A practical problem for the Anarchist and New Age Voluntarists (and any other starry-eyed idealist). (featuring @vuyusile as author)

I am relatively new to steemit and am learning a lot about the community.

I have been introduced to concepts known as whales and sharks and dolphins and minnows and even insects. Even though I have made great strides in under a week, I haven’t found a sensible explanation for “vests” and a host of other geeky terms and titles, yet. But no matter – I will catch on in due course. Thanks for this opportunity!

I am also observing some things about the community’s culture. Or perhaps more accurately some of its sub-cultures.

I haven’t figured out where to find the stats that I see some have access to – yet; and I am not sure that the data will produce the stat that will give objectivity to my next observation, but it does seem to me, subjectively, that we have a high concentration of Anarchists and New Age Voluntarists.

Anarchists no doubt have the ringing endorsement of @dollarvigilante to thank for their concentration. I watched his interview with Dan and Ned as part of my induction: “I can see no reason why any person should not be blogging on Steem” still rings in my ears as an early mantra. The spike in membership that followed his first day success is already the stuff of legend.

I am not sure where the Voluntarists pull their recruiting power from, though accept that both anarchists and voluntarists endorse the politics behind the idea of a non-state-regulated cryptocurrency.

I wholly endorse the idea of voluntarism.

From where I am sitting much of the more valuable and enduring stuff that gets done in the world emanates from those who are not compelled to do it. Like loving and caring for your family; like pursuing an occupation with a sense of calling; like placing your abilities and time on the altar of sacrifice for others’ progress. But these people don’t usually make a point of seeking the label. something enforces the unenforceable. They seem to move on with an admirable obliviousness in sun, shine and rain. I digress slightly.

The truth is I don’t know much about the practical politics of either Anarchists or Voluntarists.

Of course I can, and have, read up a little on them, but in my part of the world they seem an endangered species – if they ever were introduced. They seem to grow up, counterintuitively, in societies that already have a great deal of freedom relative to the rest of the world. But I would like to know more.

So I thought I would pose a practical problem and invite members of these schools of thought to educate me. I am asking for real life solutions to the real life problem.

Not, if you will forgive the impertinence, the sycophantish reflections of one’s own sense of self image and ideology; but rather actual social and political strategy that might address the problem. And please don’t misinterpret my preemptive attempt to filter useful comments from the useless ones – a recent conspectus of responses to some articles has convinced me that flattering the powerful is a strategy that will not have been screened out as people signed up for this platform; and every whale likes to have his tummy rubbed; this is, after all, a popularity contest, and the popular may vote up their accolytes. So I get that steemit will be as vulnerable to the “mirror, mirror on the wall” syndrome as any other social media. I am not hating on this, just trying to limit the reach of its infection.

I am genuinely and seriously open to persuasion that this project can be more than a boomer for the early adopters.

I am asking all of you out there, including, for example, @dantheman who recently received a chorus of approval for his personal introspection in https://steemit.com/philosophy/@dantheman/why-do-we-fight-to-change-the-worldand his adoption of Eckhart Tolle’s philosophy. I am calling on those who have the messianic vision in their eyes, to propose solutions to the following problem.

On 2 September 2016 in the gloriously beautiful South Africa, filled with people of great resillience, the Minister of Police presented his annual report on the crime statistics for the country.

Four crucial stats are headlined in the below infographic. Its too #@%$!! awful for words.

An average of 51 people are murdered each day (18673 for the year).
An average of 40 hijackings take place each day.
20 820 home robberies (that is a theft involving violence against the possessor of the thing being stolen) and 250 606 home burglaries occurred in the past 12 months.

That does not even include the rape statistic which is one in three women (lets ignore men for the moment); or the assault statistic, which is heavily gender biased against women.

It does not include those incidents that go unreported.

And of course I don’t suggest that South Africa is the only State that suffers from this kind of problem.

So how would the glorious revolution march forward on the shoulders of anachism and voluntarism in the absence of state coercion, and arrest this state of affairs and bring substantive liberty and equality to all those that live as both victims and perpetrators of the violence represented in these statistics?

Let’s get past the ranting against state controlled central banks and show how this project would solve this problem. Let’s see how the economic underpinnings of the unregulated currency translate into actual socio-political interventions that turn the tide. Let’s not have any platitudes that these stats represent the failure of the state (which of course they do) but rather how this project, even at its apirational best, holds the key to unlocking glorious liberty and shining equality.

You have a disciple waiting to be made …

Or if you doubt my sincerity, lets treat it as a problem that directs our thinking to the next generation of utility for the program; something that takes us beyond the banality of blogging.