Thought it said 'Peter Griffin style'
makes a change from Keystone Kops style, I suppose...
London plods raid Wikipedia in counter-anarchist operation
It's half an hour on the naughty step today for London's Metropolitan and City Police's Project Griffin team for resorting to Wikipedia in the struggle to contain the anarchist menace. In case you're wondering, Project Griffin is a collaborative effort "to familiarise managers, security officers and employees of large public …
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 12:07 GMT Aaron Em
I much prefer oak volleyballs
So what's your answer to the problem of warlordism, then? How do you propose to maintain a power vacuum without seeing it collapse into tyranny courtesy of the first really effective complete bastard to come along? I've spent years asking, and I've yet to see any self-proclaimed anarchist give a plausible answer to this question, so here's your chance to wow the everloving shit out of a nay-sayer.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 22:56 GMT Peter Murphy
Not quite, CD001.
While not an anarchist myself, I have a lot of empathy with Michael Moorcock's statements on the subject from "Starship Stormtroopers":
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=13253
"To be an anarchist, surely, is to reject authority but to accept self-discipline and community responsibility. To be a rugged individualist a la Heinlein and others is to be forever a child who must obey, charm and cajole to be tolerated by some benign, omniscient father: Rooster Cogburn shuffling his feet in front of a judge he respects for his office -- but not necessarily himself -- in "True Grit."
An anarchist is not a wild child, but a mature, realistic adult imposing laws upon the self and modifying them according to an experience of life, an interpretation of the world. A "rebel," certainly, he or she does not assume "rebellious charm" in order to placate authority (which is what the rebel heroes of all these genre stories do)."
Maybe Moorcock is being overly-optimistic, but note that he indicates community responsibility as essential, rather than imagining some recluse in the woods.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 15:21 GMT Aaron Em
Re: "Fucktard"
Charming. I gather from the fervor of your response, to what must be an incredibly common question for any soi-disant anarchist who doesn't closet himself away exclusively among the like-minded, that you're probably used to catching shit from people who don't see how what you advocate makes any sense. If this be true, you may do well at some point to consider that it may not be everybody else who is wrong.
In what way, then, does anarchism *not* presuppose the absence of power? Or do you imagine the possibility of such a thing as power in the absence of rulership? Do you imagine a world of tiny egalitarian collectives, each tending mostly to its own interests but banding together with others as necessary to fight off would-be oppressors, everyone then going peacefully their separate ways, all with no one feeling any need for dominion or rulership over anyone else? Just a big happy world full of tiny communes?
Because if so, then we *are* talking about science fiction, and what I mean to say by that is that there are about five thousand years of human history to which you've apparently never been introduced.
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Wednesday 3rd August 2011 09:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Try Harder
Try harder? At what? Arguing with a man who already has all the answers? Colour me uninterested. After all, I'm not the one who wants to tell others how to live their lives. You need a firm mummy? Fine. Many of us don't. Can you leave us alone please?
You fell really badly at the first hurdle, by equating rule from on high with power (*). That's why you got a "fucktard" and not much else. Charming? What did you expect after your little speech about always being right? Yes, I have run into many people like you. The intellectually conservative. You're usually wrong about a whole bunch of stuff, but too self-congratulatory to notice. Dunning-Kruger and all that.
Just because you can say "soi-dissant" and "apotheosis" doesn't mean you've learned to tell shit from shat.
(*) Let me put it into thick for you.
What happens when you have all these democracies or monarchies or republics or whatever and some bastard warlord comes along and says "oh we must kill that bastard warlord because he's a proper bastard, unlike me, I'm just resolute, and I really care for you and make you feel safe" ... oh ... thousands if not millions die in the ensuing bloodbath? What was your argument against anarchy again?
Do you want to know what has held Europe together for 50 odd years despite various bastards? Union. Power without authority. You'll find it works from nations all the way down to families. We also have this thing called the United Nations. Yeah, it's not perfect. But an entire planet acting as one is a surprisingly new concept. Baby steps. If you autocratic twats from the US don't keep trying to hobble it, it might just learn to walk.
Do you want to know what is failing to hold the Middle East together at the moment? Authority without power. You'll find it doesn't work from nations all the way down to families. Sure, you can kill your citizens but if they don't consent to your rule, you have no power beyond that. Your word has become empty, your rule meaningless.
