Sunday, February 12, 2012

Rules of the Road


Twice in the past few days I have heard ships in the Bay sound five short horn blasts - an unmistakable warning of danger, or at least doubt about another vessel's actions that could very quickly lead to danger.

I bring this up - regretfully - because a recent comment thread got out of hand. A regular commenter left in disgust, and I had to call out another regular commenter by name. Arguably I have no one to blame but myself: The Internet is not renowned for an elevated level of discourse, and this blog has touched on both politics and religion, famously explosive topics.

But so far I have never elfed a commenter, nor intentionally deleted a comment that was not obvious spam. (Ugg boots, fake Swiss watches; that sort of thing.) I hope I never have to, but I'll do so if it becomes the only way to keep the comment threads from degenerating.


A secondary note on politics. I am, by 'Murrican standards, a center-lefty - I supported Hillary in the 2008 primaries, but am now an enthusiastic supporter of President Clinton Obama [typos can be sooo awkward!]. I refrain from censoring contrary views, and (usually?) from pushing my own - doing so would impoverish the blog. It does become frustrating when rival positions are expounded so much in comments as to become a sort of implicit misrepresentation of the blog's Official Position.

Having said this, I will not actually promulgate Rules of the Road here, because I don't want to get bogged down in sub-paragraphs and all that. On the whole, you who comment here have set a pretty damn good example, and on the whole I commend all of you.


So carry on ... with a modicum of good sense.




The image of the liner Andrea Doria sinking after a collision was snapped by famed photographer Harry A. Trask.

54 comments:

Tony said...

Rick,

I'm not going to say you're being unfair on all the rest. Your blog, you rules.

However, you've put me in tough spot of personal honor, and I'm going to challenge it, come what may.

You said:

"your apparent eagerness to defend the slave system of the antebellum South is ... a bit creepy."

I wasn't defending slavery. I was defending a historically accurate recognition that it was not the sole fault of the South. The North subsidized it and benefitted from it as well. The North compromised on it in the Declaration of Independence, in the Constitution, and in the legislature throughout the first half of the 19th Century.

For that reason, and for the reason that both sides paid enough in the Civil War and its aftermath, I'd rather neither side was demonized. It's not honest, IMO. That's all.

I await your judgment.

Rick said...

I'm not a judge.

From my (very limited!) reading, there was considerable abolitionist sentiment in the South up to 1830 or a bit later. Then the position of the Southern economic and political elite steadily hardened.

Yes, as the saying goes, it is very hard for people to understand arguments that their income depends on their not understanding. Those elites painted themselves into a corner, then tried to shoot their way out of it.

For anyone who wants to pursue this question more deeply, I strongly recommend reading Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic magazine. (Not the whole subject of his blog, but he touches on it regularly.) He makes a pretty damn heroic intellectual effort to go beyond his own context and feelings on this subject.

But the core issue that led to this post is seeing commenters driven away by other commenters' tone. Which directly damages this blog.

Tony said...

Rick:

"But the core issue that led to this post is seeing commenters driven away by other commenters' tone. Which directly damages this blog."

I agree wholeheartedly.

I came up in a lot harder school than many people. That's not an excuse -- it's just a fact. What I would consider spirited give and take is not what other people consider my behavior to be. Often I come across as arrogant and intolerant. In that respect, and with absolute sincerity: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I'm not going to make promises that would seem insincere and which many wouldn't believe anyway. But I do hope for a less contentious future on thes comment threads. I further hope that is an acceptable sentiment.

Oh, and one other thing, to Damien Sullivan, personally: I was a big cOck and you deserve an apology. I got carried away with myself and forgot that if I expect people to give me credit for sincerity and honesty, I need to do the same for them. So, I apologize, to you and to the contributors as a whole for being such an inexcusable jerk.

Anonymous said...

On a lighter note, can someone explain the me the origin of the word "elf" in the context of banning people from a site? I've never heard it before.

Anonymous said...

Oops, that was me (Milo).

Rick said...

Tony - Thank you. I hope everyone will put this behind us.


Milo - I'm not sure where I picked it up, but probably on Compuserve forums, back in the day. I'm not sure how widespread it ever was, or if anyone else uses it now.

The connection to Elves, I have no idea. Maybe because people who got elfed vanished into the West?

Anonymous said...

"I supported Hillary in the 2008 primaries, but am now an enthusiastic supporter of President Clinton."

Is that supposed to be "Obama"?

--Linguofreak

Christopher Phoenix said...

Rick, if you're center-lefty, do you support that odious specter known as "gun control", more properly called "the disproven hypothesis that banning the lawful ownership of firearms will somehow lower crime rates"?

I've grown up around firearms, especially the so-called "black rifles". Lots of handguns, as well. I'm not a hunter or a sport shooter, just an armed civilian. I don't believe we should hand over our means to defend ourselves for a false feeling of security.

My feelings on this matter go beyond wanting to protect that my right to own and carry weapons. The derogatory, hateful words gun-control advocates use to criticize citizens who happen to own firearms is bigotry, and I don't like bigots.

I know that this tends to be a REALLY explosive topic, and I apologize in advance if my comment starts a "flame war". This topic is important in terms of science fiction, though, since many science fiction stories portray armed societies.

Right now, I'm reading Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters. The citizens in this story are very heavily armed, and no-one disputes their right to carry weapons. After the humans become aware of the invasion, groups of ray-gun wielding nude vigilantes patrol the streets and burn down anyone who is sporting a suspicious-looking hump that might be a slug. The military and police are mostly glad to have extra help, even if the volunteers are somewhat trigger-happy. (I still find the image of those two police officers wearing nothing but their gun belts- their badge is pinned to the belt- hilarious!!)

NEVER ENTER A DARK PLACE!
BE WARY OF CROWDS!
A MAN WEARING A COAT IS AN ENEMY- SHOOT!


