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I read your response aloud to my partner who was born and raised in Thailand. She agrees with what you've said. Communities often prefer to settle disputes amongst themselves. She also noted that, unfortunately rich people get away with injustice. If a rich person has done something wrong to poor person, the family feels like they have no choice but to accept monetary compensation instead of seeking justice by law. They feel like they are better off taking a settlement. And even in the pursuit of justice, bribery is so common that things will often get brushed under the rug.

thanks, I am horrified by what happened especially in the Vorayuth Yoovidhaya case. But I wasn't shocked, because as your fiance might know is just the tip of the iceberg. If we look at what shameful things our people in power get away with in the West, it's not hard to imagine what the situation looks like in a developing systems/states. If you look at what happened in some of the elections around the world and the dismantling of institutions for profit by kleptocrats and rent-seeking billionaires, it seems these days Western nations are often on par with some developing countries.

Also I don't want to paint the past better than the present by insinuating our Western way of punishing crime is "correct" while their traditional way was in any form more "pure" and better fitting for them. Foucault does a good job on how we came to our system in the West https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish

But also I'm not a missionary who wants to go to visit the Jawari to "bring them god".

Unfortunately I don't have an answer because if you drill down to the roots of power then it's all violent no matter how well dressed up it is with language. And "justice" is an incredibly slippery and ambiguous word meaning 5 different things to 2 people.

For Thailand what I see as a bigger problem than the monarchy is the military. It doesn't matter what case people "legally" have against an army general (and by extension any professional soldier in Thailand). They're normally off-limit to law enforcement and cases usually don't become public. They're also the gatekeepers to big business. Both things are problematic. I think trying to navigate and make sense of power there is not difficult as long as people keep in mind the history of its stakeholders.

I'm optimistic seeing how younger generations understand and question these power structures (better informed because of the Internet). I'm worried about violence and revolution since anyone can do a coup but the question is what will they do the next day. In the end any type of system will never just pack up and agree that it's time to make room for a replacement. (or it takes generations not years) New ideas on top of the toxic base we know well enough from Tech, but replacing a base is a trade off so hard it's ofc always a crime within the existing structure.

I'm a westerner currently in SE Asia, and what I recognise from your comment is that what causes these kinds of conflicts is the culture of face-saving. Saving face is deeply embedded in Asian culture. Most of the locals down here where I am are very careful to avoid confrontation or criticism of anything or anybody because in a culture like this it can lead to losing face and then the next step is generational conflict, banishment, and sometimes even murder. People often want to avoid going to the police to settle disputes because the cops are just as corrupt as the local government, and graft and bribery are endemic.

> unfortunately rich people get away with injustice. If a rich person has done something wrong to poor person, the family feels like they have no choice but to accept monetary compensation instead of seeking justice by law.

This cuts both ways. There’s now an expectation from a lot of predominantly poor Thai’s that if they are involved in a traffic incident with a larger vehicle, the driver of the other vehicle owes them compensation, regardless of fault or circumstance.

This is not an urban legend, or rare occurrence. I’ve experienced it personally. When you add in the corrupt police, who upon learning the car is insured, try to pressure the driver to just admit fault because they want a cut of the compensation money, you end up in a weird scenario where you have more trust in the fucking insurance rep than the police.

I still don’t know what’s more shocking: the outright lies from the police, or the sister of the guy on the motorcycle complaining - in a hospital hallway - that they “won’t get any money till he dies”.

I’m sure rich assholes get away with plenty here, but poor assholes try to milk the system and Thai culture just as much.

Edit: brain fart, reference was to his sister not her brother.

When reading through the Old Testament I came across something I hadn’t seen before, the Avenger of Blood. Essentially, a family member of a person who was murdered had every right to seek out the killer themselves. There were even rules around it.

If you watch the old Disney 3 Musketeers movie, that’s essentially what the man pursuing Countess de Winter for killing his brother is doing.

Just the first historical parallel that came to mind on reading this. Similar figures in a family were also responsible for helping other family members who couldn’t find work, gotten sick, etc.

The family unit structure historically accounts for a lot.

