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> If you take the quote above, and substitute the word "guns" for "AI", you basically have the NRA, and the NRA is not making the world a safer place. Sorry bu

> If you take the quote above, and substitute the word "guns" for "AI", you basically have the NRA, and the NRA is not making the world a safer place. Sorry but this "guns > NRA > bad > evil" thing is getting pretty old. I don't even own a gun and I have trouble making the "gun > bad" connection when there are hundreds of millions of guns in the US. We should have rivers of blood running down every street. We don't. Just stop it. They are not the problem. Crazy people are the problem. Crazy people with drones are a problem. That does not make drones bad. Crazy people, well, intelligent crazy people, with AI are a problem. That does not make AI bad. If we are going to have intelligent arguments let's first be intelligent. The minute someone makes the "guns > NRA > bad > evil" argument in some form I know they are making it from a total ideological corner or from political indoctrination. I challenge anyone to put the numbers to Excel and make an argument to support "guns > NRA > bad > evil" or "drones > no rules > bad > evil" or "AI > watched Terminator too many times > bad evil" without having a crazy person as part of the equation.

ZenoArrow 11y ago
It's a commonly held belief that gun violence is linked to mental illness, but it doesn't appear to be true: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/12/mental-illness-wrong-scapegoat-shootings/ http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/12/mental-illness-wrong-scap...
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  Well, I don't know what term to use. I am using "crazy" to refer to the fact that some abnormal thought process is behind someone picking up a gun, knife, sword, axe, brick or driving a car to kill even one person or to engage in mass killings, to drive a car through a crowd, blow-up a building or use a gun or guns to mow down people in a theater. Normal people don't take a gun out of their safe, load it, throw a bunch of rounds in the back of their car, put on a bullet-proof vest and go shoot-up the neighborhood community center, church, school or mall. Those other people, the one's who would, those are the "crazies", not in a clinical sense but in that there's something seriously wrong with them that they would actually do the above. The down-votes on my original statement show I didn't do a good job of presenting my case. I do firmly believe we need to do something about access to guns. That does NOT mean taking guns away from law-abiding people. That means criminals or people who are living under circumstances that might compel them to commit crimes. The overwhelming majority of guns and gun owners do absolutely nothing to harm anyone. In fact, I'd be willing to bet most guns sit unused except for an occasional trip to the range or hunting. Some of us who would like to engage in a truly sensible conversation about guns or drones or green lasers pointed at planes and, yes, AI and robots. Yet if we come off the line making statements like "We have too many guns! The NRA is a terrorist organization!" we, in fact, have become the crazies. Because these statements are undeniably insane in the face of equally undeniable evidence. These statements only serve to instantly stop the conversation. The come back goes from "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" to "More guns in Paris would have saved lives". Both of which are undeniably factual statements. And, with that, the conversation stops. We can replace "AI", "knifes", "drones", "lasers" and more into these and similar statements. The end result is the same. Those advocating for some control become the crazies and the conversation goes nowhere. Because you are telling a perfectly harmless, responsible gun owner who might have a few guns in a safe that he is the problem. You are calling him a criminal. You are calling him "the problem". And, in his context, well, you are certifiably insane for saying so. The guy who believes he needs a gun to protect his home isn't going to take that gun and go shoot-up a theater, school, mall or community center. If we claim he is we are the crazies, not him. The fact that a number of us disagree with the need for such protection (I personally can't see the need) is irrelevant. Calling him a criminal is simply insane. I know people like that. I know people with over 20 guns in a safe. And I know they have not been out of that safe but for an occasional cleaning in ten or twenty years. And when those people hear the anti-gun, anti-NRA language spewing out they conclude "they" are insane. They are absolutely 100% correct in reaching that conclusion. Because he is not dangerous and his guns require a dangerous person in order to be loaded, carried to a destination and used to inflict harm. He is right and everyone else is crazy and the conversation stops. The right approach is to recognize that he isn't the problem. He is part of the solution. Because these types of gun owners --responsible and law abiding-- also happen to be the kind of people who abhor the use of guns to commit crimes. This is a powerful intersection of ideology gun control advocates have not woken up to. You acknowledge them as what they are, harmless law-abiding people, and ask them for help in figuring out how to reduce the incidence of guns being used to kill innocent people. Then you'll engage him, the community he represents and, yes, the NRA, in finding a solution. Becoming the crazy person who calls all of them dangerous criminals despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary gets you nowhere. The conversation stops instantly, and rightly so. Let's not do the same with AI and technology in general. Let's not come off the line with statements that make us the crazies. Military use of AI and drones is very different subject, just like military use of guns is a different subject.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "Normal people don't take a gun out of their safe, load it, throw a bunch of rounds in the back of their car, put on a bullet-proof vest and go shoot-up the neighborhood community center, church, school or mall." You've missed the point of the article I shared with you. The point was normal people under extraordinary circumstances can be pushed to breaking point and take it out on others. Normal people do not always behave normally.
    - rebootthesystem 11y ago
      No, I read the article and stand by my conviction that the people you are referring to are not normal. Lot's of folks experience extraordinary circumstances during their lives, few, very very few, resort to violence as a result. Not everyone is "wired" to deal with life's challenges the same way. I had a friend who committed suicide after losing his business in 2009. Sad. On the other hand, I've been bankrupt --as in lost it all, not a dime to my name-- and suicidal thoughts never entered my mind. In fact, I hussled and worked hard for very little until I could start a small business. That article has an agenda, follow the money trail and you might discover what it is.
      - ZenoArrow 11y ago
        Sure, not everyone deals with stress in the same way, but an 'us vs. them' mentality isn't helpful. We're all capable of bad things, just like we're all capable of good things. As for the article's agenda, perhaps it had one, but it appears to be an agenda backed up with facts, for example: “Fewer than 5 percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness,”
      - DanBC 11y ago
        People with a mental illness are very much more likely to be the victims, not perpetrators, of violent crime. When we look at violent crime we see almost all perpetrators do not have a diagnosed illness, and also they do not have a diagnosable illness. You are falling for the conjunction fallacy. You see "violent", and insist "violent and mentally ill" even though violent is more probable.