This set me thinking about the differences of viewpoint between those who believe the every human has the inalienable right to own a deadly weapon- be it a flintlock musket or a phaser- and people who believe that nobody should own a firearm.

"Anti-gunners" generally believe that the government can and will take care of them in all circumstances, and that owning a gun won't help you no matter what the circumstance. This is obviously not true- just ask anyone who has had to shoot to defend themselves in a situation where they would obviously not be alive if they hadn't. Many anti-gunners also seem to think that society will always be stable and the government will always show up to rescue them in a disaster- which history, sadly, shows to generally not be the case.

Most armed civilians agree that you can't rely on the police being available to protect you, nor that it is guaranteed that society will always be stable. Their attitude is, "If I encounter trouble, i will do what I can do to help others and survive," not "I'll wait for the police or National Guard to save me, and I'll just sit here helplessly in the meantime." The government actually doesn't want you to have the "helpless dependent" mindset, since you have to survive long enough for the National Guard to show up in the first place, and that takes some survival skills!!

Don't get me wrong- I'm not a "survivalist". I don't think society is on the verge of a total breakdown or something like that. I simply believe in having at least some survival skills in this often hostile world- and having the means to defend yourself when it is necessary.

On top of all that, I just plain enjoy shooting.

Peace and love, everyone- please don't start a flame ware.

Tony said...

Re: Christopher Phoenix

Wow...

I didn't exactly grow up with guns, but I was exposed to them in my youth. As a Marine I was certainly exposed to them -- they were the tools of my everyday work. (Not that we really shot them all that much, even in combat.) I've owned all kinds of guns that are legal for civilians to possess, from revolvers to semi-auto versions of military assault rifles.

Having said all of that, my opinions of gun politics in the US are these:

Rabid gun control advocates are pathological nuts.

Rabid right-to-keep-and-bear-arms advocates are pathologically nuts.

Gun control propaganda is dishonest and disingenuous claptrap.

Gun rights propaganda is dishonest and disingenuous claptrap.

Add to that that gun magazines and gun writers are shills for the firearms manufacturers, wihtout exception.

The position of guns in American society and law has everything to do with our particular social and cultural development, not with any original sin or special virtue of Americans or the American system.
I'd like Americans to always be able to own and use guns for their own personal purposes, to the degree that they don't infringe on others' rights. It's a part of our cultural heritage, if nothing else. But I'm heartily tired of all of the sturm und drang.

Anonymous said...

=Milo=



Christopher Phoenix:

For me, there is the simple fact that I would not feel comfortable carrying a deadly weapon around everywhere I go. And a weapon which I don't have on my person most of the time isn't very useful, since I'll probably not have it the one hypothetical time in my life that I actually need it.

I was going to say more, but thought better of it. Instead, on a safer topic:


"This topic is important in terms of science fiction, though, since many science fiction stories portray armed societies."

Libertarians-in-SPACE! settings like to give everyone their own raygun, and post-apocalyptic settings necessarily have widespread armed civilians due to the lack of a government, but is private gun ownership really common elsewhere? Most stories I've seen or heard about seem happy featuring real soldiers when they want to have some violence.

Whether personal firearms are legal or not, only a rich government can afford a space armada, and that's what many authors want to write about anyway.

Eth said...

Re: Christopher Phoenix

As said Tony, Wow...

I grew up in a country where guns are quite heavily regulated. 'Heavily' also meaning, lots of files and other papers to fill, particularly for the most powerful weapon categories (assault rifles like the M-16 are downright forbidden).
I also grew up with guns. Hunting rifles, competition rifles and pistols... (And more recently, black-powder and WWII weapons).
From there, gun-control extremists (those wanting to forbid any firearm possession, be it for hunting or sport shooting) look like silly nuts who prefer simple solutions to effective ones, at least I can understand why they think that (and why they are wrong).
But they are rare, and are generally using that as another way to try and forbid hunting completely.

But for right-to-keep-and-bear-arms extremists, they seem, lacking of a better term ... alien. We just don't understand that there.
Allowing people to possess hunting and sport firearms is understandable. But allowing people to possess weapons of war, and worse, to carry them?
The mindset here is that if no-one is allowed to freely carry weapons (you have to lock them for that), or possess weapons intended to kill (as opposed to hunting, sport or historical interest), and that weapons are heavily regulated, then you'll see far less firearm violence.
And don't think that insecurity isn't a concern. It is even a major theme politicians are using in their campaigns.
Not so long ago, there was a fight between dealers near a school, with an AK-47. The use of an assault rifle near a school was so shocking for some that the mayor asked the government to send the army to patrol in the streets. It was seen as kind of an exaggeration (and it was refused), but still, it gives the kind of mindset we have with people carrying firearms here.

So when I say that it's alien seen from there, I mean it. We simply don't understand how free circulation of weapons of war can solve anything, it's plain incomprehensible for us.
I discussed with people of all political horizons (moderates and extremists), but I never met anyone in western Europe who was in favour of letting people carry ready firearms.

And even if this is a cultural difference, we also have a hard time understanding where it is coming from. The right to rise against an inacceptable government? My country had three revolutions, a downright genocidal civil war with the first one, and two occupation with resistance movements (though the first one was more individual 'franc-tireurs').
The insecurity? As I said, it's a major electoral concern. And there are firefight between police and criminals, and not only in the most insecure suburbs.
The random shootings? We didn't have one yet in a school, but some years ago, someone attacked a municipal council with a SMG killing several people, which was quite a shock.

jollyreaper said...

