Use of force continuum and de-escalation of force: The security newbie's primer to making good decisions and mitigating the worst

[Scheveningen]

Preface:
This thread will largely attempt to detail - and make ethical use of - the concepts of the use of force continuum (in this context, it is a universally applicable standard by how law enforcement should respond to a subject's actions in a given situation) and the doctrine of de-escalation of force (in essence, knowing when someone has had enough and to drop your alertness accordingly to what is reasonable, so as to not unnecessarily harm another person due to a variety of potential reasons). To justify the arguments soon to come I will use a few sources: my own experience (low credibility), from the research I have done on this subject (decent credibility), and the insight of the individuals considered experts I have sought out in order to achieve better clarity and specific knowledge about details of how these abstract concepts work (much better credibility). 

One more thing that I must specify is this: I understand that there are a few/some/many issues going on right now in the Western part of the world, where what I will talk about is a rather heated topic. Understand that nevertheless, I intend for this thread to be apolitical as possible while still establishing what I view is effective, what I view is ineffective, what is right from my perspective and what I also view as wrong. Please be considerate and understand that, ultimately, this is still my insight which I will attempt to justify with some manner of sourcing. Please also be considerate in not making this topic heated or political in the replies, if any. The intent of this thread is to provide helpful insight and information, not to rile people up. Though I will still understand if there is a different intent involved with how people may inevitably interpret these sorts of things.

I will say also that I will try to keep this as condensed and as simple as remotely possible, but I will also point out that this preface is already quite long, so the future of this thread is already quite bleak in that it not be a short read. Apologies in advance if this becomes too lengthy for you. You don't really have to read any of this. But it'd be nice, and it'd be just as nice if someone does read this over and change their way of thinking and doing things for the better. This really is a subject that requires a basis to understand the full picture of what I propose should be goodcurity behavior.

No, really, why?:
I'm non-essential, American, and quarantine hasn't lifted yet. I'm straight up not having a good time, bro. I suppose something like this was what I always wanted to post anyway.

How this thread intends to be useful:
Fundamentally, this is a thread with the intention of equipping regular and/or would-be security players with a different perspective of playing their role - and perhaps equipping those who don't play those roles with the knowledge of how things do work on the security side of things. Or perhaps the security regulars or newbies I mentioned are already in line with what ethos I will detail, but they wish to improve how they do things already. As mentioned before, I understand that what I've already detailed and what I have yet to detail will have some political relevancy. Again, though - with everything that is going on it will provoke a lot of emotion, dependent on the individual's position close or away from what is happening in the world right now. But a majority of this information that will be provided is for the make-believe game world, the immersive experience that a fairly sizeable number of this community plunges into everyday for their own interest in social simulation and investment in what amounts to be a community, ultimately. I cannot say anyone would be particularly wrong that whatever information I am liable to share will have some value in its translation to the out-of-game sphere that is real life. Or perhaps in how the OOC community behaves, we can only guess at that. We'll see how it works out.

In the beginning, there was fire:
Conflict is described as a process, one of a clash of interests. The basis of conflict may vary, but it is always a part of society (please apply your clown make-up and bright colorful costumes now, in order to better vibe with this). Difference of opinion, of religion, of tribalistic and cultural differences, political and international reasons. There are so many things that can cause conflict, and while many might downplay the significance of certain conflicts in an attempt to erase or ignore a pressing issue because they may not think it matters, conflict as a process is constant, the individual symptoms or causes of conflict are not.

You may be able to understand conflict better if we illustrate these symptoms of conflict. Luckily, I did not have to do this myself, and instead I found a useful gradient which was largely inspired by Friedrich Glasl's (an Austrian economist and expert on conflict) model of conflict escalation. We will consider this a prototype graphic example, as this only forms one particular basis of thought regarding conflict and how it works. Oh, sourced by "Friedrich Glasl: Konfliktmanagement. Ein Handbuch für Führungskräfte, Beraterinnen und Berater (Conflict management. A handbook for managers, consultants)." 

