Gyroscopic Investing

I always think of this suprisingly profound dialogue from starship troopers when this debate comes up:

Dizzy: My mother always told me that violence doesn't solve anything.
Jean Rasczak: Really? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that.
[to Carmen]
Jean Rasczak: You.
Carmen: They wouldn't say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed.
Jean Rasczak: Correct. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence doesn't solve anything, is wishful thinking at its worst; people who forget that always die.

Relatedly:

http://nononsenseselfdefense.com/mental_preparation.htm

An example of this is that a person who feels that 'violence never solved anything' (VNSA) can believe that as long as he/she is not being physically assaulted. While the reasons and motivations for the assault will not be resolved, effective counter-force does prevent you from being brutally victimized during an assault. However, those who subscribe to the VNSA hypothesis have usually not developed the means to be effective using force. Because of their choices, that option is off the table. Therefore they are left casting around for an effective response within their normal paradigms (e.g. talking it out, being reasonable). Unfortunately, the attacker is past that point.

It is not hyperbole to say, in a crisis, it boils down to: What is more important, your safety or protecting how you think? The sad truth is that most people are victimized while desperately trying to come up with an answer to an extreme and unique circumstance using their everyday paradigms.

Also relatedly, let me say that I appreciate how well doodle is able to distill a topic down to its essence. And indeed, when you're talking about guns, you're never really just talking about guns; you're talking about violence, and how you think societies and individuals ought to sort it out.

If you attack the problem from an individual perspective, then firearms can be a godsend: a means for even the most physically incapable defender to resist violence.

But if you see violence as primarily a collective problem (perhaps a deep cultural or physiological one), then firearms are not a satisfying solution because they fail to address the reasons why defensive violence is necessary; ideally, no violence would ever be necessary.

Whether you believe that a world without violence is possible or whether working toward it is desirable seems to be a very strong predictor of one's attitude about personal firearms.

Pointedstick wrote: Doodle, if you subscribe to such a mechanistic view of the human mind, I don't know what to tell you. Whatever happened to your eastern philosophy kick? Do you truly believe it's so easy to understand and manipulate the workings of the mind?

Most of the time I don't know what to believe. :-) But if you dont believe the human mind is mechanistic you have to argue for free will which to me is like trying to prove the existence of a soul. What type of proof does one offer for this?

I guess when we talk about violence or anger or any other emotion we should seek to understand what it is. What is its nature, purpose, results. These are very complicated questions and while I can offer a lot of windbag conjecture, I really have no idea.

Maybe we could start with trying to define violence. I would suggest that it is actually a human construct related to our personal idea of there being such a thing as morality in this universe...good and bad. A violent act is one in which physical force is used to do harm or evil towards something else.  Violence to me implies the "intention" to harm. In other words, if a volcano erupts and buries a city that would be a violent act only from the perspective of the humans being buried and even then its hard to call it violent unless you can affix an intention to do harm on the part of the volcano.  Similarly, can a human act with force like a volcano, yet not be violent if their intention is not to harm?

Real philosophy is so difficult and I unfortunately dont have the training to know how to tackle issues like this in a logical manner...

Bean wrote: I always think of this suprisingly profound dialogue from starship troopers when this debate comes up:

Dizzy: My mother always told me that violence doesn't solve anything.
Jean Rasczak: Really? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that.
[to Carmen]
Jean Rasczak: You.
Carmen: They wouldn't say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed.
Jean Rasczak: Correct. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence doesn't solve anything, is wishful thinking at its worst; people who forget that always die.

The book has many more exchanges of this sort that are really provocative.

In a postscript to the scene above, a year or two ago the actor who played Rasczak attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head but did not succeed.  I suppose you might say that violence really didn't solve his problems.

MediumTex wrote:

Bean wrote: I always think of this suprisingly profound dialogue from starship troopers when this debate comes up:

Dizzy: My mother always told me that violence doesn't solve anything.
Jean Rasczak: Really? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that.
[to Carmen]
Jean Rasczak: You.
Carmen: They wouldn't say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed.
Jean Rasczak: Correct. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence doesn't solve anything, is wishful thinking at its worst; people who forget that always die.

