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Showing 1 of 90 conversations about:
Drop + Gareth Bull Miura Front Flipper Knife
john.webb
422
Drop Studio
Jul 22, 2020
Stickied
Locked
We are elated to announce the launch of the Gareth Bull Miura Front Flipper Knife. It's our first time working with Gareth and our first front flipper collab. It's certainly a gentleman's knife that has lots of clean style, built solid at We Knife with the best materials one can find. We look forward to putting lots of these in people's pockets.
Narq
912
Jul 22, 2020
john.webbWhat a beautiful knife. My wallet breathes a sigh of relief as it notices it's not for lefties...
MrTrav
6
Jul 23, 2020
john.webbDoes the knife that high in the pocket, as the picture shows?
reswright
3850
Jul 23, 2020
Narqmine had a similar 'oh it's S35VN, thank god' moment
Narq
912
Jul 23, 2020
reswrightYep, my wallet's more of a D2 for lefties kind of wallet.
john.webb
422
Drop Studio
Jul 23, 2020
MrTravNo - the knife actually sits lower in the pocket near the top of the clip.
Omniseed
1972
Jul 23, 2020
john.webbAre the rosewood scales stabilized in some way?
Bobraz
2631
Jul 25, 2020
reswright@reswright is it because you like S35VN or dislike it?
reswright
3850
Jul 25, 2020
Bobraz I'd honestly rather have S30V, the steel S35VN was meant to improve on, and to me S30V is just a good knife steel, not anything crazy.
S35VN is chosen for economic reasons by a lot of Chinese manufacturers, largely because the state subsidizes its production and it's comparatively inexpensive to work with when compared to most true super steels. Manufacturers get more out of the choice than consumers do. Being cheaper for Chinese manufacturers because China has most of the world's niobium reserves - that only matters to me if the savings are being passed on. Being easier to grind only makes a difference to me if I'm planning to reprofile the edge, but it saves the manufacturer money throughout the process. Being easier to polish doesn't matter to me most of the time. And I find that S35VN doesn't take as razor sharp an edge, or keep it as well, and that does matter.
It's partially all that and partially being tired of seeing it in knives -- when you buy Chinese knives you see almost as much S35VN as you see D2. It's freaking everywhere. You just get a little tired of seeing some new hot looking knife that seems like it's really got a lot of stuff working for it, and then finding out it's only got that steel for a blade.
Chinese manufacturers seem to be slightly moving away from steels like those and toward ones like 14C28N Sandvik and RWL-34, which are better cutting steels and easier to maintain and to care for - a trend I encourage.
Narq
912
Jul 25, 2020
BobrazI took it as a "I love S35VN, but my wallet doesn't." statement.
Bobraz
2631
Jul 25, 2020
reswrightGotcha, thanks, interesting information!
reswright
3850
Jul 25, 2020
Narqlol I guess I need subtitles
reswright
3850
Jul 25, 2020
BobrazA wise man once said there are no bad materials, merely bad uses for material.
Knife steel is kinda funny because people tend to go one of two ways on it -- they only consider their own experience, or they only consider what 'the group' seems to be saying. It's easy to see what's wrong with the latter approach, right? It'll be decided by hype. So the former seems at first to be more rational... but it's also likely to be slanted by the granularity of your experience.
An example of what I mean: say you get a Mac, and you're happy with it and it works perfectly and yadda yadda. You're going to report that Macs are reliable based on your own experience. If you're one of the people who get one with a problem, you're going to report that Macs aren't reliable. From your perspective this is fully valid, right? But the actual reliability can only be known by comparing the number made to the number of defects. If your personal experience is good, you'll assess the reliability higher than it actually is. If it's bad, you'll assess it as being worse than it is. You're either high or low because your sample size is restricted to what you have seen with your own eyes. Nature of the beast. So I try to stay humble about the opinions I form based on personal experience and not be the 'Steel X is good, Steel Y sucks ass' guy... but my own experience with S35VN is that it's never quite as sharp as I want it.
Does that mean no one else should buy it? No, I won't go that far. Kinda the opposite, really. If steels were cars, S35VN would IMO be a Honda Civic. Perfectly fine car, great purchase for a commuter. If your thing about cars is you get in them and take them from Point A to Point B and want something reliable that won't take a ton of effort to maintain, with some measure of performance... but you don't plan on racing, you don't need limousine comfort, and you are being mindful of costs, a Civic will meet all your needs, and you won't be paying for extras you don't really care about, or spending more money to impress people who you don't really care about. And to that point, for the person who comes to Drop for headphones or keyboards, and they want a pocket knife because they use one from time to time and they don't think a whole lot more about the topic, a S35VN Falcon is prolly going to be a knife they like a lot.
But back to the car analogy, if you're a gearhead with motor oil under your fingernails and you live for the way the world pushes you down into the seat when you take a high speed turn on a banked section of track, I don't care how you trick out that Honda, it's not gonna be as much fun on the track as a BMW M3 or a Lotus Elise. And I'm a gearhead. I care about little nerdy things that a lot of folks don't seem to care about at all, and I try to buy things that I'll be happy with. I don't know that it's anything to get snobby about the way many ppl do. It's just preference, is all.
So when I see a $200+ Gareth Bull knife with beautiful lines popping up that I wasn't budgeted for and am like 'oh, that looks good but I really shouldn't spend the money right now and I already own nicer knives but geez look at those grooves' and I'm going through the mental debate... seeing S35VN as the knife steel kinda makes my decision easy. My wallet goes 'whew'. I'll skip it and wait for something with S90V or S110V or M390/20CV/204P, or Cru-Wear, or Maxamet, or Niolox or Elmax, on the higher end... or something from the Sandvik/AEB-L/154CM/CPM-154/RWL-34 continuum of steels because those are also among my very favorite knife steels.
Omniseed
1972
Jul 25, 2020
reswrightEver tried Vanadis 4E? I'm led to believe that it is functionally similar to M4, which I only had in one knife that I stupidly sold off thinking I could replace it. I have the V4E in a Bradford now, but I don't really do enough cutting to test any of the steels I have. Due to my horrific working conditions only inexpensive or easily replaceable knives go with me, and we might have two to four little straps to cut in a given shift. Also freeze pops
reswright
3850
Jul 25, 2020
OmniseedNo. I haven’t. Zknives says it's identical to CPM-4V, a super toughness steel that's most often seen in fixed blades. http://zknives.com/knives/steels/vanadis_4e.shtml
From personal experience I 've heard other people saying Vanadis steel's more like S35VN in terms of cutting, not M4 -- but the issue is, there's a bunch of Vanadis steels and you never know which one someone's talking about. When you say Sandvik you're talking about, like, three steels, but when you say Vanadis you're talking about a dozen that aren't even as similar as the three varieties of Sandvik. Some people say Vanadis steels are awesome and some say they're just ok... and with boutique steels like this that most people don't work with, it's gonna come down to heat treatment and whether someone's got an ok heat treat for that steel, or a great one, or a bad one.
Here's a pretty good thread by someone who says it is both better than and worse than M4, giving specific examples why:
https://forum.spyderco.com/viewtopic.php?t=81487
The TL;DR is that M4's got a toothier edge but 4V is tougher.
Of course, the thing no one talks about with M4 is how it'll corrode if you look at it funny. I think that's why a lot of people who started out loving it, stopped -- they got tired of having to take near obsessive levels of care to avoid their blade getting blotchy patina. For some folks, that cutting edge is everything and they don't care that they always have to wipe the blade down after use. [edit: and of course some folks like patina, or are completely indifferent to it] For others, they start tallying up the time they spend cleaning the steel and end up deciding that it's a worse tool overall because of that.
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Jul 26, 2020
reswrightTo folks following along: to be fair, talking about one knife steel being the same as another knife steel purely based on chemical composition misses several important dimensions. The grain size, evenness of molecular distribution, and the resultant ability of the steel to be enhanced by proprietary post forging treatments, all matter too. This is why PM steel with its comparatively ordered distribution and refined grain size ends up offering a performance improvement over traditionally manufactured steel with the same chemical composition.
