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I like and appreciate your viewpoint. I push back on your stance on gun ownership. How does your view change when governments control weapons as powerful as nuc

I like and appreciate your viewpoint. I push back on your stance on gun ownership. How does your view change when governments control weapons as powerful as nuclear weapons? How does this tilt the balance of power when ordinary citizens only have guns? Does this require a rethink?

a_gnostic 3y ago
As if governments want to bomb the source of their power: taxpayers, and their seizeable assets. They will do so in war as denying it to their enemy, but not with M.A.D. So ordinary people having guns has nothing to do with war, except as a deterrent.
Supermancho 3y ago
Guns are not an assurance that you can kill more people than someone with bombs to win a slice of land, conceptually. Any number groups have an interest in a stable economy and a cooperating population. Bombs dont build or maintain infrastructure (eg farming). Guns ensure a population can manage to disrupt individual police actions. This modern guerilla gunplay has never had to become more sophisticated because of the efficacy in resisting day to day oppression (depending on your definition). The US in Vietnam, everyone in Afghanistan, Israel with Palestine. Bullets are dangerous enough to influence history, as with nuclear weapons. Same but different.
arzig 3y ago
I consider “but ordinance” a red herring. One need only observe the recent history of US military adventurism to show that a sufficiently determined insurgency with light arms and minimal training can take literally decades to surpress even with probably numerical superiority. The US government is unlikely to carpet bomb its own territory even after hypothetically sliding into tyranny because it would presumably want territory to rule afterwards. What is left is intense urban fighting which we’ve seen in Iraq or wilderness fighting in poor terrain like Afghanistan. It doesn’t end quickly so the cost is a deterrent.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  "The cost is a deterrent", well put.
Geisterde 3y ago
As ive said in other comments, I think the their power is foundationally based on propaganda. I think censorship resistant methods of communication and other cypherpunk tools are probably more relevant in the day to day of fighting government overreach; I just think guns are something of a prerequisite for that process to work. Yes, there is always the possibility that the government starts nuking citizens for challenging their power, which is why it is important that any revolution takes place peacefully. I wouldnt suggest anyone willingly enter an armed conflict with the government for a variety of reasons. For example, you are likely being played, after Maos revolution all the revolutionaries got sent to the hills to be worked to death. Another one would be your own information horizon being manipulated, youve just walked into Gretchen whitmers office thinking there is a huge militia ready to follow in your footsteps, you only need to light the match! Violence sucks, blood calls for more blood and errodes the social fabric; there are USSR officials still collecting pensions in exchange for getting out of the way. Or we could get nuked. So yes, it does require some more forethought than "weve got guns so we are just going to fight the government", however there already exists an understanding of this, evidenced by the fact that they are only catching the mentally stunted in entrapment schemes.

a_gnostic 3y ago

As if governments want to bomb the source of their power: taxpayers, and their seizeable assets. They will do so in war as denying it to their enemy, but not with M.A.D. So ordinary people having guns has nothing to do with war, except as a deterrent.

Supermancho 3y ago

Guns are not an assurance that you can kill more people than someone with bombs to win a slice of land, conceptually. Any number groups have an interest in a stable economy and a cooperating population. Bombs dont build or maintain infrastructure (eg farming). Guns ensure a population can manage to disrupt individual police actions. This modern guerilla gunplay has never had to become more sophisticated because of the efficacy in resisting day to day oppression (depending on your definition). The US in Vietnam, everyone in Afghanistan, Israel with Palestine. Bullets are dangerous enough to influence history, as with nuclear weapons. Same but different.

arzig 3y ago

I consider “but ordinance” a red herring. One need only observe the recent history of US military adventurism to show that a sufficiently determined insurgency with light arms and minimal training can take literally decades to surpress even with probably numerical superiority. The US government is unlikely to carpet bomb its own territory even after hypothetically sliding into tyranny because it would presumably want territory to rule afterwards. What is left is intense urban fighting which we’ve seen in Iraq or wilderness fighting in poor terrain like Afghanistan. It doesn’t end quickly so the cost is a deterrent.

Geisterde 3y ago
"The cost is a deterrent", well put.

Geisterde 3y ago

As ive said in other comments, I think the their power is foundationally based on propaganda. I think censorship resistant methods of communication and other cypherpunk tools are probably more relevant in the day to day of fighting government overreach; I just think guns are something of a prerequisite for that process to work. Yes, there is always the possibility that the government starts nuking citizens for challenging their power, which is why it is important that any revolution takes place peacefully. I wouldnt suggest anyone willingly enter an armed conflict with the government for a variety of reasons. For example, you are likely being played, after Maos revolution all the revolutionaries got sent to the hills to be worked to death. Another one would be your own information horizon being manipulated, youve just walked into Gretchen whitmers office thinking there is a huge militia ready to follow in your footsteps, you only need to light the match! Violence sucks, blood calls for more blood and errodes the social fabric; there are USSR officials still collecting pensions in exchange for getting out of the way. Or we could get nuked. So yes, it does require some more forethought than "weve got guns so we are just going to fight the government", however there already exists an understanding of this, evidenced by the fact that they are only catching the mentally stunted in entrapment schemes.