> The family unit structure historically accounts for a lot.

indeed it is interesting how when we compare "Western" society with more tribal norms, how much the individual in the West expects the system to do the things for them where previously family was in charge of. Taking French or German late night news I don't recall once that the word "clan" ever used in a positive way. It is always about criminal associations (often about Balkan families) where the attachment of individuals is still stronger within than (the trust) in the state. People are absolutely terrified by the idea of others belonging to a family that knows it's roots since 300+ years with an also non-local footprint and reach. Also a clan is usually always a foreign group.

In the USA, there are "political families" or "presidential families" who serve as pseudo-patrician organizations [0][1]. Western individualism is often performative, not structural.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:United_States_preside...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_family

This is (crudely speaking) because the Catholic church stamped out such things in the core of Europe 1000 years ago. (Or perhaps that sentence should be the other way around.) Many edges of Europe skipped this process -- Sicily (under the Sacreans?), the Balkans (Byzantine & then Ottoman), the Gaelic fringe (local kings), etc.

> People are absolutely terrified by the idea of others belonging to a family that knows it's roots since 300+ years with an also non-local footprint and reach.

And, you know, organized crime.

yes a a crime family will need to display very similar behavior as a clan in order to protect itself. And some clans certainly are criminal.

While a large criminal syndicate would be a combination of families (that act like a clan), a clan by itself does not need to be part of a criminal syndicate. Also if a person from a clan robs a bank then this doesn't mean the clan is the cause (or the problem). Especially not when the group consists of a 600 or 1000 individuals who are part of that tribe. (whats your chances of bad apples over several extended family trees in the UK/US/France with such a size).

My point specifically is that the media will 100% of the time criminalize the word clan and by extension anyone who is born into it.

There is distaste for clan-like behaviour even when no crimes are committed. For example, most westerners would not like to work in an organisation where your family connection to important people is valued over your work. Few would accept their choice of spouse being greatly constrained by what their grandfather thought was good for his little empire.

yes indeed, ... no doubt for some tribes a total contradiction (if not an adversarial intent) what Western cultures consider their right. If a group is so socially different also smaller chance they see a host country as their final destination (at least not those in power). Then an appeal to "integrate themselves" is a harder sell since the speaker has not only no authority in their eyes but what is proposed means cultural genocide in their eyes. Pretty hard place to build trust from here (maybe over generations but not years imo).

unrelated: I do not want to give the impression that I am defending behavior which belongs to the stone age within our own societies. What might come across as too vague (or apologetic - though hopefully not), IMO the process is always violent for those who are on the receiving end of the more dominant system that incorporates them. Our own imperialist crimes in not too distant history (and still ongoing ones) indicate there is a lot of housekeeping still needed before we let the word clan get hi-jacked by our own (and perhaps unconscious) racial biases :)

I find it curious and vaguely racist that the word 'clan' is almost exclusively used in reference to immigrant and poc families and with an allusion to inherent criminality. This despite the fact that many Western countries have a handful of large, old families which own an inadequate proportion of the companies, resources, have outsized political influence and so on, and those families are almost exclusively in many generations from the country in question. They are as clan-ish as a 'clan' gets, but since they do not match the 'criminal immigrant' stereotype, nobody ever calls them a 'clan'. It irks me.

Are you sure about that? Members of rich families in the US are routinely called as part of a clan - Roosevelt clan or Vanderbilt clan. Or they're collectively called something like Boston Brahmans.

It's less used in Europe, but they are still referred to as aristocratic clans.

To me the connotation has always been something like Hatfields and McCoys, not exactly positive, but not linked to race.

Brahmans isn't related to race either. It's just an alliteration. You're right that they are mostly referred to in the plural form (eg: The Roosevelts bought out....) but the clan usage is fairly common too (eg: he's a member of the Roosevelt clan/dynasty).

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

You have an over-developed sense of vengeance. It's going to get you into trouble someday.

Beat me to it

Isn't this just eye-for-an-eye, the oldest and most reliable type of justice that has ever existed? (reliable in the sense that it functions even in situations with low practical governance like a remote village or an understaffed nation / area).

Sort of but there were also 6 cities of refuge where the accused could flee for safety. If I remember correctly, there may have been a period of years after which they could no longer be pursued? It’s been a while since I read about it though.

