I imagine it would look in some ways like Burning Man. I’ve only been once a long time ago, but when I went we had social order without police.
On the extremely rare occasions someone was out of line, tearing down art or picking fights with people, random burners would step into the policing role and get the guy under control.
It worked pretty well. In our case it was a city of about 40,000 that only existed for two weeks, so it’s hard to say how it might scale. But that was my first exposure to anarchy as a governmental model, and it worked extremely well. As in, not only was Black Rock City functional, it was also incredible.
In our case it was a city of about 40,000 that only existed for two weeks, so it’s hard to say how it might scale
Keeping order is one thing, but police do a bunch of things no one else has time for.
Endless follow ups, liaising with social workers, taking long statements for inquests, or spending all day protecting someone’s right to peacefully protest.
But to be serious all of human history and the way criminals currently operate even with a police force.
i mean, i hope you understand that “all of human history” is not a very compelling argument in response to “why do you assume people would commit crime if they knew they could get away with it”. people don’t just commit crimes for no reason. there are, for the vast majority of people, clear factors in why they commit crimes that don’t really have to do with Getting One Over on people and that can be socially addressed or disincentivized without any need for cops.
there are, for the vast majority of people, clear factors in why they commit crimes that don’t really have to do with Getting One Over on people and that can be socially addressed or disincentivized without any need for cops.
I agree, but can we deal with those issues? Like take drugs for example, can we fix all addicts? We can make treatment free but some addicts don’t want to be fixed, they have too much trauma, they’ve been through too much, they want to drug themselves to oblivion, and crime, theft specifically, will often be needed in that system. We can make drugs free and legal, but then they’ll be dead which is no win.
What about something more severe like domestic violence? If you take a man for example, who likes to control his partner through violence, there’s interventions that we can take to help, but they’re not perfect, we have better odds if we intervene with children, but that involves time travel.
Well first off, cops aren’t EMTs. Cops aren’t rehabilitating drug users. Cops aren’t preventing domestic abuse (quite the opposite, actually).
So what part of this equation do you think requires thousands of officers with guns in the first place? You brought up 2 issues that cops don’t solve, and then said, “and that’s why we needs cops!”
And when those people eventually get caught, they would be dealt with by the populace. Consequences for people’s actions is the same deterrent that currently “stops” people from stealing shit all the time (i.e. people still steal shit with the existence of police)
I imagine it would look in some ways like Burning Man. I’ve only been once a long time ago, but when I went we had social order without police.
On the extremely rare occasions someone was out of line, tearing down art or picking fights with people, random burners would step into the policing role and get the guy under control.
It worked pretty well. In our case it was a city of about 40,000 that only existed for two weeks, so it’s hard to say how it might scale. But that was my first exposure to anarchy as a governmental model, and it worked extremely well. As in, not only was Black Rock City functional, it was also incredible.
Keeping order is one thing, but police do a bunch of things no one else has time for.
Endless follow ups, liaising with social workers, taking long statements for inquests, or spending all day protecting someone’s right to peacefully protest.
None of those activities seemed necessary, or maybe they were happening without my knowledge
It just wouldn’t work in the real world. Burning man is a group of like minded individuals.
Many people would just steal all your shit at every opportunity if they knew they could get away with it.
Why do you assume that not having police means they would get away with it?
Yeah I guess if we had a force to police what you can and can’t do it’ll be alright.
We’d also need some sort of court system to make sure justice is done so you can’t just accuse people.
But to be serious all of human history and the way criminals currently operate even with a police force.
i mean, i hope you understand that “all of human history” is not a very compelling argument in response to “why do you assume people would commit crime if they knew they could get away with it”. people don’t just commit crimes for no reason. there are, for the vast majority of people, clear factors in why they commit crimes that don’t really have to do with Getting One Over on people and that can be socially addressed or disincentivized without any need for cops.
I agree, but can we deal with those issues? Like take drugs for example, can we fix all addicts? We can make treatment free but some addicts don’t want to be fixed, they have too much trauma, they’ve been through too much, they want to drug themselves to oblivion, and crime, theft specifically, will often be needed in that system. We can make drugs free and legal, but then they’ll be dead which is no win.
What about something more severe like domestic violence? If you take a man for example, who likes to control his partner through violence, there’s interventions that we can take to help, but they’re not perfect, we have better odds if we intervene with children, but that involves time travel.
Literally nothing that you brought up requires cops to solve.
What do you propose?
Well first off, cops aren’t EMTs. Cops aren’t rehabilitating drug users. Cops aren’t preventing domestic abuse (quite the opposite, actually).
So what part of this equation do you think requires thousands of officers with guns in the first place? You brought up 2 issues that cops don’t solve, and then said, “and that’s why we needs cops!”
And when those people eventually get caught, they would be dealt with by the populace. Consequences for people’s actions is the same deterrent that currently “stops” people from stealing shit all the time (i.e. people still steal shit with the existence of police)