70 karma · joined July 1, 2023
Should they?
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?
Can you please elaborate on this part? I don't see how this could be solved by market forces.
EDIT: Making healthcare for profit, would always put someone's life against someone else's new yacht. Is this how we want to assess these situations?
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.
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.
Tell me, if I outsource the physical act of harm, say by paying someone to beat someone else up, would you say I am not violent?
It absolutely doesn't. Historically we judged laws as violent. Germany stands as an example.
> Please don’t dilute the term “violence,” or we’ll have to find another word to describe intentional harm using physical force.
Causing intentional harm is a pretty good definition of violence, don't you think?
EDIT: for instance paying someone to do physical harm. How would you assess this?
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 :)
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?
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?
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?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist)
"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."
Regulators can be the tool to stifle competition. The driver though is inherent in business needs. Competition is the biggest cost to any business, so there will always be a drive to reduce the competition to as close to zero as possible. It's inherent in how businesses operate.
This is a heading of interest since we all are concerned about being laid off.
> That's less than 1% of their workforce
Focuses on how the lay offs look from the perspective of the company.
> No problem for those people to suffer then
Points out that looking at it from the company focus omits the negative impacts lay offs have on on individuals
I mean we are having a conversation here and not just listing factlets, right? So do you really see any bad faith in the above?
Let's say a company creates an automated system based on a curve fitting algorithm. Then things go wrong. Now it is quite easy to say the company is responsible for any damage and must pay for the rectification.
When we say an AI is deployed and things go wrong, we have a sci-fi movie and responsibility is somehow magically moved away from the company that deployed the algorithm.
To me it feels that "AI" as a term is a clever marketing term that companies will use to deflect responsibility. And I think it is one of the reasons why Open AI, Musk and others pushed this AI safety non-sense.
The aim of calling it "curve fitting" or something similar would be to take the magic out of it so the broader public doesn't get confused. I think that's worthwhile.
I have worked for US firms for a very long time. I'm not living in the US and have no family relations to the US. The cultural difference I observed is that the US if fully focused on profit maximisation to a point that can only be described as unnatural.
The examples you witnessed for me are just examples of people doing things because they enjoy doing these things. They don't optimise them for profit, they don't optimise them at all. They do them because it works for them and because it pays the bill.
The obsessive and excessive single goal optimisation of profit is, in my opinion, a cultural phenomenon linked to the US. It's worrying since it is quite an aggressive way of living....
Though I wouldn't think that industrialisation would require expensive labour since there could be other benefits driving it, e.g. faster production, less wasteful production, etc.
Industrialisation didn't end slavery or it's derivatives either. It just changed to tools of production.