Submitted by AnRel in Breadtube (edited )

slaps video this baby can fit so much fuckin theory in it

in all seriousness, this easily could have been 5 separate videos or twice as long - but i just didn’t have that in me. I know going at breakneck speed isn't for everybody, I definitely wrestled with trying to keep it comprehensive & engaging enough...while still getting all out in a single video that wasn't overwhelmingly long or too boring for folks that are just starting to get into theory

I made this because I got tired of having the same circular conversations over & over again. I imagine raddlers also experience some degree of fatigue/frustration having to deal with the same repetitive 101 questions, although maybe less so due to having pretty strong boundaries around engaging with newcomers. This video doesn’t answer every question and many of the ideas could use more in depth coverage, but nonetheless I figured this way there’s at least a quick rough jumping off point to link people to in order to in order facilitate further dialogue - hopefully saving some time and energy.

Cheers!

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lettuceLeafer wrote

okay wow, why is my internal monologue on youtube? /j I really like this video and I have a lot of thoughts on it So I will respond tho, the stuff you make is actually really good and it brings up complex conflict I have myself. So I really appreciate the video. Just it will take a while for me to respond.

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lettuceLeafer wrote

[Disclaimer I really liked the video. I mostly just ramble about how I came to the same issue as you and solved it in a much different idea. not criticizing just talking about stuff I like.]

Okay I really liked this and I think your ideas are cool. I will honestly be really upset if the anarcho-manospere strikes again and just serially harasses you for some nonsense reason like a lot of nonwhite people on anarchist youtube have experienced. So here hoping to that. So this video was enjoyable and I mostly agreed. Buut.

I think the end state of your ideas will be one of non existing ends. So to explain I live my life with values of how to relate to people and how I want to do things in the now, and for goals I have temporary short term goals that change frequently. And then I have a long term goal which is purposefully never to be achieved and is very vague. Right now its basically become a dynamo of autonomy. I want to be impressive enough that lots of cool people want to interact with me and do cool things with me. I also want to be able to catalyze others. Many need a step up so they can start successfully freeing themself. I want those around me who try to live a free life to be able to do so. I want to be their step up.

Now I am very opposed to non individual goals less vague and impossible than that. I think this comes as its inherently impossible to do decolonization with a rigid goal in mind. For decolonization the social system has to be very flexible and adaptable. As a whole host of different indigenous groups with radically different cultures will live in radically different ways all across the world. And to be frank most social systems can't allow for their existence due to rigidity.

The means have to be so flexible to be allow all others to exist. Even cultures with radically different ideas I don't know and would be able to understand. So, there has to be lots of give as you need to allow the space for cultural groups you don't understand to exist. I have a personal solution for allowing autonomy and cultures I don't understand that might harm autonomy. But thats for each to decide. And frankly it seems that even in theory lots of anarchist conceptions are not even close to flexible enough to allow for some indigenous groups. And thats unacceptable in my book.

And with that, I think its important to not be too egotistical. Its allways possible that you and or I are actually bigoted in some way we don't realize. That will be more than apparent to radicals later on. So, I want to leave myself open to change and not too fixed on how things have to be. I really do not wanna be on whatever hellish future social media platform telling all the new minded radicals that they are wrong in their new critiques because I won't genuinely engage. Not changing as it would destroy my whole viewpoint and reason for life. Which would be far more difficult to deal with emotionally. (P.S. you can see this in action when you talk to the average white anarchist about being a settler. Their would view doesn't allow for that critique so they throw a tantrum. They are too stuck in their own ideology and won't adapt to change)

Learning more about decolonization my ideas and goals are way different, but my ends don't change as they are flexible enough accommodate massive changes in viewpoint.

And 3rdly I think having ends mostly isn't playing to anarchys strength. When I was seeking specific ends I was not playing to the strengths of my decentralized autonomous ideas. Let me bring up an example that is easier than trying to explain taoism. Lets compare species. Rats and elephants. Who causes more havoc and destruction for neoliberal capitalism? And which of these species has far more autonomony in the modern day? Now if I ask the average person I think they would say elephant.

Elephants are big, they can crush people, have big tusks and lots of muscles to destroy stuff. They have lots of reach and can walk far distances to gather lots of food. And predators don't want to fight them. But in reality these are all true. So in this daydream of what things could be the elephant looks strong. But reality is, some assholes just go make an elephant gun and 1 person can eliminate a small heard in a matter of minutes. Elephants loose more and more land they can live on and are endangered or vulnerable.

Now rats look weak on paper, they aren't strong, or tough, and can't destroy buildings. So in theory they look weak. But due to their adaptability and non rigidness they have prospered in modern society and to this day adapt to all attempts at elimination of their autonomy.

Most rats have multiple burrows with their friends and family members. Most of their day they play, eat, explore, have sex and generally do what they want. Their work includes foraging for food at night. Which in most homes and cities in quite easy. Other work requirements is caring for young and building new burrows when they move.

