Topic: "Police state?" off-topic question: (How does non-police state handle scammers) (Read 4010 times)

I was just talking to someone the other day who's father is a police officer. They made the same objection.

My response to that was... Isn't that already the world we live in? The only difference is that competing private security firms would have financial incentive to uphold their company's brand. A ton of smaller clients is worth a lot more than a hand full of rich ones. Their competition is always lurking around the corner to gobble up the available market share should they slip up.

Public security has no such motivation because they're incapable of losing business. Their revenues are maintained by force with threats of violence and harm in the first place. "Pay us or we will confiscate your wealth and imprison you. Defend yourself against us and we will terminate you with extreme prejudice."


Stateless societies have existed before, and they will definitely exist again in the future. (The internet is a stateless society, for example.) There are two kinds of law. Legislative and judicial. Reputable judicial judgments are the basis of common law. We understand the concept of precedent.

We each, as individuals, take it upon ourselves in varying degrees to enforce what we know is right and justify that which we know is wrong. That is what is common among us, and it forms the basis of a common sort of law. Just as each individual molecule of air produces friction against something penetrating our atmosphere, so too do humans create friction against those would would aggress against ourselves and those around us. Enough friction and you'll burst into flames.

Now, I am the last person on earth to suggest that humans are able to accurately determine right from wrong. Human beings are radically warped creatures with a twisted sense of judgment. But we do have a general sense of it, and we can generally come to an agreement on most things, including how we operate and interact with one another. We don't need (and usually we don't want) some external regulatory body to determine that for us. Gray areas are gray areas, and we can always work those out later.

You and your self-moderated threads, ho ho ho.

https://i.imgur.com/N3RYPHJ.jpg

I don't know.  I started a new threat to address the question.  Please see this.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/is-bitcointalk-a-tool-of-the-mass-media-no-then-why-did-they-censor-me-186636

Also depends on where that cat was. If it was on your property you had right to cut the cat. On other hand if you went over to this property for it...

Sure, from me they would be subject to a beating.  Or I could pay the corrupt police-state police to beat the gutter for me.
 


*** Mod note: NSFW image unembedded ***   
^^^
 Censorship, help I'm being repressed!!!  ;-)

If someone guts your cat without an agreed upon judgement, would they then be subject to any ramifications?

IF I were in a police state.  And Mrykul was my neighbor... whether there was proof I was scammed or not I would simply accuse mrykul of scamming me and then I'd go gut his cat.

 Like this: http://www.rolfkenneth.no/Cat%20gutted%202005.jpg
 Mod note: NSFW image unembedded


That's how my police would handle a scammer in this imaginary police state.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "law." If you mean a dense body of statutes and legislation, no.

I would certainly prefer it. After all, ask yourself where most of that power and influence comes from....

Criminals exist and always will exist. Debating what would happen if states were seen as the criminal organizations they are is necessary, and as a bonus, enjoyable.

"Machinery of Freedom" actually, and it can be found here: http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

A great summary can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkdEU_B4o It's an abbreviated, illustrated summary, given by Friedman himself.

States exist and will always exist.  Debating what would happen if they ceased to exist is like debating how may angels can dance on the head of a needle.

However if you are seriously interested, you could read "The Mechanics of Freedom" by Friedman. He shows how you can have things like a justice system, conscription and eminent domain without a state.

So if there is no state is there any laws? Or just private contracts?

I wonder is statelessness preferable to having a state. If you aren't specially powerfull or have influence...

That would be accurate.

It really means there is no state.

Does non-police state mean that there is no police?

Lynch mobs? No, I don't recall ever approving of a lynch mob.

As I recall, you also approve of lynch mobs for situations like this.

Private arbitration is already being used, and while the arbitrator's decision would not have the threat of force if the loser of the case did not comply, breaking that contract would make you an outlaw, not protected by the laws you denounce. As I said, if you refuse the judicial process, that leaves only the old-fashioned art of vendetta.

Seems to me that would create conflicts of interest.


"Our investigators said the cause of the problem was A, your investigators said B, and these guys over here paid their investigators to say it was C"

Who's the judge that will decide who is lying and just being paid to lie? When he decides, who will enforce his ruling or is his judgement (if there even is a judge) just for informational purposes only, like the bitcoin police?

There would be investigators. They might even wear blue costumes. They just wouldn't have a monopoly on the job.

Okay, so let's say someone tries to rape my wife in a non-police state. I attack him in defense. He claims I tried to rape his wife instead. Without police, who is going to investigate? If the investigation is done by "peers", who said those peers aren't corrupt? I guess the real purpose of a police state is to keep everyone from being subject to corruption (ironic that it does exactly the opposite)

Thats like privatisation of the police service.  What's the point? They are still enforcing the law.  So they are still police.  Without them, there would no state.

In a non-police state the best thing I suppose you could do would be to blacklist the scammer and warn other people about them like people do here, you just have to make sure it's justified, this is also how unions originally came about, I know neo-conservatives etc. love to bash unions but they're actually a great idea, it's just when people decide to use them for mob tactics that they become no better than the people they claim to fight against.

The only time you could or should ever use violence against a scammer is if they turn into a thief and try con you by force, then I guess that turns into extortion and blackmail, usually to avoid a scammer it just takes a no or some careful reading.

First off, Non-aggression is not nonviolence. Vim Vi Repellere Licet, and all that.

Secondly, if you refuse to abide by the judicial process, you're not protected by it, either. Vengeance is unfortunately likely if restitution is refused.

Roger Ver once told me (at a dinner here in South Korea) that he believed police should be removed from the state and instead private security could be hired. Any thoughts on that?

My personal belief is that then the richest people would be in an uncheckable position of power.

A non-police state is like a non-feline cat.  There can never be such a thing.

How do you handle scammers in a non-police state? Just kill anyone you think is cheating for some reason? (That seems like it would end up with 1 person left standing eventually)