So you presume a false dilemma and, considering it settled, harden your head from any meaningful contemplation of the issue.
My "false dilemma" is supported by ten thousand years of human warfare and geopolitics, ten thousand years filled with incidences of people willing to murder without regard for the lives of others.
Well—
Actually, screw that.
Okay.
My "false dilemma" is supported by hundreds of millions of years of evolution and all the aforementioned brutality that comes with it. When you get down to it, human history is simply a microcosm of evolution, as it displays all the trends and tendencies thereof, which include the tendency to kill rivals for resources. The only difference is that now, instead of only considering whether someone's genetics allow them to survive in a given environment, we have culture to consider, whether it's one person's beliefs versus their culture, or one society's beliefs versus the other societies that surround them and the natural resources they have to work with. But people are still ultimately selfish. They will only cooperate if there is individual benefit from doing so, and they will attempt to remove people that they see as being in the way of their satisfaction. Certain people are excluded because little or no benefit is perceived from associating with them; I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. All aspects of human behavior, from punishing criminals to choosing a mate, are exercises in cost-benefit analysis with the interest of pleasing the self. The actual costs and benefits of a given situation are determined by the context in which it takes place. Such a model handily lends itself to the doctrine of maximum-force response.
This is a representation of a part of your worldview, and a pretty comprehensive job of it, considering that you tried to say so much in so little space.
I don’t see the world in the way you have just described, but my view isn’t different enough that we have any real problem so far. Thus, your lecture to this point is a welcome clarification of your motivation.
To draw a historical example, do you know why Japan likes us so much today, perhaps? It's because of the effort that we put into rebuilding their economy and infrastructure.
That is overly simplistic. It is not
wrong, but, rather, too general to be of use in making a point. The devil is in the details. Japanese culture itself, and the specifics of our postwar relationship with Japan, as well as the several decades of world affairs that followed, all played a crucial role in Japan’s development during this time.
At this point, you are talking about something which has nothing to do with our debate.
Do you know why they're still around to like us? Because we were ready to annihilate them, utterly and irreversibly, or at the least, because we gave off such an appearance. The atomic bomb won us the war, because they weren't willing to die in vain. The benefit of pride isn't enough to justify the cost of total destruction. Do you know what would have happened if we hadn't issued the threat to blow up their cities and had gone ahead with conventional warfare? The ground invasion would have taken millions more lives on both sides.
Ditto. Irrelevant to the topic at hand.
To take the obvious corollary, do you know why school shooters find it so easy to kill people at school? Because there's no deterrent to doing so. There's no assurance that they'll fail. Having a goodly amount of armed respondents, whether they be teachers or guards, at school can provide much more of an assurance than we have now.
Your “obvious” corollary
also leads into a topic of discussion that has nothing to do with our debate. I never gave my opinion on the arming of schoolteachers. My problem is what you said here:
You don't have to kill him. If he's already shot someone, it's better to leave him alive; let him rot in jail because there's no hell to rot in. That of course depends on your current economic situation. If you can't afford to keep his sorry murdering ass alive, put a bullet in his head and drop him out back for all I care. It's all that such people deserve.
I can see why you would want to distract us from such an indefensible statement. I can also see that you are intractable—that is, you’re not going to admit that you were wrong to say it.
So, I suppose that’s the end of the dialogue. Your fiery reply is understandable, because I intended it with
my fiery reply—but you haven’t got much else to say besides the disgusting thing you said from the very beginning. I think your lack of a coherent defense of your position speaks for itself.
Let’s finish cleaning up the mess:
Do you know what would happen if some al-Qaeda bastard detonated a nuke inside American borders, by any chance? I'm betting you do: the second someone found evidence pointing to it, the Middle East would be glassed, and there would be nationwide riots and mass killings of anyone of Arab descent. Islam would be a dead religion over here in about two weeks. Now, I'm not so much up on the rioting, because I have good friends that would be in danger of dying and clearly wouldn't have done anything to deserve it. But with regards to the military response, once again, the cost-benefit model comes into action in the ensuing maximum force response. You don't just want your enemy beaten, because then they might get up and try again. You want them to be so completely destroyed that people for the next ten generations quake in their boots at the thought of facing you. Maximum force has been repeatedly shown to be the most effective method of dealing with opponents of your chosen social order. This applies for everyone from terrorists and rival nations all the way down to serial killers and school shooters; the cost to attack you won't be worth the benefits.
