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Anarchy, Primitivism, and Technological Dictatorship
Introduction
I was wondering what people here have thought about primitivism (using less technology) and anarchism (there being less to no "government")
I was thinking about these topics when thinking about the political ideology of the USA for the Memorial day holiday weekend
As a teenager, the experience of "American freedom" was enjoyable, so I considered the idea of "anarchism" or taking "liberty" to its full logical extent to be possibly desirable
I think for me the idea of the old American less inhabited frontier seemed attractive, of someone having a plot of land and being self-sufficient ("individualist anarchism")
This kind of vision would only work somewhat with less technology (leaning in a "primitivism" direction), for if you need to make use of more developed machines, you become dependent on a complex network of people producing the machines
Anarcho-Capitalism
Eventually I was confronted with perhaps some of the naive views of "anarchism": for example, if there is no law against it, could someone just attack you and take all your things?
However, it was suggested in response, that if someone is "free" to do this, someone is also "free" to respond with self-defense; at this point, mere "anarchy" seems to transform into more of the vision of "anarcho-capitalism", or something like government entities existing without you having to have one central government
Because, in such a scenario, you would also be "free" to team up with friends to form something of a police force, of rules (laws) you agree to commonly, and of other such functions that we have centralized governments perform for us today
So, even if it is technically "anarchy", or there is no one single government, still it seems "naive anarchy" resolves to something of a "decentralized 'State'" existing - it's just not one entity, but it may be a collection of entities that we might group together and view as a "State" in one area
I guess a question is about if this is viable or desirable today ("anarcho-capitalism")
Such "anarcho-capitalists" (ancaps) I've seen frequently suggest that this would do away with taxes, which are involuntary costs paid to a government; however, while you might be "free" from paying for a police force to exist, in practice you'd probably want police protection, and hence would pay a fee that is like a "tax" that is somewhat involuntarily imposed upon you by the state of nature of needing police help
Objection Example: What About the Children?
Certainly if you consider a lot of objections against "anarchy", one for example might come up that children might lack protections that exist under a government
I concede that this could be an issue, but on the other hand it seems like even with a big State we end up with legalized abortion and plenty of abuse happening (whether by organized elites, or a common person) - so I'm not sure more abuses of children would or wouldn't exist (and I would enjoy hearing people's thoughts)
Technological Dictatorship
But I guess my question is about if we ought to move our government in the USA more towards smaller government (minarchy) or no government (anarchy), or about what goals exist for the development of our country going forward
Are we instead moving towards bigger government and more dependence on technology ("technological dictatorship") and is this process somewhat inevitable?
Big corporations buy up smaller companies and grow even larger; States acquire new territories (like Trump eyeing up Greenland and Canada) to become larger; we keep building up a bigger global technological "machine", now powered by many datacenters to run AI programs
So is resistance to this movement towards "One Technological World Government" just a temporary measure before inevitable "End Times" that will come, and to what extent is it desirable to form smaller operations (small companies which are subject to going out of business towards larger corporations, or smaller governments or entities which are subject to warfare by larger States, or primitive lifestyles which are subject to being forcibly disrupted by technological developments?)
Conclusion
In our current political situation, a lot of us have "tribally" rallied around MAGA with Trump as the leader, as we face many who don't share our values teaming up to bring us towards some other "vision" of what society should be; but I guess I was wondering what people think the ideal vision is to work towards in the face of the threat of "technological dictatorship" and if something of "anarchist primitivism" in contrast is desirable or an extreme to avoid, with a "lower tech small government" kind of situation being advocated for, or even something else entirely
There are many factors in how less a technology you can use and get away assuming the world is a free market economy.
The rate of growth of technology (productivity) needs to be in line with rate of growth of population for a country to sustain itself. A large population with primitive technology will struggle to cope.
In a free world, the free market will dictate the growth of technology. Only way to push primitivism is by enforcing it against the will of people, and this would inevitably lead to the collapse of the country.
Progress in technology almost always also has a military component. A primitive country will not be able to defend itself from other countries who have surpassed it in military technology.
The fear of technological dictatorship, does not arise from technological progress itself, but who controls that progress and how much aware people are in general. We are so blessed that the most powerful progress in technology is happening with "our guy" in charge, while the population itself has undergone a level of awakening not seen in 2000 years. This means, the new technological progress will not become a weapon against people but a tool for the people for prosperity.
It looks good on paper, but the fact is "power rules society". In a group of kids, the strongest or the smartest kids will lead the group. This applies to every segment of the society not just kids. In a truly anarchist society, we will have a small group of strong people who would rule the society in mafia-style.
This is why US constitution enumerates the powers delegated to the federal government. That is the bare minimum necessary to keep the society functioning properly and fairly.
I think one objection to this "free market development of technology" is that it forces everyone to go along with it; primitivism versus a society with technology are kind of two "total" systems: for example, if you didn't have technology, it's kind of "forcing" others to cope without technology (like some people who rely on technology to survive, who might die) - this is often focused on as an argument against primitivism, however the same problem exists with the technological society we live in: the technology we develop gets forced on everyone.
No one can really meaningfully "opt out" from the building of datacenters and march of AI for example, but are forced to deal with them to some extent - technology has this kind of "forceful" sense to it. The outmatched primitive tribe with basic weapons like a bow and arrow, are forced to get guns if facing an opponent with such weaponry. Hence technology forces people to keep adopting more technology, in something of a vicious cycle. I think some primitivists argue these technological developments ultimately take away our freedom and make us "slaves to technology".
I think anarchists would argue in response that we could have the same kind of problem with governments as we currently have abusive elites rule us involuntarily; so it's not intrinsic to anarchy or governments existing, it's just both systems can go in a good or bad direction.
It's certainly possible anarchy could devolve into a bunch of gangs or warlords fighting against each other, much like governments like we have now could be semi-functional also as we experience.