Honeybadgers
371
Jul 26, 2020
reswrightHonestly, I think 99.9% of people who buy these knives with fancy steels never truly put them through their paces in a way that actually challenges the steel. They're just being material nerds. I am a paramedic and used an 8CR13MOV kershaw for years, jamming the thing into trees in heavy rescue calls to use it as a foot step up, and it always cut anything I needed after that. I rarely needed to sharpen it, kept a pretty blunt 42 inclusive edge on it, and it served me like a tank. It's still solid. I sharpened the thing like 2-4 times a year and it spent a lot of time cutting seatbelts, rope, cord, food, plastic, cardboard, cannula tubing, all manner of tape, and I never felt like I was using a tool that was being over-taxed.
Now that I have an M4 spyderco manix 2, I'm using it in all the same ways. And I'm still sharpening it twice a year, though I was able to bring the edge down to 36 inclusive, the reality is that it just doesn't matter. It cuts cheese better. Woo. All the tasks I did with the kershaw I do with the manix, and the M4 doesn't really "do" the job any better or worse. I just like the feel of the manix, copper scales, and the lockup is something I trust more to literally stand my 180lbs on over a frame lock. But the steel it's made of might as well be exactly the same with regards to how it performs in the tasks I ask of it. I personally like the patina M4 gets. My knife works its ass off in the field, and I appreciate that it shows it. The copper scales have patina, the blade does too.
The hard reality is that it just doesn't matter. Buy a knife you like the look, grind, and ergos of. The steel it has is a seriously secondary concern. Nitpicking M4 vs 4V is so retarded I can't even wrap my head around it (other than the stainless vs patina argument, which again is purely aesthetics unless you work in a highly corrosive environment like on a dock) because these tools are not being made to a size or spec that actually pushes the metal they're made of to the limits. An M4 vs V4 hatchet or machete is an argument we could start to make. But a 4 inch pocket knife blade is never going to be taxed enough for the differences to be very relevant unless you're putting on an inappropriately fine edge for a pocket knife blade to start with. It's like arguing the merits of the metallurgy on aluminum vs titanium inside your computer keyboard. Functionally retarded. Yes, there are differences, no there aren't any in your application.
When we start to talk about tools that can actually take full advantage of the materials, that's where the argument holds merit. Aogami blue vs #2 in a 240mm gyuto is something you're going to notice over time.
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Jul 26, 2020
HoneybadgersTBH I chuckle a bit when I hear someone tell me that 8Cr13MoV and M4 might as well be the same knife steel and there's no meaningful difference between them. I guess you must have gotten taken paying for the M4 then!
A lot of people will note from time to time that steel nerds care too much about knife steel, and it's, frankly, a kinda valid point! But they run into trouble. Some of them just want to draw some kind of hard line between their rugged lifestyle and the one they project onto people quibbling over high end steel, which smacks of overcompensation... and then they often want to go that bridge too far and say the differences just aren't meaningful at all and anyone who cares about them is being retarded, to use your word. At that point they just sound insecure about something and scratching some kinda itch that's personally bothering them. It's a little hard to respect and ends up walking their entire point back for them.
IMO you'd do better for yourself and your point to stick to saying that the differences are secondary and you think people make too much of 'em. If you wanna scold people, scold people. If you wanna talk metal, talk metal. But you go ahead and do you.
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Jul 26, 2020
reswrightTo be fair to you: 8Cr steels, when they get the heat treat just right, can punch above their weight in steel testing. 8Cr steel varieties are meant to copy AUS-8; AUS-8 is also a steel that people dump on, but when it's treated just right, will perform damn well. I've seen rope cutting tests where an AUS-8 knife (a RAT 1) beat out a lot of knives with PM steels. And it's the same with 8Cr steel, I've seen it heat treated past 60 hardness and successfully passed off as D2.
If you got an 8Cr Kershaw with an A+ grade heat treatment due to the luck of the draw you're going to have a much better opinion of that steel than if you got one with like a 55 hardness. Perhaps you did.
To be even more fair - if you put knife nerds in a room with, say, 10 PM2s each made out of a different commonly available good knife steels, and ask them to tell them apart? They will struggle to beat the accuracy of the random guess as to which is which. You need to start doing exhaustive cutting tests and then examining the blades for comparative wear. These take a long time and are tedious toil.
That said, M4 would be one of the ones most commonly guessed. It's quite distinctive - extremely hard, clearly nonstainless, and reaches its full cutting potential with a fairly coarse grind. And 8Cr is not a steel I think most people would struggle to differentiate from M4, out of all the ones we see on knives. It'd be harder if, again, that 8Cr had a killer heat treat and the M4 maybe did not. But we're talking about a dramatic and obvious difference in hardness otherwise.
So while I'm in favor of the basic argument that we steel nerds really do overblow the differences between steels, in practice I think it's possible that you want to go with a coarser grain the next time you sharpen your M4 Manix 2 and see if you don't spot a performance difference. Because if you're telling me you can't really tell a difference between 8Cr13MoV and M4 in terms of how it feels to use it day in and day out, I gotta answer that you really should be able to pull THAT one off. Something there ain't right.
Also, not for nothing? But if you're jamming a folding blade into a tree trunk to stand on it, on some kinda regular basis... dood just go ahead and start carrying a fixed blade already. Buy some tree spurs or something. I don't wanna tell a paramedic how to do his job but... damn.
(Edited)
DougFLA123
1404
Jul 27, 2020
john.webbHas this knife been offered up before, or have 289 people actually purchased this knife in the opening week?
john.webb
422
Drop Studio
Jul 27, 2020
DougFLA123This is the initial launch. So - yes, 289 people purchased in the first week.
DougFLA123
1404
Jul 27, 2020
john.webbImagine if it were the handle material (titanium) and blade steel (satin and/or stonewashed in 20CV) that most people want! : )
Honeybadgers
371
Jul 27, 2020
reswrightI like the way you phrased that. Pretty well said.
The problem I have is with the "EDC" crowd in general. The "everything must be tactical because I live in a first world country and have no idea what actual danger or real oppression is like" group that preps for the government apocalypse by buying up all the .22 LR whenever someone in politics sneezes after a school shooting. As a paramedic, I just have a deep, deep seated hatred of this individual. I've seen so many muggings gone wrong when someone thought they could be the sheepdog and wound up getting stabbed six times by a maniac with a steak knife. I wish the word "tactical" would just disappear from our lexicon, because there's no civilian situation where "tactical" is an appropriate descriptor for any action they should be taking.
So it's a bit misplaced, and I personally dislike the majority of nitpicky, semantic groups of anything (arguing over a garret or HKS in terms of reliability at high boost applications when they're only hunting maybe 20 more horsepower over stock, the best headphones on earth when they're just being driven by a smartphone, etc...) I do appreciate that the differences exist, and that there are nerds out there who care enough to actually test and measure. Those electron microscopy shots of those denim stropped edges sure are purty.
But when "enthusiasm" for your hobby and exploring all it has to offer starts becoming gatekeeping, is when I start calling bullshit on people. "Oh, this knife is no good because it has X steel now let me give you the "ackshually" neckbeardy semantic reason why" is just trite bullshit. Gatekeeping is more the problem than any actual material differences in knife steels, which 99/100 of the people who are even in the discussion will never be able to distinguish in terms of daily use (other than stain resistance, but that's more subjective since some, like me, enjoy patina) because they're quoting cut tests and exhaustive, challenging work being done that just isn't going to be what the vast majority of people will ever use them for. Because there is no true "objective best" but people latch onto something and make it part of their identity, so we get these poisonous, toxic arguments over something that, in practical terms, is purely subjective. It's what absolutely kills any fandom and turns away new people.
Pocket knives are not used to the limits of their steel by almost anyone. Perhaps I just got lucky with my kershaw. But I have a few other 30v spyderco's (they give me a 50% discount as a paramedic) and cheapie 8cr13 knives from spyderco and the like that do their job spectacularly too. The slipjoint kiwi is probably my favorite knife of all time, and it's made from a "budget steel". Because the edge does everything you could ask of such a small blade, and the fit and finish are superb. I find much more dramatic differences in the grind than the steel. I could tell the difference in a concave/convex grind over a full flat grind immediately. My Manix is a lovely blade, and If I just sat there and compared my kershaw and M4 back to back, I could tell the difference after 20 or 30 cuts of rope. But as long as I can "pull out knife, deploy blade, cut object that needs cutting easily" then that's practically speaking, all that matters. Honestly, lockup and durability of everything else are what have been tested more than the blade in my work. My Manix 2 definitely outperforms the kershaw in terms of those aspects.
