The Pentagon said Thursday it will livestream the military’s first firing squad execution in decades, allowing the public to watch as the man who killed 13 people in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood is put to death.
You’re deliberately missing the point. Whether you watch it or not, that it is televised brings the issue of execution to the public’s attention:
If a country is going to execute people, it should have the honesty to show the public what that actually means
if the public can’t handle public executions, they should perhaps revisit why they want something they are unable to bring themselves to watch.
Regardless of intent, making executions public is increasing public dialogue about executions. We can see that correlation in other countries above. Improved communication modes correlated with abolition.
If that increased public dialogue focuses on the fact that the executions are public and not that they are happening at all, that shows a basic dishonesty about what the problem actually is.
I’m not missing the point at all, I understand your reasoning. The question is whether there’s any actual evidence to show that that reasoning actually holds up in practice. I think there’s a significant amount of evidence that it doesn’t, that being that executions were publicized for thousands of years. You countered that TV makes a difference and listed a bunch of dates. I asked if any of those dates actually show a correlation with televised executions. Since you didn’t answer, and I’ve never heard of that, I’m gonna say no, and so there’s no real evidence for what televised executions would lead to.
I dunno man, there are some things that are simple enough that we don’t need a double blind study for. The general idea: will more conversation be generated about a controversial topic that:
The problem is that putting it in the public can also normalize it and desensitize people to it, especially if it’s celebrated or seen as entertainment. We know that this can be the case, because again, it was the case for thousands of years.
Also, it’s entirely possible that even if it leads to conversations, and even if those conversations lead to things changing, it may be that the thing that changes is simply not publicizing executions. The Democrats pat themselves on the back for making incremental “progress” just by returning to the status quo, and anyone who says, “But executions are still happening” will be seen as an unreasonable radical, a “both-sideser.”
What you’re suggesting is similar to the logic of accelerationism and accelerationism doesn’t generally work. ICE raids have increased in intensity and visibility, but the Democrats still won’t commit to abolishing it. They raised a big stink over child separation before and when they got in power they ended that specific policy but kept the camps and deportations going, and what I described above is exactly what happened with mainstream discourse.
You can’t just make conditions worse and expect it to spur people into action, even if it might seem like you could intuitively. And the reason we know that is that we have history to look at, and we can see ages upon ages of people in horrible conditions, unable to change those conditions because of a lack of power and organization. And you’ll note that “do people have power and organization” is a question that the logic of accelerationism doesn’t even look at, it’s a factor that we discover is important when we look at what actually happens in practice. Which is exactly why you can’t just use this kind of extremely reductive reasoning and expect it to be at all reliable. There are any number of factors that could lead to things playing out differently.
Get together with like minded Americans and stop the practice then. Executions ARE more than normalized in the USA. All that’s changed now is that it’s more obvious to you and that makes you uncomfortable.
The correct action is to stop executions, not to force them back behind the curtains.
I was already “uncomfortable” with executions, they were already obvious to me, I’m quite familiar with the practice and this doesn’t particularly make me any more uncomfortable than I already was. How I feel as an individual, and the means available to me, have not translated into policy changes. That’s why we are discussing the broader, societal effects. Whether or not people who don’t already care will start to care, whether the effect will be positive or negative. And that brings us back to the actual point, that unless you can provide some sort of evidence, your idea that it will have a positive effect is just conjecture, that doesn’t really fit with the evidence we do have.
The correct action is to stop executions, not to force them back behind the curtains.
No shit.
When I raised the possibility of them being merely forced back behind the curtains, I was discussing a possibility of what may happen, not what should happen. What the “correct” answer is isn’t relevant to that in any way, because what is “correct” has no bearing on what is or will be. You keep losing track of the point.
You’re deliberately missing the point. Whether you watch it or not, that it is televised brings the issue of execution to the public’s attention:
I’m not missing the point at all, I understand your reasoning. The question is whether there’s any actual evidence to show that that reasoning actually holds up in practice. I think there’s a significant amount of evidence that it doesn’t, that being that executions were publicized for thousands of years. You countered that TV makes a difference and listed a bunch of dates. I asked if any of those dates actually show a correlation with televised executions. Since you didn’t answer, and I’ve never heard of that, I’m gonna say no, and so there’s no real evidence for what televised executions would lead to.
All you have is an unsubstantiated hypothesis.
I dunno man, there are some things that are simple enough that we don’t need a double blind study for. The general idea: will more conversation be generated about a controversial topic that:
A) Is hidden in the shadows; or
B) Open and blatantly in public
The problem is that putting it in the public can also normalize it and desensitize people to it, especially if it’s celebrated or seen as entertainment. We know that this can be the case, because again, it was the case for thousands of years.
Also, it’s entirely possible that even if it leads to conversations, and even if those conversations lead to things changing, it may be that the thing that changes is simply not publicizing executions. The Democrats pat themselves on the back for making incremental “progress” just by returning to the status quo, and anyone who says, “But executions are still happening” will be seen as an unreasonable radical, a “both-sideser.”
What you’re suggesting is similar to the logic of accelerationism and accelerationism doesn’t generally work. ICE raids have increased in intensity and visibility, but the Democrats still won’t commit to abolishing it. They raised a big stink over child separation before and when they got in power they ended that specific policy but kept the camps and deportations going, and what I described above is exactly what happened with mainstream discourse.
You can’t just make conditions worse and expect it to spur people into action, even if it might seem like you could intuitively. And the reason we know that is that we have history to look at, and we can see ages upon ages of people in horrible conditions, unable to change those conditions because of a lack of power and organization. And you’ll note that “do people have power and organization” is a question that the logic of accelerationism doesn’t even look at, it’s a factor that we discover is important when we look at what actually happens in practice. Which is exactly why you can’t just use this kind of extremely reductive reasoning and expect it to be at all reliable. There are any number of factors that could lead to things playing out differently.
Get together with like minded Americans and stop the practice then. Executions ARE more than normalized in the USA. All that’s changed now is that it’s more obvious to you and that makes you uncomfortable.
The correct action is to stop executions, not to force them back behind the curtains.
I was already “uncomfortable” with executions, they were already obvious to me, I’m quite familiar with the practice and this doesn’t particularly make me any more uncomfortable than I already was. How I feel as an individual, and the means available to me, have not translated into policy changes. That’s why we are discussing the broader, societal effects. Whether or not people who don’t already care will start to care, whether the effect will be positive or negative. And that brings us back to the actual point, that unless you can provide some sort of evidence, your idea that it will have a positive effect is just conjecture, that doesn’t really fit with the evidence we do have.
No shit.
When I raised the possibility of them being merely forced back behind the curtains, I was discussing a possibility of what may happen, not what should happen. What the “correct” answer is isn’t relevant to that in any way, because what is “correct” has no bearing on what is or will be. You keep losing track of the point.