5 ms·

I proposed no interpretation in my earlier comment; I identified the fallacy in the comment to which I responded, and restated the intended question in terms wh

by aaronem 13y ago

I proposed no interpretation in my earlier comment; I identified the fallacy in the comment to which I responded, and restated the intended question in terms which made sense. "Killed by an AK-47" implies that, had the weapon been made unavailable beforehand, the killing would not have occurred. This has been tried many times in history. It has never worked. As I discuss in a comment elsewhere in this sub-thread, the range of human ingenuity is far too broad, and the human carcass is far too easily rendered inanimate, for the prohibition of one particular class of tools to bring about an end, or even a meaningful reduction, in killing. Banning firearms to save lives is precisely as absurd a proposition as banning hammers to prevent carpentry -- indeed, in a nation as historically awash with firearms as the United States, even more so.

mikeash 13y ago
"I proposed no interpretation...." "'Killed by an AK-47' implies that...." Do you seriously not see the contradiction here?
- aaronem 13y ago
  Indeed not; implication does not depend on interpretation; it seems to me that p => q implies !q => !p regardless of any opinion I might venture to hold on the subject. Perhaps I misunderstand. If so, perhaps you'll formalize the matter closely enough that I'm able to spot where I have gone wrong.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    This is not formal logic; it is human language. Deciding that a particular sequence of words implies something is interpretation. Yes, p => q implies !q => !p regardless of any opinion you hold. But you have decided that the original phrase means p => q, and that is interpretation. And one which is rather wrong, since everybody, including yourself, who reads the original phrasing will understand it differently.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      You'll forgive me, I hope, for having tried to weasel out of this discussion without having to introduce the term 'propaganda', which is so loaded down with connotations at this point as to be practically useless. I hope it's uncontroversial to state that the most effective way of steering political opinion is to establish a method of determining the terms in which political discussion is undertaken. (It should certainly be uncontroversial to state this to a progressive, whose political movement has more precisely formalized the concept than any other in recent history!) In this line, one might promulgate a formula by which human agency is as much as possible elided from discussion of one particular method by which humans have been known to kill one another, in favor of the unstated but strong implication -- yes, that word again -- that the essential problem lies in the method, rather than in the untrammelled urge to kill. "Killed by an AK-47" is a sterling example of the type. You argue that "everyone knows" what is meant by that formula, and I wouldn't presume to disagree with such a trivially obvious statement. But, in that case, I'm forced to wonder why anyone bothers with the obfuscation at all! What does it add, to the attempt to reason as accurately as possible about a phenomenon in order to enact laws intended to control it to the benefit of all, to use a form of words which suggests by its structure the absurd thought of a firearm floating around willy-nilly shooting people of its own accord? To whose benefit is this absurdity deployed?
      - mikeash 13y ago
        It's not "obfuscation", it's idiomatic English. It's simply how people say things. In another reply to me elsewhere, you said that you have no political purposes here. Why, then, are you so convinced that this phrasing is used for the purposes of steering political opinion, and why are you so offended by that notion?
        aaronem 13y ago
        I need not have political purposes of my own to recognize a device commonly employed in their advancement by those who do have them. Nor need I have political purposes in order to have desiderata with regard to those fields of human endeavor in which politicians, both amateur and professional, exert themselves. I've simply learned through unpleasant experience that there's no point arguing with the weather, or with City Hall. "Offense" isn't really the correct term; "resignation" is much closer. The rest is just bandying words around, a pastime I greatly enjoy for all its ultimate pointlessness.
  - Rylinks 13y ago
    You can't get to p => q without an interpretation that links what was said to what p is.
stcredzero 13y ago
* This has been tried many times in history. It has never worked.* I am a supporter of the 2nd amendment, but for the sake of accuracy, gun violence in Australia was indeed reduced when they made gun ownership a lot harder there. The societal cost of gun ownership is still a lot less than the societal cost of car accidents. I'm more concerned about the societal cost of playing fast and loose with amendments to the constitution.
- aaronem 13y ago
  With regard to the Australian experiment, what of violent crime in general?
