Anarchy

Personal Definition

Interested in this social system of organization without an imposed hierarchy, and all the trappings that come with it, such as mutual aid, volunteering, self-governance, being skeptical of authority (or is it non-consensual authority?).

This will come up when the topic is specifically political in nature and centered on the absence of authority. Community deals with similar things like mutual aid, but that lens is regardless of issues of hierarchy or governance. Also contrast with Socialism since that’s a fellow political lens focused on aid social-first, but that one accepts having institutions.

Article rant idea that came up

As a quick practice, I’m sharing what claude llm came up with when I first tried to define these lenses. I did some back and forth with it, it wrote out the bottom, and I had a brief moment of.. yes, I’ll do this because it captures my thoughts and puts them down clearly and what’s the harm, I’ve got 30 of these and it’s hard and if I do it purely by myself I’ll sound like an idiot.

Then I came across 404 Jason Koebler’s damn good rant (diatribe, release) about his current thoughts on AI. And yeah, he’s right, it’s exhausting having to constantly police ourselves around AI on the internet. And it’s changing how we write (I miss using em dashes), it’s seeping into our thought processes, but most of all.. something that I came to when discussing this article with a good buddy of mine.. it’s removing any and all discomfort from our lives.

My friend was discussing how he was looking for this rare book. He discussed it with AI, found the book, saw it was unavailable, and the AI recommended he reach out to the publisher. They were Italian, and my friend doesn’t speak the language, so he had AI write an email for him. He had a pleasant-enough exchange with the publisher, all with AI as his silent interpreter, and ordered the book.

As I talked it out with him, I explained the several conflicting reactions I was having. So yes, yay, he managed to get the book and AI was a useful tool in making that happen! But, also he subjected that person to having a conversation with AI content.. then again, that’s not a huge deal, and communication was enabled, and I could go back and forth on this issue for an hour. Third, though, was my reflecting on how this would’ve gone five or ten years ago.

He wanted this book. He searched online and couldn’t find it. Maybe eventually, after a while of digging, he managed to find the publisher’s contact details. He’ll get into a conversation, struggle with the language barrier, get awkward, have some miscommunication, but with enough effort he’ll get the end result of buying the book. And, he’ll have a fun little story about the effort he went through.

Now, our barrier of effort is the key here. Some things are just not worth it. If I were looking idly for this book but it turned out to be out of print, eight out of ten times that would be the end of it. The barrier level is low enough that I’m okay to just move on. Maybe if this were a gift for a loved one, the barrier goes up, I’ll spend more time on this and I’ll go as far as I can, even perhaps actually talk to a real person, to find and get the book. The discomfort and effort involved would have been worth it, and I would have maybe learned some new things, met new people, endured a challenge, and come out just an iota bit more grown. Nothing deep, nothing life-changing, but I had an experience.

Of course, I cannot and will not judge my friend and say that the process he went through wasn’t an experience. He’s happy and grateful for having managed to overcome the challenge so smoothly and effortlessly. And that’s awesome. Not everything has to be an ordeal, or process, or experience, or struggle. I’m all for streamlining things and I do utilize AI for the repetitive and menial tasks I have to do for work. I gain nothing from the manual process that it takes over.

Still though, I wonder about what’s lost. The cognitive debt, the experiential atrophy, the absolute erasure of discomfort. AI currently exists to ensure we don’t face any kind of discomfort. It panders to us, it will endure whatever we throw at it, it will give us whatever we want, tell us we’re right when we’re right, right when we’re wrong, and right when we push back and say no we’re actually wrong or it’s actually wrong, etc. It takes on all our menial tasks, writes our emails, have our conversations, craft apologies, and just take any and all burden that we might have to endure to think critically about something, have a tough conversation, do something difficult or involved, and generally put in work or effort to deal with an uncomfortable situation (socially, mentally, physically, emotionally.. massive or inconsequential).

We can’t learn or grow or change or figure out who we are if we aren’t uncomfortable. That’s where things happen. It’s the basis of storytelling, it’s the basis of playing any rpg.. conflict is the stronger and more popular trigger word, but discomfort is the core of it. If you’re comfortable and in your box, you’re staying put. When you’re pushed or pulled, internally or externally, when your box is too small or is removed altogether, you have to do something about it. But if you cry to papa AI it says shhh shh, don’t worry about it, I won’t let anything happen to you, and handles it for you, and cradles you back into your box.. you’re staying in Baby’s First Box forever.

AI’s version

The lens of organization without imposed hierarchy — mutual aid, voluntary association, self-governance, skepticism of coercive authority (state, corporate, patriarchal).

Reach for this lens when the analytical move is specifically political: claiming that horizontality enables what hierarchy suppresses, or that the absence of imposed authority is itself the source of functional collective life.

Distinct from Community (descriptive — people sustaining each other, regardless of governance form) and from Socialism (which generally accepts collective institutions, state or worker-controlled; anarchy is skeptical of all institutionalized coercive power). Use this lens to recover anarchy’s actual meaning from common distortion: it’s not chaos or violence, it’s a serious political tradition centering autonomy and mutual aid.