In Defense of Anagorism

political economy in the non-market, non-state sector

Tag: gaming

  • Quotebag #101

    “Just keep in mind that, as an individual, you won’t know what they really think they know about you, but as a corporation you can buy complete information about anyone who hasn’t opted out.”—Cathy O’Neil
    Crickets (in wooden perforated balls) and rabbits for sale on the back of a peddler's bike along Fuzhou Road in Shanghai CC-BY-SA Daniel Case

    “Anarcho-capitalism is like running an MMORPG, finding a game-breaking exploit, and being all ‘Well nobody would do that to all the other players because nonaggression principle.’ And then not fixing the bug.”—Zacqary Adam Green

    “During the time discussed, the government’s crusade against PGP suddenly stopped. Why? At the time, it was widely assumed that a crack had been found, and it sounds like there is evidence one way or another backing this article.”—John

    “Regarding Taskrabbit? To riff on Hanns Johst: ‘Whenever I see the word “outsourcing,” I reach for my Browning.’ Outsourcing is anything but progressive, as a word.”—SocraticGadfly

    “So, the sharing economy is a temp agency crossed with a Zynga game. Wonderful.”—Zacqary Adam Green

  • Chaotic good, high fructose corn syrup and large organizations

    Jason Lewis writes of the plight of the Chaotic Good, especially when trapped in a large organization. Apparently these are D&D alignments. The most concise explanations of these that I have found are in the form of memes, of which there are many to choose. In case that doesn’t clarify the matter, the good neutral folkx at Max Planck Institute offer an alignment quiz. From the post:

    I’ve seen myself as “chaotic good” long before this series of posts, or before I ever thought of applying the D&D alignment categories to roles at work. It fits with my politics (anarchist-communist), with my gneral M.O. of getting things done (open source is always bettter, and it’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission). It also fits with my general attitude toward work: if you want something brilliant, tell me what you want and get the fuck out of my way. If you want a mess, keep letting middle managers stick their fingers in the pie of my creative process.

    Church makes an excellent point, though, that the “technocrat” disposition, and the alignments it tends to entail (chaotic good to chaotic neutral) tend to be notoriously difficlut to manage. The only thing I think is missing from the series he’s been doing on this issue is that if you’re a programmer, you weren’t meant to have a boss.

    The article by Paul Graham on why programmers aren’t meant to have a boss is also a good read, and Paul Graham has been mentioned in the present blog before. Graham has reached the conclusion that (for a programmer, at least) nothing good can result from working for a large organization. Nothing at all. Paul Graham says that instead people (even entry level people) should be founding startups.

    It’s interesting how we get from anarcho-communism (which I’m all for) to going into business for oneself (which terrifies me a lot and repulses me at least a little). Addressing the employment problem with self employment is the textbook example of “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” For better or for Worse, I’m not emotionally ready to let go of the desire to beat them. If a programmer isn’t meant to have a boss, that would logically imply that a programmer isn’t meant to be their own boss. As Paul Graham says:

    The people who come to us from big companies often seem kind of conservative.

    No arguing with that. But from my unique and twisted perspective, the people who start businesses also seem kind of conservative. More often that not, VERY conservative. I know part of this is my belief that libertarianism is a subset of conservatism, but even if we assume (for the sake of argument) that not all libertarians are conservatives, can founders of startups be communists?

  • Quotebag #85

    “If freedom means non-frustration of the exercise of one’s legitimate property rights, you can be made perfectly free by being relieved of all property, including the right to your own body and life.”—John Holbo

    “The truth is, frankly, that there is only one war left to fight; the war against our own baser nature, the war against those primitive impulses which compel us to wage war.”—voxcorvegis

    “Libertarians like to suggest great disanalogies between the coercive law-imposing competition of rising and falling states and the seemingly more peaceful and mutually beneficial competition of rising and falling business enterprises.”—Dan Kervick

    “So lorraine you pathetic freaks actually have the occasional “crisis of faith” wow now I really know that leftism is a pseudo religion. So pretty much you guys don’t even believe in your own bullshit? The problem I have with leftism is that it really is a blank canvis there is no structured dialogue all it is is a bunch of retarded miscreants attributing their own personal desires unto this blank canvis. ”—the truth

    “The fungibility of work, the reduction of demand for long-developed special skills, the impossibility of virtuosity in one’s limited job, has made work less and less a source of reliable, positive information about the increasing value of the self — because it has ceased to truly improve people. But people still desire to work at what they love, and to improve themselves. The market will sell them the feeling of this, but will not commonly supply them with food in exchange for pursuing virtuosity.”—Sister Y

  • “Freedom from arbitrary authority is a consumer good”

    So says Gary Chartier. I’m inclined to agree that it’s a consumer good, at least in the actually existing economy. If freedom is doomed always to be an economic good, then there will always be constraints on freedom. Either freedom is impossible, or freed markets are an incremental step toward actual freedom, or freed markets can actually bring the cost of freedom all the way to zero.

  • Quotebag #84

    “If the concept of the Unconditional Basic Income encourages laziness, why would any right minded parent pass on an inheritance to their children?”—bstard4bristolmayor, h/t Jack Saturday

    “Not asking out Ayn Rand girl. I will not date her in a boat, I will not date her with a goat, I do not like Objectivism and won’t permit my brain to schizm, she’s awfully cute, but understand, I will not tolerate Ayn Rand.”—Garrett Cook

    “If you think about it, the concept of a free-market economy itself is a kind of gamification of human production. Yes, we’re all happy when we make more money, but we’re happiest when we make more money than others. Just ask any CEO.”—Don Peppers

    “Talk to me about how to have the freedom to pursue my dreams without leaving a mountain of young, old, sick, and dying to fend for themselves and I’ll listen.”—Melanie Pinkert

    “Anarchists might break a window, but capitalists will take your whole house, medicine from the hands of the sick, and rights from the poor.”—Hope

    “The solution to the need for competition isn’t to eliminate the idea of a middle class that doesn’t have to compete so hard, but to socialize that situation so that everyone benefits from it. ”—John Madziarczyk