Competing police forces/laws

[Elwar]

Open your mind for a moment and imagine a few hundred people on an island starting with no laws.

With no laws and no way to enforce them they start to run into problems, some murders, theft, property is taken, people build a house and assume they own the land only to have their neighbors think that they own a different part, etc...

People start arming themselves and try to protect themselves and their property but most find that they have to go to work, they cannot stay at home all of the time so a private police force offers to protect peoples' properties for them, some people like it and pay for this police force to protect their home from intruders. The police force is given boundaries of peoples' properties and disputes are worked out to come up with clear property lines.

Some people do not agree with the lines and go with their own police force, a few police forces pop up and pretty soon there are property line disputes between police forces. One guy says an acre is his while another says it is his. They both call out their police forces to keep the other off of their property and soon there is a stand off between forces. Both are right, they are protecting lawful property and a firefight between forces breaks out.

The next time funding for the force comes up, both forces raise rates for those home owners to deal with the extra cost of a firefight with the other force. After some time both land owners realize it is cheaper to come to an agreement on property lines than keep paying higher costs to the police. So they make compromises and the rates go down.

Now imagine one group of people really hates gays, they pass a 'law' against gay marriage. Basically they authorize their police force to go in and kidnap and punish a gay couple. The gay couple is paying another police force to protect their property from intruders (including police) and protect them from kidnapping. The gay law police come to kidnap and imprison the couple and the kidnap protecting police are called to protect them. Another stand off and possible gun fight ensues...

At this point the people who hate gays are told their rates will go up in order to pay for gun fights with other police forces. The battles are costly so the gay haters have to decide if it is fiscally worth it to have such a law. Over time it would not make sense to pay for gun fights.

After a while, the cheapest route for all users of the police forces would be to agree on what 'laws' to impose, and it would gravitate toward such a common agreed law of the land with very few subtle differences. You would also have to factor in people who do not use a police force and protect their own properties and lives. Any outside force used against them or their lifestyle would bring with it a cost that would likely not be worth the higher rate.

Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

[JoelKatz]

Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

The gay haters would push through a scheme that allows them to compel homosexuals to pay for the very police and courts that enforce the laws against homosexual marriage, but eventually common sense will win out and their courts will hold that marriage equality is a fundamental right.

[TheEmperor]

With no laws, all your left with is anarchy. The strong and rich will survive, the weak will perish or band together to survive. Its everything before the industrial revolution basically.

[Bit_Happy]

With no laws, all your left with is anarchy. The strong and rich will survive, the weak will perish or band together to survive. Its everything before the industrial revolution basically.

Monarchy and slavery = anarchy?   ??

[TheButterZone]

Anarchy is preferable to chaos/status quo.

The idea that we can just pass laws that make MANY MANY people criminals and then selectively enforce those laws only against people who are "troublemakers" or "the wrong kind" is incredibly offensive.

Laws should be few and very strictly enforced. Not so complex and irregularly enforced that everyone is a criminal and simply not charged because they have yet to piss off a cop or prosecutor.

[Ekaros]

With no laws, all your left with is anarchy. The strong and rich will survive, the weak will perish or band together to survive. Its everything before the industrial revolution basically.

Monarchy and slavery = anarchy?   ??

In large scale yes. No one had to really follow the rules, but if they didn't there were some people with force. You weren't forced to be a serf, but everyone had to eat... So alternatives weren't very good.

[Elwar]

Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

The gay haters would push through a scheme that allows them to compel homosexuals to pay for the very police and courts that enforce the laws against homosexual marriage, but eventually common sense will win out and their courts will hold that marriage equality is a fundamental right.

How would they be compelled to pay for the police?

Assuming everyone is using Bitcoin, their money cannot be stolen at the point of a gun.

[Elwar]

With no laws, all your left with is anarchy. The strong and rich will survive, the weak will perish or band together to survive. Its everything before the industrial revolution basically.

Actually, in such a scenario the rich would be a target of the police forces of the poor. While it may not be financially beneficial to get into gun fights with your neighbor over an acre of land, and thus an agreement would need to be made. The rich would need to hire much better police forces because it is financially beneficial for the poor police forces to bind together to take land from the rich (assuming such land is the source of the riches, or even contains wealth that can be taken). The rich would be obligated to pay more for police protection.

[Swordsoffreedom]

Anarchy forces an order and society to be built
Utopia is only as determined as the mindset
Given a charismatic leader in this scenario we could see dictatorships ruler-ships or a just society built
The question is what bias do they have originally entering into this experiment and whether they can over come those instincts together as a society

Then again this is the social covenant and their is only the island can't assume the geography so not sure if their is a mountain or if a Moat is possible to guard your house even when your away,  and the time it takes to build these fortifications before getting assaulted by others what the tech level and knowledge levels are as well are interesting variables as they could impact they fortifications security and design.
Left handed entrances so you can fight with your right hand maze type designs to get to your house with traps to dissuade visitors
All on an island of course ^^

Need more input to make a rational decision
In your case for all I know the gays are evil or the gays are good is it Roman based ideal or is it Puritan based

Either way couple of ideas
Isolationism
Protectionism
Or Mutual Reliance will occur
A fourth case can be made that one group will kill off the other group till hegemony is made so these type of issues are non-existent or the island is split into two as well with one group on one side and the other controlling that part with a strong border
Assuming resources to be the same else scenario 1 occurs

[dank]

The only law we need is the law of karma.  What you emit comes back to you, all your actions have a reaction and you feel each and every one.

