This hasn't been my experience, can you provide evidence for this?
A modern man can as easily find himself starving as a primitive man, but primitive man feels secure, because he feels competent in his ability to hunt and fish.
That's a fair point, but why couldn't modern man feel secure in modern society out of competence at his task if we changed up the social system a bit?
Con later asserts that maybe people don't need freedom, that they would be happier without it. However it seems history would disagree. African americans have formed a couple of revolts prior to the civil war, knowing they would lose, just to have a chance to fight for freedom from slavery. In fact not long before these rebellions Americans risked their lives to fight for their freedom from british rule.Before that settlers to the united states risked a high chance of death on the open sea to find religious freedom in America. History is peppered with people willing to face almost certain death at the chance for freedom.In fact we know that people who care for nothing else love their freedom and that is why it is our go to method to punish criminals. We take their freedom.
Those examples don't necessarily contradict what I said, people definitely seem to want freedom when their enslavement is overt, but what of when it's covert? What of when people don't know they're enslaved? In America it certainly seems people are fooled into modern slavery via debt and jobs, and they don't seem too opposed to the concept. It could be that they would be happier if they weren't enslaved covertly but they simply don't know it, but if that's the case then why not simply reduce government control via education on the matter rather than completely getting rid of it altogether?
Con has dropped my argument for how the resolution should be interpreted.
You brought it up earlier in the same argument, not sure how you expect me to address it before you've even posted the argument you're hoping to address...unless you're talking about the hinting at the beginning, which I did drop because I thought my original response would be adequate considering it seemed obvious to me a semantic debate would be no fun.
Con has dropped the arguments I made for how much humans and animals suffer from industrial society.
I never dropped those arguments, I believe I addressed every single one that was important to the debate, if I haven't then please point out the ones I missed!
Con has ignored the overarching theme of my arguments and essentially concedes the debate to me.
Not sure what you're basing the first assertion on, but the second assertion was based on words you put in my mouth, whether that was deliberate or not. So I would request you provide evidence for either of these accusations that doesn't involve strawman arguments or assumptions.
Main points:
Main points:
- I see no reason why we should give up technology, since I see no evidence for it being the direct reason for the problems PRO has attributed to it.
- I don't think it's worthwhile to eradicate the state since a lot of the problems don't necessarily come from the state existing at all, but a large state existing. Minarchism would seem a better solution here, essentially.
- Even if it would be better to get rid of technology and the state than not to do so, I don't see how it's feasible to achieve that in a worthwhile manner. Eg while we might provoke this via nuclear warfare, the costs would seem too great...and hard to sell a group of people capable of achieving that on the concept of destroying the planet to save the planet.
References:
I am stunned at the incoherence of some of what I have seen through this debate. It is frustrating for my opponent to just completely miss some points by totally ignoring my argument and than keeping an objection that doesn't work if you accept my argument.
For example she says we should reform things instead of just abolish the current system. However I brought up the 4 laws of history which she agreed with, and which explained that reform does not work. That reforms of the system are led by technology and the social response to it. Or that reforms are temporary until the system pushes back
She not only says she agrees with the 5 truths of history I shared and the consequences of those truths, but she also says we should reform things instead of abolish them.
Her response to reform also ignores that I argued that the good effects of technology can not be separated from the negative effects. This is debatable, but the point is that she ignored the argument and thus dropped it, and yet she still insists we reform.
Sorry con, you cannot argue for reform until you handle my objections to reform, and you have not done so. I'd argue that round 5 is too late to respond.
I brought this up to show con really is disrespecting me, by not putting in a real effort of this debate. She isn't taking the time to understand my arguments.
I read her rounds like 5 or 6 times. Over and over to make sure I properly understand it and that I have addressed all the points. If my opponent mentions a rare or complicated concept, I dig into it as much as the very short time of this debate allows me to.
I am going to try and reel this debate in with the very little time I have left, but I want judges to understand that con lost this debate by ignoring arguments and still moving forward with objections that simply don't make sense unless you address the arguments I made .
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FRAMEWORK
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Resolution
Con says
"I'm afraid I must object to a couple statements here, firstly that you gave a reasonable interpretation of the resolution. The reason I object to that is that the definition of "reasonable" involves being in accordance with reason, and you haven't given a reason for interpreting it semantically rather than literally."
