4 ms·

I actually saw this when I was in Xela (Guatemala) a few years ago. They had the slogan "Vecinos Organizados Contra la Delincuencia" stencilled on the side of b

by aidos 11y ago

I actually saw this when I was in Xela (Guatemala) a few years ago. They had the slogan "Vecinos Organizados Contra la Delincuencia" stencilled on the side of buildings. I asked my Spanish tutor about it and he said that they had a movement there to counter the growing gang culture and police indifference / corruption. People had whistles, and if anyone heard one they were to coming running with whatever weapons they had to hand. The conversations were in Spanish so I may have misunderstood some of the details but he had some pretty harrowing stories. He wasn't involved, but he relayed a case in which a gang member was dragged into the street and killed by being set alight. When the police arrived everyone just said they had no idea what had happened.

matwood 11y ago
The movement tags buildings, kills other people, and then acts like nothing happened. So they are just another gang?
- aidos 11y ago
  Firstly, I definitely don't support vigilante behaviour. Most of us are used to having a police force that are "on our side", in much of South / Central America that's just not the case. He listed off numerous cases when people close to him had been robbed at gunpoint, raped and even killed by gangs. It's hard to imagine living in an environment where you're driven to take the drastic measures these people are taking. Ultimately it could probably all be solved by ending the war on drugs and trying to sort out police corruption (which I think would naturally happen once the drug power structures wee rearranged).
jerf 11y ago
A lot of social mechanisms are quite counterintuitive. One example I like to point out is that the purpose of voting is not to determine the winner, but to determine the loser. The winner already knows they won. Problem is, the loser also knows that they won. Voting is brilliant for creating a non-violent mechanism for convincing losers to go away while feeling like they have a chance next time. That's why voting corruption is so dangerous... the problem is less "the wrong thing winning" and more "society breaks down, the losers stop trusting the ballot box and start trusting their guns". People ought to be a lot angrier about voting corruption, even if they think it corrupted it on to "their side", then they actually are. (This is also why high voting rates are important. It's not about whether you tipped the balance between the two options, it's whether you are bought in to the result being fair, at scale. Low participations leaves rationalizations available to the losers. It really is a civil duty, even if the immediate payoff seems low.) Similarly, police protect the citizenry, right? Well, yes, but the citizenry unless actively prevented will work out ways of protecting themselves. The notable difference with a formal police and court system is that we still treat criminals with respect. Allowing the police and courts to breakdown is, in the final stable societal state, more dangerous for criminals and anyone perceived to be criminals, ultimately potentially degenerating into outright tribalism (usually called gangs in this context) that simply equates "outsider" and "danger". People really underestimate the importance of these social mechanisms, and corrupt them at more peril than they realize for their own petty short-term gains.
- adam-a 11y ago
  > The winner already knows they won. Problem is, the loser also knows that they won. There are people within politics who are not so deluded to believe they have already won every contest they enter. Your comment has a real lack of charity for your fellow man.
  - jerf 11y ago
    There's charity, and then there's just plain being naive. You, ironically, can only say this precisely because you very likely live in a civilization that has had strong voting traditions for hundreds of years, which gives people a lot of training in losing properly. That's a long-term effect of successful voting, a bizarre local aberration in history that's disturbingly fragile, not a universal human truth. One would have to be naive to the point of willful blindness not to see the Will to Power writ large in human history.
    - adam-a 11y ago
      So according to you I am naive, over privileged, unaware of the "universal human truths" and wilfully blind. This is what I mean about charity. If you can't make a point without accusations and hostility then I believe you need to look at your beliefs and whether they stem from rationality or a desire to put people down.
tokai 11y ago
Sounds like they fight gangs by making a gang.
- speeder 11y ago
  That is how tribal warfare work. when you have lots of hostile tribes, you need to join one or create your own, you cannot as a single person face them. when the government behaves like a tribe too, then stuff is unfixable, only violence removal of other tribes work (until eventually there is only one tribe or coalition of tribes that are aligned, then they can afford disbanding).
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    >(until eventually there is only one tribe or coalition of tribes that are aligned, then they can afford disbanding) Or just form a new government.

by aidos 11y ago

matwood 11y ago

The movement tags buildings, kills other people, and then acts like nothing happened. So they are just another gang?

aidos 11y ago
Firstly, I definitely don't support vigilante behaviour. Most of us are used to having a police force that are "on our side", in much of South / Central America that's just not the case. He listed off numerous cases when people close to him had been robbed at gunpoint, raped and even killed by gangs. It's hard to imagine living in an environment where you're driven to take the drastic measures these people are taking. Ultimately it could probably all be solved by ending the war on drugs and trying to sort out police corruption (which I think would naturally happen once the drug power structures wee rearranged).

jerf 11y ago

A lot of social mechanisms are quite counterintuitive. One example I like to point out is that the purpose of voting is not to determine the winner, but to determine the loser. The winner already knows they won. Problem is, the loser also knows that they won. Voting is brilliant for creating a non-violent mechanism for convincing losers to go away while feeling like they have a chance next time. That's why voting corruption is so dangerous... the problem is less "the wrong thing winning" and more "society breaks down, the losers stop trusting the ballot box and start trusting their guns". People ought to be a lot angrier about voting corruption, even if they think it corrupted it on to "their side", then they actually are. (This is also why high voting rates are important. It's not about whether you tipped the balance between the two options, it's whether you are bought in to the result being fair, at scale. Low participations leaves rationalizations available to the losers. It really is a civil duty, even if the immediate payoff seems low.) Similarly, police protect the citizenry, right? Well, yes, but the citizenry unless actively prevented will work out ways of protecting themselves. The notable difference with a formal police and court system is that we still treat criminals with respect. Allowing the police and courts to breakdown is, in the final stable societal state, more dangerous for criminals and anyone perceived to be criminals, ultimately potentially degenerating into outright tribalism (usually called gangs in this context) that simply equates "outsider" and "danger". People really underestimate the importance of these social mechanisms, and corrupt them at more peril than they realize for their own petty short-term gains.

adam-a 11y ago
> The winner already knows they won. Problem is, the loser also knows that they won. There are people within politics who are not so deluded to believe they have already won every contest they enter. Your comment has a real lack of charity for your fellow man.
- jerf 11y ago
  There's charity, and then there's just plain being naive. You, ironically, can only say this precisely because you very likely live in a civilization that has had strong voting traditions for hundreds of years, which gives people a lot of training in losing properly. That's a long-term effect of successful voting, a bizarre local aberration in history that's disturbingly fragile, not a universal human truth. One would have to be naive to the point of willful blindness not to see the Will to Power writ large in human history.
  - adam-a 11y ago
    So according to you I am naive, over privileged, unaware of the "universal human truths" and wilfully blind. This is what I mean about charity. If you can't make a point without accusations and hostility then I believe you need to look at your beliefs and whether they stem from rationality or a desire to put people down.

tokai 11y ago

Sounds like they fight gangs by making a gang.

speeder 11y ago
That is how tribal warfare work. when you have lots of hostile tribes, you need to join one or create your own, you cannot as a single person face them. when the government behaves like a tribe too, then stuff is unfixable, only violence removal of other tribes work (until eventually there is only one tribe or coalition of tribes that are aligned, then they can afford disbanding).
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >(until eventually there is only one tribe or coalition of tribes that are aligned, then they can afford disbanding) Or just form a new government.