ZenoArrow 11y ago

It's a commonly held belief that gun violence is linked to mental illness, but it doesn't appear to be true: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/12/mental-illness-wrong-scapegoat-shootings/ http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/12/mental-illness-wrong-scap...

rebootthesystem 11y ago
Well, I don't know what term to use. I am using "crazy" to refer to the fact that some abnormal thought process is behind someone picking up a gun, knife, sword, axe, brick or driving a car to kill even one person or to engage in mass killings, to drive a car through a crowd, blow-up a building or use a gun or guns to mow down people in a theater. Normal people don't take a gun out of their safe, load it, throw a bunch of rounds in the back of their car, put on a bullet-proof vest and go shoot-up the neighborhood community center, church, school or mall. Those other people, the one's who would, those are the "crazies", not in a clinical sense but in that there's something seriously wrong with them that they would actually do the above. The down-votes on my original statement show I didn't do a good job of presenting my case. I do firmly believe we need to do something about access to guns. That does NOT mean taking guns away from law-abiding people. That means criminals or people who are living under circumstances that might compel them to commit crimes. The overwhelming majority of guns and gun owners do absolutely nothing to harm anyone. In fact, I'd be willing to bet most guns sit unused except for an occasional trip to the range or hunting. Some of us who would like to engage in a truly sensible conversation about guns or drones or green lasers pointed at planes and, yes, AI and robots. Yet if we come off the line making statements like "We have too many guns! The NRA is a terrorist organization!" we, in fact, have become the crazies. Because these statements are undeniably insane in the face of equally undeniable evidence. These statements only serve to instantly stop the conversation. The come back goes from "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" to "More guns in Paris would have saved lives". Both of which are undeniably factual statements. And, with that, the conversation stops. We can replace "AI", "knifes", "drones", "lasers" and more into these and similar statements. The end result is the same. Those advocating for some control become the crazies and the conversation goes nowhere. Because you are telling a perfectly harmless, responsible gun owner who might have a few guns in a safe that he is the problem. You are calling him a criminal. You are calling him "the problem". And, in his context, well, you are certifiably insane for saying so. The guy who believes he needs a gun to protect his home isn't going to take that gun and go shoot-up a theater, school, mall or community center. If we claim he is we are the crazies, not him. The fact that a number of us disagree with the need for such protection (I personally can't see the need) is irrelevant. Calling him a criminal is simply insane. I know people like that. I know people with over 20 guns in a safe. And I know they have not been out of that safe but for an occasional cleaning in ten or twenty years. And when those people hear the anti-gun, anti-NRA language spewing out they conclude "they" are insane. They are absolutely 100% correct in reaching that conclusion. Because he is not dangerous and his guns require a dangerous person in order to be loaded, carried to a destination and used to inflict harm. He is right and everyone else is crazy and the conversation stops. The right approach is to recognize that he isn't the problem. He is part of the solution. Because these types of gun owners --responsible and law abiding-- also happen to be the kind of people who abhor the use of guns to commit crimes. This is a powerful intersection of ideology gun control advocates have not woken up to. You acknowledge them as what they are, harmless law-abiding people, and ask them for help in figuring out how to reduce the incidence of guns being used to kill innocent people. Then you'll engage him, the community he represents and, yes, the NRA, in finding a solution. Becoming the crazy person who calls all of them dangerous criminals despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary gets you nowhere. The conversation stops instantly, and rightly so. Let's not do the same with AI and technology in general. Let's not come off the line with statements that make us the crazies. Military use of AI and drones is very different subject, just like military use of guns is a different subject.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "Normal people don't take a gun out of their safe, load it, throw a bunch of rounds in the back of their car, put on a bullet-proof vest and go shoot-up the neighborhood community center, church, school or mall." You've missed the point of the article I shared with you. The point was normal people under extraordinary circumstances can be pushed to breaking point and take it out on others. Normal people do not always behave normally.
  - rebootthesystem 11y ago
    No, I read the article and stand by my conviction that the people you are referring to are not normal. Lot's of folks experience extraordinary circumstances during their lives, few, very very few, resort to violence as a result. Not everyone is "wired" to deal with life's challenges the same way. I had a friend who committed suicide after losing his business in 2009. Sad. On the other hand, I've been bankrupt --as in lost it all, not a dime to my name-- and suicidal thoughts never entered my mind. In fact, I hussled and worked hard for very little until I could start a small business. That article has an agenda, follow the money trail and you might discover what it is.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      Sure, not everyone deals with stress in the same way, but an 'us vs. them' mentality isn't helpful. We're all capable of bad things, just like we're all capable of good things. As for the article's agenda, perhaps it had one, but it appears to be an agenda backed up with facts, for example: “Fewer than 5 percent of the 120,000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness,”
    - DanBC 11y ago
      People with a mental illness are very much more likely to be the victims, not perpetrators, of violent crime. When we look at violent crime we see almost all perpetrators do not have a diagnosed illness, and also they do not have a diagnosable illness. You are falling for the conjunction fallacy. You see "violent", and insist "violent and mentally ill" even though violent is more probable.