 

In this model, you'll notice there are three specific levels of ranges of how conflict escalates... downward. This is intentional, as Dr. Grasl represents escalation "not as an ascent to higher and higher stages of escalation, but as a descent to deeper and deeper, more primitive and more inhuman forms of dispute". As you may be able to infer, the more one threatens to escalate, the more they put into danger and ultimately put themselves (as the actor) and others (the acted upon) into more and more worse off circumstances. "Win-win" determines the methods of escalation where two parties stand to gain from the milder forms of conflict, both the in-group (us) and the out-group (them). "Win-lose" determines escalation methods which aim to put the in-group in an advantageous position and the out-group into a losing position, which further puts the former into a more powerful position. "Lose-lose" is described in which both parties will be harmed, as the range itself describes destructive or aggressive acts. Note that, yes, sometimes the in-group can deal the most damage to the out-group and thus there is a very clear difference in distinguishing where the most harm was done and who dealt it the most. This category does not seek to make that distinction, as this is not a model for that. Use a scale of weights if you wish to see how pressure on an in-group weight can influence the position of out-group weight, if you wish to see a model about such a distinction in an indirect fashion.

The specific rungs of acts are likely to be self-evident and I do not believe they require detailed explanation for each. It is notable that in each range (or 'level' as originally described by Dr. Glasl, but I like the word 'range' here as there are comparisons to a numerical axis to be made, which illustrates this much better), however, each end of that range describes an extreme -- whether it is of relative safety or potential danger of entering another category of conflict escalation.

A model like this was designed to help bring more depth to existing escalation of conflict models that did not sufficiently detail how severe or mild a conflict can get, as well as a sense of understanding of how rapidly escalating conflict methodology can inevitably bring harm to all if allowed to continue.

Fighting fire with fire:
This is where one ethos of conflict resolution emerged from recognition of these concepts -- whether it was merited from an understanding of conflict from an abstract way of thinking or simply established by animal instinct (yes, we humans are still animals, after all - not to understate our great capacity to think about and do things). Against an out-group using a method of force, such as violence, in order to put its own members of the in-group first, it is decided to meet their violence with violence.

But naturally, this is, in itself, an extreme example. It is not good to start with extreme examples, but I have structured this on purpose. Many people, unfortunately, first rush to the thought of dealing with violence with immediate, reciprocal violence! Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood. Yet there are fair arguments for meeting force with equal force, and not dropping a level down to meet that level of force. It is important to give the "eye for an eye" methodology some credit, however, as we cannot possibly do better without understanding the qualities that a method or process might provide in terms of advantages or negative consequences.

Say for instance that you get into a discussion with your hypothetical retired grandmother about current events that are happening as small talk, as you visit her every weekend to share information to her about what goes on out in the world. Your grandmother is known to read a reputable, albeit not always honest, newspaper known as the Daily Moonshine. You find all your news off an internet site known as the Tiger Queen, a source just as reputable as the Daily Moonshine's paper but similar propensity to get things wrong. The subject matter drifts after you make a comment about how the pricing of grain has skyrocketed in recent times due to investment manipulation by securities fraud criminals attempting to take advantage of the recession. Your grandmother wholeheartedly disagrees, insinuating that the pricing of grain skyrocketing was a result of crop famine. Not wishing to be called wrong, especially when you're of the belief that you are most certainly correct and your grandmother is mistaken, you ask where this gets this opinion from. She tells you she read a column from an expert's contribution to the Daily Moonshine. You retort by attacking the legitimacy of the newspaper, citing some articles in question that were discredited by scientists. She responds by attacking the legitimacy of the source that you attempt to cite, ditto. At this point, you have both escalated from a cordial discussion to a full argument attacking each other's source material in order to justify your beliefs about why the price of grain went up!

Of course, you are not at each other's throats wanting for blood, not even close. After a few seconds of cooling off, you both have a similar epiphany. You both understand that the nature of relying upon information from a not-entirely reliable source is both equally your fault all on your own. You both pledge to do better in being diplomatic and expeditious in ensuring your source material is reliable, impartial and honest. Yet you come out of this in realization that such a natural conversation immediately led to an escalation of conflict (opinion vs. opinion -> heated debate of these opinions both believed to be fact) simply because you both believed you were right, but not that the out-group was correct.

