this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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I have a few questions regarding it, like what replaces areas where massively agreed upon things need to be determined such as radio standards for wireless devices, and what medical procedures are safe and effective?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anarchism as a political stance isn't an absense of governance. It is the stance that governance should be collaborative and, to the extent possible, voluntary. That means reducing heirarchies of all kind to the bare minimum needed to acomplish a goal.

For standardized things such as these examples you've given, they already work in an anarchist way. 802.11 is created by the ieee lan/man standards comnitee, which takes input from a lot of groups to formulate the standard. The standard itself is fully opt-in, you don't have to implement it as written, your stuff just won't work unless you do.

Safety and effectiveness of medical procedures isn't determined by a standards body, but rather by evolving consensus among medical professionals. What one thinks is safe, another may see as risky. As an example, in the US tonsil removal used to be considered safe and done often. Now its considered a last-resort procedure.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

802.11 is created by the ieee lan/man standards comnitee, which takes input from a lot of groups to formulate the standard.

The standard doesn't specify which frequency bands to use in which locations though, governments do that. So your response doesn't address OP's question.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The same mechanisms could be applied tho. The frequency and power limitations are in place because the stuff doesn't work without them. Radio broadcasters and equipment manufacturers have an incentive to cooperate on this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So your answer is: a free-for-all on the spectrum.

Radio broadcasters and equipment manufacturers have an incentive to cooperate on this.

The biggest and most powerful broadcasters, TV and commercial radio stations, have a strong interest in actively jamming their competitors' broadcasts. The same goes for mobile phone networks, it's in their interests to disrupt the operation of their competitors' networks.

At the moment, those activities are suppressed by authority.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really. My answer is cooperation on the spectrum. As you point out, its quite easy to make a section of spectrum unusable so non-compliance with a cooperative agreement is self defeating. You jam me and I'll just jam you back.

There could be, for instance, an industry board which distributes spectrum, with members acting as their own enforcement.

Again, the goal is not no government, its reducing down to the minimum required governance and heirarchy to accomplish that goal. A reallistic and workable system along those lines would in fact be highly ordered.

Its also important to note that one of the heirarchies to be minimizee would be class heirarchy. The naive view of anarchism is "no government", but thats actually quite narrow and most anarchists will agree that some government will pe needed, but with different form. The more full view of anarchy as a political stance is much more ecompassing and includes an ellimination of class and social heirarchy as well. So in a society where we have reduced coorcive control of spectrum, how do we prevent large corporations from ruining things? We get rid of them too.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

You jam me and I'll just jam you back.

Exactly. In radio frequency terms, this is the same thing as civil war. And we institute governments in order to prevent that situation.

See for example, the Seattle CHOP/CHAZ which very quickly descended into violence, ultimately ending in an escape to government and police.

members acting as their own enforcement

The point is that this won't work.

Again, the goal is not no government, its reducing down to the minimum required governance and heirarchy to accomplish that goal.

At least in terms of radio spectrum allocation, that's what we have now.

how do we prevent large corporations from ruining things

This is nothing specific to large corporations. I can envision amateur radio operators entering into feuds or disrupting others out of spite or jealousy. "Ruining things" is normal human behaviour. Like the killers in Seattle.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

An easy way to think of Anarchism is Libertarian ideals put to real world testing: major systems like radio and wireless will not exist unless a super wealthy individual sets it up and maintains it using their wealth and power to keep it forcibly operational.

Most nice things from civilization will not exist because of the overwhelming amount of cooperation it takes - anarchism is the end product of "fuck you I got mine" and no one is expected to help or be helpful.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

radio and wireless will not exist unless a super wealthy individual sets it up and maintains it

Uh.. my wifi router does not need a super wealthy individual to set it up and maintain it.