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Old 09-30-2006, 09:52 PM   #86 (permalink)
Griffith
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Location: Denton, TX
Probably irrelevant at this point, but I once read something that made me stop believing in anarchy.

The only way anarchy works is in small groups with like-minded people. More or less you need a town with frequent town meeting, which everyone attends. If someone isn't doing their share, they're basically guilted into contributing like they're supposed to. It's easy to keep this going after the first generation, because you simply raise children to believe that it's their duty to do...well, their duty, for the good of the group. In the end, you end up with a morally governed socialism situation.

I didn't like the concept, but it made a lot of sense.

As for the relevance to an anarchic forum:

If you kept the forum small, you could do the same thing. Everyone knows eachother, so everyone knows whose responsible for anything that goes down. If someone abused the power to edit or even kick their fellow forum members, everyone else would punish them, perhaps by kicking them, or ignoring them. Eventually, you remove the threat of someone acting out, because they don't want to face the consequences. But if your forum grows to a large scale, you have the possibility of people "slipping between the cracks," so to speak. Someone functions as an unkown, and is therefore able to get away with deviant behavior without reprocussion. (Imagine a lone thief in a city of thousands.)

The only way to ensure the safety of the forum (or any group) is to ensure the quality of its members, make sure you all believe the same things (at least about matters of group functionality), and keep the entire thing exclusive.
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