Imagine what you would have done if you were an authority figure in this instance, with all the rights and powers that be to enforce your personal opinion and escalate against your grandmother as you see fit! Of course, it may be somewhat ridiculous to you that manhandling your grandmother because you disagree with her regarding the share price of grain is absurd, but it's not all that out there, is it?

Where the continuum of force doctrine comes in:
(Image provided by Marine Corps Security Force Regiment, Norfolk, VA. Thanks, moist defender squids.)


The use of continuum of force comes into play primarily as a guideline for more serious situations in which an individual is trained and specialized ahead of time to have pre-determined responses for how a conflict may escalate. Ever been pulled aside by a security officer on code blue to be randomly searched? A security officer in that instance is trained to employ these exact strategies in the above model, primarily to keep themselves safe and (hopefully, and ideally) keep you safe unless you decide to attempt to hurt them. The continuum of force is not universally observed by all law enforcement entities, unfortunately, and even when it is observed, law enforcement (due to the unfortunate fact of employing human beings, well known to not have perfect judgement in all cases) may fail to meet criteria of appropriate force escalation. And yet security may escalate anyway.

In this instance, however, professional adherence to this doctrine is absolutely possible, and not only can it prevent security from having to hurt someone in order to ensure the subject is compliant with any lawful direction or request, but it also can help prevent injury to the "sentry" (it's this model's way of saying 'security officer', really) in question should the subject decide to escalate to attempting to commit bodily harm or death upon the sentry. Well, you know, in theory this is how it should work. I will say, in terms of gameplay with how I have applied this doctrine, it has worked. But it has in some situations also led to the harm of the subject I'm dealing with anyway, because they made the wrong move or decided to escalate when they could've saved themselves more trouble by not doing so... but then, there are situations where I did not apply this properly and I got my character and their character hurt because of poor judgement in the moment.

In policing, particularly in protection of private property and protected installations, this doctrine is most useful when a sentry is required to engage an unidentified subject who may or may not be trespassing. Unfortunately, this doctrine has flaws. Because this model fundamentally teaches that response to conflict methodology can only go upward, and the observation of the subjective nature in which how difficult it is to qualify whether an act by a subject is an active measure of resistance or a passive one, this can still lead to a situation where a sentry decides to attempt to pacify the subject anyway, who then attempts to defend themselves from a wrongful escalation of force, which inadvertently provokes a higher level of response from the sentry. And then it downspirals, most likely into the sentry electing to shoot to kill the subject. A sentry could kill a subject because they incorrectly decided to escalate force before it was objectively appropriate to do so, and then the subject's sudden -- but not necessarily malicious -- resistance to such an unfair call on the sentry's part also factored into their own death. It's unimaginable that such a doctrine could be so misused -- or simple mistakes could be made on either individual's part, or both -- that it leads to the last resort being resorted to in no time at all, despite the subject not being chiefly at fault in the first place.

Remember what I said about "It can only escalate?" This model is graphically formatted in such a way that there is no de-escalation, there is only neutralization of the subject as a threat. One way or the other. Whatever your ethics, one cannot deny this is pretty much what this model is telling you. Cause, effect, result. This is all illustrated. But the problem is that this model is results-focused, it is binary and essentially expects either pacification or death of the subject. Don't think I'm exaggerating, every resolution shy of "lethal force" on the right is simply framed in a way to ensure the subject is pacified based on what they do, until they use force that the sentry themselves evaluates as lethal force. "Submit or die" is unfortunately the objective of this doctrine. Another unfortunate thing about this doctrine is that the average person who is stopped by a security officer for a random code blue search is probably not even aware that any action of theirs could have immediate, serious and harmful consequences if they do anything that could possibly be interpreted as a hostile move. It is often taken for granted in real life that someone who is generally meant to protect the general "you" could just as well kill you. These are some scary things to think about, isn't it? I mean, sure, this is just a game, but get immersed for a second in what I'm saying. In my opinion: It shouldn't have to be this way.

