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

[Belindi]

Hi, Belindi,

Thank you for your reply!

No, violence and pacifism are not what I mean by welfare state.

I don't understand the above sentence.

a heavyweight prison system can be avoided by a fully functioning welfare state [...]

If by "welfare state" you mean violently forcing pacifists to pay money (i.e. taxes) to allegedly charitable causes and/or the expensive imprisonment of other pacifists, by threatening the pacifists with forced imprisonment if they refuse to pay for your violence, then prisons would indeed be necessary in such a society, to fund the expensive agressively violent big government statism you are proposing.

In contrast, since I would propose no such thing, and instead I oppose all non-defensive violence, and I oppose imprisonment of pacifists, prisons are NOT necessary for anything I would want done.

if tax money is needed to combat causes of crime then it's worth paying extra taxes to do so.

If you personally want to donate your own money to non-violent charitable causes, that's great. If you voluntarily choose to donate your own money to non-violent charities, that's great. But if it's a voluntary donation, then I believe that would typically be called a 'donation' not a 'tax'.

The question is what happens to people (namely pacifists) who refuse to pay the money to fund your proposed "welfare state", and by extension why you call it a "welfare state" rather than a welfare charity. Typically, calling it 'statism' rather than simply non-violent private 'charity' means that violence and prisons will be involved.

In any case, if you proposal entails forcing people (including pacifists) to pay taxes to your "welfare state" to fund the "welfare" by threatening those people (including pacifists) with imprisonment if they refuse to pay that money (i.e. taxes), then absolutely 100% definitely your proposal requires prisons and entails violently imprisoning pacifists, which itself costs more money, which requires more aggressive non-defensive violence, which requires even more money, which requires even more aggressive non-defensive violence.


Thank you,
Scott

I am not what is usually understood as a pacifist, but I don't mind.

Welfare of citizens can't be met as a voluntary charity for two reasons.
1. The state should exist to serve all citizens not only charitable individuals but also the selfish, the greedy, and the criminal who if those are to help other people they have to be made to do so.

2.So the state can serve all citizens it has to raise taxes to the most efficient level including costing for prevention of crime.

In a society where a significant number of people are hopelessly poor, such as USA and UK, prisons are not efficient deterrents of non payment of taxes .

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I am not what is usually understood as a pacifist, but I don't mind.

Fair enough, but my point wasn't that you yourself are not a pacifist. I wasn't thinking you were one.

Rather, my point was and still is that what you are proposing entails violently putting pacifists in prison, which is itself an act of expensive non-defensive violence.

I am not a full-blown pacifist (since I am willing to use defensive force as needed against those engaging in non-defensive violence such as rape, murder, robbery, and slavery). Nonetheless, I am a firm peace-lover in that I adamantly oppose all non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. rape, murder, slavery, etc.) as explained in this tweet of mine.

The society you want requires prisons, so that you can put peaceful people including pacifists in prison, as a way to coerce money out of them at least.

In contrast, nothing I want done requires prisons.

a heavyweight prison system can be avoided by a fully functioning welfare state [...]

If by "welfare state" you mean violently forcing pacifists to pay money (i.e. taxes) to allegedly charitable causes and/or the expensive imprisonment of other pacifists, by threatening the pacifists with forced imprisonment if they refuse to pay for your violence, then prisons would indeed be necessary in such a society, to fund the expensive aggressively violent big government statism you are proposing.

In contrast, since I would propose no such thing, and instead I oppose all non-defensive violence, and I oppose imprisonment of pacifists, prisons are NOT necessary for anything I would want done.

if tax money is needed to combat causes of crime then it's worth paying extra taxes to do so.

If you personally want to donate your own money to non-violent charitable causes, that's great. If you voluntarily choose to donate your own money to non-violent charities, that's great. But if it's a voluntary donation, then I believe that would typically be called a 'donation' not a 'tax'.

The question is what happens to people (namely pacifists) who refuse to pay the money to fund your proposed "welfare state", [...]

