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Violence is often the solution, but it shouldn’t be the first solution we try.
It’s stupid to assert that law enforcement should be completely unarmed. There’s absolutely legitimate situations where it’s in the public’s best interest. Now, the situations that do require it aren’t super common, but they exist.
In the US at least, law enforcement is overarmed. We’d cut back on a lot of unnecessary violence if, say, officers kept their guns in the trunk rather than on their hip.
Police Union: How could you trample on the sacred rights of the police to escalate any situation into multiple fatalities?
Or you could do what Finland does, and make an independent investigation every time the police shoots someone.
That’s definitely fair
So, a such a situation would require Special Weapons? And maybe Tactics?
SWAT teams exist ostensibly for this reason, but arming everyone works too.
That works a lot better in countries where everyone and their mom doesn’t have a gun. Though good god we don’t train cops enough to justify giving them a gun
A more accurate morality would be “Violence should never be the first course of action”.
Violence is almost always the solution. Civilization is an effort to find a better solution. But people who reject the systems we’ve built up seem to forget why we built then.
Civilisation is about pooling resources to make a consistent supply of beer and food. It makes no clear preference between violence and peace. Crops are easier to grow during peace, while war affords more land to grow crops. So the optimum strategy for a civilisation is to alternate between periods of peace and war.
Yeah, to uphold the status quo of the few owning everything and controlling everyone
That’s not why we built them. They got hijacked for that, and they need fixing.
They were built so we had an alternative to killing each other over disputes.
That’s not why we built them
Isn’t it though? The police were created to hunting down escaped slaves. The government was set up to keep the wealthy land owners in charge (only they could vote afterall). Schools were created to meet the needs of growing industry.
I’m struggling to find anything that was built specifically for the people and not the rich.
The USA didn’t invent the concept of police or government.
The first police were appointed to investigate and punish minor crimes commited agains civilians.
Maybe. I’m pretty sure the context is US capitalist society though.
The government gives the working class a way to have their grievances heard and addressed in a way other than starting a rebellion.
Yes, it serves to keep the powerful in power, but that’s irrelevant to my point. It also serves to make sure the little people get taken care of well enough that we don’t kill the ones in power.
For a more specific example, see unions. The alternative to unions is plant managers getting killed.
I think you just made my point. The rich designed a system where they trade complacency for the illusion of control. And they didn’t have to give up any meaningful amount of power.
Pretty sure feudalism got started because the raiders noticed that if they didn’t steal and burn everything and mostly prevented others from doing that, then they could extract more from the peasants in the long run. Nothing got hijacked, “civilization” structured around the threat of violence was exploitative from the start.
Then why are most “uncivilized” societies have more egalitarian and non-violent than “civilized” ones?
And why has every civilization since the dawn of them been about using violence to uphold the status quo?
The institutions aren’t broken. They’re working as designed.
Then why are most “uncivilized” societies have more egalitarian and non-violent than “civilized” ones?
Uncivilized societies engage in violence much more frequently than civilized societies.
That’s the case for individual/personal violence, and also for institutional/mass violence.
Civilized societies are better than uncivilized society in anything they do collectively, be it science, production, or murder.
Since civilized societies are so much better at murdering, the few cases where mass murder does happen are much more significant.
However, such cases remain an exception, as opposed to what is the case for uncivilized societies.
Uncivilized societies may be harmless, but they are certainly not peaceful.
Civilized societies are more powerful, but they yield their power much more carefully.
I’ve done a bit of googling and the evidence I’m seeing doesn’t agree with you on several points.
For example, a war in NZ between Māori tribes killed roughly 10% of the population, while the US civil war only killed 0.5%
And this report from UNESCO agrees with my assertion that organized violence appeared not long after agriculture as a way to reinforce the status quo.
Did you forget your stance was that less complex social structures were supposedly more peaceful? You cited the Maori tribes killing 20x more of their own than one of the largest wars in North America.
Organized violence between groups has been observed in fossil records, such as discussed in THIS PAPER, and it has also been observed in warring tribes of Chimpanzees fighting for territory. The foremost theory about the extinction of the Neanderthals is that Homo Sapiens appeared and wiped them out.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGERY OF WILDLIFE
Gombe Chimpanzee War
You claimed that modern humans are more successful at killing. Which is true from a sheer numbers perspective. But when two tribes of 50 people lose 10 people total that’s a lot more per capita than the numbers we kill now.
As for the organized violence observed in fossil records, YouTube actually recommended me a video not long after you posted this comment about just that. Turns out it happened after the Neolithic Agricultural revolution, just like the link I posted from UNESCO said. Apparently about 95% of males were killed in a short period of time throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia once they transitioned to sedentary, agricultural lifestyles. Prior to that there was no real violence in the fossil record.
