Are there any examples of someone in the US successfully defending themselves from “government violence” using a gun? I mean, examples where it ultimately worked out for that person?
Yes, American Revolution. More recently, Battle of Athens[0]. Also see the Bundys who are still (as far as I know, to this day) ranching on the land they had an armed standoff over the BLM with in Nevada [1].
Ok, I guess you’d be the first in ~100 years. Crazier things have happened. But the much more likely outcome of meeting government violence with lethal violence of your own is that you are now dead. That’s a scenario that plays out all too often in this country; no need to reach into the distant past for examples.
Kudos for engaging civilly and earnestly on this even though the majority here seem to disagree with you. It’s rare that I encounter someone coherently articulating a belief system so wildly divergent from my own.
For me it was a factor to some degree. I am not a firearm collector. For me it was knowing that I was moving from a state that hates firearms and wants to justify law enforcement budgets by punishing anyone that defends themselves to a state that not only has very few restrictions on firearms and ammo but also actively and legally supports people defending themselves and their neighbors. That was just one of many factors however. No state income tax was also a big plus for me personally.
It seems so weird to even know which states "hate firearms" and which ones support them, let alone care. It's not something that would even appear on my radar if I had to move across the country to some new town. I'm worried about things like good schools, access to amenities, commute times, access to fresh air and nature, stuff like that. How gun-friendly the place is? It wouldn't even make my top 20 or even cross my mind. Do Americans really factor this into their decision when they move somewhere?
I take it as a given that being in America in general means you could be shot randomly, with a uniform, but low probability distribution. It doesn't really matter what the state's gun laws are. So outside of notoriously "unsafe" areas, it doesn't play into my mind at all.
Who would tell you they have them if you are in a country where it is illegal? For instance the fgc-9[] commonly seized in parts of Europe was invented by a German in Germany (ethnic Kurd though).
No one knew who he was until he was arrested and for the most part until he was dead. His european friends would be saying the same thing as you, "don't know anyone with guns..."
Lots of guns in Europe by people who aren't supposed to have them. Either because they are criminals thus don't care about gun laws, or if they are 'good' people then they should know not to pull out a gun unless their other option is to be dead -- at which point 'fuck the law' and better to be in a jail cell than dead.
At least in Germany they are legal in general, only highly regulated.
Most guns are owned by relatively few people. Nobody from the common crowd here thinks about owning fire arms, virtually nobody does. Maybe that's a cultural gap hard to imagine from an US perspective.
The question remains, against what and who are you even defending? Maybe it's different in Europe because it's densely populated, but people generally don't consider fire arms being a net plus to the security of themselves and that of their family.
It also just doesn't seem useful to move to a state with loose fire arms laws - it's much better to move to a state/city/neighborhood with low crime rate instead.
“Surely allowing the world’s wealthiest people to shelter their capital from the greedy clutches of democratically elected governments will naturally lead to a more equitable and humanistic world order”
The side comment is right, it's about low versus high trust societies. Even if GP made a mistake on which names are relevant, they're not being racist about it.
That's one opinion. Here's another - they were waiting with their commentary locked and loaded, and failed to even read the source material in any detail before unloading it.
They're making broad assertions about specific societies, when those assertions are in this instance in no way related to TFA.
In that case, the edit button exists. It seems rather late in the day to be erring on the side of the benefit of the doubt in every case, for things like this. Much of the population is unabashedly, vociferously, aggressively racist and proud of it, these days.
> In that case, the edit button exists. It seems rather late in the day to be erring on the side of the benefit of the doubt
The edit button exists for 2 hours and this is not a person that frequently comments.
> That's one opinion. Here's another - they were waiting with their commentary locked and loaded, and failed to even read the source material in any detail before unloading it.
Well almost a day later they replied "you can google the papers and find the arxiv articles where the authors are listed". Unless that is a blatant lie, it seems like a pretty good reason to think they're using good-faith and non-racist reasoning here.
I have this debate with people about news and podcasts sometimes (news was one of the examples in TFA). People say they are doing it to remain informed, and it’s a high-value activity, but I argue it’s mostly entertainment since it rarely affects any decision-making.
This is not a hardline position, but I’m surprised at how vehemently people insist that their news habit has benefits beyond entertainment.
(To be clear, I have nothing against entertainment.)
I agree, but also the context matters. Reading news about sports is basically always entertainment, with an exception of maybe betting, to make better bets. Reading news about housing market can get me in a better position to buy my next home for cheaper, or strenghten my negotiation position.
True, I don’t have the right to vote in the place where I live, so that definitely reduces my incentive to engage in news.
But out of friends who engage in news it’s disproportionately at the global and nation level, so I don’t think they are really optimizing for civil engagement.
Staying informed of current events being a vanity activity is an idea very heavily pushed by people who are radically opposed to broad democracy in favor of some variety of elite rule, a distressingly common position in general, and particularly in tech spaces.
Definitely all the posting and activity on there seems very strange and is not something I’m remotely interested in participating in. But recruiters have often found me through LinkedIn and connected me with jobs, so it’s still useful overall and I keep my profile up to date.
The article mentioned that most people are working remotely the whole time. I don’t think remote workers are that rare, and even in-person jobs often offer a few weeks of remote work per year as a perk.
As for having lots of friends… I don’t know how rare that is. I could easily find 10 people, 20 would be a stretch. And I’m far from the most social person I know.
I think there’s a decent number of remote-working, highly social people with substantial disposable income, who have friends living elsewhere that they’d like to spend quality time with. Especially in the tech crowd. This would appeal to a lot of people I know.
I think as people start to have kids it would be less appealing, but people seem to be doing that later these days (or not at all).
No doubt 25-35 y.o. or so could pull it off. Probably don't even have to be fully remote, just tell your laid back boss you want to work remotely for a couple weeks.
According to the article the quality of the pool matters. If you want a neighborhood feel, the challenge is to come up with 8-40 people who are going to jive. Devon noted that (at least one) FoaF experience didn't work out. I think it is great if you have the social sense to select such a chill group but I'd be surprised if many people could accomplish organizing a successful large group.
Ok, but couldn’t you equally say that about anything constructed by industrialized people in places that used to have lots of non-industrialized people?
Maybe you could be the first!
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