In any case, if you proposal entails forcing people (including pacifists) to pay taxes to your "welfare state" to fund the "welfare" by threatening those people (including pacifists) with imprisonment if they refuse to pay that money (i.e. taxes), then absolutely 100% definitely your proposal requires prisons and entails violently imprisoning pacifists, which itself costs more money, which requires more aggressive non-defensive violence, which requires even more money, which requires even more aggressive non-defensive violence.

Welfare of citizens can't be met as a voluntary charity for two reasons.
[...] if [the selfish and greedy] are to help other people they have to be made to do so [via non-defensive violence or the threat of non-defensive violence].

Then, indeed, I think we can easily agree, as I said in my previous post, absolutely 100% definitely your proposal requires prisons and entails violently imprisoning pacifists.

The violent expensive big government statism you are proposing and endorsing would require prisons and would require paying people to violently hunt down and shove peaceful people into those prisons.

So, to answer the titular question about whether society needs prisons: The kind of violent big government society that you, Belindi, want to exist would need prisons. In your society, there would be many peaceful people in prison including pacifists.

In contrast, nothing I want done requires prisons.

I do not support committing non-defensive violence (e.g. rape, murder, slavery) against peaceful people.


Thank you,
Scott

[Pattern-chaser]

If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

I say this with friendly politeness, you will never persuade me (or anyone like me) to obey such rules.

Many times, when shamers, shoulders, or aggressively violent utilitarians start issuing their controlling commandments, if anything it only persuades me to do the opposite. For example, I probably wouldn't have smoked marijuana as often as I did if it wasn't illegal. There's a reason Cuban cigars are my favorite to smoke, and that is the reason.

I'm not religious at all, but one time I pledged that, if the USA government made Islam illegal or created a mandatory Muslim Registry, I would convert to Islam.

Alan Watts said that all the do-gooders are trouble-makers. As such, I enjoy putting myself in the way of do-gooders and violating their rules and commandments, be those moral laws enforced with shaming or superstition or such, or be they literal laws enforced with aggressive violence.

The second they make the rule, I am then thus more inclined to break it.

[LuckyR]

Yes, I have freely admitted that my suggestion is impractical — it won't work, given 'human nature'. And your questions are good ones, but do they deviate a little too much from our topic here, about prisons and their necessity? Perhaps so.

The amount of imprisonment within a society is a measure of that society's disintegration. A society is held together voluntarily except for outlaws such as slaves and non-persons. Every man for himself is not a society.

Similarly the disintegration of mankind into tribes is measured by nationalism and nationalism -inspired aggression.

Both nationalism and antisocial behaviour are caused by fear of loss of material resources or loss of proper pride, and so a heavyweight prison system can be avoided by a fully functioning welfare state including fair employment opportunities(especially for young men).

Huh? If you make rules, there will be rulebreakers, by definition. If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If you have a welfare state with shelter for all, free health care for all, and most importantly top class education and training for all , plus employment opportunities with social mobility, then you have less crime.
If you address the causes of crime you save tax money.
Certainly there will still be antisocial people who should be imprisoned as decently as possible, unless they are mentally ill in which case they should get therapy.

In that case we agree, in the sense that this or that crime prevention technique can LOWER crime, BUT there still will be a need for prisons to address the issue of lawbreakers.

[LuckyR]

If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

I say this with friendly politeness, you will never persuade me (or anyone like me) to obey such rules.

Many times, when shamers, shoulders, or aggressively violent utilitarians start issuing their controlling commandments, if anything it only persuades me to do the opposite. For example, I probably wouldn't have smoked marijuana as often as I did if it wasn't illegal. There's a reason Cuban cigars are my favorite to smoke, and that is the reason.

I'm not religious at all, but one time I pledged that, if the USA government made Islam illegal or created a mandatory Muslim Registry, I would convert to Islam.

Alan Watts said that all the do-gooders are trouble-makers. As such, I enjoy putting myself in the way of do-gooders and violating their rules and commandments, be those moral laws enforced with shaming or superstition or such, or be they literal laws enforced with aggressive violence.

The second they make the rule, I am then thus more inclined to break it.

Don't walk on my lawn!

