Anarchist Discussion Forums

by **Man** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 10:43 am

Well. I said naive hope and stupidity would allow me to conquer gravity and that was a joke.

by **Morpheus** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 7:21 pm

[color=blue] Look at herd animals and tell me that's not heirarchy. Contrary to Orwell, Democracy Rules on the Big Animal Farm..... By JAMES GORMAN When red deer stand up and honeybees dance, they are not simply stretching their legs or indicating where the nectar is, according to a new study. As bizarre as it may seem, they are voting on whether to move to greener pastures or richer flowers. The process is unconscious, the researchers say. No deer counts votes or checks ballots; bees do not know the difference between a dimple and a chad. But no one deer or bee or buffalo decides when the group moves. If democracy means that actions are taken based not on a ruler's preference, but the preferences of a majority, then animals have democracy. Not surprisingly, decisions based on majority preferences tend to fit in with what most individuals in the group want. But, the researchers say, this is not a mere tautology. An analysis based on some hefty mathematical models that they developed shows that democracy in groups of animals can have a tangible survival edge over despotism. Dr. Tim Roper, of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, who did the research with Dr. Larissa Conradt and reported it in the current issue of Nature, said that despite the wording of the paper, "We're very anxious to avoid any extrapolation to the political domain." The voting habits of baboons and gorillas and buffalo are not meant to be comparable to ward politics, attack ads on television or negative campaigning that ignores the issues. The parallel to human activity is on a different scale. "There are human cases of decision making to which our model would be relevant," Dr. Roper said, like "small groups making rather simple decisions." He offered an example: "Suppose you've got a few friends who want to meet in the pub in the evening. In order to all be at the same place in the same time, they've got to talk it over." Presumably the deer and swans don't whine as much as people do, or threaten to find a new flock if everyone keeps going to the same place with the soggy French fries. But the question ? how the decision gets made ? is the same. And although human groups have been well studied, and individual animals, little attention has been paid to decision making by groups of animals. Dr. Thomas D. Seeley of Cornell, whose research on bees was cited in the paper, but who was not aware of it in advance, said: "I think it's a very important paper. The basic phenomenon that they're looking at ? group decision making ? is actually fairly common, but it's not well studied." He said that most of the study of animal decision making had been at the individual level, and although there seemed to be groups that decided, en masse, to act, "there's really been no theory about why you would expect the decision making to be democratic, or distributed." Dr. Seeley said he thought the phrasing of the decision making in terms of democracy or despotism was fair, and that the paper was "a good first step" that could lead to other research. Dr. Conradt and Dr. Roper did their research in two parts. First they reviewed earlier research to determine whether various group decisions were being directed by one individual or seemed to come from the group as a whole. For example, observations of group behavior showed that red deer moved when more that 60 percent of adults stood up ? that is, voted with their feet. In African buffalo, he said, adult females made the decisions, voting with the direction of their gaze. Whooper swans voted with head movements. They would move when a large number made low intensity movements, or when a smaller number made high intensity movements. Somehow, unconsciously, the animals sense when enough of them get the urge for going. It is certainly a decision by a majority, but what to call it is another question. Dr. Kathreen Ruckstuhl of the University of Cambridge, who studies bighorn sheep and was familiar with some of the studies of African buffalo the paper describes, said, "It all depends on how you define democracy." If no conscious act is required and democracy simply means that the group acts according to the preference of a majority, then it is democracy. She did question whether anything corresponding to "despotism" could exist, since even in a group that followed a leader, the implication of coercion might be inappropriate. The more complicated aspect of the research involved mathematical models that Dr. Conradt and Dr. Roper developed to analyze the benefits to animal groups of different ways of decision making that they described as democratic or despotic. In essence the models compared costs to individuals of not getting to do things when they wanted to. Having to wait or hurry up was considered a cost, and the presumption was that for animals as for people, time is money or food or something important to survival. These are abstract models, not ways to process the previous research. And what they show is that when majorities decide, more individuals get what they want, and that should translate into better survival. There could, of course, be situations with incredibly smart or sensitive despots that maximize the benefit to the group, but Dr. Conradt and Dr. Roper did not come up with them. Dr. Roper said the research was meant to suggest a new way of looking at decision making and a new area for research. The models apply only to animals that make group decisions. It may be that some animals, like domestic cats, for instance, do not vote, do not care to vote and have no interest in any sort of group activity. They were not, however, a subject of the paper.

by **cre8anarchy** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 8:47 pm

Sounds like a combination of consensus and I-really-don't-care. Or like the way fish school. Neat.

by **cre8anarchy** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 8:52 pm

I really haven't read that much Foucault or Stirner so . . . . I just have this gut feeling that I don't like the implications of your argument, yet I don't have the facts to make a coherent/good rebuttal. [img]/wwwthreads/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

by **cre8anarchy** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 9:06 pm

I just read the parable. Very Zen. Food for thought, but I don't see it's significance. The man at the gate lacked courage, but I'm not so sure it shows internal authority. Submissiveness, yes; to what though? The gatekeeper? His idea of the gatekeeper? If you mean that internal authority is our believing our ideas about things, well I sort of see what you mean. I guess I just don't call that authority. Perhaps that is semantics.

