> First of all, if you really are an anarchist you need to think a little bit more about the implications of an anarchist society (or whatever) and grow up a little bit.

Are you serious? Do you really think that, as an anarchist, I haven't considered the implications of an anarchist society? I can guarantee you I've spent more time thinking about it than most people have (probably more time than you have). Maybe you have thought about it a bit, and maybe you have come to different conclusions than I have, and that's okay, but it's ridiculous for you to assume that the reason your conclusions are different to mine are just because I haven't thought about it enough or that I'm just not mature enough, especially as you haven't given any supporting reasoning or facts or even stated what you think the implications of an anarchist society are. It's pretty disrespectful as well.

> especially as you haven't given any supporting reasoning or facts or even stated what you think the implications of an anarchist society are.

Because it almost always results in a waste of time. But you're right and I probably went a little bit too far with my characterization of you.

To me the fundamental mistake that anarchists make is failing to realize that by getting rid of the state they're pretty much enabling any other citizen or group of citizens to impose their rule eventually. Everybody just won't fall in line with the anarchist utopia (even though they might for a while) and it will be just a matter of time for a group of people to take advantage of the situation. It make take years or decades but in time, you will be just substituting one bad for another.

But anarchists don't think that if you just "get rid" of the state, everything will magically fall into place. And anarchists don't just want to get rid of state: they want to get rid of capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, heterosexism, and every form of systemic domination. Some see civilisation itself as a form of systemic domination. But most of us recognise that it's probably impossible to change all of that stuff, at least in our lifetimes. Does that make anarchism unrealistic/impossible/idealistic/whatever? Not at all.

Because we recognise that there's not going to be a singular moment of history ("the revolution"), after which we'll live in an eternal anarchist utopia, anarchism in practice is about creating new (and/or influencing existing) institutions, communities and social movements towards structures and practices that are resistant to take-over, co-option and sabotage by the interests of power. This maximises their autonomy, which should hopefully allow them to serve their own interests instead of serving the interests of power (where "power" can be any form of systemic domination). This is an ongoing (never-ending) and imperfect process in which lessons are constantly being learned and relearned by everyone involved.[1] Anarchism as a theory (or theories) is the cumulative body of knowledge derived from people's (up until now, mostly failed) attempts at creating and sustaining anarchist institutions, communities and social movements.

[1]: My original point was that I think there's such a lesson to be learned from the recent actions of Canonical/Ubuntu and that I hope the free software movement learns from this, even if it is generally not explicitly anarchist (though certainly anarchists are for free software (if they're for software at all, that is)).