By the way. "Power vacuum" was an especially poor choice. They are generally the result of authoritarians suddenly exiting the political realm, especially if said authoritarians hold disparate peoples together against their will for no particularly good reason. They are not the result of there being no authoritarians in the first place.
Watched the news recently? Iraq? Afghanistan? Your bastard warlords murdering their bastard warlords caused massive power vaccuums. Remind us again how any of that has been a good thing.
As for my knowledge of history ... it seems to me that there's a fairly strong correlation between rule from on high and murderous bastard warlords being murdering bastards. Perhaps you're working from a different text book ...
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Wednesday 3rd August 2011 15:30 GMT Aaron Em
Yep, had that coming
My politics are changing lately as a result of my having lost faith in progressivism. Apparently, the major way in which I demonstrate this upheaval is to walk up to damn near everybody with my chin stuck out. Thanks for taking the time to deliver a well-earned and memorable set of lumps.
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Friday 5th August 2011 12:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Chin first.
It's the best way to do it!
If you've lost your political compass, it's well worth reading anarchist ideas. You'll find a load of crazy insane shit from both the left and the right that will get you thinking about what you actually believe. Listening to the usual heads droning on won't.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 12:39 GMT kissingthecarpet
What - by himself?
The problem isn't complete bastards is it? The problem is other people doing what they're told by said bastard. Also it won't collapse into tyranny in that situation, just chaos, eg Afghanistan. If following anothers orders was as unacceptable in society as, say, paedophilia is today it would be unlikely to happen.
The Pavlovian obedience of a large chunk of society to pretty much anyone who gives them orders is the greatest evil of our times.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 15:21 GMT Aaron Em
That's about how it usually goes, yep
Someone recommends a science fiction novel. Fair enough, and I'm something of a fan, but Heinlein taught me not to expect solid political theory out of an sf author, not least because they have a nasty habit of coming up with ideas which can't be feasibly tested.
To whoever it was that said the problem isn't the guy with the shotgun, but the people who do what he tells them: I'll buy that argument out of you once I've seen you stand on principle at the cost of at least one loved one, because in a situation like the one you imagine you're imagining, that is exactly what it would cost you. I mean, I'm a reasonably decent human being, but if it were me doing the warlording, I'd be taking hostages among family members as a matter of course, and I'd have no hesitation about killing them off very messily if it became necessary to make a point -- surely the Brits among us can't find this too alien a perspective, considering that it's exactly what you did to the Boers, on a wholesale level rather than the retail one contemplated here, to bring an end to that unpleasant little secession attempt.
Sure, in theory, pacifism is the apotheosis of ethical philosophy. In practice, if I'm given a choice between doing as I'm told or watching my wife horribly murdered, I'm not even going to regard it as a choice, and that makes me not at all weird but merely a perfectly conventional and ordinary human primate. And, sure, it's not a pleasant thing to contemplate -- but it is an example of exactly the kind of problem any consistent anarchist philosophy has to address. Since I've yet to see one do so, I've yet to encounter an anarchist philosophy which needs taking seriously, and so far this comment thread sure isn't changing my mind. Try harder, folks.
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Wednesday 3rd August 2011 01:09 GMT Steven Roper
Living through the 70s?
I WAS alive in the 70s and I can tell you first-hand that people then were *nothing* like they are now. Aside from having dreadful sense of fashion, the biggest difference was that political correctness didn't exist, and people were a lot more laid back about things as a result.
You didn't have to worry about "offending" someone with every little thing you say, racist and sexist jokes were considered funny, you were allowed to smoke on planes, trains and buses (in smoking compartments), CCTV cameras only existed in banks and police stations, the local plods were more apt to let you off with a warning if you were caught speeding or not wearing a seatbelt, and if your kid grazed his knee on playground equipment you stuck a band-aid on it snd sent him back out to play instead of suing the arse off the council, the equipment manufacturer and everyone else your lawyer could think of.
As a result, the world was in many ways a much better place. The only improvement has been in technology, while the majority of people seem to have turned into easily-offended, litigious PC arsewipes.
