What Should Happen?

[The Sum of Awe]

I feel that we are in a need for political enlightenment, let alone philosophical enlightenment.

To understand me; I'm pretty much a Pacifist... but I will defend myself violently if I need to. I vowed to only kill to put them out of their misery, and be seriously aggressive when needed.

So far, people have respected me for this, therefore no harm. But I know it will not always work like this, respect doesn't always exist, looking for respect is NOT an acceptable answer when it comes down to survival.

Too late for this thread, but I just thought I'd voice my opinions quick since I have time to; if I had posted this a little earlier... maybe a couple centuries earlier, it would have had more use.

We obviously have guns, weapons of mass destruction lie under our fingernails. Weaponry is very much needed in today's society, but would it have to be needed if they didn't invent weaponry?

The first man to invent automatic weapons was too afraid of a fist fight, he wasn't confident or skilled in his own eyes.

So, he invented the first automatic weapon to protect himself, for the hell of it let's say it was a 9mm. So when he invented this 9mm, it was just the cause of the nightmare, not until he used it would the nightmare begin.

He shot his first guy, and they know they needed something more powerful in order to defeat him, so let's say they invented the M4. His enemies beat him, but his team decided to make something more advanced and defeat them again, and it just goes on and on like that.


Yeah, it's too late, now it's not gonna stop, now we need them. It is not impossible, but very hard to rid all of the weapons.

Weapons and peace cannot exist in the same world. We're ending the world as we speak because of them, not just the humans, but the earth itself, non-humans, etc. From the pollutions it causes, the chemicals it releases/has, etc.

If you want a better world like never-never land; where everyone's happy and nobody suffers, as what I thought was what most moral philosophers were looking for, then I can gaurante you that weapons aren't the way.

But, now we have to use guns to protect ourselves in most cases, because our cases are extreme, and the extreme just gets more extreme every time we use weapons.

Just arguing my personal form of Anarcho-Primitivism.

 

[Otherright]

The first man to invent automatic weapons was too afraid of a fist fight, he wasn't confident or skilled in his own eyes.

So, he invented the first automatic weapon to protect himself, for the hell of it let's say it was a 9mm. So when he invented this 9mm, it was just the cause of the nightmare, not until he used it would the nightmare begin.

He shot his first guy, and they know they needed something more powerful in order to defeat him, so let's say they invented the M4. His enemies beat him, but his team decided to make something more advanced and defeat them again, and it just goes on and on like that.

For the hell of it, let's say it was the Gatling gun. John Gatling never shot anyone. He was actually an MD and an inventor. He created the gun as a modification of a seed planter he'd invented. His intention for the gun was to force nations to have smaller armies and thus there be less disease and murder.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

For the hell of it, let's say it was the Gatling gun. John Gatling never shot anyone. He was actually an MD and an inventor. He created the gun as a modification of a seed planter he'd invented. His intention for the gun was to force nations to have smaller armies and thus there be less disease and murder.

Hmm... Never viewed it like that. I'll think about that.

 

[Otherright]

Hmm... Never viewed it like that. I'll think about that.

Yeah, it puts a different spin on it, doesn't it?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Yeah, it puts a different spin on it, doesn't it?

Though it is still more dangerous, who says there will be less people being killed? Violence is not just wars.

 

[ManTimeForgot]

Though it is still more dangerous, who says there will be less people being killed? Violence is not just wars.

If you take the sum total of all deaths across human history resulting from injury due to war and compare it to the sum total of all deaths due to famine, lack of hygiene, and sepsis as byproducts of war, then the latter out numbers the former by an amount too large for me to even bother speculating on properly (it is probably something on the order of factor 100 but who really knows). The point being is that far more people died from disease and miserable conditions that followed from war than EVER died from weapons.

It is only in the last hundred years or so that modern medicine and hygiene practices have managed to stamp out or inhibit epidemics and wound infections.


Also weaponry is not a cause it is a symptom. Humans are animals. Animals live according to principles of evolution. Evolution has clear winners and losers. We strive very hard not to be the losers. This means stamping out our competition. In the case of other species that could potentially rival us our ancestors extirpated (or in some cases global extinction) several species as we came into contact with them, and in the case of rival humans violent conflict has always existed.

Population pressures for the bulk of human existence were not high enough for war to exist; if you didn't like the conditions you moved away. Murder almost certainly existed, but it would not have risen to the level of a concerted effort by a large group of people. But as soon as you have sedentary societies which can support larger groups of people you suddenly have population pressures which can induce people to mass murder.

Weapons are a byproduct of evolution. If you have to do something, then you have to make sure you are the most effective at it our you will get out competed. Being out competed in something which is necessary for survival means extinction.




Also: Weapons and peace can't exist in the same world? Why do you think you know this? How did you learn it? Because the last time I checked the only evidence that exists on the matter flatly contradicts this. If you look at areas of the United States with a high incidence of individual ownership of guns and a large number of people with conceal carry licenses, then the violent crime rate drops Dramatically. This actually makes sense; people who are criminals are often just as scared and lazy as the rest of us and so don't want to have to confront a population of "victims" that might shoot them if they try something. Can't rob a 7-11 if the three people in there shoot you as you run in the door.



As near as I can tell the political enlightenment that is needed is for people to realize that the size of our societies have become unmanageable. Humans evolved under conditions where the populations did not exceed hundreds of people. Thousands of years were spent in societies no larger than 10,000. Our brains fail to properly comprehend numbers larger than around 10,000. Large numbers give us huge problems: 8,000 and 80,000 seem very much the same to our brains (how we react does not seem to appreciate the difference) and after about 10,000 people our ability to remember names, faces, and invest emotionally drops off considerably. Essentially we start forming cliques. And that is because we subconsciously recognize that the group is too large and so we associate with those people most like us amongst the society.

We are social beings, and so we need a community, but a community does not and almost certainly should not be millions or billions of people. We are "lazy" beings, and this is not meant as a slight. We spent the bulk of our existence with "work days" that allowed us hours of leisure time. 4 hours hunting down the mammoth and then the rest of the day off. Sure long periods of migratory travel and short intense periods of labor meant you had to be physically fit, but you still got to sit down and booze, screw, and gamble your day away.

Want to reduce the incidence of violence? Reduce population pressures. Undue scarcity of resources. Reduce the intensity of the work day (people want to be able to relax). Increase community awareness and ties (its a lot harder to hurt someone you know and who has a face you recognize than a stranger; and when ties of reciprocity exist the tendency to harm is even less likely).



Sometimes an argument only sounds like it is wisdom. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that because something sounds profound that it actually has a high degree of truth value to its content. Ask yourself: does this actually correspond to human history and studies of human behavior? Weapons are not the cause: humans throughout time have always turned our tools to two things without even giving much though to it. Invent something new and inevitably it becomes tied to sex and warfare. (Rule 34 anyone?). So focus on the actual causes and don't allow the smokescreen of political juxtaposition and chicanery to fool you into believing false solutions.

MTF