Anarchistic Space Age Generation

[Digit]

Lets asume for a moment that we have reached the starting blocks to Digit's ideal society, that we live in a true socialist paradise (socialist in the anarchist sence). A society free from currency, free from possessions (in the ownership and property sence), free from oppression and authority.

Would such huge schemes such as Space Exploration be feesable. How could it be done? Could it be done?

Some of you may know i'm a trekkie, and probably just from growing up with it, it had never dawned on me, until a friend pointed it out, that star trek (star fleet and indeed the whole human society) still has a heirarchical comand structure and is indeed very authority driven, glaringly obviously so, no matter how watered down or benevolent it is. so imagine... a future, keeping on the optimistic side as is Gene Rodenberry's Star Trek, but without the heirarchy, without the authority...

just how would we get off the planet?
(further, would we? some might argue there's little wrong with having loads of telescopes to explore space... but it still leaves us in the more vurnerable possition with all our eggs in one basket.)

and i'm wanting to look into all areas of this. from logistical difficulties, advances and science, and perhaps most interestingly of all... the philosophy behind this, and the philosophies required within this possable future.


so....

get your thinking caps on, as my first primary school teacher used to say. lets try to keep the bevis and buthead comments to a minimum.

i know there's at least a few people here who will appreciate this kind of thing once they stumble across it.

if my rambling first post has divertedyour thoughts from what you want to say on the topic... just read the title again.

(deliberately avoiding making a poll to encourage discussion)

[critter]

lts scary ,but l think the masses would dictate what was done and when.

So its feesable to think that if the masses wanted space travell we would get it .

Beam me up scotty




p.s. ummmm,thats when and if anyone there finds themselves in the mood .

[Mutant Monkey]

As an anarchist at heart I don't think an anarchist society exists beyond the fittest and strongest survive and rule.
Think Mad Max and that's pretty much anarchy.
I like the idea of total social breakdown because the only classless society is a pipe dream perpetuated by the media.
Even without class there are still so many things that divide us, most of all religion and politics.

We call ourselves civilized society yet children shoot each other dead over school yard teasing, gangstas rule the streets in the inner cities and corruption permeates all levels of society.

When it comes down to it we are all in the same boat but everyone wants to be the captain and no-one wants to be the cabin boy.

I'm the shark in the waters waiting for the iceberg.
I have what is needed to survive because of genetics we are the ultimate predator.

[Cornflake]

Originally posted by Mutant Monkey
When it comes down to it we are all in the same boat but everyone wants to be the captain and no-one wants to be the cabin boy.

I never quite saw it like this. You're entirely correct. Who would want to be submissive when they could be in control? Not me that's for sure. Guess that's why we have so many wars, never back down.

[Corn-dog]

Originally posted by Digit
Lets asume for a moment that we have reached the starting blocks to Digit's ideal society, that we live in a true socialist paradise (socialist in the anarchist sence). A society free from currency, free from possessions (in the ownership and property sence), free from oppression and authority.

Would such huge schemes such as Space Exploration be feesable. How could it be done? Could it be done?

Most likely not, your society has no drive, no competition. IN your society there is no reason space exploration would be possibe. A more realistic society would be one of the trekkies, were there only goal is to better oneself. I like the idea of your society, but it creates to much dead wieght. However, there are those who strive to reach the stars, but without the support of a whole nation i don't see it being possible.

It will be intresting to see, we as a society are on the verge of space travel, Long distance space travel. In the next 30yrs, if there are no more major conflicts, we will have created the technology to explore the universe. Of course there is always the chance of major world confict resulting in the loss of determination to reach the starts, you'd be more concerned in making sure you and your kin were alive.

[Digit]

oh dear oh dear.
some people could really really do with reading this. http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secA1.html

"As an anarchist at heart I don't think an anarchist society exists beyond the fittest and strongest survive and rule.
Think Mad Max and that's pretty much anarchy."

true anarchy yes, i agree, and have said similar things many times... but if we take it a notch or two away from the extreme, from the absolute... we see a far healthier and robust society.


Corn-Dog, i really hope you delve into that link i gave.
competition is not the only way to create drive, we only think it is because that is the nature of all that we have ever known having grown up being spoon fed capitalism and competition from birth. it's just as feasable that someone could say much the same as you said saying it wouldnt work because it doesnt have Allah's blessing as taught in the koran.

" IN your society there is no reason space exploration would be possibe."

ok, i suppose your right... survival of the species and the betterment of humankind and the journy of knowledge is no reason at all. btw, i am a trekkie, it was growing up watching star trek that is probably responsible for my dreaming of a better future. (thankyou Gene Roddenberry)

agreed that survival is a necessity to acheive this, however, it is also the reason for space exploration. Earth isnt going to be safe forever. there will be huge astronomical cataclismic events that will lead to this planet's downfall. do we want to be sat here twiddling our thumbs when it comes? be it collision or the death of our star, earths doom is fairly inevitable. its not just War or "major world conflict" that could prevent us from ever reaching the stars...
i wonder if you realise that it is precisely the unchecked competition to create drive that has caused the greatest threat to survival of nearly all life on earth ever. that same competition that has caused our beloved herb to be outlawed. the world is on the brink of environmental anihilation... we wont see 30 years time without some serious radical change in our ways very very soon.

check out this (you really need to watch it to see whats going on, rather than just reading the crappy transcript) http://www.moveon.org/gore3/webcast.html

anyways... this is all getting off the point. i was rather hoping for some discussion about how it COULD be achieved, not how it couldn't.

[Mutant Monkey]

All modern society relies on a heirachy, a standing in society. Without authority you don't have structure, without structure we encounter the captain / cabin boy problem.

If you think of society in terms of a ship at sea, if given the choice the majority of people would choose to be the captain and not the cabin boy.

Other problems created are those of responsibility, after all the criminals and slightly insane among us would do whatever they felt like.

A society based on communism is more likely to succeed and that is what the site you posted advocates more than true anarchy.

If no-one is responsible for the treatment of sewage and no-one is responsible for paying someone to do it, what happens ??

Think about the wider implications of a ship at sea where no-one wants to take the helm,how long would it be before it ran aground.
Suggested reading for others: Lord of the flies by William Holding

[GLADIVS]

In my humble opinion, with a true Anarchy, the masses wouldn't be able to deal having "no control" on them whatsoever.

there will always be a need for a type of government or higher power to maintain things in control.

You are right Digit in saying that your pure socialist world would be an "ideal". In our real world of chaos and nonesense, hard to come true, unfortunately.

Pride and Greed are too strong in certain people for them to feel that they really "own" nothing and anything of their's can belong to anyone. see the pattern here?

just my .02

[mooglekexin]

for anarchy to truely work we need workers, people will not be fucked with this so the soloution is androids, not Data like Star Trek, but ones with some degree of "intelligence" (not too much or they will realise what tits humans as a whole are and genocide our asses)

with androids and anarchy we will be set for a lifetime of fun, of course we could just evolve into an anarchaic way after the invention of proper space travel, who wouldn't want to fly the skies... spaces then ? well maybe lots, i dunno i am in a process of trekkieising

but androids are the way to go, sewage, farming, manufacture, all the laborious shit...

[Digit]

technology.