I dropped an article last night my time with my thoughts on a quote from the great H.L Mencken. A Steemian by the handle of @diginaut responded to my article thusly:-

"While I am aware of the fallibility of pretty much every political model, I find anarchy to be a very optimistic dream. The thing is, the world is full of arseholes. Many models could possibly work, if not for this. How does anarchy ensure that we cater for and protect the vulnerable? The disabled, the elderly, etc... In my experience, people are mostly selfish (big generalisation I know, but it's already been a challenging day, so please just let me have that one). And there will always be those who strive to be a tyrant, and will use any means, which many many people will fall for because they would rather forgo freedom than take personal responsibility and be a grown up. All the personal vices people have now would still exist within anarchism or any political structure. That is why I'm not a devotee of any model, but would like to see the best from all, which another optimistic dream. There would still have to be safeguards. It is human nature that creates this necessity. What would you do to address my concerns, if tomorrow, you could achieve your ideal of global anarchy?"

I first saw this response at 5.05am Sydney time and started responding in my head, but given that I was headed for work and couldn't give the counterresponse I wanted to, I decided to hold off and answer her questions properly. Furthermore, I decided after typing a bit of this response down that it really warranted an article of its own - and here we are.

Firstly, let me define the term anarchy as I will address it, and that is from the Greek 'an-archos' which simply means no rulers, which by extension I take to mean zero government.

While I am happy to call myself an anarchist, I do not mean the image that often pops into people's heads of the balaclava-wearing dickhead destroying private property with Molotov cocktails and the like - I mean that I am someone who believes that by taking responsibility for my own actions, by entering into all associations voluntarily and without coercion, and by honouring the sanctity of private property, that we can all survive quite well without governments. To answer some specifics raised:-

Who would look after the vulnerable? The implication I think (correct me if I am wrong) is "Who would provide welfare/health programs for the mentally ill, infirm, and elderly?" Pretty much the same people who do now I would imagine. Family, friends, colleagues, churches. In an anarchist utopia I like to think that without the government stealing up to x% of our paychecks that we would have a good deal leftover for charity. Can you imagine how much healthcare might cost in a completely deregulated market free of government subsidies and interference? A university/college degree? There will always be the selfish and just plain nasty but I think the majority of people will do the right thing.

Tyrants - there will also always be those particular humans who seek power and who seek to misuse and abuse that power to their own ends. I pretty much see it playing out as you do on The Walking Dead - people form voluntary associations, some have pure intentions, some less so. If we had a couple of hundred years we might see the majority of people employing the non-aggression principle, but if anarchy happened tomorrow then the people with the most bullets and toilet paper would rule over us all. :)

Safeguards - others have more useful points to make on this but in a nutshell I foresee a system of courts working on the principles of common law or natural justice. In a society full of people who legitimately accepted responsibility for their own lives and for their actions then I think that serious infractions would be few, but humans being humans we'd probably find a way to mess it up.

In short I think anarchy is something to work towards but I don't imagine we will ever actually get there. For my part I will do what I can to squeeze the state out of my life by practicing the NAP, exercising agorism where possible and by respecting persons and property, and I will encourage everyone I can to do the same. I hope to be an example to others in this respect. I hope that helps answer your questions @diginaut. I think I could have written this better with more time, but this is what you get. :)

Hardfork 19

Prior to about two days ago I thought a hardfork was what you got from the kitchen when you were at a BBQ and your plastic fork shit itself and snapped on you while cutting through your T-bone. I'm not entirely sure how all this is going to play out, but as someone who was upvoting at 1-2 cents previously you can imagine my surprise and delight when my first upvote post-HF19 was worth 32-freakin-cents. Holy shit man, I was grinning like an idiot clicking on just about anything before I realised how quickly my vote power was going down now. Eeeeep. I saw, and continue to see, a few people spamming the feed with subpar content. I imagine this content will be weeded out eventually but even though your vote (especially your self-vote) is worth more now it does not mean you should abuse it. The content you produce should still be quality, not some hastily cobbled-together rubbish aimed at penny votes. I have not produced a great deal of content on Steemit as yet, but my average submission represents somewhere in the order of 2 hours research, searching for artwork, coding/marking up and actual writing. The fact that I can receive more than 12 cent payouts now excites me, but my quality will not suffer in some attempt to cash-in on an increased vote.

Image credits
1. http://www.anarchism.net/symbol_ca.htm

2. https://pixabay.com/en/cake-fork-metal-cutlery-small-fork-554066/

3. http://fanfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/negan-2.jpg