Maybe this shouldn't be a poll, but
The "don't talk to the police" and the "i punched a yuppie..." thread
had me thinking.

Is violence ever acceptable?

Is it possible for humans to move past
and evolve beyond it?

I think there is something to be said about non-violent
protesting, activism etc.
but aren't there times when violence is necessary?
maybe even right?

I'm not sure if i'm explaining what I'm asking well
i've had a few drinks and stuff.

Violence is stone ice when fools be playin' Phish records in my 'hood, yo.

Rick Reuben wrote: Violence is not primitive. The instinct for self-preservation often requires violence. Would you want the instinct for self-preservation to evolve out of the human race? How would you kill a charging rhino? For a species to survive, the species must defeat its enemies and procreate. Sex and violence will always be necessary. Humans would not be humans without them.

You DO NOT need to kill a charging Rhino. You DO need to get the fuck out of it's way.

Rick Reuben wrote:For a species to survive, the species must defeat its enemies and procreate. Sex and violence will always be necessary. Humans would not be humans without them.

I don't follow this quite - you say that all species must engage in sex and violence.

Then you say that humans wouldn't be humans without sex and violence.

But since pandas and dolphins and lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) also engage in sex and violence (as per your point 1), how is sex and violence a defining characteristic of humans?

I believe the opposite - that the ability to entirely reject sex and/or violence is a defining characteristic of humans, as is (sadly) the widespread failure so to do (at least the violence bit).

It's CRAP anyway. Violence that is.

Nowadays it is the proper response quite often.
If a dude breaks into my house in the night and I wake up and catch him, I will kill him. Kill the fuck out of him. This is just the times we live in.

We will evolve past violence. There will be a time in the future where it's a thing of the past.
Think about it, we are still bands of different countries at this point on the Earth. Tribes fighting one another.
We have a long, long way to go but we'll get there. The world will unite once technology really starts taking off, not just stupid shit like CD players and whatnot but teleportation, nanotechnology and genetic engineering, Deep space exploration.

We are in the fucking caveman days right now, we are a fucking PRIMITIVE species. Of course we are still attacking one another, and we should be.

Marsupialized wrote:Nowadays it is the proper response quite often.
If a dude breaks into my house in the night and I wake up and catch him, I will kill him. Kill the fuck out of him. This is just the times we live in.

We will evolve past violence. There will be a time in the future where it's a thing of the past.
Think about it, we are still bands of different countries at this point on the Earth. Tribes fighting one another.
We have a long, long way to go but we'll get there. The world will unite once technology really starts taking off, not just stupid shit like CD players and whatnot but teleportation, nanotechnology and genetic engineering, Deep space exploration.

We are in the fucking caveman days right now, we are a fucking PRIMITIVE species. Of course we are still attacking one another, and we should be.

In short, a firestorm, to purify.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqoFzzEeVhI

CRAP.

I have been driven to violence a few times in my life and I have always looked back on these times in shame- even if the asshole "had it coming."

I have a few friends who are relatively prone to violence and I am generally uneasy with these traits and I will call them out on it.

As for stylized violence, boxing, rugby, chess, martial arts, whatever. I myself quit boxing when more dudes showed up in the gym whose sole interest it was to fuck people up.

Hiding behind some hard-boiled notion of "the species" is super lame. Try and be a decent person every day and let an asshole be an asshole. Think about it, how is that not one million times more gratifying then hitting some dude on the head?

Make art, drink wine, have sex, get into heated debate. Fuck a violence.

CRAP.

agreed fuck a violence. only because i love it so.

Sometimes violence is fun.

A few days ago this truck driver comes in our office all fucked up on some kind of speed. He's annoying as fuck and ranting and raving while he's waiting for his shit to be loaded. There were some Asian girls waiting in our waiting area for something or other and he's saying all kinds of ignorant shit to them they couldn't understand and making them uncomfortable. I told him 4 times to stop talking to them but he just wouldn't listen. Just a world class asshole.
This big ass dude named Big T in the warehouse comes in and tells him he has to move his truck because he's blocking something.

As he's walking away the driver mutters 'fuck you, you fat motherfucker'
Big T hears this and comes back out and slaps dude real fuckin' hard across the back of the head to where his hat flew off and the dude stumbled forward.
'why did you just call me a fat motherfucker? I am just doing my job like you, it's my job to tell you to move your truck. That wasn't very nice of you'
The dude apologized profusely and almost started crying. Big T is pretty fucking big. The dude just left without his shit, got in his truck and drove away. The Asian girls clapped, made squealing noises and I shit you now posed for pictures with him.

That is violence and violence is bad and all that but it was fantastic. Was really a nice thing to see.

Marsupialized wrote:Was really a nice thing to see.

Seems like there wasn't a real intention to fuck the fool up. Yeah can be funny.

I'm not saying there isn't a (aesthically, even) pleasing aspect to violence or that violence has no place in this world or whatever. It's the acting upon first impulses part of it that I have problems with. Abstract and stylize the first impulse and you might end up with a powerful thing.

Throwing a punch, every drooling idiot could do that. Last time a guy threw a punch at me I simply looked him in the eye and told him to get the fuck out of my face. Which he did like a little man. I commanded him and he listened. Could every drooling idiot do that? I'd like to think not.