Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:33 pm
Eventually the residents of the building got tired of this and asked for a voluntary contribution from every household to pay for a private security company to have their squad car come by several times a day.
This cost, IIRC, $30 per household per month. With a hundred apartments to contribute, that came out to enough to pay the security company.
They had no way to compel payment, but enough did contribute anyway to make it work.
The muggings stopped.
You can claim that this (very cool story) is voluntary enrollment in protection, but I disagree.
I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that not only did the "non contributing" members get slower service, but they might have also had a few more random broken windows.
I'm not judging - I think that sort of enterprise will always arise to fill a need - but it won't be based on altruism. And if some of the locals need to be nudged to contribute... it will happen. Call it marketing. It's just good business.
I can guarantee you there were no broken windows due to not contributing.
For one thing, it was a high-rise apartment building with no apartment windows on the ground floor, so that would have been very difficult to arrange.
Secondly, the problem wasn't even broken windows in the first place; it was old ladies getting mugged as they went in and out of the building.
And thirdly, the service wasn't personal and they didn't call for it when the problem occurred; it was a security detail that came around the front of the building at random intervals.
But it is true that recent real-world experience is limited. That means we have to explore these possibilities mostly by one of two means:
1. Logical arguments about how they could play out; and
2. Fictional depictions of free societies.
"For a New Liberty" is an example of the first of these, while the fictional works I've cited previously are examples of the second.
Of course the lack of practical examples of things that haven't yet been done is not limited to libertarianism; thinking about things that don't exist yet is the essence of invention.
i have often thought about trying to start an online anarchist experiment forum, (i would name it Luna after "the moon is a harsh mistress") what would happen in a forum where everybody was a moderator with the ability to ban hammer the other members? i think it would be interesting to see how it played out, how conversations and arguments get resolved, how trolls get dealt with and so on..
I like this idea. To make it work, moderation should include risk. If you ban hammer someone, it comes at a risk of loss. With great power comes great responsibility. The moderator has to have skin in the game.
Maybe the moderators put up a bond - a bond that is forfeited if the community disagrees - after 6 months of introspection. Or... a small payment if the community agrees - again, after 6 months of introspection. It should be assymetrical. A large loss for an illegitimate ban and a small gain for a correct ban. No decisions without allowing for the dissipation of the fog of war.
A just and wise moderation is profitable - and a powerful force for the community. A foolish and quick moderator is winnowed out.
Xan is worth his weight in gold.
Mark
I'm on board with the general idea but I think it should be possible to come up with a means to handle trolls and other dishonest participants without needing a ban hammer at all.
Perhaps a rating system based on approval/disapproval of a given member by other members would work. If you get too many demerits you get a time-out according to a sliding scale of time, e.g., a day for 2 demerits, a week for 5. Merits might cancel out demerits at least to a certain extent.
Simonjester wrote:
i was thinking full anarchy.. ban hammer is tossing a Loonie out the air lock, and anyone could toss ... or rescue anyone.. trolls would get repeatedly tossed, bad actors would be seldom rescued and if they are rescued without cause or time passing the rescuer would risk the airlock themselves. ideally the mod controls would be comprehensive. the ability to move/edit posts etc.. but this would require some programing to allow changes to be recorded and visible to all, including who made them.. and reversible by all.
edit to add.. i suspect that an unofficial culture of what is and isn't acceptable would develop organically, exactly what it would look like i am not sure. ....but... ! interesting !
Simonjester wrote:
it is also possible that it would all descend into a troll pit with mobs of vandals and nothing to offer but edit/ban wars between factions...
the anarchist in me would argue it probably wont. ....but... ! interesting !
Sounds good to me. Do you have the technical ability and the time to do it? Although I'm a programmer by trade, I know next to nothing about web programming, so I wouldn't be able to help significantly.
Simonjester wrote:
i have some time and some ability, i am not a programmer and my skills on the admin end of forum management are badly dated (but re-learnable), xan is our tech wizard here.. knowing which forum software to use and how to make modifications would be an early hurdle to clear.