The gun control debate is an interesting one. I'm sympathetic to the idea of self-defense and personal protection. At the same time, I'm leery of just handing the things out like candy because some people are clearly not qualified to own such a dangerous piece of equipment. But it's impossible to even have a debate on the topic. Witness this story here:

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/03/10/house-republican-caught-on-tape-jokes-of-give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic-bill/

A snafu during a legislative debate where a microphone was turned on captured banter between two Iowa GOP leaders, who also joked about a “give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic bill.”

Republicans this week revived a proposal that would allow Iowans to carry weapons in public without permission from a sheriff, without background checks and without training requirements.

The legislation, House Study bill 219, is known as “Alaska carry,” which is law in Alaska, Arizona, Vermont and Wyoming. Rep. Erik Helland, R-Johnston, is listed as one of the three legislators on a subcommittee assigned the bill.

Helland is the House majority whip. Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who made the schizophrenic remark, is the speaker pro tem. Also in the conversation is Rep. Steve Lukan, R-New Vienna who is also an assistant majority leader.

The conversation begins with jokes between the members that they’re going to pull Rep. Ron Jorgenson, R-Sioux City, from leading debate on House File 525, a controversial union collective bargaining bill. Debate halted for more than two hours because of a technical issue that the representatives joked was Jorgenson’s fault.

ve Deyoe, R-Nevada, explains the problem.

Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton: I bet nobody’s told poor Jorgenson.

Rep. Steve Lukan, R-New Vienna: I told him this is all his own fault.

Kaufmann: Tell him it’s his fault and we don’t appreciate anything that he’s done up to this point.

Lukan: Damnit, Ron, we’re going to yank you off this bill.

Kaufmann: Ya, the hell with you. You haven’t been doing jack s—.

Rep. Erik Helland, R-Johnston: What?

Kaufmann: Jorgenson, we’re yanking him off the bill. The hell with him. He hasn’t been doing anything.

Lukan: He should have seen this coming.

Helland: You know what that means? It means I’m going to end up stuck with the bill?

Kaufmann: Sounds like you’re getting out of the Alaska bill.

Helland: Oh yeah, I’m getting out of it after I end up on a blog.

Lukan: The Alaska bill – what’s the Alaska bill?

Helland. I’m the dirty hatchet man for the caucus. Something nobody wants to do. Some dirty, nasty job. I’m the one who gets dropped in you know why, ’cause I’m expendable.

Kaufmann: The crazy, give-a-handgun-to-a-schizophrenic bill.

Off camera: His microphone is on.


Now there are going to be responsible, sober, level-headed people in every field of interest. There are also going to be obsessive nuts. I go to the gym. There are a lot of regular people there trying to do their thing. There's also a strong contingent of tattooed lunkheads who bro-out with the 'roids and grunting and dropping weights. They never rerack the equipment and are annoying. If the 'roids shrivel their gonads and they die young from heart failure, that doesn't affect me. Gun fetishists who use a lethal weapon to compensate for personal insecurity, whose advocates admit that they're letting crazy people get weapons, now the bad behavior is dangerous to me. I'm not concerned over getting shot by a responsible owner.

Stepping aside from power fantasies and hand-wringing, the real question is whether having a lethal weapon is a privilege or a right. Driving is considered a privilege. Drive drunk and you will lose it. And this can deprive a man of his livelihood, a far more immediate threat than deterring a hypothetical burglar.

Sean said...

Whilst personally I appreciate the right of people being able to defend themselves, at the same time I don't quite understand the need to own an automatic firearm to accomplish that job. To this foreign outsider who's never visited the United States it just seems anachronistic to me that you have a modern society with a military and police forces whilst at the same time you're carrying the vestiges of another time, and another society altogether really.

I really do imagine if Patrick Henry were to step through a time machine and saw that people were arming themselves with guns that could easily shoot off over a 100 rounds a minute, he'd be a little disturbed. Especially considering that the United States is no longer at any risk of invasion, and probably never will be.

That's just my tuppence worth. And now moving back into the realms of science fiction. To begin with libertarian in space makes no sense - building a wagon and heading out west isn't the same feat as building an interstellar spacecraft and colonizing an alien planet populated by strange and wonderful creatures. However, I think it would be bizarre if the colonists weren't properly armed to defend themselves from whatever threats that may exist.

But that scenario only applies to that setting. It'd be difficult to justify why colonists bound for Mars would need automatic rifles. Have the dust storms been getting angsty?

Anonymous said...

=Milo=



Eth:

"The right to rise against an inacceptable government?"

If you don't have the resources and talent to set up an arms smuggling operation, you probably don't have the resources and talent to overthrow an established military, either.

Christopher Phoenix said...

I see that I've managed to stir up some polite controversy.

Tony:

"Rabid gun control advocates are pathological nuts.

Rabid right-to-keep-and-bear-arms advocates are pathologically nuts.

Gun control propaganda is dishonest and disingenuous claptrap.

Gun rights propaganda is dishonest and disingenuous claptrap.

Add to that that gun magazines and gun writers are shills for the firearms manufacturers, wihtout exception."


Quite true- zealots on both sides of the argument are both dishonest. As for gun magazines- if someone relies on those as their source of information, they are probably doomed. Gun writers propagate quite a few myths, including the "magic bullet" myth- I can't think of any more since I don't read gun magazines.

Eth:

"So when I say that it's alien seen from there, I mean it. We simply don't understand how free circulation of weapons of war can solve anything, it's plain incomprehensible for us."

Referring to civilian firearm ownership as "free circulation of weapons of war" is a bit extreme. I also note the frequent use of the pronoun "us"- in the United States, the individual decides he/she will do so long as their actions don't infringe on the rights of those around them. In the country you grew up in (I'm guessing it is France?) it seems that "we" decide what restrictions shall be applied to "you" for the safety of "everyone"- which is just as alien to me as my beliefs are to you.