If people really understood this, we would not have people racing to gain the most wealth but rather to gain the most inner peace, for that is the most valuable thing in life.

[tkbx]

Anarchy is preferable to chaos/status quo.

The idea that we can just pass laws that make MANY MANY people criminals and then selectively enforce those laws only against people who are "troublemakers" or "the wrong kind" is incredibly offensive.

Laws should be few and very strictly enforced. Not so complex and irregularly enforced that everyone is a criminal and simply not charged because they have yet to piss off a cop or prosecutor.

What are you trying to say? Anarchy is chaos, and the status quo isn't chaos.

[TheButterZone]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchy
absence of government

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chaos
complete confusion and disorder : a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything

The latter definition applies to the status quo.

Anarchy is not synonymous to chaos.

[JoelKatz]

How would they be compelled to pay for the police?

Assuming everyone is using Bitcoin, their money cannot be stolen at the point of a gun.

You tell them your keys or they put you in jail until you do.
http://blog.zwillgen.com/2012/01/26/no-fifth-amendment-violation-for-compelled-disclosure-of-password/

[Elwar]

How would they be compelled to pay for the police?

Assuming everyone is using Bitcoin, their money cannot be stolen at the point of a gun.

You tell them your keys or they put you in jail until you do.
http://blog.zwillgen.com/2012/01/26/no-fifth-amendment-violation-for-compelled-disclosure-of-password/

Hence why you hire police to protect you from kidnapping.

[JoelKatz]

Hence why you hire police to protect you from kidnapping.

Right, but they can't afford to protect you from a majority. More likely, they'll just tell you that you have to accept what that majority wants until they change their mind.

In any system that considers homosexual marriage comparable to murder, homosexual marriage will wind up effectively prohibited if murder is. In any system that considers homosexual marriage a fundamental right, homosexual marriage will be protected if rights are protected at all.

So if you want to get something recognized as a fundamental right and protected, what matters is that you convince a majority of people, weighted by how much power the system gives them, that they should be. The system really only matters in two respects:

1) The system decides who or what you have to convince because it determines how rules are made and enforced.

2) The system decides what avenues will be available to you as you do the convincing.

But otherwise, if the majority of force wielders want something, it will happen. If the majority of force wielders are willing to prevent something, it will not, or at least it will be retaliated against.

[medUSA]

Open your mind for a moment and imagine a few hundred people on an island starting with no laws.
    <snip>
Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

Similar to the medieval feudal system. There will be battles between forces when competing for natural resources until the population got tired of conflicts. Peace for a short period and then history repeats itself.

[theomoplatapus]

Open your mind for a moment and imagine a few hundred people on an island starting with no laws.
    <snip>
Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

Similar to the medieval feudal system. There will be battles between forces when competing for natural resources until the population got tired of conflicts. Peace for a short period and then history repeats itself.

The incentive to fight only exists when the funds to do so are forcibly taken from the populace.  The violent method of obtaining something is never the most efficient method.  For example, why don't the citizens of Maryland pile all of their money together to create an army to sieze the oil fields in North Dakota from the corporations that own them?  For the reason that it's much cheaper and more sensible to use their own resources to trade for the oil, much more than the threat of the military/police force that would try to stop them.

[Ekaros]

Open your mind for a moment and imagine a few hundred people on an island starting with no laws.
    <snip>
Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

Similar to the medieval feudal system. There will be battles between forces when competing for natural resources until the population got tired of conflicts. Peace for a short period and then history repeats itself.

Conflicts only end when they become too costly compared to gains to those who decide... This can be seen very well in current world situation...

True peace isn't here until we conflicts are too costly compared to any gains...

[theomoplatapus]

Open your mind for a moment and imagine a few hundred people on an island starting with no laws.
    <snip>
Thoughts? With no laws and people willing to pay for competing police protection, how do you think things would end up?

Similar to the medieval feudal system. There will be battles between forces when competing for natural resources until the population got tired of conflicts. Peace for a short period and then history repeats itself.

Conflicts only end when they become too costly compared to gains to those who decide... This can be seen very well in current world situation...

True peace isn't here until we conflicts are too costly compared to any gains...

The way I see it, conflict always will be too costly.  But as long as the money is coerced out of people, that won't matter.  War will happen if it the people who take the money say it will.

[medUSA]

Conflicts only end when they become too costly compared to gains to those who decide... This can be seen very well in current world situation...

True peace isn't here until we conflicts are too costly compared to any gains...

Yes, conflicts end when "those who decide" can no longer gather support. When too many people died; when costs did not justify cause, population will get tired, leaving grudge but no physical conflict. Hence, no true peace.