I made the tag. Loosely, it represents what I see as the continuing infantilization of the average citizen. Individual people have never had a greater potential to self-actualize than today. And as time goes on that potential will increase exponentially. This problem cannot be solved by whack-a-mole-ing specific modes and methods of causing harm, because new and more horrific forms of harm can always be devised. It started as a firearms specific tag, but I think it just as easily applies to certain kinds of badthink as well, such as the British teenager who is now a criminal because of some lyrics posted to social media. As I have said in another post relating to guns, ‘feeling offended’ is not justification for anything other than strong words. Combat must be restrained to words and ideas, and never cross over into physical violence. By equating speech to violence, we open the spectrum of acceptable debate to include physical violence.

I tagged this post because retailers of all kinds have Youtube channels that they use to advertise and demonstrate their products. Many of these other vendors are selling products that if used inappropriately, could result in harm to their users or others. Truck attacks are becoming increasingly common, is the solution to that problem the banning of all automobile related content on Youtube? This is symbolic at best. Those who want to shoot various things wrapped in or filled with tannerite for fun will always ALWAYS find ways to do so. Better to have these things out in the open where they can be monitored. Various countries have legislation that says if you want to own a firearm you have to be a part of a regular attendee of a gun club. This prevents the kind of isolation that can lead to radicalization and violence.

Jokes have been made in the past about ‘not trying to nerf the world’ but that’s precisely what I see happening. I found the ‘The Path Forward’ article insightful and reasonable. I tagged it because of the discussion that resulted is a perfect example of what the article is trying to describe. There exists a massive amount of bad faith on both sides of this debate, and the moderate majority is left unrepresented. This problem is not unique to the gun control debate. This post is not about gun control in specific, but about the origin and intent of this tag. I find the position of ‘ban all guns’ impractical and un-nuanced. It it represents an undercurrent of semi-political thought that believes that the gradual removal of all possibly dangerous things from the public awareness is desirable. Random person to person to violence is at an all time low and decreasing. Drastically restricting the rights of law abiding citizens to account for the actions of a tiny proportion of people is simply unreasonable.