The book has many more exchanges of this sort that are really provocative.

In a postscript to the scene above, a year or two ago the actor who played Rasczak attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head but did not succeed.  I suppose you might say that violence really didn't solve his problems.

Sure violence solves a problem....but is that the standard that is used to determine that it is the right course of action? If my problem is that you are playing your music too loud next door, one course of action could be to simply blow up your house.

doodle wrote: Sure violence solves a problem....but is that the standard that is used to determine that it is the right course of action? If my problem is that you are playing your music too loud next door, one course of action could be to simply blow up your house.

Does the state then use force under threat of violence to reprimand you for the secario you are suggesting?

I am simply saying that at the end of the day; violence or threat of violence are last option in any decision tree once you get far enough.

doodle wrote:

MediumTex wrote:

Bean wrote: I always think of this suprisingly profound dialogue from starship troopers when this debate comes up:

Dizzy: My mother always told me that violence doesn't solve anything.
Jean Rasczak: Really? I wonder what the city founders of Hiroshima would have to say about that.
[to Carmen]
Jean Rasczak: You.
Carmen: They wouldn't say anything. Hiroshima was destroyed.
Jean Rasczak: Correct. Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor. The contrary opinion, that violence doesn't solve anything, is wishful thinking at its worst; people who forget that always die.

The book has many more exchanges of this sort that are really provocative.

In a postscript to the scene above, a year or two ago the actor who played Rasczak attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head but did not succeed.  I suppose you might say that violence really didn't solve his problems.

Sure violence solves a problem....but is that the standard that is used to determine that it is the right course of action? If my problem is that you are playing your music too loud next door, one course of action could be to simply blow up your house.

I'm the guy who agrees with Harry Browne that violence is always a downward spiral that only leads to more and more violence.

I would say that violence is a fundamentally irrational response to a problem, but since we are irrational creatures I would expect violence to be with us a while longer.

Pointedstick wrote:What I'm saying is that I don't think you can just "remove violence" any more than you could remove the hydrogen from water and still keep it water or make a delicious sugary cake into a health food. I think our violence comes from the same mental space as a host of other things that we don't want to get rid of. Getting rid of the possibility of violence would entail getting rid of passion and drive and initiative as well. I don't think humans can have those things without the possibility of violence resulting from it.

I'm not a psychologist so I don't know what side-effects would occur due to the removal of violence.  But if we could somehow excise just the violent aspect of our nature, I don't see why we would lose any other aspects.  It's a thoguht experiment, so I'm going with the assumption that by removing violence we're removing violence and nothing else. 

rocketdog wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:What I'm saying is that I don't think you can just "remove violence" any more than you could remove the hydrogen from water and still keep it water or make a delicious sugary cake into a health food. I think our violence comes from the same mental space as a host of other things that we don't want to get rid of. Getting rid of the possibility of violence would entail getting rid of passion and drive and initiative as well. I don't think humans can have those things without the possibility of violence resulting from it.

I'm not a psychologist so I don't know what side-effects would occur due to the removal of violence.  But if we could somehow excise just the violent aspect of our nature, I don't see why we would lose any other aspects.  It's a thoguht experiment, so I'm going with the assumption that by removing violence we're removing violence and nothing else.

Well, okay, sure. As a thought experiment, if we could get rid of violent tendencies without affecting any positive human qualities or our ability to use force in defense (against wild animals, alien invasions, etc).

But that sounds sort of like saying that I would support unlimited free energy for everyone. We're off in speculative fantasy land.

Simonjester wrote:

rocketdog wrote: Removing violence from our nature would not render us incapable of progress.  The benefits to society would be tremendous if it did not need to constantly deal with the violent members among it.

until something violent came along and took advantage of our weakened state... 

kinda reminds me of a Simpsons episode

" - Homer buys a monkey's paw that gives him three wishes. Of course, all his wishes go horribly wrong, in particular the world peace one. All weapons and war are banished, which leaves Earth open to invasion from the pathetic aliens with their feeble weapons. Homer gets rid of the paw, and Flanders picks it up and decides to sort things out:

An alien chases Moe down the street.

