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--warn @Nyaboron Incivility

Lol

@Nyaboron seriously tho, refrain from name calling in this chat

@Nyaboron I very clearly defined what I mean when I use the word "violence" in this context. Try to keep up bro.

redefining words isn't helpful. Use the common definitions of words for everyone to understand your point better. I don't think your point was wrong whatsoever. The system uses propaganda to actively harm us.

@A. Spader spader is threatening to use is mod powers lol

@McFansy I use the word "violent" to highlight the fact that in this political debate the other sides intention is to hurt people, its not just some sort of intellectual navel gazing. But apparently that went over some peoples head.

@Tony_Swann no one cares how YOU use the word.

intention to harm is malevolent. actually physically harming someone is violence.

words matter

Fuck you Westerners

stay mad kebab

@Nyaboron Words are constantly being invented, and reused in new creative ways. You should leave the thinking to people who are actually capable of using reason. This isn't a good look for you bro.

@Tony_Swann why not use other words? why reinvent the wheel?

I think the word "violence" has more impact than other words do. The usual discussion around political debate treats it purely as speech and not as a form of power projection, and because of that some people forget that behind every law, or proposed law, is a police officer with a gun and a licence ready to enforce that law on you.

@Tony_Swann are you saying that voting is violence because it's the projection of electoral force?

@MechMage In a sense it is. People vote because they want the system to do something and ultimately the system must use violence and/or the threat of violence to do it.

I think you're probably literally correct about that but I'm wary of using the word "violence" to describe an act that is itself peaceful as it uses language that describes something socially unacceptable to describe something socially expected.

The whole discussion started because someone asked about trans activists asking loaded questions to live streamers. The questions will be played off as "just words/speech" but any answer the streamer give will become a political statement, and wrong answers WILL lead to a potentially escalating series of aggressions from the trans activists. It might be "just speech" but there is a very real threat behind the words.

I think my concern applies to that situation as well.

I think the disconnect is that I don't view violence as having any moral component in itself. Where as some people view violence as being immoral in nature.

Even if there are some unhinged activists who are nipping at the bit to commit violence as soon as someone says something they find disagreeable, a speaker can't be held responsible for such a third party even if such outliers are not themselves moral agents.

I'm surprised to hear that. You would say that a mugger who kills another person without provocation is immoral, would you not?

If so, what does he do immorally other than violence?

If violence is used to defend something good then it is a moral act. If it is used to defend something evil then it is an evil act. But the violence itself has no moral value/nature.

A mugger attacking someone unprovoked is acting in an immoral way towards him. If an onlooker then used violence on the mugger the onlooker would be morally justified and that violence would be celebrated.

I think we have very different conceptions of what violence is. Violence isn't something that defends; it's something that destroys. Perhaps the best defense is a good offense but if so it does not absolve the offense of its nature.

Destroying things that are evil or immoral is morally good.

I suppose the way I would phrase is that violence is immoral unless justified. There is no such thing as morally neutral violence.

That is to say, it is impossible to disentangle violence from its moral component.

If its immoral UNLESS justified thats just another way of saying that justified violence is not immoral; which is essentially the same thing that Im saying.

The difference is that your statement frames violence negatively while I frame it neutrally.

Then one of us hasn't communicated the core of his meaning because it is the opposite of what I think you said.

Eating a cabbage is a morally neutral act. It is neither a good thing nor a bad thing but merely an expression of personal preference.

Violence is never neutral. It is always righteous or vile.

Does that make the difference clear?

I disagree. Its not the violence itself that is the issue, its the ends that the violence serves that give it its moral character.

Violence is it's own end.

Its why we celebrate soldiers, whose purpose is to kill in defense of the nation.

If a bullet puncturing a heart is good or bad, pulling the trigger is likewise good or bad.