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Wednesday 3rd August 2011 09:22 GMT jm83
Re: Living through the 70s
You might want to have a try at reading it. Its more to do with having a raving lunatic in the Whitehouse, political meddling in the middle east, fear of imminent apocalypse, strikes, etc etc.
I dont think people are offended by sexist/racist jokes, but they do make you look lazy, stupid and/or racist/sexist.
Smoking in confined public places is just rude and a pain in the arse for the majority of people who, guess what, dont smoke.
CCTV - hmmm, yes theres lots and its of questionable value, but I've never felt its impact really and I believe its still illegal in residential areas
Not wearing a seatbelt, bit stupid really innit? some laws are there to protect imbeciles. If you're caught speeding, youre caught speeding. tough titties, take it like a man.
Has anyone ever sued the council for grazing a knee? Sue a surgeon for leaving a scalpel in you yeah.
You seem to be living in Daily Mail land?
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Wednesday 3rd August 2011 09:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ Steven Roper
"The only improvement has been in technology"
Really? I guess then, you must be a white, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied male.
For the rest of us, we're kind of appreciating things like:
- being able to walk down the street without being called a "mick" or a "wop" or something else
- being told that we are / were "asking for it" if our skirt was above out knees
- being queer bashed if someone suspected we were gay
- being able to get access to buildings through ramps so that we can be a fuller member of society
Or is it just me?
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 13:22 GMT Disco-Legend-Zeke
When I Switched...
*
...to Chrome, Google offered to spell check everything i** type***.
It manages to catch the most egregious misspellings and typos, but misses misused words "they're | there," for example.
Having a spell checker has given me more freedom of vocabulary, I'll try the right word, even though i know i can't spell it.
*Beer doesn't make me use more words, but it makes me use them LOUDER.
**But it misses lowercase i.
***Hopefully not by sending every word to SKY^H^H^^HGoogle.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 23:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
@spell check
"i," as a word is spelled correctly. The capitalization of words falls under the remit of a grammar checker, as does the distinction between "they're," "their" and "there." All of those words use the correct letters in the correct order, however, they many not be the correct set of letters to use at that point in the sentance.
AFAIK a grammar checker is not included in any browser yet.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 15:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
What'd be mildly amusing
would be if the UK's Anarchists organised amongst themselves to follow the advise and go and report their own various anarchist activities to the local plod at say mid-day Friday; out of a sense of citizenship and duty of course. I'm sure Mr Plod will be grateful, and not at all annoyed.
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 12:32 GMT Destroy All Monsters
See something, say something.
Yes. Any thoughts about having a "stateless society" needs to be reported forthwith. We can't have that, who will pay our pensions? Who will give us the nice blue uniforms? Who will tell us to bomb random people in faraway lands? Who will help us transform undesirable immigrants into useful soap?
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Tuesday 2nd August 2011 18:01 GMT Aaron Em
Democracy? Hell, that's easy to explain
The modern kind is, anyway: it's the will of the ruling class, expressed through the carefully cultivated whims, opinions, beliefs, and fanaticisms of more or less everyone else.
Sorry, were you expecting some kind of high-minded horseshit about "the will of the people"? Please. It's not that I lack sympathy for the concept of a stateless world; it's that I don't let that sympathy blind me to some trivially obvious facts which, in the absence of the blazingly good anarchist argument which I still have yet to encounter, make the whole proposition faintly ridiculous in the same way as it would be if you were to walk around calling yourself a Jedi and expecting to be taken seriously for it.
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Thursday 4th August 2011 15:32 GMT yeahyeahno
@John Dee
"... the police didn't seek to criminalise philosophy and / or legitimate protest in the first place.
Perhaps you and Aaron Em can get together and explain to me exactly how this democracy thing works. There seems to be a hell of a lot more kratos then demos."
But as the article isn't about that subject, its about how apparently lame the police are for using Wikipedia, my original conclusion still holds.
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Wednesday 3rd August 2011 09:51 GMT Craig 28
Re:Grammar checker
The auto correction in iOS and presumably Mac OS Lion corrects "i" to "I". It doesn't need to be a grammar checker specifically to catch lower case i since i is hardly ever used on its own unless you're using it in the context of numbering a list e.g. i, ii, iii. Yes I know roman numerals are often used in capitals instead but not when bullet pointing a list for some reason.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
