The difference between being coerced and coercing

[jogger08152]

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Depending upon the nature of the confrontation, this can be true. Now: would it be okay to shoot him if he were walking toward your front door while carrying a gun? How about if he were walking down your street while carrying a gun? How about driving across your state line while carrying a gun? At exactly what point is it okay to initiate a force transaction against him because you feel he might be going to initiate one against you?

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It is impossible to make a list of every possible situation and the point in each where it is OK to defend yourself. We trust you to make this decision on your own. If others disagree with you, you may be called to arbitration (think free market court) to defend your actions.

You have been told this many, many times now. We should all stop repeating ourselves.

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So really, there is no standard, nor expectation that I won't initiate a force transaction against somebody. Rather, I can initiate any force transaction I wish, whenever I wish, so long as I think I can convince some other third party that it was somehow "okay" for me to do so. Is this an accurate description of your "morality"?

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No. Of course you can initiate any force transaction you wish, whenever you wish; you can do that now. The key is the concept of arbitration, in which a specific third party is used to settle a dispute. The specific third party will be agreed to by both you and the targets of your force transactions. If you targeted me and I disagreed with your use of force, I would demand that we use an arbitrator with a strong reputation for fair judgments.

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Great. What fair judgment would they make regarding my initiation of force? What is the standard by which this hypothetical, excellently fair entity would judge whether or not my preemption was legitimate?

[jogger08152]

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I'd just shoot the f*cking dog and not worry about it... but then again, I don't claim it has some "right" against my not initiating force against it.

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You didn't intitiate anything with this dog.

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You did if it didn't bite you.

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So if a guy runs at you swinging a large axe while yelling that you are scum and about to get what you deserve, and you manage to shoot him dead just before he reaches you...he didn't initiate anything against you because you escaped injury? That's your position?

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I have no position, you do. Please tell me what it is. Exactly when may you shoot him?

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Yes, you do have a position, and it was expressed directly above. Your position (apparently) is that he is not initiating an attack against you unless you get injured by that attack (as per the dog example directly above in the quotes). You said that if someone took violent action against a charging dog which was apparently intent on attack, that the dog didn't initiate anything [specifically, it didn't initiate "an attack". -Jogger] with them unless the dog had actually bitten them (see above). I'm applying this to the charging axe-wielder also, and asking you to confirm that you believe the charging axe-wielder isn't initiating against anyone unless he actually harms them. Is that indeed your position with regard to the charging dog and the charging axe-wielder?

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Correct. However, unlike you, I don't care whether or not they're initiating an attack. I have no moral qualms about "initiation of force", so it doesn't matter (from my standpoint) when exactly the attack begins. I'm perfectly comfortable preempting them on the chance that they are about to attack.

But you say that they, or at least the human, has a right to not have you "initiate a force transaction" against him. Please tell me exactly when it's okay to shoot him because you feel he may be about to harm you, according to your morality.

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Jogger is trying to justify his turning human beings into slaves to meet his own selfish ends by this line of argument. He is questioning the 'exact point' and trying to point out that since there is no concrete objective 'exact point' at which it is ok to defend against attack that this justifies him controlling humans lives as someone might do something bad and since there is not objectiv exact point it is reasonalbe for him to begin controlling you and me and our children from birth as an act of self defense. What a swell guy.

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Its a sad extension of the Heap Paradox. Because you can not describe the exact point at which an act becomes threatening, it is either NEVER threatening or ALWAYS threatening. Just as, since I can never pinpoint the exact moment that human beings became humans, they were either ALWAYS humans, or NEVER humans. Since they ARE humans, we know evolution is false.

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I am not familiar with the heap paradox but it seems from what I am reading here that I do not adhere to the belief that somehting is either always threatening or never threatening. There is a matter of degree between 0% threat all the way to 100% threat and subjective judgement is used in determining that as well as when to act and in what way.

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Yeah, I wasn't accusing YOU of that, I was talking about jogger.

The Heap Paradox, perhaps better called the Heap Fallacy, is also called the Sorites paradox. Basically, it states that a grain of sand is not a heap, nor are two grains of sand, but eventually, if you have enough grains, you have a heap. But there was never a point where you went from "some grains" to "a heap." Its a common tactic for evolution-deniers, because they think that, since you are unable to demonstrate this crossover point, then there never WAS a crossover point. Jogger is doing something the same. Since you cannot demonstrate exactly when something becomes a threat, then it either is ALWAYS a threat (justifying his state to do whatever it wants at any time to prevent any kind of action pre-emptively) or it is NEVER a threat (demolishing any AC notions of self-defense or reactive coerciveness). He doesn't allow for the correct answer, that there IS no single point, but that there is a clear difference between things that are threats and things that aren't.

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You're now advocating the initiation of violence on the basis of a perceived threat, rather than in response to actual violence. That rather changes the equation, since government can be (and in fact, is) justified on precisely the same basis.

