Example: I believe that IP is a direct contradiction of nature, sacrificing the advancement of humanity and the world for selfish gain, and therefore is sinful.
Edit: pls do not downvote the comments this is a constructive discussion
Edit2: IP= intellectal property
Edit3: sort by controversal
I thought of a few stupid things, but everyone talking about kids made me think of this one.
I am strongly against Trickle down suffering.
“I put up with this terrible thing when I was your age, and even though we could stop it from happening to anyone, it’s important that we make YOU suffer through it too.”
Hazing, bullying, unfair labor laws, predatory banking and more. It’s really just the “socially acceptable” cycle of abuse.
I agree, and I take it this far: “I worked hard and paid for my house, why should some lazy loafer get housing for free? I paid 24,000$ in tuition, why should kids get free college?” I think that, at some point, one guy has to be the first guy to benefit from progress, and all the people who didn’t benefit just have to suck it up. I would 100% pay a much higher tax rate if it meant that homelessness was gone, hunger was gone, kids got free education… I’m Canadian, so I don’t need to say this about health care. Yeah, I paid an awful lot of mortgage, but if someone else gets a free house? Good!
UBI is coming to Canada sooner rather than later.
Strongly agree. Someone has to break the cycle of abuse, it’s wrong to contribute to the cycle so that it can continue harming others in the future.
Edit, one example that comes to mind is the extremely long shifts in the medical field in America. One guy who was really good at being a doctor happened to be someone who voluntarily took on very long hours. Now there is this persistent mindset that every medical worker must accept long hours and double shifts without notice and without complaints.
There are a few cases where it benefits the patient to avoid handing off the case to another doctor, but generally it just limits the pool of people who are willing to go into the medical field, and limits the career length and lifespan of the people who do go for it.
Trickle down suffering is a great term for it, I’m going to use that for future use.
I sort of disagree. Some pain and suffering is what helps some people become better versions of themselves. Doesn’t work for everyone though, so it shouldn’t be the default experience, but rather a last resort.
I agree with OP, and I think you may as well but are stating it differently. Hardships and difficulty so indeed provide the opportunities to better oneself, but that shouldn’t come from contrived abuse like bullying or hazing. Those are instances of someone using their previous difficulty as an excuse to make it harder for someone else which I don’t believe is morally correct.
Maybe, maybe not. My thought for the comment was “tried to help, didn’t work, off you go and experience as is”.
Because not everyone learns the same way, so we can’t apply a fix-all universal method. Some kids, adults even, don’t get it until they experience it themselves.
What that “it” is changes from person to person and every time we think “why don’t they just understand”, maybe it’s that they can’t understand and need a different way of learning “it”. Which sometimes is painful.
I get you, and I agree with that. What I’m talking about is more specific. I’m not saying remove all suffering. Suffering will always exist. I’m saying if given the option to cause suffering to another or not, “well, it happened to me” is NOT justification for suffering.
Yes, facing adversity does build resilience. However, creating adversity for another just because YOU had to face it is wrong. I had a professor who called our career a “brotherhood of suffering” and would purposely create artificial stumbling blocks and make things more difficult because he had the same done to him. It’s perpetrating a cycle of abuse. I’ve now gotten to the point where I’ve taught in university and in the hospital and I try to break that cycle. It’s still a very difficult path, the content and pace are still taxing. Many still don’t make it to graduation, why make it harder then it needs to be?
Misguided pride or PTSD perhaps?
Unavoidable pain and suffering, sure. This is about contrived, otherwise unnecessary suffering to “prove a point” or pay it forward in a negative way.
Ah yes, the “poverty builds character” argument that’s often used to justify poverty.
Nah mate, it’s the “rich ppl need to experience poverty in order to empathize” argument.
Why should anyone need to experience poverty in the first place?
Because resources are finite and frugality is needed at times.
Global agricultural systems produce 4 million metric tonnes of food each year. If the food were equitably distributed, this would feed an extra one billion people (paper)
Food is clearly not finite, we produce more than we already need, so why does it cost money? Why don’t we give food to people simply because they don’t have enough pieces of paper or coins of silver?
The ancient people of Teotihuacán decided to stop building pyramids and instead built everyone homes, in a sort of luxury social housing, that “In comparison with other ancient Mesoamerican patterns of housing, these structures do look like elite houses.” (Source) This one is especially fascinating and maddening.
It seems that a peoples society can just, you know, make the decision to build and provide a luxury life for everyone, even in the “hard” ancient days of old. Why can’t we provide a good life for everyone? Why are people obsessed with the idea of suffering being a prerequisite to urban society? It would require proof of a large scale, urban society with no evidence of hierarchy being able to collectively build some sort of intricate sewage technology without any top-down management or something… https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/aug/chinas-oldest-water-pipes-were-communal-effort
Poverty is artificial, it’s a product of using social violence through some abstract currency to protect people from literal violence. Money isn’t the root of all evil, but evil is the root of all money.
