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How about we spend less time debating which horrifically powerful weapons to make or not, and more time on how to foster a society that doesn't have any use for

How about we spend less time debating which horrifically powerful weapons to make or not, and more time on how to foster a society that doesn't have any use for them?

andrew_ 5y ago
Five thousand years of recorded history suggests that's a pipe dream. Such cultures only exist in fiction (that we know of). Utopia is often described as imaginary.
- foobarbecue 5y ago
  Utopia literally translates to "no place."
- toomanyducks 5y ago
  What's your argument here? That working towards something perfect is inherently a waste of effort? It should not need to be pointed out that trying to change things for the better does not have to create a utopia to be beneficial. Reducing crime in non-militant ways (and therefore a reliance on police) does not need to remove crime to be a good thing to do.
- argvargc 5y ago
  I can reel off a list longer than recorded history of entirely unprecedented events of worldwide impact that have happened in the past few decades versus the past 5000. The imagination being entertained here is your own; that humanity's future from this point could be even remotely similar to anything that's ever happened before. Every choice we make as a whole now is of extreme importance, and almost nothing we can conceive of can be sensibly considered to be off the table.
handmodel 5y ago
Doesn't the solution to your second question probably involve settling the debate on not making weapons at all, anyway. Which is the first question.
- toomanyducks 5y ago
  This seems like a false equivalency between a given individual and the state: I can ask what weapons I'm allowed to have without asking what weapons the state is allowed to have.
- argvargc 5y ago
  No, that's the entire point of the statement. The debating of such things is counter to the stated goal weapons are purported to be brought into existence to achieve. We don't stop people killing and harming each other by figuring out how to kill/harm them (or threaten to do so), by ever more powerful means. We stop people killing each other by figuring out how to stop them (and us) wanting to do anything remotely like that in the first place. Unless we change direction, we will end up where we're going.
path411 5y ago
A police department can't gain budget to not buy things though
- toomanyducks 5y ago
  Why is the police department the one working to make the police department obsolete? That seems like mistake number one if we're going to try to demilitarize the police.
  - argvargc 5y ago
    Police only exist in a complex enough form of social consequence worth arguing about, where people don't have the material and mental means to comfortably enjoy life. Concepts such as law, order and defence are topics that readily devolve - precisely because of widespread mental deficiency - into counter-productivity. The base useful question we can ask as a species supposedly seeking peace, is how to best cultivate the material and mental means that demonstrably create it in us.

How about we spend less time debating which horrifically powerful weapons to make or not, and more time on how to foster a society that doesn't have any use for them?

andrew_ 5y ago

Five thousand years of recorded history suggests that's a pipe dream. Such cultures only exist in fiction (that we know of). Utopia is often described as imaginary.

foobarbecue 5y ago
Utopia literally translates to "no place."
toomanyducks 5y ago
What's your argument here? That working towards something perfect is inherently a waste of effort? It should not need to be pointed out that trying to change things for the better does not have to create a utopia to be beneficial. Reducing crime in non-militant ways (and therefore a reliance on police) does not need to remove crime to be a good thing to do.
argvargc 5y ago
I can reel off a list longer than recorded history of entirely unprecedented events of worldwide impact that have happened in the past few decades versus the past 5000. The imagination being entertained here is your own; that humanity's future from this point could be even remotely similar to anything that's ever happened before. Every choice we make as a whole now is of extreme importance, and almost nothing we can conceive of can be sensibly considered to be off the table.

handmodel 5y ago

Doesn't the solution to your second question probably involve settling the debate on not making weapons at all, anyway. Which is the first question.

toomanyducks 5y ago
This seems like a false equivalency between a given individual and the state: I can ask what weapons I'm allowed to have without asking what weapons the state is allowed to have.
argvargc 5y ago
No, that's the entire point of the statement. The debating of such things is counter to the stated goal weapons are purported to be brought into existence to achieve. We don't stop people killing and harming each other by figuring out how to kill/harm them (or threaten to do so), by ever more powerful means. We stop people killing each other by figuring out how to stop them (and us) wanting to do anything remotely like that in the first place. Unless we change direction, we will end up where we're going.

path411 5y ago

A police department can't gain budget to not buy things though

toomanyducks 5y ago
Why is the police department the one working to make the police department obsolete? That seems like mistake number one if we're going to try to demilitarize the police.
- argvargc 5y ago
  Police only exist in a complex enough form of social consequence worth arguing about, where people don't have the material and mental means to comfortably enjoy life. Concepts such as law, order and defence are topics that readily devolve - precisely because of widespread mental deficiency - into counter-productivity. The base useful question we can ask as a species supposedly seeking peace, is how to best cultivate the material and mental means that demonstrably create it in us.