[jogger08152]

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Just to be clear, do you concede that government is an acceptable form of self-defense against my fellow man?

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A government isn't a form of self-defense. It's a tool, like a gun. That tool can be use in self-defense, but the tool itself isn't a form of self-defense.

This tool can be used in "acceptable" ways and in unacceptable ways. How is your government funded?

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It extracts funds from some of those who I feel are a threat to me, in order to sustain itself and reduce their ability to do me harm. Sort of like me taking the knife from you when you charge at my child and using it to fend you off.

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Who is subject to it?

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Anyone I "feel" might harm me.

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OK, so any scenario I can imagine can form a justifiable basis for any action I may undertake?

Then why are you asking when it becomes acceptable to shoot a guy charging at you with a knife? Obviously, I can shoot anyone I want at any time because it is concievably possible that he could harm me in the future.

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That doesn't sound too good. When exactly can you preempt someone?

[John Kilduff]

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"Exactly when is it morally acceptable, in your view, to preemptively initiate force against another human being?"

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My answer would be when you ACCURATELY perceive what appears to be the initiation of a physical attack against you or others by that human being. So I'll repeat: you had better have good judgment.

By the way, the law already has defined this and there are specific guidelines (which may vary somewhat by state). Injuring or killing someone in self-defense is acceptable within certain legal guidelines. If you're interested in those guidelines you may wish to look them up.

If you're a paranoiac and genuinely feel threatened that your peaceful, law-abiding, nice neighbor has a gun in his house, counseling or medication may help instead.

If you feel an irresistible need to control everyone else and are deeply frustrated that you can't actually rule the world, I suppose there's a name for that psychological condition, but I don't know what it is.

Bottom line is that most of this is common sense. You don't need a totally precise set of guidelines with every word, time and distance defined down to the last nanosecond and millimeter. You need to be able to accurately recognize an attack in progress. You need to be able to understand the difference between initiating force and using force as a defense against force that has been initiated against you.

If you feel a deep psychological need to control the world, you will be doomed to a lifetime of frustration and unfulfillment until you realize that that is impossible. Even the richest person in history cannot control the world; there are too many forces beyond control. The most powerful king in history probably got assassinated or came to an untimely end somehow.

The world cannot be made perfect and perfect is nowhere to be found in the real world. If you wish to preempt every possible danger to yourself, even if you were given a magic wand that would preempt ANY threat one wave at an instant, your life would not be long enough to preempt all potential threats merely by waving the wand for each potential threat.

I hope you find a happy balance in your life and that you don't waste too much time and energy letting things beyond your control gnaw away at you.

[John Kilduff]

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You're now advocating the initiation of violence on the basis of a perceived threat, rather than in response to actual violence. That rather changes the equation, since government can be justified on precisely the same basis.


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Perceived Threat is different than Initiated Attack is different than Actual Violence.

1. Perceived Potential Threat = dog growls nastily at you from a distance, you perceive the potential threat

2. Initiated Attack = dog then jumps at you or charges at you

3. Actual Violence = dog bites you

You may defensively use violence only after the dog initiates the attack by charging at you, since many dogs growl but only a few actually attack. Same goes for your response to a guy carrying a knife on his hip. You may perceive a threat (rightly or wrongly) but only respond with violence after the guy unsheaths his knife and initiates an attack upon someone.

Another example:

1. Perceived Potential Threat (by you, not similarly perceived by many): law-abiding person buys a gun and stores it in their house

2. Initiation of Aggression: person takes gun from house and employs it aggressively against someone, such as by waving it and saying they will kill them, or by aggressively pointing it at someone

3. Actual Violence: the trigger is pulled while the gun is being pointed in someone's direction

You are conflating steps 1. and 2. above by counting anything not reaching step 3. as being the same. Yet there is a big difference between 1. Perceived Potential Threat and 2. Initiation of Attack

You are looking to use force (of government) to pre-empt Perceived Potential Threat. That is very different than using force to counter Initiation of Attack. Yes, neither 1. or 2. reaches the level of 3., but that DOES NOT mean that 1. and 2. are the same.

Now hopefully you can see why what you claimed above [ QUOTE ]
("You're now advocating the initiation of violence on the basis of a perceived threat, rather than in response to actual violence. That rather changes the equation, since government can be justified on precisely the same basis")

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[pvn]

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"Exactly when is it morally acceptable, in your view, to preemptively initiate force against another human being?"

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It's not. Of course, when you *react* to an interaction that has already been initiated by some aggressor without your consent, you're not acting pre-emptively.

This was pointed out to you about 20 pages ago, by JK IIRC.

[pvn]

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Just to be clear, do you concede that government is an acceptable form of self-defense against my fellow man?

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A government isn't a form of self-defense. It's a tool, like a gun. That tool can be use in self-defense, but the tool itself isn't a form of self-defense.

