McCarthy, Dixie Chicks & the New Economy

Thu, 2013-03-14 04:37

#2

Smokeskin

A few things go against the

A few things go against the manipulation idea. For one, there's little real poverty, so "bribe based" political systems like socialism has a hard time getting off the ground. Second, there's a strong autonomist culture, so morality based influencing will also be hard. These things make it hard for a demagogue to sweep up the population. And I really don't get why people say the anarchists are without flaw. They have plenty of flaws, and they're mentioned constantly. Low security. Strange neighbors. Very little power. They just don't have poverty and restrictions.

Thu, 2013-03-14 12:37

#3

bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture

also, getting a large number

also, getting a large number of anarchists to agree on anything requires a direct threat, like the TITANs or hypercorps. And then getting them to act in a unified fashion? Ha! Anarchists are great at running guerilla campaigns and black ops types that depend on a small group taking individual initiative. But in an actual war, they lack strategic cohesion (except for the Titanians, who have actually created an organized military). And when there isn't a direct threat? You know that old joke about opinions and rabbis? To determine the number of opinions in a room of rabbis, take the number of rabbis, add one and square the resulting number. Anarchists are fractitious--at best. Only the fact that voting with one's feet (i.e. egocasting to a habitat or locale that one is comfortable with) is relatively uncomplicated helps with keeping down internal conflict (in addition to the unifying threat of the hypercorps). The self-absorbed and/or egocentric go off to join the scum, the ones that need some form of formalized social structure go off to join the Titaninans, and the ones that still want to play with money go off to join the Extropians, and the anarchists themselves will create echo-chamber habs, surrounded with people who agree with them. So there's alot of internal division among the autonomists, with internal conflict kept down by distance, an actual threat to help keep them "unified" or at least allied, and a range of actual choices--meaning that the only ones that stay as "anarchists" are the ones who have decided for themselves to stay and try to make it work. This means that these people have emotionally invested in trying to make it work, and that's a powerful motivator for actually trying to make it work. (Of course, the same goes for members of any other faction in the setting, including the hypercorps, with the obvious exceptions of the clanking masses and indentures) Also, remember, in anarchist habs, there's no law, no higher authority beyond "The People", no book of laws, no constitution, no formal authority, and so forth. The only thing standing between them and utter chaos (not anarchy, ha!) is the simple fact that they've all agreed... not to. They've all agreed to a social compact, a gentleman's agreement as it were, to treat other people with dignity. Does this mean that they're immune to being fooled? No. Does this mean that they won't fall for a silver-tongued liar? If he has a convincing story, no. But there's no police (aside from the self-appointed), no institutionalized social justice system, just a bunch of people. So, if you get screwed over, it is either up to you, some people that you've convinced to help you, or, in extremely egregious cases, the community, to redress the wrong. And there are still the weak and helpless in anarchist habs that others can prey upon--the ones with low @-rep, who no one will believe, who no one knows, who no one cares about... these are the losers and loners and freaks of the anarchists, the ones who won't--or can't--leave for places where they'll be more accepted, and can't fit in with the community of anarchy. Perfect? No. Space elves? Hell no. Easily mistaken as such by our early-21st century experiences? Yes.

—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

Thu, 2013-03-14 13:16

#4

Decimator

Funny thing is, McCarthy was

Funny thing is, McCarthy was right. There [i]really were[/i] communist infiltrators all through the US government.

Thu, 2013-03-14 14:04

#5

Lilith

Eh.

Yeah, but that didn't make his methods (or the man himself) any less detestable.

Thu, 2013-03-14 17:05

#6

Ilmarinen

bibliophile20 wrote:. The

bibliophile20 wrote:
The only thing standing between them and utter chaos (not anarchy, ha!) is the simple fact that they've all agreed... not to. They've all agreed to a social compact, a gentleman's agreement as it were, to treat other people with dignity.

Yeah. The fact that they do this and it works out perfectly for them is one of the big reasons they're regarded as space elves.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Thu, 2013-03-14 18:00

#7

bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture

Ilmarinen wrote:bibliophile20

Ilmarinen wrote:
bibliophile20 wrote:
The only thing standing between them and utter chaos (not anarchy, ha!) is the simple fact that they've all agreed... not to. They've all agreed to a social compact, a gentleman's agreement as it were, to treat other people with dignity.
Yeah. The fact that they do this and it works out perfectly for them is one of the big reasons they're regarded as space elves.

I can see that POV, but, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the ones that find that they can't resolve their differences...

mkn wrote:
http://eclipsephase.com/comment/34533#comment-34533 After ten years of TITANs, PC spies, and Jovian battle ships, I suspect most of the grossly dysfunctional communities have, um, had their internal pressure brought to equilibrium with the vaccuum.

I.e. being an ass and dysfunctional is not a survival trait in this setting. Also, as I pointed out, you can vote with your feet (or be voted off...) as a form of social pressure venting. It hardly works perfectly, which, admittedly to me, means that no one would ever have their rep dinged or reduced for honest disagreement, that no one would be forced to relocate because they found "irreconcilable differences" between themselves and the rest of their habitat, and that they would be the clear choice for the majority of transhumanity--which, by the definitions of the setting, they aren't. More than 2/3s of the remainder of transhumanity align with the hypercorps (so about 340,000,000, between Mars, Luna, Venus and Mercury). Of the remaining 160 million, 60,000,000 of them are on Titan, which has its own problems and society, which, while "autonomist," is not "anarchist". Of the remaining 100,000,000, 13 million are on Extropia, Ceres, Profunda, Mimas, Pan, and other Extropian habitats, leaving 87,000,000. Of these, they're scattered around between the scum, ultimates, criminals, Jovians, and, yes, the Anarchists. As for the Anarchists, the largest habitat of theirs that I can find listed being either Janus Commons or Locus, with less than a million people each. Most anarchist habs that I've been able to find with population numbers is listed as having numbers in the hundreds or low thousands. Think about that for a second--the anarchists are tiny, both as a fraction of the total population, and in terms of maximum population size of their habitats. Most anarchists seem to settle in with a small, like-minded group of at most a few thousand people that they are comfortable with, knowing that most of transhumanity thinks of them as terrorists or worse. This gives them a solid in-group cohesion, sociologically speaking. When you're in a small group, surrounded by a hostile environment that will kill you all, horribly and painfully, knowing that your survival requires you to make nice and treat other people around you decently, then most people, not wanting to die horribly, will treat others decently (or be convinced to by their fellows who also don't want to die horribly)--and the ones that don't will die horribly. Remember, knowing that one is to be hanged in the morning does wonders for the concentration. :D Looking forward to continuing this discussion, but I just noticed that I've got a game session in an hour and I still have to have dinner. Ciao!

—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

Fri, 2013-03-15 06:04

#8

Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture

Easy OP: do what I did, and

Easy OP: do what I did, and make your own villains. I introduced these guys a few times in the forums, but lemme regurgitate them here: The Blue Roses, in Rimward, are described as basically retired insurrectionists. In my Eclipse Phase setting, they are very active anarchist insurrections, and can be quite brutal in their methods. To them, overthrowing the "police state inner powers" and freeing the "oppressed underclass" is necessary if transhumanity is to thrive. The Consortium is the greatest threat posed to the Autonomist Alliance, so violently overthrowing them is necessary. So what's it to them if a few hundred hypercorp employees die? They can just be resleeved. And the Jovians? Their government is tyrannical and corrupt, and most of its people backward and bigoted, therefore their lives are moot. The Blue Roses are shunned by most of the Autonomist Alliance, and their exceptionally cold stance towards the Jovians has alienated the Jovian anarchist cells. Still, they have hundreds of active saboteurs, and thousands of supporters. They have no qualms about using anything at their disposal to get their way---nanoplagues, bombs, netwar attacks. In my current campaign, the Blue Roses hurled an asteroid at a Jovian military base that housed hundreds of soldiers. The Firewall sentinels actually coordinated with the Jovian military to stop the attack...barely. Next up I'll be having the Roses use what they think is a virus that will completely cripple a hypercorp research station. It's actually a dormant strain of the exsurgent virus, and the hypercorp research station houses tens of thousands of hypercorp employees and their families. A twist: the anarchist team leaders leading the attack are acutely aware that the nanovirus was made by the TITANs. An exsurgent outbreak on a hypercorp research station? Obviously that means they're in league with the TITANs, or experimenting on their tech. Bad press for the Consortium means a victory for the Outer System. It's interesting because one of the players is an anarchist hacker, and she has a very close friend who is a Blue Rose saboteur. Her character most definitely does not support the Blue Roses, so interesting friction between her and what is essentially her childhood friend. What to gain from this post? Make up your own villains! Amplify the problems with the new economy and the supposedly "utopian" anarchist societies in the outer system when the PCs visit. Absolute freedom is going to make people do some strange things, and not all of them are good things. But don't overdo it. Shades of grey is much more appealing than an overwhelming positive or negative depiction of them.