I've done the tree trunk test about 30 times in 10 years. about half have been just to hang my jump bag on during extrication, and about half are "I really need to get a leg up so I can support this door on a car that went down a ravine as we cut it, or get a leg up to a patient who got caught in a tree paragliding and cut him out of his harness with my shears" and aren't planned. If I can see the situation beforehand, I just grab my axe out of the truck, but I really don't want to bring all my gear on every call. Fixed blades on a duty belt just make you look like a maniac. I had a partner who carried a set of massive 14 inch trauma shears on his belt. We used those all the damn time, they were amazing, but jesus people wouldn't shut up about them. A fixie would be even worse. I work in the cascade mountains in WA, it's a really, really weird area. My rig isn't 4wd but I've thrown it at some trails that my mechanic probably doesn't want to know about.
reswright
3850
Jul 27, 2020
HoneybadgersThank you for the reasoned response.
Fixed blades on a duty belt just make you look like a maniac.
I mean this in all candor and fairness, and perhaps even a little humor: hauling ass up a mountainside mud track in a 2WD vehicle and then standing on a folding blade jammed into a tree trunk... doesn't make you look like a maniac? Consider the possibility that you are, in fact, a well controlled maniac. One in a profession of maniacs. And that it is your lot in life to be misunderstood by people who have never shouldered such a load. MB just roll with it, and let other people sort out how they feel about it...
Don't get me wrong. I know what it's like to avoid doing the smarter thing because it would attract so much comment from non-smarter people and I know what it's like to work in a profession that exposes you to commentary you don't need from people who don't know things and all that. So I can feel ya on that one, but as I grow older I recognize something: that shit doesn't matter. People say what comes to their mind and for a lot of folks that's not gonna be much to write home about, and it can be left at that. I don't need to stop and pick up throwaway opinions and look 'em over to see if they hold the power to sting my pride.
BTW, a certain amount of people bitching about knife steel in a place like this aren't necessarily ever going to trace back to a logically rooted argument about competing knife steels... but some of it's going to tilt toward holding the manufacturer accountable to what materials and craftmanship they're giving you for the price they're collecting from you. Cheaper steels are, well, cheaper, and usually cheaper to machine, and you don't need to be a steel god to know it or to want a good bargain as you see it. When you see someone selling a knife for a premium price and it's just got an average steel, that's something that many consumers will push back against as a result. So in service of your point... can they tell S35VN from K390? Possibly not. But in service of mine,... they don't need to be able to do that in order to know that the company's trying to pull a bit of a fast one if they're offering a S35VN knife at a K390 price. And that's a certain amount of what you see in Drop when people are hashing over knife steel choices, it's less 'omg that steel sucks' and more 'with this price, they could have and should have offered the consumer a better knife steel'.
reswright
3850
Jul 27, 2020
HoneybadgersI wish the word "tactical" would just disappear from our lexicon, because there's no civilian situation where "tactical" is an appropriate descriptor for any action they should be taking.
Amen to that. Our society fetishizes the concept of 'just violence' to our detriment and we have way too many people who wanna play hero these days and when those folks end up hospitalized because it turns out their reach exceeds their grasp, the people who did all the encouraging are suddenly nowhere to be found.
people latch onto something and make it part of their identity
90% of Internet argument, right there. :)
(Edited)
Honeybadgers
371
Jul 29, 2020
reswrightWe do have to take our professional appearance into account, unfortunately. If I could, I absolutely would carry a nice fixed blade in a horizontal sheath on the back of my belt. But just like people who feel the need to open carry a firearm "just in case the gov't feels like oppressing my freedoms today", it makes civilians uncomfortable. And it is a safety issue, if a lunatic runs up behind me and manages to rip it out, they'd have a great stabbin' tool. With the number of psych facilities and homeless encampments I enter on a daily basis, I prefer to be a little more low-key. I do make sure I have what I need, and for the past decade, the pocket knife has met all my needs, but that doesn't mean I haven't also used the blunt side of my axe to hammer a snow chain back together after it snapped while I'm stuck at the top of the snoqualmie pass in a blizzard, my partner and three firefighters in the back running a cardiac arrest.
And 90% of my job is still sitting on my ass or taking old ladies back home from the hospital. EMS is fuckin' weird.
mackhomie
84
Aug 3, 2020
reswrightthis deserved at least three or four thumbs up.
Omniseed
1972
Aug 4, 2020
mackhomieYou gets one vote, skippy
Per account
reswright
3850
Aug 4, 2020
HoneybadgersWell, sounds like you’ve got it sorted out.
all the same I won’t be hammering mine into a tree trunk.
mackhomie
84
Aug 4, 2020
Omniseedhe lives! when I didn't see your name in a new knife chat, I was a little concerned. I looked at your page, though, and holy Lord, you don't miss anything lol
Honeybadgers
371
Aug 4, 2020
reswrighttoo shiny. Needs some wear and patina!
I went with the stonewashed titanium ball lock for mine
reswright
3850
Aug 4, 2020
HoneybadgersThe thing about the copper ball lock tab is that the rod on the back of it is a little too malleable. It's possible to bend it out of position while trying to install it. (I found it could be bent back just fine, but still, that's gonna worry some folks)
Using the Ti prolly gets you around that issue :)
reswright
3850
Aug 4, 2020
HoneybadgersYou'll like this one from @Ghostimpala better, then :)
https://drop.com/talk/31687/talk/2597362?utm_source=linkshare&referer=Q2Q3ZA
Honeybadgers
371
Aug 5, 2020
reswrightThat delica is amaaaazing. Makes me want to pull out the ferric chloride and just do a few wipedowns on my blade, screws and clip.
I went with the Ti ball cage because the biggest strength of the ball lock in general is its absolutely obscene strength when tested against the failpoints of liner and frame locks, and seeing as I have occasionally actually used my knives in ways that can cause a lockup failure, copper is just too soft for me to be comfortable using. Plus, it adds a nice little visual contrast, and titanium will patina with time kinda like the M4 will. My M4 has really been pretty slow to patina. People who think it's a true "high carbon" steel are definitely not going to see that kind of rapid aging like with an opinel carbone. I never put it away wet, but I do use relatively strong oxidizing agents at work to clean stuff, and they haven't really discolored the blade.
My only gripe with the flytanium copper scales is that they were an absolute bitch to install with that lanyard loop at the back, and they removed the pocket clip grips from the left side, making it kind of a left-pocket only carry, since the manix 2 is such a fucking bulky knife. Fine when I've got duty pants on, less bueno for jeans. I use a CRKT CEO for jeans carry, or the spyderco shempp bowie/smock if I need something a little more substantial. The CEO is maybe one of my favorite blades of all time though, I do actually run into occasionally dulling it since I do like to keep a very thin profile edge, and I am a sucker for patina, I may get a bladesmith like Steve "Greenbeetle" to make me an M4 blade for it (he made a twist damascus japanese marking knife for my dad, absolutely stellar work.)
(Edited)
billc
410
Aug 10, 2020
HoneybadgersYou may appreciate this, then. Among the least expensive of my knives, it's the one I seem to grab most often. There's just something about these simple friction folders.
billc
410
Aug 10, 2020
reswrightThe answer to M4's lovely non-stainless qualities is using it a lot and using it hard, which teaches you what matters about the steel in a hurry. Most of my woodturning tools are M4. All they get, when I remember to bother, is an occasional wipe-down with the same lightly-oiled rag I use to clean the lathe bed. The tools all have some spots and rust here and there and, for the most part, I stopped caring years ago. M4 is a nice working steel. It's easy to sharpen on a medium grit belt or wheel (I hit mine with a 180 grit belt) and is easy to touch up up between sharpenings in seconds with a diamond stone. A lathe tool goes through more wood in an hour than a lot of knives will ever see in a lifetime and will leave a near-finished surface used properly.
You mentioned blotchy patina. That phrase instantly brought to mind my first fixed-blade knife. An original 1970's Schrade Old Timer Sharpfinger (which I still have tucked away somewhere), it quickly blotched out and I always though it looked great.