But seriously, it baffles me why some fail to grasp the reality that the act of creating rules simultaneously creates rulebreakers. What do you do with rulebreakers?

[Agent Smyth]

Who was it that said build one school and you can demolish 10 prisons? The delivery of justice requires at least 3 objectives to be fulfilled: a) retribution
b) rehabilitation
c) deterrence

Play around with these three goals (of justice) and you'll realize how complex/complicated the issue is.

[Pattern-chaser]

If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

I say this with friendly politeness, you will never persuade me (or anyone like me) to obey such rules.

Context: I/you/we live in a country, a nation. We live there together, often quite closely together. Living together as we do, we see a need for rules of conduct that we will all follow. The most obvious, black-and-white, example is murder: the rule is that we may not murder one another. There are many other rules too, as we all know.

If a citizen, any citizen, refuses to "obey such rules", they are subject to a penalty, a punishment. To begin with, one assumes that the citizen will simply be asked to follow the rules. But if that doesn't work, the sanctions will become more serious, until the citizen conforms to the rule(s).

A citizen who simply refuses to follow the rules, no matter what, as you have said that you do, will eventually suffer significant punishment. Friendly persuasion is by far the most preferable option, but in the end, imprisonment (the topic here) becomes possible, maybe likely.

It is difficult to see why or how this might be wrong?

[Pattern-chaser]

...this or that crime prevention technique can LOWER crime, BUT there still will be a need for prisons to address the issue of lawbreakers.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premises. Lawbreaking is an issue, but the penalty for breaking the law need not be imprisonment. There will presumably some form of penalty if the law is broken, and that penalty might be almost anything. Prison is one form of penalty, but recognising our need for penalties for lawbreakers does not automatically lead to a need for prisons, but only to a need for penalties of some sort.

The topic title does not ask if we need penalties for lawbreakers — maybe it should; maybe it asks the wrong question? — it asks if we (society) need prisons. Given that prison is only one of many possible penalties, it is difficult to justify the conclusion that lawbreaking leads us to "need" prisons.

[Pattern-chaser]

The delivery of justice requires at least 3 objectives to be fulfilled:

I don't believe justice requires any fixed objectives. Justice requires whatever the individual case requires, and each case is different. So the only fixed objective, the only mandatory requirement, is justice itself. All else is dependent on the individual case.

a) retribution
b) rehabilitation
c) deterrence

Play around with these three goals (of justice) and you'll realize how complex/complicated the issue is.

Those are not the goals of justice. Justice is itself the goal. You seem to be considering punishment (for law-breaking) here, not justice. Justice might well involve punishment, but the two are not the same thing.

[Agent Smyth]

The delivery of justice requires at least 3 objectives to be fulfilled:

I don't believe justice requires any fixed objectives. Justice requires whatever the individual case requires, and each case is different. So the only fixed objective, the only mandatory requirement, is justice itself. All else is dependent on the individual case.

a) retribution
b) rehabilitation
c) deterrence

Play around with these three goals (of justice) and you'll realize how complex/complicated the issue is.

Those are not the goals of justice. Justice is itself the goal. You seem to be considering punishment (for law-breaking) here, not justice. Justice might well involve punishment, but the two are not the same thing.

True, true. I made a noob mistake. Danke for the timely and to-the-point corrigenda.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Pattern-chaser

If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

I say this with friendly politeness, you will never persuade me (or anyone like me) to obey such rules.

Many times, when shamers, shoulders, or aggressively violent utilitarians start issuing their controlling commandments, if anything it only persuades me to do the opposite. For example, I probably wouldn't have smoked marijuana as often as I did if it wasn't illegal. There's a reason Cuban cigars are my favorite to smoke, and that is the reason.

Context: I/you/we live in a country, a nation. We live there together, often quite closely together.

I don't agree with that context/premise.

If two people (e.g. you and I) live together in a household, apartment complex, or even a small town, then we would live together closely. For instance, I live in Manchester, CT. There's about 50,000 people here. If you lived here, in Manchester, then you could say we live relatively closely together, although it wouldn't be nearly as close as we would be if lived in the same apartment building. And living in the same apartment building wouldn't be nearly as close as living together in the same apartment as actual roommates.