Because it doesn't have to be.

But it does not have to end in fire:
"Submit or die" does not need to be the way to play security, or even as an antagonist. In general, we should not have to be content with that ethos that an archaic escalation of conflict model teaches people to play along with. It shouldn't be the way to play, even. I've been through these periods where security has been unable to trust antagonists to be sportsmanlike, and inversely antagonists are unable to trust security to be sportsmanlike. This leads to a vicious cycle of unnecessary, instant and dissatisfying violence that only angers both groups and makes one another unable to see the viewpoints and merits of the other side. This is not a matter of 'both sides are wrong', but rather that 'both sides can be at fault'. There are no absolutes to dabble in here. Just a recognition that anyone can be wrong, or even right. But it is important first to recognize that we can be wrong, and thus can do better.

This is therefore the culmination of what security newbies could learn, and what security regulars could certainly aim to do better for. This is my proposal of an evolution of doctrine to you, you may be very familiar with this image. Bear with me, it won't take long to explain - Despite this being a long thread already.



You will notice two differences: that I added "downward" arrows to what existed before, and I added a bar to the "serious assaultive -> deadly force" level. Regarding the former, I believe it is required to have a measured understanding of mercy, that so long as someone does not escalate to lethal force, the sentry should still give them the benefit of the doubt after the initial force was applied and step down their continuum of force accordingly. And, if in fact a subject de-escalates their own behavior to start with (and does not try to immediately re-assault you, of course) then the sentry should once again bring their level of response down. Regarding the latter, it must be understood that someone who has demonstrated such a disregard for someone else's IC right to life -- even if they're a mall cop -- is a potential threat to more than just the mall cop. If your answer to a problem is murder, well, one must not be surprised if you get killed too. I would not expect any security players to have to use LTL force against armed, murderous mercenaries. That would simply be ridiculous of me to ask.

It concludes: 
If you've read beginning to end, skimmed or read every detail -- doesn't really matter -- thank you for reading. If you scrolled to the bottom -- heyhowareyougorg? For those that did read, I hope you found this interesting, and I await to see any discussion or rebuttals about this. Hopefully, there can be a cordial forum discussion that can be had about this, that's been quite rare to see since discord got popular. Have a wonderful day, hope everyone who views the forum here is safe.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Scheveningen
Did I fix it? electric boog 2

[Kaed]

I would expect this sort of writing style to appear on a college thesis more than a forum where we are talking about pixellated space police that expend not much more brain power than the thought level required to type a request to surrender and then click on an antagonist until someone falls over.

I don't know what the intent of you writing this actually, was, Delta.  As I forced myself to read through it, my brain railing against exceeding of the limited amount of attention span that I normally allocate for this game, I continually myself thinking "Is this an attempt to intimidate people with their intelligence?" and "What sort of audience reading level does Delta the people of this forum are averaging?"   Forcing myself to read through this caused me emotional distress and made me want to scream at you - I won't, but I felt it would be remiss not to bring up how frustrating it was to plow through this.  Whether this was authorial vent/self-indulgence or not, if you honestly expect people do do more than skim through your writing, you are going to need to be more concise than this. You should strive to write towards the level of the audience you are making content for, not attempt to confuse them by talking above their level of communication and questioning or mocking their intelligence when they struggle to absorb the rhetoric you have given them.

But plow through it I did, I found myself rather unclear on your point. You speak of the escalation of violence with the clear indication that more violence is an undesirable result, citing an Austrian author that I guarantee less than 5% of the people on this forum will have ever heard of and a marine corps, but very little of this massive amount of text actually involves anything that I could call a 'guide' on avoiding that excessive violence.  Your only in depth example involves a hypothetical discussion with a grandmother and how you might argue with her about information you both received from different news sources.  How exactly is this a relevant example to anything that we are doing on server?