JimmyMalone
2
Aug 10, 2020
reswrightHell of a thread ya'll got going.
For various reasons, including humorous, am flashing on old wizened Tommy Lee Jones & much younger & larger Benicio del Toro improvising boony-forges & making knives outta' leaf springs, then going at each other.
But also fun(ny idea) that burning books, or words ("tactical") doesn't burn away underlyings that words "represent."
And that "civilian" - who's just as much GI as any Joe is -- as used seems to be "gatekeeping," too.
If somebody pulls, & pauses, cuz it was talisman-in-hand bluff, or mostly so, all along, well, too bad, & maybe it’ll be a learning experience; practice can make more perfect, or less imperfect.
But honest effort deserves, earns, praise, & respect – not denigration.
Too, needs must leave a little room for them as have turned experience into practice...despite society-surrounds that tend more to fetishize domesticity & security.
reswright
3850
Aug 11, 2020
billcKinda envious of the lathe work skill set, to be honest. Always one I was fascinated to watch.
Performance wise, M4 is not only a super steel, it's one of the absolute very best at cutting. Extreme levels of both hardness and toughness, toothy edge. There's a reason why so many steel people love what it brings to performance. And yet I have a hard time thinking of a super steel that occasions more vigorous debate than M4, and that's largely down to its propensities towards patina if you ask me. Patina and the unconscious mind, which pays a lot of attention to certain facets of social cleanliness that the conscious mind might skim over, as a matter of primitive evolutionary psychology and avoiding people who might carry illnesses.
Few things bring more opinions into a knife discussion than patina. Some people hate it for superficial reasons like they don't dare have something in their gear that isn't meticulously clean, either because of their pride or their attention to detail. Some do love the randomness and unevenness of a proper working patina of course because that's how they roll, and some genuinely DGAF about it either way and think the rest of humanity's just being a little bit namby-pamby about the appearance of a working tool. A lot of people claim to like it because they're stuck with it but secretly don't. or at least don't like it nearly as much as they claim. Many like patina but they grapple on some level with the mental suggestion that its presence indicates personal uncleanliness or sloppiness, which is evolutionary speaking a trait with a powerful pedigree related to surviving outbreaks of disease. They like it but are also uneasy about displaying it, and that brings a quality of defensiveness to their point of view.
People will debate whether it's proper to 'pre-patina' metal or whether it's only patina if 100% of the appearance is due to dirt and dead skin and oil sloughing off your bare skin (for the handle) or from cutting various materials (for the blade) and sometimes they're arguing with themselves as much as debating with you because we all wrestle with our own evolutionary psychology and our instincts to avoid the icky and vile because both are frequently chock full of pathogens.
Anyway your approach sounds entirely reasonable with respect to your tools, though a lot of people would hold a higher standard of care for, say, a pocket knife blade, than they might for the tools in their personal workshop (where they're frequently going to get away from other people for a while, as much as to make some sawdust), and if you were pulling out a pocketknife with spots of rust adorning it, I might not think you were quite so wise to show such an approach. Lockjaw ain't my jam. ;)
I think if I had a woodshop lathe I'd happily own M4 cutting tools. Indeed I bet they're just about perfect for that. Might not be so cavalier about open spots of rust on them as you say you are, but I'm 100% sure they'd be fully patina covered by now. And yet I don't have a M4 carry knife. That's partially just the luck of the draw (not having seen one I felt the need to buy), and partially a holdover to something as irrational as any other motivation in the patina discussion: in the unlikely event that I need to defend myself from an attacker, in the short period of time that'd be taking place, flashing bright steel at close range is a tremendous psychological force multiplier. It's a stimulus that goes straight from their eyes to their medulla and grabs hold of it straightaway, and that can cause enough hesitation in an attacker to save my life, possibly and hopefully even without having to disable or kill in my own defense. That's a reason to carry something with a sheen to it that M4 can't bring. If I were some kinda grunt sneaking through the jungle and not wanting to be spotted that glittering shine would be my worst enemy. Now, I'm a civilian with a civilian's job, and if I have my knife out to defend myself it's not a movie, the shit's hit the fan, and the goal's to survive, so there's no point in stealth - glittery flashy steel's my friend.
Is this rational? I'll happily stipulate that, as I'm not the target of Carlos the fricking Jackal, or a wetwork contractor or whatever, it's not necessarily a rational consideration to let something like that overrule the outstanding performance of M4 when it comes to getting a daily carry pocketknife. It is, in its own way, as silly as the guy who doesn't want to go to the convenience store without strapping on his concealed carry, even though his weekly shootout count is well and truly fixed at 0.0 shootouts per week. But there I am, all the same. :)
billc
410
Aug 11, 2020
reswrightInteresting comments and I appreciate the opportunity to dig into the motives behind all this.
Regarding a bit of rust on working tools here and there, where it is and how much it is both matter. ANY rust on the bevel or edge of a woodturning gouge, for example, would get immediate remediation, probably via sharpening. But the shaft? As long as it doesn't interfere with the movement of the tool across the rest, no big deal. In fact, you can think of it as raw stock for future sharpenings.
I have a couple of tools that are M42, which is like M4 on steriods. Harder to sharpen, though.
Like you, I don't have any M4 knives and for the same reasons.
Patina ... I have to say that there was a time when I did NOT like it. There are still things I don't like. Patina from use and care are fine. Marks, scrapes, stains, etc. from accidents or other sources aren't always so pleasing and in fact, can become a permanent source of irritation. I had a new, 1st production bowie show up once with a rust spot on the blade and I wasn't very happy about that! As I intended it as a user and not a safe queen, I kept it anyway. But it still kind of bugs me. Were I to, say, spill acid on a blade and discolor it, I'd look at that as damage ... yet essentially the same discoloration from ordinary use I'd look at as patina. Doesn't make a lot of sense, but there ya are.
My fixed blade knives, except the Moras that are here, there, and everywhere, are stored in a cabinet. My EDC knives mostly live in my bedside table drawer where they get bounced around a lot. I should do something about that some day ... Oh, and where the heck did I put that Benchmade Hunt series folder? Hmmm - haven't seen that cheap Buck for a while either ... Damn, there's probably going to be some "patina" when they show up again ...
A lot depends on the tool type. My camp hatchet is kept pretty pristine, for example. On the other hand, if I could even find my axe, I'm sure it's a total mess. All of my knives get at least a quick look and a cloth swipe once in a while, but I'm not obsessive about it. My razor/utility knives? I'm a total cheapskate with replacement blades and abuse the living daylights out of them until they almost won't cut a wet noodle. Kitchen knives? Depends on the knife. The cheap carbon steel ones get a quick and dirty sharpening on a small DMT diamond stone. I had a full set of these at one time (a gift long ago). I finally got rid of the larger ones and kept the paring knives, but aside from the quick sharpening and simply keeping them clean, I could care less what they look like. The better knives are sharpened on Shapton glass stones periodically. My favorite chef's knife is a 40 year old, high carbon steel knife that I bought new. Just cutting an onion discolors it. Set it down wet for more than 10 minutes and it starts to rust. It takes an incredibly sharp edge, though it will turn if I'm too hard on the cutting board or hit too much bone, so I hone before most uses. Talk about patina! And I love it, with all its pits, stains, scuffs, etc.
reswright
3850
Aug 11, 2020
billcI come from a background where good kitchen knives were universally speaking high carbon steel full tang knives with simple wooden scales held in place with solid rivets. Stainless steel was something you made silverware out of, stainless kitchen knives when they finally arrived were seen as gimmicky because everyone knew stainless didn't hold a decent edge compared to regular knife steel. Meanwhile all the kitchen knives I grew up with were already seasoned heirlooms with well blackened steel that one didn't notice additional patina upon, per se. They happened to be the same knives we used to butcher meat and game. And as far as pocket knives, the steel was either some semistainless at best thing, or it rusted in damp air. There was no mirror polish 154CM let alone S110V. Bright and shining steel was something in stories and on presentation sabers hand polished by squared away Marines that weren't the ones they might use in combat anyway. Stuff like that. So yeah, '40 year old high carbon steel' is a language I speak. :)
Indeed for me, the whole debate about steel patina didn't even start until stainless steel got decent enough to even be a factor, whereupon lots of us got used to it in a hurry - much much easier to care for, it's a hell of a lot easier to tell if a stainless chef knife has any bits of food sticking to it than a well blackened carbon steel chef knife with its dark mottled appearance, and professional chefs gotta worry about cross contamination when they're cooking (it's one of the hardest things people say they had to master in culinary school) so it's not all aesthetics, it can also be a practical concern.
