Anarchy
Anarchy means "rulerless". An + archy, simply means "without" + "ruler". It means to live a life without external rulers or masters over our lives.
Anarchy does not mean without rules or law. Moral Truth/Law has rules for conduct that is part of life, that we can come to objectively understand base don how our actions affect others in a negative way.
Anarchy means there is no centralized power structure that is external authority to control and coerce us into submitting to it's immoral will, be it an individual or collective will. There is no ruler over our lives. We are free to rule over our own lives, so long as we respect Moral Law.
Many people fear anarchy as meaning chaos. Anarchy can become chaos when people don't have the evolved consciousness to seek to understand, embrace, embody and live in the Moral Truth/Law.
When Moral Truth/Law is ignored, denied, dismissed, rejected and deflected as the capital and currency for how we live, then we don't get a moral way of life where right is might. We get an immoral way of life where anyone can do whatever they want, a pseudo false "freedom" to be "free" from rules and the law of morality.
This most often results in whoever has the might decides what is falsely "right", as "might is right". This is when we have rulers ruling over us, instead of us ruling ourselves. This is not anarchy, this is chaos of a false "order" imposed upon us through the force of violence.
Anarchy is the starting point to potentially produce real order, not the pseudo-"order" of external control through an authoritarian centralized body to govern our life.
That is all anarchy promises, the potential to be free and create real, authentic and true order in the world. Statism is not real order, it's control giving the illusion of "good" and "order".
After this is understood, then we can progress to understand beyond the simplified removal of coercive rulers and masters over our lives that invent "laws" to control and manipulate us. To actually get anarchy to work, requires us to live in greater comprehension of morality, the real Law.
If you only remove rulers and masters of one kind, and ignore rules and law of morality, then you will end up going full circle, and revolve back to others imposing their might as right again to control others immorally. Revolutions often simply revolve and move things around where life doesn't really change, or they get worst. Why? Because the consciousness of the people does not change to understand how to live free. They just get more rulers and masters over their lives.
Steemit
Steemit is based on an anarchistic model, but not exactly like one society can be. There is a coded, ruled, structured platform and environment in virtual reality. Those of us who join this community don't directly make the code, rules and functionality.
Steemit is a virtual environment, not a real environment in reality where we actually have direct control. Virtual reality is not actual reality. Despite this, Steemit is a community and we all have an influence to get things changed.
In a society, we can all enact direct control over how our own lives work, and how society works. We establish the rules and how society will function, good or bad, together. On Steemit, we are on a platform where we are not the coders, we don't make the rules directly. We use a service, we don't create and manage the administration and changes to the service ourselves. There is a degree of separation from our ability to change the "way of life" on Steemit, compared to simplified anarchistic real world living.
Steemit can't operate the same way as physical reality, where we can take actions directly ourselves to change how things work in a free anarchistic way. But we can still take actions in a virtual community, to speak and voice what we like or dislike and influence change. Those who run the system, we can call them a "council" (@dantheman, @ned and the witnesses) of the system, will listen to what the people in the virtual community are saying. At least @dantheman and @ned do, some of the witnesses (and whales) not so much it seems.
If they didn't listen, it would essentially mean the people in the virtual community have no power at all to affect change. People would then leave since nothing would change. Then Steemit would progressively become worth less. We can bring issues to their attention, but we need patience as well. Some people are impatient and seem to "expect" or "demand" the changes they want to happen immediately.
In our real physical reality, with coercive authoritarian government, we can't just leave our homes, our lives, and go try to make things better somewhere else. Government is everywhere. We don't have freedom of choice to join or leave the system of governance on this planet. Maybe some governments are better or less worse...
On Steemit, we can just leave if we don't like it. This is freedom. This is anarchistic. We can choose to not be part of it. However, I don't recommend that. The real world woks differently. Government is everywhere. We can't just leave it's grasp and control to be free.
As you can see from some of the recent changes, new functionality and changes are being implemented to try to make things more equitable in the power structure of influence over voting and payouts. Fine tuning is being made as we progress as a community.
