[green_man_lives]

> I don’t disagree that we should try to gear our society towards producing less dangerous people. It sounds like we have very different ideas on how to achieve that, though. My personal opinion is that the threat of severe punishment is enough to scare most people into line.

See my point #5 in the parent comment:

> This one might be a bit philosophical but when you have a police force you aren't reducing violence, you're just shifting the violence that is done to the state.

When you give the police overwhelming power to punish dangerous people, you have created a new class of very dangerous people. In my theoretical universe where cops are infallible this is not a problem, in the real world if you give an institution that much power what do you think would happen when they "solve crime". Would they willingly relinquish that power? Or would they aim to extend their influence onto larger swaths of the population with more draconian laws?

> If there was a way to solve these issues while also being really nice and compassionate then I’d be all for it, but if you’re getting bullied sometimes the best thing to do is to just sock the bully in the mouth.

I think you're missing the point. I am not saying there should be zero accountability for criminals and zero police. I am saying we should also attack the root causes of criminality instead of just using punitive measures. Right now we are treating the symptom and not the cause.