[fc417fc802]

> you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence?

Very obviously not. Words have meaning. You are misusing words to garner emotional support for your preferred political position.

Burning down anything (including a business) is arson. Not violence. It only becomes violence if people are present and at imminent risk of physical harm.

Financial damage is not violence. Speech is not violence. Please take your doublespeak back to reddit; it doesn't belong on HN.

[sophacles]

I agree with your basic position, but most definitions of the word violence that I could find included the notion of: destroying things with intent to intimidate through fear of harm, threats such as brandishing weapons, and so on. It's not as simple as 'you didn't touch me so you didn't do violence' - and it makes sense when you consider the case of robbery at gunpoint.

That being said - the destruction of flock cameras is in no way violence. No one sees that and takes it as a threat of harm - at least no one acting in an honest way.

[fc417fc802]

Isn't that the difference between a threat of violence as opposed to violence? Which is directly adjacent and thus treated similarly by the law.

Brandishing a gun at someone is a threat that you'll shoot them but, importantly, is not the same thing as actually making good on the threat. (From the victim's perspective the distinction is rather important.)

[dirasieb]

how did you jump from property damage and arson to speech? non sequitur much? financial damage absolutely can be violence, you can ruin someone's life if you take away their job by burning down the place they work at and it could lead to something horrific like them taking their own lives or not being able to pay for their medication or not be able to pay for their child's education, etc as a direct consequence of your act of destroying that place. destroying infrastructure people rely on to stay healthy/safe/economically stable/etc should be considered by civilized people as a violent attack on them, you cannot pretend that disrupting someone's livelihood is not at all related to attacking their liberty and/or life

a case where you can argue speech can be violence would be a verbal threat to hurt or kill someone, but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about, i don't know why you're bringing up speech, are you trying to say that destroying these cameras is a form of expressing freedom of speech? (not accusing you of this btw, just genuinely curious what you meant by that)

[fc417fc802]

> how did you jump from property damage and arson to speech?

I included speech as an example, the same as your bringing up property damage, arson, and financial damage. It seemed relevant given the general shape of what you were expressing.

Someone being driven to suicide or unable to pay for medication is not an example of violence. It might be many things but violence is most certainly not one of them.

> you cannot pretend that disrupting someone's livelihood is not at all related to attacking their liberty and/or life

Indeed it is _related_ but that does not magically make it "violence". Violence is direct physical harm. Not indirect and not anything other than physical.

> a case where you can argue speech can be violence

Speech is _never_ violence. That's about as close to definitionally impossible as you can get. (Here's a fun related observation: violent rhetoric is not itself violent.)

Respectfully, you seem to be having extreme difficulty comprehending the fact that words have meaning. It's impossible to engage in meaningful discussion with someone who either can't or won't conduct themselves in accordance with that fact.