3 ms·

A potentially interesting counterfactual, to be sure. Can you define it closely enough to support further discussion? Given that the AK-47 has found its most e

by aaronem 13y ago

A potentially interesting counterfactual, to be sure. Can you define it closely enough to support further discussion? Given that the AK-47 has found its most extensive use in conflicts well below the level of open warfare between nations, and given further that the 20th century saw plenty of people killed with sticks, axes, machetes, or bare hands, merely to conserve ammunition in such conflicts where the AK-47 was available and indeed extensively used, I tend to consider that the null hypothesis involves all or most of those, who died with 7.62x39mm rounds in them, having otherwise still died by whatever means their killers found convenient. I grant that the absence of that particular weapon would have necessitated the use of others; I grant further that this difference, in the aggregate, might have affected the ultimate outcome in at least some cases; I do not grant, however, without compelling argument, that there would be a meaningful difference in the total number killed.

dclowd9901 13y ago
Obviously when you get to this level, it becomes difficult to tease out variables, as now you're dealing with individual cases. By and large, you could draw comparisons between guns and other methods/means of killing: Gun advantages + Lets you kill from a safe distance + A lot of killing potential (potentially 1 death for every bullet) + Also useful for other methods of killing (you can certainly bludgeon someone to death with a gun just as easily as shoot them) + An individual can potentially kill many more people per unit of time through the use of tactical advantage (sniping, guerrilla warfare, etc.) All of these benefits are lost by having to use something more primitive, and all of them aide directly in the extermination of life. I think it's fair to say, at the least, that `gun` is far more potentially deadly than `!gun`. Let's say, for instance, I saw a caravan approaching. Four people, in close proximity to one another. If I was equipped with even a semi-automatic weapon, I might not chance a guerrilla encounter. Forget hand-to-hand combat. Four on one would almost certainly lead to my death. Encounter averted. Now let's say I'm equipped with an AK. Fully-automatic. At the very least, I can kill one immediately and then create chaos in the caravan by laying cover fire. If they are not similarly equipped, it would probably be a slaughter. Before dismissing this scenario as contrivance, consider that if we are to assess individual interactions with such a device, we have to consider what it would mean on the fringe cases. If avoidance of violence is the ultimate goal, which of these scenarios would get us closer to that goal?
- aaronem 13y ago
  Your categories are muddled; for example, guerrilla warfare belongs to the realm of strategy, not that of tactics. But that's surmountable; what is not so is that your counterfactual hinges on the assumption that, as you put it, "avoidance of violence is the ultimate goal." This hopelessly complicates the matter, as I know of only one possible means of achieving that goal, and not a tremendously pleasant one as it involves the annihilation of the human species entire -- perhaps the ultimate extent of human violence, I grant you, but think of all the peaceful centuries to follow! Leaving that aside, though, let me address your points in the order you make them: > [Guns let] you kill from a safe distance Not so! Not when the other fellow is armed roughly as well as you are. You don't use automatic fire from a range of more than a few feet, as it makes impossible the careful aiming necessary to score hits at range; while one semi-automatic rifle isn't exactly as good as another, the difference between them is negligible for our purposes. Your "safe distance", then, isn't anywhere near so safe as it seems, especially once your target knows someone is shooting at him and roughly where the fire is coming from. True, if you've got a rifle and all I have is a knife, the situation changes -- but I'm not sure how you intend to support the assertion, should you choose to make it, that that's the usual situation when a rifle is involved. > A lot of killing potential (potentially 1 death for every bullet) By this metric, a knife, which requires no consumables, is indefinitely more dangerous than any firearm; a talented soldier armed with an AK-47 and a full magazine might kill thirty people, one for each round, whereas a similarly talented soldier with a knife and no need for a magazine has no inherent limit on the number of people he might kill. > Also useful for other methods of killing So is a baseball bat. I'm not sure how this has anything to do with the point under discussion. > An individual can potentially kill many more people per unit time [with a gun] Ah! Now we reach the crux of the matter; the question is not that of whether one man may more easily kill another with a rifle than with an axe, but rather that of whether one man may more easily kill a number of other men given the same difference in armament. At this point, it becomes useful to consider once again your assumption that the purpose of the exercise is "[the] avoidance of violence". Warfare, of course, is perhaps the ultimate refinement of the human talent for violence, or at least it will serve that role until we come up with something that's like warfare only more so. Let us further assume that warfare exists as a necessary consequence of the human condition -- not much risk in so assuming, I think, that being if not the single most ubiquitous fact of human history then certainly among the top three. Humans will always find a reason to make war on one another; with reason in hand, method follows as surely as noon follows sunrise. That's what we always have done, and while perhaps it's not always what we will do, then certainly it's fair to say no one has anything remotely resembling a plausible way to "get there from here." Taking warfare as a fact of life, then, "[the] avoidance of violence" may best be defined as the termination of warfare in the most expedient possible fashion. You will of course note at this point that I don't consider the avoidance of death, or of killing, in my definition of the avoidance of violence. One of those other ubiquitous historical lessons is that everyone dies, sooner or later, and indeed that only the most fortunate among us are privileged to choose the time and manner in which we do so. Moreover, death is not only inevitable, it is the ultimate method of avoiding violence; desecrate a carcass however you may, you cannot possibly touch its former inhabitant, who has "departed this vale of tears", as it is so poetically said, and gone to a place beyond any which violence can hope to reach. (Whatever your opinion on the subject of "afterlife", this remains equally true -- for a person who no longer exists can no more be subjected to violence than one who has gone to Heaven, or returned to the Godhead, or permanently vacated the premises in whatever fashion your faith prescribes.) The avoidance of violence, then, must revolve not around the avoidance of death -- which, at risk of unduly belaboring the point, I reiterate that no one can ever avoid -- but instead around the preclusion of warfare in as efficient and expedient a manner as possible. This being the case, it becomes plain that a weapon such as an AK-47 does not increase the probability of violence -- quite the contrary, it decreases that probability, to exactly the extent that it improves upon the most expedient previously available method of bringing warfare to a close. This principle generalizes quite well. Consider, for example, the W87 thermonuclear device, which fixed to the business end of an intercontinental ballistic missile gives the nation which owns it the power to rain down death and destruction, beyond anything ever before seen and barely even within the realm of human imagination, upon any nation at whom its owner pleases to launch it. A horrible thing, you say? An abomination, a monstrosity, an atrocity in abeyance, awaiting only the press of a button to unleash enormities untold? Not so, I say! Not so -- and obviously not so, when you consider that nothing in the history of the world has done more to bring about "the avoidance of violence" than the existence, and readiness, of these weapons so universally reviled. "But," you might say, "the Cold War proves that nothing of the sort is true -- we and the Soviet Union spent fifty years stepping warily around one another like two old toms, and all the while, at any instant, a single mishap could have brought about the Final War!" Again I say 'Not so!' True -- the strategic calculus of that period was much the same as that in existence between two men, standing at arm's length, each with a shotgun aimed at the other's brisket and a finger wired to the trigger. True, neither is a particularly comfortable situation -- and also true, though, that while matters remain in that state, no violence can be said to have occurred. Violence enters the situation only when a trigger is pulled -- and, until that happens, it is always possible for men, or nations, to back down from the precipice in such fashion that no application of violence becomes necessary. Moreover, just as an alert man with a shotgun need not fear attack from a sane man armed only with a knife, a nuclear-armed nation need not fear attack from anyone who lacks a nuclear arsenal of his own but has the sense to recognize the disparity between his own arms and those of his would-be opponent. While this is no more perfect protection against attack than would be anything else, it certainly serves to deter the vast majority of potential attackers -- consider the example of Israel, whose leaders have wisely assembled a nuclear arsenal more than equal to the purpose of deterring her regional enemies. Her neighbors may express as fervently as they desire the wish to "push Israel into the sea"; knowing, as they do, that the obliteration of their capitals would follow instantly upon the commencement of any attempt to make good on their threats, they are content to let mere words remain mere words, and thus does Israel in large part accomplish "the avoidance of violence".