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    That old saw. Okay, if you wanted to restrict the cutting of grass, you could do this by raising the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers. Would this then result in an increase of other kinds of gardening and lawncare? Maybe. I'm not sure that's relevant. The real harm that comes out of the so-called "gun debate" is a polarization of American society and a failure of both sides to recognize our legal and societal framework as a treasure everyone holds in common. Instead, both sides vilify each other and only talk to their own to showboat their intransigence. As a programmer, I can certainly understand the frustration of pro-gun side. I'm very familiar with the ridiculousness of laws trying to restrict technology written by clueless politicians. Many gun laws fit into this category. I just can't see this situation being resolved in an attractive manner the way things are going now. The solution? Get people actually talking to each other.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      > I'm not sure that's relevant. If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. If your intent is to reduce the extent to which gardening and lawn care take place, it's entirely relevant. In such ambiguities originate the suspicions of the pro-lawnmower faction. As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up; it seems to me not so much that the "gun debate", and similar "debates", polarize American society, as that what we call American society, and in particular the politics of the United States, revolve around a conflict between two fundamentally irreconcilable perspectives on -- well, on everything, more or less. A century and a half ago, this conflict erupted into open warfare, which concluded in a decisive victory for one of the two factions; while neither side has taken up arms in any meaningful way since, the conflict itself remains unresolved, and has simmered under the surface ever since. On the other hand, the side which won that war I mentioned has done a sterling job of consolidating its gains and pushing to expand them, to the extent that it would be all but impossible for their opponents to pull off an upset by any conceivable means -- and God be thanked for that! It's the only thing which stands between our comfortable lives here in the United States, and chaos. So, on the whole, I'm satisfied. Of course, I'd be happier still if I thought the winning side had a program with a snowball's chance of actually working when implemented on a platform of some three hundred million or so human beings, but I figure that, by dint of careful neglect of my health, I can more or less ensure that I won't be around to see anything worse than, at most, the initial stages of the collapse which I expect, in the fullness of time, will arrive. Sure, I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am -- and, in the meantime, there's Calvados, and good fellowship among friends, and even a few programming languages to work in which aren't as terrible as the rest, and who can say fairer than that?
vacri 13y ago
"Killed by an AK-47" implies that, had the weapon been made unavailable beforehand, the killing would not have occurred. This must be why all the armies of the world don't bother supplying their soldiers with firearms, since they're just as able to kill people with other methods, like perhaps a knife. Knives, of course, are much cheaper and easier to maintain. Facilitating something generally makes that thing more common. It's curious that you've retreated into a polysyllabic fortress of formal logic, yet rely on absurdist analogies like banning carpentry, as if there's any demographic that even slightly wants that. The reason why it's hard to find something appropriate to compare in the common modern experience is because there's nothing else like firearms; nothing where the general public can have one member exert their will so forcefully over another. There's no such analogy to be fairly made.
- aaronem 13y ago
  "It's curious" is a polite way of opining that that which you call "curious" is foolish, ignorant, wrongheaded, evil, or some combination thereof. I'm curious which you mean in this case. You strike to the heart of the matter when you describe a firearm as a means for one person to work his will upon another. This is true, but only in conjunction with the unstated assumption that the other so described has no similar means of defending himself. A man is not helpless against his enemy so long as both are similarly armed, but you render him quite thoroughly so when you disarm him -- which is precisely what you do when one man is an honest citizen, the other is a criminal, and you pass a law prohibiting the ownership of firearms.
  - vacri 13y ago
    The "it's curious" line is basically saying that anyone familiar with rhetoric and flowery terms is aware of the gaping holes in the formal logic arguments you're making. The floweriness is to throw off people not familiar with this kind of discourse. I understand that it's also for fun, though. A man is not helpless against his enemy so long as both are similarly armed, but you render him quite thoroughly so when you disarm him Here is a fundamental difference between how we see the world. You see the world through the eyes of the beseiged, us and them. Those people out there want to get me. They are my enemy. I must be able to destroy them, I must be able to project my power and keep what is mine. There are 'honest citizens' and 'criminals' and never the twain shall meet. I see the world as 'we're all in this together'. People do shitty things, but we can reduce the total number of shitty things by working to improve everyone's lot. If someone does a shitty thing, instead of treating them like a criminal and making them worse, work towards rehabilitation. I pay my taxes. I show up 9-5 for my work. I don't get in people's way. If someone has a turn for the worse in the street, I usually step in and help. This morning I evaded my public transport fare, as I did last night. Am I an 'honest citizen'? Am I a 'criminal'? If I were to obtain a firearm, would the 'honest citizens' around me be right to feel threatened? People are not separable into these two polar groups. There is hysteria on both sides of the gun debate - and the pro-gun side's version is to paint the world in this ridiculous shades of the brightest white and the darkest night. Either for us or against us. It's a particularly weirdly conformist point to push, given that the same people are usually the same folks trumpeting personal freedom (not that you have been here)

by aaronem 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago

"I proposed no interpretation...." "'Killed by an AK-47' implies that...." Do you seriously not see the contradiction here?

