Comment from Andy
Time: May 15, 2008, 8:00 pm

Hello again, I thought I’d ask another question, although this time around it’s actually relevant to the topic at hand.

“A way of life that is unsustainable in every respect and that – when (not if) it collapses – will leave us and our descendants impoverished for generations to come, assuming we even survive the collapse.”

Do you think that, even if some trigger goes off and the world is taken by your understanding of how the world should operate, do you think that we’ll always be on this planet? I believe you mentioned this once, saying that as capital is limited, we’ll eventually have to abandon it, but, even if capitalism is permanently ended, won’t we still have to leave?

And, if you want to answer this question, you can, but I won’t mind if you don’t: what do you think of Leo Tolstoy’s understanding of anarchism (‘Christian anarchism’)? Do you embrace because it is anti-government, or do you reject it because it is Christian? I’m very interested to hear your thoughts, although I certainly understand that you don’t represent all anarchists, nor do you claim to.

Thanks for your time.

Comment from lynx
Time: May 15, 2008, 10:44 pm

i just wrote a long detailed response but wordpress ate it. =\ here’s the short version:

re interplanetary migration – i don’t see it as likely because i don’t think a capitalist system shortsighted enough to destroy this planet is capable of the long-term planning and investment without hope of immediate returns that would be necessary to develop the technologies to make interstellar travel on a large scale possible. there’s a reason why virtually all space research is funded by governments and i don’t think it’s likely that any government will want to foot that bill either. If we mess up earth so badly that we can’t stay here it’s much more likely that we’ll go extinct then that we’ll scatter to the stars. I could be wrong, of course, but that’s my sense of it. that’s ok with me though, personally I’m rather fond of earth and would much rather just take care of the planet we’ve already got then scour the cosmos looking for another one.

as for whether an anarchist economic system would eventually send people to the stars… i don’t know. anarchist economics are by nature local, but there’s nothing to stop a hundred or a thousand communities from pooling funds and know-how to set up a space program. if we as a species decided we wanted to do it anarchism certainly wouldn’t be an obstacle. but that’s all conjecture, really. besides, i’d like to see humans learn how to take care of this planet before heading off to explore and populate others.

re tolstoy: being an athiest/pantheist/agnostic/whatever it is I am is personal. I don’t really give a damn what other people believe or don’t believe as long as they don’t attempt to enforce their beliefs onto other people. ya’ll can worship the tooth fairy for all i care, as long as nobody tries to pass legislation limiting which way I can brush my teeth, ya know? Tolstoy was a cool guy and the tolstoyans did their absolute best to set up functioning networks of collective anarchist farms all over russia based on principles of mutual aid, nonviolence, and egalitarianism. they actually *achieved* Marx’s ‘pure communism’, which is of course why the Bolsheviks went to so much trouble to murder them all. More power to ‘em. I wish they’d survived somehow and i wish more people knew about them. They provide one of the best models of christianity as i think jesus probably intended it that i’ve ever come across. i don’t have to buy their cosmology to know that that’s a positive thing.

cheers -

Comment from Andy
Time: May 16, 2008, 2:41 pm

This is basically the first question again, but phrased a little definitely:

OK, the world is run the way you want it to be. But what if there’s a group that wants to have lots of babies? Well, that’s not a problem for a few generations, in fact it may not be a problem for a thousand years, but eventually there may be so many of them that resources are running low. What would be your solution to this situation? How could you force them to stop having tons of kids without violating their community?

Oh, and what do you think about the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling? If it becomes a statewide initiative, would you vote on it? And if you do vote on it, how would you vote: yay or nay?

If you don’t have time, or if this manner of questioning is annoying, you can just tell me. I really won’t mind.

