Again, I'm not arguing a gun isn't a tool. In fact, in the very comment you're replying to I said they are.
But all of this is besides the actual point, you derailed the point of gun culture and availability driving gun violence with an ultimately meaningless conversation about semantics.
Yes, technically weapons are tools, that's because the definition of a tool is so broad, just a device used to carry out a particular task.
That's why I never said he was wrong to call a gun a tool, I said it was misleading, which it is. When a reasonable person thinks of a tool they do not think of a gun, you think of a wrench or a screwdriver or a swiss army knife, or something like that.
Calling a gun a tool is intentionally misleading. A gun's sole purpose is as a weapon, using it any other way is a misuse of that "tool". Whereas knives have various practical purposes. Which was obviously the purpose of my initial reply.
In some cases, yes, having a gun is entirely legitimate (assuming used safely) such as protection from dangerous wildlife. But the number of legitimate cases does not even come close to justifying the number of guns, or the gun culture, in America. Violence doesn't happen in a vacuum, the presence of guns, the acceptance of gun culture, and the normalization of gun violence are things that contribute to the frequency of gun crime.
The removal of guns, and restricting of them to legitimate use cases IS dealing with the underlying social issues. But it's definitely only part of the solution, that alone is not enough, but nothing else will have a strong effect while so many guns are on the streets and easily accessible.
If anything it's pretty telling that the game only works if you can play like a rich person: start off with a bunch of money you didn't earn and the bank is always nice to you.
If the bank treats you like a poor person you just lose.
Add on top of the nature of these ultra capitalist worldwide corporations, even if they were able to mass produce this affordably that would mean decommisioning tens of millions in already existing production infrastructure. Why would they do that when they can delay next gen tech for greater profit?
Although it may very well be caused by Twitter running out of money, which would be corroborated by Twitter's lack of payment to various other parties. Giving Musk three options: Use more of his own money, admit defeat and massively scale back Twitter's functionality and availability, or try to scam money out of other people.
Clearly he's not willing to spend his own money, or admit failure.
It's also really weird. Elvis was around to see The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, Queen, and technically Sex Pistols too although that was towards the end of his life.
Point is, he should have known about much "worse" musicians and music than The Beatles.
Firstly I'd like to mention The Lost Fleet series by John G Hemry. It's military sci-fi, as a part of the plot it discusses two forms of FTL travel, jump drives allowing you to FTL between adjoining stars, and the later invention of hypernet gates allowing direct travel from one star to another. It talks extensively about how certain star systems fared after hypernet gates made it unnecessary to travel through them to reach higher value systems.
Some star systems were only inhabited as a means of supporting various cargo haulers, transporters, and warships that must pass through those stars. As pass-through travel waned we saw declining economies, civilians abandoned as extraction costs would have affected profit margins, increased societal unrest and rebellion as a result of being cut off from the central authority, and various other legal and illegal activities.
It illustrated how truly huge space is, and how difficult communication, transportation, and protection could be out among the stars.
I'd also like to provide an honorable mention to Malazan - Book of the Fallen, even though it's high fantasy.
This is because it not only goes in to significant detail regarding the magic system used, but also talks several times about the societal stagnation that comes about as a result of reliance on magic, and the reduced need to invent, discover, and innovate. The lack of science, and the implications of that, being the point here.
I think you do have to be careful here though. If you're too permissive you allow bigotry, but if you're too restrictive you cut off honest, good faith debate and create echo chamber silos where beliefs are never challenged.
Bigotry should never be accepted but that means non-discriminatory opinions, especially ones you disagree with, should be allowed.
Anomandaris @ Anomandaris @kbin.social Posts 0Comments 51Joined 2 yr. ago
Again, I'm not arguing a gun isn't a tool. In fact, in the very comment you're replying to I said they are.
But all of this is besides the actual point, you derailed the point of gun culture and availability driving gun violence with an ultimately meaningless conversation about semantics.