For most people in the U.S., the ownership of firearms is representative of personal responsibility. I feel much safer in a society where many people have seen, handled and understand firearms than I would if (as is the case in some neighborhoods) firearms are portrayed as items of mystery, fear, and glamour- glamour that can draw some people into danger. Young people who have their first exposure to firearms "on the street" are much more likely to use a firearm unsafely- or even in a crime- than is someone who has been taught proper firearm safety from a responsible adult.

Individual reasons for possession of firearms include shooting as a hobby, self defense, hunting, and competition- but as I explained above, the individual decides what he/she wants to do, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others. You don't have to give "reasons" for wishing to possess a firearm in the United States, as you would have to do in some countries. If you decide that you wish to possess a firearm, you can obtain one. As long as you don't pose a threat to anyone else, no one is worried about you possessing a firearm. I'm quite content with this arrangement, and I've never seen any violence in my neighborhood.

I notice that the "control civilian ownership of firearms strictly" mindset didn't stop the dealers from obtaining an AK-47 and using it in a street fight- if your local news identified the firearm correctly. Most newscasters I've seen couldn't identify a shotgun if they found one in a labeled box.

Damien Sullivan said...

Americans generally can't own automatic weapons, the ones that shoot as long as you hold down the trigger, like machine guns. They can get semi-automatics, which shoot once per pull without having to manually 'cock' or move the chamber or something. Big difference.

As for gun control, I'm meh. The US has lots more gun murders, but I've seen data that the US has more *non-gun* murders than other countries have murders (per capita), suggesting that the problem is not that we have so many guns but that Americans are that violent and prone to killing each other. Of course, one could retort that such a violent population shouldn't be let loose with guns.

Finland and Switzerland have lots of guns and low crime; OTOH, I've seen a claim that if you control for other social factors, which ends up comparing Finland to say Singapore, gun ownership becomes a significant predictor of violence again. I don't have a source, though.

Also, there's whether we're talking handguns or long guns. The latter have a lot more justification for farmers fending off wildlife, or for hunters, and less use in crime; the former would fit more for self-defense, but are also crime friendly. And AIUI it's in handgun ownership that the USA is particularly exceptional. So raw statistics of "gun ownership" may be useless

Damien Sullivan said...

Tony, thanks for the apology.

Tony said...

Damien Sullivan:

"Tony, thanks for the apology."

No thanks necessary -- it was your's by right. I effed up.

Christopher Phoenix said...

jollyreaper:

The gun control debate is an interesting one. I'm sympathetic to the idea of self-defense and personal protection. At the same time, I'm leery of just handing the things out like candy because some people are clearly not qualified to own such a dangerous piece of equipment.

I totally agree!! I stated before the ownership of firearms requires personal responsibility. If you don't have that responsibility, than you are not qualified to own a device that can instantly maim or kill with a squeeze of the trigger...

Most worryingly, it seems that professional soldiers can prove to be totally unqualified to possess a firearm. This recent story of a Navy Seal accidentally shooting himself in the head demonstrates that. Navy SEAL Geno Clayton apparently didn't think the firearm safety rules applied to HIM. If you can't think clearly, don't pull out a firearm. NEVER, under any circumstances, do you point the muzzle of a firearm at anything you do not want to kill or destroy, especially your own body parts!!!

Perhaps this accident was caused by cockiness- if you think you are a big, mean, super soldier hotshot, you might think the rules don't apply to you anymore- and I'm sure that the alcohol contributed to Mr. Clayton's lack of judgement. Cocky idiots who think they are some big deal are much more likely to pose a hazard to themselves and others. Cautious shooters- especially women- are much safer to be around.

On the flip side, we have the situations where people have no knowledge of firearms and end up in a dangerous situation because of it. This includes situations where someone finds a firearm but does not know how ensure it is unloaded, or even shootings where the victims heard the gunshots approaching but do not recognize the sounds they hear as small arms fire because they think firearms go "boom boom" like in the movies. I hear that one director used the sound clip of a cannon firing, an honest-to-Johnny artillery piece, for a pistol shot!!

The bottom line is that there are rules that apply to all ranged weapons. Always treat all firearms as though they are loaded. Never let the muzzle cover anything you do not want to destroy. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire. Always be sure of your target and what lies beyond it. Never use a firearm until you are familiar with how it works. THIS MEANS YOU. It doesn't matter if you are a super-soldier or a firearms instructor- you ignore these rules at your peril (and the peril of those around you!!).

We can't expect to halt these firearm accidents by punishing responsible firearm owners for the lack of judgement of a few. Safeties and trigger locks can't compensate for human stupidity. The only way to really prevent unsafe use of firearms is to spread awareness of proper firearms use, through safety classes, manuals, etc. The NRA has been driving down the number of firearm accidents that involve children with their Eddie Eagle program for years.

One final firearm rule: Never give a chimpanzee a firearm. EVER.

Damien Sullivan said...

"I wasn't defending slavery. I was defending a historically accurate recognition that it was not the sole fault of the South. The North subsidized it and benefitted from it as well. The North compromised on it in the Declaration of Independence, in the Constitution, and in the legislature throughout the first half of the 19th Century."

That's all true. It's also true that many Northern opponents of slavery cared less about the blacks and more about having to compete with unpaid labor. And that some slave states (though not with many slaves) stayed in the Union, and Northern states had had slavery in their past. And that the Union was fighting for unification not abolition, especially in Lincoln's words, though I don't know what Union troops thought.

That said, it's also true that the "Civil War" wasn't actually a civil war, a struggle between two factions for control of the country; it was a rebellion, or more precisely, secession. It's also true that the seceding states were the ones that actually owned almost all the slaves, and only substantially slave owning states seceded, and they seceded explicitly in defense of their rights to own slaves in the face of what they perceived as Northern threats. It's in their secession statements and their Constitution.

