6 ms·

For dealing with pirates, as shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrrYjuoz7no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrrYjuoz7no just shoot them and kill them so

For dealing with pirates, as shown here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrrYjuoz7no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrrYjuoz7no just shoot them and kill them so they be dead and can't board no ship no moh. Problem solved.

ygjb 3y ago
I wonder why that solution hasn't solved piracy (or any other form of violent theft) in the history of humanity. It's literally an arms race, and non-combat measures reduce the risk of loss of life, cargo, and vessels, which makes them much more economical than trying to train and arm crews. Plain old escalation may work (modulo combat effectiveness of crew members) on an individual case, but there will always be more pirates, especially in the most desperate parts of the world.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  The problem is also the states that harbour these pirates, mainly Yemen and Somalia. They have free reign there, well at least they did until the coalition started airstrikes. When the military gets involved the arms race has to stop because the US is just much better funded than the pirates or any other navy even if they would get involved (which they probably won't). So generally when this happens it all dies down for a while until the military lose interest and the ships are sailing without protection again. Ps: I'm not American nor am I a fan of their military but you can't deny they are the best funded in the world.
  - ygjb 3y ago
    Well yeah, but that is not a new problem either. Piracy is a profession as old as sailing, and frankly has always been tolerated by states (piracy against our enemies? ok, don't bug us, pay your taxes, and we will ignore you), if not outright sponsored (privateers) There is modern data on this, recorded history, and ancient literature going back to ancient greece (and in other societies) that cover this very well. You can't eliminate piracy with violence under these circumstances, you need to make it too costly or too risky to undertake. As shown by the attack on the Israeli vessel, you also can't eliminate the threat posed by well funded, competent adversaries that are highly motivated.
    - everforward 3y ago
      > You can't eliminate piracy with violence under these circumstances, you need to make it too costly or too risky to undertake. I don't know if you can make it too risky to undertake in the face of desperation. Yemen has an active famine, which I would imagine is contributing to the piracy problem. I fundamentally don't think you can make an action so risky that a starving person wouldn't attempt it. Some would likely be willing to die if it meant their children, spouse and parents could escape starving to death. I presume there's a Mafia-esque "we'll take care of your loved ones if you die" pact. There are tons of grey market jobs with substantial risks that people do. I was watching a video about a guy in the Philippines that dives to run a machine gathering tin from the sea floor. He dives something like 100 feet deep using nothing but a single onboard compressor to pump air down to him. If the pump dies, he dies. And the pump is about what you're thinking; exposed to open sea air, held together mostly by duct tape, and probably 50 years old at this point. Another was about Indian workers (I believe) gathering sulfur with no respirators and carrying 100kg of sulfur up a steep cliff side with no stairs or railing, with no respirators or even gauges to warn them about toxic fumes. People already do a wide range of jobs they know will probably kill them. You can't threaten someone starving to death with violence; they're already staring down death, it's not a deterrent anymore.