[ExI] punishment

[Chad Robb]

> The problem with the Oakland guy isn't all that he's violent. He had an
>> antagonistic relationship with the police.
>>
>
> My god. I suppose that you'd claim wolves aren't violent towards cattle,
> it's just that they have a natural antagonistic relationship with them.


Wolves are violent because they are predators. Criminals and Police are at
war.
War is symptomatic of the conditions which generate it.
I do feel a general sympathy for people who fall into the category of
criminals.
I think prison is too freely imposed. I don't approve of prison for
nonviolent crimes.

This guy probably had committed violent crimes but in a hypothetical case
where someone is put away for ten or more years for having a drug on their
person is unpardonable.


You're very likely an enemy of our whole society if you think that he was
> morally obligated to start shooting. Is that what you would have done?


I've never touched a gun or been in a fist fight.
I've never had to fight or resist a possible life sentence. Hard to say what
I would do to avoid one. If I didn't think I ought to be imprisoned for life
(and few do) I'd feel right in defending myself in any way.

>if people like me want to eliminate the gangs, and the gangs want to
eliminate people like me who abide under our laws, whose side are you on?

On a primal level, I'd want to help the people most like me. Probably you
and your people are more like me and my people.
Above that, I'm disgusted by genocide on all sides.
Peaceniks like me could be devoured in a war without causing the slightest
indigestion to the war machine.


> Somehow, I gather that you have more sympathy for the Oakland killer who
> slaughtered the police officers than you would have if the tables were
> turned, and some police officer had killed four gang members. Am I right?


I don't know anything except that he was pulled over for violating parole
and killed a few police before they killed him. I think all of their deaths
were tragic, and the desperation that drove the first to shoot the rest is
also tragic. I didn't know any of them so who shot whom is not really a
factor for me.

>
> Is it a case that redesigning societies has always failed, but only because
> the right guy didn't do it?
>

Society has changed many times and will again, I am certain.

I don't know how to force it. Che Guavara said nothing substantial changes
without blood and fire. I think the internet was an example of global
society changing.
Sometimes I do long for a Dr. Doom sort of character to assume the role of
world dictator and sort out what backward cultures and bureaucratic
immobility has been unable to.
Of course, they are usually of the Blood and Fire temperament.
I like the Social Engineer Jaques Fresco. If only he were powerful in
addition to being brilliant and could implement his ideas.

 mind control is the best we can do to keep our uncivilized billions from
> obliterating one another. Unfortunately, the puppet masters are also
> uncivilized.
>

Mind control is also mere science fiction.


You don't think the masses are lulled into complacency with bread and
circuses?
Numb and Blind to the bigger picture? If people are not led into the light,
they are being kept in the dark. They are uninformed and thus impotent.
That is what I'm referring to, not pink lazers and foil hats.

-Chad
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