Being a parent who thinks deeply about my role, I have gained new appreciation for the best form of government ever achieved: the benevolent dictatorship.

If you run your household like a democracy the kids will never do their homework or clean their room. They'll vote candy for dinner every night. It's your job as their parent to look ahead and make the best long-term decisions for your charges, even and especially when they disagree with you. These small groups of people band together for common defense, commerce, and all the nice things that come from civilization. This system works pretty well with small groups, especially if they share kinship bonds. If you extend this model beyond Dunbar's number it breaks down. This is where things get messy.

Being an anarchist is not the same thing as advocating for chaos. It just means you believe in pushing decision-making out to the edges of the network, where the best decisions are made. It's a tacit acknowledgement of the reality that no one person or committee is competent to rule over large numbers of people fairly and equitably. The only sane system is to respect emergent order, control the worst excesses of humanity, and to leave people alone to live their own lives in a manner of their own choosing. For me: anarchism is equivalent to humanism.