Whenever the high priest died, all such people accused of manslaughter were made innocent and could leave the cities of refuge again.

Yes, and it's a shame such justice isn't applied in the US like drug possession laws, where the punishment far exceeds the crime.

Isn't Thailand one of the places where you get either 50 years or life for bringing tiny amounts of marijuana across the border?

I don't know anything about Thailand. I'm only commenting on the US.

The Bible is also rife with passages that talk about justice for the fatherless, the widow, the orphan, and the poor. These are categories of people that by and large have no access to the same channels of justice that strong, large family units had. So the community- especially those in power and able to do something about it- were called to step up and fill in that void.

I'm not in favour of revenge. But I find it irritating how rarely people resort to it. For example if I was a father and somebody killed and raped my daughter. I'd like to think of myself as someone who'll kill that person if he receives anything less than a life sentence - or maybe even anyway. I'd be aware that this is a crime and I'll have to serve a prison sentence for it myself - I'd even see the point of it - a society cannot tolerate revenge. But I'd non the less feel morally obligated to do it. The only possible good reason not to resort to revenge would be if there is a possibilty of being wrong about the identity of the culprit.

That this doesn't happen more often just shows to me that most wo:men are cowards. Not just that - our society even systematically rewards and encourages cowardry by reframing it as smartness or sober-mindedness. But this is true in a more general sense and not restricted to revenge of course. This can be observed on a daily basis at work, at school, pretty much anywhere.

---

Of course, I get downvoted - but how do you argue against my point?

What good would come of such revenge?

Edit: to expand, if (god forbid) someone did that to my daughter, my instinct would not be to kill them, it would be to find them, talk them, to understand why they did it. And to try somehow to make them truly understand the consequences of what they had done. I don't feel like killing them would achieve any of that.

Thanks for your response instead of just downvoting.

> What good would come of such revenge?

One bad person less. And, yes, I'd feel a bit better. Not much maybe. I might even question it in the long run. But think about the alternative. In Germany it is not at all unheard of that murderers (who murdered for sexual desire or greed) get less than ten years of sentencing and are on day parole after a couple of years. How would you feel about that? What "good" comes from that? Do you maybe even wish that person a happy life?

> to expand, if (god forbid) someone did that to my daughter, my instinct would not be to kill them, it would be to find them, talk them, to understand why they did it.

You want to ask the guy "Why did you rape and kill my daughter?"? Are you kidding yourself? What would you expect for an answer? Also in this hypothetical situation you'd have to use force to even ask that question. You think you'd get an honest answer? "Sorry, didn't know it's your daughter." "I was just so horny - didn't know what else to do." What would you expect for an answer that even has the slightes potential of being meaningful to your pain?

> to make them truly understand the consequences of what they had done.

People who rape and kill don't tend to be the "understanding" type ... just think about how f'ed up someone has to be to do that.

> I don't feel like killing them would achieve any of that.

How about asking questions, then torturing, then killing. You'd get the cake and eat it, too.

> One bad person less.

Reform is better than revenge. Not only would society lose a bad person, we'd gain a good one.

> How about asking questions, then torturing, then killing. You'd get the cake and eat it, too.

This would serve only to turn good people into that which they condemn.

“Reform is better than revenge” Cite your sources where a rapist and murderer is a benefit to society after reform.

“This would serve only to turn good people into that which they condemn” How is the murder and rape of an innocent comparable to the punishment of a murderer and rapist?

How do you measure reform? Are their limits to what should be reformed? Do the risks of relapse ever outweigh the benefit of reform? An example to consider are the France Shooters or the Boston Marathon Bomber.

I explained my logic in the previous comment and don't feel the need to go into further detail. Demanding sources isn't really a logical argument, anyway.

IMO the limits lie where someone isn't interested or can't be reformed. If I could turn the Boston Marathon Bombers into adovcates against extremism I would. And if successful they'd likely be very good at it because they'd understand the motives of other extremists better.

It doesn't work with everyone (that's why we have prisons), but AFAIK it's not that uncommon for people to tunr their lives aeound in this way. Most criminals are not inherently sadistic: they do care about other people. Their upbringing and circumstances just lead them to a bad place and they ended up taking that out on someone else.