If we live together in the same state (e.g. Connecticut or England), but not the same town, then I think it's incorrect to say we live together anything close to closely.

If we merely live in the same federation of states (e.g. the USA or the EU), or under the jurisdiction of the UN, then I think it becomes even more ludicrous and misleading to say we live together closely.

I don't go into a restaurant with a "no shirts, no shoes, no service" policy without a shirt on. Likewise, I don't go into a "no shirts allows" restaurant with a shirt on. That would be trespassing among other things. As I wrote in my most recent topic about dangerous violent moral busybodies:

They distract themselves from their own messy backyard by trespassing on everyone else's, and demanding all yards be the exact same. But one man's clean is another man's dirty, and one man's trash is another man's treasure.

A world that is held to one control freak's version of clean treasure is a world that has much less beautiful treasure.

Peaceful diversity-appreciating freedom begets wealth, prosperity, and complex mutually beneficial order. When we live and let live, people most tend to live in the way that is best for them. And, insofar as they don't, the live-and-let-liver lets them. If they choose to have a messy trashy backyard, let them. Clean your own backyard, first. Then realize that yours is never perfectly clean, and there is always more cleaning to do, and thus realize that "first" means "always and only". Never trespass.

To truly and fully follow the principle of live and let live, never trespass.

Not for the greater good. Not for anything.

Be peaceful. Be loving. Fully and unconditionally accept what you cannot control. Or, in other words, proverbially, clean your own backyard, and never ever trespass.


[Read full post]

Although, an older topic I wrote about a similar subject is one I wrote in 2010 (13 years ago):

Can a roommate, condo community or town infringe freedom?


If I suddenly went nuts and went around shirtlessly trespassing in restaurants that don't allow shirtless people, I think it would be more than reasonable for me to be forcefully committed in Manchester Memorial Hospital, the place I was born, which is a about a 5 minute walk from my house. If it wasn't me doing the violent shirtless home invasions or the violent shirtless restaurant-trespassing, I'd probably help use defensive force to stop and incapacitate the crazy violent invader/trespasser and bring them to the hospital where they would be restrained. Again, the hospital is only a 5 minute walk from where I live. We wouldn't even need a car to bring this hypothetical crazy violent person there. There's not very many of them, though. Not locally. Most violent people seem to be smart enough to do it from afar, with hired hands. Rarely, the mob boss will come himself all the way to your house to break in and kill you. For those who would travel far to commit non-defensive violence against you, once they have to look you in the eyes sometimes they give it up for whatever reason, be it fear, compassion, or something else. While it made them quite rich, there's reasons the European monarchies were so much crueler to the people living in America and Africa than they were to the ones living closer, particularly in terms of who they enslaved and raped.

Or imprisoned.


***

If a citizen, any citizen, refuses to "obey such rules", they are subject to a penalty, a punishment.

Indeed, that's why there are, in fact, many pacifists in prison right now as you and I chat. Indeed, that's why Martin Luther King himself was arrested 29 times.

We agree very much about all that.

It's definitely what happens. A lot.

If you want a society with such rules (i.e. macro-criminalization of consensual crimes), your society will need prisons. You will need to use violence against pacifists, and other proud shameless peaceful rule-breakers like me.

You will also almost certainly need paid government agents to commit legal murders.

It seems impossible to have something like nationwide alcohol prohibition or a nationwide war on drugs like marijuana without having government agents legally murder people.

You can't really have large-scale state-sponsored non-defensive violence without legal murder. If your non-defensively violent government agents will only kick and punch but not kill, they won't get your job done. You can't have a huge Orwellian government without prisons and murder.

There is no way the European monarchies could have done imperialism and colonialism without legal murder. You got to do legal murder and imprisonment to make it work, at least at that scale.

Even Jesus got legally murdered. It's like big government statism 101.

You don't have to murder all the proud shameless rule-breakers like me. But you gotta murder some. The big government aggressively violent statism cannot work otherwise.

