Philosophical Vegan Forum

^Keep in mind, there's somewhat of a language barrier.

I'll study the sociology of violence a bit more. But it's not obvious that punishing mentally ill people, and people won't murder if they aren't mentally ill, somehow helps. Almost all the murderers I know are alcohol abusers, and they killed when they were drunk.

Don't you agree that that would be harmful?

Maybe not. If my friends believe in homeopathy, I'd like to know that. People also may become interested in something because it's illegal, which is what quite often happens with dangerous drugs (most of them were first used in medical purposes). Besides, if thousands of pages of regulation don't stop people from lying in advertisements, more regulations probably won't either. It's also possible that they aren't lying, but are themselves being delusional, and then it's very unethical to punish them.

A minimum wage is a certain amount of money an employer is forced to pay an employee.

I don't think there is a strong linguistic barrier here. Minimum wage laws effectively make it illegal for the unskilled workers, who can't make their employers a certain amount of money, to work. It's unclear how much unemployment those laws make (for the same reason it's unclear exactly how harmful the saturated fats are), but they certainly aren't helping the poor (as the politicians like to pretend they do).

But the employees get healthcare in return, which is important.

But if that's good, why would you have to force people by laws to do that?

There's a perception that private school is better, but it's really not, it's just more money.

So, why is the illiteracy in the US so high?

That's one situation in one country, though. Croatia has a pretty corrupt government, so there are probably going to be more issues than in a country like the US.

I think you just have no experience with a justice system. Why do you think it's better in the US?

What's the alternative?

Just let people do whatever they want and hope for the best. And realize that you are just a human being prone to error as much as anyone else is. And that power corrupts because people on the position of an authority (including the judges and the police) are more prone to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I watched the video, and there is nothing about violence committed by rich people

Sorry, my mistake. I'll try to find that video again. I can't access YouTube right now, the mobile Internet is way too slow and too expensive for that.

The study found the exact opposite of that, though... it supports that hard times lead to conflict, not cooperation.

What? Conflicts arose by boys playing competition games, and were solved by a scarcity of water boys had to cooperate against.

Keep in mind, there's somewhat of a language barrier.

An average native speaker (who isn't much into politics) would have understood him the same way I have had, wouldn't he? You are a native speaker, so you can confirm that.

I mean, seriously:

Government does many important things. The default state of human nature is tribal; small groups in perpetual warfare. From small "savage" tribes to fractured kingdoms as in medieval times. Don't believe the myth of the peaceful savage. Law and order prevents conflicts between tribes or families by settling disputes without the perpetual back and forth of blood for blood.

And you are telling me he wasn't saying that without the government people would be going out shooting each other?

teo123 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2017 4:18 am I don't think there is a strong linguistic barrier here. Minimum wage laws effectively make it illegal for the unskilled workers, who can't make their employers a certain amount of money, to work.

I am confused as to what you're saying here. Most minimum wage jobs take little skill, so what're you talking about unskilled workers?

So, why is the illiteracy in the US so high?

Jeez, have you forgotten what brimstone has said already?

brimstoneSalad wrote:You're just regurgitating anti-government propaganda now. 40% of the adult U.S. population is not illiterate. It's around 14%, 21% in addition to that just read poorly.

The U.S. public education system is quite poor, because it relies on local property taxes and in poor areas it does not serve the students well. Other countries with better public education systems (better funded) have far better literacy rates. There are structural problems with implementation of some public education, but it's still an essential service, it just need to be improved.

Plus, what does this have to do with private schooling?

I think you just have no experience with a justice system.

Do you?

Just let people do whatever they want and hope for the best. And realize that you are just a human being prone to error as much as anyone else is. And that power corrupts because people on the position of an authority (including the judges and the police) are more prone to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

I'm not an expert, but that doesn't sound like a very smart idea. In situations like this, it's best to play it safe, especially if the society suddenly changed.
Sure, everyone is prone to errors, which is fine, but that isn't an excuse for missteps and bad things happening.

teo123 wrote:I'll study the sociology of violence a bit more. But it's not obvious that punishing mentally ill people, and people won't murder if they aren't mentally ill, somehow helps. Almost all the murderers I know are alcohol abusers, and they killed when they were drunk.

Ok, great. I'm glad you're open-minded to that hard times lead to violence. Like I explained, it's been shown throughout lots of history.

Not only mentally ill people are murderers. Mentally ill =/= alcohol abuser =/= murderer. All of those things are different, and they might be connected to an extent, but they aren't the same.