That doesn't mean they aren't repsonsible for their actions or that they shouldn't be punished, but it doesn mean that they can often be rehabilitated with the right support. And that's generally a win-win scenario where it is possible.

>This would serve only to turn good people into that which they condemn.

But they can reform.

Per capita both rapes and murders happen in the USA at around 10x the rate that the respective crimes happen in Germany.

Rather than give lectures about how stupid the German approach is, you should probably be asking questions about why their approach is working better in practice. If you're looking for the time to do so, I'd suggest reallocating the time you're currently spending imagining the pleasure of torturing an imaginary criminal in the aftermath of an imagined crime that hasn't actually happened.

For the full book length explanation of why your attitude is bad for everyone, read Enlightenment Now.

The short version is that in a society where justice relies on the strength of the individual, there is more conflict, more injury, and more murder. In areas of the USA with more of an honor culture, the murder rate is 10x what it is in areas without one.

The problem is that in an honor culture, people have a need to demonstrate how capable they are so that they will not be considered potential targets. This demonstration takes the form of proving that you will be willing to seek to right any perceived injustice, and are capable of doing so. But these demonstrations tend to involve violence, and lead to conflict. Up to and including murder.

In a law and order society, by contrast, people's safety is based on the continuation of law and order. Which means that justice is available to all, regardless of strength.

Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture.

I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me.

Prison is often described as an honor society. So it seems like those that won't tolerate a law and order society and commit violent crimes are placed involuntarily into prison (an honor society).

Your comment is of course facetious. Nonetheless I'd like to express that most interpretations of honor are of the perverted kind. This is especially true for professional criminals.

what's facetious about it?

> Consider. The strength difference between the average man and average woman is the difference between the average NFL linebacker and the average man. Do you think it right that the average woman's ability to obtain justice is dependent on whether some man stands up for her? And yet that is how things tend to work out in an honor culture.

I've heard of guns described as 'the great equalizer'. An NFL linebacker, average man, and an average woman would each have an approximately equal ability to obtain 'justice'.

> I want to live in a law and order society. A place where potential rapists are deciding whether to worry about the police, and not whether to worry about me.

As someone else pointed out, the prison term for rape is about 10 years. So in your society, potential rapists worry about facing 10 years in prison, and in the other, an extrajudicial death penalty. Seems to me the latter might be a better deterrent.

There is no need to theorize. You can just look at statistics. According to Wikipedia, the rape rate in Germany is estimated at 9 per 100,000. (Men and women.) The rape rate in the USA is estimated at 2.1 per thousand women per year. Rapes happen per capita at 10x the rate in the USA as in Germany.

Theories about deterrence notwithstanding, Germany is actually working out better than the USA. This is typical of other statistics that I've seen. Being in a society that has internalized law and order is safer. By about a factor of 10.

(Side note. The internalized US belief in deterrence is why we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. And yet we also have higher rates of violent crime than any other developed nation. Deterrence may sound good, but it doesn't seem to work out very well in practice.)

I don't think that either the US or Germany is actually representative of those two alternatives I mentioned. A "law and order society" that uses the police for law enforcement is a descriptor of both the US and Germany.

It's a cool statistic, but it only says that whatever the US is doing must be worse than whatever Germany is doing. You would also have to say that the two countries are sufficiently representative of law and order vs. extrajudicial, which I don't think is true.

The fact that both countries have police and courts does not mean that their attitudes about the use of violence in self-defense is at all comparable.

As an example, over 40% of Americans have a gun in the house, and the most common reason given is self-defense. We literally have more civilian owned guns than civilians.

Meanwhile in Germany it is estimated there are 5x as many people as civilian owned guns, and over 60% of the population wishes to increase restrictions on gun ownership. The idea that you should want to own a gun to defend your home or person is nowhere in the national discourse.

When it comes to rape and violent crimes, Germany is more of the rule than the exception. Europe is generally at similar rates to Germany. The USA is an outlier. Within the USA, areas with more of a historical honor culture (for example the South), have higher murder rates than areas without (like New England). Internationally, all countries with murder rates above the USA's also have a belief that it is your individual responsibility to defend yourself.