The truth is I think most people who love patina had to learn, or in my case relearn, to love it. You and I aren't atypical there. It's very human. Some folks are just mortified that their expensive item is mottled looking now, and they're putting a positive spin on it. That is to say, if they could wipe that shit off, they would have done it already.
It's not coming from a place of deep ethical consistency, let's put it like that. For example... ask yourself if the last person who waxed rhapsodic about steel or copper patina in your presence was wearing stained up clothing. Not gonna say it's not possible, but... the answer's probably 'no' right? In a similar vein, when was the last time you talked to a dood with a stained up outfit who was like 'wearing work stained clothing shows character, it shows that you DGAF about superficial stuff and that you're comfortable with who you are and that you don't obsess about cleanliness' and so on? Probably a little less often than you hear steel people discussing patina. Why? I don't think there's really a principled reason involved that stands up to inquiry. Those folks are still wearing clean clothes when they wanna impress others with their thoughts on steel patina, and I think that speaks volumes about the social tensions we're discussing.
Same with cars. Do 'rat rods' exist? Yes, and they're magnificent. I love the stripped down bare metal style. That said most people who might talk about knife patina with a sense of pride aren't driving a car showing rust all over the place, let alone a rat rod.
The ultimate truth is, it's probably wisest to be happy with patina after all -- but I think it's just not that simple for most of us, which is why all the discussion exists.
reswright
3850
Aug 11, 2020
JimmyMaloneNot trying to be funny here but I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say. I gather that you're pushing back against the idea that civilians shouldn't try to act like cops or active duty military might act, and arguing that some of these folks might know what they're doing and should be praised for their activity. Correct me if I got it wrong.
If so, here's the problem in a nutshell.
Let's say you're ex military, and more than that, you're ex MP -- in other words you have had actual training in crowd control that doesn't center around lethal force. Let's say you have great instincts moreover and that you can look at a situation developing, and accurately gauge whether or not you will help by getting involved. Hell, for the sake of argument, let's say you're Batman and you're better at all this than the cops anyway. You're asking why you shouldn't get involved, why people are cursing you for diving into the fray.
And the answer is this: setting aside the question of what YOUR scorecard might be if you gave vigilantism a try, there's no legal way to allow you to intervene without also allowing a bunch of chowderheads who THINK they're Batman to also start diving in. You, who we are pretending are Batman in this thought experiment for the sake of argument, might be possessed of the wisdom of Solomon and supreme intervention skills and you're too good to screw up -- what about them? This just in: they'll screw up. You might talk to them and discover a path of deescalation, because you're used to having to think with a head full of fight-or-flight instincts kicking off. Are they? Nope. They're shaking with the adrenaline.
We don't have these rules because no one in the world is capable of transcending them. We have these rules because most people aren't. And the hard truth is, like it or not, guys like you who ask 'why can't we intervene' are part of the reason guys like that are bleeding out before the paramedic can save them. Even if you're always gonna do it right and always going to save a life that otherwise would have been lost and never going to take a life you open the door to a bunch of dumbass would be heroes who watch too much damn television. And the paramedic is the first one on the scene and gets to see the kid bleed out, not you.
Honeybadgers
371
Aug 11, 2020
billcI've got a couple higo no kami's - I love the idea, but for some reason the execution never felt completely right - the steel is good, and I know the rough finish is a deliberate japanese knife thing, but it just doesn't fall to hand like an opinal #8 does for me.
I do use my smaller one as a marking knife though, does a good job there. I had to stick a strip of 1/4 inch leather down into the spine to stop the blade smacking into the handle scales and rolling the edge, but it worked great.
reswright
3850
Aug 11, 2020
reswrightThe idea that civilians are as GI as a soldier in uniform.... sorry, that's a negative.
Don't get me wrong. The US constitution is partially built around the concept of a civilian militia, and the truth is, the people who say 'the founding fathers wouldn't want us to have military grade weapons at home' are ignorant of history. We have the second amendment because it was assumed that the states would otherwise be subject to federal bullying and predation by a President with a standing army. Civilians were supposed to be able to train and turn out as part of the town's militia, who would then take orders from their commander. It's important to remember the Constitution was written by people who had just successfully rioted, rebelled, and overthrew a government that had tried to disarm them before they could effectively rebel. So I know all about the concept of the well ordered militia.
The problem is that people today think that anyone can form a 'well ordered militia'. In terms of the legal tradition in English common law regarding militia, frontier or otherwise, well ordered militia turns out to be our state national guard organization. It's not for the dude in his driveway to just up and round up a posse and see justice is done. And all this is true whether or not you, or a group of your friends, are righteous folk. You might be Batman, your friends might be the Justice League; the problem is there's no space to let you get involved without ten thousand copies of the guy in Jurassic Park that gets eaten by the dilophosaur also seizing their moment. The average person's instincts aren't terribly helpful in extraordinary circumstances, but by god they'll find a way into the equation if you let them.
"Ok," you might reply, "but what about ex military? They have training!"
This just in: it's not the right kind of training. Soldiers aren't cops. Soldiers aren't trained in deescalation. You want them to be able to drop a criminal under the right circumstances but there's no way to allow it without giving them dozens of opportunities to drop a criminal under the WRONG circumstances. It turns out that being ex mil doesn't necessarily prepare you to intervene in social disturbances without escalating them, and if all you do is escalate them, it doesn't matter how heroic you feel -- you're a part of the problem, not part of the solution. If now you have to defend your own life from violent force, not just someone else's, by getting involved you only made it more likely someone's gonna die and that is what we call 'making matters worse'. Your sense that someone's doing something they shouldn't, is not a sufficient authority for you to stop them; this is why we have cops, courts, judges and laws, who have exhaustive procedures they have to follow, rules that control what they can decide and do, and an entire legal infrastructure constraining their action, instead of deciding court cases by what they felt in the moment, the way you think the guy in the street should when he sees something kicking off in real time. The fact that the law is so exhaustive is a testament to the fact that when we try to go case by case and use our own personal judgment alone, things go wrong and fall apart. That's why the laws are there -- to take the guesswork out.
That's also why soldiers must follow orders; it's recognized that 100% autonomy in any one situation is well above their pay grade. Officers issue those orders because the military thinks there's something going on that exceeds the ability of the other ranks to figure everything out correctly all on their own. That's how this system proceed when they're still in uniform, at the height of their training. So what makes people think that you can yank a soldier out of that situation and throw them into a situation they aren't even trained for, in civvies on a street corner somewhere, and they should be free to play vigilante? Answer: that's just going to get someone killed who didn't need to die and that, my friend, is too high a price to pay to indulge you.
All this holds true for someone who came to their skillset through some other path than the military as well. It doesn't matter what your training was, the problem's never what a wise man would do. The problem's always what the rest of us would get up to. People have to wholly remove their ego from the situation. It's not about them, it never was. It's not about whether some criminal should be protected, or coddled, or whatever. It's about what kind of outcome you're going to get in real life if you encourage people to take matters into their own hands; most of them are miseducated, watch way too much goddam TV, and fuck up under stress like it's our job, and that's even assuming the best of intentions.
Another way to say it -- the cops are trained for it, well paid for it, backed up while doing it, legally authorized to intervene because of all this... and look how often they get it wrong. What that means is that it's hard to get right. If it's hard to get right, the answer isn't to give the job to someone without the requisite training, let alone letting some onlooker decide, there in the heat of the moment, that Now Is Their Time To Be A Hero And Pull Out The Strap. Now is the Time for them to pull out their damn Cell Phone and call 911. Because the ethical and moral answer to 'That isn't good enough' isn't 'k, let's go make shit way worse then, just so we can feel satisfied'.