I agree completely, also, that Teotihuacán link was a fascinating read, thank you for that.
Nice theorycraft, but it’s just theory. In real life, it doesn’t work.
For one thing, by our own definitions, life is inherently evil. It takes, consumes, destroys, selfishly breaks down something else in order to sustain itself. We may rationalize it in different ways, but it can’t escape that attribute. And as long as an individual has to sustain themselves, they will have no choice but to commit evil. But we selectively view badly those who indulge themselves.
Another is that perfection cannot be achieved, wastage is unavoidable. We have to produce more than is needed or we will end up with less than required.
Accidents, logistics, incompetence, corruption and the like cannot be completely prevented. There will always be something beyond the calculated parameters that can and will eventually overwhelm a system.
And let’s not forget about the desire to control. Whether tyrants or the utopic society you’re implying for, it’s about control, whether to control oneself or all others. But is the mind that easily controlable and should it be? The desires we have and the willpower to pursue or restrain them aren’t that easily defined.
We are not all of the same mind. Neurodiversity proves that people are different in thought and in feeling. The pursuits and responsibilities two different individuals can maintain for themselves over their lifetimes can go below or above the set standard and a civilization must take into account the satisfaction of its citizens in order to avoid its own downfall.
Also, what was achieved in one society will likely not be accepted in another. So good luck expecting everyone, everywhere to accept a unitary system simply because it’s better. I sincerely have my doubts that anyone can succeed in that.
This all has to take into account the planet’s uneven geographical resources distribution as well. Our current production rates barely give a damn about sustainability. Soil nutrition, water consumption, population density, logistics and so on have to be taken into account, so this means population relocation, specialized production specific to regional conditions, limitations of product diversity and availability.
Anyway, what you want can’t be done and if it can be done, it can’t last because people aren’t static pieces of paper. A near-perfect distribution of basic needs requires a level of sacrifice and constant maintenance that we lack the willpower and stare of mind to accept responsibility for at this point in time.
…
Tl;dr:
To make it simple with a one-off example, will you feed fascists or racists if it meant their continued oppression of minorities? And if so, can you ensure everyone else will do the same?
Equal or equitable basic needs indeed need equal or equitable behavior, but we ourselves lack that. And due to that lacking, we make do with what we do have.
What should be doesn’t matter, only what is.
Mine: Kids are pretty great, actually. They are smarter than you think and can make sense of a lot of stuff you wouldnt expect them to. You should treat their thoughts and feelings with the same respect that you would give an adult.
Kids are crazy smart of you don’t baby them their whole lives. Talk to them like responsible adults and (surprise!) they’ll learn to behave in responsible adult like ways.
Hey, thanks for this answer. I am under the impression that there is a lot of negative talk about having kids in the News/internet etc, which made me very anxious about the decision to have my own. And while I think that it’s important to vent about the difficulties of parenting, I sometimes miss people who voice the positive things about it.
You should definitely not feel bad about that. And please don’t let the doomers on this platform influence how you feel about your decisions. They have a very negative view on the world because they are terminally online, don’t go outside, don’t see all the wonderful things life has to offer just around the corner or down the street. I mean, times are tough, shit happens, that’s a fact. But kids actually are better at adapting to changing times than we are.
My kids bring me great joy. I share my hobbies with them and adopt theirs. Spending time with them is not a loss or hindrance. Having kids is not for everyone and that’s fine, but the negativity online it outright toxic.
I like to call them little adults in this context.
As in, they are adults, but still growing. If adult is the end game, we should treat them as such.
This doesn’t mean don’t protect them tho respective of where they are at, which is dynamic and surprising.
Kids aren’t dumb, but they are stupid.
They are still growing and cannot handle the full dose of reality yet.
I also apply this logic to animals. A lot of people, even some pet owners, are quite far divorced from our connection to animals, and don’t spend enough time with them. Even wild animals, they are far more intelligent, inquisitive, emotional, and communicative than most people give them credit for, and coexistance with them would actually be a wonderful thing. I’m not religious, I don’t say grace, and I eat meat… But anytime I eat an animal I try to at least be mindful and thankful for the animals sacrifice.
“Humans are the weakest of all creatures, so weak that other creatures are willing to give up their flesh that we may live. Humans are able to survive only though the exercise of rationality since they lack the abilities of other creatures to gain food through the use of fang and claw.”
Absolute free speech is overrated. You shouldn’t be able to just lie out your ass and call it news.
The fact that the only people who had any claim against Fox for telling the Big Lie was the fucking voting machine company over lost profits tells you everything you need to know about our country
While I’m tempted to agree, the big problem here is that if the government can decide that some speech is illegal, they can use that to silence people they don’t like.