I'm not sure if my opponent is just being crazy here or what is going on. I argued that the interpretation should be taken literal. I'm gave definitions for the words in the resolution and gave the most obvious interpretation of what the sentence would mean.
Perhaps con just doesn't know what the word "literal" means, because I interpreted the resolution literally. If anything Con should be arguing I took the resolution to literally, but instead she gets confused over what the word literal means and accuses me of using semantics instead.
Although I suspect she is also confused about the definition of semantics also. Perhaps english is not her native language and she can be forgiven for these mistakes, but even if that is the case she needs to look M in the dictionary occasionally as she debates, so she can eliminate incompetent analysis of definitions.
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Sources
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I noticed something about con's inclusion of sources. They are just unnecessary and silly. They don't support her arguments. Apparently she is peppering them in, in Hope's award her source points merely by seeing she has more sources.
That's not really how source points work here though con. Sources are awarded by how well they support your argument.
For example she says
"I agree it's a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another, however some parts (all faulty parts I've done research on) are exchangeable with methods that wouldn't cause nearly as much if any damage to ourselves or the environment. Here are some examples : [3] [4] [5]"
She just blindly lists 3 sources and says check these things out.
That's not really how debates work. We shouldn't have to leave the site to see your arguments. You should have gave these examples and then linked to the source of these examples.
Not to mention the solutions she gave for some of the problems don't seem like actual solutions. Citation number 4 for example is an advertisement for a greenhouse that allows you to grow plants in the snow.
Citation 3 is a technology being speculated could be possible 9 years ago. 9 years have passed and this technology still has not been used. From what little he shares about the technology it honestly just seems like one of those "free energy scams".
Citation 5 speculates that 3d printing could mitigate the pollution of factory's making stuff at some point. It also speculates that one day 3d printed meat could end factory farming.
Besides these being mere source bombing. They don't support her argument. Any judges fooled by the number of sources she presents, need not be judging.
In her latest round she also gave a citation that says diabetes is bad for example and a random definition to a word in a paragraph "reasonable" that is common knowledge.
Note, she didn't define the word in her argument and then cited the definition. She just used it in a paragraph and then cited it.
The previous round her first citation is just a definition of the word state. Ger next citation that round is to a definition I provided and her 3rd one is a citation to support her statement that follows here
"And I have to disagree that America was founded as a type of anarchist state, since the two terms again seem contradictory. Even if they weren't, there were clearly representatives which even if they do fairly represent the people are still a kind of ruler"
Her citation is to the United States constitution. Which is a nonsensical thing to cite for the above statement.
She then goes into give citations for the definitions ruler and leader, which are not only definitions never in dispute, but no definitions of the terms were given by her.
She merely used the words in a paragraph and then gave a citation for them, for some mysterious reason.
For sources 7, 8, and 9 . She says here is proof my statement that anarchist societies usually fail is true, and merely gives these citations instead of actually explaining what any of them are.
They also don't demonstrate what she says. Instead of cherry picking unsuccessful anarchic societies like I expected she would do, she merely cites irrelevant wikipedia's articles.
Article number 7 is an anarchist movement in Spain and not an actual anarchic society. Citation 8, is a revolution of communists that took over Paris for a less than 2 months.
Calling that an anarchic or even communist state would be like calling the CHAPO incident in Seattle the same thing.
The Paris anarchy also failed because the French Military took Paris by force. You can't call this a failed anarchic state because of anarchy. It is only failed because of the overwhelming military might of an entire nation was brought up against a mere city.
It didn't matter what ideology the people who occupied Paris had. It would have failed. It's not the fault of the ideology as much as the fault of not having enough military might.
Source 9 lists a bunch of anarchic societies. The most relevant section of those are titled "intentional communities"
Of the intentionally set up anarchic societies, it looks like half were actually successful, because half are still operating and some started as early as the 1920s. So con's citations actually support my arguments, but for the most part her citations are just source bombing.
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I did start on this at the last minute so I have to stop writing there. I look forward to your next round con
Round 5
I am stunned at the incoherence of some of what I have seen through this debate. It is frustrating for my opponent to just completely miss some points by totally ignoring my argument and than keeping an objection that doesn't work if you accept my argument.For example she says we should reform things instead of just abolish the current system. However I brought up the 4 laws of history which she agreed with, and which explained that reform does not work. That reforms of the system are led by technology and the social response to it. Or that reforms are temporary until the system pushes backShe not only says she agrees with the 5 truths of history I shared and the consequences of those truths, but she also says we should reform things instead of abolish them.
