[JumpCrisscross]

> Prior to uniformed police, communities maintained order themselves -- often through night watches in which everyone participated, or eventually through hiring people to "cover my watch"

Dispensing violence as part of these watches was also generally accepted. I'm not sure how that would work in a modern environment.

(You're also referring to a period during which most of the world was feudal or quasi-feudal. The people maintaining order had their own security forces.)

[yareal]

Yeah, I'm explicitly not calling for the return to night watches. I'm saying it should be possible to imagine societies without uniformed police forces, because we've had many models for justice without them in the past. We could, with some effort, imagine something better.

[lotsoweiners]

I’m imagining the alternative is going to be some kind of AI powered robo cops. Not sure I like that idea any more than the current one.

[yareal]

That's the bad alternative, for sure. I'm an anarchist (not the purge, but instead self organizing local communities kind). I genuinely believe that much of the role can be done by local community, reserving only the most violent and extreme things for a uniformed force.

[thaumasiotes]

> You're also referring to a period during which most of the world was feudal or quasi-feudal.

By most definitions of "feudal", there has never been such a period. What does "feudal" mean to you?