This tool can be used in "acceptable" ways and in unacceptable ways. How is your government funded?

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It extracts funds from some of those who I feel are a threat to me, in order to sustain itself and reduce their ability to do me harm. Sort of like me taking the knife from you when you charge at my child and using it to fend you off.

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Who is subject to it?

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Anyone I "feel" might harm me.

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OK, so any scenario I can imagine can form a justifiable basis for any action I may undertake?

Then why are you asking when it becomes acceptable to shoot a guy charging at you with a knife? Obviously, I can shoot anyone I want at any time because it is concievably possible that he could harm me in the future.

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That doesn't sound too good. When exactly can you preempt someone?

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I'm going by your position. You're right. It doesn't sound too good.

[pvn]

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Perceived Threat is different than Initiated Attack is different than Actual Violence.

1. Perceived Potential Threat = dog growls nastily at you from a distance, you perceive the potential threat

2. Initiated Attack = dog then jumps at you or charges at you

3. Actual Violence = dog bites you

You may defensively use violence only after the dog initiates the attack by charging at you, since many dogs growl but only a few actually attack. Same goes for your response to a guy carrying a knife on his hip. You may perceive a threat (rightly or wrongly) but only respond with violence after the guy unsheaths his knife and initiates an attack upon someone.

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THe problem here is that jogger wants 100% absolutes. Of course, we live in the real world. There are percentages to everything, nothing is 0% or 100%. So, when is it "enough"? Well, the worse you are at deciding this, the less likely you are to succeed at anything. If you start shooting at people who you *think* are a threat but actually aren't, you're more likely to be seen as the threat yourself, and be ostracized from society or (more likely) killed outright while in the middle of one of your shooting sprees.

The consequences of the Jogger Doctrine (kill whatever feels bad) are pretty self-evident.

[IsaacW]

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Depending upon the nature of the confrontation, this can be true. Now: would it be okay to shoot him if he were walking toward your front door while carrying a gun? How about if he were walking down your street while carrying a gun? How about driving across your state line while carrying a gun? At exactly what point is it okay to initiate a force transaction against him because you feel he might be going to initiate one against you?

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It is impossible to make a list of every possible situation and the point in each where it is OK to defend yourself. We trust you to make this decision on your own. If others disagree with you, you may be called to arbitration (think free market court) to defend your actions.

You have been told this many, many times now. We should all stop repeating ourselves.

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So really, there is no standard, nor expectation that I won't initiate a force transaction against somebody. Rather, I can initiate any force transaction I wish, whenever I wish, so long as I think I can convince some other third party that it was somehow "okay" for me to do so. Is this an accurate description of your "morality"?

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No. Of course you can initiate any force transaction you wish, whenever you wish; you can do that now. The key is the concept of arbitration, in which a specific third party is used to settle a dispute. The specific third party will be agreed to by both you and the targets of your force transactions. If you targeted me and I disagreed with your use of force, I would demand that we use an arbitrator with a strong reputation for fair judgments.

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Great. What fair judgment would they make regarding my initiation of force? What is the standard by which this hypothetical, excellently fair entity would judge whether or not my preemption was legitimate?

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These judgments would probably be in line with self-defense judgments in the current legal system.

[vhawk01]

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Yeah, I wasn't accusing YOU of that, I was talking about jogger.

The Heap Paradox, perhaps better called the Heap Fallacy, is also called the Sorites paradox. Basically, it states that a grain of sand is not a heap, nor are two grains of sand, but eventually, if you have enough grains, you have a heap. But there was never a point where you went from "some grains" to "a heap." Its a common tactic for evolution-deniers, because they think that, since you are unable to demonstrate this crossover point, then there never WAS a crossover point. Jogger is doing something the same. Since you cannot demonstrate exactly when something becomes a threat, then it either is ALWAYS a threat (justifying his state to do whatever it wants at any time to prevent any kind of action pre-emptively) or it is NEVER a threat (demolishing any AC notions of self-defense or reactive coerciveness). He doesn't allow for the correct answer, that there IS no single point, but that there is a clear difference between things that are threats and things that aren't.

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You're now advocating the initiation of violence on the basis of a perceived threat, rather than in response to actual violence. That rather changes the equation, since government can be (and in fact, is) justified on precisely the same basis.

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I'm doing no such thing, but you are using the same tricks that I'm trying to expose here. You throw in the word 'perceived' as if that makes your point for you. I'm advocating a response to a violent act, not a perceived threat. I'm trying to use the Heap Paradox to show you that there is not necessarily some singular point where the action goes from non-threat/non-violence to a violent act, but that there is a clear difference between acts that are violence and acts that are not. The guy charging at me with a knife saying he is going to kill me is a heap. The guy buying a knife at the store is a couple grains of sand. The fact that there is no specific crossover point does not mean that either grains of sand or heaps do not exist.