Jun 16 2012: Great point on the lower level municipalities. Oh imagine if only in our small towns we ordered the killing of the opposition? Wecan wax poetic about how great the killing of Bin Laden was, however, when will be able to bring a criminal of humanity to the court of the world on charges of treason and murder? Eventually we will all be one, in my belief. Stratified yes, all the pyramid stuff applies, but tribalism, eeek, we have better human systems.
Jun 16 2012: Beautiful. People should not kill people. If only the other people agreed. We have so many other enemies (super small and inherent), not human that are far beyond our ability to combat them.
Jun 15 2012: The greatest technological hurdle in 30 years will be the same as it is today, I believe. Ever diminishing supply of cheap energy will drive us to figure out new ways to keep economies rolling. There will be somewhere between 8-10 billion people on the planet then. Minds will have to change, but technology will have to overcome oil as the lynchpin of the world economy.
Humanity is what it will be, exaggerated even. I would aliken it a pyramid drawing, with those with the most control over resources at the top, but it looks more like a sideview of the Eiffle Tower, with a much broader base. But in 30 years, not much will change. 3000 years, the change will be noticed. Humanity itself will be fundamentally different, subtly noticed in DNA, but largely noticed in cultural evolution. Who of thes era will be remembered?
Jun 13 2012: Eeeks, I should not respond but I am going to. Yes, Coco was a gorilla, my mistake. But who do you blame when you get angry and destroy things? Perhaps you don't destroy things when you are angry, then perhaps you are not a gorilla, exhibiting gorilla traits?
But if you did, you would blame someone else? Children do that. I am not a proponent of arming children and sending them off to mingle with society. That never ends well.
Jun 13 2012: But this isn't universally true. And the police can't be everywhere. We simply can't pay for enough of them to prevent every violent crime.
I am of the mind that the 2nd Ammendment still makes sense. But this is my personal belief, though it be shared by many.
We sometimes assume that because we live in a society that is generally more stable than many, that what happens 'there' can't happen here. It could be a safe assumption, however, assuming all things in society progress towards the common ideal. But just becuase we assume a thing won't happen, does not make it so that it cannot happen.
Both you and I are essentially engaging in a philosophical debate. Each of us is convinced of the position we hold and use the very loose numbers available on the internet to support our position. While each of us might think that we are right, neither of us has proven a thing, empirically.
I guess that was what I was after from the beginning, knowing the near impossibility of it, currently. There are well articulated, logical argements on both sides of the issue, but there are too many variables it seems, to rule out all other possibilities to a statistic or fact.
Intuition has often been correct prior to experimentation. This can't be experimented on. instead massive amounts of data would have to be collected and analyzed. It's all speculation until people smarter than me applies the human genome project effort on it. This may never be scientifically important enough to do so, perhaps just a curiousity at best.
Jun 13 2012: Opening a can of worms such as this always becomes an emotional issue. Very much like abortion and climate change, each of those having been studied to far greater degree, gun control/right to defend oneself agains deadly aggression is deeply divisive in politics.
Where so many great minds in (American) history felt so staunchly in support of the individual citizen possessing the right and the means to oppose tyranny, with few of the architects of the US Constitution actually opposing the 2nd Ammendment, there is one particular current event news story that seems to be something that could be a case study, if only eventually. Being that it is an Arab country, data will probably not ever adequately surface, but boy if only it could.
Syria.
Granted, there are many ways to affect change. Force is always the least desirable, by general human consensus.
I see great points in correlation by numbers (Peter). But there are things that are unaccounted for that make comparison difficult. Some were pointed out. I think there are many other countries with near homogenous societies that have strict gun controls that would support all of the AUS correlations. But homogenous and at the very least, politically unified societies seem to get along better without personal weapons. They exhibit no traits that would indicate they are slipping towards disunity. This I think somewhat sidestepps the simplistic version of the question(s) I proposed.
I see great philosophical points from Stossel, but no cited information (Pat). His article hit both main issues on gun ownership that seem to be the center of the debate, that being a society vs. a tyranical government, and the invidual agains those committing unlawful acts, and thus threatening personal safety.
I brought up abortion, but I think the studies and the facts are clear on that issue, it is a benefit to society, but it has it's moral limitations (thus making it divisive).
Jun 11 2012: Humans have greater capacity of reason than chimps, so that expiriment won't work. Coco blamed her kitten when she tore her sink out of the wall. So that is the level of deception and reasoning we would be dealing with.
Krisztian, I believe that your assesment of it being an impossible question to answer based on empirical data is probably correct. Too many variables. I really wasn't advocating gun control, in the traditional sense, nor was this a case to discuss the morality associated with gun control by law, and those who make laws.
I guess I am really more interested in the opposite: what if we were REQUIRED to carry weapons, or at least be trained to defend ourselves? Post September 11, 2001, there are a couple of instances where airplanes were threatened mid flight and the citizens of the world said collectively "not this flight". And fought those would be attackers, and won. I think this same principle would apply in other situations. "Man walks into a crowded cafe to shoot others and gets killed by off duty police officer." Why does it have to be an off duty cop? Why not me? I'm trained, rational thinking, and mean to protect myself and the innocent.
