LogicExplorer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:25 am
Logic studies valid thought and thoughts that are close to valid thought (logical fallacies). Saying "Without laws, people would be running around with guns and shooting each other. Here are some dubious statistics about tribal people being violent." is very far from a valid thought.
Not what I said. You're straw-manning.
Read Pinker's book. These are not dubious statistics.
LogicExplorer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:25 amYes, I realize there are psychopaths who want to kill other people for whatever reason. But you seem to imply that laws affect whether they actually do that or not. Do they?
Low-IQ psychopaths: No. And the prisons are full of them. The legal system physically stops them. Particularly because it's easy to catch them.
Medium to High-IQ psychopaths: Yes. They're over-represented as corporate C.E.O.s instead of in prisons.
Bear in mind only sadistic psychopaths kill people for fun, and they are more rare.
High-IQ sadistic psychopaths sometimes do it too, but less frequently because they have to be careful not to get caught. These are your intelligent serial killers.
We don't yet know enough about how these conditions work to fix these people or prevent them, wholesale, from becoming like that. If interventions are early enough it can help, but it's not a sure thing.
In some Utopian future where everybody is a well adjusted, educated, intelligent person with peaceful conflict resolution skills in a culture that promotes those above all else, it may be possible to decriminalize murder, but only because it might never actually happen; there would be no harm in leaving criminal something that nobody ever does or wants to do.
LogicExplorer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:25 amAs far as I am aware, there is no study confirming that.
I'm not going to do more research for you.
There doesn't need to be such a study. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in itself.
YOU made a claim, and you adopt the burden of proof there. I have provided more evidence than you ever have.
LogicExplorer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:25 amThe death penalty laws and the gun control laws, which have been tested for their effectiveness, have little to no effect on criminals.
Because criminals are stupid, and don't understand cause and effect.
Intelligent people don't go around breaking laws even if they might want to, because they understand it has consequences.
None of this is evidence for your claim.
A world where murder is legal doesn't just have those criminals killing people, it has otherwise law abiding psychopaths, lynch mobs, etc.
LogicExplorer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:25 amAnd there is no theoretical basis for why they should have any effect: the laws only affect rational people because they are ones who obey them.
It has an effect on rational people, but more importantly the legal system provides people a non-escalating recourse for harm. If you don't understand the significance of that, you know nothing of human psychology.
LogicExplorer wrote: ↑Wed Dec 13, 2017 12:25 amThe right inductive inference from that would be that laws can't lower the crime rates at all.
Incorrect. I've explained why.
If you don't understand it, construct a formal argument with premises and conclusion and I'll debunk it for you.
Otherwise, you need to drop this, or put up some evidence.
Correlational evidence is not perfect evidence, but it's superior to pure conjecture without any evidence. You are violating forum rules by answering significant evidence of correlation, and all credible authority on the subject (not an appeal to unqualified authority), with mere conjecture.
You MUST provide evidence to back up your claims.
If you want to start a thread to discuss whether correlation is evidence, go ahead.
Otherwise, in this thread, here, and now, you have three options:
1. Provide a formal logical argument if you seriously think what you're saying makes sense and you don't understand my answer.
2. Provide equal or superior evidence to that I have provided in answer. Evidence with evidence.
3. Stop making these nonsense assertions. Believe what you want, but if you keep talking about how making murder legal would be fine you will be banned.
This is your final warning. If you do it again, I'm going to ask for a consensus on banning you. This is a serious waste of time, and it's beyond absurd.
No sensible person is going to flinch at joining a forum where people who make arguments that murder should be legal and dismiss evidence against it and refuse to provide any of their own are banned for breaking forum rules of backing up their arguments.