For a source of all of this, and more, read Enlightenment Now. Seriously. There is a very strong correlation, which is likely causative, behind violent crime rates and a belief that you are responsible for protecting yourself and your loved ones from a violent world.

The stats are nice, but as I said before, you have to tie them much more closely to the actual theories being discussed.

You're trying to equate 'extrajudicial death penalties' (and in context, they were revenge-based, not defensive) with gun ownership and self-defense.

You're then equating 'Germans don't really think about using guns for self-defense' with 'a law and order society'.

And then you're trying to say that we can make informed comments about "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" by looking at "more gun ownership in the US vs. less gun ownership in Germany". It just doesn't compute.

The comparison isn't there. The stats don't fit the argument.

Why don't you read the book-length version?

You're right that I'm stating things that are correlated without showing a good argument for causation. But the book that I keep recommending, which (incidentally) is on record as Bill Gates' favorite book, shows multiple lines of evidence including lines that indicate causation.

But if you don't want to be convinced, I won't bother trying to convince you. Because any one line of evidence is easily dismissed and life is too short for me to pursue this topic in full depth.

Life is too short to read every book someone recommends to me. If you want to prove your point, go ahead and prove it. But shunting the work of making your point off to me, by telling me to go read an entire book just to be convinced by you, isn't super persuasive. I already know what I think - you want to change my mind, then change my mind. I'm listening, but I'm not credulous.

So far, my original interest in the book from your earlier mention has been reduced by your less-than-stellar use of statistics in making your point. If that's all the book offers, my time is better spent elsewhere.

If that was all that the book offered, then it wouldn't be Bill Gates' favorite book. You can read https://www.gatesnotes.com/books/enlightenment-now for his description of what is good about the book.

As for this topic, let me add some more. In interviews with convicted murderers, the most common reason for murder is that they felt wronged and that there was no other form of justice available to them. This is direct evidence that a desire for extrajudicial justice is the top cause of murder.

Murder is not evenly distributed. It is concentrated in places and communities where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system. In the USA that means concentrated in minorities, inner cities, and rural areas. Unsurprisingly, murders are concentrated in the same groups.

This suggests that improving trust in the police should reduce crime. In fact that is the idea behind community policing, and there is evidence suggesting that it really works.

Let's focus on minorities for a second.

From https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-w... you can verify that over 80% of blacks believe that the police system is unfair to them. Over 60% of whites agree with that assessment. We had a bunch of protests last year over this issue.

Independent research has verified that the blacks are basically correct. This has lead to consequences including many successful lawsuits that put various police departments under outside control for particularly egregious behavior.

We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites. And indeed, US blacks commit murder at about 6x the rate that US whites do.

Let's contrast to Germany. Germany does not have a large disenfranchised minority equivalent to US blacks. In fact you can see in https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS5_topl... that an absolute majority of every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system. Which means that the top reason given by murderers for murder is much less likely to happen in Germany.

So you see, it isn't as simple as saying that both the USA and Germany are law and order systems. A significant minority of Americans believe that they don't have access to law and order. And that portion commits most of our murders. Therefore while we have a justice system and it works pretty well for you and me, inequitable access to justice is still a problem in the USA.

> Bill Gates' favorite book

I'm not that interested in what Gates thinks a good book is. Being famous/successful/rich/humanitarian isn't super relevant to being able to identify a good book.

> interviews with convicted murderers

Accumulation of anecdotes != non-anecdotal evidence. It's interesting, but just anecdotal.

> where people feel that they do not have access to the justice system

A statement that is very hard to prove. I don't think you did, and I'm not sure if it's really possible given the general replication crisis within psychology.

> improving trust in the police should reduce crime

I think your evidence is once again insufficient to make the point, but I will agree that the conclusion seems more-or-less valid.

> We should therefore predict that blacks should commit murder much more often than whites.

You don't have to predict that, because it's already well-known. As such, a) you made a trivial prediction, b) you have to show a causal link, c) you have to show that your posited cause is in fact the dominant cause of the effect you're looking at, and d) you have to demonstrate the direction of the causality. You haven't done b, c or d. IIRC, there are a lot of persuasive alternative explanations for the difference in the black/white murder ratio, all of which would have to be addressed. Since I think this explanation of that ratio is much less persuasive than other potential causes, I don't think this point is tenable.

