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Freedom versus Security OR Pursuit of Happiness versus Negation of Harm
Kamar
AntivillainIn The BasementRegistered User regular
AntivillainIn The BasementRegistered User regular
This is pretty much the only interesting debate in politics or moral philosophy for me, so I like to bring it up every now and then (even though the threads usually die quick). Most of the issues where both sides have a point exist because of different views along this spectrum.
To clarify, I'm talking about things like the gun control, porn control, alcohol and drug control, age of consent laws, certain parts of the criminal justice system, state secrets, that sort of stuff where we try to find a balance between the risk of harm and the freedom to take those risks to enjoy our lives more.
It's also an area where even intelligent individuals tend to be inconsistent. I won't mention specifics because I don't want this to be an argument about specific views (yet).
Where do you stand? It's pretty hard to decide X number of deaths per year is worth Y amount of happiness in the rest of the population. Personally I favor a high-risk approach, give people drugs and guns and violent video games and porn and stuff they want, regulate--without banning--the ones with proven risk to people other than the user. Then educate us into not using dangerous shit or at least being moderately safe with our freedom. Seems like it worked pretty well with tobacco.
But I can understand people wanting to keep guns, violent rape and cartoon child porn, torture and violence 'porn' games and movies, dangerous drugs like cocaine or heroine, dangerous extreme and fighting-based sports, keep all that crazy shit away from people (or at least some people) too immature to handle the stuff in a psychologically and/or physically healthy way. Risk assessment for a lot of these things is damn near impossible given the variables involved.
So what do you guys think?
To clarify, I'm talking about things like the gun control, porn control, alcohol and drug control, age of consent laws, certain parts of the criminal justice system, state secrets, that sort of stuff where we try to find a balance between the risk of harm and the freedom to take those risks to enjoy our lives more.
It's also an area where even intelligent individuals tend to be inconsistent. I won't mention specifics because I don't want this to be an argument about specific views (yet).
Where do you stand? It's pretty hard to decide X number of deaths per year is worth Y amount of happiness in the rest of the population. Personally I favor a high-risk approach, give people drugs and guns and violent video games and porn and stuff they want, regulate--without banning--the ones with proven risk to people other than the user. Then educate us into not using dangerous shit or at least being moderately safe with our freedom. Seems like it worked pretty well with tobacco.
But I can understand people wanting to keep guns, violent rape and cartoon child porn, torture and violence 'porn' games and movies, dangerous drugs like cocaine or heroine, dangerous extreme and fighting-based sports, keep all that crazy shit away from people (or at least some people) too immature to handle the stuff in a psychologically and/or physically healthy way. Risk assessment for a lot of these things is damn near impossible given the variables involved.
So what do you guys think?
Kamar on
Posts
I don't think it's difficult at all. In fact, you endorse exactly this calculation in your very next sentence.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
I don't think we really base our morality on this type of calculation though. There is a big difference between doing something we know will kill someone, and doing something where someone could die.
Like, I know intellectually that getting behind the wheel of a car means accepting that there is some chance that I'll be killed in an accident that didn't exist before (as well as the possibility that I'll kill someone else.) I do it anyway because driving is worth the risk for various reasons. Society at large makes the same decision, even though we know tens of thousands of people (in the U.S. alone) will be killed in car accidents every year.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
1: A lot of that has to do with cognitive biases, though. A lot of pain in the future (lung cancer) does not seem as important as a lot less pain right now (quitting smoking).
Stupid is as big a player in politics as morality. Likely even bigger. Seatbelts are a prime example, but it continues from there down to socialized healthcare (only way to stop TBC and other nasties from coming back), the 'war on rust' (and road damage, etc.)... People are to stupid to understand the real dangers surrounding them, because we're wired that way.
So the real question is: should we listen to the experts, or continue thinking what's between our ears can do a better job, in any field, all the time?
2: Also happiness is a lot better way to determine policy than economics. But it doesn't go all the way. Kids don't make you happy. Marriage doesn't make you happy. But we need both for our society to continue functioning.
3: Don't forget that we differentiate legally between people based on for example age. Often we differentiate based on previous behaviour. A convicted drunk driver has legal limits set other people haven't. Young male drivers pay more for their car insurance to the point where parents have to take out the insurance.
It's not too far-fetched to imagine a blood test and brain scan that can determine how susceptible to addiction you are. How the morality of basing legislative limits on that will roll out is easy to predict. Freedom (from legislation) becomes more important in people's minds the more personalised that legislation becomes. That's a cognitive bias, too- people are willing to give up more freedom provided their neighbors have to do so as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases.
There's a lot of perception distortion due to misinformation. For example, a recent British study showed that driving after a fight is as likely to cause car crashes as driving drunk or sleepy. But it won't be reported on in the same way unless the accident happens on the driveway. So it's not something people keep in mind- but it does impact safety.
Same thing with spousal violence versus assault by strangers- look at any gun thread to see the bias there. If papers would report on wife beaters as they do on other criminals ( you'd be surprised how illegal it is to hit your spouse ) the whole gun/safety debate would look a lot different.
