Flippanarchy

The number they are quoting is Dunbar's Number, a biological metric defining the cognitive limit on the number of stable, high-trust social relationships a human brain can maintain. The anthropological average is roughly one hundred and fifty. The argument often found in those spaces assumes that because informal, peer-to-peer trust degrades beyond this point, the only mechanism left to maintain cohesion is a vertical control plane, such as a central committee. This is an architectural failure of imagination that fundamentally conflates coordination with coercion.

Anarchist theory answers this by treating human organisation as a distributed systems engineering problem, demonstrating how architecture can scale without a master node. Authoritarian systems scale by building larger monoliths, which mathematically require middle managers to compress data from the bottom so the single executive node at the top can process it without crashing. Conversely, horizontal infrastructure scales by building an interconnected network of smaller communities, each kept to a size that operates on direct consensus and human trust, and then federating those nodes.

You can observe this architecture functioning in planetary-scale systems like Git, the Linux kernel, or the Fediverse. These ecosystems are built, maintained, and expanded by hundreds of thousands of people, not through vertical command, but through shared protocols. When local syndicates need to coordinate a massive project, they do not elect a president with sweeping authority. They send recallable, strictly mandated delegates to a regional council. The delegate possesses zero executive power over the node that sent them; they act simply as a routing mechanism, moving data between autonomous zones to establish consensus.

And hierarchies are fundamentally inefficient at scale because they introduce severe operational latency. If a worker on a factory floor identifies a critical failure, a hierarchical system requires that data to travel up the chain of command, await processing by an executive entirely divorced from the physical reality of the floor, and travel back down as an order. Horizontal networks optimise for local agency, granting the workers operating the machinery the autonomy to modify it directly, dropping the response time to zero.

The people telling you hierarchy is necessary are conflating structure with subjugation. Scale absolutely requires structure, logistics, and highly refined communication standards, but it does not require executive domination. The claim that humans can only build complex systems under the threat of authority is a cynical and scientifically illiterate view of our species.

Hierarchy no. Representation yes.

Just because someone "speaks for the group" doesn't mean they're above the rest of the group.

Admittedly I am just getting into anarchy, so I am kind of saying my idea expecting it to be flawed from the perspective of a well-read anarchist.

That being said, imo some people would naturally fall into a leadership-like position or a follower-like position. It makes sense that an "organizer" type person would be directing plans or making sure everyone is on the same page, especially if it were something that requires large scale coordination like a power plant or a firefighting unit. However, it wouldn't be enforced by any kind of "state" or anything, it would be enforced by the merit of everyone agreeing to follow this one person's lead until they agree to no longer follow their lead.

So, there is a hierarchy, but it is extremely fluid and can be changed about immediately without beurocracy depending on the situation or the population's sentiment towards the current "leader" figure.

This has in fact been studied. There is in fact math.

Hierarchy is not necessary, it is wildly inefficient even when those involve enthusiastically consent, and most if the evidence in favor rests heavily on fallacies and masturbatory self justification.

Communist claim many things. They claim China is socialist, they claim the first international was maknly Marxist, they always claim their enemies are liberals etc. Always check their claims and irgnore them if they are made up.

my take is that i think it depends on the situation, but with that many people, coordination can definitely get pretty chaotic if there are no structures. but structures don't have to be hierarchical.

anarchists have the concept of a mandated delegate. someone who people pic to execute a task. this role is usually recallable and can be questioned. it's limited in time, and there are strict definitions of what the task is, and what actions are permitted to execute it. any power over others is limited to people agreeing to give that power.

this can be something as basic, as cooking dinner for a group, were the group might decide some criterias for the food together, such as ingredients to avoid, servings, and budget, and then pick a person to cook the food.

this same model can be used for federation and coordination. a small group of people, in a bigger group of people, can come to a decision on a topic through discussion among each other. then they can delegate someone to represent their decision in a meeting of delegates of all the subgroups. those delegates can then discuss among each other and make a proposal for a decision. now these delegates typically do not just have the authority to just accept any decisions for their subgroups. part of their mandate may be, to accept specific decisions, that the subgroup agreed to in advance, but for many proposals, they would instead first inform their subgroup and then have the decision made by the subgroup. the delegate does not rule and is instead, in their role as a delegate, ruled by the group (that includes themselves).

similarly someone can be delegated to the coordination of a task. they would be mandated to coordinate toward an end decided by the people and as part of their mandate they might be allowed to tell people what work they should do, in order to reach the goal. but those people do not have to do as the coordinater tell them to. if they disagree with decisions, they can together with the rest of the group alter the mandate or recall the delegate and pick someone new or even work without coordinator for a time.

of course hierarchies can still form in this situation. it is important to have a culture of critical self reflection, so building hierarchies are noticed early and can be worked against. something that definietly helps is the value of free association. as long as we try to enable everyone and every group to associate and disassociate with and from each other as they like, it is hard to force anyone to do or support things they strongly disagree with.

They probably mean "some kind of structure", which is not neccesarily a hierarchy. It would not be productive to put 8 billion people in a room... or even a chat-room... to hash things out.

Suppose this is true, what stops groups of 150 people sending say 5 people to a a council of other group's 5 people?

Anarchists aren't opposed to organisation, and it's completely compatible with anarchism to form councils and representative bodies. Provided that they are accountable and their recommendations are followed on a voluntary basis.

As much as you might not trust someone on the other side of town on a personal basis, I think you both have a collective interest in making sure there's potable water. Why would you not agree to organise some sort of working group or council to manage that?

I figure that hierarchy only works if it has full-and-consistent consent of everyone within it. So for example if it was 20 people and electrical decisions were being made, and there was one electrician, people would collectively vote that guy to be in charge of electrics.

Within the current system, for example, we have no direct vote over having 70 year old boomers with no experience using the internet (outside of sending emails to their mate Jeff) making decisions that completely disrupt the way the internet it used. This is where anarchy is arguably far better.

only necessary in military for coordinated action. however, if you're living in anarchism and a big group decides to form a hierachy, it can suddenly be them vs a bunch of less strictly organised ppl and the hierachy will likely prevail and be cemented. the outcome is not guaranteed tho

By definition we do not agree