Maybe not. If my friends believe in homeopathy, I'd like to know that. People also may become interested in something because it's illegal, which is what quite often happens with dangerous drugs (most of them were first used in medical purposes). Besides, if thousands of pages of regulation don't stop people from lying in advertisements, more regulations probably won't either. It's also possible that they aren't lying, but are themselves being delusional, and then it's very unethical to punish them.

? If your friends believe in homeopathy, you'd like to know that? You can ask them if they believe in homeopathy. But since homeopathy isn't real, companies being allowed to sell homeopathic "medicine" is literally harming people. By taking fake medicine, they aren't taking REAL medicine, which they need to survive. That is harmful.

Most people don't become interested in dangerous drugs because they are illegal, they just want the drugs, and the drugs happen to be illegal.

We already have regulations that limit lying in advertising. You can say some things that are deceptive but not others.
The quality of a law isn't dependent on the number of pages it is.

No, it's necessary to stop people from lying about homeopathy to sell people fake medicine. The law is the only way to do that. So what if they are delusional? We can't let their delusions cause other people to possibly die.

I don't think there is a strong linguistic barrier here. Minimum wage laws effectively make it illegal for the unskilled workers, who can't make their employers a certain amount of money, to work. It's unclear how much unemployment those laws make (for the same reason it's unclear exactly how harmful the saturated fats are), but they certainly aren't helping the poor (as the politicians like to pretend they do).

Either there is, or you don't understand the minimum wage.

The minimum wage doesn't mandate that employees make a certain amount of money for employers. It mandates that employers pay a ceratin amount of money to employees.

But if that's good, why would you have to force people by laws to do that?

Just because it's a law doesn't mean anything. It's good not to kill people, and you're not allowed to kill people by law.

So, why is the illiteracy in the US so high?

Correlation =/= causation.

I think you just have no experience with a justice system. Why do you think it's better in the US?

Because it's the only system there is that works.

Just let people do whatever they want and hope for the best. And realize that you are just a human being prone to error as much as anyone else is. And that power corrupts because people on the position of an authority (including the judges and the police) are more prone to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

How? How do you deal with the problems of murder, violence, theft etc. without a justice system? And how is this a stable society? Without a way to control people, literally anyone can start a government, and it would probably be a totalitarian dictatorship.

What? Conflicts arose by boys playing competition games, and were solved by a scarcity of water boys had to cooperate against.

I didn't read the study, but I googled it and literally the second sentence said the findings supported the fact that conflict is cause by competition.

Sherif argued that intergroup conflict (i.e. conflict between groups) occurs when two groups are in competition for limited resources. This theory is supported by evidence from a famous study investigating group conflict: The Robbers Cave (Sherif, 1954, 1958, 1961).

An average native speaker (who isn't much into politics) would have understood him the same way I have had, wouldn't he? You are a native speaker, so you can confirm that.

I didn't read what he said, but if he think you misunderstood him, it could just be a language thing.

teo123 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2017 7:49 am I mean, seriously:

Government does many important things. The default state of human nature is tribal; small groups in perpetual warfare. From small "savage" tribes to fractured kingdoms as in medieval times. Don't believe the myth of the peaceful savage. Law and order prevents conflicts between tribes or families by settling disputes without the perpetual back and forth of blood for blood.

And you are telling me he wasn't saying that without the government people would be going out shooting each other?

I don't believe that the default state of human nature is constant tribal warfare, necessarily. But not having any way to stop violence will ultimately lead to more violence.

It's just logic.
Some people are violent -> government forms to stop violence -> less violence.
Some people are violent -> no government to stop violence -> more violence.

EquALLity wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2017 12:08 pm I don't believe that the default state of human nature is constant tribal warfare, necessarily. But not having any way to stop violence will ultimately lead to more violence.

It's just logic.
Some people are violent -> government forms to stop violence -> less violence.
Some people are violent -> no government to stop violence -> more violence.

You're doing at least as good a job as I could, and being way more patient (kudos), but to clarify what I meant since I'm being quoted here:
It doesn't start out as warfare, that's just the state it ends up in. It takes a few years to escalate to that. You don't even need innately violent people for it to happen.

A tiny dispute just keeps growing without an objective peace maker.
Imagine somebody stole somebody's goat (maybe by accident), the other guy took it back and broke his gate letting his goats out, the original person intentionally stole enough of the other guy's goats to make up for it and ended up hitting somebody when fleeing with the goats, then the violence was returned with more, and each family against another, believes the account of its own and ends up polarized.