The cops are trained and yet we have unprecedented numbers of protests going on in America at the moment and the single largest issue getting people out in the streets in 2020 is police violence. That's how big folks think the problem is. Understand the point here: if professionals screw the pooch this badly, what makes you think tossing people with even less training and oversight into the mix are gonna do anything but make things worse? Because they're going to make matters worse. That's what they actually do, outside of stories. It's the law of large numbers at work.
You see, it's the stories that do us in. The narrative of the hero is what people have in their mind, all the good intentions required to pave a road to hell and that's exactly what they do as they seize their chance to be a hero. And that's just the folks who WANT to get it right. There's no room to give someone the space to get it right without giving fools and bad actors ample opportunity to take terrible advantage of that benefit of the doubt.
This is why we have movies and books and television shows about the hero who breaks rules in the name of doing the right thing and it works out in the end -- we're longing for it precisely because our own lives don't tend to provide it to us, for what turns out to be an extremely compelling if depressing set of reasons. If nice guys finishing first was how the world really worked, we wouldn't need stories to reassure ourselves that was true, would we? We'd take it for granted. That's our way. 'The sun will rise tomorrow' is a pretty boring story. We instead choose to seek out stories which reinforce a message we might otherwise doubt, like 'love conquers all' or 'the truth will set you free' or 'good guys are the real winners of life, not the dudes screwing them over'. Something that reassures us that if the good guy hangs in there, he'll win in the end. And it's not even necessarily the good guy. The idea of a righteous hero who just says in the moment 'Screw that rule, it's wrong, we're doing the RIGHT thing' is scratching an itch EVERY person feels whether or not they're righteous, because everyone knows what it's like to be scolded by someone when you don't follow the rules, and to want to retort. We want there to be a rulesy reason to do things we occasionally want to do. We hash it out later on our own, what we shoulda said, and in our mind it works out. We want doing the stupid and self indulging thing to be the right choice on some level -- that means we aren't wrong to want it, you see. That's why we clap and cheer when the hero KOs the creep because he 'had no other choice' and that's the bit people end up remembering long after they've forgotten the rest of the details. Because we want that, but in our lives, it just doesn't go down like that.
(Edited)
oldnoob
75
Aug 12, 2020
reswrightWTF
billc
410
Aug 12, 2020
HoneybadgersThey are rough and ready, for sure. I just love the blade, though. I used mine yesterday to repair the hardwood floor. I caught a tiny splinter of the laminate walking by and it lifted a good 6" or so piece of the veneer! That glued down fine, but I had to carefully scrape down the veneer tip where I first caught it and a bit of proud edge. Perfect control.
The only thing that bugs the daylights out of me when carrying the thing in my pocket is the tab. The knife is just long enough when folded that the tab manages to jab me once in a while.
JimmyMalone
2
Aug 12, 2020
reswrightFirst, just to be distilled everclear, I love minushoo pork, all the detail re knife steels despite & even tho I’m not a knife nerd, or collector. Is why I wrote “heluva thread.”
As for the rest....
Specialization is for insects, wrote Heinlein.
But even insects specialized mostest “know” that self (& sometimes other, too) defense is an inherent right honorable obligation, not a subcontract to “specialists” (if/when that species most specious {too often enough} gets around to showing up) – no matter how insistent to monopolize & special credentialize such specialists may & tend more & more to be.
Homo S should know, you’d think (albeit not too deeply), with surfeit sapience to spare & all, what the flies on Lord of Flies island take for autonomic granted.
But, even before estrangement in a very strange land got even more obviously strange – the topcop in Minneapolis instructing the citizenry to do what criminals running riot under banners of ”protest” say to do, the city council apparatchik there saying into the hallowed record that expecting cops to protect is an aspect of “white privilege,” etc yadda et al – it was always obvious that a whole lotta’ S don’t know shite from shinola ‘bout inherent right honorable obligation, not to mention a few other fundamental things. That lot of Sss ain’t the metric wrench standard to dodge...just not enough on the ball amongst those artful dodgers...& affirmative action sugars slots & gas tanks synonymously.
Paedomorphosis. Genetic immaturity assuring mo’ betta’ metamorphosis to adulthood, let alone lone wolf maturity, just ain’t typically gonna’ be in the cards dealt. Domestication’s the original & still the best juvenile delinquency, so much so that its actually retardation so far below top dead center that the engine just cranks in place until the battery drains or the starter solenoid fries, whichever comes first.
Every day, until the last day, vis a vis the animatronic grey: Once more into the fray/ Into the last good fight I will ever know/ Live & die on this day/ Live & die on this day....How a given fracas turns out is not the point, can’t be, since that’s never knowable until it’s over anyway...cuz the life that art imitates ain’t scripted, nor choreographed, batman.
Art imitates life, even as it sometimes pours accelerant on that sincerest form of flammable flattery & strikes a match...& that sells not least to the artless who pretend to live by “staying alive” (cue Johnboy Travolta’s fever shoes walking the Saturday night concrete jungle).
There’s a poured & hardened reason for 10 seasons of The Walking Dead (& perhaps as many as 10 or 20 more seasons to come), & imitation-love, or puppylove, or sins of the child-fathers & mamas visitations, may be a few of its hallowed names.
Touches on some of the rest of your response:
Crowds aren’t the focus of my initial response. But crowds, or Kitty Genovese, batman’ll have nada to do with what I do.
The price of...is eternal vigilantism? ☻
Legal’s legal (“rules”), laws law. The former’s invented, the latter’s discovered. The twain have gotten so far apart they likely won’t meet again until after the next collapse & reset.
Don’t forget “freeze.” Dunno why fight-flight gets all the de/merit, most of the time. I mentioned practice makes less imperfect. Banning (wasn’t he one of those comic book superheroes, too?) “rules” that seek to prevent practice, well, ouroboros circularity self-fulfilling, right there.
If somebody’s got to bleed out, let’s practice at having it be the ex sanguinate that needs it, volunteered for it. And not insist perfect be good’s enemy.
I don’t see the impulse-instinct-reflex-“thought” (caboose) as “heroic”. But I do see using that term as denigration.
That’s part of what paramedics sign up for...gatekeeper controlling that away isn’t...if "is," wrong line of work.
General Issue numbered at birth is a negative, but also just a fact I was referring to. The dogtagless civvie side of the army is just as real as the camo side.
“Framers” was the original term for the coup cabal. “Fathers” came later, cuz paedomorphosis & infantilzation is too insecure to ever rest short of 100% compliance & a 4.7 on a 4.0 gpa scale (extra credit & gold stars accounted for). And cuz “we wuz framed” might gin up some drops of counter adulation & appreciation.
Looks like the states are gonna be subject to dementia, & his right hand Marxist. No forecast from me, tho. Dunno til it’s done. Speaking of forecasts, presumably expert & specialist, screwed my beauty sleep last night staying up for the Perseid light show. Saw 3.
Twas the Articles that were writ during fracas, trading one tyrant 3k miles away for 3k tyrants one mile away. Supplant the king: mission accomplished. Then harden the silo’s constitution: accomplished that, too.
Tragedy of the commons is, has always been, the commons. Tragicomedy of common law is precedent. That’s a cross between Gulliver tie down threads & that Orwell bit about controlling the past to really noose the future’s neck.
Everyday above ground is an extraordinary circumstance.
Training is just about the opposite, typically, of education/educability, learning, creativity. And it’s the most successful Prussian import ever. I remember the public school Pavlov bells. Never could salivate on cue, tho. Luck of the draw.
Militarized sharecoppers. Yup. Take mine own posse over those posse comitatusless ones every day of the week. We don’t do Ox Bow incident here.
Linearize out the guesswork & fluidity & unique moments as ye may model & claim, those maps still ain’t now, nor ever gonna be, the territory. Nor will they ever colonize my territory. Contra wanna be bell toller Donne, every wo/man’s an island, none mere clods of the “authorized” & authoritarian continent.
Speaking of good little german jews, there’s no shortage of Nuremberg faceband wearers about these days.
Course, mask on! is just a case of coming out of the closets. Donning the gay apparel & sallying forth isn’t something that just magic wand materialized.
Nor is it a disease.
It is that banality Hannah Arendt described. And it is that synaptic zap that Milgram’s electric shock obedience to authority experiments described in response to Arendt’s description. Shock me, Amadeus ex machina!
Officer Frag: “The horror! The horror!”
