5 ms·

I agree that what you're describing is a hierarchy. What I would say is that, as much as possible, policing should be dismantled. My understanding is that in Ro

I agree that what you're describing is a hierarchy. What I would say is that, as much as possible, policing should be dismantled. My understanding is that in Rojava policing is a shared responsibility, sort of like jury duty. They educate as many people as possible in how to fulfill this roll, and then people rotate through it for short periods of time. This helps prevent a professional class of police from arising and starting to use the powers of the police to pursue their own interests and protect themselves from accountability. Similar logic could be applied to judges.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
Sounds similar to other anarchist structures such as rotating out workers councils leadership roles to minimize hierarchy ossification
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  I can't remember what their term for it was, but someone once told me the various different "first responder" trades in the US now have a shared vocabulary for building and modifying a temporary (limited to the duration of the incident) on-site hierarchy.
  - DicIfTEx 4y ago
    I don't know about the US, but in the UK there is JESIP: https://www.jesip.org.uk/ https://www.jesip.org.uk/
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  But then no one would be able to develop any governmental expertise right?
  - maxbond 4y ago
    Everyone would be participating in governance, sometimes because they were on a council, other times because they were part of democratic processes. People wouldn't master opaque bureaucracies, but we should be eliminating those as much as possible. It's also my experience that there's never a shortage of opportunities to practice leadership and decision making when you're working with other people in a real world environment, where unforseen circumstances are constantly forcing your team to react and adapt. It's also my observation that when there is a problem, most people's instinct is to get everyone who's expertise are relevant into a room, discuss the relevant facts, and make a decision by consensus - if you leave people to their own devices, they reflectively form a direct democracy.
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
      I am deeply sceptical of all this but this is the genuinely the best answer you could have given
    - mikem170 4y ago
      > decision making when you're working with other people in a real world environment I've always thought this is important. So much of modern day politics is far removed, abstract, and/or impersonal. In our current system we've become used to listening to media pundits arguing about things happening on the other side of the country, our votes mixed in with hundreds of thousands of other people, across dozens of issues, for a blue or red team representative, representatives that often seem more beholden to political parties and lobbyist than to voters, the winning 51% lording it over the other 49% for a couple years. It's completely different having a few dozen or a few hundred people together in a room, people who are your friends and family and neighbors, listening to different viewpoints, coming to consensus on issues that matter to the group.
      - 082349872349872 4y ago
        cf Quaker techniques for consensus-based decision-making.
082349872349872 4y ago
An advantage to applying similar logic to judges is that the legal code would have to be simple and straightforward to make it work. (lawyers might be more difficult to rotate? but if the legal code were simple enough, maybe almost all cases would come down to questions of fact instead of questions of law, enabling pro se representation? I suspect our anarchist citizens would have be substantially better educated than current modal standards. cf RA Lafferty, Primary Education of the Camiroi)
YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
Seems nice if all you need are bobbies on the beat, but where do specialists come from in this anarchist utopia? Protection rackets generally form pretty quickly in power vacuums, and in this scenario, the criminals are more experienced and better equipped than a force of volunteer rookies. Also seems like a good place to operate a computer crime group, since none of these short-term police officers are likely to even know where to start looking for a gang of hackers and scammers.
- maxbond 4y ago
  So, it's not that there would be a power vacuum, it's that there would be horizontal power structures instead of hierarchical power structures. If you snapped Thanos's glove and the state suddenly stopped existing, there's no reason to expect that would go well, I'd agree with that. You'd have to carefully dismantle it, piece by piece, and replace them with better structures. You'd need to maintain and adapt those structures as you encounter problems and as the world changes. If people can just get the things they need or want straightforwardly I don't think many would choose to get them by force. I don't think people form mafias because they're just looking for something to do, I think mafias usually form because a certain ethnic group or social class isn't able to get what they require through licit means. Eg, when Italians arrived in the United States, they faced immense prejudice and discrimination in hiring. In my view this is a mirror image of the hierarchy that was oppressing them to begin with. Will there be super sophisticated criminals who need dedicated, specialist investigators to pursue? It seems like reasonable speculation. In that case though, these specialists don't need to be the same people as beat cops. A big problem with the police is that their mission is too broad and they can't possibly to a good job across the board. If we have a big computer crime problem we can form a computer crime investigation team, with various checks and balances, and all they're empowered to do is investigate and to present their findings to the other mechanisms of the justice system.
  - 082349872349872 4y ago
    pedantry: I believe the mafia was actually native to sicily, but did develop for similar reasons you posit. The absentee-landlord Normans had wiped out whatever indigenous civil society apparatus there was in an attempt to arrogate all power to themselves, and so the mafia arose...