Which also reinforces my position that less organized, less ‘advanced’ societies aren’t as violent.
As for the chimps, they’re starting a war with gorillas now, and scientists think it’s over competition for previously abundant resources. Both species are confined to small parks, and they’re competing for food, and now things are getting tense.
So the conclusion we can gather is that when there are concentrated or restricted resources, apes will become violent. But prior to the invention of agriculture, humans lived in a world of abundance and were less violent. And as we consumed more resources, the other ape species started fighting each other. And since we don’t see mass graves of neanderthals I highly doubt we killed them all.
Also, we are more closely related to bonobos so chimpanzee behavior, especially that of chimpanzees who are forced into small areas due to human encroachment, doesn’t seem a good point of reference.
(Sorry I didn’t reply earlier, I was on mobile and Voyager’s interface is terrible for long replies. I really wish they’d re-work their link formatting.)
(Also based on the language of your responses you’re not going to ever agree with me so I’m not going to bother reading your reply, and I’m just replying for anyone else who reads it so they have a full picture.)
Anyone who thinks violence has never solved anything should open a history book
violence doesn’t “solve”, it is about eliminating the problem.
It’s their failure to solve or even recognize and formulate the problem that pushes some people to use violence.
Honestly, yes. Dunno why you were sittin’ at a healthy karmic 0 because that is literally what violence is for. It doesn’t solve a problem, it staunches it for the current government. Violence isn’t a solution even when people think it is; it’s a fascist band-aid
I mean… I do assure police shouldn’t have weapons. They’re less likely to die at work than an Aborist.
Arm the pizza delivery drivers!
hiro Protagonist with his sword.
First panel: I agree with the aspiration to avoid violence but allow for circumstances like self-defense or defense of a vulnerable party.
Second panel: I do agree we shouldn’t give them weapons, at the least not lethal weapons, certainly not military-grade weapons.
Third panel: If you want to be capable of preserving your national sovereignty, having a military is required, therefore justified in that context.
Fourth panel: While the two previous questions logically follow from the position stated in the first panel, the last question makes no sense and is a complete non-sequitur from the stated position. [i.e. “Violence is never a solution” --> “oh, so do you mean it’s a solution in this one case? !? !” <–non-sequitur]
complete non-sequitur
I don’t think I agree? We don’t see a response to the two questions, but it’s implied that the answer to them is no. This then fills out the sequence to get to that point
I understand what the cartoonist is trying to imply–that there are no true pacifists and people who say they’re against violence are hypocrites who actually like violence when it’s used to protect their privileged position. They just didn’t do it right.
First, true pacifists do exist, who would answer “yes” to the first two questions–and which would make the last question ridiculous. So if the cartoonist’s goal was to criticize the hypocrites, they just needed to show the first person answering the first two questions with an unqualified “no” to show they didn’t really mean what they said in the first panel.
I understand what the cartoonist is trying to imply…
I actually don’t think you do. They are a pacifist, as is shown by their desire to demilitarize the world. They clearly think that violence is currently used primarily to maintain the status quo, and they depict that in a negative light quite obviously.
What they were actually implying is that a lot of people claim to be against violence despite, in fact being pro-state-violence
That’s my point and why I say they didn’t do the cartoon right. If they wanted to say what you explained, we’d have to see the first person answering “no”. As it is, the cartoon implies that anyone who says violence isn’t the answer is lying/hypocritical.
the cartoon implies that anyone who says violence isn’t the answer is lying/hypocritical.
No… it doesn’t. By its adversarial nature, it heavily implies the answers “no” to the first two questions.
Like, your main criticism is that the comic doesn’t make any sense if the answer to either question was yes, but that’s the definitive reason I wouldn’t read it that way.
A rhetorical question that you know (or are insisting you “know”) your opponent disagrees with is a very common language trick.
Not a non-sequitur, since she’s suggesting that the second person would believe that police and armies are exceptions to the rule. Given that these are, definitionally, the only parties in most modern states legally allowed to commit violence, and that the primary function of same is to maintain the status quo, be it borders, property, or laws themselves, ths last panel does nearly follow from the previous two. It is certainly a bit of a strawman, though, since he did not actually respond yet. The strawman here, however, is intentional, as a means to suggest to the reader that perhaps violence is justified in more than these two cases.
I was never for increasing funding for the military until the US started threatening Canada
Violence is always an option.
But…
Violence is not the answer, it is the question. And, when circumstances call for it, the answer is “yes”.
Thats somehow so upside down philosophically. In human history we established states and gave them the monopoly of violence, so that we don’t crush each others heads all the time (at least inside the state) or so that some guy who is stronger or has better weapons can’t just take all our stuff because he wants to.
