promethea.incorporated

brave and steely-eyed and morally pure and a bit terrifying… /testimonials /evil /leet .ask? .ask_long?

ilzolende:

socialjusticemunchkin:

argumate:

disexplications:

argumate:

rendakuenthusiast:

argumate:

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a badder guy with a gun.

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a bad guy with a bigger gun.

The only thing that can stop a nice guy with a gun is the friend zone, apparently.

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is agents of the state monopoly on legitimate violence, who have legitimate-violence-guns.

If guns are outlawed by the state asserting a monopoly on the use of force, then only outlaws and agents of the state whose sworn duty is to oppose outlaws will have guns.

If states are outlawed, only outlaws will have states

who’s going to stop ‘em tho

I’m here to ask you a question. What can stop a bad guy with a gun?

“A good gal with a gun,” say the constitutionally gender-balanced pair of spokespersons from Al-Qamishli, “and the fact that she is not alone, as everyone else too has been trained in enforcing the maintenance of a positive social order so that they don’t need a specific class of agents of the state to do it for them and also rob them because nobody can stop the agents of the state.”

“The fact that the existence of institutions to solve that problem is economically efficient and thus the institutions will exist,” says the man from Santa Clara. “In addition, the existence of institutions to solve the free-rider problem one would naively expect in the previous institutions is also economically efficient and thus such institutions will also exist.”

“A welfare society,” says the woman from Stockholm. “Early intervention into the factors that make people bad in the first place, because extremely few people are actually born bad, and most badness is actually the product of environmental conditions pulling people’s levers in a way that makes them act destructively, and thus acting early to stop the process and redirect people into more pro-social paths is far more productive than trying to figure out what to do when the guy has become bad and obtained a gun.”

“A well-regulated militia,” says the man from Philadelphia, “being necessary to the security of a free State…”

“Pro-social” is a phrase which is probably supposed to sound more unambiguously good than what it represents, which has warped around to it sounding more arbitrary and bad to me than what it represents.

Looking at the Wikipedia page, it seems to mix “not violently assaulting people at random” with “driving on the side of the road everyone else drives on” and “playing Cheese/four-square during lunch because that’s what 12-year-old girls do in this school”. And maybe this is a useful category, but I think “not doing stuff that’s obviously regardless of societal conditions” and “following everyone else’s choice regardless of arbitrariness when coordination matters a lot” are more natural a category than “those things, plus also conformity in general”.

(Also, “don’t mess with other people” is one thing, “you are obligated to devote some share of resources to helping people, but nobody said you had to like it, and also there are multiple ways to fulfill this duty” is another thing, and “you have to be a nice person, not just in the sense of ‘vaguely wanting people to have nice things’ but also in the sense of personally liking most people, which should ideally be shown by your willingness to do random favors and not see this as difficult or a burden” is completely unreasonable and I feel like it is required by pro-sociality.)

Okay, so there’s three kinds of pro-sociality

One is “not messing with people” and basically obligatory

One is “sacrificing from one’s own to help others” which is commendable and praiseworthy and I’d really like people to do it but don’t want to force them to do it, nor do I want to create an atmosphere where people feel excessive social pressure to sacrifice too much (too much being “anything negative-sum” and “certain very very important things I’m willing to sacrifice utilitarianism for, instead of vice versa” such as not voting on promethea’s body even if it would increase utility)

One is “surrendering to the rule of the mob” which is tragic and I want to help people to become stronger so they can resist it and reduce the power of mobs so they cannot impose their arbitrary harms upon non-consenting people

(via ilzolende)

1 month ago · 59 notes · source: argumate · .permalink

  1. skeletontemple reblogged this from mitoticcephalopod
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  3. thaddeusmike reblogged this from mugasofer
  4. mugasofer reblogged this from argumate and added:
    Security firms. Giant … security firms. Or private firearms.Because the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is...
  5. socialjusticemunchkin reblogged this from ilzolende and added:
    Okay, so there’s three kinds of pro-sociality One is “not messing with people” and basically obligatory One is...
  6. ilzolende reblogged this from socialjusticemunchkin and added:
    "Pro-social” is a phrase which is probably supposed to sound more unambiguously good than what it represents, which has...
  7. anosognosicredux reblogged this from socialjusticemunchkin and added:
    “That ye resist not evil,” says the man from Bethlehem, “but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek…”
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  10. bookchins-revenge reblogged this from argumate and added:
    The military wing of the anarcho-syndicalists labor union of course.
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  17. caribeaux reblogged this from argumate and added:
    the inlaws