There is an international perspective on the borders that I think should be mentioned. I think it is also worth mentioning that most people who live now in West Bank and the broader Palestine area were not consulted in how power and might is distributed, whether they benefit or suffer from it.
I really think we need to have a discussion around what we consider acts of violence.
It is clear that violence was used in this instance. We don't like violence.
Killing someone is an act of violence. That is easy. But how about ruining someone financially? Is this an act of violence? Could it be an act of violence under certain conditions?
How about letting someone die in order to make more money? Let's say the decision is about the price for a certain treatment and you are balancing profit expectations from investors. Is this an act of violence? I'd imagine that the outcome of deaths could probably estimated quite reliably in this instance. And you would need to justify the various salaries and profits along the way and weighing it up against the number of people suffering. Does this sound violent to you?
EDIT: And I'm particularly keen to hear from the downvoters about this. Always keen on good arguments. Thanks :)
> I really think we need to have a discussion around what we consider acts of violence.
Do we? The term "violence" centers around the idea of using physical force. If you mean that certain acts are just as morally contemptible as violence, or equally likely to cause harm, just say that directly.
Please don’t dilute the term “violence,” or we’ll have to find another word to describe intentional harm using physical force.
So assuming that you are saying that hiring a hit man isn't violent, but the hit man doing the deeds is:
We are now looking at a definition of "violence" that apparently includes the tantrum of a four year old (physical attack with the intent to do harm) but does not capture hiring killers or the actions of most dictators of the last 150 years.
To be honest this doesn't sound like a useful definition and certainly doesn't match the emotional reaction the word "violence" evokes. What is the word meant for then?
What if you are poisoning them through knowingly through by dumping toxic chemicals into the air or their water supply? That doesn’t require physical force.
Why not? Violence is a tool like any other, and our entire western society is predicated on it. We are cogs in a corporate-run state and if we don't like it, there is the police force. If we get evicted, the police is there to tell us to stop sleeping on the bench. If we don't listen, they have the guns. The underlying systemic violence of our society is rampant.
Personally, while I neither like nor dislike violence, it can be a useful tool in revolutions where the state has become incompatible with the needs of the majority.
The narrative is that we decide on rational reasons (which doesn't excludes violence as such) mixed with a moral superiority (which excludes violence).
I think saying that we don't like violence is just sharing the moral common sentiment and hoping that it leads to some understanding/highlighting of the contradictions. The reality is that people will fight for life when you push them. What is "violent" is generally defined by those who are more powerful I'd say.
> What is "violent" is generally defined by those who are more powerful I'd say.
I think the hidden war of words is over the definition of "illegitimate violence" (like premeditated murder) and "legitimate violence" (like getting tazed, kettled at a protest, or shot dead by police at a traffic stop). The latter is generally not defined as "violence" at all by those with power.
There was an interesting article that analyzed usage if the word "violent"/"violence" in mass media reporting on college campus protests in the US. Going by the reporting, when police were bashing heads, the protests were not violent, but became "violent" when protestors were fighting back against counter-protestors who got physical. Violence meted out by the government is not called that.
That is true, I'd agree. It's exactly the reason that the most successful news organizations are precisely the ones that push the prevailing narrative and focus on the immediate, physical violence and equate it to terror, whereas providing large missiles to fund wars is called "aid".
Letting somoene die to make more money is violence. But letting a hospital go bankrupt, which will eventually lead to others dying, would be no better.
We still struggle with the life and death decisions related to allocating capital do healthcare. Even single payer systems have this problem.
We can start by looking at what profit margins and administrative expenses are reasonable for health businesses. The free market generally solves these questiins, but it's notoriously deficient when it comes to healthcare.
Then we can find out how to best allocate the remaining money to maximize health outcomes while ensuring that the businesses are sustainable.
There is no sane reason to restrict violence to the immediate physical. If you destroy someone's livelihood, e.g. by forcing them into bankruptcy, they will have to leave their home and give up their assets. What if they don't? They must because there is a threat of force behind the act.
Destroying someone's livelihood is nothing else than asking someone to give up the resources they collected over time under the threat of force: if they refuse, they will have the police to talk to.
And if they do not listen to the police, the police have guns.
Sure. I'm fairly certain you can find discussions going back millennia on this. Just still feel it hasn't landed. Somehow we still disguise certain types of violence...
No, it hasn't landed because that is the intentional feature of the system. We disguise violence and call it peace, but in reality the "peace" is really control. Of course, all societies have rules and customs for peace that sometimes require the sacrifice of the individual, but one must look at the ultimate aims.