—

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address

Fri, 2013-03-15 10:30

#9

bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture

Noble Pigeon wrote:Easy OP:

Noble Pigeon wrote:
Easy OP: do what I did, and make your own villains. I introduced these guys a few times in the forums, but lemme regurgitate them here: The Blue Roses, in Rimward,... *snip*

*YOINK* *looks innocent* What? *tries to continue looking innocent while shoving the Blue Roses into his impending campaign notes* I'll cite, I promise! :D

—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

Fri, 2013-03-15 10:52

#10

Ilmarinen

My approach has been a little

My approach has been a little different. You know the guy described in Rimward? The one who got kicked out of an anarchist community for torturing other people's forks? In my version of the setting he's still living there. After all, who would stop him? Who [i]could[/i] stop him? His neighbors certainly have neither time nor the inclination to pay attention to him. They have access to the mesh and unrestricted nanofabbers. As long as he keeps his head down and doesn't mention his activities to anyone, he can keep up his activities basically indefinitely. That plus occasionally an anarchist habitat will simply disappear because someone was doing something they really shouldn't have been doing but could do anyway because there were no safety codes to stop them. Being willing to accept the risks of allowing everyone to use technology however they wish is a worthy concept, but only if those risks occasionally materialize. Otherwise it just looks like there are no risks at all and everyone else is just too dumb to see that.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Fri, 2013-03-15 11:19

#11

Lilith

Ilmarinen wrote:You know the

Ilmarinen wrote:
You know the guy described in Rimward? The one who got kicked out of an anarchist community for torturing other people's forks? In my version of the setting he's still living there. After all, who would stop him? Who [i]could[/i] stop him? His neighbors certainly have neither time nor the inclination to pay attention to him. They have access to the mesh and unrestricted nanofabbers. As long as he keeps his head down and doesn't mention his activities to anyone, he can keep up his activities basically indefinitely.

How does he gets his forks? How does he get the server time (or actual servers) to run his simulspaces for his activities? How does he keep his actions discrete in a habitat where privacy is considered an outdated antiquity? What does he do in the meantime to keep his rep positive to be able to afford the favors to get/do all these things in the first place and not just take up space? The whole point of that excerpt was illustrating that people [i]can[/i] and [i]will[/i] stop undesirable behavior among their community, because they have an inclination to keep their home as a generally nice place to live. I don't know why you would assume they don't have time for that, but Wheaton's Law is a thing out on the Rim, and folks generally abide by it. Your approach seems to miss the point of the excerpt entirely.

Ilmarinen wrote:
That plus occasionally an anarchist habitat will simply disappear because someone was doing something they really shouldn't have been doing but could do anyway because there were no safety codes to stop them. Being willing to accept the risks of allowing everyone to use technology however they wish is a worthy concept, but only if those risks occasionally materialize. Otherwise it just looks like there are no risks at all and everyone else is just too dumb to see that.

You don't really need safety codes when you have public fabbers. If some guy starts trying to fabricate a self-replicating nanovirus or suitcase nuke, people are probably going to at least ask him why before they let him finish. That's not saying accidents don't happen, or that nutjobs don't manage to circumvent security to occasionally blow up habs for shits and giggles, but it's not like safety codes would've prevented things like that any more or less than a group of people trying to protect their home. Besides, Firewall maintains a presence in the Rim for that reason. Anyway, I second Smokeskin's position. This "anarchists are space elves" bullshit is getting dumb now.

Fri, 2013-03-15 11:44

#12

Ilmarinen

Lilith wrote:

Lilith wrote:
The whole point of that excerpt was illustrating that people [i]can[/i] and [i]will[/i] stop undesirable behavior among their community, because they have an inclination to keep their home as a generally nice place to live.

I know. The idea is that all law enforcement is extraneous and "the community" is capable of perfectly handling all social problems without directed effort to do so. I simply don't think that would work.

Lilith wrote:
You don't really need safety codes when you have public fabbers. If some guy starts trying to fabricate a self-replicating nanovirus or suitcase nuke, people are probably going to at least ask him why before they let him finish. That's not saying accidents don't happen, or that nutjobs don't manage to circumvent security to occasionally blow up habs for shits and giggles, but it's not like safety codes would've prevented things like that any more or less than a group of people trying to protect their home.

It's not just about nutjobs and terrorists. It's just that if you don't have building codes, people tend to build unsafe buildings and then get themselves killed.. If you don't have seat belt laws, people tend to get themselves killed that way. If you don't have laws about fabbers, I fully expect people to get themselves killed using fabbers. It's just the law of averages at work.

Lilith wrote:
Anyway, I second Smokeskin's position. This "anarchists are space elves" bullshit is getting dumb now.

It doesn't help when they decided to have each faction of the autonomist alliance be described by someone who loved that specific brand of anarchism while having the other factions be described by people who were at best neutral. If you honestly can't see how the books frequently and overtly try to make anarchism look good, I'm honestly surprised.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Fri, 2013-03-15 12:05

#13

Lilith

"The community" might be able

"The community" might be able to handle problems, but certainly not perfectly. As far as fabbers go, I'm kind of at a loss to imagine how an industrial accident involving someone trying to fab a simple ecto would destroy an entire habitat. Otherwise, the point still doesn't measure up to me ... there's a world of difference between a safe building code and having the sense to buckle up. Even in terms of regulations, those two things just don't equate, and there's a certain degree of common sense at play here. But I'll give in to that point, because I don't really know much about nanofabrication. Anyway, as regards your last point, there's a world of difference between trying to make anarchism look [i]good[/i] (which yes, EP makes no attempt to hide its efforts to do so), and trying to make it look [i]perfect[/i] (which seems to be the opinion of many). It's a type of society that's pretty alien from the norm, so I imagine there would have to be some kind of effort to make it seem appealing, especially to materialistic types (like myself, for example), who balk at the thought of not being able to own wonderful bits of private property. A friend of mine put the difference pretty well (I thought, anyway): Anarchism is like living your ENTIRE LIFE on Reddit. Hypercorp is like living your entire life in the US. Which government would you rather depend on for your daily needs?

Fri, 2013-03-15 14:26

#14

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Decimator wrote:Funny thing

Decimator wrote:
Funny thing is, McCarthy was right. There [i]really were[/i] communist infiltrators all through the US government.

To be fair to the closet commies, many were unfairly painted with the bloody brush of Joseph Stalin's actions.

—

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Fri, 2013-03-15 14:46

#15

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Ilmarinen wrote:My approach

Ilmarinen wrote:
My approach has been a little different. You know the guy described in Rimward? The one who got kicked out of an anarchist community for torturing other people's forks? In my version of the setting he's still living there. After all, who would stop him? Who [i]could[/i] stop him? His neighbors certainly have neither time nor the inclination to pay attention to him. They have access to the mesh and unrestricted nanofabbers. As long as he keeps his head down and doesn't mention his activities to anyone, he can keep up his activities basically indefinitely.

I don't think this is a good example. The guy from Rimward was clearly [i]caught[/i] doing what he was doing. As to suggesting other autonomists have neither the time nor inclination, with unlimited forking and 60x simulspace [i]time is cheap[/i]. Everybody could fork and make a posse very quickly and easily. Even a servitor with an assault rifle is still plenty dangerous (run by say an infomorph fork). You're also assuming nobody in that hab has the type of personality that likes to punish the wicked - when in fact studies show that around 5% of the population will gladly spend x dollars to burn less than x (often far less) dollars of a evildoer's. A posse of offended autonomists could be a truly frightening horde indeed.

Ilmarinen wrote:
That plus occasionally an anarchist habitat will simply disappear because someone was doing something they really shouldn't have been doing but could do anyway because there were no safety codes to stop them. Being willing to accept the risks of allowing everyone to use technology however they wish is a worthy concept, but only if those risks occasionally materialize. Otherwise it just looks like there are no risks at all and everyone else is just too dumb to see that.

This is a good point but wouldn't every single person on that hab have a backup at another hab just in case anyways?

—

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Fri, 2013-03-15 14:58

#16

Ilmarinen

NewtonPulsifer wrote:

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
This is a good point but wouldn't every single person on that hab have a backup at another hab just in case anyways?

Possibly. Still a good illustration of why most societies have restrictions on how many cornucopia machines are lying around and what kind of research you can do in your bedroom. The way anarchists are currently described, they're apparently doing all the risky things everyone in the inner system is too chicken to do and never getting hit by any of the consequences.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Fri, 2013-03-15 15:16

#17

Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture

Anarchism in EP does seem to

Anarchism in EP does seem to be one of those self-selecting sort of lifestyles, where those who are too inept to survive tend to either move or die off reasonably quickly. Ten years is a long time and accidents and violence happen. That said, I've always depicted them in EP for myself as being generally rather tribalistic and generally a bit unpleasant to be around; they're really not happy-go-lucky, they're a bunch of isolationists with a chip on their shoulder about being told what to do and probably swimming in insular memes. When you visit an anarchist station, more than anywhere else in the solar system, you are an outsider and being an outsider is unpleasant at best. To point to the original topic, I imagine that, yes, popular memes can be come awkward to speak out against and that powerful demagogues can have a rather potent sway at times. Rep is generally a fickle bitch-mistress. Rep might provide some sort of a buffer in that it provides an objective measure of "Look how many people think I'm cool!", but, in game terms, I'd at the very least apply a penalty to Rep check rolls for anyone who gets called out by some big name or who breaks a social taboo. A good set of examples would be Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh, and someone accused of pedophilia. Limbaugh is a man of much fame/infamy, who would get a huge Rep boost with some and penalty with others. Fluke is someone whose name would mean very little to the masses if not for Limbaugh's inflaming rhetoric and, because of him, she'd gain a bonus with some and a penalty with others. Someone accused of pedophilia, meanwhile, may or may not be guilty but everyone will look askew at them forever and - while their Rep might not be penalized if they're never found guilty - people might be shy of boosting it or trading favours with them. There are probably plenty of Limbaugh-type personalities out there on every edge of the spectrum, whose word carries an impact in Rep economies; where people might lose positions of power and office and respect in the community because of their strong condemnations. In a Rep economy, this can be potentially deadly. Every community probably has at least one, maybe several, people like this, who spout things that support insular memes and make life more difficult for everyone, and they sit everywhere on the political spectra. To drift to the villain part of the topic, I imagine a lot of anarchist stations have their local bullies and "patriots" who threaten outsiders. I imagine the Titanian Commonwealth is [i]lousy[/i] with nepotistic, self-interested bureaucrats in appointed positions that few people ever think about. I imagine many Scum barges fulfill the awful stereotypes of gypsies; of being thieves and con-artists. I imagine a lot of Extropians are ruthless cut-throats and that their lives are ultimately ones of considering how they will get tomorrow's fuel/food. I also imagine many Martians, Loonies, and Venusians have a happy and delighted existence, where they get to go to work in the day (or work from home), feel productive and happy, enjoy nights out, and come home to friends and/or family. Frankly, it might just be fun to have a thread dedicated to heavily contrasting and comparing the pros and cons of existence in each locale.

—

[img]http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/982/exhumanbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/4473/scumbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1396/gatecrasherbar.jpg[/img] [code][@-rep +1, f-rep +2][/code]

Fri, 2013-03-15 15:52

#18

Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:Lilith wrote:

Ilmarinen wrote:
Lilith wrote:
The whole point of that excerpt was illustrating that people [i]can[/i] and [i]will[/i] stop undesirable behavior among their community, because they have an inclination to keep their home as a generally nice place to live.
I know. The idea is that all law enforcement is extraneous and "the community" is capable of perfectly handling all social problems without directed effort to do so. I simply don't think that would work.

Look, autonomists have institutions. In anarcho-capitalist habs, people have security providers and private courts and whatnot, and you'll get microtorted if you start doing unsafe stuff around people, and more direct action if you actually limit their autonomy or harm them. Other anarchist habs will have tribunals or something like that, and those with the proper mindsight will take the role of enforcers to look out for wrong doing and execute rulings. Read up on anarchism.

Fri, 2013-03-15 16:17

#19

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Cetain rep networks are

Cetain rep networks are likely to have rules about how/what you can ding someone's rep for, I imagine. So it might be explicitly not allowed to ding someone's rep for espousing any sort of belief (say on the research network). Also, there's meta-moderation (to add more complexity). That is, I might be a great guy and help out lots of people (lots of rep boosted by grateful folks) but all of my rep dings on others are small minded and vindictive, or downright misrepresentation to ding the rep of people who hold views I don't like. So I'd likely get "meta-moderated" down by others, to the point where my rep dings don't actually get counted much, or at all. That is my rep ding "power" would actually have its [i]own[/i] rep rating independent of my in-game rep score. It's also possible individuals will choose to run their [i]own[/i] filters overlaid on rep networks, essentially fragmenting the rep network (e.g. ignore all rep dings from friends/followers of shock jock/pundit). This is all rather complex to simulate in a RP setting, however.

—

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Fri, 2013-03-15 17:01

#20

Ilmarinen

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Look, autonomists have institutions. In anarcho-capitalist habs, people have security providers and private courts and whatnot, and you'll get microtorted if you start doing unsafe stuff around people, and more direct action if you actually limit their autonomy or harm them.

I'm aware of this. I have a whole separate list of objections to it, but I'm aware of it.

Smokeskin wrote:
Other anarchist habs will have tribunals or something like that, and those with the proper mindsight will take the role of enforcers to look out for wrong doing and execute rulings.

True enough, but the whole thing seems to be set up in a fairly ad hoc manner.

Smokeskin wrote:
Read up on anarchism.

I have done. That's how I notice that the way anarchism operates in the books is very close to how anarchists describe their system working in their writings. I prefer to make the gap somewhat larger than that - say closer to the difference between how communism is described by communists and how it usually operates.

Axel the Chimeric wrote:
Frankly, it might just be fun to have a thread dedicated to heavily contrasting and comparing the pros and cons of existence in each locale.

I'm in.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Fri, 2013-03-15 17:06

#21

mkn

While the core books

While the core books acknowledge that anarchists can be disorganized and have flaws, they're still the merry rebels who see things just as they are, while various flavors of corporatists and statists flounder in backwards ideologies. It's easy to forget that there are many in Jupiter space and the PC who believe just as passionately that their way, flawed as it may be, is still the best way to preserve tranhumanity. However, ultimately you *are* gming an adventure game, and if you want to explore the abuse of a reputation economy, then go for it. If it doesn't fit with how you want to portray anarachists or new economies, you can make it a unique circumstance. Perhaps the habitat is facing a real existential danger, or the "McCarthy" in your setting has some other goal in mind (besides simply pushing around his fellow egos). Or PC infiltrators are helping to sow divisions. The other thing about small, isolated communities is that a significant disruption can deeply alter the character of a habitat. Perhaps the hab has just gone on a binge of re-instantiating egos rescued from the fall, bringing hundreds of friends and family members back to life. It was great at first, but all these people are scared and used to the way things were on earth. Suddenly, the ground seems fertile for someone ambitious to prey on them.

—

“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.” -William S. Burroughs

Fri, 2013-03-15 17:45

#22

Lilith

mkn wrote:While the core

mkn wrote:
While the core books acknowledge that anarchists can be disorganized and have flaws, they're still the merry rebels who see things just as they are, while various flavors of corporatists and statists flounder in backwards ideologies.

Considering the PC is essentially [i]the[/i] dominant force in the setting, both in terms of clout and raw population numbers, I have to chuckle at the notion of it "floundering" in any sense.

Fri, 2013-03-15 18:03

#23

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Lilith wrote:mkn wrote:While

Lilith wrote:
mkn wrote:
While the core books acknowledge that anarchists can be disorganized and have flaws, they're still the merry rebels who see things just as they are, while various flavors of corporatists and statists flounder in backwards ideologies.
Considering the PC is essentially [i]the[/i] dominant force in the setting, both in terms of clout and raw population numbers, I have to chuckle at the notion of it "floundering" in any sense.

And the Jovians are, over and over again, described as the dominant military power. While the anarchists are basically resigned to being 'not worth our time'. It is in canon that the only reason the other powers haven't wiped them off the map is because it isn't economically viable, and would result in an up swell of domestic terrorism. But yeah, the Anarchists are totally the elves of the setting. If you ignore everything that makes them not the elves of the setting, that is.

—

-

Sat, 2013-03-16 03:56

#24

Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Look, autonomists have institutions. In anarcho-capitalist habs, people have security providers and private courts and whatnot, and you'll get microtorted if you start doing unsafe stuff around people, and more direct action if you actually limit their autonomy or harm them.
I'm aware of this. I have a whole separate list of objections to it, but I'm aware of it.

What objections do you have with anarcho-capitalism?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Other anarchist habs will have tribunals or something like that, and those with the proper mindsight will take the role of enforcers to look out for wrong doing and execute rulings.
True enough, but the whole thing seems to be set up in a fairly ad hoc manner.

Is that a problem? Sure you're not likely to see reaction to the small stuff, and sometimes even the more serious stuff. That's the freedom they have, and the reduced security they have, as pointed out many times in the books. But if you're putting people at the risk to the point they're bothered enough by it to do something about it, they can and will. Anarchism doesn't have a mechanism that prevents people from protecting them from other people either. I'm a member of a liberalist party and one thing I disagree with them on is that they want to repeal the laws against smoking in restaurants. The reason I want to keep the law is that I won't be free to stop people from smoking in my presence. That would be real anarchism.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Read up on anarchism.
I have done. That's how I notice that the way anarchism operates in the books is very close to how anarchists describe their system working in their writings. I prefer to make the gap somewhat larger than that - say closer to the difference between how communism is described by communists and how it usually operates.

I sort of agree, but the two main problems with communism is weak economy and oppression. The (non-anarcho) anarchists have a weak economy too, but with post scarcity tech it isn't much of an issue for the individuals - in fact it is the opposite. The oppressive effects of a state enforcing patent, licensing and production rights are greatly exagerated at post scarcity tech levels. Oppression I don't see as much of an issue either, simply because unlike communism you don't have a strong state with the means to oppress. The main thing they don't seem to touch on much is the uncertainties of anarchist life. You don't know the rules in advance because they get made up as you go. Organizations and services are not stable and predictable (except for ancap habs where market forces work in most cases). That could be a very big issue.

Sat, 2013-03-16 04:19

#25

Ravn

Is this Fox News?

This thing starts to get really tired. Some people really really need to read up on both anarchism and communism (which by the way isn't one monolithic ideology, like people here like to spout). Starting to sound like a Fox News report on anything not corporatism and capitalism around here. CodeBreaker and Lilith is on the ball here.

—

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Sat, 2013-03-16 07:18

#26

Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture

Ravn wrote:This thing starts

Ravn wrote:
This thing starts to get really tired. Some people really really need to read up on both anarchism and communism (which by the way isn't one monolithic ideology, like people here like to spout). Starting to sound like a Fox News report on anything not corporatism and capitalism around here. CodeBreaker and Lilith is on the ball here.

Hold on a second there cowboy. Just because people criticize the bias in Eclipse Phase doesn't suddenly make them huge supporters of Fox News, and it doesn't mean they don't know anything about communism or anarchism. Hell I remember someone on this forum who was a self-described bleeding heart liberal and sympathetic to anarchism and he also agreed that there's a very clear discrepancy on the books' portrayal of capitalist societies vs. new economy societies. My opinion is that the bias is there, and it's borderline preachy at times, even spilling over into a section of the core book that's supposedly not from an in-universe perspective. But that certainly doesn't make me ill informed on what anarchists and communists stand for. I don't want to sound like I'm giving the writers flak. OK maybe I'm giving them a little flak. But they did really well depicting the Jovians in a non cartoonishly evil fashion in Rimward, and in Gatecrashing actually did really well depicting a colony jointly maintained by anarchists and hypercorps. Oh yeah, and that bit about the Consortium Oversight agent was really refreshing. Instead of being a cold, calculating, merciless corporate headhunter, he's depicted as a man who's just doing what he thinks is right.

—

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address

Sat, 2013-03-16 07:38

#27

CodeBreaker CodeBreaker's picture

Noble Pigeon wrote:

Noble Pigeon wrote:
Hold on a second there cowboy. Just because people criticize the bias in Eclipse Phase doesn't suddenly make them huge supporters of Fox News, and it doesn't mean they don't know anything about communism or anarchism. Hell I remember someone on this forum who was a self-described bleeding heart liberal and sympathetic to anarchism and he also agreed that there's a very clear discrepancy on the books' portrayal of capitalist societies vs. new economy societies.

Got to agree here. *I* am a bleeding heart liberal, with a fair few communistic tendencies, and I will agree that there is a bias in the writing on the Anarchists. I just don't think that it is quite as pronounced as some people on these forums find it is. No need to start throwing around epithets, which these days anything to do with Fox News basically is.

—

-

Sat, 2013-03-16 08:18

#28

Ravn

Fair enough

That´s fair enough. But having stayed out of the discussion this far, this is what I see (and please correct me if I'm wrong): I see a group of posters on these forums, complaining about how unfair and bad it is that a really small minority of people in the setting are described (insetting) as happily leading a fairly successfull lifestyle (ingame), a lifestyle that the significant majority would find appalling. A bias? Sure, in my view; a bit, but far from problematic. Not more than any other game with " big corporations" (hyper- or mega-). I'm sure the same setting would be written with a bias if done by some Chicago schooled economists who RPd in their free time. But bias (no matter how small or big) is, in my view, almost impossible to avoid when dealing with real world issues like politics, especially when the ideologies ingame are bleed-overs from our current world. And the "elves of the setting" thing is just ridiculous imo. What would be fun though, is to take this discussion to an ingame thread. Let the hypercapitalists, titanians, jovians and anarchists, slug it out in a political debate. Present your arguments and defend your positions.

—

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Sat, 2013-03-16 11:54

#29

Ilmarinen

Ravn wrote:

Ravn wrote:
I see a group of posters on these forums, complaining about how unfair and bad it is that a really small minority of people in the setting are described (insetting) as happily leading a fairly successfull lifestyle (ingame), a lifestyle that the significant majority would find appalling.

You're understating the problem. First off, their economic system is explicitly described (in the part of a book that's supposed to be totally objective, not an in-character account) as being the best and the one all the other economic systems are drifting towards. Second, their society is consistently described as being freer, less prejudiced, better able to handle its own problems, etc. Before you argue this, please read the 'problems with Anarchism' section in Rimward and then read the equivalent sections for Mars, the Planetary Consortium, or the Jovian Republic. Heck, read the words they used to describe the old nation states. Lastly, the sheer tone used to describe then is always overwhelmingly positive. Any time anything bad is said about them, it's always presented as being the biased or incorrect statements of their opponents. Any time anything bad is said about their opponents, it's presented as an objective fact. In short, the problem's magnitude is greater than what you described by a good bit.

Ravn wrote:
A bias? Sure, in my view; a bit, but far from problematic. Not more than any other game with " big corporations" (hyper- or mega-). I'm sure the same setting would be written with a bias if done by some Chicago schooled economists who RPd in their free time. But bias (no matter how small or big) is, in my view, almost impossible to avoid when dealing with real world issues like politics, especially when the ideologies ingame are bleed-overs from our current world.

Maybe so, but I'd prefer to at least [i]try[/i]. Which, for me, tends to result in a drastically reduced effectiveness of anarchist's ad hoc solutions as well as pruning away some of the worst excesses of other factions (if we take the anarchist line that people are basically good and want to get along, we might as well have it show up outside of anarchist habitats).

Ravn wrote:
What would be fun though, is to take this discussion to an ingame thread. Let the hypercapitalists, titanians, jovians and anarchists, slug it out in a political debate. Present your arguments and defend your positions.

A number of IC threads have done this, including a very nice one on the best way to get a new body. The hypercorp side tends to get represented by people who are actually against the hypercorps, though, and it shows.

Smokeskin wrote:
What objections do you have with anarcho-capitalism?

Well the big one is that the combination of privatized police and conflict resolution through privatized courts that only recognize the laws the person hiring the court wants it to recognize seems like the majority of confrontations would end with shootouts more often than not. Can't have a society unless everyone is at least playing by the same rules, regardless of what they are. Also the continuing suggestion that corporations are only evil once they get past a certain size and business without government restriction can operate perfectly well as long as it's small business. I've had far more negative interactions with small businesses than with large ones.

Smokeskin wrote:
I sort of agree, but the two main problems with communism is weak economy and oppression.

The specific problems aren't the point. The point is that if I took a book written by an anarchist about how he thinks anarchism would work and then compared it to Eclipse Phase, it would basically be a perfect match. The same wouldn't really be the case for any other ideology.

Smokeskin wrote:
The main thing they don't seem to touch on much is the uncertainties of anarchist life. You don't know the rules in advance because they get made up as you go. Organizations and services are not stable and predictable (except for ancap habs where market forces work in most cases). That could be a very big issue.

Also true. When this is touched on in the books at all it's described as being totally the fault of those who can't keep up with the rules, with a patronizing undercurrent which implies they just need to learn better to fully appreciate the glories of the capitalist society.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Sat, 2013-03-16 12:58

#30

Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
What objections do you have with anarcho-capitalism?
Well the big one is that the combination of privatized police and conflict resolution through privatized courts that only recognize the laws the person hiring the court wants it to recognize seems like the majority of confrontations would end with shootouts more often than not. Can't have a society unless everyone is at least playing by the same rules, regardless of what they are.

Why do you think it would work that way? If you subscribe to a court that don't interact well with other courts, isn't able to reach reasonable rulings and compromise, and tends to end up in shooting conflicts, people would want to interact with you and you probably wouldn't be able to hire a security provider to back your claims. What you're really saying is "I think everyone would hire mercenaries and wage war on anyone opposing them". The equilibrium is that precedences form so people more or less do play by the same rules when they have conflicts that aren't contractually covered.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
I sort of agree, but the two main problems with communism is weak economy and oppression.
The specific problems aren't the point. The point is that if I took a book written by an anarchist about how he thinks anarchism would work and then compared it to Eclipse Phase, it would basically be a perfect match. The same wouldn't really be the case for any other ideology.

Democracy and capitalism work more or less as advertised, while communism does not. I don't see why you equate anarchism with latter instead of the former. Anarchism has also been tried in the past, and it seems to perform well enough though it is weak compared to states (which is in accordance with the EP setting) and the types of anarchy that didn't rely on markets suffered from inefficiency (also in accordance with the EP setting though post scarcity tech makes it less of an issue)

Sat, 2013-03-16 13:15

#31

Smokeskin

Ravn wrote:This thing starts

Ravn wrote:
This thing starts to get really tired. Some people really really need to read up on both anarchism and communism (which by the way isn't one monolithic ideology, like people here like to spout). Starting to sound like a Fox News report on anything not corporatism and capitalism around here. CodeBreaker and Lilith is on the ball here.

Are you defending communism AND telling people they need to more read about it? Seriously?

Sat, 2013-03-16 13:27

#32

Ilmarinen

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
The equilibrium is that precedences form so people more or less do play by the same rules when they have conflicts that aren't contractually covered.

I guess just find the collapse of civil society and descent into Hobbesian violence to be a more likely equilibrium. But then I have less faith in unstructured, spontaneous solutions than the writers seem to.

Smokeskin wrote:
Democracy and capitalism work more or less as advertised, while communism does not. I don't see why you equate anarchism with latter instead of the former.

If capistalism worked exactly as advertised by the biggest proponents of capitalism, the Consortium should be a paradise created by efficient distribution of resources. Democracy sort of works as advertised, but only because it was advertised as an imperfect and complicated solution in the first place. And I tend to compare anarchism to communism because at the end of the day they have similar goals: to reduce the complexity of the modern world and replace it with a simple, broad solution based on the assumption that people can manage themselves without any of the incredibly complex systems we spent thousands of years perfecting. And also because the way the core books talk about anarchism reminds me of the way children's books from the Soviet Union talked about communism. Same tone, same situation, same band of plucky underdogs overcoming the great empire comprised of oppressed poor and evil rich through the power of sharing and cooperation.

Smokeskin wrote:
Anarchism has also been tried in the past, and it seems to perform well enough

I'd disagree with this assessment. If nothing else, most of the times an anarchist tried to give me an example of a functioning anarchist community it turned out to boil down to rule by one or more warlords.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Sat, 2013-03-16 13:43

#33

Ravn

Strawman

Pulling out the strawman and start waving it around are we? Where in your quote of me am I defending communism? And if you're offended by me wanting people to educate themselves before starting to throw around "this [pick an "ism" of your choice] is like this, because derkaderb" no matter what "ism" you talk about, then I'm guilty as charged. You see, I'm the kind of person who like the fact that people read books, and if you're not... well that's a bit unfortunate.

—

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Sat, 2013-03-16 13:48

#34

Ilmarinen

Ravn wrote:

Ravn wrote:
And if you're offended by me wanting people to educate themselves before starting to throw around "this [pick an "ism" of your choice] is like this, because derkaderb" no matter what "ism" you talk about, then I'm guilty as charged. You see, I'm the kind of person who like the fact that people read books, and if you're not... well that's a bit unfortunate.

I think he's more offended by the idea that the only reason we can disagree with an ideology is because we haven't looked into it enough. As am I, really.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Sun, 2013-03-17 03:08

#35

Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
The equilibrium is that precedences form so people more or less do play by the same rules when they have conflicts that aren't contractually covered.
I guess just find the collapse of civil society and descent into Hobbesian violence to be a more likely equilibrium. But then I have less faith in unstructured, spontaneous solutions than the writers seem to.

It is not an unstructured, spontaneous solution. Having a system of private courts and security providers pop up requires that the initial population makes an effort for it to happen, and the anarch-capitalists did that. And once the system is set up and running it would be hard to unsettle. We're talking about competitive businesses trying to keep their market intact and lots of people that want to keep their income, and that alone should be enough.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Democracy and capitalism work more or less as advertised, while communism does not. I don't see why you equate anarchism with latter instead of the former.
If capistalism worked exactly as advertised by the biggest proponents of capitalism, the Consortium should be a paradise created by efficient distribution of resources.

And you're saying it isn't? I was under the impression it was an extremely efficient with cutthroat competition. And if it isn't then it is not capitalism.

Quote:
And I tend to compare anarchism to communism because at the end of the day they have similar goals: to reduce the complexity of the modern world and replace it with a simple, broad solution based on the assumption that people can manage themselves without any of the incredibly complex systems we spent thousands of years perfecting.

Anarchism doesn't promote simple, universal solutions. It says that people are better at figuring out their own solutions to their own problems than trying to create an oppressive state to do it for them. It is the opposite.

Quote:
And also because the way the core books talk about anarchism reminds me of the way children's books from the Soviet Union talked about communism. Same tone, same situation, same band of plucky underdogs overcoming the great empire comprised of oppressed poor and evil rich through the power of sharing and cooperation.

That's not an accurate description of how anarchists make their society work. Anarcho-capitalism relies on traditional markets, but unlike a capitalist democracy ancaps use them for everything. Other anarchists rely on a rep economy to incentivize people.

Sun, 2013-03-17 03:11

#36

Smokeskin

Ravn wrote:Pulling out the

Ravn wrote:
Pulling out the strawman and start waving it around are we? Where in your quote of me am I defending communism?

When you compare people's criticism of communism to Fox News. But I'm glad to hear you share our opinion on communism. It really is one of the worst regimes mankind ever devised.

Sun, 2013-03-17 07:19

#37

Ravn

Sounding like

(Sorry, been away from the computer... stupid flesh-life ;)) Nah, then I expressed myself clumsy. The Fox News parallell was because the way I see it, there's a lot of "it's not fair that a leftist ideology gets the spotlight as working better than a dehumanizing capitalism". To me EP is a refreshing setting and game that tackles these questions, and if there's something I don't like (for example too much uplifting) I just don't use it, or change it. It's like people take the insetting more like a personal insult than just go "oh I don't like that... moving on". That is not to say that criticizing the writing or how it's done is a bad thing, on the contrary. It's the way it's done that irks me a bit. And the communist regime, as implemented in history is ... well ... far from good. But "communism" isn't one thing (Marx would probably spin in his grave if he saw the SU), and it's still possible to use the idea of communism in the game without it turning into a totalitarian state.

—

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Sun, 2013-03-17 13:00

#38

Ilmarinen

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
It is not an unstructured, spontaneous solution. Having a system of private courts and security providers pop up requires that the initial population makes an effort for it to happen, and the anarch-capitalists did that. And once the system is set up and running it would be hard to unsettle. We're talking about competitive businesses trying to keep their market intact and lots of people that want to keep their income, and that alone should be enough.

I guess it feels to me like market demand would encourage courts and security firms that didn't play well with others. But I'm not saying that the collapse and warlordism would come only ten years after the Fall. It'll almost certainly take longer.

Smokeskin wrote:
And you're saying it isn't? I was under the impression it was an extremely efficient with cutthroat competition. And if it isn't then it is not capitalism.

Well, no. It's a huge cartel that apparently wastes resources all over the place because apparently CEOs are just like that (or something). And no, it isn't capitalism. Not the dictionary definition. But it grew out of capitalism and the basic ideology is still part of that. I'm just saying that I'd expect any application of anarchism to suffer a similar corruption.

Smokeskin wrote:
Anarchism doesn't promote simple, universal solutions. It says that people are better at figuring out their own solutions to their own problems than trying to create an oppressive state to do it for them. It is the opposite.

That's the simple solution I'm talking about. 'Leave everyone alone and they'll solve their own problems.'

Smokeskin wrote:
That's not an accurate description of how anarchists make their society work. Anarcho-capitalism relies on traditional markets, but unlike a capitalist democracy ancaps use them for everything. Other anarchists rely on a rep economy to incentivize people.

Still the same basic narrative.

Ravn wrote:
To me EP is a refreshing setting and game that tackles these questions, and if there's something I don't like (for example too much uplifting) I just don't use it, or change it.

I believe this whole thing started out with a few of us stating what we didn't like (anarchism working too perfectly) and how we typically change it. So we're good.

Ravn wrote:
And the communist regime, as implemented in history is ... well ... far from good. But "communism" isn't one thing (Marx would probably spin in his grave if he saw the SU), and it's still possible to use the idea of communism in the game without it turning into a totalitarian state.

But of course. I simply like to use the example of communism to illustrate that ideologies very rarely work exactly as they do in writings by people who like these ideologies, so the fact that in Eclipse Phase anarchism works [i]exactly[/i] like that probably isn't a good thing.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Sun, 2013-03-17 13:49

#39

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
It is not an unstructured, spontaneous solution. Having a system of private courts and security providers pop up requires that the initial population makes an effort for it to happen, and the anarch-capitalists did that. And once the system is set up and running it would be hard to unsettle. We're talking about competitive businesses trying to keep their market intact and lots of people that want to keep their income, and that alone should be enough.

I find the description of the anarch-capitalists very incomplete (specifically Extropia) and thus unbelievable to me. They seem to describe Extropia as if it exists in a political vacuum. How does Extropia deal with a Jovian squadron that blockades their space traffic and issues the ultimatum "Verifiably destroy the seed AI Nomic or else." Is DirectAction going to get in their way? No, of course not, as they don't want their Jovian corporate offices shut down. No profit in it. They'll just hang their Extropian customers out to dry. "Force majeure, sir. Please read your contract." or "Our business contracts with the Jovian Republic are worth way more than all of Extropia combined. Sorry. Here's your refund." Also outside provocateurs and agents won't be particularly impressed by racking up a few million in micro-torts. However I think this post might be taking this thread way into the weeds - if the original poster wants to put it back on track, I can start a new thread or revive an old one.

—

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Sun, 2013-03-17 18:12

#40

Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
It is not an unstructured, spontaneous solution. Having a system of private courts and security providers pop up requires that the initial population makes an effort for it to happen, and the anarch-capitalists did that. And once the system is set up and running it would be hard to unsettle. We're talking about competitive businesses trying to keep their market intact and lots of people that want to keep their income, and that alone should be enough.
I guess it feels to me like market demand would encourage courts and security firms that didn't play well with others.

How do you figure that? If you don't get along, you end up in conflict. Conflict is at best costly, at worst you can't get security providers at all. What you are saying is effectively "people will hire mercenaries and just try to force everyone to do their bidding", which could just as easily work in any other type of society.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
And you're saying it isn't? I was under the impression it was an extremely efficient with cutthroat competition. And if it isn't then it is not capitalism.
Well, no. It's a huge cartel that apparently wastes resources all over the place because apparently CEOs are just like that (or something).

Specifically where do you find that hypercorps are wasteful and not efficient?

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Anarchism doesn't promote simple, universal solutions. It says that people are better at figuring out their own solutions to their own problems than trying to create an oppressive state to do it for them. It is the opposite.
That's the simple solution I'm talking about. 'Leave everyone alone and they'll solve their own problems.'

No. Anarchy is not a free-for-all. It is not just people left to figure it out for themselves. There is a guiding principle on how to do things (the specifics are different between the many different kinds of anarchism). If people don't follow them, anarchy won't work. You seem to be stuck on thinking about how non-anarchists would function without any rules, and that's a very different beast. In comparison, take democracy. It works quite well in many places. In others corruption and nepotism make it horrible. Democracies have failed from the inside in communist or religious revolutions and descended into oppressive regimes. Trying to instill democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to have failed even with massive resources invested in the projects. Democracy doesn't just miraculously work well. It needs to have a civil minded large majority for it to work. Anarchism is the same. If it has enough people that don't play by the rules, it will fail like a democracy will. The thing you have to look at is how easily does it fail? Does a few defectors unravel the whole thing, or are there mechanics that correct it? And anarchists do have corrective measures. It is not chaos, it is not a free-for-all where the strong muscle the weak and get stronger each time they do it.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
That's not an accurate description of how anarchists make their society work. Anarcho-capitalism relies on traditional markets, but unlike a capitalist democracy ancaps use them for everything. Other anarchists rely on a rep economy to incentivize people.
Still the same basic narrative.

What? Democracy is much more similar to communism that ancap is. How can you call it the same narrative? Please explain.

Sun, 2013-03-17 18:24

#41

Smokeskin

NewtonPulsifer wrote

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
It is not an unstructured, spontaneous solution. Having a system of private courts and security providers pop up requires that the initial population makes an effort for it to happen, and the anarch-capitalists did that. And once the system is set up and running it would be hard to unsettle. We're talking about competitive businesses trying to keep their market intact and lots of people that want to keep their income, and that alone should be enough.
I find the description of the anarch-capitalists very incomplete (specifically Extropia) and thus unbelievable to me. They seem to describe Extropia as if it exists in a political vacuum. How does Extropia deal with a Jovian squadron that blockades their space traffic and issues the ultimatum "Verifiably destroy the seed AI Nomic or else." Is DirectAction going to get in their way? No, of course not, as they don't want their Jovian corporate offices shut down. No profit in it. They'll just hang their Extropian customers out to dry. "Force majeure, sir. Please read your contract." or "Our business contracts with the Jovian Republic are worth way more than all of Extropia combined. Sorry. Here's your refund."

1) I really doubt people are going to have military insurance with force majeure provisions. 2) you don't know how people react to mercenaries. In today's world people and corporations don't hild grudges against law firms representing the other side in a conflict. But if it doesn't work that way and grudges are held, then you'd see mercenaries ceasing the market for the enemies of the Jovians in such a case. Imo the problem won't getting it done if it is funded. The problem is free-loaders, which has to be solved through the rep system (or forced collection, but that's not very ancappy).

Quote:
Also outside provocateurs and agents won't be particularly impressed by racking up a few million in micro-torts.

They don't have to be impressed. If they dont pay they'll have their assets and morph repoed.

Sun, 2013-03-17 19:17

#42

Ilmarinen

Smokeskin wrote: What you are

Smokeskin wrote:
What you are saying is effectively "people will hire mercenaries and just try to force everyone to do their bidding", which could just as easily work in any other type of society.

Yes, but if you try that in the Consortium or the Jovian Republic, the government will stomp on you. In Extropia all anyone can do is hire mercenaries back. Eventually it's going to come down to who can hire the most mercenaries, and once someone has enough the anarcho-capitalist commune becomes a warlord's realm right on schedule. I predict 20 AF, myself.

Smokeskin wrote:
Specifically where do you find that hypercorps are wasteful and not efficient?

Suppression of technology, "planned obsolescence" in morphs, choice snippets from the Mars terraforming efforts, and the description of the traditional economy as being the all-around worst one.

Smokeskin wrote:
No. Anarchy is not a free-for-all. It is not just people left to figure it out for themselves. There is a guiding principle on how to do things (the specifics are different between the many different kinds of anarchism). If people don't follow them, anarchy won't work.

Right. Exactly. Any system which relies on people voluntarily following a guiding principle is already halfway doomed. And anarchism doesn't allow the people to be coerced into following those principles by anything stronger than peer pressure.

Smokeskin wrote:
You seem to be stuck on thinking about how non-anarchists would function without any rules, and that's a very different beast.

No, I'm saying the differences between anarchists and non-anarchists aren't great enough to allow anarchism to function as well as the books portray it functioning.

Smokeskin wrote:
What? Democracy is much more similar to communism that ancap is. How can you call it the same narrative? Please explain.

Eclipse Phase faction descriptions lead like a Communist children's book with serial numbers filed off. The Consortium is America, where the evil rich people run everything and oppress all the poor people and despite wanting as much wealth and power as they can get, they simply aren't very good at anything. The anarchists are the Soviet Union, where everyone is free and equal and prosperous and technologically advanced. Everyone shares everything and that makes everything better. Then at the end the two fight and the Consortium/America doesn't manage to take over USSR/anarchists and we part with the promise that one day the evil rich will be overthrown and their former subjects will be free to live in the glorious worker's paradise/wondrous anarchist society. It's the same narrative. The same insistence that if only everyone switches to the socioeconomic system favored by the writers, all the bad people will go away and everyone will be free and have all the resources they need.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Sun, 2013-03-17 23:25

#43

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Smokeskin wrote

Smokeskin wrote:

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
Also outside provocateurs and agents won't be particularly impressed by racking up a few million in micro-torts.
They don't have to be impressed. If they dont pay they'll have their assets and morph repoed.

I think you might be misunderstanding me? I'm talking about foreign agents doing espionage and sabotage. They have little assets to seize, and their 100k morph is an expected writeoff against the multi-millions in damage they intend to cause to Extropia in general. Civil penalties will be cavalierly ignored by James Bond (Alpha Fork #770), who's operating under an alias anyways (and whose cyberbrain will self wipe). Stopping this guy would take a proactive counterintelligence effort that I imagine is fragmented and desultory on Extropia. It's difficult to justify stopping a saboteur if he's only intent on blowing up parts of Extropia not under contract with you. Looking the other way or helping in a deniable fashion is in your best interest in that case, actually.

—

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

Mon, 2013-03-18 03:20

#44

romanus

@blantyr

@blantyr For inspiration for what could go wrong in a rep based economy, I look at examples from social violence in schools, workplaces and other rl social settings. Problems could include: 1. Disguised predation An individual or clique could consistently torment or haze their victims, but to a subtle enough degree that the community at large would consider it beneath notice or just a disagreement that needs to be resolved privately. When the targeted people complain or ding rep, the perpetrators of the abuse claim that the targets are just oversensitive, exaggerating, or that they perpetrated the abuse because of a legitimate reason. If the targeted people lash out, then they become the problem. Even if they make the case that they were provoked or that they are responding to a pattern of abuse, the community doesn’t want to be disturbed and the victim is punished for ‘overreacting’. An example could be that an individual or group could just target somebody for a rep destroying smear campaign just for the fun of it. The victim reports the incidents honestly on the mesh and dings the tormentor’s rep, but no one really cares because it doesn’t affect them and it might even be funny. After a few years of being humiliated the victim beats the shit out of one of the perpetrators. The community, though it knows of the consistent harassment of the victim, doesn’t consider it a big deal. The victim should’ve just ‘gotten over it’ or ‘grown a thick skin’, and the victim takes a big rep hit from the community, which has been forced to deal with the issue. Now the victim is socially diminished, and also economically diminished. The perpetrators see that the victim’s credibility is thin, bystanders see that the community doesn’t care, and so now the perpetrators act with more force. It ends with the victim being completely cowed, committing suicide, leaving the habitat, killing someone or being killed in violence with the perpetrators. In a habitat which does not allow private property, how would a person with diminished rep accumulate the resources to leave? Other people in the habitat see what happens to the victim and are afraid to oppose the clique. If they ding the clique’s rep, the clique will begin a smear campaign against them. Eventually the clique tries this with someone who seems vulnerable but who has the will and resources to fight back. Again, people get hurt, the community is forced to address the issue, and the situation could possibly factionalize the hab. 2. Stigmatization A person does something that is recorded, like beat someone up, lose his temper, throw a swarm cat out of an airlock, something like that. It goes viral, and the community sees a 30 second video that makes the person look like a villain. His rep tanks and the more vocal members of the community demonize him. Trouble is, how many people bother to look beyond the video to know why the person did what he did? Why should they care? The person is stigmatized, deservingly or not, for years. He is ostracized socially and economically. Few people would stand up for him if he were set upon by social or even physical tormentors. 3. Rumormongering An innocent person has his rep destroyed by people spreading rumors, maliciously or just repeating what they’ve heard. Only a few would bother to look into the matter to see if it had any substance, and a good number would just enjoy the drama. Again, in a community where people can do as they like unless they threaten the entire community, the victim would just have to defend himself. Sadly, drama is usually more interesting than facts, and if the victim is too vigorous in his defense, the community will often resent him. Demagoguery, political and otherwise Rome is the mob, and a rep based community can be too. People skilled in memetic warfare can generate perceptions and emotions in an audience, such as hostility toward a person or a group, a lack of confidence in habitat leaders, fear of an external or internal threat, etc. They could do this out of feeling important, a desire to take over, or just for amusement.

Tue, 2013-03-19 11:40

#45

Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture

I do want to say that even

I do want to say that even though I agree with Ilmarinen and the notion that there's a definite bias for anarchism in the books, the other two inner system powers, the Morningstar Constellation and the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance, are much less ridiculously evil than the Consortium is. Yes, both have indentures, but it's mentioned in Sunward that in the Constellation they are considerably better off and rarely, if at all, have to deal with the cutthroat, whimsical terms the Consortium's hypercorps are guilty of doing more often than not. In the Alliance it's similarly toned down, although it's only unique in that the terms are guaranteed to be shorter. So the Consortium might be depicted as ridiculous as the United States in a Soviet Union children's book, but at least the other two hypercapitalist powers are much more down to earth and more sympathetic. Actually, I shouldn't call them "hypercapitalist" powers, because they have actual governments ruled by actual politicians. The Consortium's true power effectively lies with its shareholders and heads of the corporations, thus they're the only real "hypercapitalist" power.

—

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address

Sun, 2013-03-24 16:03

#46

Smokeskin

NewtonPulsifer wrote

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
Also outside provocateurs and agents won't be particularly impressed by racking up a few million in micro-torts.
They don't have to be impressed. If they dont pay they'll have their assets and morph repoed.
I think you might be misunderstanding me? I'm talking about foreign agents doing espionage and sabotage. They have little assets to seize, and their 100k morph is an expected writeoff against the multi-millions in damage they intend to cause to Extropia in general. Civil penalties will be cavalierly ignored by James Bond (Alpha Fork #770), who's operating under an alias anyways (and whose cyberbrain will self wipe).

It is exactly the same for such an agent working anywhere. You're saying that deterrants don't work against agents on a suicide mission. That's not an argument against anything.

Quote:
Stopping this guy would take a proactive counterintelligence effort that I imagine is fragmented and desultory on Extropia. It's difficult to justify stopping a saboteur if he's only intent on blowing up parts of Extropia not under contract with you. Looking the other way or helping in a deniable fashion is in your best interest in that case, actually.

You're assuming that the market and rep won't be able to provide a solition. This is exactly like military protection, asteroid defense, etc. The problem is that many might freeload. If the freeloader problem isn't solved, ancap has a hard time working. One way could be through rep. Ostracizing people who don't contribute is a common mechanism in anarchist thinking.

Sun, 2013-03-24 16:33

#47

Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:Smokeskin

Ilmarinen wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
What you are saying is effectively "people will hire mercenaries and just try to force everyone to do their bidding", which could just as easily work in any other type of society.
Yes, but if you try that in the Consortium or the Jovian Republic, the government will stomp on you. In Extropia all anyone can do is hire mercenaries back. Eventually it's going to come down to who can hire the most mercenaries, and once someone has enough the anarcho-capitalist commune becomes a warlord's realm right on schedule.

The same goes for any hab. If you come with more guns than they have, you can take it over.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
Specifically where do you find that hypercorps are wasteful and not efficient?
Suppression of technology, "planned obsolescence" in morphs, choice snippets from the Mars terraforming efforts, and the description of the traditional economy as being the all-around worst one.

I believe you're confusing hypercorp efficiency with consumer options. Just because people can't fab anything they want that doesn't mean the corps don't have advanced fabbers. And the traditional economy is only the worst in terms of individual consumption.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
No. Anarchy is not a free-for-all. It is not just people left to figure it out for themselves. There is a guiding principle on how to do things (the specifics are different between the many different kinds of anarchism). If people don't follow them, anarchy won't work.
Right. Exactly. Any system which relies on people voluntarily following a guiding principle is already halfway doomed. And anarchism doesn't allow the people to be coerced into following those principles by anything stronger than peer pressure.

