Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[GE Morton]

As you know some folks are lumpers and others are spliters. Some view deaths at school shootings separate from mall shootings from church shootings from robbery shootings from domestic violence shootings from accidental shootings from suicides by gun. Others lump them together into gun deaths. To me they are all tragedies that if decreased would be a victory, you are of course free to have a different perspective.

No, suicides should not be lumped with homicides. The latter involves a violation by a moral agent of another's rights; the former does not. Only the latter is any business of the State. If someone wishes to end his life it is his business; not the State's and not "the public's." His life is not the property of the State.

[Sy Borg]

GE is not going to give in so I think we all have to accept that gun laws and gun proliferation in a population have nothing whatsoever to do with gun crime.

Yes, it seems counter-intuitive, but GE has made it clear that the US's problems with gun crime are unrelated to its gun legislation, so we must accept his word.

[LuckyR]

As you know some folks are lumpers and others are spliters. Some view deaths at school shootings separate from mall shootings from church shootings from robbery shootings from domestic violence shootings from accidental shootings from suicides by gun. Others lump them together into gun deaths. To me they are all tragedies that if decreased would be a victory, you are of course free to have a different perspective.

No, suicides should not be lumped with homicides. The latter involves a violation by a moral agent of another's rights; the former does not. Only the latter is any business of the State. If someone wishes to end his life it is his business; not the State's and not "the public's." His life is not the property of the State.

Whose business are accidental shootings?

I don't want to speak for you but are you saying that it is incorrect that fewer suicide deaths would be a good thing?

[Sy Borg]

I don't want to speak for you but are you saying that it is incorrect that fewer suicide deaths would be a good thing?

I think the suicide aspect comes down to culture, where availability and normalisation of gun culture that would make shooting oneself a very much less daunting and strange prospect than for a gun neophyte.

So, until end-of-life laws become more grounded, it's arguably not the worst idea to keep a gun at home in case of terminal illness where the state refuses to allow death with dignity.

Suicide is one of those intimately personal areas where the state ideally has no right to interfere. However, taxpayers invest much into each individual so society has an interest in protecting its investments.

[GE Morton]

Whose business are accidental shootings?

Anyone's likely to be a victim.

I don't want to speak for you but are you saying that it is incorrect that fewer suicide deaths would be a good thing?

That question is unanswerable as framed. Value questions must always specify, "Good for whom?," otherwise they are non-cognitive. It would not be good for a person who wishes to end his life to be prevented from doing so.

[GE Morton]

However, taxpayers invest much into each individual so society has an interest in protecting its investments.

That is one of the arguments used by southern planters to justify slavery.

[Sy Borg]

However, taxpayers invest much into each individual so society has an interest in protecting its investments.

That is one of the arguments used by southern planters to justify slavery.

So you expect governments/corporations to make massive investments without management or steering controls?

[LuckyR]

Whose business are accidental shootings?

Anyone's likely to be a victim.

I don't want to speak for you but are you saying that it is incorrect that fewer suicide deaths would be a good thing?

That question is unanswerable as framed. Value questions must always specify, "Good for whom?," otherwise they are non-cognitive. It would not be good for a person who wishes to end his life to be prevented from doing so.

Actually preventing accidents is the purview of the CDC. Sorry, they're a government agency.

As to whether reducing suicide lethality is a good thing or not, suicide is commonly an impulsive act with 24% making the decision 5 minutes before the attempt and 70% within one hour before. 90% of suicide survivors never end up taking their lives. So regardless of your opinion, the vast majority of the actually suicidal later find that reducing its lethality is a good thing.

[GE Morton]

So you expect governments/corporations to make massive investments without management or steering controls?

I don't expect governments to make massive investments in the personal welfare of its citizens in the first place. Nor would I expect any citizen to agree that government is entitled to control of their lives by virtue of those gratuitous "investments," or submit to such control.

[GE Morton]

[ So regardless of your opinion, the vast majority of the actually suicidal later find that reducing its lethality is a good thing.

Doesn't follow. The most you can conclude is that the vast majority of suicide survivors, not "the actually suicidal," think it is a good thing. And even that conclusion is weak, since many suicide survivors were not actually trying to end their lives, but to draw attention.

