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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3256 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 24, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Wasn't this a fake?

I think that the "we need guns to put a fear to potential tyrants" argument vastly underestimates the will to power of the strongly politically inclined people (which you basically usually would need to be to enact tyranny, fight a civil war etc.) vis-a-vis their fear of death. There have been countless militant movements that have killed scores of other side's leaders and lower-level officials and haven't really made much of an impact in that side's will to press on. The Troubles lasted for decades, it's quite certain that all Unionist officials up to and including the British Prime Minister were aware that the IRA was gunning for them, and they still were firm in their conviction that North Ireland needs to remain a part of the UK and the troops must stay. (Of course one could argue that eventually the IRA campaign worked to some degree, but that's a pretty complex and complicated debate, and in any case, even if it worked, as said, it took decades.)

vastly underestimates the will to power of the strongly politically inclined people

Yes, but the power of the fleet-in-being that is the citizen capable of resistance sets the bar higher. (It doesn't have to be guns directly; the power to send resources to the groups resisting is also part of this calculus, which is why that was targeted in 2022.)

The IRA ultimately failed in its objective to drive the English back onto their own island because they didn't bother, or predicted (accurately or not) that they wouldn't have enough domestic population support, to start taking the fight to the enemy directly. Mexican cartel members, by contrast, are powerful enough to target the friends and family of soldiers that show up to fight them (as in, "they have names and addresses"), and non-combatants discouraging anyone who would fight a war opposing the cartel is a powerful cooling effect on the number of people who show up to that fight.

It isn't the politicians or the soldiers you have to worry about- the public has already accepted their deaths. Once the public's goals start impacting the public directly, though... well, people are terrified of depicting Mohammed partially for this reason.

Your model for tyranny is off. A tyrannical group taking over doesn't immediately have full control over society.

At first it's much softer. Group A has armed militants and tells the police that Group B are beneath protection and can be freely robbed and murdered by Group A.

Small arms are very useful at that stage. You aren't fighting the army, you aren't even fighting the police. You're fighting supporters of the government who know they can operate without police opposition.

Really the army versus civilians is rare, soldiers aren't trained for that. Look at tank-man at Tiananmen Square. The column of tanks wouldn't run him over.

Of course he was pulled aside and likely murdered by the secret police, because they were still under the full control of Deng Xiaoping.

I think that the "we need guns to put a fear to potential tyrants" argument vastly underestimates the will to power of the strongly politically inclined people (which you basically usually would need to be to enact tyranny, fight a civil war etc.) vis-a-vis their fear of death.

I think it pretty directly depends on how much the politician actually cares about their cause/how easily they'd be replaced by someone with different beliefs. Sometimes if you assassinate a leader, like Lincoln's assassination, their replacement has very different positions that are much more in line with yours. Other times, like your example with The Troubles, not much changes. Other times, like the Japanese leadership in the WWII, the fear of assassination from nationalists made all the leaders too scared to openly oppose nationalist policies like expansion into China, even if they'd speak against it if there was no coercion.

Wasn't this a fake?

I strongly suspect this is fake. Notably "They have homes, family & friends. Tyrants threaten us with bombs? Just remember, they have moms!"

This feels like a novel creative leap between concepts that I don't ever see in ChatGPT output. Specifically in the mind of the writer: "We can't win a straight up firefight against the airforce -> try terrorism? -> maybe target politicians' families -> write something into the poem about Moms".

I haven't yet spit out the $20 to test drive GPT-4, but in my experience it doesn't do creativity of this kind.

EDIT: This was in February, before GPT-4. GPT-3 cannot even handle cadence and iambs. It's fake, Jim.

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