Alright, let's address the example given here for my proposed incoherence on the matter.
Firstly, I agreed with the first two laws of history that Ted put forward, disagreed with the second two, and completely forgot to address the fifth. I apologize for forgetting to address the last one, really not sure how it slipped by, but I'll give my response to it here after quoting what I wrote earlier on principle 3 and 4.
103. THIRD PRINCIPLE. If a change is made that is large enough to alter permanently a long-term trend, then the consequences for the society as a whole cannot be predicted in advance. (Unless various other societies have passed through the same change and have all experienced the same consequences, in which case one can predict on empirical grounds that another society that passes through the same change will be like to experience similar consequences.)104. FOURTH PRINCIPLE. A new kind of society cannot be designed on paper. That is, you cannot plan out a new form of society in advance, then set it up and expect it to function as it was designed to do.105. The third and fourth principles result from the complexity of human societies. A change in human behavior will affect the economy of a society and its physical environment; the economy will affect the environment and vice versa, and the changes in the economy and the environment will affect human behavior in complex, unpredictable ways; and so forth. The network of causes and effects is far too complex to be untangled and understood.It seems to me that given a good enough socioeconomic understanding, one could predict future events even if they hadn't specifically happened in other societies, though I suppose in that case it wouldn't be new, simply a new pattern arising from a bunch of old repeatable strategies. In whatever case, I don't think the interlinking web of subjects and facts would be too complicated to give a near enough estimation such that it would be more worthwhile to pursue modern societal change rather than anarchic dreams Which, given that approach, should make reforming modern industrial society to the extent necessary to make a likely better outcome than anarcho-primitivism possible, at least until you address the major risks associated with anarchism as a whole.
Now for my response to the 5th principle, which is quoted here:
106. FIFTH PRINCIPLE. People do not consciously and rationally choose the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of social evolution that are not under rational human control.
107. The fifth principle is a consequence of the other four.108. To illustrate: By the first principle, generally speaking an attempt at social reform either acts in the direction in which the society is developing anyway (so that it merely accelerates a change that would have occurred in any case) or else it has only a transitory effect, so that the society soon slips back into its old groove. To make a lasting change in the direction of development of any important aspect of a society, reform is insufficient and revolution is required. (A revolution does not necessarily involve an armed uprising or the overthrow of a government.) By the second principle, a revolution never changes only one aspect of a society, it changes the whole society;.”
I would argue they are under rational human control, but it really doesn't matter as long as it's possible to change things via human control. And I would argue it is, clearly we've changed things in the past in cases like the Paris commune, even if it only lasted for a little while. A less radical approach should be possible to put in place permanently, I see no reason why it wouldn't. Also, I see no reason why a revolution should be effective while reform shouldn't, given the failure of most revolutions in the past to change what they wanted to change and the success of many reforms to change society in certain ways.
Her response to reform also ignores that I argued that the good effects of technology can not be separated from the negative effects. This is debatable, but the point is that she ignored the argument and thus dropped it, and yet she still insists we reform.Sorry con, you cannot argue for reform until you handle my objections to reform, and you have not done so. I'd argue that round 5 is too late to respond.I brought this up to show con really is disrespecting me, by not putting in a real effort of this debate. She isn't taking the time to understand my arguments.
So...if I provided sources to found a counterargument, I can't have ignored or dropped it. And I had to have handled it by definition, whether I handled it badly or not. Also, I fail to understand how there could be a logical time at which it's "too late to respond".
I'm not sure why it matters how much effort I put into the debate if a debate should be judged by the validity of the points, and the validity of the points can often be wildly changed more by previous knowledge than by effort. Nevertheless, I have put effort into this debate and I've respected pro to the best of my ability. I've taken the time to understand your arguments to the best of my ability and I believe I understand them well enough to debate against them, but I'll leave that to the judges to decide. Once again I feel it ultimately doesn't matter what either of us are like as a person or how much care or effort we've put in as long as the end result is helping the readers come closer to truth.
I'm not sure why it matters how much effort I put into the debate if a debate should be judged by the validity of the points, and the validity of the points can often be wildly changed more by previous knowledge than by effort. Nevertheless, I have put effort into this debate and I've respected pro to the best of my ability. I've taken the time to understand your arguments to the best of my ability and I believe I understand them well enough to debate against them, but I'll leave that to the judges to decide. Once again I feel it ultimately doesn't matter what either of us are like as a person or how much care or effort we've put in as long as the end result is helping the readers come closer to truth.
