this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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[–] Allero@lemmy.today 59 points 2 months ago (8 children)

The scariest part is that real world is, in fact, a hardcore free-for-all PvP realm.

I'm not talking competition or something. A random person can absolutely come to you at any time, stab or shoot you and you'll be dead. Forever. No respawns.

It's only because people don't really like being murdered that led them to make and enforce rules on what violence is legitimate that curbed the violence. But even still, anytime, anywhere, by anyone, you can absolutely be killed. And if one day something breaks in the chain that makes police work, we're super screwed.

[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 58 points 2 months ago (4 children)

It's not the police that keep us from killing each other, or even laws that do so. Check out law and authority sometime if you're able. It's very short and worth a read. We don't kill each other because we don't enjoy being killed or killing. We're social creatures, and don't want to be shunned. Crimes of passion don't really change based on laws, but the way we organize society may actually be increasing the number of murders, because some people are desperate enough to kill for food or shelter

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I read half of it. It seems to overidealize the pre-law era to a large degree. Before law we had mass slavery, constant raiding of nearby tribes and nothing to prevent anybody from taking everything from a person. There is definitely a case where laws can become draconian and force people to break them but I'd argue that in most countries law prevent more unwanted behavior than cause it.

This especially doesn't apply in modern times since you just need one person to create a private mercenary group to essentially create a mini kingdom within a loosely organised society. That person will very quickly be able to form a successful dictatorship by raiding, enslaving and demanding tribute from nearby settlements.

Even a laissez faire government with everything legal except violence will essentially make it legal to dump toxic waste on your front lawn everywhere without policing and laws. Toxic waste is currently being dumped with laws just under woefully loose law and I'd argue that we need more laws and regulation to prevent people from doing so.

I feel like anarchist theory quickly forgets that we had anarchy before law and people quickly formed kingdoms around settlements to defend themselves and aggressive kingdoms where more successful than passive ones.

[–] nforminvasion@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

When did we possibly have anarchy before law? Genuinely

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Up to first civilizations, and practically also up to, like, XIX-XX centuries in many rural areas.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anarchism just won't work lol. People will band together, larger groups would survive and whoops! It's countries all over again

[–] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anarchism is a lot of work negotiating, setting standards and consequences, balancing forces. Constant politics without an overarching state. Any concentration of capability for violence or resource to be shared must be extremely carefully handled.

What you are describing is warlords filling a political vacuum caused by chaos.

Someone has been misrepresenting anarchism to you.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think the point he's making is that anarchism is one big power vacuum and those are usually filled with warlords and power brokers. Anarchism can still exist within a state such as Christiania in Denmark and from what I've heard it works pretty well.

[–] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago

It does seem like a power vacuum if you are fully convinced that power needs to be centralized.

I am reminding the thread that the absence of distributed power is chaos, not anarchism.

Anarchism is anything BUT a power vacuum. All the power is carefully doled out via negotiation and in no way lacking.

Strong propaganda is devoted to supporting your presumption that power only exists when concentrated, so it does feel natural and common sense to say that.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 1 points 2 months ago

Is state enforced anarchism really anarchist?

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Really, you can replace police and laws with any form of more or less organized sanctions against the perpetrators.

Law and authority is a good read, but it shows exactly that - without centralized power, people do (and, according to Kropotkin, people should) put system of unwritten controls all by themselves. And that keeps us from sliding into the savage world where everyone preys on one another. But if something breaks in this chain, if we accept the violence against one another, we'll get extinct very rapidly.

[–] TheLastOfHisName@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Will always upvote Kropotkin.

[–] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's only because people don't really like being murdered that...

No it's also, and more importantly, because people don't like murdering

[–] humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If not for people’s negative feelings toward being murdered, I would only take <1% of people enjoying murdering for it to be an extinction-level problem.

[–] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Such an incredibly small number of people want to murder that, even though it would only take <1% of people to get rid of the whole population, we are nowhere near that.

[–] humorlessrepost@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I’m genuinely curious what that number would be if we removed any stigma from admitting to it. I’m having trouble finding reliable numbers for sociopathy, but my unreliable memory from reading The Sociopath Nextdoor was 5% of the population are sociopaths, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable that 20% of those would have people they’d kill if there were no consequences for doing so.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And if one day something breaks in the chain that makes police work, we’re super screwed.

Sad USA noises

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

I quoted that exact part in a reply before I saw yours. What part of fantasy land is this person from?

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No respawns.

I mean, maybe we respawn on a different server.

[–] hakunawazo@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah... as a different material. Some wood, stone, grass or a few water molecules dilluted in an ocean. With more luck maybe as a different lesser species.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago
[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 2 months ago

You can get banned for team killing.

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not only can they PK, they can cripple you for life. You can be completely fucked way worse than 'just' dying.

[–] bamfic@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Already long broken for people of color

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And if one day something breaks in the chain that makes police work...

Are you a time traveler?