by **Guest** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 10:42 pm

Another example of internal authority: Try holding your breath for 4 minutes. This is physiologically feasible, however, I have a feeling your internal authority will disallow it. Some element of the mind/body will usurp your conscious will and will impose breathing upon you. All of this happening within your own being. You can pretend that this is not a blatant form of internal authority or internal hierarchy, just like a christian fundamentalist can pretend that medical attention is not a form of god's will. I don't expect an anarchist to realize his own internal hierarchy or a christian fundamentalist to realize that he is playing god. Though the potential for personal enlightenment is certainly there, I'm merely pointing it out for you as something to consider. -><- Anomolous

by **Guest** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 1:22 am

I think that it is important to note that there are no hierarchies in nature. What people claim are natural hierarchies are in fact complex ecological relationships that are better described as an interconnected web. [color=red]Bullshit. Look at herd animals and tell me that's not heirarchy. You know the "I'm the dominant male, I get to fuck all the chicks" business. I will. That's not hierarchy. That's biological- animals don't consciously attempt to be the dominant male nor do they consciously follow the dominant male. People have just defined it in societal terms to make it easier to understand. It's not like the "dominant male" is the boss. Oh, and poor choice of words.

by **Guest** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 4:18 pm

desparation

by **Guest** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 4:20 pm

"Oh, and" look how snitchy anarchists become when you strike near the heart of their ideology

by **Guest** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 4:41 pm

you havn't struck anything, capitalist.

by **cre8anarchy** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 10:35 pm

I don't think adhering to the constraints of physiological necessity is an example of "internal authority". I am a biological being and I have no problem with those limits. If you seriously think the limits of biology are somehow authority...well...we do disagree. I think you are conflating hierarchy in the sense of priority, and hierarchy in the sense of power over another. I think Din's thoughts on the matter are much more valid as examples of something akin to authority. I do quibble with the words "internal authority". It just seems like a strange phrase. But. . . . But I was thinking about this more after my last post, and I thought of the phrase "Kill the cop in your head". That seems to be the issue. How much do we adhere to the ideas that get put into our heads before we know what is happening.

by **Din** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:34 am

[color=green]I just read the parable. Very Zen. Food for thought, but I don't see it's significance. The man at the gate lacked courage, but I'm not so sure it shows internal authority. Submissiveness, yes; to what though? To an abstract entity that does not really exist outside the man's head - Law. It was Max Stirner who wrote that the [color=blue]State, emperor, church, God, morality, order, are such thoughts or spirits, that exist only for the mind. To that list we can add the Law. As to how Law exists only for the mind/in the mind, I feel that was demonstrated, amongst other things, by Jacques Derrida who wrote a lengthy essay deconstructing this Kafka's parable. I could post some extracts from it, if you wish, but it is quite complicated - Derrida's writings are notorious for being difficult. Oh - and the doorkeeper is arguably as deluded as the man from the country side. [color=green]If you mean that internal authority is our believing our ideas about things, well I sort of see what you mean. Well, I don't think it is quite like that. Perhaps we can say that internal authority is the psychological restrictions within our own mind. Recall my words earlier that unless there do exist internal authority, we would have to admit that every authoritarian figure is him or herself under some sort of external authority - leading to the paradox as to who or what started off this entire cycle of imposing one will on another - an ultimate, higher entity such as the State, the God, etc. Now, consider the following insight from Max Stirner: [color=blue]Hierarchy is dominion of thoughts, dominion of mind! We are hierarchic to this day, kept down by those who are supported by thoughts. Thoughts are the sacred. Or this, one of the most well-known passages from The Ego and Its Own: [color=blue]Curative means or healing is only the reverse side of punishment, the theory of cure runs parallel with the theory of punishment; if the latter sees in an action a sin against right, the former takes it for a sin of the man against himself, as a decadence from his health. [my emphasis] Think also of these words from Emma Goldman: [color=blue]the mass itself is responsible for this horrible state of affairs. It clings to its masters, loves the whip, and is the first to cry Crucify! the moment a protesting voice is raised against the sacredness of capitalistic authority or any other decayed institution. Yet how long would authority and private property exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.

by **Rekyl** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 6:52 am

Im sorry, am the only one that cannot understand what the neurological functions of the human body has to do with society? Technically the only way to be completely without any (none incuding the "mind over matter" thing) form of oppression is through death. But does that matter? If I live as a slave in the Southern US before the american civil war am I to concern myself with philosofical arguments concerning the "internal authority"? What would my concerns that my body will never be free of my mind matter when the slave master hangs me or rapes my sister or just forces me to labour for his profits? Is this the best argument that the pro-authoritans has against anarchism? Or did someone smoke a little too much last night? rekyl.

by **Din** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 2:58 am

[color=green]Is this the best argument that the pro-authoritans has against anarchism? Who's being pro-authoritarian? Who's arguing against anarchism? [color=green]If I live as a slave in the Southern US before the american civil war am I to concern myself with philosphical arguments concerning the "internal authority"? Many slaves had psychologically accepted their inferior position - as did the untouchable caste in India. Tell someone they are stupid enough time and they will eventually believe that they are stupid. That's internal authority. It still exists. [color=green]What would my concerns that my body will never be free of my mind matter when the slave master hangs me or rapes my sister or just forces me to labour for his profits? And what if your mind accepts all of that? What if your mind accepts the fictional right of the master to rape your sister? What if your mind accepts the supposedly natural system in which you are forced to labor for his profit? Would your body be free? Indeed, what if your mind suggest that you are free?

by **Man** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 3:37 am

The mind is the only freedom restrictor.

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