Obviously the system we’ve got now in the US isn’t working, but we need to tread carefully when giving the government power to decide what is or isn’t the “right beliefs”.
Yeah, it’s like giving anyone who’s living somewhere illegally no due process. If they can deport people based on what they say is illegal and you have no way to fight that, then who’s to say that they aren’t going to call you illegal and deport you?
That is exactly what was on my mind when I wrote the comment.
It’s not perfect, sure, but we as a society should be capable of deciding that some things aren’t okay without giving the state carte blanche to censor as they see fit. If the system can be abused, then we ought to fix it, not forgo it entirely.
Plus, governments and companies already suppress or ban a bunch of speech, often in favor of the ruling class. I doubt outlawing harmful speech like parent comment suggests would be the straw that breaks democracy’s back.
Hard to be the breaking point when it’s already broken. But if it weren’t broken already… then I think it actually might.
What we could do is make “journalist” a protected profession. So just like you can’t call yourself a fiduciary unless you hold to a certain set of ethical guidelines, you wouldn’t be able to call yourself a journalist unless you agree not to lie (among other things). So if you forgo the title of journalist, you can say whatever you want (obviously the other laws still apply, so you still can’t slander or libel, and if spreading misinformation causes harm you can still be liable). But if you are calling yourself a journalist, you voluntarily assume a higher standard for what you are allowed to say.
I think that would avoid any first amendment issues. But I’m not a lawyer, so please don’t take my word for it 🤣
Nah,
If I walk up to you on the street and tell you to hand over your money or I’ll kill you, that’s enough to land me jail. Its maybe even enough for you to be justified in punching me in self defense, if you feared for your life and there was no other way you could ensure your safety.
But suddenly if I say I want to put a million people in a gas chamber that’s A-OK? Suddenly no one can punch back or else they’re “just as bad”? Suddenly the lines are super blurry and the slopes are super slippery and its absolutely impossible to tell what a threat of violence is.
Its a crime to say you’ll kill one person, its your right to say you’ll kill a million.
I understand and sympathize with your point, but unfortunately the law will never be that simple.
To use your example, you walking up to me and saying “hand over your money or I’ll kill you” is not justification to respond with lethal force per se. The missing element here is assault - in other words, I have to believe you both are able and intending to do me harm before I can respond with force. If no reasonable person would believe that what you said was actually a threat (like, for instance, if you were a five year old) then I’m still not justified in harming you in self defense.
Suddenly the lines are super blurry and the slopes are super slippery and its absolutely impossible to tell what a threat of violence is.
Yes. They are. And that was your first example, the one meant to be unequivocally black and white.
The problem here is fundamentally an epistemic one. The law is not a thinking, reasoning being. It is merely a system of procedures. The law does not know - it cannot know - the difference between right and wrong. It only knows what the rules are, and those rules may be wrong.
You might think that there is absolutely no reason to advocate for the mass murder of an entire group of people. And under 99.9% of circumstances, I would agree. But if the zombie apocalypse broke out, I might find myself in favor of killing all of the zombies - and legally, there’s no reason that wouldn’t be genocide.
The law doesn’t know whether zombies are people. It doesn’t know whether or not we are. Therefore, there must be some way to have discussions about the law that are above (or outside the scope of) the law. That’s what politics is, fundamentally: the discussion of the law that’s untouchable by the law. Even if we tried to make certain political stances illegal, we wouldn’t succeed, because that is one area in which the law is necessarily blind.
So we can’t curtail the first amendment.
We can’t execute Nazis.
But we could lynch them, as that would be a political act and not a legal one.
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People in the US often misunderstand what sorts of speech can be “free”. There’s plenty of restricted speech in the US - hate speech can intensify the sentencing on crimes, libel and slander are both punishable civilly, speech that directs or is likely to incite “imminent lawless action” (e.g. yelling fire in a crowded theater - that is actually the legal reason for why you can’t do that if there isn’t a fire).
That doesn’t even begin to cover the sorts of speech that are heavily suppressed by the government and media but aren’t legally restricted - like how the media chooses not to cover large popular protests sometimes (famously, the antiwar protests around the invasion of Iraq/Afghanistan), or gives disproportional representation to counter protesters to give the illusion that both sides are equally popular, or how anti-capitalist stances are generally ignored or downplayed. Not illegal, but if you can’t really engage in those sorts of speech publicly, they may as well be.
Agreed, news needs to be held to a higher standard than it is now. There’s a whole list of journalist code of ethics that basically distils to be truthful, minimize harm, be independent, and be accountable.