So I don't think "Slavers' Rebellion" is demonization at all. It's just uncomfortably honest for people who'd rather romanticize their ancestors or the cause of rebellion against US government.

But between this and the externalities argument, it seems Tony has an idiosyncratic view of collective benefit and responsibility that underlies disagreement.

====

Also, thanks for stepping in, Rick.

Damien Sullivan said...

"If you don't have that responsibility, than you are not qualified to own a device that can instantly maim or kill with a squeeze of the trigger..."

And how will society judge that responsibility and prevent people without it from having firearms? There are ways, but they fall under "gun control", which is *not* limited only to "banning guns will prevent crime".

As for resisting an oppressive government, I dunno. Supposedly the Nazis disarmed population. But Saddam Hussein's Iraq was pretty well armed. And the young US had help from the French. I'd imagine mass conscription might help actually, preventing the military from being a closed class separate from the people, but of course dictatorships have had conscript armies; OTOH, the Egyptian one refused to fire. And we're asking how to keep a democracy from turning bad, not how to overthrow dictatorship from scratch.

The utility of mass armament in resisting oppression seems possible but not all that relevant to real world cases.

Tony said...

Damien Sullivan:

"But between this and the externalities argument, it seems Tony has an idiosyncratic view of collective benefit and responsibility that underlies disagreement."

I wouldn't call it idiosynchratic. I know plenty of people who think the same way. The basic rule for me is that if everyone is in the same boat, no matter how indirectly, apportioning blame is ummmm...supect, at best. Going back to the fossil fuel economy, we all eat food, use electrical power, buy retail goods, etc. We're all in the game, so it makes no sense to engage in a finger-pointing exercise.

The same goes for the American Civil War -- nearly all Americans either profitted from slavery or used its products, right up until the war began. It was the American original sin. The United States as a whole, not just the South, was to blame for making it such an integral part of the Southern economy that fighting over its end was nigh inevitable.

The funny thing is that this stirkes you as such a shocking and/or idiotic idea. It's been pretty much the standard narrative all of my life, for much better reasons than just excusing historical figures. To the contrary, it was developed to apportion responsibility where reesponsibility was due, everywhere it was due. The idea isn't to excuse the South, but to stop letting the North off of the hook.

Tony said...

Damien Sullivan:

"But Saddam Hussein's Iraq was pretty well armed."

Friends of the regime were pretty well armed. The explosion of military weapons in society post-Iraqi Freedom had to do with Hussein caching weapons and ammo all over the country in schools and other public buildings, then failing to secure those caches.

"And the young US had help from the French."

Monetary support only until after the battle of Saratoga, and then mostly Naval support until the final campaign in 1781.

"I'd imagine mass conscription might help actually, preventing the military from being a closed class separate from the people, but of course dictatorships have had conscript armies; OTOH, the Egyptian one refused to fire."

The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (talk about irony in nomenclature) had no trouble firing in 1989. It all depends on a nation's relationship with government authority, and what the army thinks its responsibilities are in that respect. IOW, its pretty mcuh cultural and situational.

"And we're asking how to keep a democracy from turning bad, not how to overthrow dictatorship from scratch.

The utility of mass armament in resisting oppression seems possible but not all that relevant to real world cases."


I thin what a lot of gun rights advocates miss is that private firearms ownership was only ever meant to be a deterrent to government excess. If revolution ever became necessary, things would be on a different basis.

jollyreaper said...

As far as holding off a real army, civilians with guns can defeat a poorly led state power but not one that is well-per and ruthless. Witness Chechnya at war with Yeltsin and Putin.

Civil wars turn on who controls the army and what they can be convinced to do.

Much as the bombings and sniping sucked, the Iraqis weren't sending us home until we were ready to leave. I question how much of the war expense was true cost and how much was just an excuse to loot the treasury. Would the costs be the same bang for the buck or greater bang if the existence of the nation were at stake?

Thucydides said...

I'm not sure where the "heavily armed society=libertarian trope came from. Libertarians are for very limited government with very clearly defined roles and responsibilities (most disagreements among libertarians concerns which roles and responsibilities and how far the State can go to discharge these).

Since the basic common denominator for libertarians is Free Speech and association, protection of person and property rights and a neutral arbitrator for disputes; a professional military and police force are at least implied.

You can debate if the form of the libertarian military should be the Swiss citizen militia or the US Marines, and should the police resemble Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, or New Scotland Yard, and rightly so. Different conditions will produce different answers.

The Second Amendment was written at a time when the "force to space" ratio in the Americas was wildly unbalanced, and having a local armed militia to keep the peace and repel invaders was about the only way to ensure territorial integrity, and the saying "when seconds count, the police are minutes away" was a huge understatment. As well, in then recent US history, the British had garrisoned military forces in towns and cities in order to overawe the local citizenry.

Today, the idea of a territorial militia might still make sense as first responders, but the modalities of warfare have changed so much that extensive training and special equipment would be needed for them to be an effective force.

Being able to protect yourself from crime is a valid reason to use force, but I am of the opinion that you still need training and practice to effectively use force in self defense (even martial arts, much less firearms). Demonstrating proficiency is a good way to weed out unstable individuals, but nothing will be 100% effective in preventing misuse of firearms (or any other means of dealing force). Still, a blanket ban does nothing to stop criminal activity, nor would a fully armed citizenry.

As for preventing an oppressive government from overawing the population, in practice handguns and even light assault rifles would have a very limited effect; if I wanted to overawe the population I would park tanks on the street corners and have armed helicopters overhead. Unless your gun store stocks RPG's, you will be on the wrong end of the curve. So long as the occupying power had the will to remain, even extended insurgency would not do (the former USSR fought various insurgencies in the Ukraine from 1919 to 1949). The key here is the will of the occupying power, and a bloody minded one can stay forever. The Romans were particularly good at this: solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

jollyreaper said...