You discuss the concept of force doctrine, reusing the same infographic three times (which I would generally regard as excessive repetition, but perhaps you can explain your own reasoning for doing so), but you offer no actual paths to to follow aside from the vague abstraction that conflict does not need to manifest as 'submit or die' binary results.  Certainly I can agree that it is frustrating that security vs antag conflicts often devolve into violence because both side has an expectation of absolute victory, but you give no solutions or alternatives this.  You must do more than spray a mass of philosophical talking points at us and expect us to extrapolate a new behavior from it.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Kaed

[Scheveningen]

8 minutes ago, Kaed said:

I would expect this sort of writing style to appear on a college thesis more than a forum where we are talking about pixellated space police that expend not much more brain power thought level required to type a request to surrender and then click on an antagonist until someone falls over.

I hope this isn't longer than the original post, sorry in advance. There was a lot to unpack here.

The nature of a roleplay server is simulating real-life social and physical interaction through characters as proxies. Antagonists are a side feature of the game to drive conflict and therefore hand-deliver problems to the majority players to solve, survive or overcome. As the initial preface says, though, it doesn't have to be that way you describe as "pixelated space police that type out one world and click people horizontal". I'm not sure what the writing style of this has to do with it unless you are honestly attempting insinuate that no one should care, or people put far too much effort into thinking about these issues, etc. I believe people have the right to ambivalence, but ambivalence stops being really ambivalence when in-group is telling out-group "you're not allowed to care." Likewise, I think this issue is important!

15 minutes ago, Kaed said:

I don't know what the intent of you writing this actually, was, Delta.  As I forced myself to read through it, my brain railing against exceeding of the limited amount of attention span that I normally allocate for this game, I continually myself thinking "Is this an attempt to intimidate people with their intelligence?" and "What sort of audience reading level does Delta the people of this forum are averaging?"   Forcing myself to read through this caused me emotional distress and made me want to scream at you - I won't, but I felt it would be remiss not to bring up how frustrating it was to plow through this.  Whether this was authorial vent/self-indulgence or not, if you honestly expect people do do more than skim through your writing, you are going to need to be more concise than this. You should strive to write towards the level of the audience you are making content for, not attempt to confuse them by talking above their level of communication and questioning or mocking their intelligence when they struggle to absorb the rhetoric you have given them.

I believe I already covered what my intent was of actually writing this. Further, why did you feel the need to share these other thoughts of yours, already highlighted in bold? Because these seemingly hostile questions have seemingly established a few beliefs of yours without me really needing to answer them:

1. Someone else writing up a lengthy post about an unfortunately complex subject is somehow attempting to intimidate people with their own intelligence.
2. An admission that just because the reading level of a passage was above your own patience or desire to read (going so far as to unnecessarily express how reading anguished you, even), it is your belief that it is above everyone else's capability to read.
3. An accusation of authorial vent/self-indulgence in writing something.

We're not really past breaking down this paragraph yet, and I'm of the impression you believe this thread was an act of bad faith from the start. I think it wouldn't be useful to attempt to convince you otherwise as I don't think you have a basis to hold that belief. Further, I have no expectation that people need to or should read anything I post, much less even respond. Skimming is completely fine -- but I admit I will be disappointed when someone who admits to skimming later posts with indication that they didn't read crucial aspects of the post even through appropriate skimming. But I really don't hold grudges in that case. People can do whatever they want. What I have posted is ultimately still my thoughts, and I believe I have gone to such pains as to keep the initial post as inoffensive to anyone, as well as constructive as possible. It is still your belief this is a bad faith post anyway. Another thing is that I have redrafted this quite a few times, and it is pretty much impossible to simplify a subject like this.

Further, it's not only academic requirement to have to form basic foundation through providing sources or reason for larger arguments, but it's also essentially social courtesy to have to justify one's belief with evidence or reason. And that requires a lot more writing than just citing a talking point with no justification. Understanding the "why" of things is an important part of critical thinking - and I do not say this as some supposed attempt to self-indulge or lord over other people with my enlarged-and-possibly-roided-out cerebral cortex or something. It's demonstrating that improving a way of doing things is certainly possible and within reach. Yes, the amount of writing is truly unfortunate. I wish I could simply convey concepts without needing to explain or justify them, and I also wish I could understand things without needing to hear as to "why". But it's not how it works, as "why" cannot be explained "just because", because frankly a person can't be prior educated on every subject that exists, it is impossible. But, I believe you seriously underestimate the ability of other people to grasp concepts. I'll attempt to do better in the regard of improving how I make things more and more concise anyway.