But it is true that recent real-world experience is limited. That means we have to explore these possibilities mostly by one of two means:
1. Logical arguments about how they could play out; and
2. Fictional depictions of free societies.
"For a New Liberty" is an example of the first of these, while the fictional works I've cited previously are examples of the second.
Of course the lack of practical examples of things that haven't yet been done is not limited to libertarianism; thinking about things that don't exist yet is the essence of invention.
i have often thought about trying to start an online anarchist experiment forum, (i would name it Luna after "the moon is a harsh mistress") what would happen in a forum where everybody was a moderator with the ability to ban hammer the other members? i think it would be interesting to see how it played out, how conversations and arguments get resolved, how trolls get dealt with and so on..
Simonjester wrote:
LOL it could play out that way..
or it could end up being a lot like this forum where " really the reason that things generally run smoothly around here is the participants, not the moderators. You all make it easy". only the participants would be the moderators...
Mark Leavy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 09, 2020 8:08 pmXan is worth his weight in gold.
You're too kind, Mark. I certainly appreciate the sentiment! And l82start does a lot around here too. But really the reason that things generally run smoothly around here is the participants, not the moderators. You all make it easy.
Simonjester wrote:
i was thinking full anarchy.. ban hammer is tossing a Loonie out the air lock, and anyone could toss ... or rescue anyone.. trolls would get repeatedly tossed, bad actors would be seldom rescued and if they are rescued without cause or time passing the rescuer would risk the airlock themselves. ideally the mod controls would be comprehensive. the ability to move/edit posts etc.. but this would require some programing to allow changes to be recorded and visible to all, including who made them.. and reversible by all.
edit to add.. i suspect that an unofficial culture of what is and isn't acceptable would develop organically, exactly what it would look like i am not sure. ....but... ! interesting !
Sounds good to me. Do you have the technical ability and the time to do it? Although I'm a programmer by trade, I know next to nothing about web programming, so I wouldn't be able to help significantly.
It would be an interesting experiment. Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to hack on bulletin board software to try to make it happen. Also, I would think the forum would need to be about something else, rather than a test forum for the forum software. That would be very meta. Ideally you'd convert an existing forum about something else to that mode. Like this one. But I doubt you'd find any forums willing to take the chance of destroying something successful by trying it.
Another issue: you'd have to find a way to make all changes undoable. That isn't really the case already. For example, a banhammer deletes all posts, and the posts are gone.
Yes, you could unban, but the posts are gone.
Another issue is that mods/admins have the ability to edit posts. I don't believe that's undoable either. And even if you had a way to keep a complete record of what posts used to be, you could still have edit wars where people are changing not only what they said, but what other people said!
Simonjester wrote:
i was thinking full anarchy.. ban hammer is tossing a Loonie out the air lock, and anyone could toss ... or rescue anyone.. trolls would get repeatedly tossed, bad actors would be seldom rescued and if they are rescued without cause or time passing the rescuer would risk the airlock themselves. ideally the mod controls would be comprehensive. the ability to move/edit posts etc.. but this would require some programing to allow changes to be recorded and visible to all, including who made them.. and reversible by all.
edit to add.. i suspect that an unofficial culture of what is and isn't acceptable would develop organically, exactly what it would look like i am not sure. ....but... ! interesting !
Sounds good to me. Do you have the technical ability and the time to do it? Although I'm a programmer by trade, I know next to nothing about web programming, so I wouldn't be able to help significantly.
i would propose that the "topic" of the forum would be enlightened or rational anarchy, and that it would have "other discussion" areas much like we do here, the problem of programing the undo delete/undo edit is a bit beyond my skill set, if there was a record kept and they could be undone it could lead to wars, but it could also lead to a equilibrium where if you are making ridiculous edits or bans you will be banned by the community. a parallel to the armed society is a polite society concept..
Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:33 pm
Eventually the residents of the building got tired of this and asked for a voluntary contribution from every household to pay for a private security company to have their squad car come by several times a day.
This cost, IIRC, $30 per household per month. With a hundred apartments to contribute, that came out to enough to pay the security company.