A rather ruthless worldview, Hadriel—especially because you apply it so often, in such overarching tones, and with so few (i.e., zero) explicit exceptions. But we’ll have to save that discussion for another time, because it has no relevance to the discussion here. (Are you getting as tired of hearing me say that as I am?)
But really, do you think I like the idea of slagging entire countries and killing civilians? Hell no. But the side that concerns itself with morality in a total war, the side that concerns itself with anything other than self-preservation, is the side that loses.
Ah! Now that
is relevant. Okay, so, in The World According To Hadriel, the side that concerns itself with ethics is the side that loses. That’s a pretty bleak worldview, not to mention one that has been proven
wrong countless times. I could make a list, you know. You’re sure as hell going to ask for one, because, aside from changing the subject and trying to pass nonsensical opinions as fact, it has been your only other technique thus far to accuse
me of being the one who has not supported his argument.
(Never mind that I don’t even have an argument to support; my entire purpose here is to knock down yours; I haven’t proposed an alternative; I’ve just been showing that your solution is bullshit.)
So, you want a list of decency conquering brutality…sure. In fact, I’ll do better. I will give you the best, most universally recognized example I can imagine:
Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement won increased rights and respect for an entire ethnic group of people in the United States. Even though there were violent factions to the movement, it wasn’t the violence that won. It was the decency. Here was a group of people who were still a stone’s throw from slavery, yet rose up and defeated the system that oppressed them—without destroying anything more than the institutionalized injustices themselves. They certainly did not sacrifice their own ethics; they
immortalized those ethics as lessons on which people like me can draw on for centuries to come in discrediting warmongering cynics like yourself who would rather resort to killing and bloodshed than try to create better solutions.
You can’t argue with this accomplishment. Not even
you, Hadriel. Sparing some of one’s resources on decency does not necessitate their defeat. What ridiculous logic!
Of course, a school shooting is different from a total war, in that saving the civilians is the entire objective. But the same principles apply; if we don't ramp up our security to demonstrate that we have absolutely no tolerance for these kinds of fuckwads, they're going to attempt to act out their homicidal plans.
A zero-tolerance policy? That’s extravagant. I have a better solution: Foster a society where people refrain from making bad decisions not because they fear the costs, but because they recognize the benefits. Refraining from a mistake out of fear typically breeds discontent and bitterness. Refraining out of prudence does not cause this. Your solution lacks any component that would encourage people to do better. Instead, you would debase humanity and choke society. By trying to stifle bad behavior under threat of punishment, your answer would ultimately lead to more of it—not to mention we’d also have to become a fascist state where vengeful murder and preemptive murder are the soup and salad of the day, every day.
Mmm…murder salad. Tasty, Hadriel?
Further, it is not only acceptable, but necessary, to make examples of such individuals. Morally, we get off easy because they've already committed one of the most heinous crimes possible, so to our baser natures, anything we do to them is in some measure justified.
This is a corruption of the concept of justice. What you are actually committing here is the “tu quoque” logical fallacy: They mess up, so we are “justified” in our retaliation. Unfortunately, there is no real consideration of actual
justice here: What if our retaliation is also messed up?
Ah, but you were just talking about our “baser natures.” So, how about in our heads:
To our more contemplative natures, they are still murderers, and it's not like we're taking out innocent bystanders when we off them. From a cost-benefit perspective, we've already lost in this case. All that remains is to take everything we can from them in hopes of obtaining partial recompense.
Your use of unsubstantiated opinion under the guise of qualitative terminology is particularly galling to anybody who recognizes the importance of the tools of measurement. Your blunt language, dressed up with a few words like “cost-benefit,” belie your grasp of your own thesis. There is no calculus here other than the political calculus of your rhetorical posturing. When a crime is committed, it may be the case that something irretrievable is lost. But you cannot apply a simplistic economic premise to the fabric of society by saying that, because of this loss, we should inflict further loss, this time on the side of the offending party, in order to restore the balance. That’s just talking-head gibberish.
But if you think for one second that there aren't exceptions to human rights, you're not only kidding yourself, you're a liar and a hypocrite.
Human rights may be excepted from time to time. I think I even said in my last post that I do indeed support the death penalty. So, I guess you’re right: I am neither kidding myself, nor am I not a liar or a hypocrite. Thanks! Not that you meant to compliment me, but people who don’t know what they are talking about often unintentionally aid their opponents. =)
So, now that I'm done with that spiel, what examples do you have that support your model of human behavior? In fact, what the hell is your model of human behavior? I haven't seen one thing in any of your posts in this thread to indicate what you actually believe in.