43 minutes ago, Kaed said:

But plow through it I did, I found myself rather confused. You speak of the escalation of violence with the clear indication that more violence is an undesirable result, citing an Austrian author that I guarantee less than 5% of the people on this forum will have ever heard of and a marine corps, but very little of this massive amount of text actually involves anything that I could call a 'guide' on avoiding that excessive violence.  Your only in depth example involves a hypothetical discussion with a grandmother and how you might argue with her about information you both received from different news sources.  How exactly is this a relevant example to anything that we are doing on server?

The Austrian author being cited was to help determine how conflict can escalate to greater extremes over time on its own - perhaps to apocalyptic ends, even - when there is no concerted attempt by other human beings to de-escalate themselves, and instead engage in further perpetual acts of conflict between the in-group and the out-group, primarily as they are armed with the belief that their own escalation is justified by preventing a future attack upon themselves. This relationship can also be reciprocal, and the reciprocation (eye for an eye) may even justify further escalation to the next level of conflict. This is a useful - though not absolute - gradient to be aware of, as it helps describe where the relationship between two out-groups seems to lie, and how stable the relationship seems to be.

Further, you'll notice I didn't cite specific methods to deal with various situations because life is not that simple and no two situations are the same, ergo using the same methodology every time is essentially what I am advising against in this very thread. I might actually say that coming up with specific methods to deal with specific problems is something that needs to come after understanding a different ethos of doing things, which is primarily what I'm using the soapbox here for - to describe a different line of thinking that can be taught and utilized to more humanitarian effectiveness. I criticize the existing "use of force continuum" doctrine that is used even in the real world today, because it is not only binary but the very model presumes a situation can only get worse until a subject is, funny enough, subjugated. I then highlight all the problems with that, which I don't need to repeat twice, really. Beatings and/or death should not be the go-to to resolve every situation despite being objectively effective at resolving conflict short-term, if we ignore having ethics.

The grandmother example was one of describing how conflict is not only when violence occurs, but also when social interests find themselves in opposition. It was primarily intended to be written to help demonstrate that conflict is not only when two people start hitting each other over a box of raisins, but rather to describe that conflict starts at disagreement, and also often escalates from there, with situations barring a grandma and substituting a stranger instead. As it is more common to deal with arguments than it is violence, people are more likely to avoid the unfamiliar, dangerous and uncertain measure of conflict that is "violence" yet some will walk straight into an argument with another person and fiercely debate their position against the out-group. Because ultimately, debates are safe, and nothing is truly lost when neither person gets their way.

But as we know, disagreements can escalate into worse circumstances much later if nothing resolves from the initial argument about an issue. There is no de-facto method that solves this, it largely depends on the situation. Some would tell you to forsake your own principles in an attempt to maintain harmony with the out-group. Others would insist that escalating to action in order to resolve the issue that disaffects the in-group is more important than your relationship with the out-group. 

The grandmother juxtaposition is a relevant example to what can result various IC conflicts that happen on server, especially between security and everyone else. It essentially states right off the bat that a smaller conflict between two groups will likely build up to a larger, more problematic one later on - even if it's just a discussion about grain, the disagreement creates ideological struggle until resolved. If it even can be resolved, that is. This is often relevant a million times over over the course of a week's rounds, because how many times do you see people observing rounds and saying something to the effect of "You reap what you sow"?

1 hour ago, Kaed said:

You discuss the concept of force doctrine, reusing the same infographic three times (which I would generally regard as excessive repetition, but perhaps you can explain your own reasoning for doing so), but you offer no actual paths to to follow aside from the vague abstraction that conflict does not need to manifest as 'submit or die' binary results.  Certainly I can agree that it is frustrating that security vs antag conflicts often devolve into violence because both side has an expectation of absolute victory, but you give no solutions or alternatives this.  You must do more than spray a mass of philosophical talking points at us and expect us to extrapolate a new behavior from it.