Law of large numbers, actuarial tables, epidemiology, averaged composite wo/men that don’t actually exist anywhere, but which simplify the “metrics” of cash register ringing in “healthcare”...& false security sense many of the subordinates, “patients,” who never & don’t wanna think about it.
The George Floyd thing is pretense. Obviously. Folks that think otherwise ain’t thinking at all. Emoting, maybe. Oh, & looting. Can’t forget that moral righteous hazard. Just as I’ll never forget the gator in the water hazard in Hilton head that almost got me, that time.
Cannot agree more. Stories. Narratives. “History.” Mythology. Campbell’s hero with the thousand faces & 10,000 names & milling billions of umbilical cords in hand followers. Anything but the truth. Peter Principle & twice-pass Pareto. 96 to 4. Welcome to the Babel Tower nation state/s of stories.
Nice guys maybe do finish first, when you use the original definition of nice.
The truth doesn’t set anyone free, & truth-tellers, describers, are just as compelled, too, as liars are. All flags are pre-planted, tabula rasa is a myth, a psychological/emotional defense mechanism.
And there’s the dinner bell. Salivating now. Thanks for the exercise.
reswright
3850
Aug 12, 2020
JimmyMaloneyo, thanks for the nice words about the existing discussion, but I think I'm going to leave most of that well the hell alone. Among other reasons it's godawfully hard to parse, even though I read, write and explain shit to people for a professional living, and the reactionary nonsense about Jews and gays and masks and Marxists and all that isn't anything I intend to get on my shoes.
But I will respond to this:
"defense is an inherent right honorable obligation, not a subcontract to “specialists” (if/when that species most specious {too often enough} gets around to showing up) – no matter how insistent to monopolize & special credentialize such specialists may & tend more & more to be. Homo S should know, you’d think (albeit not too deeply), with surfeit sapience to spare & all, what the flies on Lord of Flies island take for autonomic granted."
The flies on Lord of Flies island know the difference between someone attacking them, and someone attacking someone else. You're the one confusing the two, to the torturous detriment of your point. If you can't tell that difference, that's even more reason for you to take a step back.
You have my full blessing to defend yourself according to the law. You and yours. Not that you need it, but you have it. Go with God! That said, no one was talking about self defense. The topic was whether regular citizens have any business playing cop and intervening in other situations. That, we call, 'going on offense'. You know, like George Zimmerman did? Remember that guy? Yeah, dude, don't be George Zimmerman. That's what you're volunteering to be right now. You wanna not do that.
You wanna help defend your neighborhood, you say, though?
Here's what you do: join your local Neighborhood Watch.
When you spot a crime?
Call shit in.
And when the dispatcher tells you 'thank you sir now go back home and let us handle this', understand that it's time for you to do exactly that. Not because the cops are gods -- they kinda suck sometimes. Not because you gotta Respect Authoritah -- I don't care if you do, honestly. I could GAF if you regard yourself as a sovereign nation in your own right. No, none of that. It's because you can't even tell the difference between defending yourself and 'exsanguinating' someone. Because you think the flies know best, and you don't even suspect that that might be a problem.
(Edited)
mackhomie
84
Aug 13, 2020
Honeybadgersloved this. could not possibly agree more.
PNWNative
448
Aug 13, 2020
mackhomieNot directed at you mackhomie, but the hell just happened in this digressive thread?
mackhomie
84
Aug 13, 2020
PNWNativewhoa. I didn't even see all of that stuff until your question. I was just agreeing that blade steel is overrated lol.
PNWNative
448
Aug 13, 2020
HoneybadgersAre you with a private company (I thought years ago AMR bought out Shepard) or one of the fire districts?
JimmyMalone
2
Aug 13, 2020
reswrightSequence of events is relevant.
Actionary precedes, then begets, reactionary.
Then, not as unoften as might be thought, not to mention as would be preferred, the pretzelchology that actively initiated (or passively spectated - including all the filmographers with their phones - see here the classic by Solzhenitsyn https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1144353-and-how-we-burned-in-the-camps-later-thinking-what , or the Niemöller bit - tho “speaking out” action, including writing, or filming, is always less important by far than other, more physical actions -- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3208202-first-they-came-for-the-socialists-and-i-did-not ), both active & passive actionaries pretzelogically proclaim innocence, & not unoften righteousness, basking within the often secular religion’s holy “rules”...
...All those people fond of saying “just following orders,” & their kissing cousins “that’s not my job/responsibility.” I’d throw the “this time it’s different” bumper sticker in here, too.
English majors such as these should resist playing pool for stakes, since they haven’t mastered the physics of words or billiards action/reaction, but, fortunately for language smiths of the felt that need to earn, or “earn,” & maintain livings too, lots of those rule-bounds have low resistance to being felt up indeed.
How’d ol’ sieg heil put it? “How fortunate for governments [lesser bands of brigand brothers, too] that the people they administer don’t think.” (Note the suggestion that thinking is a choice; it isn’t.)
Or Nietzsche, ““Of all evil I deem you capable: Therefore I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.” Note the psyched out move that pedestalizes clawlessness up into the virtue signal clouds.
Or Peterson, “A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.”
Except for that word “voluntary.”
“Thought, however unintelligible it may be, seems as much a function of organ as bile of liver. This view should teach one profound humility, no one deserves credit for anything. Nor ought one to blame others.” ~ Charles Darwin
But not just “thought,” either.
Except, it is necessary to comport “as if.” To compartmentalize, if only mentally, that which has no compartments. That can be worked out on one’s own, or one can refer to Vaihinger. Because the buck does indeed needs be stopping here...even tho it doesn’t actually.
Solipsism is false, but not wrong unless misused.
Utilitarianism isn’t moral philosophy, it is a cooked books accounting procedure – embezzlement -- that attempts, & fails, to provide “intellectual” cover for might makes right; is brutes sporting a thin coat of cosmetics; is a misuse of solipsism.
“We are the world” ain’t, & the god We•us (rhymes Zeus) is a lying psych/emotional defense mechanism prayed to by Oxbow Incidents gangsters as they prey upon whomever they manage to subdue.
Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum. Legal-ready or not, here it comes: "Let justice be done though the heavens fall." And every Oxbowldlerizer, too.
A fun clue, too, is how ‘reactionary’ the truth (or closer-closer-closer to it, since that fluid thing is so asymptotic) most often is, vis a vis prevailing hoarys & hidebounds & vested interests, status quo or wannabe.
But, some granite substrate principles have been discovered containing-beneath all that watery stuff. Geo Michael sang the solidest of those granite obdurates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diYAc7gB-0A
But since what he sings of has never been status quo, none of what I’ve sung with you is accurately labeled reactionary.
Nor is it utopian, since I don’t call for it to be made manifest, since I concede its impossibility amongst a species whose bulk simply is not made of the stuff that would make it possible. It’s an ideal that some approach, but which will never be generalized, never mass manufactured & merchandised to the unable to consent mass.
Besides, politics is for grasper-punks – the too big to fail billionaire individual failures & trillion dollar corporation failures, & the too little character to succeed failures alike -- seeking shortcuts to fat slices, any then as right here & now.
Voting? A votive to self (& whoever prey can be subdued...)-vitiation. Aye, that’s the vendetta without enda. See ol’ anti-social socialist sieg heil, again.
As for the point you’re willing to get on your face, if not your shoes...
We are all related. Unfortunate perhaps, but true. So self & you & yours covers the lot. No actual compartments, just the as if massif, I mentioned above. It doesn’t make me the walrus, but beetles sang “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together” & so it is.
If I’d been on Fly Island, & Piggy was a pal, & maybe even if he wasn’t – since he was a physically less advantaged, bookish, nearsighted nerd type {maybe even into knives} – I’d likely have seen to it that Roger was over & out asap.
You are defensive about self/other defense. Is that not interesting?
And for the record, self/other is what I – somebody, not “a girl is nobody” ~ Game of Thrones -- have been writing about.
Playing cop is a false compartment – has nada to do with reality. Same goes for the offense/defense thumb in the dichotomy.
I’m not a joiner. Not by choice. Just luck of the draw. Helps in the consideration & understanding of enjoined, aka mob, psychology tho. And so I’m also thankful for that lucky draw.
I did “call it in” once. A property crime. Stolen car. Cops showed up 90 minutes later. Way past too late.