I wouldn't call it idiosynchratic. I know plenty of people who think the same way. The basic rule for me is that if everyone is in the same boat, no matter how indirectly, apportioning blame is ummmm...supect, at best. Going back to the fossil fuel economy, we all eat food, use electrical power, buy retail goods, etc. We're all in the game, so it makes no sense to engage in a finger-pointing exercise.


You can't say we're all in the same game if we're denied any means of effectively making a choice. That's like saying I'm choosing to go with a monolithic telecomm when my only choices are a) ATT b) Comcast or c) doing without. Saying that's a free market is like saving the Soviet Union had free elections because the citizens get to choose between Party Apparatchik 1 and Party Apparatchik 2.

And, quite frankly, the more usual metaphor is "we're all in the same boat" and that is manifestly not the case when the captain has the choice of abandoning ship in a save and seaworthy private launch and the crew is left to fend for themselves.

What's good for GM ain't always good for the US of A. What's good for Wall Street is never good for America.

I like the recent story about Monsanto not serving GMO food in their cafeteria. What do they know that we don't?

Tony said...

jollyreaper:

It's really hard to not get personal when people use Us the People vs. Them the Establishment rhetoric. I simply don't believe that all points of view are equal. I certainly don't believe your point of view is credible in any way, shape, or form.

But, trying to be reasonable, I'll simply point out to you that the lack of choice doesn't have anything to do with an eeevul plot, but everything to do with what works at our level of development, given our desire to enjoy things that we enjoy. Nobody has a choice because we, as a society, want what we want.

Thucydides said...

You can choose to go live in the mountains, or try to live off the grid with your own greenhouse, windmill etc. Some actually do, but it is not an easy or popular choice, and the irony is the more "self sufficient" you intend to be, the more you will require the high tech products of industrial, fossil fueled civilization. Those carbon fiber windmill blades and AC alternator didn't come off trees...

Plan "B" would be to fully embrace the neolithic lifestyle, but even then you might have to spend a lot of time on the 'net to learn the basics of flint knapping, spearing and butchering game and what plants are non toxic before you head out into the wild.

Rick said...

Yes, I meant to say President Obama, not Clinton! (Though it should surprise no one that I also supported him.)

Flame ware - is that a ceramic pot you can put directly on the fire? (The rule against calling attention to typos has an entertainment-value exception!)

As for gun control, the arguments have been fairly fully aired here, a free service by commenters. Philosophically I don't think regulation of weapons precludes a free society, and they would be very tightly regulated in space. I don't own a gun, but regret that my grandfather's guns were sold when I was too young to object.

As a practical political matter, gun control is such a nonstarter that I spend no mental energy on it.

Anonymous said...

The only reason that you'd bring M-16 or AK-47 variants to Mars would be that you'd think that the other group of colonists did. Unfortunantly, that isn't outside the bounds of possibility. :(

Ferrell

Christopher Phoenix said...

Rick:

"Philosophically I don't think regulation of weapons precludes a free society, and they would be very tightly regulated in space."

What exactly do you mean by regulation of weapons? Do you mean an all-out ban or only a ban on particularly nasty or dangerous weapons? In my mind, whether regulation of certain kinds of weapons precludes a free society depends partly on the spirit in which the regulation is done.

If certain weapons are banned simply because they are felt to be to barbaric or dangerous, that doesn't interfere with the right to bear arms. Modern militaries today are subject to such rulings. Hollow-point bullets, cheap laser blinders, and nerve gas are all banned under the Geneva conventions. There are some weapons that that we don't want anyone to have.

The United Federation of Planets should attempt to regulate or ban really nasty weapons or really dangerous weapons. This includes chemical agents and biological weapons, self-replicating weapons, etc. As far as personal arms go, it is best that you can't buy torture weapons, handguns that shoot capsules filled with nerve agents, thought-controlled explosive that could level a skyscraper, nanotechnology weapons, assassination weapons, etc. Personal possession of a phaser isn't the same as carrying around mechanical insects filled with botulism or a nerve disruptor designed for torturing people to death!!

That's enough political discussion. Back to the science fiction!

On reflection, the assumption that weapons will be totally unavailable in space may be wrong. Sure, you won't be able to get a rocket launcher or an assault rifle on a near-future spaceship. But what about concealable weapons, hidden weapons, weapons that don't look like weapons, weapons that break down into several innocuous looking items, etc.? Maybe that gold pen, a piece of my shoe, and that belt buckle that is actually a miniature power pack fit together into a lethal ultrasonic disruptor. That camera lens and pill box screw together to form a short ranged laser cutter that can slice a person in two. The floss in my bag is actually razor-edge monofilament wire. The possibilities are endless.

Astronauts already carry small personal items, items that might actually be hidden weapons on a future spaceship. You don't need something with great range or destructive power- just a weapon that can be used to incapacitate or kill operating personnel or guards. The element of surprise will help. Those space guards could be in for a nasty surprise when they go to fetch the Evil Asteroid Pirates from the brig, if they didn't check their prisoners carefully enough!!

Flame ware- how did I miss that spelling error???

longbeast said...

I'll make a brief appearance here to point out how gun regulation works where I live.

(I know perfectly well that trying to apply this kind of solution over in the US would fail miserably, and only serve to infuriate people. Just saying it works here.)

A complete ban is only reserved for really dangerous stuff, like assault rifles or disguised weapons. Everything else is permitted, but only if the user is a) licensed b) follows the legally required steps to secure the weapon and c) the owner can demonstrate that they still have the weapon if asked.

You have to have a bolted down and lockable safe box to store a weapon and ammo. If you don't have a secure place to store it, you're not allowed a gun. A criminal who wants a weapon should not be able to steal one from a legitimate owner.

