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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   2632 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 11, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Why would anyone want to put in the effort to recreate a GWB-era argument about anarchy? I'm amazed you even got one taker. The only step you missed was bringing up medieval Iceland, which would trigger PTSD in anyone who spent time arguing on the internet in 2006.

I have two points here. One, I'm not an anarchist, I'm thinking more along the lines of Robin Hanson's recent blogging, so calling it 2006 is improper. Maybe my post pattern matched to 2006, and I don't know if I'm to blame or if you're to blame. I was not around debating during GWB so maybe give me some pointers on how to avoid pattern matching to whatever it is you're thinking? For one thing I have some familiarity with 2010s lolbert arguments and the main issue was blank slatism, so I'm trying to be original by making points like the state breeds the violent criminals only to act like the hero when it locks up a portion of them, and that if you tone down statelyness most of the new violence is these exact people slaughtering each other or being killed in self-defense, so it's both a self solving problem and it's not actually relevant to higher types of people (this includes, I believe, motters, and more generally the top 20-30% of people at least if not more, so hear me out), who are only burdened by the state. These types of points in particular was ignored by FC probably because it was not able to be responded to with stock phrases taken from 2006.

Second, even if some of my points are 2006, you never debunked them, so just saying they're old is a fallacy. HBD is from the 1960s. So what? You might as well be saying in 2018 when basic HBD was still controversial, «why would anyone want to put in the effort to recreate a Clinton-era argument about IQ gaps? I'm amazed you got one taker... the only step you missed was bringing up the MTRAS...» that pattern matches clearly to someone who doesn't want to talk about it for the obvious reasons, and the reason is not because it's a boring debate or because it's trivial that the controversial position is factually incorrect.

Was medieval Icelandic democracy a common discussion point on the internet in 2006?? That sounds very ammusing. Dating myself but this is was before the time I got into online forums.

Re: Medieval Icelandic Democracy, see this review of Njal's Saga by an ACX reader:

Remember, medieval Iceland was an early attempt at anarcho-capitalist utopia. When Harald Fairhair declared himself King of Norway, the Norwegians who refused to bend the knee fled west to build a makeshift seastead on a frozen volcanic island. No lords, no kings, no masters. Only lawsuits. So, so many lawsuits.

Once a year, the Icelanders would meet at the Althing, a free-for-all open-air law court. There they would engage in that most Viking of pastimes - suing each other, ad nauseam, for every minor slight of the past twelve months. Offended parties would sell their rights to prosecute a case to the highest bidder, who would go around seeking fair arbitrators (or, in larger cases, defer to a panel chosen by chieftain-nobles called godi). Courts would propose a penalty for the losing side - usually money. There were no police, but if the losers refused to pay, the courts could declare them “outlaws” - in which case it was legal to kill them. If you wanted to be a Viking in medieval Iceland, you needed a good lawyer. And Njal was the greatest lawyer of all.

Ahhh, I would very much assume that these days discussion of Icelandic Lawsuits in the anarcho-syndicalist commune would be a thing. Thinking of people doing it in 2006 is the hilarious.

EDIT: After watching the video, this was an absolute hoot. Somebody make Icelandic saga anime!

That was Scott himself, if I remember correctly. It won the contest but he disqualified it, on the basis that winning your own competition seems gauche.

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