Which goes to the sapience thing. But ultimately, what you're responding to was not handing over responsibility for building things (though, that too) but that of your own protection. You trust in others to create a safe environment for yourself (and ostensibly those others), but that's also what animals do, albeit yes on a different scale, and with much greater nuance. But on a basic level, animals work together, "trust" each other (at least so far as we can tell), etc. Though it of course doesn't always work out. Same with humans. Note, I don't have a problem, necessary, with handing over responsibilities and whatnot. Trusting others is an important part of living a decent life. I just found it very odd that you used "working together to help protect ourselves" as a differentiating point from animals. Yes, it was a rhetorical question, honestly meant more for others than yourself specifically.
Seems fully appropriate to me. Note first, that the statement I was replying to referenced sheep, an animal. An animal often used to describe someone doing something mindlessly, as a follower. My point is that humans work together, they do it consciously, with intent, not like sheep at all - even in this instance. Whereas when animals "work together" it is usually just instincts or on a very low level.
I'd agree, my comment was far too generalising. I guess I was just trying to get at this point: Violence is a worldwide problem, but in no other developed country does this kind of violence occure to such a degree. It IS a very American problem. Why? I disagree with your "family" institution. It's the kind of right wing rhetoric that gets spouted by right-wingers in the UK. In fact, in some quarters, declaring that non-traditional families are responsible for mass murder and violence might be called bigotry. I'd offer an alternative view of that in no other developed country is inequality so pronounced as the USA. Social inequality and social problems have been shown to have strong links. If interested, it's worth watching this TED talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson?language=en#t-194473
Just a question here. Why is there no why after the statement about how violent america culture is. shouldnt that be the thing in question?
Maybe for our generation it was a conscious choice, but kids today are being programmed to think that it's just the way things are. I also have to point out that if conscious choice is such an important distinction to make, then why would you want to take away choice from the citizenry? Let them eat what they want, smoke what they want, shoot what they want, etc. its THEIR conscious choice. The more freedoms you take away the less human you make us.
Have you ever played a 4x game? Imagine the tax rate slider but with freedom on one end and safety on the other. Too far in either direction makes your population revolt. That's assuming you're playing as Terran. I don't know how the slider works for Sheepkind.
Odd, in Democracy I keep getting murdered by US nuts for making their country a hospitable place. I don't think your slider should be labeled the way you would; Freedom is pretty much inversely proportional to how many killing tools are around.
To be fair, @Ragic is correct, the nature of liberty is that you can not have "liberty for all". We have to remove freedoms for two reasons (maybe more, but I can think of two). To secure the freedom of others and to ensure the safety of self/others. Actually, there is a potential third, and that's to ensure society thrives, i.e. we force people to be educated to a certain level. We can debate what freedoms are acceptable to lose, but make no mistake, we do have to lose them. Examples: Freedom to smoke indoors Freedom to punch BP in the face Freedom to touch Sokolov inappropriately
In return we get other freedoms. Freedom from passive smoke inducing cancer, freedom from assault, freedom from sexual assault. In the case of guns, we exchange the freedom to have killing tools for the freedom to not be killed with said killing tools.
Agreed 100%... Which is kind of my point. The removal of some freedoms is essential for the security of some freedoms. It is a sliding scale, how much can the state interfere to secure freedom for others. As a point, I think the gun laws of the US are pathetic... but I think Ragic is correct with the idea of a slider.
True. But sometimes we remove freedom B because of safety, meaning it can often feel like that is the trade off.