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        > Yemen has an active famine, which I would imagine is contributing to the piracy problem. I fundamentally don't think you can make an action so risky that a starving person wouldn't attempt it. Some would likely be willing to die if it meant their children, spouse and parents could escape starving to death. I presume there's a Mafia-esque "we'll take care of your loved ones if you die" pact. These houthis are not famined. They have expensive boats and top-notch arms. It looks like they even have guided missiles (you're not going to shoot down a reaper with small arms fire and they've already shot two of them down). The somali's too, they have a lot of money. They could use it to feed their people but they choose to use it to make their local warlords richer. > People already do a wide range of jobs they know will probably kill them. You can't threaten someone starving to death with violence; they're already staring down death, it's not a deterrent anymore. There's a big difference between having a big chance (or certainty) to die years in the future or to have the certainty to die on your next trip out. Because that will happen if there's a DDG around with the fingers on the trigger. There's just simply no point then.
- polski-g 3y ago
  An overwhelming response absolutely solved the problem of German piracy during WW2. And of Japanese piracy during WW2. And Confederate piracy during the Civil War. If you start thinking "violence solves nothing", you are wrong: you simply haven't done enough violence against the miscreants.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    > 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it. -- The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
wkat4242 3y ago
The video goes into that, crew are not generally capable of doing that. And hiring mercenaries is very expensive.
everforward 3y ago
> kill them so they be dead and can't board no ship no moh. I would discourage the use of African American English spelled out like that generally, but especially when discussing African people or people of African descent. The primary historical usage of that style of writing was to belittle African American people by making them look dumb and illiterate, and to other-ize them by making their language seem strange and different. I wouldn't pretend to know your intent, but that writing style makes it appear racially biased even if you didn't intend it to be. > just shoot them and kill them so they be dead The goal of avoiding that is likely to avoid an escalation in hostilities. My understanding is that modern piracy is like plane hijackings before 9/11. People are mostly unharmed, the ship is mostly unharmed, the company pays a ransom to get both back and everybody goes on with their day. If this escalates to live fire, the pirates might decide it's easier and safer to fire an RPG into the ship, loot what they can before it sinks, and then let it sink. Even if successful piracy attempts become less common, the costs of a successful piracy attempt skyrocket. Those ships cost millions; the shipping company can pay a lot of ransoms for the price of a single sunk ship. Insurers are probably also happier this way. Their losses are small but consistent, which is easy to plan around. It's much harder and riskier to plan around the event that eg 3 ships are all sunk in the same week. It's like shoplifting in stores. It's cheaper to watch the thief leave and accept the loss than to have security try to physically stop them and occasionally have to pay out injury claims.
- matt-attack 3y ago
  Otherizing is however in the eye of the beholder. Today otherness is a prized attribute and thus not to be taken in a negative light. Instead, with the burgeoning of identity politics, speaking in a specific dialect is a source of pride. I fail to see how it’s insulting any longer.
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  >I wouldn't pretend to know your intent, but that writing style makes it appear racially biased even if you didn't intend it to be. Since you don't know intent, why not shut up about assumptions of racial bias? I'd argue that these days a hell of a lot of social damage is caused by so many tediously sensitized people assuming racial bias over any trivial thing, sometimes more damagingly than whatever a random racist causes. The colloquialisms in the other comment might not be the politest things in the world, but they're popular and widely used among all kinds of people in ways that have nothing to do with racism. Is somebody imitating rap lingo for fun (or as a fan) a racist too because of it? I'd say the opposite. The singers themselves certainly try hard to popularize it, but then it's racism if that widely succeeds among many ethnicities?

