Black flag, blue sky? Stateless high science

[M. Stuart]

Howdy comrades. In a wide-ranging discussion about the realistic application of anarchism/statelessness, a friend of mine I was attempting to persuade posed a question that we basically boiled down to "How would anarchists build the Large Hadron Collider?" I didn't really have an answer. Practical mass projects - dams and such - sure. Research with easily understood applicability - cancer research, etc. - yes. But blue sky research with a purpose that is difficult to explain and of arguable benefit, I'm not sure how it would come together. Something like the LHC or putting a man on the moon requires a massive amount of resources and labor and again, Whitey on the Moon-style, there's usually a better place for those resources. Is there an answer to this? Or would a stateless society just get by without colliding any hadrons?

[Rooiakker]

In a stateless society where menial labour is automated, research would be a highly popular and honorable profession. Through collective interest of the scientific community, (and possibly through a physicists union.) resources would be allocated to the project in terms of potential scientific value. While the Hadron Collider isn't of particular material value, the data received from the project is worth quite a bit to the scientific community.

Also I would point out that utilizing resources toward space exploration is far cheaper than people realize. We could have cities on mars already if NASA was getting the funding that the military gets to blow brown people up with drones.

[Crabbensmasher]

I think if you asked this question 40 years ago, the answer would be much more complex, but given the technological capability we have now, it would be easy. As our friendo has said above, there would hopefully be a large degree of collaboration within the scientific community - and I don't think why not. Communication now is easy to access and resourceful.

When thinking about anarchy, it can sometimes be hard to get out of the mindset where communities are isolated, and there's no higher body to propel societal progress through mass projects or technological advancements.
This higher body, we now attribute to governments, and increasingly, corporations. In reality though, this sort of progress can be propelled much faster by a decentralized forum of people rather than the highly centralized state of affairs we see today.
It's just hard to imagine because we haven't had any different.

[evermilion]

I can imagine most communities in a stateless society would pool what resources they could to invest in science and technological development. This would be a simple matter in the age of abundance.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Read Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed. I'm pretty sure the answer is in there.

On the other hand, I'm kinda of the opinion that given the choice between a society with effective bioregional horticultural practices and a society that will gut the earth to go to space, the former offers much more in terms of authentically emancipatory possibility.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Read Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed. I'm pretty sure the answer is in there.

On the other hand, I'm kinda of the opinion that given the choice between a society with effective bioregional horticultural practices and a society that will gut the earth to go to space, the former offers much more in terms of authentically emancipatory possibility.

We won't have to gut the earth in order to take the stars if we have the sense to start mining the sky. Or in less poetic terms, space exploration only has to consume Earthly resources until it's developed enough to get its resources from space.

[Craig_J]

In a stateless society where menial labour is automated, research would be a highly popular and honorable profession. Through collective interest of the scientific community, (and possibly through a physicists union.) resources would be allocated to the project in terms of potential scientific value. While the Hadron Collider isn't of particular material value, the data received from the project is worth quite a bit to the scientific community.

Also I would point out that utilizing resources toward space exploration is far cheaper than people realize. We could have cities on mars already if NASA was getting the funding that the military gets to blow brown people up with drones.

I echo this post and feel this image is very appropriate

http://i.imgur.com/2zgif.png