I think the forum is buggy with image attachment, I really shouldn't have bothered, should've gone with URL pastes instead - and I've tried incredibly hard to remove the very image appended at the bottom of the page. I've no idea why it shows up like that. Tried fixing it more than twice and no dice, really, I'll see if I can fix it for the last time. The intent was for it to only show up twice (one was the original image, the second was a modified image). Specifically, the Norfolk Marine Security Forces model.

Regarding the matter of expectations of absolute victory - the expectation wouldn't exist if everyone was of the belief that compromise and meeting somewhere in the middle on occasion was the right thing to do. Certain ideologically devout persons have zero intention of compromising their values, ever, and will gladly burn their opposition in the way. And how do you convince someone like that to not view things the way they do? I can't give a concise answer about this, because this is genuinely a real issue in real life too. Radicalization itself does not have an easy fix, and it isn't as simple as proving them wrong either -- because they may just interpret it as you trying to sabotage their cause or etc, putting you on their list. It makes diplomacy seem like it isn't an option, and that pointless violence is the only answer. Fundamentally, that isn't fun or comfortable for anyone to deal with. If I was capable of giving a singular, right response to answer that, I would've given it in the OP.

Once again, though, I have to use the same talking point about how there is no one tool for every job, however, as decision-making isn't like using a hammer or a wrench to solve every problem (because you'd do some good in situations that require those tools, but just as often more bad if you "solve" every problem that way), it's more like using a multitool (not the yellow door tool) instead. You have to know what works beforehand, which involves needing some level of experience or a strategy. Frustrating as it is to be told "not every problem can be solved with a bullet" and not much else, the statement is used as an invitation for people to think as to what else works besides bullets to solve problems. Think of much of much of my post as like that, irksome as it may sound. Personal truth must be determined based on the situation and must be made to work for you and what your values are. I can tell you what works for me, but it will not necessarily function for you, because even I deal with situations that don't work out well in the end for everyone involved, because that's just how it goes sometimes.

[Kaed]

A bunch of stuff that is mostly in response to Delta and not on topic with the thread in this spoiler. Only open if you want to read a bunch of probably dull stuff I wrote about our discourse.

Spoiler

You did manage to very nearly match the size of your opening post, despite your preemptive apology, but the size of your response aside, yes. It is difficult to read the tone of someone's statements through text, and I admit that I often when you write long (and to me, excessively verbose) dissertations like this the vibe that I get from you is that you are being haughty towards me or others in your loquaciousness.  I suppose it's possible that our previous conflicts have colored my perceptions on discourse with you, too - neither of us have been particularly friendly with each other except on rare occasions.

Nevertheless, I apologize if my comments felt excessively hostile.  My bluntness is a well documented point of contention between us, and I honestly rewrote that several times trying to tone down the hostility in it until I found something that expressed my frustration with your original post while not being overly aggressive.  Doing so might be something I am bad at, but I used language like 'I thought X while reading' and 'whether you meant X or not' and 'I felt X', rather than direct accusations of your intent, and I believed that this would establish how I felt and would result in you explaining your motives rather than feeling like you were being verbally assaulted.

It has to be said, though, that if I am not allowed to express my disagreement with your choice of discourse language without being labelled as a hostile body (see: why did you feel the need to share these other thoughts of yours, already highlighted in bold? Answer: Because reading this thread frustrated me, and it feels disingenuous to pretend that I do not see a problem with it, even if the problem potentially only exists in my head), then there is not a whole lot of point in us holding discourse, because inevitably, one of us will probably get angry (most likely me, because I have issues with temper control) and say something actually unpleasant to the other. There is some irony in this talk about OUR conflict escalation while in a thread about that very subject that I am not missing, incidentally.

However, it is my firm belief that it is possible to hold reasonable discourse while speaking at a level that is generally accessible to a wide audience, and does not require reading through paragraph after paragraph of convoluted statements. 