I’m sure you’ve read stories about much worse crimes being fully committed whilst the caller waited minutes for what needed resolving in seconds. That never has, or will – leaving room for the luck all such equations that are solved requires – happen to me, or mine.
Obviously you’re having trouble comprehending defense that involves exsanguinating or being exsanguinated is contextual. And trouble remembering this was already so contexted by ya’ll, upthread. The wrong guy, not the maniac, bled out. Remember?
Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Not to mention those flies. But lots of sapient homo’s can’t...& so a story – as I previously agreed with you -- must be concocted.
You’ve shared your story & I’d bet you’re going to continue sticking to it.
I can also agree with you on vaya con dios.
Honeybadgers
371
Aug 13, 2020
reswrightJesus christ thank you. Someone gets the concept.
For every responsible, well trained civilian out there, who can beat the shit out of a mugger, there's a thousand more who are gonna wind up in the back of my rig with a CAT tourniquet on their arm and needing some expensive ligament surgery.
And the unpredictability of the situation means that no matter how much of a god at whatever martial art you do, you have no way of knowing when or how the situation will turn south and that mugger who had a knife pulls out the piece in his belt and smokes you. Rule number one in the civilian world - never make yourself a victim. If you try to be a hero and get hurt doing it, you've just made the lives of the professional rescuers that much worse.
And lastly, by being involved, you are confusing the situation for the responders who arrive and don't know who's the victim and who's the aggressor. If I'm coming into a situation and I don't know who's who because I see two dudes fighting, I don't know which one with a knife is the one I need to be worried about.
There are obviously exceptions - but they're rare. Watch the youtube video of the comedian telling the story of how he stopped a rape and nearly got murdered doing so.
But there's no convincing some people - particularly in America, that they aren't actually John McClain. And I see the south side of that idiotic mentality far too often. You want to do your part as a civilian? Stop acting like a tough guy and instead lobby your lawmakers to enact meaningful, rational gun reform that reduces the number of firearms on the market and reduces the overall risk for everyone, civilians, police, EMS and firefighters alike. I've been shot at several times in the field. I do not particularly enjoy it.
At running the risk of being outwardly dismissive, Jimmymalone knows nothing of emergency services. All of his anecdotes and unsubstantiated philosphical ramblings just don't jive with how civilian emergencies go. Just because you call 911 does not always mean that someone's going to come flying lights and sirens to you. It's situational. Maybe the cops didn't respond quickly to his "stolen vehicle" because all the units available were responding to an officer down, shots fired. EMS is a finite resource, and we have to do our best, but sometimes, a newborn goes into cardiac arrest in the back of a NICU ambulance and I'm the closest responding unit - 45 minutes away at 120mph.
Not that I've ever gone over 70mph in an ambulance *cough*
(Edited)
mackhomie
84
Aug 23, 2020
JimmyMaloneI have no fucking clue what any of that comment means. the hell is happening
JimmyMalone
2
Aug 23, 2020
mackhomieThe usual things (are happening). My keyboard may seem somewhat less mechanical than others.
Omniseed
1972
Aug 23, 2020
JimmyMaloneHey if you're making nazi references over covid mask policies you're simultaneously a dumb psycho and also a stupid fucking dipshit.
Ditto for calling Kamala Harrris a 'Marxist', that is so batshit insane and detached from reality that all I can do is advise you to socialize more and maybe seek professional help for the delusions.
Aschukin
1
Aug 26, 2020
OmniseedLooks like you opened your hand and within your palm was a dumbass answer. Take your socialist-commie views to a third-world country, you freedom-hating asshat.
JimmyMalone
2
Aug 26, 2020
AschukinHa. "Asshat" always elicits a smile.
But...it's (always) a race to the bottom. Carp & catfish, like rodents, are much more prolific reproducers than are sailfish. So the bottom also races up.
100 years ago Argentina was "first world." In those days there was a saying, "rich as an Argentinian." Since then have been 12 defaults. 5000% inflation. Military dictators & people disappeared in droves.
The 3rd grade/world mentality-philosophy-psyche•emotional profile almost never goes to where it would fit best...instead it projects itself upon whatever lands it already squats, & defecates away until the desired open latrine has been "achieved."
JimmyMalone
2
Aug 26, 2020
OmniseedUnmasking emphasis was accurately dead-center bullseyed X marxists the spot on the “good little german/jew” everybody-just-following-orders side of the national socialist uber & unter authoritarian wooden nickel, but equally ex’s the X of all synonymous light brigade variants for whom the bell tolls not to question why but to merely jump & die... good little gi joe citizen comrade clod of the continent serfiestas all.
Kamala’s a cant (ask Vanna to trade for the correct vowel)(...her daddy lays pipe-claim to being a “Marxist economist” – no such thing of course, same way there’s no such thing as mafia economics, or fed reserve economics, etc, an oxymo just like milintel – jump & die or die! -- but that’s affirmative action, with peter principle sprinkles atop, for ya’ -- & if you maintain his wormy apple fell far from his wormy tree – not to mention disregard, or quite possibly not even comprehend, the vomitus projectiling from her own mouth -- youse a yes we have no plantains ‘splainer).
As are the rest substitute vowel cants, all of them: trumpence-biden-congresstitutes-soup ream courtiers-& all the state/local fractal nether parts...trillions in fake money down the toilet for infected tulip bulbs.
...(Not forgetting to include these fellow traveler-rotters: woke activists, celebrities, free-speech interdictor-censorss, left-wing academics & right-wing doppelgangsters perpendicular their bird of prey fuselage, media people, ignorantly redundant ‘cancel culture’ {same as ‘social justice’}, BLootersM, antifa•ggots...the everybody gets a trophy constellation of adhesive-backed gold stars is huge, & getting huger all the time.)
Only pimprostitute cants go into politics (including buying politicians, “voting” politicians), or willie brown’s bed – which is the same thing.
All that ilk are color of law organized criminals...that’s the content of those characters, & colorgender of the hides they ambushwhack from is completely irrelevant. Scratch a liar, catch a thief....
I notice you don’t object to the demented one’s hollowed out & leaky Trojan condomness being used to try & “gift” this baby inside the gates...
...No matter how many times that bill comes due, vanity & venality, dolloped with cowardice, remain blind to the lesson. No atheists in foxholes...Save me We•us! (rhymes zeus)....
Authoritarians, whatever the flavor, & the submissives who got the codependent “love”hots for them, are all antisocial, often sociopathic even, always neurotic, & so are impossible for a sociable stranger in a strange land to socialize with.
But as that borg-lot cube of 3d squares hurtling thru space & time is, & always has been, the majority, might makes right thereby has “appropriated” “social” as the word that defines its antisocialness. Up is down when at least 51% “votes” to veto reality – but them pogo possums voting vendettas against themselves is always closer to 96%. Perception perspicaciouslessness is made manifest destiny “reality” right along with the usual suspect adverse self-fulfilling prophecies.
Monkey see a mask, monkey do a mask – but jimmy crack corn viruses couldn’t care less, since those specks are so small they don’t even need tickets to get past the face-ushers & into (& back out of) this theater of the absurd. Breath deep, the gathering gloom ♪♫♪...
But do specks for brains, & balls, care? No. Parental substitution units have told them scary stories, & theirs is not to reason why.
Usta’ be just pedo-disturbed Michael Jackson (mostly anyway, in bye-bye murkican pie, anyway) filled the face diaper... but now kings & queens a’pop•tosis sociality & just followin’ executive orders are letting it be un-closeted that they were always here-there-everywhere, too...which some already knew...see just about anything from George Carlin, for example.
The weasel king o’ little boys pop’d is dead. Long live the kangz. How many seasons of The Walking Dead will there be? Dead’s forever, Zed, which ain’t a season, nor any number of ‘em. There’s no segmenting, nor offsetting, big sleep zzzzzzzz/entropy.
Hell, on earth, is just of, by, for these ululating borg-pop’d•ulations...but these mindless dead neurotic sociopath homo genization “refuse” – are incapable – of leaving the homo sapient minority alone, must pollute-bleed-breed all over & parasitize every inch & mensch & womensch it can. Dunno’ ‘bout collectin’ ‘em, but that’s good reason to carry at least one knife.
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