It is difficult to see why or how this might be wrong?

In the above sentence, I'm not sure what you mean by the word "this" or the word "wrong". If you don't mind, please define both and/or re-phrase the question, so that I can hopefully understand its meaning.


Thank you,
Scott

[LuckyR]

...this or that crime prevention technique can LOWER crime, BUT there still will be a need for prisons to address the issue of lawbreakers.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premises. Lawbreaking is an issue, but the penalty for breaking the law need not be imprisonment. There will presumably some form of penalty if the law is broken, and that penalty might be almost anything. Prison is one form of penalty, but recognising our need for penalties for lawbreakers does not automatically lead to a need for prisons, but only to a need for penalties of some sort.

The topic title does not ask if we need penalties for lawbreakers — maybe it should; maybe it asks the wrong question? — it asks if we (society) need prisons. Given that prison is only one of many possible penalties, it is difficult to justify the conclusion that lawbreaking leads us to "need" prisons.

True, though to be fair, I was agreeing with Belindi's observation that lower crime does not equal no crime so there will be a need for punishment (prisons and psychiatric treatment facilities by her estimation) regardless of the amount of effort put towards crime prevention.

Though since some of the crimes will be of the murder, rape and kidnapping variety, I am open to non prison alternatives you consider superior.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, LuckyR.

Thank you for your reply!

If you don't want to put rulebreakers in prison, what do you want to do with them?

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

I say this with friendly politeness, you will never persuade me (or anyone like me) to obey such rules.

Many times, when shamers, shoulders, or aggressively violent utilitarians start issuing their controlling commandments, if anything it only persuades me to do the opposite. For example, I probably wouldn't have smoked marijuana as often as I did if it wasn't illegal. There's a reason Cuban cigars are my favorite to smoke, and that is the reason.

I'm not religious at all, but one time I pledged that, if the USA government made Islam illegal or created a mandatory Muslim Registry, I would convert to Islam.

Alan Watts said that all the do-gooders are trouble-makers. As such, I enjoy putting myself in the way of do-gooders and violating their rules and commandments, be those moral laws enforced with shaming or superstition or such, or be they literal laws enforced with aggressive violence.

The second they make the rule, I am then thus more inclined to break it.

Don't walk on my lawn!

But seriously, it baffles me why some fail to grasp the reality that the act of creating rules simultaneously creates rulebreakers. What do you do with rulebreakers?

They murder or imprison them, typically. At least some of them.

The violent people can financially fine or enslave the peaceful rule-breakers (which is not to suggest that fines/taxes are necessarily different than slavery), but then doing the fining/enslaving is mostly just a turtle on top of a turtle because then the violent people have to deal with the peaceful rule-breakers who also refuse to pay the fine/tax or refuse to do the slave labor.

Granted, murdering or imprisoning a few as an example to get the others to fall in line can be an effective way to violently coerce many while only having to actually murder/imprison a few.

I think history shows big expensive governments don't tend to exercise such efficiency, though. With money they tend to spend more and more on ever-growing profitable plutocratic state-funded industrial complexes, and with murder they tend to gravitate closer to mass-murder and genocides and such, and more and more violent nanny statism and such, with more and more nationwide bans and more and more nationwide diversity-limiting violently enforced rules. I talk about how that's a feature not a bug of violent big government statism (and by extension all robbery-funded spending) in my topic, The Philosophy of Government Spending. Granted, much of it could just be summed with the two-word phrase, 'feedback loop' or the similar two-word phrase 'runaway process', or the one-word metaphor, 'cancer'.

Man isn't fit to govern man, but you give him an inch, and he will run with it. He'll run with it until he has a mile, and then a hundred miles. He will run with it until he has the world under his literally miserable thumb, and he will call himself the benevolent dictator. A hero. A hero who's ends justify his means.

Even Hitler thought he was the good guy.

There is no good guy. It's just a story some aggressively violent people tell themselves while they do their aggressive violence or violent world domination.