by aaronem 13y ago

dclowd9901 13y ago

Obviously when you get to this level, it becomes difficult to tease out variables, as now you're dealing with individual cases. By and large, you could draw comparisons between guns and other methods/means of killing: Gun advantages + Lets you kill from a safe distance + A lot of killing potential (potentially 1 death for every bullet) + Also useful for other methods of killing (you can certainly bludgeon someone to death with a gun just as easily as shoot them) + An individual can potentially kill many more people per unit of time through the use of tactical advantage (sniping, guerrilla warfare, etc.) All of these benefits are lost by having to use something more primitive, and all of them aide directly in the extermination of life. I think it's fair to say, at the least, that `gun` is far more potentially deadly than `!gun`. Let's say, for instance, I saw a caravan approaching. Four people, in close proximity to one another. If I was equipped with even a semi-automatic weapon, I might not chance a guerrilla encounter. Forget hand-to-hand combat. Four on one would almost certainly lead to my death. Encounter averted. Now let's say I'm equipped with an AK. Fully-automatic. At the very least, I can kill one immediately and then create chaos in the caravan by laying cover fire. If they are not similarly equipped, it would probably be a slaughter. Before dismissing this scenario as contrivance, consider that if we are to assess individual interactions with such a device, we have to consider what it would mean on the fringe cases. If avoidance of violence is the ultimate goal, which of these scenarios would get us closer to that goal?