They had no way to compel payment, but enough did contribute anyway to make it work.
The muggings stopped.
You can claim that this (very cool story) is voluntary enrollment in protection, but I disagree.
I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that not only did the "non contributing" members get slower service, but they might have also had a few more random broken windows.
I'm not judging - I think that sort of enterprise will always arise to fill a need - but it won't be based on altruism. And if some of the locals need to be nudged to contribute... it will happen. Call it marketing. It's just good business.
I can guarantee you there were no broken windows due to not contributing.
For one thing, it was a high-rise apartment building with no apartment windows on the ground floor, so that would have been very difficult to arrange.
Secondly, the problem wasn't even broken windows in the first place; it was old ladies getting mugged as they went in and out of the building.
And thirdly, the service wasn't personal and they didn't call for it when the problem occurred; it was a security detail that came around the front of the building at random intervals.
Other than that, good guess!
Okay Tech. I can believe all of that. Especially in a tight knit community - where the youngins looked out for the elders.
Do you want your payment in dollars or doughnuts
More thoughts on the "anarchic forum": somebody has to run the server.
If everybody has the keys to the server, then you lose the ability to see what different people did and to undo something someone has done. Anybody with access to the server has complete access to do absolutely anything, including push the nuclear button and the site is gone.
Potentially the group could hire an outside party to run the server. Of course there are many issues with that. One is, who pays? (In fact that's an issue regardless of who manages the server.) It seems like the people paid to manage the server would have to be "in on it", in that they could only take action when some percentage of the membership agreed. Then you have to decide who gets a vote, what the thresholds are, etc etc. All this is getting uncomfortably close to a government, but I don't see much way around it.
Simonjester wrote:
i think admin and server functions would be kept in the hands of the founders/and programmers, there would undoubtedly be a breaking in period where forum and mod control setup would be a bit in flux as they get set up to best represent an anarchist "no government" space, and this would involve some philosophy vs what is possible discussions to sort out. once the setup is complete the admin/programmers have to be into the experiment enough to take a hands off, updates and maintenance only role.. after that any improvements or changes to the space would need to be discuses and ramifications considered.. essentially the admin is a non active position and if the founders/programmers are active it should only be with a second "equal to all" mod account..
cost might be an issue, i have no idea what domain registration and server space cost but if it was in my budget i would cover it.. or accept donations from interested participants.
As a practical matter, yes, those issues can be overcome.
But philosophically, the actual situation is that the forum has no government as long as the person who's actually in charge allows it to. So... Is there really nobody in charge?
In fact that person would be the person to get sued/prosecuted/whatever if copyright violations, pornography, who knows what else ends up on the site.
Simonjester wrote:
well its an experiment to find out what happens in an anarchist society, so yes they should be "nobody in charge" because the people setting it up want to see if the principals hold up in practice..
liability is an issue.. and i am not sure how that would be dealt with if it came down to a tangle with the law and order world that the forum must exist in, (any lawyers in the house?)
practical reality is that responsible party's (and everybody else) would be able to delete fix most problems with there -in experiment- mod account, but if the forum went full "chaos anarchy" and was over run with illegal crap, the experiment would be over and need to be shut down or rethought...
Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 08, 2020 9:33 pm
Eventually the residents of the building got tired of this and asked for a voluntary contribution from every household to pay for a private security company to have their squad car come by several times a day.
This cost, IIRC, $30 per household per month. With a hundred apartments to contribute, that came out to enough to pay the security company.
They had no way to compel payment, but enough did contribute anyway to make it work.
The muggings stopped.
You can claim that this (very cool story) is voluntary enrollment in protection, but I disagree.
I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that not only did the "non contributing" members get slower service, but they might have also had a few more random broken windows.
I'm not judging - I think that sort of enterprise will always arise to fill a need - but it won't be based on altruism. And if some of the locals need to be nudged to contribute... it will happen. Call it marketing. It's just good business.
I can guarantee you there were no broken windows due to not contributing.
