Introduction
I was wondering what people here have thought about primitivism (using less technology) and anarchism (there being less to no "government")
I was thinking about these topics when thinking about the political ideology of the USA for the Memorial day holiday weekend
As a teenager, the experience of "American freedom" was enjoyable, so I considered the idea of "anarchism" or taking "liberty" to its full logical extent to be possibly desirable
I think for me the idea of the old American less inhabited frontier seemed attractive, of someone having a plot of land and being self-sufficient ("individualist anarchism")
This kind of vision would only work somewhat with less technology (leaning in a "primitivism" direction), for if you need to make use of more developed machines, you become dependent on a complex network of people producing the machines
Anarcho-Capitalism
Eventually I was confronted with perhaps some of the naive views of "anarchism": for example, if there is no law against it, could someone just attack you and take all your things?
However, it was suggested in response, that if someone is "free" to do this, someone is also "free" to respond with self-defense; at this point, mere "anarchy" seems to transform into more of the vision of "anarcho-capitalism", or something like government entities existing without you having to have one central government
Because, in such a scenario, you would also be "free" to team up with friends to form something of a police force, of rules (laws) you agree to commonly, and of other such functions that we have centralized governments perform for us today
So, even if it is technically "anarchy", or there is no one single government, still it seems "naive anarchy" resolves to something of a "decentralized 'State'" existing - it's just not one entity, but it may be a collection of entities that we might group together and view as a "State" in one area
I guess a question is about if this is viable or desirable today ("anarcho-capitalism")
Such "anarcho-capitalists" (ancaps) I've seen frequently suggest that this would do away with taxes, which are involuntary costs paid to a government; however, while you might be "free" from paying for a police force to exist, in practice you'd probably want police protection, and hence would pay a fee that is like a "tax" that is somewhat involuntarily imposed upon you by the state of nature of needing police help
Objection Example: What About the Children?
Certainly if you consider a lot of objections against "anarchy", one for example might come up that children might lack protections that exist under a government
I concede that this could be an issue, but on the other hand it seems like even with a big State we end up with legalized abortion and plenty of abuse happening (whether by organized elites, or a common person) - so I'm not sure more abuses of children would or wouldn't exist (and I would enjoy hearing people's thoughts)
Technological Dictatorship
But I guess my question is about if we ought to move our government in the USA more towards smaller government (minarchy) or no government (anarchy), or about what goals exist for the development of our country going forward
Are we instead moving towards bigger government and more dependence on technology ("technological dictatorship") and is this process somewhat inevitable?
Big corporations buy up smaller companies and grow even larger; States acquire new territories (like Trump eyeing up Greenland and Canada) to become larger; we keep building up a bigger global technological "machine", now powered by many datacenters to run AI programs
So is resistance to this movement towards "One Technological World Government" just a temporary measure before inevitable "End Times" that will come, and to what extent is it desirable to form smaller operations (small companies which are subject to going out of business towards larger corporations, or smaller governments or entities which are subject to warfare by larger States, or primitive lifestyles which are subject to being forcibly disrupted by technological developments?)
Conclusion
In our current political situation, a lot of us have "tribally" rallied around MAGA with Trump as the leader (not everyone on ConPro, lol), as we face many who don't share our values teaming up to bring us towards some other "vision" of what society should be; but I guess I was wondering what people think the ideal vision is to work towards in the face of the threat of "technological dictatorship" and if something of "anarchist primitivism" in contrast is desirable or an extreme to avoid, with a "lower tech small government" kind of situation being advocated for, or even something else entirely
I was wondering what people here have thought about primitivism (using less technology) and anarchism (there being less to no "government")
I was thinking about these topics when thinking about the political ideology of the USA for the Memorial day holiday weekend
As a teenager, the experience of "American freedom" was enjoyable, so I considered the idea of "anarchism" or taking "liberty" to its full logical extent to be possibly desirable
I think for me the idea of the old American less inhabited frontier seemed attractive, of someone having a plot of land and being self-sufficient ("individualist anarchism")
This kind of vision would only work somewhat with less technology (leaning in a "primitivism" direction), for if you need to make use of more developed machines, you become dependent on a complex network of people producing the machines
Anarcho-Capitalism
Eventually I was confronted with perhaps some of the naive views of "anarchism": for example, if there is no law against it, could someone just attack you and take all your things?
However, it was suggested in response, that if someone is "free" to do this, someone is also "free" to respond with self-defense; at this point, mere "anarchy" seems to transform into more of the vision of "anarcho-capitalism", or something like government entities existing without you having to have one central government
Because, in such a scenario, you would also be "free" to team up with friends to form something of a police force, of rules (laws) you agree to commonly, and of other such functions that we have centralized governments perform for us today
So, even if it is technically "anarchy", or there is no one single government, still it seems "naive anarchy" resolves to something of a "decentralized 'State'" existing - it's just not one entity, but it may be a collection of entities that we might group together and view as a "State" in one area
I guess a question is about if this is viable or desirable today ("anarcho-capitalism")
Such "anarcho-capitalists" (ancaps) I've seen frequently suggest that this would do away with taxes, which are involuntary costs paid to a government; however, while you might be "free" from paying for a police force to exist, in practice you'd probably want police protection, and hence would pay a fee that is like a "tax" that is somewhat involuntarily imposed upon you by the state of nature of needing police help
Objection Example: What About the Children?
Certainly if you consider a lot of objections against "anarchy", one for example might come up that children might lack protections that exist under a government
I concede that this could be an issue, but on the other hand it seems like even with a big State we end up with legalized abortion and plenty of abuse happening (whether by organized elites, or a common person) - so I'm not sure more abuses of children would or wouldn't exist (and I would enjoy hearing people's thoughts)
Technological Dictatorship
But I guess my question is about if we ought to move our government in the USA more towards smaller government (minarchy) or no government (anarchy), or about what goals exist for the development of our country going forward
Are we instead moving towards bigger government and more dependence on technology ("technological dictatorship") and is this process somewhat inevitable?
Big corporations buy up smaller companies and grow even larger; States acquire new territories (like Trump eyeing up Greenland and Canada) to become larger; we keep building up a bigger global technological "machine", now powered by many datacenters to run AI programs
So is resistance to this movement towards "One Technological World Government" just a temporary measure before inevitable "End Times" that will come, and to what extent is it desirable to form smaller operations (small companies which are subject to going out of business towards larger corporations, or smaller governments or entities which are subject to warfare by larger States, or primitive lifestyles which are subject to being forcibly disrupted by technological developments?)
Conclusion
In our current political situation, a lot of us have "tribally" rallied around MAGA with Trump as the leader (not everyone on ConPro, lol), as we face many who don't share our values teaming up to bring us towards some other "vision" of what society should be; but I guess I was wondering what people think the ideal vision is to work towards in the face of the threat of "technological dictatorship" and if something of "anarchist primitivism" in contrast is desirable or an extreme to avoid, with a "lower tech small government" kind of situation being advocated for, or even something else entirely