aaronem 13y ago
Your categories are muddled; for example, guerrilla warfare belongs to the realm of strategy, not that of tactics. But that's surmountable; what is not so is that your counterfactual hinges on the assumption that, as you put it, "avoidance of violence is the ultimate goal." This hopelessly complicates the matter, as I know of only one possible means of achieving that goal, and not a tremendously pleasant one as it involves the annihilation of the human species entire -- perhaps the ultimate extent of human violence, I grant you, but think of all the peaceful centuries to follow! Leaving that aside, though, let me address your points in the order you make them: > [Guns let] you kill from a safe distance Not so! Not when the other fellow is armed roughly as well as you are. You don't use automatic fire from a range of more than a few feet, as it makes impossible the careful aiming necessary to score hits at range; while one semi-automatic rifle isn't exactly as good as another, the difference between them is negligible for our purposes. Your "safe distance", then, isn't anywhere near so safe as it seems, especially once your target knows someone is shooting at him and roughly where the fire is coming from. True, if you've got a rifle and all I have is a knife, the situation changes -- but I'm not sure how you intend to support the assertion, should you choose to make it, that that's the usual situation when a rifle is involved. > A lot of killing potential (potentially 1 death for every bullet) By this metric, a knife, which requires no consumables, is indefinitely more dangerous than any firearm; a talented soldier armed with an AK-47 and a full magazine might kill thirty people, one for each round, whereas a similarly talented soldier with a knife and no need for a magazine has no inherent limit on the number of people he might kill. > Also useful for other methods of killing So is a baseball bat. I'm not sure how this has anything to do with the point under discussion. > An individual can potentially kill many more people per unit time [with a gun] Ah! Now we reach the crux of the matter; the question is not that of whether one man may more easily kill another with a rifle than with an axe, but rather that of whether one man may more easily kill a number of other men given the same difference in armament. At this point, it becomes useful to consider once again your assumption that the purpose of the exercise is "[the] avoidance of violence". Warfare, of course, is perhaps the ultimate refinement of the human talent for violence, or at least it will serve that role until we come up with something that's like warfare only more so. Let us further assume that warfare exists as a necessary consequence of the human condition -- not much risk in so assuming, I think, that being if not the single most ubiquitous fact of human history then certainly among the top three. Humans will always find a reason to make war on one another; with reason in hand, method follows as surely as noon follows sunrise. That's what we always have done, and while perhaps it's not always what we will do, then certainly it's fair to say no one has anything remotely resembling a plausible way to "get there from here." Taking warfare as a fact of life, then, "[the] avoidance of violence" may best be defined as the termination of warfare in the most expedient possible fashion. You will of course note at this point that I don't consider the avoidance of death, or of killing, in my definition of the avoidance of violence. One of those other ubiquitous historical lessons is that everyone dies, sooner or later, and indeed that only the most fortunate among us are privileged to choose the time and manner in which we do so. Moreover, death is not only inevitable, it is the ultimate method of avoiding violence; desecrate a carcass however you may, you cannot possibly touch its former inhabitant, who has "departed this vale of tears", as it is so poetically said, and gone to a place beyond any which violence can hope to reach. (Whatever your opinion on the subject of "afterlife", this remains equally true -- for a person who no longer exists can no more be subjected to violence than one who has gone to Heaven, or returned to the Godhead, or permanently vacated the premises in whatever fashion your faith prescribes.) The avoidance of violence, then, must revolve not around the avoidance of death -- which, at risk of unduly belaboring the point, I reiterate that no one can ever avoid -- but instead around the preclusion of warfare in as efficient and expedient a manner as possible. This being the case, it becomes plain that a weapon such as an AK-47 does not increase the probability of violence -- quite the contrary, it decreases that probability, to exactly the extent that it improves upon the most expedient previously available method of bringing warfare to a close. This principle generalizes quite well. Consider, for example, the W87 thermonuclear device, which fixed to the business end of an intercontinental ballistic missile gives the nation which owns it the power to rain down death and destruction, beyond anything ever before seen and barely even within the realm of human imagination, upon any nation at whom its owner pleases to launch it. A horrible thing, you say? An abomination, a monstrosity, an atrocity in abeyance, awaiting only the press of a button to unleash enormities untold? Not so, I say! Not so -- and obviously not so, when you consider that nothing in the history of the world has done more to bring about "the avoidance of violence" than the existence, and readiness, of these weapons so universally reviled. "But," you might say, "the Cold War proves that nothing of the sort is true -- we and the Soviet Union spent fifty years stepping warily around one another like two old toms, and all the while, at any instant, a single mishap could have brought about the Final War!" Again I say 'Not so!' True -- the strategic calculus of that period was much the same as that in existence between two men, standing at arm's length, each with a shotgun aimed at the other's brisket and a finger wired to the trigger. True, neither is a particularly comfortable situation -- and also true, though, that while matters remain in that state, no violence can be said to have occurred. Violence enters the situation only when a trigger is pulled -- and, until that happens, it is always possible for men, or nations, to back down from the precipice in such fashion that no application of violence becomes necessary. Moreover, just as an alert man with a shotgun need not fear attack from a sane man armed only with a knife, a nuclear-armed nation need not fear attack from anyone who lacks a nuclear arsenal of his own but has the sense to recognize the disparity between his own arms and those of his would-be opponent. While this is no more perfect protection against attack than would be anything else, it certainly serves to deter the vast majority of potential attackers -- consider the example of Israel, whose leaders have wisely assembled a nuclear arsenal more than equal to the purpose of deterring her regional enemies. Her neighbors may express as fervently as they desire the wish to "push Israel into the sea"; knowing, as they do, that the obliteration of their capitals would follow instantly upon the commencement of any attempt to make good on their threats, they are content to let mere words remain mere words, and thus does Israel in large part accomplish "the avoidance of violence".