And those that got in earlier, like any free market investment, get more out of it as the success grows. This doesn't mean they do care, or did care, for Steemit itself, but may have only been interested in the economic exploitation of a new startup. Now that the platform is having issues, they may also be trying to sabotage the "spirit" of the Steemit community and milk, siphon and fleece the system for as much wealth that they can get, which is helping to take Steemit down.
Don't forget Steemit is still new. It's an experimental platform with much to discover and learn about.
This is a revolutionary platform that is using the blockchain open access to information. There are no state authoritarian rulers and masters over our lives coercing us with a gangster thug mafia operation like government does. This is anarchistic. We can join at our own free will choice, and we can leave at our free will choice. If you want to invest and leave later, that's your choice. No one is forcing you to stay or invest. This is a virtual environment, not a real world physical geographical environment where you must survive in, and lack freedom to leave, if you don't like it.
The "council" of people who are responsible for listening to the community and changing the platform, are indeed listening and making changes, for the most part. The success of Steemit will depend on us all being more responsible for our actions, to join or leave, and to speak rationally with requests, or irrationally with demands or threats.
Life isn't always fair, and this applies to Steemit as well. We can all work together to help make things more fair though. Some good changes are coming for Steemit that will help everyone and eventually deal with misuse of voting power to favor bots, AI's and selective voting lists getting most of the Steemit daily pool payouts. There are some people who want to cheat the system, and the rest of us have to step up to defend the platform and it's integrity.
The bad apples of witnesses and whales will be dealt with as they are exposed, hopefully by all of us as a community dealing with them. We can shun, ostracize and eventually expel them by our collective power as a united community to defend and uphold the "spirit" of what Steemit should be. This is a valid part of a free honorable anarchistic community to deal with those who act against the "spirit" of the community. People working together and uniting in the common sense goal of truth, good and what is right, is what anarchy allows to happen in a free society.
Some upcoming changes that will deal with addressing this are "curation guilds" that people can lend out their SP and have others judge and vote content for them. There are great things being developed behind the scenes. Some people have already went forward with a verification system that will help eventually remove AI's and bots from gaming the system. Steemit is for humans to be rewarded for work and content created by humans, not bots.
As Steemit grows, the community will grow to have more direct influence over the platform. The "council" is there to help us do this and make sure abuse and misuse does not occur in the early development and experimental stages of Steemit. They do listen to the community. It takes time to get things setup right, more correct and better.
We can create an increasingly anarchistic model and functionality in a virtual community, so long as we adhere to moral basics, and also increase our moral understanding to individually and collectively evolve. Creating a virtual anarchistic social model can then be reflected back out into real world society. Anarch-istic. -istic: "of or pertaining to", not necessarily 100% anarchy, but increasing towards that ideal.
Steemit is a community of people collaborating and working to build something together, from a social communications platform, to apps, a marketplace, selling products and services, and more. We are all in this together. We can make a visionary model for a better future that starts in a virtual community where we can more easily connect. Then apply it in the real world as a refined model that has been tested to work.
The merits of our work done here can change the world. An alternate future currency of the real world can mirror what we are doing on Steemit, and be more meritocratic, based on a reputation that allows us to trust one another for our social and other interactions, such as economic interactions.
Steemit succeeds if we make it succeed!
Thank you for reading! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.
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Author: Kris Nelson / @krnel
Contact: [email protected]
Date: 2016-09-22, 8:30am EST
I think that it is the alpha version of a model of digital governance, and there will be more to come in the future, though I doubt that the immediate up-and-comers have got this in mind or in their design.
I was pleased to read about some of the upcoming changes. How to implement a turing test on a blockchain is a little bit of a puzzle, but by no means unresolvable. I mean even the one of constructing simple math puzzles entirely in natural language works. Of course the bot-herders will most likely adapt and apply AI systems to this, as well as more malicious hijacks of other sites to solve the puzzles, but to diminish the influence of automated account activity would be great. Also, the lending of SP to good, small curators.