> every socioeconomic group in Germany believe that poor people there are treated fairly by the justice system

That's a really good bit of evidence, and interesting to think about. I will agree with you that as far as "extrajudicial death penalty vs. law and order society" goes, Germany seems decently representative of the latter. However, as I mentioned above, the US side of the comparison is far less apparent: the critical piece of the logic puzzle doesn't work.

After my first reading of your comment, I didn't really expect to find holes in most of the points you made, when I made my response. Thought I'd be agreeing with you more. But here we are. It was definitely interesting. Thanks.

When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided.

However some of the successes of community policing (particularly when you have neighboring cities, one of which adopts it and another of which doesn't) do suggest a causal link with causality going the right way. Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime.

> When you get to the social sciences, evidence is much more easily wished for than provided.

Yeah, though that just means it's harder to actually find out what's true. That's why the replication crisis in psychological sciences is a crisis. We can't treat gaps in our knowledge like supporting evidence.

> Namely that activities on the part of police aimed at increasing trust within problem communities, result in those communities experiencing a decrease in violence and crime.

That sounds great, and does seem like you're right about that specific item.

You are responding to an imaginary comment - not to mine. I don't argue with "honor" for example. I'm also not arguing that we should establish a society based on strength ...

> [some dumb thing about women for some reason, and also] our society even systematically rewards and encourages cowardry by reframing it as smartness or sober-mindedness

is definitely arguing for some kind of honor or strength system.

A Utilitarian would argue against your point by pointing out that the utility created by the revenge murder is less than the utility created by not doing so. With the revenge murder you add another corpse to the pile and probably end up removing yourself from the utility pool. Without it, perhaps the rapist-murderer adds something of value to the world before their death, and you don't remove yourself from the utility pool.

Utilitarianism is simplistic, but then again, so is "I'd feel morally obligated to do it, and I'd be a coward if I did otherwise." Point being, this is not a hard point to argue against, using almost any philosophical framework created in the last couple thousand years.

From this I would conclude that it is utilitarian-bad to revenge, but utilitarian good to murder

Huh? Revenge murder would have the same net utility as regular murder.

My stance is based on a society which isn't able to protect its citizens. Why would I care about utility for this society with respect to the described scenario?

You murder this rapist/murderer, and now you're in prison, and for what? Because you were mad, because you feel you'd lose face if you don't? Who benefits from this macho bullshit? The rapist is dead, your daughter is dead, and now your life is over. You've basically amplified the rapist's impact on your life- in a very real way, you let the rapist control you and ruin your life even more than it was when your daughter was murdered. What's so brave and manly about that?

I did not downvote you. But you haven't actually argued the point, you just said that you find it irritating. Why? What benefit do you envision revenge would provide you or society?

> For example if I was a father and somebody killed and raped my daughter. I'd like to think of myself as someone who'll kill that person if he receives anything less than a life sentence

And then some relative of that person would kill you, and some your relative would kill your killler and so on. Hopefully, after several generations and few tens of dead such cycle of vendetta would end.

It's also worth noting that the rules included protection for the murderer: in fact, that's where the term 'sanctuary city' came from, I think. If the murderer made it to a predefined sanctuary city, the "Avenger of Blood" wasn't allowed to touch them.

Yep. "City of Refuge"

FWIW there are parallels to organized crime in what you wrote.

This *is* organized crime, however the author made it a point that these areas are *not* under rule of the law.

Law enforcement is effectively just the use of (threatened or actual) violence in a way that society has agreed is accepted. The police for (and similar entities) in many modern countries are just the group that has a monopoly on that accepted use a violence.

It seems like what's being described _is_ the rule of law for that area, just not the rule of law most people expect.

> It seems like what's being described

yes this was exactly what I wanted to say. the local norms have over time become illegal and many regions still have a combination of both. Say ... if a local person was just arriving on the island, without any reference (would be an odd thing to do but for the sake of argument[1]) this person then (hypothetically) gets robbed at the pier, his next stop isn't the police who might end up beating him or finding ways to extort him, but they would visit whoever ran the village. They would beg for work, and they'll chat about who they might know in common, and find an arrangement (maybe even find the offender and get their stuff back). The police would be the last place they'd go to not only because they're corrupt but because it would potentially make the village elder who is actually in power lose a little face.