This is exactly what police do via civil asset forfeiture/seizure.
Yes I believe violence is never the solution, but since there are people out there that don’t share my ideas, I need to keep some police officers around to keep me safe and some military personal to keep my country safe.
To keep the peace it’s all or nothing. Nobody has weapons or everybody has weapons. Since the former is pretty hard to achieve, the latter must happen.
Does everybody include convicted serial killers?
It’s like Twitter and other online plataforms, where advocating or talking about violent acts is forbidden, unless you are an army or a government organization.
Self defense is a thing. I notice most these comics that end up on my front page pretty much suck. Oh a .ml post. I see. Is there a non .ml version of “comics” somewhere?
Even if youre acab, violence is the solution sometimes. This is a horrible argument against police. What do you do to nazis? You beat the shit out of them. See you solved the problem of a nazi being in your eyesight with violence. I myself am a fan of reformed police tho which is only used in cases like someone clearly not abiding by the law(not going to court, etc) and imvestigations(which is more like detectives and stuff not police)
What comic artist does this come from? I got a bad feeling…
this look like Sophie labelle and that’s not good.
Why? Wikipedia just says she’s trans.
Because she also drew some fury kink stuff as well. I don’t think that makes a difference as long as it isn’t part of any events or other stuff she does. But that’s not gonna stop the right from working themselves up. If there’s something else she’s done that I don’t know about that’s worse though please someone let me know.
There’s something wrong with furry kink?
It’s not my thing, but my experience in person at scifi cons is that furries are some of the best people in fandom.
Never said I thought there was something wrong with it. I’m just saying that’s probably what the right wingers are saying. I’m friends with people who are furries and they are wonderful people.
you piqued my interest here so i went looking and found a tumblr post with a good summary:
Labelle has admitted to using a photograph of an actual child for “diaperfur” art, which is a type of fetish pornography (though she has done much to obfuscate this). You should not use people as references for art without their permission; you absolutely should not use children as references for fetish art. If any stage of producing fetish art requires using a child, it shouldn’t be made.
Not sure how her being trans is related to criticism (well, except right-wingers throwing a temper tantrum. But that isn’t criticism). I heavily dislike her due to her - perhaps former(?) - anti-medical viewpoints she also perpetuated in comics. To break it down what her position a few years ago was:
- Science about gender and the cause of dysphoria / being trans is bad and must be stopped
- Everyone would be happy if society was better (Gender dysphoria = all societies’ fault)
- Everyone who argues otherwise was either a TERF, Nazi or bot in her books
Perhaps her extreme viewpoints changed over the years, and I’m sure not to have all the infos available given I haven’t heard about her in a while. But what I saw coming from her a few years ago was just so much crap (Pretty sure I also criticized her for it once, for which she blocked me immediately to then go on a rant). It really pissed me off since it completely undermined efforts to give trans kids (and adults!) the professional help they might need to become both happy and successful (and most importantly themselves).
And in case anyone who reads this thinks this is important for my criticism to be valid or sth: Yes, I am trans myself.
Yeah I just meant all Wikipedia seems to say is basic trans activism that would piss off right wingers but doesn’t really mention much controversy besides the typical right wing buffoonery towards trans folk.
So like …what did she think happens to trans folk if everything is perfect? Y’all just don’t exist anymore? Seems like a strange position to take for a trans person.
I think the general idea of her was that, if society was perfectly accepting, there wouldn’t be any real reason for bigger medical intervention; specifically that there’s no gender dysphoria coming from within / being there by default, but all of it existing because of transphobia. With a perfect society there would be no suffering - still expression, but that’s it. And there should be no science on this whole topic because that’s apparently… well, see the pic. It’s one of the really weird takes from back then I could find.
Like, I understand the fear of this knowledge being used against us and the criticism of our current, overly strict diagnostic system this comic contains (which already gets discussed controversially within the academic community and is partially tied to economic necessities)… but that knowledge could likewise be used for so, so much good. To completely ignore the suffering this condition can cause on its own and putting all of the blame on a society that’s indeed not perfect yet, and even worse, question Enlightenment itself (as in the move towards an educated society and knowledge over religion, that kind)… in my opinion this is, or was, just fear-driven ignorance and not helpful at all.
But I’d like to say it again: If she happened to change her opinions in this regard I’m more than happy to hear about it. The comic OP posted looks more like her opinions are still very extreme though…
yea but she’s also a quebecker and that’s just not ok /j
this is ironically, a fallacious argument.
The implication here is that violence literally never solves problems. The actual implication is that violence generally doesn’t provide a reasonable solution to problems, which everybody would be inclined to agree with, even in the case of military/police conflicts.
Have a better argument next time :)