The ultimate aim for a primitive society really is relative order and safety. The ultimate aim of modern technological society is the advancement of technology and the creation of a large workforce to keep the unsustainable machine going. That is what mutates custom into violence and law into subjugation.
I think the ultimate aim of modern society is to make 20% +x growth. And the background to that is that this one guy can say that they scored more points than his rich friend.
It's an absurd point system. And yes, it is underpinned by an absurd amount of hidden violence. I'm certain that it will change, since it is absolutely unsustainable. The amount of propaganda though is insane and we need to push back against it.
You are right...in a sense. And I do agree with you that this sort of thing might change, but only because the capitalistic system may not remain the most efficient system for advancing technology. However, we must also be careful because a change away from the current system may just mean a change to a new system that is even more equitable for technological growth, which implies that human beings will be even more like cogs in a machine.
After all, the reason we have capitalism is because it is the most efficient system to exchange goods for technological creation. But now that we are developing AI, a new centralized control may eventually emerge as more efficient. However, we will become even more expendable and while the transition may be beneficial in the short term for some, I doubt it will be very pleasant for humanity since technological development itself is inherently unsustainable (requires mining, energy usage, habitat destruction, etc).
It is clear that violence was used in this instance. We don't like violence.
Killing someone is an act of violence. That is easy. But how about ruining someone financially? Is this an act of violence? Could it be an act of violence under certain conditions?
How about letting someone die in order to make more money? Let's say the decision is about the price for a certain treatment and you are balancing profit expectations from investors. Is this an act of violence? I'd imagine that the outcome of deaths could probably estimated quite reliably in this instance. And you would need to justify the various salaries and profits along the way and weighing it up against number of people suffering. Does this sound violent to you?
Government orgs have public financial transparency that businesses don't. For example, when I worked for a public university, my salary was available on a publicly accessible website. Government budgets get a lot more outside scrutiny and pressure to avoid waste.
It's not perfect. There's plenty of wasteful spending, but I wouldn't be surprised if research showed government and large businesses are similarly wasteful.
Yup, but that is to mitigate the large scale incentive issues - it doesn’t remove them correct?
You generally don’t see corporations doing - or having to do - those things because their incentive structures are different. For gov’t, Society (as an outside party) has to explicitly apply pressure to stop it from getting out of control.
For a big corp, when they waste money, that is money that the organization itself has incentives to not waste - their problem is more at that scale, it’s hard to ‘know’ what is a waste and what isn’t, and to untangle owner/agent issues. Especially when the owner is ‘the public’ via public markets.
But there is still pressure, in the form of stock price, etc. so a company which hasn’t managed to get and hold onto a monopoly is going to be applying pressure to itself regardless. Hence, for example, the large scale layoffs going on in the US. Even if the company can’t tell what is critical and what isn’t, they still need to satisfy shareholders and cut.
Yes, that is right. Opinion building is a thing in a democracy.
The problem with op is that he attaches a strong value statement ("isn't good value") to an incomplete assessment. Now that's doing politics! Isn't that what we want to get away from? Don't we want to have it all objective and fact based?
So here is the question: How should we make decisions? Is it possible to use $ as a neutral decision making data point? Or do we have to discuss things broadly, and include elements that haven't been broken down to the cent, to reach a consensus about how we want to organise society?
If you recognise that there are other positive impacts that you haven't allowed for, then why stating that your incomplete assessment shows that it isn't good value? Does that show bias?
I'm a little stunned that these problems can be framed as technical...
How cheap would energy need to be for those problems to be solved? Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for how low prices would need to go to solve each of the problems? Or a wild guess?
Also, if energy production is getting cheaper, but energy production is only provided by a few entities (e.g. for reasons like production being capital intensive, strategically relevant, or first movers advantage / natural monopolies) would you believe that energy prices go down to that level if production costs fall low enough?
I am not op, but food is essentially solved, as is most of the other things he listed. Socialist and countries at war aside famines just don’t exist anymore.
"Dame Winifred Mary Beard, DBE, FSA, FBA, FRSL (born 1 January 1955)[1] is an English classicist specialising in Ancient Rome. She is a trustee of the British Museum and formerly held a personal professorship of classics at the University of Cambridge.[2] She is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of Ancient Literature."
Profits across many companies in construction have significantly increased post covid. Not only for construction companies, but also various supplier (e.g. building technology, construction products).
At best, that would be some sort cartel, multiple really. Which is quite different from a monopoly, which again is something from dominant market power...
Should they?