Like I said before, I haven’t put one up. I’m just saying that yours is bullshit. Let’s review:
You don't have to kill him. If he's already shot someone, it's better to leave him alive; let him rot in jail because there's no hell to rot in. That of course depends on your current economic situation. If you can't afford to keep his sorry murdering ass alive, put a bullet in his head and drop him out back for all I care. It's all that such people deserve.
Yep. If it looks like bullshit, sounds like bullshit, and stinks like bullshit, it’s probably
Hadriel’s latest greatest political philosophy bullshit.
No—that’s not fair of me. In your defense, you aren’t aware of having done anything wrong. Your mistake isn’t intentional. You just need help to recognize what your worldview is leading you to believe these days.
So, Mr. Wizard, show me the "physics" equation that says "we're never going to stop warring over resources."
Try Conservation of Mass/Energy. You know, the fundamental principle of all of science? There's a set amount of stuff in the universe, and there's much, much less of it that we can actually use as resources.
Oh, jeez…
Just…jeez…
You need to shut off that damned Star Wars and open up a sixth-grade science book. Let’s go over this point by point:
First of all, the conservation of mass and energy is the principle which holds (rightly or wrongly) that matter and energy are neither destroyed or created, but only transformed. What you are
actually talking about, however, is the entropy effect, the phenomenon which follows from the second law of thermodynamics, wherein energy becomes progressively less available to do work.
Second of all, there is no way in hell you can actually graft the second law of thermodynamics onto any aspect, orifice, or pore of your entire, bewildered argument. Show me a set of equations whereby entropy justifies a single one of your views. I’m an engineer by training, so you don’t need to worry about humbling me with the math. I’ll follow any logic you want to pursue symbolically. Not that I won’t need an aspirin after you throw together a heap of nonsense (see: TimeCube), but I’ll recognize any legitimate statement you want to write in that language.
Third of all, I could do more science with a pack of Mentos and a bottle of cola than you could do with an entire laboratory. You seem not to realize who you are dealing with. You cannot talk bullshit, slap a couple of scientific terms onto the top of it, and call it science! Not to me. That’s what the Christian fundamentalists do, and I don’t let them get away with it either. Do you really want to number in their ranks, where credibility is concerned?
None of this is about cost-benefit analyses, or the laws of thermodynamics. It’s about you trying to justify your worldview to yourself under scientific pretenses.But there is neither science nor justice in what you have said in this topic. As far as I am concerned, the rest of your pseudoscience will be treated as superfluous exclamation marks, and ignored without further comment.
And show me why it is "inevitable" that some people will inevitably shoot kids in schools because they were socially awkward.
Apparently actually seeing it happen, repeatedly, I might add, isn't good enough evidence for you, so I really don't know what to say here. The odds of a given, physically possible result turning up with an arbitrarily large time frame are 100% for every case in which said result has happened before.
You don’t know what to say, eh? That hasn’t stopped you yet. You could say why exactly you think it is inevitable that some people will shoot kids because they were socially awkward. To do that, you would first have to show that social awkwardness is the sole engine of these tragedies. (A fact I would certainly dispute; I don’t even think you could
define “social awkwardness” without getting yourself in trouble.) Then you would have to demonstrate that social awkwardness will always result in school shootings, given, as you put it, “an arbitrarily large time frame.” In doing so, you would necessarily concern yourself with a rather involved discussion of the phenomenon of school shootings and their relationship to the societies in which they occur, with due consideration given to the psychological and sociological pressures that consistently underlie these incidents. That is beyond your means, clearly.
Your refusal to recognize this betrays either a gross lack of knowledge or willful ignorance of reality.
I see you recognize the power of my arguing techniques. But copycatting me isn’t going to give you the same persuasiveness—because the reason I win arguments has nothing to do with my techniques. I win on substance—and by wagering less at the beginning. The techniques just help more people to realize when I have scored a point. You, on the other hand, fight with uncorroborated opinions, pseudoscience, and wager a great deal at the beginning by committing to the defense of elaborate, specific concepts.
The difference between you and me is in the people we find unbearable to associate with. And for me, that list mostly consists of people who make claims to knowledge but fail to demonstrate it when requested to do so.
Nope. I got our differences right the first time. You accept gross illogic in the reasoning process whereas I do not, and you have too many opinions with too few facts, whereas I find that sort of arrogance disgusting.
You have shown no consideration of the greater context in which your judgment would be rendered, and if this were a logical reasoning class you'd get a D. Civics class and you'd get an F.