You're not allowed to lose your gun. It doesn't matter whether you've just carelessly left it lying around, or whether you've sold it on the black market, either way you've been incredibly irresponsible with something lethal, and it's a punishable offense.

The basic theme is: guns do not move around without the paperwork.

Tony said...

longbeast:

"The basic theme is: guns do not move around without the paperwork."

The problem with such an "alles in ordnung" type system is that it's too sensitive to personal whim. Civil servants who have personal animosities towards guns, gun owners, or both would be able to make gun ownership almost impossible, within their own jurisdictions.

M. D. Van Norman said...

I suppose that December can’t get here soon enough.

Anonymous said...

=Milo=



longbeast:

"Everything else is permitted, but only if the user is a) licensed b) follows the legally required steps to secure the weapon and c) the owner can demonstrate that they still have the weapon if asked."

What are the rules on carrying it in public? (As opposed to keeping it locked in a box until you arrive at the sport shooting range, or the like.)


"You have to have a bolted down and lockable safe box to store a weapon and ammo. [...] A criminal who wants a weapon should not be able to steal one from a legitimate owner."

A sufficiently talented criminal can pry open a bolted down and lockable safe box.

Granted, this will at least stop pretty criminals.

Anonymous said...

M.D.Van Norman said:"I suppose that December can’t get here soon enough."

That reminds me, I need to find a new Mayan calender; the old one only has 10 months left on it...

Ferrell

Rick said...

By 'regulation' I broadly mean keeping track of weapons and how they are being kept. (I think the Swiss have really strict rules in this respect.) Banning certain classes of weapons is part of it, I suppose.

But really I haven't thought much about how gun regulation 'should' work, because in the US it is such a culture war issue.

longbeast said...

Civil servants who have personal animosities towards guns, gun owners, or both would be able to make gun ownership almost impossible, within their own jurisdictions.

That doesn't happen much with licensing and sale regulation, partly because it's simply not a political issue here. It's not even a minor political issue. However... see below.

What are the rules on carrying it in public? (As opposed to keeping it locked in a box until you arrive at the sport shooting range, or the like.)

This one depends on intent. You are allowed to carry a weapon in public if you have some reasonable purpose for doing so. If you're openly carrying a loaded weapon, and you try to claim you're just transporting it to somewhere else, that's not going to be considered reasonable, because it doesn't need to be loaded for that. "Just in case" is never accepted as a reasonable purpose. In practice this means that openly carrying weapons in urban areas is flat out banned. Out in the country nobody cares very much.

M. D. Van Norman said...

Ferrell, I was referring to the end of the current election cycle, but the end of the Mayan calendar will do as well. ;-)

As for gun control, it is already a fool’s errand. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation that with minimal maintenance will continue to function almost indefinitely. Now, imagine a plausible mid-future world where anyone can “print” many firearm components if not complete guns and where any interplanetary transport is potentially a weapon of mass destruction.

Anonymous said...

=Milo=



Guns have a lot of finicky small parts, especially if you want accurate aim and resistance to jamming. They'll be hard to make with 3D printers, even when other stuff can be.

Rick said...

I need to find a new Mayan calender; the old one only has 10 months left on it...

This made me laugh!

(And I guessed that MDvN's comment was re the election cycle. Actually, barring fluke you need only wait for about mid-November for the shouting and wailing to die down.)

Thucydides said...

Longbeast, if you are referring to Canada, Tony has a very valid point.

The City of Toronto has long made use of draconian regulation to "fight gun crime", including closing down shooting ranges and gun clubs (which are pretty much the only valid destinations for urban gun owners in Canada), yet gun crimes escalated throughout the tenure of Mayor David Miller, who spearheaded and encouraged such efforts.

Gun crimes eventually did fall in Toronto; after an international police effort closed out the Jamaican "Shower Posse" criminal gang.

M. D. Van Norman said...

Milo, “printed” guns wouldn’t have to be terribly accurate, reliable, or durable for them to completely circumvent the kind of controls that are supposedly desirable.

Hmm … Attempts to control technology could make an interesting topic for Rick in a future post. There is certainly a lot of interesting historical and meta-fictional ground to cover there.

Thucydides said...

Printed guns are an artifact of an increasingly libertarian culture of people who are gathering up tools, techniques and the will to simply "do" stuff on their own.

Computer "hackers" (in the good as well as the bad sense) are perhaps the best known branch, but bloggers, "biohackers", home prototypers and others are using ever expanding abilites to bypass political, institutional and corporate "middlemen" to do what they want. This is hardly a new idea (hot rodders back in the 50's might be called "car hackers" today, and "hypermilers" are indeed a form of car hacker).

Since powerful computers, lab quality equipment, studio quality video and recording devices and high grade machine tools are becoming cheaper and more available all the time; combined with dense webs of connectivity and access to reams of data, more and more people can pick up tools and start "doing" for themselves.

Now there are very obvious dangers to this; people may injure themselves and others through an inability to use their tools correctly, or a lack of interest in the quality of the end product (underground chemists who synthesize drugs and hormones are notorious for this), or a lack of apprieciation for the danger involved (experimenting with pox or avian flu, for example). There are few obvious answers, trying to clamp down will only force this activity underground and we will see a sort of high tech Samizdat (the way we see underground trade in high grade performance enhancing drugs today).

Perhaps the only true solution (if you can call it that) would be to emulate Jerry Pournelle's "Co Dominium", which corrupted databases not under CD control to prevent the spread of technology that might ecoomically or militarily undermine the CD powers.

The libertarian solution would be the "fight bad speech with good speech" approach, and have a high tech Army of Davids attacking problems (perhaps with the incentive of a reward), for every evil genius creating a super virus there are 1000 tech hobbyists cooking up anti virals, immune system boosters or exploring metabolic pathways that can shut down invading pathogens. That would be inconsistent and scattershot, but at least a proactive means of dealing with the problem.

