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Lying is a form of violence and so is stealing. Not physical violence mind you, but violence nonetheless.
by vitiral 3y ago
Lying is a form of violence and so is stealing. Not physical violence mind you, but violence nonetheless.
- stonogo 3y ago"Violence" is physical. Without a physical component, there is no violence. It's the entire point of the word.
- vitiral 3y agoSo screaming at someone is not violence? Definitions vary depending on context. I think of violence as a spectrum. Talking peacefully and negotiating is extremely low violence. Threats etc are more. All our war and atomics are about the limit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence?wprov=sfla1 > Some definitions are somewhat broader, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation." Violence IMO is anything which causes harm or can be used to force a condition.
- floor2 3y agoI was psychologically harmed reading this comment. Please do not post on HN again. To continue to do so is to do violence against me.
- vitiral 3y agoGlad we can find agreement, but sorry this is justified violence :D
- stonogo 3y agoNo, screaming at someone is not violence. The WHO definition you cite also restricts its definition to physical force. If screaming were violence, we'd have prisons full of sports fans after every football game. "Harming someone" is anything which causes harm. We have different words to describe different things. In this way, we can tell them apart when communicating with each other.
- vitiral 3y agoNot all violence is wrong or illegal, and not all screaming is violence. Words are defined by people. By seeing violence as a spectrum you can see the spectrum of possible responses to violence. We can then distinguish the different forms of violence with other words, like "physical"
- PurpleRamen 3y agoNot all definitions of violence are limited to physical force. Some are, including any form of power which allows abuse.
- stonogo 3y agoAll definitions of violence which extend past physical force are incorrect.
- PurpleRamen 3y agoAnd you are the one deciding for everyone?
- bryanrasmussen 3y agocounterpoint - no it's not. At least if you are making statements going against the general understanding of the society you're in then make a reference to the ideas or theories that prompt you to make these statements. Note: many forms of theft obviously involve violence.
- _flux 3y agoExtending words in one's public vocabulary to include things one doesn't like is a form of misleading, and thus lying, and thus violence.
- vitiral 3y agoMost deep discussions require some amount of discussing your terms. A surprising amount of insight can be gathered by playing with and altering previous assumptions of a word's meaning. For instance, by seeing violence as a spectrum you can see that while lying to the Nazi about the Jewish person in your attic is "committing violence" against said Nazi, you can also recognize that the lie is quite obviously justified violence -- and there is a spectrum of justified violence in that case. When you lie to someone you damage their ability to see reality as it is, especially the reality of yourself (your thoughts, motivations, etc). Its not as severe as a punch to the face (in most cases at least) but it still causes harm.