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Dark Web – Justice League

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181–190 of 211 posts

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#181
post #178
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

judgements from the usual court system are enforced by the police, who are authorized to use force - i.e. violence - in the event of non-compliance. this is not a unique feature of the drug trade.

While this is true, the quantity of the violence needed, and like, the legibility of the conditions under which violence is to be meted out, can be much better in the case of, like, laws and state, than, well, perhaps if there was no state, there could be another mechanism which is comparable or better, but when contract enforcement in a particular area is excluded from state enforcement, while normal areas aren’t, I…

I’d say the amount of violence is related to the amount of resources available in the economy where trust needs to be established. If you have a lot of resources, you can spend more on monitoring and surveillance, and afford more losses. When resources become scarce, you climb the control ladder faster and resort to physical violence because you can’t afford not to.

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#182
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Belgium there's a platform on which you can sell invoices that have say a 90 day payment term to someone who'll give you say 95% of it, if you need that money immediately. They then get the full invoice after 90 days.

That's a very common form of trade finance worldwide, and is usually called "invoice discounting" or "receivables factoring" https://tradefinanceanalytics.com/what-is-factoring

There's collection agencies with no cure no pay (who add up their own fee upon the debt), and there's debt traders who buy a debt for a lower price and who then harass the person who (allegedly!) owes the money. Its a scoundrel market, IMO. Heartless, Ellisonish. County court bailiff (gerechtsdeurwaarder) is a government variant which has legal merit (unlike the other 2). Still, doesn't mean they are morally right (and those in debt have a harder time to defend themselves, legally), but at least it does have that legal merit. The problem is that, yes, often people who are in debt are in the wrong and should pay it, but there's all these corner cases and cases where the debt is incorrect, its an underlying dispute, it was started because of bad communication, etc (been there, done it).

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#183
post #9

IRL this is called binding arbitration, and it's often opt-out for your ISP and cellphone provider. Most companies prefer this, as it's faster and more efficient than the judicial system.

I had a friend, a barrister and an architect, whose main business was arbitrating big international deals in the construction and mining industries. By writing arbitration into the contract you get an arbitrator who is a top-notch lawyer and knows the industry, whereas if you rely on the court system the parties are going to have to spend time (and money) educating the judge, possibly unsuccessfully.

This guy was actually part of a consortium of similar lawyers all over the world.

These disputes are completely normal. The amounts of money involved in these contracts is huge; and it's impossible to write into a contract every detail of what might go wrong. So when something goes wrong that isn't written into the letter of the contract, arbitrators pick up the slack. Contract arbitration is generally a paper exercise. The parties don't normally face-off in a courtroom.

There are even internationally-agreed standards of jurisprudence concerned with this kind of arbitration. The specific rules to be used willl be written into the contract.

https://uncitral.un.org/en/texts/arbitration/contractualtext...

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#184

Every system ends up needing: - trust - rules - enforcement I'm not even surprised such a system exists, because full anarchy where no one trusts anyone is not good even in theory.

This is a common misconception. Anarchy doesn't stand for "without rules", it stands for "without ruler". The idea behind is to get rid of centralised, corruptible bottlenecks and decentralise decision and rule making. There are different models and theories on how that could work (The Machinery of Freedom gets quoted often) and zero interest from any politician to push for it; the appeal of getting into politics is…

> The idea behind is to get rid of centralised, corruptible bottlenecks and decentralise decision and rule making.

And how do you "decentralise" that? There's no decision making and rules without enforcement. So, in a "decentralised rule making" the one with the biggest muscles ends up making the rules.

> the appeal of getting into politics is having power

Yes. And so, in a "decentralised world" you will join the group with the most power. Until, well, you reinvent all the existing structures anyway.

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#185
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ceases to be anarchism the moment it becomes involuntary. Otherwise it's just another system of authority.

The best explanation of anarchy I've heard is by debunking the common view that people think anarchy is when a a disaster happens and a warlord takes over - but it's really when a disaster happens and neighbors start checking on each other to make sure everyone is alright and see if anyone needs help. If the community isn't voluntarily doing it then it isn't anarchy

People have forgotten that the circle in the anarchy symbol stands for Order.

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I used to think this as well. In its most basic form, it means no ruler. I view anarchism as the ultimate counter to authoritarianism. The older I get, the more it becomes apparent to me that all of our world governments are authoritarian to a degree, including supposed democratic ones, and there seems to be this arbitrary threshold of "ok now we call this regime authoritarian". But every government rules thro…

My personal theory is that it's straight up impossible to have a non-authoritarian government involving more than Dunbar's number of people (counting both the governors and the governed). For larger numbers, the best you can do is a multi-level federated approach where the governing assemblies on each level have no more than that number of delegates from the level below.

Then you're likely run into a problem with communication. You can see in basically any large company: communication gets lost, misinterpreted, you end up depending on many other entities to do anything etc.

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#187
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a book I really enjoyed called Narconomics. It helps explain all aspects of the drug trade through the lens of business. One of the most fascinating takeaways was how they handle “contract enforcement” in the absence of a legal system or courts (hint: Violence) I recall an anecdote that Mexican cartels would hire Mexicans —- and not Dutch —- in order to serve as drug mules smuggling product into Amsterdam. Du…

judgements from the usual court system are enforced by the police, who are authorized to use force - i.e. violence - in the event of non-compliance. this is not a unique feature of the drug trade.

The thing that really opened my eyes to this now-obvious (to me) truth was reading the history of the Scottish clan system. A state is essentially (or at least begins with) organized crime with a monopoly on crime organization. Or put another way, an organized crime majority.

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#188
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is true, the quantity of the violence needed, and like, the legibility of the conditions under which violence is to be meted out, can be much better in the case of, like, laws and state, than, well, perhaps if there was no state, there could be another mechanism which is comparable or better, but when contract enforcement in a particular area is excluded from state enforcement, while normal areas aren’t, I…

I’d say the amount of violence is related to the amount of resources available in the economy where trust needs to be established. If you have a lot of resources, you can spend more on monitoring and surveillance, and afford more losses. When resources become scarce, you climb the control ladder faster and resort to physical violence because you can’t afford not to.

Interestingly, the trust is established by the use (and threat) of violence by the state. Not that it is a bad thing, it is worth it for the resulting order. The state "violence monopoly" is essential in a shared value system.

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#189
Funny, my friend and I were just talking about this kind of thing last night. I've been watching lots of Soft White Underbelly[1] interviews with gangsters, mafia , etc. and my friend's been reading about the transition from honor culture to state obedience in 1600's in Norway. The conclusion is that any time you create a black market by banning something in demand then a parallel state (competing with the "legitimate" state) will always pop up to protect property, trade and tax because not only is the "legitimate" state enforcing the ban, but they are simultaneously abstaining from their typical "duties" in that regard, leaving a gap to be filled.

I find it interesting that the same thing can be achieved online but without the violence that is necessary in person. It's definitely a different space.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjwnDF2dRgI&list=PLBEIBBdgAO...

Re: Dark Web – Justice League

#190

These kinds of alternative justice systems always seem fascinating to me. I feel like a sociological study on "alternative forms of justice" could be very fruitful.

> I feel like a sociological study on "alternative forms of justice" could be very fruitful.

Not sure why you assumed they don't exist already. There are apparently many. Google Scholar that shit.

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