*some example of minimize harm;
- don’t dig through a celebrities trash looking for condoms
- if there’s an accident you don’t show pictures of the dismembered victims
- don’t identify victims of abuse
- don’t claim an accusation as fact until proven (this why every news stations says “allegedly” all the time)
I believe that the more wealth a person has, the more likely it is that they abused and harmed others to achieve that wealth. Therefore, the more wealthy a person is, the less I trust and respect them.
Mine is related: I believe in an estate or “death” tax, at least on the ultra-wealthy. These people have exploited workers their whole lives to “earn” it, and almost certainly used unethical loopholes to hide it and keep it from being taxed, so at least recover the taxes before it’s dropped in the lap of their heir. They won’t even personally be negatively impacted by it since they’re already gone. Sure, the next-of-kin gets less, but that’s the whole point; they did even less to actually earn it!
Housing as an investment is wrong.
The price of basic human needs should not be tied to the rise and fall of the stock market, nor should ones retirement depend on the hyper inflated values of houses. 500K+ for a small house is absolute price gouging bullshit, regardless of location.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. A house is to live in. It’s a place to live, not a financial instrument. They are only inherently worth some amount that aligns with wages in a given location.
So, like my first house cost a year of the median wage in my city; it was a wreck, so let’s say two years of pay was the average house. I think my mom’s house was around that too, but now they are more like 5x the median pay, that makes no sense because they are the same thing - a place to live.
It’s like the notion of a “starter home.” When I bought my house and was debating some pros and cons, my realtor was like, “don’t worry, you can just buy your dream home later and use this as a rental property!” Uhhh. This is my home. To live in. It’s the only one I ever plan to buy.
Hehe they’ll say anything to make a sale. It does seem dumb: “Don’t worry you can save up to become a landlord when you can afford the house you really want again”.
I completely agree. However, homeowners typically vote more in local elections.
Hell, I had an argument with someone who didn’t support a fucking hospital expansion in town because they were worried about the impact of the expansion on their housing price.
Housing can either be affordable or a good investment. I should be affordable, but unfortunately it would seem that society has chosen the latter.
I agree but what you’re talking about is not liking Capitalism since it has to do with why housing is an investment.
Most capitalism hatred is actually referring to this I think: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
Stopping corruption and making sure our laws are not loopholed by rich ppl or even just not enforced for the rich would make the world a lot better.
Every system is corrupt. The older you get, the more you learn things true. It’s also why communism doesn’t work. We’re inherently selfish. We can try to make it harder to take advantage of but people will always find a way.
Killing yourself is ok. You don’t know what it’s like to be them and be in their head.
I’ll never do it. Even in darkest depths, but respect anyone’s right to say peace out.
Being “proud” of your acheivements is fine.
Being “proud” of your country or your state or your football team that you’re not a member of,or your ethnicity is douchebaggery.
The pay rate of the lowest paid worker of any company or institution should be somehow legally and directly tied to the pay rate of the highest paid executive.
If the executive wants to make more money and gets a raise, then so do the workers.
That cats should remain indoors. Pet cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds in the US alone, not to mention all the other animals that they also kill. I love cats as much as the next guy but keep them indoors for the love of nature
unpopular moral take: All religions are absurd cop outs and you should choose your own model for how to be a good person.
Circumcision is multilation
It’s okay to call stupid people stupid to their face - them, their ideas, whatever it is that they’re doing dumb. In the U.S. we’ve gone too far over on the “tolerate all people and their views” which has allowed fascism and MAGAts to gain far too much power - putting idiots in their place is (or at least would have been) the best way put it back where it belongs.
I think there’s a difference between not calling someone an idiot and tolerating their bad ideas and actions though. I agree people need to be stopped, and not tolerated, but when the only answer is insulting them with various names like idiot or nazi, all that ends up happening is they keep their toxic and destructive ideas hidden from the public, and then band with others labelled idiot and nazi, until they feel comfortable in a group to express their rhetoric without fear.
At which point you make such groups illegal and start investigating and prosecuting, officially and not.
Yeah, I know that won’t get us to a state of educated well-meaning humanity caring for all life. But I can’t deny seeing some assholes getting their own medicine will make me smile for some time
Nice, a clean descent into authoritharism and fascism.
fuck the slippery slope apparently
I’ve spent a day thinking whether to reply this or not. In the end, can’t expect you to read my mind, so here it goes: look at my point about not getting to a better place, which is why I am not going to actually do things like that, despite holding the position that oppressors have every right to become oppressed. Sadly, this way does not end oppression
The stock market should be illegal in all countries. Its basically a legalized gambling ponzii scheme.
Retirement also shouldn’t be tied to this type of system.
Suicide shouldn’t be illegal. If you’ve tried treatments and seen a therapist for years but just want out - you should be able to schedule a day to be put to sleep.
I think its immoral not to give people a dignified way out.
I think immigration laws are inherently a violation of universal human rights. What is a more basic expression of freedom and liberty than being able to choose where in the world to build your life?