I envision that eventually, governance of Steem will not require active participation of the founders, who will find ways to use the corporate-democratic system of stake based voting to direct development and hosting of services. I know if I was a founder, I would want to eventually be able to put this into a system that automatically put it in the hands of the most capable and efficient operators, and just sit back and rake in the rewards, and move onto something new.
Yup, that's where it is headed. Ned and Dan have that eventual goal from what I hear them say.
@krnel
Steemit is not anarchic. Not by a longshot. I debunk every single point you make here. Steemit so far is based on inherited plutocracy.
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@kyriacos/no-steemit-is-not-anarchic-so-what-is-it
Ha! Trick's on you! I see you made a whopping $3.65 on your post. How is that possible in a plutocracy? /sarc
@richhersey
it actually proves my point. Much like the outside world people suck up to those who support their view. the only difference is that in here instead of statist sheeple you have anarchic sheeple.
Yes, a plutocracy. In real life, plutocratic societies are rife with poverty, illiteracy and disease. The 50 whales that rule over the krill would require an army and a secret police to hang on to power... and avoid being killed in a popular uprising.
85% of people in Steemit earn less that a dollar per post.
do the math
This post is very interesting, but I have to agree with @kyriacos, Steemit is currently plutocracy.
Also, I would not consider a social media platform as a model for real-life management of human societies, where many other factors are involved.
Great post.
Exactly. They are continually working on improvements. It is a matter of patience and perseverance.
Right and Steemit can't be expected to solve all the problems of real life overnight if at all. It is just silly to expect that.
"If you don't like it, you can just leave." It's something people tell anarchists all the time. But this isn't ever really an option under statism. With a blockchain, that's how true value is obtained.
You can't leave the world where there is government everywhere, indeed. Were you objecting to that reality of Steemit and the virtual world? Read the context it was written in...? Real world not virtual world. You can't leave the real world problems, you are coerced. Virtual world, you join and leave freely, no coercion. this doesn't mean you can't stick around and try to change things...
I was not objecting to what you wrote. I was objecting to how statists try to justify their position with the quip "just leave." Juxtapose to blockchain technologies where this is a real option.
Ok, good hehe, I was thinking you could have been saying either way. As I understood "With a blockchain, that's how true value is obtained" to mean with the blockchain the value is in being able to leave or stay? So I got confused. Thanks.
Not sure I agree, but resteemed, upvoted, and shared on
https://steemit.chat/channel/Libertarian
I think it is worth the discussion. Thanks!
Thanks.
Steemit will succeed but it's not because he offers an anarchic model. He will succeed because people receive a reward and reputation. Anarchist is attractive for a small community but a repellent for a majority.
I can quit any organization, I am free and I am not an anarchist.
No you're not. You are coerced into government statist authoritarian control of your life, and you can't just "leave". Why is this so hard to understand? Read the post properly. Understand what anarchy is. Thanks.
We live on planet Earth and I think it is real. Men live in "Survival" mode. There will always be, I think, groups who want to govern people they are: humanist, dictator, republican, democrat, religion, environmentalist, anarchist, criminal, mafia, etc .. and others who will suffer or who accept this governance. But it is possible to improve the relationship between governors and governed
I think you may have misunderstood the point of anarchism. How do you add that an individual who wants anarchy, seeks to govern others? How can this not be an obvious oxymoron? If an anarchist wants to govern others, he then no longer is an anarchist but something else. So "anarchists" can not be the proper word for what you meant, unless of course you have misunderstood it.
If what @transparency said is true, is that the model and what is the difference?
Thanks for the etymological clarification, but its' inconsequential. It still doesn't change the reality of one, two, three or more rulers over our life and the principle of anarchy to divorce ourselves from that.
You're point is moot and irrelevant to make your case.
Peace.
You still can't get out of your myopic fixation to understand one or more rulers still applies to the understanding of what anarchy means. Stay stuck in your rigidity. Nice job turning into a troll. Peace.
"Difficult" words? What?
You're very confused on what the state is and what anarchy is. Take it from the grandfather of modern anarchism Michail Bakunin:
Stop trolling your arrogant ignorance. I have enough with one troll who keeps targeting me. Go back under your bridge.