Hacker News Reader

Comment by MichaelGG | Hacker News Reader

But why are they so uncivilized? The main mission, supplying medicines in the face of oppressive government regulations, is a noble one, one that people can get behind. Just look how the alcohol gangsters of the 20s are idolized.

If they were focused on the core mission of delivering and only killing people as needed, they'd probably have a stack of resumes metres deep. I'm sure Silk Road had its pick of candidates if it needed to hire for a sysadmin position. And you can always remind people you'll kill their families if they snitch.

Is it just a shitty cultural thing? Or is there an actual plan behind being savages and basically making the entire world think they're just untamed animals?

View on HN

To ask why the Zetas are violent is to miss the point of the Zetas.

The main mission of the Zetas is not "supplying medicines". The main mission of the Zetas is to monetize violence. Drug regulations as currently structured accounts for about half their revenue; if they were legalized, that percentage would go down, as likely would their overall revenue, but they'd still be running protection rackets, human trafficking rings, and any other scheme they can devise to reliably earn a return on their investment in a gigantic paramiltary pyramid scheme.

The Zetas are not an overly-zealous pro-drug advocacy/action group. In fact, that's a deeply weird thing to think about them.

Also, I don't know who you hang around with, but I don't know a lot of people who idolize the Chicago Outfit.

Well that makes sense then, I suppose. Do you have any citations for only half their money being drugs?

As far as idolization, HBO runs a series called Boardwalk Empire where the Chicago Outfit and others are portrayed as heroes. Plus tons of Italian mob movies have very positive portrayals. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems a lot harder to do a positive portrayal of Mexicans that like cutting civilians' heads off.

There is a huge difference between "protagonist" and "hero". Shakespeare wasn't making a hero out of Macbeth.

For the Zetas (and many violent organized crime groups), delivering product is a significant source of revenue, but, AFAICT, its not the real core competency. The core competency is manipulation through application and threat of violence. Delivering a high-priced form of contraband is just a convenient way to monetize that competency.

Very interesting way of putting it. I'm quoting you with attribution of you don't mind.

> The main mission, supplying medicines in the face of oppressive government regulations, is a noble one, one that people can get behind.

I think drug prohibition is stupid and wicked, but let's be honest: this is not about supplying medicine to patients but cocaine to users. That use should be lawful, but it's certainly no noble mission.

> Or is there an actual plan behind being savages and basically making the entire world think they're just untamed animals?

Every law is backed up by fear of violence. The cartels can't go to a legitimate court to enforce their contracts and settle their disputes, so they fall back on raw force. Over time, the sort of people who enjoy that sort of work do better than those who don't. There are evil people in the world who enjoy inflicting pain and suffering, and I daresay they do very well in such organisations.

Genghis Khan annihilated cities which didn't cooperate with him; the Turks raped and murdered for three decades when they conquered Constantinople; what the Russians did in Berlin isn't fit to be printed; what happened in Allende is really no different.

> medicine to patients but cocaine to users ... no noble mission

I wouldn't say it's ignoble, though you're right, their case would be far stronger if they were supplying a more varied product.

Your explanation of violence doesn't explain why other groups get by with less violence, and otherwise appear to be respectable members of society. Look at a Chicago Outfit's massacre[1] and the Zeta's[2].

I know, I'm abusing the word massacre, but in one case, notoriety is because of the killing of a few rival criminals. In the Zetas case, they just rape, torture, and murder hundreds of innocent civilians.

That seems very shortsighted and not beneficial to business. Unless it's a tactic to raise the barrier to entry by making the whole area just terrible to work in, overall.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine%27s_Day_Massacr... 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_San_Fernando_massacre

> In the Zetas case, they just rape, torture, and murder hundreds of innocent civilians.

> That seems very shortsighted and not beneficial to business.

An organized crime group that engages in this kind of behavior may, within a reasonable approximation, be rationally focused on maximizing their own experienced utility [0], but even if they are, their utility function may not weight financial returns as highly as, say, yours does.

[0] I should emphasize that I am not at all taking the position that this is the case.

As violent as the Chicago Outfit were, they still had to be careful much of the time. The Zetas are far more brazen because they're allowed to be. They live in a lawless backcountry, not the heart of one of North America's biggest cities.

A better comparison for the Zetas would be groups like Boko Haram and ISIS.

> three decades

Whoops, days, not decades. Dunno how that got through.

>Is it just a shitty cultural thing?

There is some indication that it is a cultural thing.

http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21636052-drugs-and-ma...

There is indeed a long history in Latin America of organized armed forces raping, torturing, and killing hundreds (and thousands) of civilians.

Paramilitaries armed and trained by the U.S., and government militaries funded and advised by the U.S., sometimes after the U.S. organized the overthrow of civillian governments the U.S. didn't like.

Yep, there's a deep cultural issue there, that the U.S. created over the course of a century or so.

If they were focused on the core mission of delivering and only killing people as needed, they'd probably have a stack of resumes metres deep.

Unfortunately it's not so simple. You start out as a Chemistry teacher who just wants to make money on the side giving people a quality product, and end up committing multiple murders.

EDIT: I just read what you actually wrote. only killing people as needed??? You're nuts.

I'm nuts? That's what governments are based on. It's no surprise that a group operating outside existing legal structures will find itself in need of lethal force. If you were running a little village and someone came to take all your food, essentially condemning your whole family, force may be the only response.

So it's quite understandable that a criminal organization might need to use force when someone threatens their safety. This happened for instance with the Silk Road, when someone blackmailed them. (Now, the SR shouldn't have allowed themselves into that position in the first place, but that aside). It's a "necessary" understandable case - if not taken care of, dozens or hundreds of people could be condemned.

Contrast with these cartels, which hijack passenger buses, then torture and rape for fun. There's no necessity there.

Do you not see the distinction?

That is its own necessity. They are at a place, in terms of their environment, character, moral mindset, and predilections, that torturing and raping for fun is preferable (controlling for other factors).

This kind of behavior has had a strong appeal throughout history to many of those with the strength to carry it out without any real risk to themselves. See Jack London's "The Sea Wolf" for a great portrayal of the conflict between this mindset and our own. It's player-killing in video games in the real world and the only effective way to respond is with greater force.

If you have no access to the courts and no ability to enforce contracts because your business is illegal, you're left with only violence. But violence is a pain in the ass, so perhaps you're extraordinarily violent to a few people in the hope of scaring everyone else. People may also be sociopaths; such a business will strongly select for them.

There is logic to this, and the logic is "the more ruthless we appear, the lower the odds that we will be opposed."

If you don't have a monopoly on violence, then you have to compete

> If they were focused on the core mission of delivering and only killing people as needed.

What? The mission statement is a smoke-screen. As with so many hyper-violent people and groups, unrepentant savagery is the main objective, not a by-product.

So they're just a bunch of angry asshats, and drugs are just a convenient way to make money to keep chopping people up?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com