Violent, bloody, even multi-generational family feuds typically start with something stupid that they all may even forget. There was one ignited over ownership of a stray pig (Hatfield–McCoy, of course this involved government trying to stop it).
The absurdity of these things is a running joke, but it's how people work too. And that's WITH government (we don't really have records before that). It's law enforcement that puts these down before they escalate beyond small family massacres.
Fractured tribal societies are famous for being unable to stop fighting among themselves; strong tribal governments can sometimes form and enforce treaties, but again this is a form of government intervening against violence. It means the local government prohibits its own citizens from violating the treaty and punishes them if they do.

The important point of reasoning is that tit for tat is impossible; the tit delivered will always be slightly unequal to the tat; the side delivering it will see it as fair, and the side receiving will see it as excessive and have to return more tat to balance the scales. There's a bias in perception when you're doing unto vs receiving, and only a third party can really stop that escalation and command a minimally biased restitution.
AND it's impossible to prevent that initial tat indefinitely; somebody is going to make a mistake at some point and not realize it was a mistake, or realize it was a mistake and disagree on fair restitution.

We even see this in pranks, where they just keep getting more dramatic under the notion of "getting even". They may start out friendly, but eventually somebody gets hurt or suffers a lot of property damage.

All of those things are different, and they might be connected to an extent, but they aren't the same.

This is more of a word game than anything else. How do you define mentally ill behaviour? As not normal? Murder isn't normal, most of the people don't murder. As irrational? It's hard to imagine a situation when murder would be rational. As bringing personal suffering? Murdering someone brings you a lot of personal suffering. It's hard to imagine a situation in which the murder wouldn't fulfill all the criteria for mentally ill behaviour.

No, it's necessary to stop people from lying about homeopathy to sell people fake medicine. The law is the only way to do that.

Why do you keep ignoring the evidence that the laws don't help? Claims disproven long ago (like that omega-3 helps with heart disease) continue to be perpetuated by the advertisers. And again, watch the Bite Size Vegan videos on animal testing. If you invented penicillin these days, you would be banned.

The minimum wage doesn't mandate that employees make a certain amount of money for employers. It mandates that employers pay a ceratin amount of money to employees.

And if an employee doesn't make him that much money, he can't pay him or he would be losing money.
It's so sad that you've heard only political propaganda and not the mainstream economics.
You have to do your own research on-line. What politicians say make the economists' head spinn.
The vast majority of the professional economists knew that Obamacare would fail. They just weren't covered by the media. Mainstream politics and the mainstream economics are almost in complete opposition.
Near the end of the Wikipedia article on economics there is a table about what the economists have reached a consensus about. Look at it, just to get a general idea. It's so sad just how distorted picture the media portray us.

Just because it's a law doesn't mean anything. It's good not to kill people, and you're not allowed to kill people by law.

I asked: if the employers paying the employee's health care with a money that would otherwise be a part of the employee's wage was a good thing, why would you need a law forcing the employers to do that? Wouldn't it be better if people could choose what to do with the money they made? Would you try to solve the problem of homelessness by forcing the employers to pay for the houses to be built?

How do you deal with the problems of murder, violence, theft etc. without a justice system?

I haven't really seen evidence that justice systems solve the problems of violence, and I have seen a lot of evidence that they actually cause violence (my own experience). A right analogy to a justice system may be this: trying to use a disassembler to debug a remote server (so that it is costly to access relevant information) you know very little about how it works. Theoretically, you could solve the problem. But you are way more likely to misdiagnose it and make things worse.

Without a way to control people, literally anyone can start a government, and it would probably be a totalitarian dictatorship.

Why would anybody do that? How would he gain acceptance from enough people? Lenin and Mussolini gained acceptance because people were unsatisfied with the contemporary government (regardless of whether it was actually responsible for what it was blamed), they wouldn't have been supported if there wasn't a bad government already. When Hitler became a dictator, there was already a law making it possible for a person to become a dictator, government actually helped him do that. It's hard to imagine someone becoming a dictator without there being a previous government.
Look, would YOU like to be a dictator? No. Then why do you assume someone else would?

I finally have access to a good Internet connection. Here is the BiteSizeVegan video I was referring to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFx3vHOkHRE
Here is the tale of what economists have reached a strong consensus about on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics#Agreements
Plus, I bet that the results would be different if they replaced "government" with "politicians I actually know using the systems that actually exist".
I am sorry if I went off a bit. I got slightly disappointed when two different people on this forum made a statement contrary to both the common sense and to the scientific consensus (that minimum wage helps the poor) as being somehow self-evident. Try to think with your own head, not the heads of the politicians, people!

OK, I get it. The moment you try to talk sensically is the moment nobody wants to discuss politics with you any more. Sad, but true.