ygjb 3y ago

I wonder why that solution hasn't solved piracy (or any other form of violent theft) in the history of humanity. It's literally an arms race, and non-combat measures reduce the risk of loss of life, cargo, and vessels, which makes them much more economical than trying to train and arm crews. Plain old escalation may work (modulo combat effectiveness of crew members) on an individual case, but there will always be more pirates, especially in the most desperate parts of the world.

wkat4242 3y ago
The problem is also the states that harbour these pirates, mainly Yemen and Somalia. They have free reign there, well at least they did until the coalition started airstrikes. When the military gets involved the arms race has to stop because the US is just much better funded than the pirates or any other navy even if they would get involved (which they probably won't). So generally when this happens it all dies down for a while until the military lose interest and the ships are sailing without protection again. Ps: I'm not American nor am I a fan of their military but you can't deny they are the best funded in the world.
- ygjb 3y ago
  Well yeah, but that is not a new problem either. Piracy is a profession as old as sailing, and frankly has always been tolerated by states (piracy against our enemies? ok, don't bug us, pay your taxes, and we will ignore you), if not outright sponsored (privateers) There is modern data on this, recorded history, and ancient literature going back to ancient greece (and in other societies) that cover this very well. You can't eliminate piracy with violence under these circumstances, you need to make it too costly or too risky to undertake. As shown by the attack on the Israeli vessel, you also can't eliminate the threat posed by well funded, competent adversaries that are highly motivated.
  - everforward 3y ago
    > You can't eliminate piracy with violence under these circumstances, you need to make it too costly or too risky to undertake. I don't know if you can make it too risky to undertake in the face of desperation. Yemen has an active famine, which I would imagine is contributing to the piracy problem. I fundamentally don't think you can make an action so risky that a starving person wouldn't attempt it. Some would likely be willing to die if it meant their children, spouse and parents could escape starving to death. I presume there's a Mafia-esque "we'll take care of your loved ones if you die" pact. There are tons of grey market jobs with substantial risks that people do. I was watching a video about a guy in the Philippines that dives to run a machine gathering tin from the sea floor. He dives something like 100 feet deep using nothing but a single onboard compressor to pump air down to him. If the pump dies, he dies. And the pump is about what you're thinking; exposed to open sea air, held together mostly by duct tape, and probably 50 years old at this point. Another was about Indian workers (I believe) gathering sulfur with no respirators and carrying 100kg of sulfur up a steep cliff side with no stairs or railing, with no respirators or even gauges to warn them about toxic fumes. People already do a wide range of jobs they know will probably kill them. You can't threaten someone starving to death with violence; they're already staring down death, it's not a deterrent anymore.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      > Yemen has an active famine, which I would imagine is contributing to the piracy problem. I fundamentally don't think you can make an action so risky that a starving person wouldn't attempt it. Some would likely be willing to die if it meant their children, spouse and parents could escape starving to death. I presume there's a Mafia-esque "we'll take care of your loved ones if you die" pact. These houthis are not famined. They have expensive boats and top-notch arms. It looks like they even have guided missiles (you're not going to shoot down a reaper with small arms fire and they've already shot two of them down). The somali's too, they have a lot of money. They could use it to feed their people but they choose to use it to make their local warlords richer. > People already do a wide range of jobs they know will probably kill them. You can't threaten someone starving to death with violence; they're already staring down death, it's not a deterrent anymore. There's a big difference between having a big chance (or certainty) to die years in the future or to have the certainty to die on your next trip out. Because that will happen if there's a DDG around with the fingers on the trigger. There's just simply no point then.
polski-g 3y ago
An overwhelming response absolutely solved the problem of German piracy during WW2. And of Japanese piracy during WW2. And Confederate piracy during the Civil War. If you start thinking "violence solves nothing", you are wrong: you simply haven't done enough violence against the miscreants.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  > 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it. -- The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

wkat4242 3y ago

The video goes into that, crew are not generally capable of doing that. And hiring mercenaries is very expensive.

everforward 3y ago

> kill them so they be dead and can't board no ship no moh. I would discourage the use of African American English spelled out like that generally, but especially when discussing African people or people of African descent. The primary historical usage of that style of writing was to belittle African American people by making them look dumb and illiterate, and to other-ize them by making their language seem strange and different. I wouldn't pretend to know your intent, but that writing style makes it appear racially biased even if you didn't intend it to be. > just shoot them and kill them so they be dead The goal of avoiding that is likely to avoid an escalation in hostilities. My understanding is that modern piracy is like plane hijackings before 9/11. People are mostly unharmed, the ship is mostly unharmed, the company pays a ransom to get both back and everybody goes on with their day. If this escalates to live fire, the pirates might decide it's easier and safer to fire an RPG into the ship, loot what they can before it sinks, and then let it sink. Even if successful piracy attempts become less common, the costs of a successful piracy attempt skyrocket. Those ships cost millions; the shipping company can pay a lot of ransoms for the price of a single sunk ship. Insurers are probably also happier this way. Their losses are small but consistent, which is easy to plan around. It's much harder and riskier to plan around the event that eg 3 ships are all sunk in the same week. It's like shoplifting in stores. It's cheaper to watch the thief leave and accept the loss than to have security try to physically stop them and occasionally have to pay out injury claims.

matt-attack 3y ago
Otherizing is however in the eye of the beholder. Today otherness is a prized attribute and thus not to be taken in a negative light. Instead, with the burgeoning of identity politics, speaking in a specific dialect is a source of pride. I fail to see how it’s insulting any longer.
southernplaces7 3y ago
>I wouldn't pretend to know your intent, but that writing style makes it appear racially biased even if you didn't intend it to be. Since you don't know intent, why not shut up about assumptions of racial bias? I'd argue that these days a hell of a lot of social damage is caused by so many tediously sensitized people assuming racial bias over any trivial thing, sometimes more damagingly than whatever a random racist causes. The colloquialisms in the other comment might not be the politest things in the world, but they're popular and widely used among all kinds of people in ways that have nothing to do with racism. Is somebody imitating rap lingo for fun (or as a fan) a racist too because of it? I'd say the opposite. The singers themselves certainly try hard to popularize it, but then it's racism if that widely succeeds among many ethnicities?