Hot new article that's anti-ban on basically every subject

[Arch0wl]

people who might like this: choof, Rubix, fojar, people who are literate

https://alfredmacdonald.com/2016/06/...-society-bias/

Summary:

Imagine if someone had proposed the drug war and said “I think 1% of cocaine use will drop.” Do you think that would have worked? I don’t.

... All of the bans that became enormous failures happened due to a Lawful Society bias — the false, yet seemingly ingrained notion that we can have some lawful society where laws just determine behavior and people follow them. A law banning X means 100% reduction of X. A law restricting Y means everyone says what the law specifies about Y.

We can’t. Everything you’ve just read should demonstrate as much. It’s categorically not ever happening because it’s not possible. Not like a movie where our hero goes “oh, so you’re saying there’s a 1 in a million chance, well I’LL TAKE IT” and that one chance is the chance that wins. I mean actually impossible. As in you will lose, in every possible world. Stop thinking you can stop people who really want to break the law from breaking the law. You can’t. You will lose, a lot, endlessly, forever and even after that.

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[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by NinjaSM

Not even done with this and I find it to be a fucking fantastic read

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by NinjaSM

Fuckin.
Liked your FB page
Followed your twitter
Followed Concepts and Analyses

Just, make more of these thank you.

those 3 things are basically a blowjob so I have to now

[DaBackpack]

Read it

I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I'm just going to say this in response to what I imagine people taking from this article (namely, that "bans don't work")

I think you're mostly right when you say that laws (alone) do not change human behavior.

One of the major premises is that "if person X wants to kill somebody, banning any one particular weapon will never ever stop them from doing it with another weapon"

But that assumption doesn't apply for all realistic cases. A person who wants to commit suicide isn't always a person who is determined to see it through. (This has been studied extensively)

A child who receives drugs from a local drug dealer, or a friend, isn't going to go out of their way to get those drugs --- it happens out of circumstance.

In a domestic scuffle, many times the husband doesn't want to kill his wife, it just happens accidentally.

To say whether or not gun bans (for example) are effective, it's not enough to say that murders are intentional, and thus restricting gun bans doesn't stop "bad people from being bad", but you need to actually consider the statistics of "accidental" or "temporary" cases, versus "how many of these crimes stem from INTENSE motivation and are not fleeting impulses."

In the graphic supplied it lists murder AND negligent manslaughter. What's the distribution of those "negligent manslaughter" cases in that statistic? Would restriction of guns (or a certain class of guns) reduce this statistic in a significant way? I don't know.

[DaBackpack]

For me at least, this comes back to the issue of evidence. The insight you supply into this bias is compelling, but its practical application hinges on a few assumptions that I'm not sure I buy entirely.

You did mention the issue of suicides and accidental murders, but I would like to see more concrete evidence saying that these are negligible in comparison to actual intentional murders. And on top of that, it's difficult to prove the notion "if somebody is out to get somebody else, they are fully committed and cannot have the minds changed if more obstacles are placed in their path."

I'm not saying this is what you are suggesting, but for someone to say "the world isn't safe and you can't change human behavior, so bans aren't going to work" seems like an appeal to futility

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by DaBackpack

In the graphic supplied it lists murder AND negligent manslaughter. What's the distribution of those "negligent manslaughter" cases in that statistic? Would restriction of guns (or a certain class of guns) reduce this statistic in a significant way? I don't know.

nonnegligent manslaughter* -- willful (nonnegligent) killing of a person; death via injuries received in a fight, argument, quarrel, assault, or commission of a crime falls under this. so basically murder's slightly weaker brother.

glad you mentioned this though before someone more annoying pointed it out because I should have added that specification below the graphic

anyway this is a tangential thing

what's more to the issue is this

if you're asking a question like this:

"Would restriction of guns (or a certain class of guns) reduce this statistic in a significant way?"

then you've already internalized the point the article is making, which is that you should ask for specific rates of reduction -- and always talk in those terms, or strive for those terms, rather than some vague idea of "doing something" or "stopping crime" or whatever.

[DaBackpack]

Oh sorry, I misread non-negligent as negligent.

And to ask if "bans reduce in a significant way", yeah, that should include verifiable or operational definitions and hypotheses, I thought that was implicit but thinking about it, many times it's not treated that way

[Arch0wl]

the essence of this bias is that if you asked people whether they think a law/ban would work they just simply will not quantify it at all. the existence of violators will be some extremely peripheral thought in their mind.

and if you forced them to quantify it, like what percentage of people they think will break the law or how many times the law would be violated, it'd be some stupid small number.

when you say/do things like propose a 5% reduction or whatever you're already doing what the article is asking you to do. a 65% clearance rate for murder/n.n. manslaughter is realistic. a 90% one is not. the realism (usually impeded by bias) is the issue here, since for a lot of typical people, *any* violated law is a problem in their mind worth demanding action over.

[Shadowcliff]

Great article. Combats people wanting to eradicate bad things based on feelings instead of practicality. Unfortunately, despite great reading comprehension, I can't keep my thoughts together long enough for a productive response to the article, but for what it's worth I think your solid perspective leads to more useful real-life applications and some motivation towards self-agency to boot. I didn't realize you had a website and I'm looking forward to lots of new reading material/food for thought.

edit: My politeness is an internalized mechanism to avoid conflict; I should try engaging with material more often and depend less upon learning via osmosis