aaronem 13y ago
Indeed not; implication does not depend on interpretation; it seems to me that p => q implies !q => !p regardless of any opinion I might venture to hold on the subject. Perhaps I misunderstand. If so, perhaps you'll formalize the matter closely enough that I'm able to spot where I have gone wrong.
- mikeash 13y ago
  This is not formal logic; it is human language. Deciding that a particular sequence of words implies something is interpretation. Yes, p => q implies !q => !p regardless of any opinion you hold. But you have decided that the original phrase means p => q, and that is interpretation. And one which is rather wrong, since everybody, including yourself, who reads the original phrasing will understand it differently.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    You'll forgive me, I hope, for having tried to weasel out of this discussion without having to introduce the term 'propaganda', which is so loaded down with connotations at this point as to be practically useless. I hope it's uncontroversial to state that the most effective way of steering political opinion is to establish a method of determining the terms in which political discussion is undertaken. (It should certainly be uncontroversial to state this to a progressive, whose political movement has more precisely formalized the concept than any other in recent history!) In this line, one might promulgate a formula by which human agency is as much as possible elided from discussion of one particular method by which humans have been known to kill one another, in favor of the unstated but strong implication -- yes, that word again -- that the essential problem lies in the method, rather than in the untrammelled urge to kill. "Killed by an AK-47" is a sterling example of the type. You argue that "everyone knows" what is meant by that formula, and I wouldn't presume to disagree with such a trivially obvious statement. But, in that case, I'm forced to wonder why anyone bothers with the obfuscation at all! What does it add, to the attempt to reason as accurately as possible about a phenomenon in order to enact laws intended to control it to the benefit of all, to use a form of words which suggests by its structure the absurd thought of a firearm floating around willy-nilly shooting people of its own accord? To whose benefit is this absurdity deployed?
    - mikeash 13y ago
      It's not "obfuscation", it's idiomatic English. It's simply how people say things. In another reply to me elsewhere, you said that you have no political purposes here. Why, then, are you so convinced that this phrasing is used for the purposes of steering political opinion, and why are you so offended by that notion?
      - aaronem 13y ago
        I need not have political purposes of my own to recognize a device commonly employed in their advancement by those who do have them. Nor need I have political purposes in order to have desiderata with regard to those fields of human endeavor in which politicians, both amateur and professional, exert themselves. I've simply learned through unpleasant experience that there's no point arguing with the weather, or with City Hall. "Offense" isn't really the correct term; "resignation" is much closer. The rest is just bandying words around, a pastime I greatly enjoy for all its ultimate pointlessness.
- Rylinks 13y ago
  You can't get to p => q without an interpretation that links what was said to what p is.

stcredzero 13y ago

* This has been tried many times in history. It has never worked.* I am a supporter of the 2nd amendment, but for the sake of accuracy, gun violence in Australia was indeed reduced when they made gun ownership a lot harder there. The societal cost of gun ownership is still a lot less than the societal cost of car accidents. I'm more concerned about the societal cost of playing fast and loose with amendments to the constitution.

