A common thing that comes up a lot when I see people saying there is no way anarchism could work, is that it’s human nature to be selfish and to attempt to gain power over others etc. I think people are just as likely to be benevolent or at least neutral to each other when the conditions are right.

I think there are two kinds of people. One kind is selfish and attempts to gain power over others, even to their own detriment. The other kind is benevolent and caring and empathetic, and would not willingly exploit others. With this duality present, anarchy becomes the only thing that will reliably work in the long-haul.

When we allow some people to have coercive power over others (as is the case in hierarchies), the self-interested people gravitate toward those positions of power. Because they do not care about how their actions affect others, they tend to make decisions that are destructive to society in the pursuit of short-term personal gain. I would actually go so far as to claim that all of our societal ills fundamentally arise from the fact that pathologically self-interested individuals without any empathy are calling the shots - including the industrial practices that are leading to total environmental destruction.

Only in a society where this coercive control does not exist can we keep those destructive forces in check. When a self-interested person has coercive power over groups of people, they can retaliate against people or groups who try to call them out on their bad behavior. By pitting other groups against each other, they can maintain that power in an extremely large society even when their own group is ultimately a minority and most groups would agree that their actions deserve negative social consequences. As long as an individual can never wield the power of a group, community policing/moderation will always be possible, and these bad actors can be penalized or even removed as appropriate. We want to empower the people with empathy (who will generally work together for a common good, or at least against a common bad - at least, so long as they haven’t been tricked into fighting each other over petty nonsense instead), rather than the people without it (who won’t generally work together unless they can somehow strike up a mutually beneficial deal - opportunities are limited when they all ultimately covet each other’s power and wealth).

OP: The idea that not all people are fundamentally the same (“created equal”, if you will) or have positive value is very uncomfortable to the masses, and I think that this is the point where I diverge from the mainstream.