For one thing, it was a high-rise apartment building with no apartment windows on the ground floor, so that would have been very difficult to arrange.
Secondly, the problem wasn't even broken windows in the first place; it was old ladies getting mugged as they went in and out of the building.
And thirdly, the service wasn't personal and they didn't call for it when the problem occurred; it was a security detail that came around the front of the building at random intervals.
Other than that, good guess!
Okay Tech. I can believe all of that. Especially in a tight knit community - where the youngins looked out for the elders.
Do you want your payment in dollars or doughnuts
Mark
You can buy me a doughnut the next time you come through East Texas.
Xan wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2020 8:42 am
More thoughts on the "anarchic forum": somebody has to run the server.
If everybody has the keys to the server, then you lose the ability to see what different people did and to undo something someone has done. Anybody with access to the server has complete access to do absolutely anything, including push the nuclear button and the site is gone.
Potentially the group could hire an outside party to run the server. Of course there are many issues with that. One is, who pays? (In fact that's an issue regardless of who manages the server.) It seems like the people paid to manage the server would have to be "in on it", in that they could only take action when some percentage of the membership agreed. Then you have to decide who gets a vote, what the thresholds are, etc etc. All this is getting uncomfortably close to a government, but I don't see much way around it.
Anarchy doesn't mean "no rules", it means "no rulers".
Any community, whether in real life or online, must have rules.
So the question is not whether there are rules, but whether some of the participants get to make or enforce the rules without the other participants' continuing agreement.
Sorry, I didn't read it before commenting but I remember reading it a long time ago when I was transitioning from what I guess you would call a "conservative" to a libertarian or even an anarcho-capitalist.
I'm going back the other way now and it's not because these aren't good ideas that might even work in practice. It's because they aren't going to happen. It's like the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Nice ideas but not of much value in the real world. Try turning the other cheek when someone hits you in the face and see how well it works.
pp4me wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2020 8:04 am
Sorry, I didn't read it before commenting but I remember reading it a long time ago when I was transitioning from what I guess you would call a "conservative" to a libertarian or even an anarcho-capitalist.
I'm going back the other way now and it's not because these aren't good ideas that might even work in practice. It's because they aren't going to happen. It's like the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament. Nice ideas but not of much value in the real world. Try turning the other cheek when someone hits you in the face and see how well it works.
I'm not sure exactly what "going back the other way" means.
I say this because I'm an anarcho-capitalist but I'm also realistic.
That is, I realize that my ideals are not likely to be realized in the real world any time in my lifetime.
But that doesn't mean they aren't my ideals any more; it just means I have to accept that I won't see them realized.
Does this describe your position at all well?
Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:11 am
You can buy me a doughnut the next time you come through East Texas.
For some reason I felt like Texas had a oddly-large number of donut shops when I lived there. Looking back now, I realize it was the appropriate amount of donut shops.
Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:11 am
You can buy me a doughnut the next time you come through East Texas.
For some reason I felt like Texas had a oddly-large number of donut shops when I lived there. Looking back now, I realize it was the appropriate amount of donut shops.
It does seem to be necessary to help a lot of Texans to retain their figures.
i was blown away on a road trip across Texas from the western border to Dallas by the absolute saturation of dairy-queen franchises, there is one at every crossroads big enough to have a town name, and two in every town that was longer than a 1/4 mile...
-Government 2020+ - a BANANA REPUBLIC - if you can keep it
-Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence
l82start wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2020 10:28 am
i was blown away on a road trip across Texas from the western border to Dallas by the absolute saturation of dairy-queen franchises, there is one at every crossroads big enough to have a town name, and two in every town that was longer than a 1/4 mile...
We used to go to DQ once in awhile.
Then Susan got shigella after stopping at a DQ on the way back home from Houston (or maybe Austin, I forget).
That was the end of that.
i m not a big fan of soft serve ice-cream, that crap they make from powder does not digest well in my system, even without shigella ..yuck.. real ice-cream i do just fine with, but a milkshake or malt made that way has become rare..
-Government 2020+ - a BANANA REPUBLIC - if you can keep it
-Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence
