On the subject of competition vs. cooperation. An MMO style example: Lets say, for sake of argument, that in this game at low level there is a valley. Let's put it on the northern part of a forest, with maybe a little chapel or something in it. In the valley, there is a field where 20 goblins wander about, waiting to be attacked by players. There is a quest to kill 8 of these goblins. At this level, each goblin is worth 30xp, and the quest is worth 900xp. A new goblin spawns every 15 seconds or so. For purposes of this example, 10 people are currently trying to do this quest. In competition, each player gets their 8 kills, gets 240xp for the goblins and 900 for the quest, or 1140xp total. It takes usually about 5 seconds or so to kill a goblin, another couple seconds to loot and find a new target, so let's say about 10 seconds per goblin, or 1 minute, 20 seconds to complete the quest. That's 14.25xp per second. For the first two or three people only however. After those with advantages (instant ranged attacks, like hunters or priests with shadow word pain, or a speed boost like monks to get to the field quicker) take their kills, everyone else will have to wait for re-spawns and compete for those few kills until they can get the quest done as well. So for those players it will be longer and more frustrating. But there's this sense with competitive people that those who did the quest better and faster deserve it more and should move on and level up quicker. I don't happen to agree. In cooperation, let's say the players split into two parties, 5 members each. Since the whole party gets credit for each kill, only 16 of the 20 goblins need to be killed for everyone to get credit. Focus-firing all five player's attacks on one goblin at a time means the poor creatures die in a second and a half flat, with a few seconds for looting and choosing a new target. Even though it's 5 times the killing power, let's say it takes and average of 5 seconds (half, not 1/5, the time) per goblin, or 40 seconds to complete the quest. Of course, xp for each goblin is also split, and so each player gets 48xp for the goblins and 900 for the quest, or 948xp total. Yes, it's less xp per person, and I'm sure someone could be thinking “see, analog to all equally poor!” or some such. But it's done more efficiently; that's 23.7xp per second. The team got the xp quicker and can move on to the next quests more easily, and everyone can move on at once instead of half or more of the players having to fight over straggling re-spawns. That's my ideal of cooperative, socialist-style society. Not a race to the bottom, but a collaborative effort to get everyone to the top. The problem isn't that cooperation can't compete with competition. It's that we don't choose to cooperate, because we seem to be an instinctively competitive species. And as is, we actually do cooperate a lot; forming companies, governments, volunteer groups, etc... But then we compete within our groups, or pit group against group. And I don't think we do this because of some inherent objective ideal of competition being better. I just think we're wired for it, and few people feel inclined to even try to act against instinct.

Decivre wrote:

All that matters is acquiring the necessary resource for autonomy. With that, an anarcho-socialist commune could do just fine without money. That's really the only aspect of anarchism that needs to be achieved for self-reliance. If not enough resources can be acquired for autonomy, then trade dependence becomes mandatory.

And there-in lies the clincher. After all, I assume your anarchist society would like to live similar to their neighbors, presumably another western nation like the U.S. But my laptop uses lithium, and I have a banana for my snack, the fuel for our power plant is imported, and so is the fuel for my car. I don't think it's possible to live in the modern world without huge amounts of trade. EP hand-waves this with cornicopia machines (although that doesn't address where the base feed stock comes from). But this isn't a luxury you're afforded in the 21st century, regardless as to where you live.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

What do you say to Joe and me?

"Nezumi, thanks for adding levity to this group, makes the game feel like less of a grind. And Joe back there is afk all the time, so he ends up passing on gear-drop rolls, increasing the chance the rest of us will get more loot. And with the other 3 of us attacking functionally, we still plow through goblins in 2 instead of 1.5 seconds... so overall the extra 4 seconds it took us to clear this quest is no big deal. Still 21.5xp per second and we still all move on. Heck, so long as one of us in each group is attacking, we can still all clear this quest faster since we don't have to wait for respawns." And yes, I get that an MMO is a created environment which can make the example a little soft. After all, when competing for resources in the real world, they don't just re-spawn. So, if anything, the real competition would have even harsher consequences.

Decivre wrote:

Smokeskin wrote:

That's not what I said. You asked "if only there was a place where we were free to do experiments". Ancap society would be such a place. We're not going to tax you, or force you to do anything (to the limits of the non-agression principle or some such of course, you can't do experiments like "I want to be an evil overlord", at least not unless you get some willing followers).

We could say the same thing about nearly any anarchist structure. One of the inherent advantages of a stateless system is that the concept of the "nation" is not defined by traditional boundaries or infrastructure, but rather by the presence of participants. If you were inside an anarcho-socialist society, you could easily create an ancap nation by simply settling down where no anarcho-socialists currently reside. Vice versa is equally true. Though as I told someone before, economies tend to compete and destroy one another until there is only one left.

I'm pretty sure anarcho-socialists have direct democracy, tribunals, gangs of thugs and that sort of thing* to implement the socialist parts of their ideology. After all, once you allow the ancaps to do their thing, ansoc is dead and over. * this isn't that different from ancap, it is a common misunderstanding that anarchists don't have "institutions". Ancap has companies that provide arbitration and security too.

Decivre wrote:

That said, they are compatible to an extent. Because of the boundary-less nature of anarchist societies (in that there is no state to enforce a border), It shouldn't be too hard for an ancap market to rise somewhere, so long as it doesn't step on the resources of an ansoc community. And the ancaps could probably strike an agreement to gain control of specific resources (regions of land, certain ground resources) that the ansocs don't deem essential.

Gee thanks. And then one day you decide that someone our stuff is "essential" for you, and you don't recognize property rights, so there goes our stuff.

Smokeskin wrote:

You MMO cooperative story is more like primitive hunter-gatherers or farmers. It's the classic socialist story of deep poverty.

2-3 players get slightly less xp (but still quicker and more efficiently) while everyone else gets to move along with them instead of being stuck behind waiting to fight over limited resources... and this is a [i]bad[/i] thing? Also, I like how you completely changed the nature of my example in order to make it fit your views. * * * There was a time when, for dungeon-running purposes, all this game had was capitalism. Some people had the raw skill, powerful class, or resources (gear and potions and such) to go solo a dungeon. It was long and hard work, but they got massive xp and more loot than they could carry without investing in big bags. Other people weren't so blessed and had to get a team. Usually that meant paying someone who knew the dungeon to help them complete it. Many people didn't have the resources to pay other players for their help and so they either didn't get to run dungeons, had to give over most of the loot from the run, or they tried to solo and got killed by the first pull. Then, some socialists came along and thought “hey, if we form a full group and run these dungeons, we not only get good gear and xp, we also get to have fun together.” They formed teams and freely went into dungeons together, splitting the loot evenly between them. This idea became popular, and eventually the game gained a Dungeon Finder feature where random groups of people looking to go into dungeons could sign up and form instant teams. Now, this was not always perfect, but typically those who took more than their share (ninjas) got kicked from the group. Those who endangered the group by acting wildly or stupidly tended to get kicked as well. Most people learn how to behave in a team and contribute toward their even share. Criminals (those stealing by taking a bigger share, or killing through wanton disregard of their team) are punished accordingly. Now, if you want to solo a dungeon, you still can. And if you want to select a team personally, paying specialists to help you, you still can. But if you'd just like to work together in a group and get an even share, that has become much easier. The two systems have fused, and everyone levels more quickly. Over time, the private contracting of players to help with dungeons has all but vanished. * * * It just strikes me as weird that capitalists can somehow think that if you have 10 people and $100 (as a stack of 20 $5 bills) sitting on a table, the best option is for everyone to fight over it and whatever anyone can claim is perfectly fair... but that just splitting it as $10 each without competing is virtually a crime against humanity.

How cute of you to presume what I think. First off, I love the idea of growing availability of products. Hydroponics, aeroponics, 3D food printing, it's awesome. Can't wait for more of it. But you seem to confuse monetary value with actual increase of abundance. Money's value is arbitrary, making more money doesn't actually accomplish anything. I don't want to see a zero-sum system... quite the opposite, I want to see everyone's assets grow together. Secondly, of course people have different skills. But I don't see capitalism supporting everyone's skills, I see it supporting [i]some[/i] people's skills, the ones that are marketable and profitable. Markets do not optimize everyone's skills, just those select ones that can be used to churn out more money. That's part of the problem, I see too much in life that is valuable but cannot turn a profit. Charity is, by its nature, as non-capitalist as possible. Likewise, a great deal of art and pure scientific research. That's my main complaint with capitalism, and something you just can't seem to see: the focus is on profit. Any good it causes is a side effect. Anything that doesn't support a market share and can't make someone richer is weeded out, whether or not it's actually a good or bad thing. Just because something isn't profitable doesn't mean it can't be a good thing. Sadly, we are going to run out of some things eventually. But that just means we need to think of alternatives. And I see that going better if we all work together and pool our efforts, instead of counting on markets to figure it out. That will just lead to the most profitable alternative taking the lead, not necessarily the best. And if you want to talk about psychology... your view of capitalism is basically religious: anything good that happens relating to any capitalistic society is obviously the result of capitalism being good, but anything bad that happens is the fault of some other factor (if it's good, God did it... if it's bad, the Devil did it). You also blatantly ignore several human-nature factors in much of this. Your view of capitalism works if people will not support bad businesses that are harmful to what's around them (people or the environment) but people can put up with a lot and they do all the time. Bad businesses quite often thrive and cause a great deal of hardship, with or without government support.

Thank you. ^_^