Alien: Kneel before my slingshot, puny earthling!

Ned makes his wish to get rid of the aliens - suddenly, Moe is chasing the alien, brandishing a board with a nail in it. The aliens are defeated, and fly off to lick their wounds.

Kodos: Well Kang, it seems the earthlings won.

Kang: Did they? That board with a nail in it may have defeated us. But the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails, and soon, they will make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!"

You're misunderstanding the proposition.  Merely removing our violent tendencies does not mean we will lose our ability or desire to defend ourselves.  I don't view self-defense as an act of violence.  Self-preservation is not violence, it's a response to violence.  Any species that's not allowed to defend itself will either become enslaved or go extinct. 

Simonjester wrote: it is an interesting thought experiment but since violence is an old brain survival fight or flight level function, removing it would also remove the ability to react quickly under threat, it sounds nice to run every action through the front brain to get ideal ethical and moral decision making under every circumstance but that is a slow and laborious process compared to how the brain needs to work, it is wired the way it is for a reason and the Self-preservation you describe is a big part of that reason..

rocketdog wrote: You're misunderstanding the proposition.  Merely removing our violent tendencies does not mean we will lose our ability or desire to defend ourselves.  I don't view self-defense as an act of violence.  Self-preservation is not violence, it's a response to violence.  Any species that's not allowed to defend itself will either become enslaved or go extinct.

It sounds like you want to excise not violence, but agressive violence. Violence can be agressive or defensive, but I think it's pretty clear that shooting someone in defense is a violent act. A justified violent act, but a violent act nonetheless.

RuralEngineer wrote: Yes, let's performe major brain surgery on every human being in the entire world to remove the "bad" emotions.

Brilliant!  Bonus points if it's against their will, for the "good of society."

Now when the pit bull attacks my daughter I can calmly dial 911 and ask for their most polite dog cuddler instead of pummeling it with my fists while she runs away...I can't wait for this violence free society. Pure genius!

You're confusing non-violence with an inability (or unwillingness) to defend oneself or others from violence.  Read my post above. 

Simonjester wrote: you are assuming that violence can be separated into acceptable violence and unacceptable violence at the instinctive level it takes place at, i don't think the brain works that way, at that level violence is violence it has no good or bad it is pure "action needed to survive", fight or flight happens below the level of thought, so what society or the benevolent elite who know best or even the greatest moral thinkers, think of as good or bad violence doesn't apply, non violent people and society's are non violent because the front brain controls the lizard brain not because parts of the lizard brain is removed or somehow knows the difference between good and bad..

i don't think this could ever be more than a thought experiment because of the nature of how the brain works..

Non-violence societies:

Semai Tribe

Child Raising In Non-violent Cultures

What a Non-Violent Society Might Look Like

Pointedstick wrote:It sounds like you want to excise not violence, but agressive violence. Violence can be agressive or defensive, but I think it's pretty clear that shooting someone in defense is a violent act. A justified violent act, but a violent act nonetheless.

If an arson starts a fire, and I douse it with water, am I guilty of arson as well? 

Simonjester wrote: i don't think this could ever be more than a thought experiment because of the nature of how the brain works..

Agree. Let me quote Xan from earlier in the thread:

Xan wrote: If "if"s and "but"s were candy and nuts, we'd ALL have a merry Christmas!

MediumTex wrote: In a postscript to the scene above, a year or two ago the actor who played Rasczak attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head but did not succeed.  I suppose you might say that violence really didn't solve his problems.

What, Michael Ironside?

MachineGhost wrote:

MediumTex wrote: In a postscript to the scene above, a year or two ago the actor who played Rasczak attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head but did not succeed.  I suppose you might say that violence really didn't solve his problems.

What, Michael Ironside?

Maybe he's thinking of Daniel von Bargen, who played Kruger on Seinfeld?