For example, paragraphs like

Quote

The Austrian author being cited was to help determine how conflict can escalate to greater extremes over time on its own - perhaps to apocalyptic ends, even - when there is no concerted attempt by other human beings to de-escalate themselves, and instead engage in further perpetual acts of conflict between the in-group and the out-group, primarily as they are armed with the belief that their own escalation is justified by preventing a future attack upon themselves. This relationship can also be reciprocal, and the reciprocation (eye for an eye) may even justify further escalation to the next level of conflict. This is a useful - though not absolute - gradient to be aware of, as it helps describe where the relationship between two out-groups seems to lie, and how stable the relationship seems to be.

Could easily have been summarized in a way that does not encourage skimming, like so:

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I cited the Austrian author because their work discussed how conflict can escalate to apocalyptic levels, because when no one takes the time to de-escalate the conflict, it can feed upon itself and each reaction can justify further escalation.

But it is also true that I cannot dictate how you choose to formulate your arguments. I offer this critique mainly in the hope that you will move in a direction that makes discussion with you less frustrating for me to read - an admittedly selfish goal, but one that I honestly think would help you in speaking with other people on the forums too.

 

All that being said, I don't find myself particularly having anything much else to bring to the topic at hand.  You've said a lot of things without really saying anything that bears response - you have no clear answers to give, and it does not seem like you came into writing this thread with any intention to do more than discuss the idea that the problem does, in fact, exist.  Yes, it is a problem, thank you for elaborating on it so extensively.

I have never had a lot of patience for philosophical discourse, and much more prefer results-oriented discussions that debate on solutions to a matter.  Should you come up with something you would like to discuss as a solution, I would be much happier to engage in a discussion about it.

[Scheveningen]

1. Yes, I apologize once again for the lengthiness. Part of the struggle with concisely putting my thoughts is the difference between using an easy, simplified, but not always true statement or using the boring, lengthy, terribly time-consuming explanation that requires some level of fact-checking and thought on my part. It was never my intention to act as if I know better - I frankly do not believe that I do, despite my experience in dealing with various types of situations in this game and out of this game, I am by no means a real authority on any subject. Even the sources I have provided may be experts in their field but even they have to be taken for what their word and experience is really worth. always

2. I accept the apology. It's fine, really, at worst you made a mistake in phrasing your rebuttal the way you did. I'm sure you meant better.

3. No, I believe you're allowed to express disagreement, I simply view that an important part of expressing constructive disagreement from my experience is to at least minimize emotionally charged aspects of a talking point, in spite of how difficult a topic like this can be, since it has real-world implications too. When someone mentions not just frustration with someone's argument but slightly more than that, it led to me to believe you had something personal to settle based off what you read. And that concerned me a bit, since I wasn't expecting that kind of response, but I'm glad I was incorrect in my evaluation. The manner of how you disagreed was primarily what motivated my initial reply to you. The irony is also not lost on me with what argument escalated between us in the span of a few paragraphs. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

4. Yes, I agree. But making things more concise without losing vital parts of a core point - or vital details that support the core point - is an incredibly difficult endeavor. Pick and choose any sort of thing I could possibly say as an observation of how something works, but because I did not cite "why" something works the way it does, it becomes an easy thing to poke and prod at as if it were a fundamental part of the whole argument, even though in reality it was just a weaker, less significant part of the whole. I've had many bad experiences with cherrypickers, so much so that they pretty much single-handedly influenced me to re-do how I explain things. To the point where I overthink things. It's terrible.

5. I think your motivations are still fair - whether selfish or not it's really of no consequence. I think I can understand a bit where the very brief debate started, and it's that the motivations of the two of us very clearly stand in opposition like the door-frame example I wrote about earlier. As you've admitted, you're results-oriented, I'm personally rather details-oriented first and results-oriented second. That's a sort of ideological opposition in a way, but I'm still rather glad you came around to test the waters and see if there was anything that could be learned. I don't particularly care about having my point proven right per se, but I do like when I learn something new or useful, so I appreciate you participating. Thanks.

Edited June 14, 2020 by Scheveningen
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