From a strictly utilitarian perspective, would there be anything to be gained by, say, starting a campaign of assassination against executives of tobacco companies?
No, that would be bad. The heuristic that says violence is always a bad strategy is reliable, and it works for reasons beyond the obvious. One important reason is that whenever someone uses violence, other people respond by trying to figure out what his goals are and undermining them. So the practical consequence would be to move tobacco into the “good” category in some peoples’ minds, and to undermine anti-tobacco strategies that actually work (taxes, advertising, and regulations).
On the other hand, displacing cigarettes with nicotine vaporizers or with some other drug looks like a straightforward win.
could you point me to the heuristics that say that violence is always a bad strategy?
I have a strong gut feeling that they’re right, but I’d really like to see them in a formalized or semi-formalized fashion :-)
Seconding this request. I would say the basic argument is similar to arguments against theft as a generalized policy eg it disincentivizes creation and hard work. Generalized violence disincentivizes civilization if you look at civilization as a framework for the interaction of strangers in large groups or individually but interchangeably. Basically, a culture of violence devolves to groups of people that can only trust very small numbers of other people on the level of family or tribe. The idea that you can venture into town to purchase anything you want and not have to worry about being murdered by a stranger is extremely important, in my view.
Could you point me to the heuristics that say that violence is always a bad strategy?
There’s nothing to point at; that’s the whole heuristic. While there are lots of good arguments for violence being bad in general and in specifics, the only thing a heuristic requires is that when asking “is violence a good strategy here?” the answer is almost always “nope”. Which it is, but for a slightly different mix of reasons every time you ask it.
No, that would be bad. The heuristic that says violence is always a bad strategy is reliable, and it works for reasons beyond the obvious. One important reason is that whenever someone uses violence, other people respond by trying to figure out what his goals are and undermining them. So the practical consequence would be to move tobacco into the “good” category in some peoples’ minds, and to undermine anti-tobacco strategies that actually work (taxes, advertising, and regulations).
On the other hand, displacing cigarettes with nicotine vaporizers or with some other drug looks like a straightforward win.
could you point me to the heuristics that say that violence is always a bad strategy? I have a strong gut feeling that they’re right, but I’d really like to see them in a formalized or semi-formalized fashion :-)
Seconding this request. I would say the basic argument is similar to arguments against theft as a generalized policy eg it disincentivizes creation and hard work. Generalized violence disincentivizes civilization if you look at civilization as a framework for the interaction of strangers in large groups or individually but interchangeably. Basically, a culture of violence devolves to groups of people that can only trust very small numbers of other people on the level of family or tribe. The idea that you can venture into town to purchase anything you want and not have to worry about being murdered by a stranger is extremely important, in my view.
There’s nothing to point at; that’s the whole heuristic. While there are lots of good arguments for violence being bad in general and in specifics, the only thing a heuristic requires is that when asking “is violence a good strategy here?” the answer is almost always “nope”. Which it is, but for a slightly different mix of reasons every time you ask it.