Rick said...

Hmm … Attempts to control technology could make an interesting topic for Rick in a future post.

Duly noted!

One historical example comes immediately to mind, and relates to this sub-discussion: The Tokugawa Shogunate's pretty much successful effort (so I gather) to eliminate guns from premodern Japan. It only ended after outside intervention.

jollyreaper said...

We reach the old question of oxen vs. tractors or horses vs. motorcycles. Which is cheaper, more practical? All depends on the relative tech level. An argument made for the logic of the Firefly 'Verse is that work animals would be more practical in a frontier setting because they reproduce on their own, grow their own parts, don't require an interplanetary supply chain. A settlement could breed their own spares more readily than they could build new tractors. Plus the animals eat fuel that grows on the ground rather than needing to be shipped in.

Of course, there's a whole host of practical complications with live animals. The technology base required for manufacturing aside, I believe that the hourly cost in labor for a farm with work animals versus one with machines heavily skews in favor of machines, assuming fuel and a manufacturing base remain available.

But the whole argument above ignores the giant question of the Second Industrial Revolution we could be living through in the 21st century, maker culture and all. I'm sure someone else thought of it somewhere first but it was presented well in Diamond Age -- the idea of nano-seeds, things that could draw material from the existing environment and, molecule by molecule, assemble everything you need. After all, a horse is basically just water and grass. You can find just about every element on the periodic table in trace amounts in seawater. With a proper nano-filter to pull out everything you need, could a colony grow the machines they need?

Then that brings you right back to the idea of what would be legal and illegal to make with nano devices.

M. D. Van Norman said...

“One historical example comes immediately to mind, and relates to this sub-discussion: The Tokugawa Shogunate’s pretty much successful effort (so I gather) to eliminate guns from premodern Japan.”

And yet Japan was manufacturing some of the finest matchlock firearms ever made … in 1854.

Damien Sullivan said...

AIUI, the Shogunate didn't so much eliminate guns as totally control them. Swords and guns were confiscated from the below-samurai classes, and the gunsmiths were centralized and put on state retainer, paid high prices for small orders from the state. Helped by lack of big game needing guns to fend off, lack of invading neighbors, and perhaps samurai caring more about swords than guns; Japan had quickly become very effective with very well-made native guns, but they hadn't been around all that long -- forty years between the first Portuguese guns in trade and Hideyoshi's "sword hunt", and another 20 years to Tokugawa centralization.

A very impressive 40 years, mind you.
See.

Anonymous said...

=Milo=



Jollyreaper:

"You can find just about every element on the periodic table in trace amounts in seawater."

That doesn't make it economic to extract, especially if you need the element in large numbers (like if you're planning to use it as a structural material).

Nanotech seeds that are meant to produce stuff made of metal will still need to be placed near a supply of ore to grow properly. Though they might use a tree-like root system to find the needed ore...

Rick said...

Interesting stuff about premodern Japan - thanks!

On nanotech, a key question is productivity levels. A good machine shop comes close to being a 'replicator' - it can manufacture pretty much anything, including a duplicate of itself. But if you specifically want, say, cars, a specialized auto factory is far more efficient!

Lurking behind this is what in an earlier post I dubbed 'industrial scale.' Basically, how large a society do you need to maintain a given techlevel?

Thucydides said...

The main reason for the elimination of guns during the Tokugawa Shogunate was social control. Firearms allowed anyone to be the military equal of a highly trained Samurai warrior, which devalued their training and social position.

European Knights made similar objections to crossbows (which had similar equalizing effects on the battlefield), but since Europe was not "closed off" by geography like Japan, the idea of a ban never caught on, nor was there an agency that could enforce such a ban.

A tech ban could only work if there was a physical and social analogue to Tokugawa Japan...

jollyreaper said...


"You can find just about every element on the periodic table in trace amounts in seawater."

That doesn't make it economic to extract, especially if you need the element in large numbers (like if you're planning to use it as a structural material).

Nanotech seeds that are meant to produce stuff made of metal will still need to be placed near a supply of ore to grow properly. Though they might use a tree-like root system to find the needed ore...


Of course. I remember being told in an earth science class back in jr high about how gold is present in seawater but it's not economically worthwhile to extract. You could spend a million dollars to get a hundred dollars worth of gold. To a kid who assumed a machine that could produce gold would be a literal money-making machine, the idea that you could lose money with it was pretty mind-bending.

With a proper nano-seed, the question would translate directly to time. If you need 100kg of gold, do you mine it conventionally and spend a lot of money to get it quickly or do you use the nano method from the sea and spend a little money and energy to get the quantity after a very long wait?

And just imagine if you apply nano-tech to mining. "Here's where we know a gold vein exists. We plant the nano-seed here. It grows solar collectors to power itself and then plunges roots all through the deposit and moves those atoms of gold up the roots to fruits that will grow on the surfcae pretty as you please."

If you have the infrastructure for heavy machinery and strip mines then time is money and you might find it worth the cost to get the gold now. If money is very expensive, it might be worth the time to take the slow route to harvesting.

Damien Sullivan said...

Relatedly, recent reading strongly suggests that the isolationism of both Japan and post-Qeng Ho Ming China wasn't the ostriching people often think they were, especially in the case of China. Japan never lacked contact: Dutch in Nagasaki, and Ryukyu, Ainu, and China/Korea in other ports. It was more about again, control and quarantine. Rangaku, 'Dutch learning', was a big field of study, especially after the first century.

And Ming China was less "let's not trade" and more about "let's have a state monopoly on trade". Which isn't one of the great ideas of the world but is pretty common and hardly unknown in Europe: mercantilism, East Foo India Companies...

M. D. Van Norman said...

It’s always about control.