I read her rounds like 5 or 6 times. Over and over to make sure I properly understand it and that I have addressed all the points. If my opponent mentions a rare or complicated concept, I dig into it as much as the very short time of this debate allows me to.
I must admit I haven't read your rounds 5 or 6 times, however I was careful to think on each thing I did read and ponder what responses I could give, at least to the best of my ability. I probably missed a few things like the 5th principle mentioned above, but that's hard to avoid being new to the format and all.
I am going to try and reel this debate in with the very little time I have left, but I want judges to understand that con lost this debate by ignoring arguments and still moving forward with objections that simply don't make sense unless you address the arguments I made .
I haven't ignored any arguments intentionally, unless you're talking about the 5th principle thing I'm not really sure what ones I've unintentionally missed, seems like I've gone over everything. I also feel this statement can accurately describe Pro's strategy given some of my questions still going unanswered or being overly boiled down, but we'll see what the judges think of that.
"I'm afraid I must object to a couple statements here, firstly that you gave a reasonable interpretation of the resolution. The reason I object to that is that the definition of "reasonable" involves being in accordance with reason, and you haven't given a reason for interpreting it semantically rather than literally."I'm not sure if my opponent is just being crazy here or what is going on. I argued that the interpretation should be taken literal. I'm gave definitions for the words in the resolution and gave the most obvious interpretation of what the sentence would mean.Perhaps con just doesn't know what the word "literal" means, because I interpreted the resolution literally. If anything Con should be arguing I took the resolution to literally, but instead she gets confused over what the word literal means and accuses me of using semantics instead.Although I suspect she is also confused about the definition of semantics also. Perhaps english is not her native language and she can be forgiven for these mistakes, but even if that is the case she needs to look M in the dictionary occasionally as she debates, so she can eliminate incompetent analysis of definitions.
I meant the word "literal" by this definition: "adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression" [1]
The ordinary person would recognize my question: "Does anarchism make sense?" to mean "Would implementing anarchism be a reasonable endeavor?" rather than "Is anarchism's definition coherent?".
The ordinary person would recognize my question: "Does anarchism make sense?" to mean "Would implementing anarchism be a reasonable endeavor?" rather than "Is anarchism's definition coherent?".
Thus, by the "ordinary construction" or "primary meaning" of the expression "make sense", my question should be taken to mean "Would implementing anarchism be a reasonable endeavor?". This would be "literal", once again by the definition provided, which I find to be a reasonable one. I am a native English speaker.
Also, just to make a point, semantics means: "The study or science of meaning in language." [2]
I noticed something about con's inclusion of sources. They are just unnecessary and silly. They don't support her arguments. Apparently she is peppering them in, in Hope's award her source points merely by seeing she has more sources.That's not really how source points work here though con. Sources are awarded by how well they support your argument.For example she says"I agree it's a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another, however some parts (all faulty parts I've done research on) are exchangeable with methods that wouldn't cause nearly as much if any damage to ourselves or the environment. Here are some examples : [3] [4] [5]"She just blindly lists 3 sources and says check these things out.That's not really how debates work. We shouldn't have to leave the site to see your arguments. You should have gave these examples and then linked to the source of these examples.
You start off with a beautiful display of ad hominems followed by a statement in regards to how sources are supposed to work.
So in regards to how it should work, I try to do what makes sense. I provided sources where I believe it made sense to provide them.
Not really sure what it means to "blindly list 3 sources", so I don't have anything to say to that.
Whether or not debates are supposed to be structured in such a way as proposed in this quote, I'm unsure. But you don't have to leave the site to see the argument, the citations are only there to provide examples for what I'm saying. The subjects they get into are too complex to describe in detail with 30,000 characters, and I imagine if people want to read that much into the subjects they're probably willing to aim their mouse and click to see more in a better format. Perhaps I overestimate peoples' ability to shift their mouse to a different part of the screen and click? I sincerely doubt it. Though I do agree I should have given an introduction to the examples, I just didn't imagine you would care that much to learn about them, I thought it was evident that there are a good deal of faulty parts of society that can be exchanged for better ones without getting rid of the state.
