The interesting history they don't teach in schools

[nihilistcat]

They call ideologies like this "radical" for a reason, most people who have not taken the time to really learn this stuff, literally have no basis from their experiences by which they can understand how a system like this could work. So most people would just write this off without any real analysis (which is unfortunate, because there's a really rich history here that most people never learn about).

Ideologies like this are marketed as 'radical' to get around the fact that they never address basic functions required of any government or community structure. It's easier to do as you just did and claim a 'radical' knowledge of something others don't understand.

These ideologies, which all hinge on some form of direct assembly, cannot function beyond however many people you can squeeze in a room and provide enough time for all concerned citizens to be heard. Doesn't leave much time for debate. Keep in mind that this is just for deciding if the parking lot should have straight or angled parking. Repeat for everything else considering the utopian consensus that is constantly being invoked with no clear definition or prescribed means of gaining consensus.

The ideas of administrative confederations to herd local assemblies is also unrealistic regardless of the agreed human rights and ecological standards that are to serve as the basis of confederation decisions. How do roads built in any one community have a hope of mating with roads proposed in another community?

None of these ideas propose forms of dispute resolution, just more hand waving at the idea of consensus. Seriously, by what means are disagreements to be arbitrated/adjudicated? Saying that in a perfect world people will come to an agreement is quite frankly idiotic making the entire enterprise not worthy of serious consideration.

What mechanism is in place to protect individual rights?

You mentioned that people can just go get what they want from the store, but there's never an explanation of how the goods get to the shelves. Who makes them? What if nobody wants to make toilet paper? What about unsavory services, like emptying your shit from a septic tank? What if nobody agrees to perform this service? I suppose this means that everyone is compelled to perform this task on their own. Extend this to all sorts of goods and services and you quickly revert to some sort of subsistence existence.

The very worst aspect of these ideas is that they ignore history and why certain institutions were developed. There's certainly room for improvement, but jettisoning all current community and societal organization institutions while pretending that the underlying problems for which they were created don't actually exist is naive.

And that's a good and fair critique of anarchist and similar ideologies. But for the most part, there are different solutions for all the problems you mention. First, direct democracy is not new, nor is consensus decision making. Nonetheless, it does seem strenuous to think that it can perform adequately in a technologically advanced society such as ours (that is, perform up to peoples expectations and what we've become accustomed to), at least superficially. 

But we don't need to begin by trying to imagine the abrupt dismantling of government (this sort of situation always creates a crisis from which societies rarely recover from). Many don't realize this, but approximately 12% of the US economy is already employee owned and managed. That's something like $1.7 trillion in economic activity (that's more than the GNP of most countries). So employees can collectively make decisions in a cohesive and highly functional way, and they do so each and every day in this country, and in fact, studies have shown that employee owned/managed enterprises are more productive, survive longer, and generally outperform conventional companies in most of the standard metrics. I'm not saying employee ownership is appropriate in all circumstances. I still think incentives are important, and I think in new tech start ups or innovation intensive companies, employee ownership may be inappropriate (but it does work very well, across many different industry sectors). 

Looking at direct democracy, Switzerland was a direct democracy until very recently (ever since the Swiss confederation of the 13th century), and it has been perhaps the most highly functional democracy in the western world. In fact many of its cantons still use direct democracy, but it has been in decline, particularly in large cities (probably because of large amounts of immigration into Switzerland, particular its urban centers). 

BTW, I've been to Switzerland, and they have very nice roads (thank you very much).

How will disputes be handled, law enforcement, etc.? Well, how are they handled today? We imprison more people than every other nation on earth, and we have higher violent crime rates than most of our western counterparts. So let's begin by admitting that we don't do such a great job at this stuff. In Scandinavia, where they use restorative justice, they're actually closing prisons down. Not needed anymore. 

So yeah, I reject your very reactionary slippery slope, OMG it's gonna be like that movie where all the police went away and chaos ensued (reminds of one of Bill Maher's hysterical fits of panic at the thought of anarchy and chaos, like that time he thought banning plastic might be a great idea, in reaction to that guy who printed a gun using a 3D printer)

And this how they keep their hooks in us, by prompting us to think in such absurd ways. Like your implicit assumption that any transition to a new system must involve the abrupt dismantling of the state and police forces, leaving us at the mercy of violent criminals. That's just ridiculous. There are many many ways we can transition towards a non-authoritarian society, and do so in a very smooth way.