wahnfrieden 4y ago

Sounds similar to other anarchist structures such as rotating out workers councils leadership roles to minimize hierarchy ossification

082349872349872 4y ago
I can't remember what their term for it was, but someone once told me the various different "first responder" trades in the US now have a shared vocabulary for building and modifying a temporary (limited to the duration of the incident) on-site hierarchy.
- DicIfTEx 4y ago
  I don't know about the US, but in the UK there is JESIP: https://www.jesip.org.uk/ https://www.jesip.org.uk/
cuteboy19 4y ago
But then no one would be able to develop any governmental expertise right?
- maxbond 4y ago
  Everyone would be participating in governance, sometimes because they were on a council, other times because they were part of democratic processes. People wouldn't master opaque bureaucracies, but we should be eliminating those as much as possible. It's also my experience that there's never a shortage of opportunities to practice leadership and decision making when you're working with other people in a real world environment, where unforseen circumstances are constantly forcing your team to react and adapt. It's also my observation that when there is a problem, most people's instinct is to get everyone who's expertise are relevant into a room, discuss the relevant facts, and make a decision by consensus - if you leave people to their own devices, they reflectively form a direct democracy.
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    I am deeply sceptical of all this but this is the genuinely the best answer you could have given
  - mikem170 4y ago
    > decision making when you're working with other people in a real world environment I've always thought this is important. So much of modern day politics is far removed, abstract, and/or impersonal. In our current system we've become used to listening to media pundits arguing about things happening on the other side of the country, our votes mixed in with hundreds of thousands of other people, across dozens of issues, for a blue or red team representative, representatives that often seem more beholden to political parties and lobbyist than to voters, the winning 51% lording it over the other 49% for a couple years. It's completely different having a few dozen or a few hundred people together in a room, people who are your friends and family and neighbors, listening to different viewpoints, coming to consensus on issues that matter to the group.
    - 082349872349872 4y ago
      cf Quaker techniques for consensus-based decision-making.

082349872349872 4y ago

An advantage to applying similar logic to judges is that the legal code would have to be simple and straightforward to make it work. (lawyers might be more difficult to rotate? but if the legal code were simple enough, maybe almost all cases would come down to questions of fact instead of questions of law, enabling pro se representation? I suspect our anarchist citizens would have be substantially better educated than current modal standards. cf RA Lafferty, Primary Education of the Camiroi)

YurgenJurgensen 4y ago

Seems nice if all you need are bobbies on the beat, but where do specialists come from in this anarchist utopia? Protection rackets generally form pretty quickly in power vacuums, and in this scenario, the criminals are more experienced and better equipped than a force of volunteer rookies. Also seems like a good place to operate a computer crime group, since none of these short-term police officers are likely to even know where to start looking for a gang of hackers and scammers.

maxbond 4y ago
So, it's not that there would be a power vacuum, it's that there would be horizontal power structures instead of hierarchical power structures. If you snapped Thanos's glove and the state suddenly stopped existing, there's no reason to expect that would go well, I'd agree with that. You'd have to carefully dismantle it, piece by piece, and replace them with better structures. You'd need to maintain and adapt those structures as you encounter problems and as the world changes. If people can just get the things they need or want straightforwardly I don't think many would choose to get them by force. I don't think people form mafias because they're just looking for something to do, I think mafias usually form because a certain ethnic group or social class isn't able to get what they require through licit means. Eg, when Italians arrived in the United States, they faced immense prejudice and discrimination in hiring. In my view this is a mirror image of the hierarchy that was oppressing them to begin with. Will there be super sophisticated criminals who need dedicated, specialist investigators to pursue? It seems like reasonable speculation. In that case though, these specialists don't need to be the same people as beat cops. A big problem with the police is that their mission is too broad and they can't possibly to a good job across the board. If we have a big computer crime problem we can form a computer crime investigation team, with various checks and balances, and all they're empowered to do is investigate and to present their findings to the other mechanisms of the justice system.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  pedantry: I believe the mafia was actually native to sicily, but did develop for similar reasons you posit. The absentee-landlord Normans had wiped out whatever indigenous civil society apparatus there was in an attempt to arrogate all power to themselves, and so the mafia arose...