perestroika

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[–] perestroika 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The climate system of the Pacific Ocean has a spontaneous oscillation. To bring an oversimplified analogy: take a string of length X and add mechanical enegy (pluck the string) -> it will vibrate at frequency Y. Take an ocean, add solar energy to it, if the ocean has a certain configuration, it will oscillate with a certain pattern of recurring effects - El Nino and La Nina. Vastly more complex than a piece of string, but regardless a system of spontaneous oscillation as a response to incoming energy.

I guess that in a certain range of conditions, the system remains capable of oscillating like we know. If conditions are changed enough, it may oscillate differently or not at all.

[–] perestroika 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My take: a society that intends to function witout a prison system and police force, must obviously place its main bet on prevention. Every time a person doesn't attack another person, a cop isn't needed.

However, even if incident rates can be brought low, violence will probably not disappear - so even an anarchist society would need procedures for dealing with crime. Some guesses:

  • Instead of a permanent class of cops, people might rotate through guard duty; some percent of people might have the education required to investigate crime, but to prevent the potential for a repressive system, they might get called up randomly for brief periods of time (nobody should be a fulltime cop or judge).

  • The emergency response system could be supplemented by a decentralized system of the nearest qualified person responding. Responding to a fire without a fire truck may be not very effective, so obviously one would keep fire depots. Responding to illness without an ambulance could be ineffective, so emergency rooms would probably still exist. However, for a first response to individual violence, not much is needed - a random person with functioning self-control, ability to gather information and reason, a means of communication, a can of pepper, a flak vest and a gun is actually more than typically required. Ensuring impartial response would be the tricky part - a local person might be the quickest to arrive but not impartial enough to investigate. For stopping violence, I believe that locals would be a great choice, though. Not inclined to gun anyone down.

  • Investigating what happened might go a bit differently, with more than one institution gathering evidence. There might be less distinction between a civil complaint and a criminal case. Alternative courts might overlap in juristiction and recognize each other by establishing alliances. There might be no hardcoded law. Establishing what truly happened beyond reasonable doubt would probably still happen, though.

  • Finding a person who tries to evade justice might work differently. Instead of few people having great powers of surveillance, in anarchy a lot of people would have limited powers of surveillance. It might resemble InterPol procedures ("you receive a warrant -> you check that it wasn't sent by crazy authoritarians -> you check if the crime is considered a crime locally -> if OK, you proceed with searching for the person"). In anarchy, a person could evade justice considerably longer and more persistently, at the cost of moving, losing their network of trust and becoming an outcast.

  • Resolution of the crime would likely differ. A guess: local community would help and compensate harm to the victim (or in case of deadly crime, look after people close to the victim). Meanwhile the criminal might be required to compensate to the wider public, undergoing training or treatment, making themselves useful to a greater degree than usual and thus demonstrating that they can reform themselves. If the victim doesn't agree or the criminal doesn't follow through - there might be a default judgement in store: the criminal might be expelled, communities in the region might be notified of the expelled person and their crime, and the judging community might declare that it will defend and harbour the first person who takes proportional retribution.

[–] perestroika 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Practically no.

I have used an RTL-SDR scanner to analyze traffic and draw spectrograms.

In the software defined radio world, I could not tell "whether it's night or I pulled my hat too far down". :P

[–] perestroika 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have no strong emotions regarding this.

Some amount of travel is needed. But travel requires resources - nobody has endless resources.

At some point, I tried to calculate my ecological footprint and came up with the conclusion: transportation fuel was making up nearly 60% of it.

At that point, I decided that people like me need to drive electric, produce most of said electricity, and generally drive less. And learn about other places by browsing Wikipedia. :P

[–] perestroika 4 points 1 year ago

Looks a bit prototype-ish, but the principle is sound.

Alas, it probably cannot fight weeds during cloudy and rainy weather. :)

[–] perestroika 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In my opinion, without introducing the constraints imposed by the story, asking the question of "will a certain form of anarchism bring bureaucracy or mediocrity?" seems premature.

As far as I remember, the constraints Le Guin imagined were:

  • Anarres had gone independent during its settling, and was very resource-poor, the chief activity of its people focused on securing basic necessities

  • their tendency of anarchism favoured "governance" by sortitioned committees

  • their tendency of dividing labour favoured people changing their place of work and residence, and generally seemed to favour a state of "flow" as opposed to permanence

  • their reproductive habits also seemed to favour a succession of different partners as opposed to permanent alliances

  • their society had an external threat present: the planet Urras which Anarres orbited was resource-rich and people lived in hierarchies there (some of the hierarchies being capitalist, some communist)

  • they were not alone but there existed an interstellar community of sorts, Urras had relations with other civilizations, including one which originated from Earth (and Earth was barely habitable due to human actions)

  • their attitude to the host planet was isolationist, widespread communication did not exist, preventing anarchists from discussing the merits of planetary ideologies and earthers from discussing those of lunar anarchists

...for me, the question of "does sortition bring mediocrity?" has popped up several times. On large scale, I advocate sortition as a political system whenever possible (on small scale, informal do-ocracy seems to work up to a certain point where contributions get unbalanced).

The ancient examples (Athens, Florence, etc) do not suggest that sortition will bring mediocrity. However, a sortitioned person does need auxiliary bureaucracy to be effective at their job - one can't expect Joe Random to get sortitioned into a parliament today (note: Le Guin's story had no central parliament but many distributed committees) and make good quality decisions tomorrow.

