One Primary Cause Of Violence

With all the acts of terrorism all over the world, the mass shootings and killings, the general unrest in many European countries, the war in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, to mention a few, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, North Korean nuclear threat, Iran nuclear threat: " the world has never been safer " ?
Somehow I doubt that people worry more about being insulted.
Maybe they should be, as insults, one way or another, lead to violence.
The connectivity that you mention has it's perks, but is artificial and has led to the desensitization of a whole generation.
For those who have aspirations of achieving peace through talks and diplomacy, the trend is more towards gloom and doom.
You may disagree, but that's the real world we live in now.

Confusing? I think this is a great post with some great replies, too -- many of the things have been said already, so my post will be shorter.. I think when people chat by looking at a screen with text, some lose sight that there is a person on the other side, and who knows what they're feeling.. People can mask a lot of things they can't in person. I've observed a lack of social skills around the world.

Social mobility is something to add to the equation after Captain mentioned history, etc... Maybe in the past some thought, "I'd kill that person..... if I had the energy to ride my horse for a week"

And I also think society is staying home more, so it balances out.. You have two non-parallels which might indicate little change.... Reminds me of the average age. I've heard doctors mention how the death rate has been the same for a while.. Of course you can factor new information, medicine that might help add 5 yrs to the average life.. But maybe the bad air and water removes 5 yrs, so a statistician would say "See, it's the same"

On that account, we look at modern innovations as changing the face of mankind, but some others we take for granted... Ever think about the domestication of the horse? That single development changed everything as this animal became man's primary means of transportation that lasted for tens of thousands of years.

(Also interesting - the horse was once native to North America, but then went extinct in the western hemisphere - thus, before the European invasion, Native Americans never rode horses. The horse wasn't re-introduced to the Americas until the Europeans brought them.)

But that's (ostensibly) your entire premise here: that being insulted leads to violence. From your original post:

Also, "one primary cause" is redundant. "Primary" means either "most," or "earliest," so there can only be one primary cause, by definition.

I've been insulted by almost everybody here... and I'm very peaceful.

If only you would have let me known sooner. I'm working on it now.

Primary meant as initial and essential.
Thoughts- words - actions.

I don't deviate from my entire premise.
Obviously people that insult others don't worry about violence as a consequence, but it does happen.
I'm not worried about it. I'm not insulting any one. Just trying to make a point.

I'm not sure how this reconciles anything. If you think that people being insulted leads to violence it's odd to disagree, in the same thread, with someone saying that people care a lot about insults.

Anyway, I don't think Guap's point was actually addressed. When he says the world is safer than ever before, he's making a statistically verifiable claim. Listing a bunch of scary things doesn't really contest the idea, since it's equating fear and/or media coverage with actual, tangible harm.

Sorry, you lost me there. Who said that people care a lot about insults?
My position has been that in today's society, they obviously don't care enough.

Listing a bunch of scary things? Please Yoda don't make me think that you are actually a liberal.
Take a trip to Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria or Yemen and then tell me you were not scared.
How about going to a concert in Sin City, where some one opens up on you with an automatic weapon or you just find yourself praying in some Texas small town church at the wrong time.
In the last five years alone, there has been a drastic increase in mass killings all over.
I don't know where you get your stats.

You disagreed with this quote...

...despite arguing that people were actually lashing out violently because they felt insulted. So you appear to be simultaneously arguing that feeling insulted is the cause of serious violence, but somehow disagreeing with someone who implies that people are worried about feeling insulted.

I said they were scary. That wasn't sarcasm.

You can't argue that people are in danger by retroactively cherry picking places that happened to be dangerous at a particular place in time.

If I say cars are after than they've ever been, it'd be ridiculous to say "oh yeah, tell that to the 20-care pileup I drove by the other day. You think that was safe?" But that's essentially what you're doing here.

Accounting for an infinitesimally small number of deaths relative to the total population, yes.

Here's one place. But you can literally just Google "safest time to be alive" and you'll find tons of reputable sources.

I think you'll find that, if you try to form impressions of the world at large based on isolated events and/or media coverage, many of them will turn out to be at odds with the facts.

[quote=Yoda;1826881]You disagreed with this quote...


...despite arguing that people were actually lashing out violently because they felt insulted. So you appear to be simultaneously arguing that feeling insulted is the cause of serious violence, but somehow disagreeing with someone who implies that people are worried about feeling insulted.


.QUOTE]

Captain's Steel implied that people are worried about being insulted.
All I said is that they don't appear to be that worried and that their insulting behavior leads to more violence.
There is no contradiction in my stance.

It wasn't Captain Steel, it was Guap. Here's a link to the post in question.

If there's no contradiction, then the response must have been a non-sequitur. I'm agnostic as to which it is. I tend to think stuff like this isn't really either, but just the result of firing responses from the hip, rather than taking the time to reflect about how (or whether) one argument fits with the others that have come before it.

Right, Guap.
And I said " somehow I doubt that people worry more about being insulted " .
I am being nothing but consistent.

You doubt that people worry about being insulted...but you also think people worry so much about being insulted that they lash out violently?

Earlier, someone said people would be confused by this thread... now I'm one of them!

Ha ha. Are you trying to confuse yourself, cause you are certainly succeeding with others?
Those that lash out violently obviously don't worry.

I agree with you on all points here, Guap. And on top of that I'll add that at no point in time have people around the world been so bombarded by world news on the net they may not have been aware of before media outlets around the world started concentrating on it when they had not done so as much previously. You are from one of the countries you listed above as becoming more violent than previously which is a neighbour of the other you listed, so I think you're right on point giving those two examples

Yeah, that's actually an even more blatant contradiction than before: now you're saying "those that lash out violently" obviously don't worry. But the "worry" in question is "worry about being insulted." So you're literally saying the people who lash out violently at insults don't worry about being insulted.

I don't have any trouble believing there's a moderately coherent thought under all this, but it sure ain't coming out right.

" worry " about any thing, did not originate with me
What does inappropriate communication have to do with worry?
I think you should talk to Guap about that.

I don't think it's possible to debate a master of semantics and deflection.
We could always try another topic.
How do you feel about overpopulation as another precursor to violence?

Yeah, this is a total thicket of confusion. Back to the source:

Originally Posted by Guaporense

Our world today is so peaceful that people worry more about feeling insulted than being under real physical threat.

(list of scary things)
Somehow I doubt that people worry more about being insulted.

That's the "worry" Guap mentioned, which you responded to directly. So either there's a contradiction, or your response to him made no sense.

Sure it is: you just explain why what they're saying is semantics, rather than treating it like a magic word that absolves you of having to make sense.

No thanks. I prefer to discuss things like this with people who can articulate their positions, and are willing to cite and acknowledge hard evidence, rather than just sort of pontificate based on whatever they happen to see or hear anecdotally.

Speaking of which, the "safest time to be alive" thing seems to have been conspicuously dropped from the discussion...