There have many recent cases of a single lunatic walking onto a campus, or into a crowded building to shoot others, why is not important to the argument. If one like minded citizen, like minded to me that is, was nearby and armed, the effect would have been limited, due to the attacker being killed.
There are all kinds of social issues that touch this at the core. I'm thinking more of simple math. I also assume that most of the human population thinks rationally, as that has been my experience.
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A reply on Conversation: people shouldnt kill people.
A comment on Conversation: people shouldnt kill people.
people should not kill people. :)
A comment on Conversation: What do you think is the biggest technological challenge the human race will face in the next 30 years?
Humanity is what it will be, exaggerated even. I would aliken it a pyramid drawing, with those with the most control over resources at the top, but it looks more like a sideview of the Eiffle Tower, with a much broader base. But in 30 years, not much will change. 3000 years, the change will be noticed. Humanity itself will be fundamentally different, subtly noticed in DNA, but largely noticed in cultural evolution. Who of thes era will be remembered?
A reply on Conversation: Standard gun owner belief: if all were armed with the potential of deadly force, the incident of gun violence would decrease.
But if you did, you would blame someone else? Children do that. I am not a proponent of arming children and sending them off to mingle with society. That never ends well.
A reply on Conversation: Standard gun owner belief: if all were armed with the potential of deadly force, the incident of gun violence would decrease.
I am of the mind that the 2nd Ammendment still makes sense. But this is my personal belief, though it be shared by many.
We sometimes assume that because we live in a society that is generally more stable than many, that what happens 'there' can't happen here. It could be a safe assumption, however, assuming all things in society progress towards the common ideal. But just becuase we assume a thing won't happen, does not make it so that it cannot happen.
Both you and I are essentially engaging in a philosophical debate. Each of us is convinced of the position we hold and use the very loose numbers available on the internet to support our position. While each of us might think that we are right, neither of us has proven a thing, empirically.
I guess that was what I was after from the beginning, knowing the near impossibility of it, currently. There are well articulated, logical argements on both sides of the issue, but there are too many variables it seems, to rule out all other possibilities to a statistic or fact.
Intuition has often been correct prior to experimentation. This can't be experimented on. instead massive amounts of data would have to be collected and analyzed. It's all speculation until people smarter than me applies the human genome project effort on it. This may never be scientifically important enough to do so, perhaps just a curiousity at best.
A comment on Conversation: Standard gun owner belief: if all were armed with the potential of deadly force, the incident of gun violence would decrease.
A comment on Conversation: Standard gun owner belief: if all were armed with the potential of deadly force, the incident of gun violence would decrease.
Where so many great minds in (American) history felt so staunchly in support of the individual citizen possessing the right and the means to oppose tyranny, with few of the architects of the US Constitution actually opposing the 2nd Ammendment, there is one particular current event news story that seems to be something that could be a case study, if only eventually. Being that it is an Arab country, data will probably not ever adequately surface, but boy if only it could.
Syria.
Granted, there are many ways to affect change. Force is always the least desirable, by general human consensus.
I see great points in correlation by numbers (Peter). But there are things that are unaccounted for that make comparison difficult. Some were pointed out. I think there are many other countries with near homogenous societies that have strict gun controls that would support all of the AUS correlations. But homogenous and at the very least, politically unified societies seem to get along better without personal weapons. They exhibit no traits that would indicate they are slipping towards disunity. This I think somewhat sidestepps the simplistic version of the question(s) I proposed.
I see great philosophical points from Stossel, but no cited information (Pat). His article hit both main issues on gun ownership that seem to be the center of the debate, that being a society vs. a tyranical government, and the invidual agains those committing unlawful acts, and thus threatening personal safety.
I brought up abortion, but I think the studies and the facts are clear on that issue, it is a benefit to society, but it has it's moral limitations (thus making it divisive).
If only this could be more objective.
A reply on Conversation: Standard gun owner belief: if all were armed with the potential of deadly force, the incident of gun violence would decrease.
Krisztian, I believe that your assesment of it being an impossible question to answer based on empirical data is probably correct. Too many variables. I really wasn't advocating gun control, in the traditional sense, nor was this a case to discuss the morality associated with gun control by law, and those who make laws.
I guess I am really more interested in the opposite: what if we were REQUIRED to carry weapons, or at least be trained to defend ourselves? Post September 11, 2001, there are a couple of instances where airplanes were threatened mid flight and the citizens of the world said collectively "not this flight". And fought those would be attackers, and won. I think this same principle would apply in other situations. "Man walks into a crowded cafe to shoot others and gets killed by off duty police officer." Why does it have to be an off duty cop? Why not me? I'm trained, rational thinking, and mean to protect myself and the innocent.
There have many recent cases of a single lunatic walking onto a campus, or into a crowded building to shoot others, why is not important to the argument. If one like minded citizen, like minded to me that is, was nearby and armed, the effect would have been limited, due to the attacker being killed.
There are all kinds of social issues that touch this at the core. I'm thinking more of simple math. I also assume that most of the human population thinks rationally, as that has been my experience.