I oppose one murder for the same reason I oppose a hundred, or a whole genocide. I oppose one rape for the same reason I oppose a hundred rapes. When it comes to non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.), you will never hear me say anything like the ends justify the means or such, whatever that even means if anything. I imagine it's just a story, a narrative, a fiction. As with anything, it is what it is. I choose to not do it. I choose to not commit non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, and slavery).

Insofar as one defines a "rule" as something that is enforced with non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, and slavery), then I adamantly oppose all 'rules'. In other words, I oppose all non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, and slavery). In that way, I am an adamant peace-supporter and peace-lover.


Thank you,
Scott

[LuckyR]

Hi, LuckyR.

Thank you for your reply!

If possible, we would surely wish to persuade them not to break the rules any more?

I say this with friendly politeness, you will never persuade me (or anyone like me) to obey such rules.

Many times, when shamers, shoulders, or aggressively violent utilitarians start issuing their controlling commandments, if anything it only persuades me to do the opposite. For example, I probably wouldn't have smoked marijuana as often as I did if it wasn't illegal. There's a reason Cuban cigars are my favorite to smoke, and that is the reason.

I'm not religious at all, but one time I pledged that, if the USA government made Islam illegal or created a mandatory Muslim Registry, I would convert to Islam.

Alan Watts said that all the do-gooders are trouble-makers. As such, I enjoy putting myself in the way of do-gooders and violating their rules and commandments, be those moral laws enforced with shaming or superstition or such, or be they literal laws enforced with aggressive violence.

The second they make the rule, I am then thus more inclined to break it.

Don't walk on my lawn!

But seriously, it baffles me why some fail to grasp the reality that the act of creating rules simultaneously creates rulebreakers. What do you do with rulebreakers?

They murder or imprison them, typically. At least some of them.

The violent people can financially fine or enslave the peaceful rule-breakers (which is not to suggest that fines/taxes are necessarily different than slavery), but then doing the fining/enslaving is mostly just a turtle on top of a turtle because then the violent people have to deal with the peaceful rule-breakers who also refuse to pay the fine/tax or refuse to do the slave labor.

Granted, murdering or imprisoning a few as an example to get the others to fall in line can be an effective way to violently coerce many while only having to actually murder/imprison a few.

I think history shows big expensive governments don't tend to exercise such efficiency, though. With money they tend to spend more and more on ever-growing profitable plutocratic state-funded industrial complexes, and with murder they tend to gravitate closer to mass-murder and genocides and such, and more and more violent nanny statism and such, with more and more nationwide bans and more and more nationwide diversity-limiting violently enforced rules. I talk about how that's a feature not a bug of violent big government statism (and by extension all robbery-funded spending) in my topic, The Philosophy of Government Spending. Granted, much of it could just be summed with the two-word phrase, 'feedback loop' or the similar two-word phrase 'runaway process', or the one-word metaphor, 'cancer'.

Man isn't fit to govern man, but you give him an inch, and he will run with it. He'll run with it until he has a mile, and then a hundred miles. He will run with it until he has the world under his literally miserable thumb, and he will call himself the benevolent dictator. A hero. A hero who's ends justify his means.

Even Hitler thought he was the good guy.

There is no good guy. It's just a story some aggressively violent people tell themselves while they do their aggressive violence or violent world domination.

I oppose one murder for the same reason I oppose a hundred, or a whole genocide. I oppose one rape for the same reason I oppose a hundred rapes. When it comes to non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, slavery, etc.), you will never hear me say anything like the ends justify the means or such, whatever that even means if anything. I imagine it's just a story, a narrative, a fiction. As with anything, it is what it is. I choose to not do it. I choose to not commit non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, and slavery).

Insofar as one defines a "rule" as something that is enforced with non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, and slavery), then I adamantly oppose all 'rules'. In other words, I oppose all non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. murder, rape, and slavery). In that way, I am an adamant peace-supporter and peace-lover.


Thank you,
Scott

Nice summary, yet ultimately incomplete. Let me close the loop. What is your plan to address those individuals who perform non-consensual non-defensive violence upon others? I'm already familiar with the current state of affairs, but I'm certain you've got some thoughtful ideas.