aaronem 13y ago
With regard to the Australian experiment, what of violent crime in general?
- stcredzero 13y ago
  That old saw. Okay, if you wanted to restrict the cutting of grass, you could do this by raising the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers. Would this then result in an increase of other kinds of gardening and lawncare? Maybe. I'm not sure that's relevant. The real harm that comes out of the so-called "gun debate" is a polarization of American society and a failure of both sides to recognize our legal and societal framework as a treasure everyone holds in common. Instead, both sides vilify each other and only talk to their own to showboat their intransigence. As a programmer, I can certainly understand the frustration of pro-gun side. I'm very familiar with the ridiculousness of laws trying to restrict technology written by clueless politicians. Many gun laws fit into this category. I just can't see this situation being resolved in an attractive manner the way things are going now. The solution? Get people actually talking to each other.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    > I'm not sure that's relevant. If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. If your intent is to reduce the extent to which gardening and lawn care take place, it's entirely relevant. In such ambiguities originate the suspicions of the pro-lawnmower faction. As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up; it seems to me not so much that the "gun debate", and similar "debates", polarize American society, as that what we call American society, and in particular the politics of the United States, revolve around a conflict between two fundamentally irreconcilable perspectives on -- well, on everything, more or less. A century and a half ago, this conflict erupted into open warfare, which concluded in a decisive victory for one of the two factions; while neither side has taken up arms in any meaningful way since, the conflict itself remains unresolved, and has simmered under the surface ever since. On the other hand, the side which won that war I mentioned has done a sterling job of consolidating its gains and pushing to expand them, to the extent that it would be all but impossible for their opponents to pull off an upset by any conceivable means -- and God be thanked for that! It's the only thing which stands between our comfortable lives here in the United States, and chaos. So, on the whole, I'm satisfied. Of course, I'd be happier still if I thought the winning side had a program with a snowball's chance of actually working when implemented on a platform of some three hundred million or so human beings, but I figure that, by dint of careful neglect of my health, I can more or less ensure that I won't be around to see anything worse than, at most, the initial stages of the collapse which I expect, in the fullness of time, will arrive. Sure, I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am -- and, in the meantime, there's Calvados, and good fellowship among friends, and even a few programming languages to work in which aren't as terrible as the rest, and who can say fairer than that?

vacri 13y ago

"Killed by an AK-47" implies that, had the weapon been made unavailable beforehand, the killing would not have occurred. This must be why all the armies of the world don't bother supplying their soldiers with firearms, since they're just as able to kill people with other methods, like perhaps a knife. Knives, of course, are much cheaper and easier to maintain. Facilitating something generally makes that thing more common. It's curious that you've retreated into a polysyllabic fortress of formal logic, yet rely on absurdist analogies like banning carpentry, as if there's any demographic that even slightly wants that. The reason why it's hard to find something appropriate to compare in the common modern experience is because there's nothing else like firearms; nothing where the general public can have one member exert their will so forcefully over another. There's no such analogy to be fairly made.

aaronem 13y ago
"It's curious" is a polite way of opining that that which you call "curious" is foolish, ignorant, wrongheaded, evil, or some combination thereof. I'm curious which you mean in this case. You strike to the heart of the matter when you describe a firearm as a means for one person to work his will upon another. This is true, but only in conjunction with the unstated assumption that the other so described has no similar means of defending himself. A man is not helpless against his enemy so long as both are similarly armed, but you render him quite thoroughly so when you disarm him -- which is precisely what you do when one man is an honest citizen, the other is a criminal, and you pass a law prohibiting the ownership of firearms.
- vacri 13y ago
  The "it's curious" line is basically saying that anyone familiar with rhetoric and flowery terms is aware of the gaping holes in the formal logic arguments you're making. The floweriness is to throw off people not familiar with this kind of discourse. I understand that it's also for fun, though. A man is not helpless against his enemy so long as both are similarly armed, but you render him quite thoroughly so when you disarm him Here is a fundamental difference between how we see the world. You see the world through the eyes of the beseiged, us and them. Those people out there want to get me. They are my enemy. I must be able to destroy them, I must be able to project my power and keep what is mine. There are 'honest citizens' and 'criminals' and never the twain shall meet. I see the world as 'we're all in this together'. People do shitty things, but we can reduce the total number of shitty things by working to improve everyone's lot. If someone does a shitty thing, instead of treating them like a criminal and making them worse, work towards rehabilitation. I pay my taxes. I show up 9-5 for my work. I don't get in people's way. If someone has a turn for the worse in the street, I usually step in and help. This morning I evaded my public transport fare, as I did last night. Am I an 'honest citizen'? Am I a 'criminal'? If I were to obtain a firearm, would the 'honest citizens' around me be right to feel threatened? People are not separable into these two polar groups. There is hysteria on both sides of the gun debate - and the pro-gun side's version is to paint the world in this ridiculous shades of the brightest white and the darkest night. Either for us or against us. It's a particularly weirdly conformist point to push, given that the same people are usually the same folks trumpeting personal freedom (not that you have been here)