What five changes to the government would you make?

[Ethan Allen]

The private sector always provides.

[San Lumen]

I would ban gerrymandering and have redistricting done by a independent commission, have automatic voter registration, require all executive nominees have a hearing and a vote, make environmental laws unable to be repealed and national monuments, parks and forests unable to ever be logged or mines

[Neu California]

So, in a government free society, what's to stop some heavily armed warlord from coming in and taking over an area, then declaring that his word is absolute?

In other words, what's stopping de facto governments from popping up?

An equally valid question, imo

In an anarcho-capitalist society, what's to keep the corporations from becoming de facto governments over the area they exist in?

[Ethan Allen]

The will of the consumer, and competition.

[Diopolis]

So, in a government free society, what's to stop some heavily armed warlord from coming in and taking over an area, then declaring that his word is absolute?

In other words, what's stopping de facto governments from popping up?

Historically, people have banded together in personal protection schemes in the absence of a strong state. Many of these take the forms of large extended families.

To think that you would never be free in a stateless society because of your parents, is in fact, infantile.

In a stateless society you would reach majority far later. Lacking government services, you would rely on family or church communities to provide such things- both of which are a lot more willing to get all up in your business than some bureaucrat. Again, look at actual stateless societies.

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So, in a government free society, what's to stop some heavily armed warlord from coming in and taking over an area, then declaring that his word is absolute?

In other words, what's stopping de facto governments from popping up?

A stateless society can have self-defense forces.

[Vistulange]

So, in a government free society, what's to stop some heavily armed warlord from coming in and taking over an area, then declaring that his word is absolute?

In other words, what's stopping de facto governments from popping up?

A stateless society can have self-defense forces.

What is it, precisely, that prevents these self-defence forces - whom I assume to be armed - from assuming control of the society and how it functions through their arms, thereby establishing what is essentially a state?

The only way I can see that not being the case is if everybody is a part of the aforementioned self-defence force, i.e. a militia of the people.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

1. Ranked ballots. I'm tired of this "lesser of two evils" crap.

2. Nationalize all things connected to the medical sciences. There is no reason to have capitalism's perverse incentives contaminate them.

3. Kick the private sector out of education. No more capitalistic standardized testing, or capitalistic textbooks. No more private schools that allow the rich to abandon the rest of us.

4. Speaking of standardized testing, make it more frequent, but less high-stakes. A few bad days can throw off a student's performance if too much grade weighting is on too few tests. And then those who care the most get the least sleep the night before anyway. But if they're teaching the same curriculum, give 'em the same tests.

5. Replace the "age of criminal responsibility" with a gradual sliding scale. And make that sliding scale a HELL of a lot more gradual than the current differences between how teenage criminals are treated and how older criminals are treated.

[Diopolis]

A stateless society can have self-defense forces.

What is it, precisely, that prevents these self-defence forces - whom I assume to be armed - from assuming control of the society and how it functions through their arms, thereby establishing what is essentially a state?

The only way I can see that not being the case is if everybody is a part of the aforementioned self-defence force, i.e. a militia of the people.

Decentralization of command.
Of course this has the downside of "more or less constant civil war" if you don't get the incentive structures perfect, but eh.