As I wrote about democracy, it too requires that people cooperate and follow the guiding principle. You're simply wrong when you say that anarchy can only coerce people through peer pressure. I don't know where you got this idea. Anarchists have institutions that can and will do exactly the same things as other societies do to discipline wrongdoers.

Quote:

Smokeskin wrote:
What? Democracy is much more similar to communism that ancap is. How can you call it the same narrative? Please explain.
Eclipse Phase faction descriptions lead like a Communist children's book with serial numbers filed off. The Consortium is America, where the evil rich people run everything and oppress all the poor people and despite wanting as much wealth and power as they can get, they simply aren't very good at anything. The anarchists are the Soviet Union, where everyone is free and equal and prosperous and technologically advanced. Everyone shares everything and that makes everything better.

Everyone is not free in idealized communism, on the contrary it is highly regulated. Everything is shared. Democracy also tends to become highly regulated. There is a high degree of sharing over tax. Ancap is close to unregulated. People are entirely free to make any sort of arrangement they want, and consensus and precedence only come into effect when there's no contract between the parties. Extremly little is shared. Democracy is much, much closer to communism than ancap is. And regarding propaganda, democracy does just what you describe communism did. They try to make majority oppression seem like a paradise of freedom. When everyone with half a brain can see that developing and failed nations would be better of with something like China's system (let's call it a oppressive capitalism) they try to instill democracy which really doesn't work in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Zimbabwe, etc.

Sun, 2013-03-24 16:46

#48

Smokeskin

Noble Pigeon wrote:I do want

Noble Pigeon wrote:
I do want to say that even though I agree with Ilmarinen and the notion that there's a definite bias for anarchism in the books, the other two inner system powers, the Morningstar Constellation and the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance, are much less ridiculously evil than the Consortium is. Yes, both have indentures, but it's mentioned in Sunward that in the Constellation they are considerably better off and rarely, if at all, have to deal with the cutthroat, whimsical terms the Consortium's hypercorps are guilty of doing more often than not. In the Alliance it's similarly toned down, although it's only unique in that the terms are guaranteed to be shorter. So the Consortium might be depicted as ridiculous as the United States in a Soviet Union children's book, but at least the other two hypercapitalist powers are much more down to earth and more sympathetic. Actually, I shouldn't call them "hypercapitalist" powers, because they have actual governments ruled by actual politicians. The Consortium's true power effectively lies with its shareholders and heads of the corporations, thus they're the only real "hypercapitalist" power.

Honestly, you must agree that having corporations rule is an incredibly bad idea. They get to push regulation on people even though people have WILDLY different incentives than corporations. How can it not turn out bad? Would you expect say a democracy to work well for anyone but the majority if the majority was extremely racist or religious fundamentalist?

Sun, 2013-03-24 17:09

#49

Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture

Smokeskin wrote:Noble Pigeon

Smokeskin wrote:
Noble Pigeon wrote:
I do want to say that even though I agree with Ilmarinen and the notion that there's a definite bias for anarchism in the books, the other two inner system powers, the Morningstar Constellation and the Lunar-Lagrange Alliance, are much less ridiculously evil than the Consortium is. Yes, both have indentures, but it's mentioned in Sunward that in the Constellation they are considerably better off and rarely, if at all, have to deal with the cutthroat, whimsical terms the Consortium's hypercorps are guilty of doing more often than not. In the Alliance it's similarly toned down, although it's only unique in that the terms are guaranteed to be shorter. So the Consortium might be depicted as ridiculous as the United States in a Soviet Union children's book, but at least the other two hypercapitalist powers are much more down to earth and more sympathetic. Actually, I shouldn't call them "hypercapitalist" powers, because they have actual governments ruled by actual politicians. The Consortium's true power effectively lies with its shareholders and heads of the corporations, thus they're the only real "hypercapitalist" power.
Honestly, you must agree that having corporations rule is an incredibly bad idea. They get to push regulation on people even though people have WILDLY different incentives than corporations. How can it not turn out bad? Would you expect say a democracy to work well for anyone but the majority if the majority was extremely racist or religious fundamentalist?

I do agree its a bad idea. And again, I do realize that not all of the hypercorp/capitalist factions in the solar system are like the Consortium. But in my Eclipse Phase game, the leaders of the Consortium are not doing what they're doing because "mmmyes, we love money and power!" It's because they truly believe that what they're doing is the only way to safely secure humanity's power into the galaxy. In addition, they do not institutionalize prejudice against uplifts, although AGIs are still illegal or at least heavily restricted on many (but not all) Consortium habitats. Essentially, in my Eclipse Phase setting, the Consortium is still ruled by the hypercorps, for the hypercorps. But they are much more morally grey than how they're depicted in the books.

—

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address

Sun, 2013-03-24 17:29

#50

Ilmarinen

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
The same goes for any hab. If you come with more guns than they have, you can take it over.

True, but in most habs you have to come up with more guns than the ruling structure of the entire hab. In Extropia you only need to come up with more guns than the next biggest mercenary group and things will sort of snowball from there.

Smokeskin wrote:
As I wrote about democracy, it too requires that people cooperate and follow the guiding principle.

To some extent, yes. But when we make the principle of 'one man, one vote' we don't just accept that on faith. We create coercive institutions to ensure that's what happens. We build checks and balances into the system to prevent our governments from abusing their authority. We hire people whose entire job is to watch others for breach of the agreed-upon principles.

Smokeskin wrote:
You're simply wrong when you say that anarchy can only coerce people through peer pressure. I don't know where you got this idea. Anarchists have institutions that can and will do exactly the same things as other societies do to discipline wrongdoers.

Do tell.

Smokeskin wrote:
Everyone is not free in idealized communism, on the contrary it is highly regulated. Everything is shared.

Right. Like the faction that's actually called 'anarchists.'

Smokeskin wrote:
Ancap is close to unregulated. People are entirely free to make any sort of arrangement they want, and consensus and precedence only come into effect when there's no contract between the parties. Extremly little is shared.

Which is why I was talking about the anarchist faction and not the extropian faction. Sorry if there was confusion.

—

[------------/Nation States/-----------] [-----/Representative Democracy/-----] [--------/Regulated Capitalism/--------]

Tue, 2013-03-26 14:31

#51

NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture

Smokeskin wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:
NewtonPulsifer wrote:
I think you might be misunderstanding me? I'm talking about foreign agents doing espionage and sabotage. They have little assets to seize, and their 100k morph is an expected writeoff against the multi-millions in damage they intend to cause to Extropia in general. Civil penalties will be cavalierly ignored by James Bond (Alpha Fork #770), who's operating under an alias anyways (and whose cyberbrain will self wipe).
It is exactly the same for such an agent working anywhere. You're saying that deterrants don't work against agents on a suicide mission. That's not an argument against anything.

No, but it isn't the same anywhere else. Other places are willing to have intrusive security measures. Extropia is not. How does one for example execute a search warrant on Extropia?

Smokeskin wrote:

NewtonPulsifer wrote:
Stopping this guy would take a proactive counterintelligence effort that I imagine is fragmented and desultory on Extropia. It's difficult to justify stopping a saboteur if he's only intent on blowing up parts of Extropia not under contract with you. Looking the other way or helping in a deniable fashion is in your best interest in that case, actually.
You're assuming that the market and rep won't be able to provide a solition. This is exactly like military protection, asteroid defense, etc. The problem is that many might freeload. If the freeloader problem isn't solved, ancap has a hard time working. One way could be through rep. Ostracizing people who don't contribute is a common mechanism in anarchist thinking.

Yes, I am assuming the market and rep wouldn't be able to provide a solution. From my point of view its an extraordinary claim requiring some kind of well not exactly proof, but at least a few believable examples of how it would work out - and thus a reasonable assumption that the market and rep cannot provide. Call it a failure of my imagination if you believe it isn't reasonable. The freeloader issue isn't the only problem. There's monopolies to deal with (natural and otherwise), and the lack of a coercive structure to enforce the existence of a necessary "free market" mechanism (which isn't the natural state of any economy) for things like creating a space navy. My problem with it is I can't provide a self-consistent description of how Extropia works to my players. It's not simple issue like hand-waving a technology, because invariably the mores, procedures, and values of a society will be obvious to a visitor like the PC because they interact with them immediately upon arriving.

—

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto

McCarthy, Dixie Chicks & the New Economy

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