[1] it's risky traveling being both without reference AND poor. especially poor folk would do everything in their power to arrange with people at their destination about their visit. so a job seeker turning up at the police saying they've been robbed would raise a lot of questions. (the person might be a good shoe-in for case they have open since a while and are still looking for a suspect).

Writing from the US: parallels to organized crime abounds in law enforcement here as well. Look what happened to Adrian Schoolcraft [1]

> After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was repeatedly harassed by members of the NYPD and reassigned to a desk job. After he left work early one day, an ESU unit illegally entered his apartment, physically abducted him and forcibly admitted him to a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for six days.

The issue is that people here assume things like this are exceptional rather than systemic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

obviously so. the Italian mafia is said to exist because the local (legal) system of distributing punishment was ineffective/unfair. modern what we call "democratic systems" will paint a different story - they will tell you these people were unable to live in peace until they came along.

it's where the parallel ends though. my comment certainly was _not_ an endorsement or fetishization of crime, just an observation from my own experience living there. the alternative view point which is to call everyone who hasn't been integrated into a "civilized system" a crook (or backwards) is too imperialistic for my taste, especially since Thailand is also the home of many hill-tribes who have a natural difficult relationship with empire-building city folk.

Shqiperia (Albania) is run by the Besa code. It is still feudal today since neither the Italians, Communists, or Ottomans have been able to rule the country. The Besa code was able to hide the Jews from the Nazis when every other european country would turn them in. Today, the Besa code allows Shqiperia to serve as Europe's leading marijuana supplier. 75% of the population is agrarian based, children learn organic farm work ethic, and the family still reigns

not sure why you're being downvoted, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Besa_(Albanian_culture)

The cannabis produced there ends up mostly in the EU (via Montenegro by ship to Italy or the land route via Croatia). EU countries simply pay more for weed then potatoes so it's the market working as expected IMO (but sadly also as intended). The way to address this is to legalize it like Portugal which curbed addiction rates and freed up the legal system with more important work.

The interaction between organized crime and formal law, nation to nation, is absolutely fascinating. The more I learn about it, the more fascinating it gets.

I'm adding this story to what I've learned about the history of the yakuza in Japan and the various US mafia, gangs, and crime families.

Thank you for this comment. It’s a breath of insight in a sea of predictable (and perhaps justified) outrage.

thank you!

> A Thai would not dare to speak ill of the monarchs. They leave the room if a "farang" has had one too many and says something critical (they're peace loving but their love of peace might end there). This applies to both the very rich and the very poor.

I can tell you with confidence that is not the case nowadays, certainly not where I am.

> A Thai would not dare to speak ill of the monarchs

Well obviously at least one would

The current youth generation isn’t adhering to these ideals. I hear a lot of people’s parents tell them not to talk or post about the protests or anything, but they seem more interested in the movement, autonomy, and democracy than worrying about the traditions.

the current youth generation as represented here by a 65 year old civil servant.

Often the intellectual vanguard of youth movements come from older and sometimes isolated pioneers.

This comment, and your many replies to the other comments below, are wonderfully insightful; thank you for sharing.

I'm actually in the middle of reading the Nebula-winning novel The Windup Girl, which takes place in 2200s Thailand, and the insights you've provided add great context to what I'm reading.

Thanks for sharing!

thank you for the kind words it makes me very happy if these old stories are useful to somebody in 2021.

many thanks for the book tip, it looks like a fascinating read, and I will certainly devour it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Windup_Girl

> the old values of honor are still valid.

Putting someone who is 60 year old in jail for 43 years for simply sharing a video is not "honorable" to the slightest degree. In fact, this barbaric and cowardly action shows a complete lack of honor on the part of the royal family. It shows weakness; it shows moral evil; it shows corruption.

I would add that the King fled Thailand because of COVID-19, and "rules" from Bavaria, so he's also a coward who abandoned his country in their hour of need.

Generally, the term "values" usually means a justification for the purest and rankest evil, so I'm not surprised.