Comment from lynx
Time: May 16, 2008, 7:58 pm

andy,

you’re question is based on the assumption that ‘the people’ and ‘the government’ are two separate entities. the entire point of an anarchist system is to erase that division and create a self-governing society. so if ‘we the people’ refuse to take steps to deal with a problem like overpopulation – or any other issue with potentially catastrophic results – there’s no one to force us to do what’s right and we get to deal with the consequences of our actions. that’s a good thing. if it’s a single community or group of communities doing something destructive other communities and syndicates can refuse to trade with them or share resources. I’d expect that to be a pretty effective method for dealing with 99% of the problems that could arise.

if some group of nutjob fundamentalists (let’s call them group X) wants to go on having 10 kids each for a dozen generations their communities will get to their maximum carrying capacity pretty quickly. at that point their choices are to spread out and infiltrate other communities or to curtail their population. I think it’s entirely likely that, should such a scenario play out, neighboring communities that don’t subscribe to whatever religion or philosophy is preventing group X from limiting it’s population would pass local regulations stating that people who want to have unusually large numbers of children are not welcome due to the extra strain that they put on the community’s resources. at that point the geographic spread of group X is halted and they become isolated and restricted to the areas that they already dominate. From there, the choice for group x becomes limit your population or starve. if they still refuse to limit their population voluntarily nature will do it for them when they run out of food. which may seem harsh, but freedom means the freedom to accept the consequences of your own decisions, good or bad.

in the (incredibly unlikely) doomsday scenario you pose where group x has taken over the planet and the majority of earth’s population refuses to use birth control and insists on continuing to have large numbers of children even though the planet is already at capacity, the most likely result would be mass famine and mass death. that’d be true in any political system. or maybe they can do as you suggest and build spaceships. i don’t really care, honestly, it’s such a wildly unlikely scenario that it’s not particularly interesting to speculate about.

as per gay marriage, marriage and personal romantic relationships are none of the governments business and the state shouldn’t be giving out marriage licenses to anybody. it should be a personal decision between individuals and none of the governments business. but as long as marriage remains something that the government keeps its fingers in, heterosexist discrimination against same-sex couples is all bad. so good for them for knocking that little bit of absurdity down at least.

Comment from Andy
Time: May 17, 2008, 6:15 am

I’m sorry you saw my first question as talking about ‘people’ and ‘government’ as two wholly separate entities. If I said something that seemed to imply that, I didn’t mean to. I may be unsure about anarchism, but I’m attempting to put things in an environment where we can discuss things without worrying about compulsory government, at least in a theoretical world that doesn’t quite exist.

You know, it’s interesting, I was actually introduced to anarchism via same-sex marriage, strange as that may seem. I was reading Wikipedia, as I’m prone to doing, and I basically saw the argument as a dichotomy, and later realized it was a very false one: same-sex marriage should be allowed because it is fair and equal, etc. and the other side saying that it should not be allowed because the Bible says so, essentially. The social conservatives could be more eloquent about it, certainly, and some even have other reasons besides that, but that was basically the endless tug-of-war, similar to the abortion debate (one side holds up the Constitution, another the Bible).

However, reading on, someone bothered to edit the article (which I can’t seem to find anymore, at least regarding the anarchist argument) and included the anarchist argument, which basically matches up with your argument (almost word-for-word, actually) and says that marriage between any group is A-OK, but it’s not something the state should be deciding for us, arbitrarily, and it’s definitely not something worth bringing before the courts, etc.

Growing up (and still living in) a relatively conservative part of the country (D/FW), and only being 19 years of age, it’s extremely fascinating and bewildering to speak with someone like yourself on a very direct level. I could read Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn, certainly, but it wouldn’t be much of a dialog.

Really, thanks for your time (and I mean it).

Comment from lynx
Time: May 17, 2008, 10:21 am

andy,

your totally welcome man, I was first introduced to anarchist thought online myself and am 100% down to answer questions. it helps me jumpstart my writing because there as so many different things going on at any given time it’s hard to know what to write about. besides, it’s great to feel like i’m connecting with people. that’s the point of the blog, to connect with people in a more personal way then i can through my music.

the reason i thought you were talking about people and government as separate is you posed the question in terms of ’say society is doing a bad thing, what do you do about it?’. for me, the answer is that a self-governing society has the mechanisms built in to self-correct, so there’s no external group that should or could ‘do something about it’, the change must come from within the society in order to be effective. perhaps i misunderstood or read too much into your phrasing there. no offense intended.

stay well,
lynx