Does this vague "greater context" you speak of somehow alter the variables to where my prescribed form of dealing with murderers is no longer just?
The “greater context” of which I spoke refers to the consequences that would result from the implementation of your little ideological point here:
You don't have to kill him. If he's already shot someone, it's better to leave him alive; let him rot in jail because there's no hell to rot in. That of course depends on your current economic situation. If you can't afford to keep his sorry murdering ass alive, put a bullet in his head and drop him out back for all I care. It's all that such people deserve.
That disgusts me so much that I cannot help but repost it whenever it comes up. And, since you continue to stick by this anvil, you will have to sink right along with it.
You see, to answer your question, we must remember that no part of society exists in vacuum. Very little about our culture makes much sense if you isolate a given piece of it from the rest and analyze it without regards to the social whole. Your premise of callously murdering people makes no consideration whatsoever of the
effects that could result from such a policy.
Let me give you an analogy. In framing his so-called “War on Terror,” President Bush has said many times that “terrorists” want to attack us because they hate our freedom. That sort of talk is worse than useless. It actually hurts us, because it stifles our ability to consider the true motivations, various and sundry as they are, behind all of those people who might justifiably be classified as terrorists. In the long run, it makes for an ignorant culture with a prejudiced mindset, despised by its erstwhile allies, and dominated by an ideologically rigid government with no latitude to explore alternative solutions and a reduced military capacity to prosecute its own damn war. It
weakens the United States for our president to get up there and tell us the lie that terrorists want to attack us because they hate our freedom.
Likewise, in a society where we deal with crime your way—ruthlessly, murderously, and callously—we make it harder for ourselves to understand why crime actually occurs, and who commits it. By dehumanizing criminals, we lose the means to relate to their motivations, and therefore we lose the means to
understand crime, and criminals—which is a key prerequisite to building a society where that type of crime is less likely to occur.
We didn’t end labor abuses by shooting corporate executives. We reduced labor abuses by giving workers more rights under the law, and enforcing those laws.
And we’re not going to cut down on crime by shooting the offenders. Even though the death penalty may, on occasion, be a legitimate form of justice, for crimes sufficiently heinous, I think it is
always a disservice to society whenever any of us conceives of criminals as inhuman monsters or freaks of nature, rather than as members of our own people—criminals are ourselves, our neighbors, and our friends and families.
Therefore, Hadriel, your policy of callous killing is not only disgusting in a personal sense, but also is likely to lead to a society where crime is even less understood, and therefore even more abundant.
That is just the very beginnings of a due consideration of the “greater context” I described.
You have proposed this fancy idea, which happens to be horrible on the face, and didn’t give it a lick of thought—other than to regurgitate your own hardheaded view that humanity is at odds with the laws of thermodynamics, or whatever the hell it is you tried to say. That’s why you get the D in logic and the F in civics.
On another note, which Big Idea are you talking about?
Oh, I’m glad you asked. It’s been a few paragraphs. Here:
You don't have to kill him. If he's already shot someone, it's better to leave him alive; let him rot in jail because there's no hell to rot in. That of course depends on your current economic situation. If you can't afford to keep his sorry murdering ass alive, put a bullet in his head and drop him out back for all I care. It's all that such people deserve.
And all that goes with it. Admit it, Hadriel: You just don’t
care about people, about society, about the human species…or even about civilization itself. You have your hate-filled, cynical model of “humanity as the eternal war-violence factory,” and you either cannot or will not look beyond that. You have spoken up more angrily, and with greater prejudice, of late…and that is what led me to bash heads with you, when until your recent attack on fat people I had not given so much as a second thought to you. All I knew about you is that you’re the guy who likes Zelda. You and I should not be having this discussion right now—we should not be fighting at all; you’re a cool guy—but something snapped in your mind recently, or maybe a long time ago, and you only recently let it show. The result has been sorry and sad and ugly. In all honesty, I think there is something wrong with you…depression, pent-up rage, friend or family issues, substance abuse…I have no clue. But something ain’t right about you of late, and I trust my judgment that it has to do with your harsh view of the world right now.
I would, however, like you to demonstrate to me what's wrong with having more armed guards at schools.
I don’t have an opinion on that. I haven’t sat down to reason it out and look at the evidence.
You will either post proof that my model of human interaction is flawed, or you will retract your statements.
Ugh…that’s enough of this. I’m done. I think I’ve said everything I need to say, and then some. Hopefully the thread speaks for itself by this point. I cede the floor to you.