Not to mention the solutions she gave for some of the problems don't seem like actual solutions. Citation number 4 for example is an advertisement for a greenhouse that allows you to grow plants in the snow.
Apologies, I assumed you would have imagination, allow me to supply my own: if we can grow food effectively in greenhouses in the snow at a relatively cheap price, we can easily prevent a lot of issues regarding food without getting rid of technology.
Citation 3 is a technology being speculated could be possible 9 years ago. 9 years have passed and this technology still has not been used. From what little he shares about the technology it honestly just seems like one of those "free energy scams".
If you want to use the argument that if something hasn't been implemented for 9 years it can't be a beneficial idea, allow me to mirror that argument on anarcho-primitivism. We've had hundreds of years of opportunity to revert to a caveman lifestyle and we haven't taken the opportunity. From what little he shares about the concept, it honestly just seems like one of those "luddite idealist scams".
(forgive my relentless argumentation here, the temptation has become too great to resist)
Citation 5 speculates that 3d printing could mitigate the pollution of factory's making stuff at some point. It also speculates that one day 3d printed meat could end factory farming.
Supplying my imagination once again: if we've got facial recognition, self driving cars, and 3D printers, I imagine we can automate a lot of tasks right about now without too much pollution and other environmental issues. It's probably not too profitable in the long term to do so since it will place a lot of power in the everyday individual instead of the company manufacturer, but it's a possibility to change the world for the better without anarchism once again.
Besides these being mere source bombing. They don't support her argument. Any judges fooled by the number of sources she presents, need not be judging.
Again, apologies for assuming you have imagination, I've not shown that they do indeed support my argument and they all lead down interesting paths of thought that are worth visiting. It isn't "source bombing", if anything I find it ironic you complain about the examples given after complaining that I should have written more about them. I understand you tried to take two different approaches to the matter though, and it would have worked, except given a little imagination these simple ideas turn into robust solutions.
In her latest round she also gave a citation that says diabetes is bad for example and a random definition to a word in a paragraph "reasonable" that is common knowledge.Note, she didn't define the word in her argument and then cited the definition. She just used it in a paragraph and then cited it.
With a supposed astounding 5-6 readings through everything I've written and a careful analysis of everything I've posted, I find it humorous that Pro either both refused to open the sources and also refused to even read what the links to those sites said, seeing as they clearly mention diet's effect on the matter rather than a simple "diabetes is bad". Or, alternatively, he did read either the link or the source, and still didn't get it!
(you can tell I'm in a ruthless mood, once again I must apologize for this.)
Now, in regards to the "reasonable" definition, I gave it in response to an instance where Pro used the word, not an instance where I used it. I thought it was common knowledge as well, but apparently Pro must have missed how he contradicted himself by misunderstanding the word.
The previous round her first citation is just a definition of the word state.
Yep, that's important because based on the definition I gave, you contradicted yourself. It's also worth mentioning that you gave sources to definitions for words earlier in this debate, so you have only yourself to blame for setting a bad example for what I should do, seeing as this is my first time with this format.
[Her] next citation that round is to a definition I provided and her 3rd one is a citation to support her statement that follows here"And I have to disagree that America was founded as a type of anarchist state, since the two terms again seem contradictory. Even if they weren't, there were clearly representatives which even if they do fairly represent the people are still a kind of ruler"Her citation is to the United States constitution. Which is a nonsensical thing to cite for the above statement.
I find it infinitely humorous he didn't bother to read the very first line of the constitution, which reads: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
Since this proves my point that it was indeed set to be a system with representatives. Therefore it's not nonsensical.
She then goes into give citations for the definitions ruler and leader, which are not only definitions never in dispute, but no definitions of the terms were given by her.She merely used the words in a paragraph and then gave a citation for them, for some mysterious reason.
Oooh spooky! So mysterious! What ever could Con be thinking when giving those definitions? It's certainly not like "she" explained exactly why she gave the sources right before she gave them! oh wait:
Unfortunately the differences in this case between "leaders" and "rulers" are too difficult to pinpoint. I agree that anarchy doesn't necessarily mean a rejection of leaders, but if people are electing people to enforce certain rules, I think that's a ruler rather than a leader. [5] [6]The specific reason I don't accept your attempt at differentiating the two in this case is that technically all rulers are voluntarily followed. There's no reason we absolutely have to follow the law other than a monopoly on violence which the state has, and if your leader didn't have this then he wouldn't have the usage you're describing in this example. If he did have it, then he would be a ruler, not a leader.