[LuckyR]

[ So regardless of your opinion, the vast majority of the actually suicidal later find that reducing its lethality is a good thing.

Doesn't follow. The most you can conclude is that the vast majority of suicide survivors, not "the actually suicidal," think it is a good thing. And even that conclusion is weak, since many suicide survivors were not actually trying to end their lives, but to draw attention.

Exactly my point! A huge portion of the suicidal are trying to "draw attention" to their temporary depressive episode through actually trying to kill themselves, hence why lowering the statistical chance of surviving the temporary crisis and thus transforming a cry for help into a bodybag is a bad thing for most of the suicidal.

BTW folks who try to kill themselves are "the actually suicidal" (by definition).

[Sy Borg]

So you expect governments/corporations to make massive investments without management or steering controls?

I don't expect governments to make massive investments in the personal welfare of its citizens in the first place. Nor would I expect any citizen to agree that government is entitled to control of their lives by virtue of those gratuitous "investments," or submit to such control.

I understand that Somalia has the kind of governance you are seeking. Any other nation wishing to follow their approach will enjoy similar "success".

Meanwhile, a significant portion of the "investments" are not made or pushed for by governments but by companies, whose roles in governance are increasing as their power eclipses that of all of government, that is, all of the people's combined pooled resources.

You will pay for services via taxes or profits but the free lunch you seek - infrastructure and support without taxation - is not available on planet Earth. Your little guns won't help either; they are only good for killing little people, not combatting emerging corporate controllers of society with access to military grade AI.

[GE Morton]

Exactly my point! A huge portion of the suicidal are trying to "draw attention" to their temporary depressive episode through actually trying to kill themselves, hence why lowering the statistical chance of surviving the temporary crisis and thus transforming a cry for help into a bodybag is a bad thing for most of the suicidal.

It may be, but it is not the job of government to prevent people from doing things that might be bad for them, or doing what it deems to be "good for them." It is not their Mommy.

BTW folks who try to kill themselves are "the actually suicidal" (by definition).

Some of them. Others (those who do not expect the act to succeed) are not actually suicidal; they are pretenders. Those serious about ending their lives choose methods sure to be effective.

The point in my previous comment regarding the "actually suicidal" was that group is not coextensive with suicide survivors. Hence conclusions about the "actually suicidal" do not follow from premises about suicide survivors.

This discussion is wandering rather far afield from the topic of "Gun Control and Mass Murder," BTW.

[GE Morton]

I understand that Somalia has the kind of governance you are seeking. Any other nation wishing to follow their approach will enjoy similar "success".

Now, now, Greta. I gave a pretty complete description of the type of government I'm seeking in the thread, "A Moral Argument for Minarchy," which you presumably read, since we debated it at some length. Somalia (nor anywhere else) obviously does not have that type of government. Why trot out straw men?

You will pay for services via taxes or profits but the free lunch you seek - infrastructure and support without taxation - is not available on planet Earth.

I seek no free lunches, Greta, as you well know. I fully expect citizens to pay for government services from which they benefit, to the extent they benefit from them. They do not, however, have any obligation to pay for "services" they have not sought and from which they receive no benefit, e.g., others' free lunches.

[Sy Borg]

You will pay for services via taxes or profits but the free lunch you seek - infrastructure and support without taxation - is not available on planet Earth.

I seek no free lunches, Greta, as you well know. I fully expect citizens to pay for government services from which they benefit, to the extent they benefit from them. They do not, however, have any obligation to pay for "services" they have not sought and from which they receive no benefit, e.g., others' free lunches.

I don't think you understand how close your much-hated governments and much-loved corporations are simply part of one larger entity, with corporations increasingly becoming dominant.

As per the previous thread, you are lost in the economic models of the last century, seemingly trying to block out the fact that the power structures of our societies have changed greatly this century.

It's inconvenient when societies change in unanticipated ways and throw all that hard-won economic and political theory out the window, isn't it? You are politically akin to a TV repairman troubleshooting by looking for blown valves.