Rats are mobile, and really adaptable. This means that with human civilization they adapted to prosper off of it. They face massive violence but due to their decentralized nature and adaptability they can't be eliminated even by massive industries propped up to do war on them.

Genuine question in how many ways are rats doing anarchy better than you? This isn't a criticisms. Its just something I asked myself and I really saw the power of adaptation. Many rats live in homes that are heated in winter and cooled in summer. They eat all kinds of yummy processed foods. And spend most of their time doing recreation. For the average person many rats live a better life than them.

And so the weak rat, who in our imagination looks weak just watches and adapt then prospers. So I see this and I learn a lesson. I don't want a end goal of what society should look like. And the qualities of a rat is what makes anarchy powerful. Massive amounts of change, decentralization, many many ideas at once. These factors are contrary to a concept of ends. When we start trying to get to X ends we cast off a lot of these powerful benefits. So ends have a cost.

This is long enough allready, but one other thing. Sometimes I think simplicity is better than complexity. Not knowing all the details is okay sometimes. See this video was you trying to describe and explain all your complex thoughts. And it had to be a really long and complex video to do that. But I think that is a less effective way of explaining ideas.

I think language is a tool. It helps point us to understanding others thoughts. It doesn't cause direct brain to brain communication. I think language is much better used as a pointer to get people to think for themself and interact with simple info. A simple idea that catalyzes someone thinking for themself is way more effective than trying to explain exactly how to think. I want to get better at this too. I do the same thing as you.

I want to be able to point to a path and give directions with language. While the more common method is to try and write down every feature of going on a nature walk. The color of the leaves, the smell, the air, the animals, the sound of your footsteps so the viewer doesn't have to walk the hard path you did. But allas explaining is allways going to explain what it is like than just giving the directions for someone to walk on their own.

Now to clarify. This isn't a criticism. I want everyone to have different ideas and do radically different things. I honestly will be really upset with anyone who tries to copy me and do everything like me. Because that is missing the point. I want people to live how they want. So this isn't me telling you that there is a need to stop or that you should do things my way. I just like to talk about anarchy. And your video made me think a lot. I appreciated that. So I wanted to spend some times to share my ideas so maybe we can grow as people together and come up with even more cool things. Nothing you said was wrong and it was all good. I just wrote about why I saw the problem you had and solved in a different way.

Thanks for spending the time and effort to share all your cool ideas with me.

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cyb3rd4ndy wrote

These are my thoughts after 40-min… I’ll post more if I have more…

First of all, I really enjoyed this and I love that you used Portal in the video. Since I don’t want to waste space telling you everything I agree with, I’ll just waste space with some things that I don’t agree with …more or less completely …probably less completely.

Motivation: Motivations for doubting anarchist proposals… I think a big reason why people have a hard time with anarchist proposals is that the cooperative movement has been dog shit at marketing. For instance, there isn’t any co-op only shopping platform that is as easy to use as amazon.com is for the capitalist economy.

Freedom (Free Will?): Projection (imagining goals) is itself a type of freedom. A nerdy way to think about this is to look at how probability works with time. Basically, the further into the future one attempts to predict something happening, the harder that prediction becomes. Y’know, like predicting the weather. One way that we deal with this as human beings is to imagine a future and attempt to guide what happens in the present towards such a future. This makes prediction less of a problem, though it doesn’t eliminate the problem. Anyway, this ability to imagine a future isn’t determined from what I can tell. As in, one can really imagine whatever future. Maybe what someone imagines can be psychologically primed, but I think that a long-term commitment to perfecting what one imagines works against the multitude of past influences that tend to determine more short-term behavior.

Unfortunately, I think that many people’s imaginations are thwarted as the develop… by schools, by pop culture, etc.

Why Hierarchy?: Authoritarianism and Hierarchy are often a response to dire circumstances, especially war. Besides studies that have shown that people’s attitudes become more authoritarian when there is a threat to their safety, there is an information problem that hierarchies and authorities are thought to solve. Oddly enough, that information problem is exactly this notion of “objectivity” that you begin the video discussing. Hierarchies are an attempt to institutionalize information collection and command structure so that a reliable group of agents can have a more objective view of a situation, from which they are capable of overcoming the limits of most others’ individual perspectives… their subjectivities. From that knowledge that is produced through said information collection efforts, it is assumed that effective strategies can be developed and those without such knowledge can be commanded to carry out said strategies. Various intermediary forms of control are then put into place to ensure the commands are carried out and new information can be passed up the chain. This is especially seen in war situations because large numbers of individuals can’t be relied upon to select important targets to defend and attack since none of them, even in small units, have a total view of the battlefield.

There’s also the issue of knowledge that one would want to make sure the enemy doesn’t acquire…

Similar justifications are used for commerce, also competitive, and also conducted in complex fields of social relations. Whether it’s the manufacturing process, marketing strategies, investment strategies, etc. hierarchies are relied upon to develop a “big picture” of the commercial field to inform such strategies.

This is the challenge to anarchists… which I believe anarchists can meet. First and foremost, by looking at how knowledge production and strategy (planning) can be done (or has been, or is done) without hierarchies.

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