[–] perestroika 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

CrimethInc küsis anarhistidelt kommentaari, vastasid Avtonom, VOAK ning Irkutski Anarhistlik Liikumine. Nende põhisoovitused oma inimestele olid kriisi ajal:

  • mitte segada Wagneril ja sisejulgeoleku jõududel teineteise neutraliseerimist

  • mitte teha oma tavalist sabotaaži sündmuste keskel ja ajal, kus terroritõrje režiim toob kaasa kõrge riski

  • olla valmis vastastikuseks abiks ja enesekaitseks segastel aegadel

Tsiteerin, mida Irkutski tüübid suurema lagunemise korral teeks:

At the same time, we should think about what to do if the current state authority collapses in the city of Irkutsk or in the entire Irkutsk region.

We advocate for organizing open popular councils, assemblies, and forums on all the most important issues of public life, including economy, provisioning, the conservation of nature, human rights, self-defense, education, and city services. In all of these structures, we would like to see independent committees of women and Indigenous peoples.

VOAK toob oma kommentaaris välja analoogia: ühel ammusel aastal kulus riigi laiali pudenemiseks veebruarist oktoobrini, kella võib tiksuvaks lugeda, aga mis tunnil äratus on, ei tea keegi.

We do not flatter ourselves: the onset of this moment could take some time. From the February revolution (during which the generals participated in removing the Tsar) to the October revolution, nine months passed. From the Kornilov rebellion to October, two months.

But one thing is clear. First, the moment of direct armed confrontation is nearer than ever before. Second, neither the Putin regime nor Prigozhinsky are our friends. In this fight between two cannibals, anarchists should stay away—let them bleed each other as much as possible. That way, they won’t be able to disturb people in the future.

But this period of waiting for the right moment should be spent to our benefit. And all the time, at every moment—to prepare and increase your readiness to act—but also to analyze the situation every moment, to be ready to start acting, leaving everything behind, even if the readiness is insufficient. Because even worse than starting early, rushing ahead of the moment, is to oversleep the moment when you could turn history [CrimethInc-il oli tõlkeviga] in the right direction.

Avtonom mainib, et nõudlus iseorganiseerumise võimele on nüüd ruttu kasvamas.

In such a situation, the demand for self-organization, the creation and strengthening of grassroots social ties, and mutual assistance will spread. People will create new initiatives, new movements. The task of anarchists is to make every effort to help to create and participate in grassroots structures, creating new associations and strengthening the interaction between existing ones.

We have already written that there is no “our side” in the clash between the “Wagnerites” and the “official” state structures. In the ongoing squabble, all of them pursue only their own interests and will only defend themselves. It is better for all other people not to risk themselves in someone else’s struggle and, if possible, stay away from collision points.

But if we want to create an alternative to both of these monsters, then we must learn to unite to solve our problems, support the struggle to end the war and repression, defend ourselves against violence, and defend our interests and rights. Only in this way will we be able to take part in the construction of a new society to replace the bankrupt regime and the gangs of thugs that it has raised.

Kuigi kriis läks üle ja võimud leidsid erasõjaväega ajutise lahenduse, on kõik sõnumi kätte saanud: lähitulevikus peab suutma ise hakkama saada.

[–] perestroika 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting. I hope their script gets deciphered and their stories unrolled. :)

[–] perestroika 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for linking, interesting read. :) All of them make perfect sense.

If the prospect is [currently already - was] that Wagner will fight FSB and RosGvardiya, an anarchist should preferably stay away.

Once the systems for repression and surveillance are weakened, it is possible for people to come out of hiding and switch from sabotage to... convincing other folks with words, the preferable method.

(while readying weapons to ensure they can't be silenced again)

[–] perestroika 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Their site seems down currently (it gives HTTP 504). Maybe it can be found on the Internet Archive, though.

The goal I agree with: readiness to make the essential medicines if they are inacessible. As for pharmacosynthesis - chemistry is hard. I would not treat myself with anything I homebrewed unless the need was immediate and great (e.g. "war or disaster has made medicine unavailable").

Speaking as someone who actually likes chemistry for fireworks and special effects, and has studied how to build DIY batteries, electrolysers and fuel cells. I get things wrong too often (in pharmacosynthesis, once in a hundred times is unacceptably often) and lack the analytical capacity to detect my mistakes.

As a basic safeguard: before making a medicine to treat oneself (because treating others would require even higher assurances), I believe one should make it a hundred times and check the product without consuming any. Then, when the routine has proven to be unfailing, maybe actually use the product.

[–] perestroika 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Interesting. Not necessarily practical, but unusual.

I had heard about iron flow batteries which also change the oxidation level of iron, but not about burning iron powder and reverting the rust to iron using hydrogen.

I think electrochemistry has better prospects in warm climates, where you most likely cannot sell the heat. Burning and converting heat into anything always has a penalty in terms of efficiency - but can get high power densities. In cold climates where reaction heat is a useful thing to consumers - maybe.

[–] perestroika 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Looks nice.

I do mow, but it's more like making hay - when the plants have grown tall, and most varieties have managed to bloom. I also try to de-synchronize it from neigbours's activities, so the landscape would never be the same in every direction.

Also, mowing peppermint and dandelions is taboo in my yard. Peppermint blooms very long and repels mosquitos, while attracting lots of other bugs to drink nectar. Dandelions are just nice to look at, so I don't do anything until they are "ready to fly".

If I didn't cut hay at all, I would get Artemisia growing here and unfortunately their pollen can ruin a week for me.

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