I don’t think it’s backwards, I think we have different points. I see issues on the other end of things that your point makes that are not resolved. If you can gather enough people, that doesn’t make a given retribution just anymore than not being able to gather enough to do so makes it unjust. You can’t have it both ways where popularity validates some things without invalidating others. Come up with a better criteria, please.

If you aren’t willing to be violent over something you shouldn’t be able to send a cop to be violent for you.

That seems to exclude anybody incapable of violence, whether physically, mentally, or socially. Physically is easy enough to understand. Mentally, abuse victims come to mind. One of the ugly things about abuse is the victim will often internalize the abuser’s viewpoint and think the abuse is deserved. Socially, I have known victims of sexual assault that didn’t want to accuse the perpetrator because they expected the social group they shared to side with the perpetrator. If I don’t like heights or are otherwise disabled, should I not be able to hire a roofer? (I get this metaphor isn’t perfect, the metaphor isn’t the idea.)

I’m curious if you agree that police not providing protection to Italian immigrants in the US in the late 19th century caused the Mafia to be created to fill that need.

I’m not saying cops are good, but most of the anarchists I’ve spoken to have the idea that it would be great for everybody to be willing to be violent with others when disagreements arise.

Maybe I can find twenty people to exile someone, but what if they can find forty to protect themselves? Does that make one group more right than the other? I also think that finding 20 people who agree with you makes you think there’s merit to your position and justification for violence is an absolutely terrifyingly low bar.

I just don’t think that current systems being meh means that any given other system has merit. That’s why I mentioned not comparing in my comment.

How do horizontal power structures handle problems of global scale? The COVID pandemic and how people behaved and created consequences for others comes to mind. I’m not sure if any of the tactics you mention would work. You can’t shame people who think they’re doing the right thing, can’t exile them without a power structure that can use force on them, they have no leadership to revoke, and I’m not sure how distributed decision making would apply.

Another idea on that scale might be best exemplified by climate change (or pfas etc). Do horizontal power structures mean most people could ignore how they’re impacting others negatively? If not, how would that be handled on a global scale?

If anybody is going to answer, I’d appreciate it greatly if the answer did not compare how much worse vertical systems are for these problems. If you can give me a novel idea about this, I’d appreciate it.