this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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Flippanarchy
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Vigilantism is not a suitable replacement. The general population is shit at properly investigating things.
Just look at how Reddit responded to who they incorrectly thought was the Boston Marathon bomber. A lot of innocent people will die to mob justice.
Community defences is a suitable replacement.
I can point to millions of examples of cops and courts getting it wrong and innocent people suffering and dying, yet that’s not an argument against the system for you so why should it be against community management?
As there are millions of examples of them finding culprits and getting it right. I may not agree with the punishments, but I think your argument breaks down outside of a very small close knit community of people who practice consensus decision making.
You can't just plop down community management without the culture to make it work. These tools are missing from most communities and would lead to as many negative results if not more.
We don't even need to create hypothetical examples of this because we already have many historical examples of community management gone wrong like the Salem Witch trials.
I think you need to seriously address this before you can shout community management as a panacea.
Well of course. Nothing will work right away if people aren't educated and empowered. But the tools are missing precisely because we have given them to the state. Thus to see this change, they must be returned to the community who can relearn to practice them.
We also have examples of community management going right, such as in Rojava or Chiaps where the people are the ones patrolling their streets, deciding on how to right wrongs collectively, and generally showing much better results than we have in the West.
Herein lies the problem, without community management taking over naturally it would be thrust artificially onto communities. You can't reasonably expect these skills to be learned naturally, this would require external education which would then require a lot of social capital to be successful.
Who is going to dismantle the state and remember that it has to be a slow gradual learning process for communities?
Also community management almost has to take place in a vacuum because when it bumps up against a state it quickly dissolves losing it power such as what happened in Rojava in the start of 2026 leading it to being incorporated into the Syrian state.
I'm not disagreeing with any argument against the current system, I'm just saying that putting the power in the hands of the people isn't a suitable replacement.
Professional, highly educated and properly trained law enforcement with robust civilian oversight is the solution.
Law enforcement itself is a problem, it cannot be regulated or trained to anything but the tool of state oppression.
People with a direct stake in the wellbeing of a community are the only people who can properly care for the community.
It's cute how absolutely wrong you are.
have you read the sidebar here or for this instance?
For the community, yes. Not for the instance, though. Nothing I've said violates the community rules.
For the record, I'm all for the anarchist utopia you guys dream of. I just don't think it's possible because it relies on the world's population changing to stop being selfish and agree on something all at the same time and sticking with it.
You can barely even get a room full of people to unanimously agree on what to get for lunch.
The biggest issue I see is there's never a plan on how to actually implement anarchy without violating the core tenants of it. if it's even possible to achieve, it'll take generations of slow progress to get there without building a global power structure to force everyone to comply.
The focus should be on how to progress the current system in ways that will move towards your goal instead of saying that everyone who doesn't immediately jump on board is a brainwashed fool.
Humans have an incredible amount of inertia towards change. The State is the result of thousands of years of power structures and isn't going to just change over night. Our current system definitely has major flaws, but so far it's still an improvement from the way things used to work. Which is saying a lot considering how bad the current system is.
and innocent people die at the hands of police. i'm willing to take my chances with my neighbors.
I can guarantee you that mob justice would be worse.
It used to be commonplace for innocent black people to be hung because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and a bunch of pissed off white people wanted to kill someone.
The state making that a crime and enforcing it is what stopped it from being commonplace.
i don't see how. do you have a crystal ball?
You don't need a crystal ball to observe history.
the past isn't the future
No shit, but looking at past results is how we make informed decisions about literally everything. What the fuck is your point?
they don't know what a future looks like without the state or capital.
We can cross that bridge when we get there. Until then, using actual data is more useful than wishful thinking.
to be clear, you don't know the future
No shit. Again, what's your fucking point? Stop being vague and obtuse and just say what you're getting at.
any claim about the future is dubious, and theirs to a great degree
Using the past to make an informed decision on how to proceed is not making dubious claims about the future. The only one making dubious claims about the future is you. Please explain to me how disolving the state would somehow make vigilante justice more effective, considering that vigilante justice is already outside the purview of the state?
I never said vigilante justice would be more effective. you're arguing with a strawman.
You very clearly advocated for vigilante justice and then doubled down when u/village604 said that history shows its objectively worse. You're splitting hairs and I'm blocking your disingenuous ass now.
oh thank God
No crystal ball, but history repeats itself. That shit isn't even in the distant past.
Do you honestly think that groups of people with no experience in criminal investigations will get it right more often than people who dedicated their lives to it?
i think that the systems that govern us are unjust in a myriad of ways. i'm willing to tolerate some level of injustice in dealing with antisocial behavior, since i get that already, if it means we can throw off all the rest of the oppression we face from being governed.