It always goes the same way. Someone thinks guns are bad and should be banned. Facts emerge showing that the removal of guns does little to address violent crime, and unless you are involved in the drug trade or are going to kill yourself that is generally where you end up on the wrong side of a firearm. Then we argue about how we would be better off addressing why people rob liquor stores than trying to convince them to use a baseball bat instead of a cheap handgun. After that it always tangents into how crazy it is that people can legally carry guns and what if they decide to go batshit insane and start shooting people. Of course we know licensed CCW holders are statistically about the safest and most law abiding group of people you can find, and if someone is going to go crazy and start shooting people why they would worry about whether they have a CCW or not we never really get a good answer to. From there it generally goes to how could anyone need more than 5,7,10,15,30 bullets and we should ban guns that have more than that. OF course the fact that most firearms used in crimes hold fewer than 10 rounds anyway, or the fact that people can just bring more magazines for their little rampage, or more guns tends to lead us to discussing the dreaded assault rifle.
What is an assault weapon you ask? Assault weapon is reverse infospeak for scary looking. No I am not making this up. See whenever it comes down to "assault weapons" we always end up discussing what makes them scary. Do you know that they are used in statistically so few crimes that in order to even get them on the board they need to be clumped together with all other "long guns" as well as shotguns? Which leads us to the end of our merry journey where we generally are left with two points. The first being that logically we have no argument to support banning the very guns that often come under fire the most because the guns that get used in crimes are generally small handguns, that hold few rounds, and are easy to dispose of. The second point being that you cannot convince people terrified of firearms that addressing poverty and drug violence will save more lives than any amount of gun legislation.
oh god, not this again. Leftist-legitimate or Rightist-legitimate? I feel your analogy is invalid because the constitution was agreed upon by elected government officials. Removing that right from the constitution would be as alien to constitution believers as removing one of the 10 commandments from the bible would be to bible believers. Making the argument "oh we don't use this anymore, let's just take it out" is asinine in making the assumption that it will never be applicable again.
I don't have to justify why I should be allowed to enjoy an existing legal right.
Rigorous Scholarship
So while you can kill almost all people with almost all things, some things are simply much more facilitating and unambiguously, solely dangerous. So starting with them really doesn't lead to a slippery slope, unless you are a dumb person who doesn't realize that the only thing that is truly analogous to X is X. Guns are weapons, but not usefully comparable to every weapon. And not all guns are usefully comparable to all other guns.
The major problem in these debates are not complexity, but laziness and a lack of good faith in many participants.
You're making this up. An assault rifle is a select-fire ("full auto") rifle firing an intermediate size cartridge, such as the M16 and AK47. 'Assault weapon' is the made up term for semi-automatic weapons that have two or more scary features making them look like M16s or AK47s.
The more you know.
And even in specific issues it is hard to take an absolute stance. I'm in favor of far stricter gun control laws than what the US currently has, but I think an outright ban on guns would be stupid. And I am willing to bet that even the most hard-core gun nut on these boards wold agree that some kind of gun control is necessary to keep guns away from the people that really shouldn't have access to a gun.
As an aside in the gun control debate which came up before: Using the argument that gun control doesn't affect the criminals is a pointless argument. The exact same argument can be used to argue that rape laws and child porn laws are pointless since the crime in question is still being committed, and therefore those laws can be scrapped. In fact, that argument shows that all laws are pointless. Using that argument are more an indication of a failure to understand the purpose of laws rather than an endorsement for less gun control. There are a lot better arguments that can be used against stricter gun laws than this.
I am happy to see you've turned around your views on the social safety net.
I have two observations:
A) It may be the case that there are some things (whether physical or psychological) which is is categorically unhealthy to be exposed to, and even worse, acclimated to.
B) I had another point about immaturity not necessarily being a salient factor - but I realise that you probably aren't saying what I originally thought and it isn't very helpful at this time, so I am skipping my second observation.
SODOMISE INTOLERANCE
Tide goes in. Tide goes out.
Not at all, the point is "What are you trying to achieve?" Gun control is a lot like people trying to get intelligent design taught in schools.
You start with the conclusion and work your way backwards in order to create some justification for your position, in the process pretty much twisting or ignoring facts to find some way to arrive at the preconceived position. Take the example of violent crimes, often committed with firearms. However we have seen that gun control has a minimal if any effect on actual violent crime rates. We come back to "What are you trying to achieve?" If your position is guns are only used to kill people, and that is bad, so guns should be banned we cannot have a debate founded in logic or reason. It is an appeal to emotion, and as we have seen will not enact positive social change. Now if your position is "Something must be done about violent crimes" then combating why a person is robbing a liquor store is a lot more effective than worrying about if he uses a gun, a knife, or a baseball bat. whether you are shot, stabbed, or beaten to death you are just as dead.
Correct, ill edit the original post to fix it as i wrote that up right before bed small errors are expected.
There is a safe way to own and operate a gun, however. There is a safe way to maintain a swimming pool.
There is certainly a lot more involved than this, and pretty much every activity under the sun is unique and thus analogies always fall apart past a certain point, but I think a lot of activities should be regulated based on requiring (to the extent possible) safe execution of an activity rather than just banning it outright.
That said, there are certainly activities where the danger of using it improperly outweighs all other considerations. Extremely powerful weapons or large explosives, used improperly, can kill or maim tons of people. So yeah, ban that.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Heck you would be better off spending the money getting a degree in chemistry if you really wanted to blow something up.