And on the very first round you gave definitions that weren't in dispute, so clearly it doesn't make sense to suggest that non-disputed definitions aren't useful to give!
For sources 7, 8, and 9 . She says here is proof my statement that anarchist societies usually fail is true, and merely gives these citations instead of actually explaining what any of them are.
This is a good point, I should have explained what they were, will attempt to give a short explanation next time I give citations that get into complicated subjects.
They also don't demonstrate what she says. Instead of cherry picking unsuccessful anarchic societies like I expected she would do, she merely cites irrelevant wikipedia's articles.Article number 7 is an anarchist movement in Spain and not an actual anarchic society. Citation 8, is a revolution of communists that took over Paris for a less than 2 months.Calling that an anarchic or even communist state would be like calling the CHAPO incident in Seattle the same thing.
Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but I don't see a big difference between an example of an anarchist movement failing and an example of anarchist society failing. They both seem to showcase the same faults, perhaps you could explain how this isn't the case?
Also, there were a good deal of anarchists involved in the Paris commune and from what I understand it followed a good deal of anarchist principles, but there is something worth pointing out here that I really should have noticed. This isn't an example of anarcho-primitivism, thus it isn't relatable to what you're saying, and that's a fault on my part, apologies for that.
The thing is, anarcho-primitivism has been tried for a very long time as you mentioned several times, I think it's well proven that it can in fact work as far as survival goes. The issue is on whether it's better or worse than what we have now.
The Paris anarchy also failed because the French Military took Paris by force. You can't call this a failed anarchic state because of anarchy. It is only failed because of the overwhelming military might of an entire nation was brought up against a mere city.
This is a fair point at first glance, however I don't see why external matters shouldn't be taken into consideration just as internal ones should. We're dealing with the real world after all, not a rainbow fantasy land where militaries looking to take advantage of weak societal opportunities don't exist.
It didn't matter what ideology the people who occupied Paris had. It would have failed. It's not the fault of the ideology as much as the fault of not having enough military might.
The problem is, ideology includes the considerations of military might, so it is still the fault of ideology at some level. Perhaps it's simply the fault of the specific attempt with the ideology rather than the ideology itself, but then I have to ask...how does an anarcho-primitivist society, which by definition wants to give up technology, hope to defend itself against highly technological societies?
Source 9 lists a bunch of anarchic societies. The most relevant section of those are titled "intentional communities"Of the intentionally set up anarchic societies, it looks like half were actually successful, because half are still operating and some started as early as the 1920s. So con's citations actually support my arguments, but for the most part her citations are just source bombing.
Success goes far beyond mere survival, if the living conditions are pure torment then I hardly consider something successful, even if the society gets to keep its flag and technical operation for the time being. Now, this is making me quite curious, can you provide an example of an anarchic society that has not only succeeded to technically survive, but become a worthwhile endeavor via primitivist principles?
Final words
Now, all my sarcasm and jokes aside, this has been a fun debate and I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this intellectual exercise.
May the best argument win!
References, only two this time:
Forfeited
great work
we must ascend to deity
we must return to monke
Anarcho-primitivism and its consequences have been a disaster to the human society.
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
I only now saw your comment, that wasn't meant to annoy you! Just me trying to fit a counter-argument in whenever I can.
Do you really have to respond to my arguments 5 minutes after ai make them to annoy me.
Good points, I could have done a better job describing exactly what I meant by "make sense", I do of course mean it in the sense of whether or not anarchism would be a beneficial societal structure, not whether it's logically coherent.
It does make sense as in the sense that it is logically sound and not self-contradictory, but like communism, it is extremely hard to get a move on.
I can understand that, libertarianism seems to be a good balance between freedom and security, and it fits well with many background ideas.
It seems extremes in authoritarianism (statism) and libertarianism (anarchism) are supported by those who have unusual beliefs in other areas of life.
As an example, statism is often supported by those who want to feel secure and believe a strong government can offer that security, whether they be right or wrong in that belief.
And anarchism is often supported by those who have an extreme desire to feel free, even if it means removing all traditional means of ensuring security. They very often believe humans have the capacity to become extremely good given the right environment, again whether they be right or wrong.
I'm libetarian, but I don't approve of anarchy.