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.
You can take a penny, but you don’t have to leave a penny.
Buy local goods, even is it cost more… most people will go for cheapest price, even if you’re handing your money to warlords and human trafficking… same argument every time “There will always be <insert sicko>”.
It
A society’s moral character is best judged by how it treats its least, not by how it treats the average, or median, or best.
Your feelings are not facts.
Being offended, doesn’t mean you’re in the right and the other person is in the wrong.
Just because your religion says something (or claims it does), doesn’t put you in the right.
Your feelings are not facts. Being offended, doesn’t mean you’re in the right and the other person is in the wrong.
Everyone would agree with that. But they’re lying to themselves.
I just realized that feelings are, in fact, facts. On what level, that would need to be determined.
It is only a fact that you feel xyz. It does not remotely mean that xyz is true.
On the corollary, someone’s feelings can be a very important factor in addressing a situation. If you are to operate purely on logic, that logic needs to take into account the psychology and feelings of others when making a decision to maximize your intended effect. Doing something that “needs to be done” but pissing everyone else off in the process might lead them to undo your work purely out of spite, even if you were correct in your initial assessment.
Eh. Feelings are facts; I would feel upset if someone shot my dog, that’s a fact. Reacting to inputs is a normal thing to do, and it can be a healthy and important thing to do.
If somebody says something factual and offensive and thinks because they’ve stated something objectively true, that they should be immune to social repercussions, at best they’re tactless, at worst they’re cowards who don’t want the responsibility of how the things they say affect those around them. If it’s important, needful of saying, and likely to upset people, grow a backbone and own it. If it’s not important and likely to upset people, maybe don’t be a dick.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
It’s not pain and suffering that you admire its perseverance. You can have one without the other.
Perseverance against what if not pain?
The fact that this is your reply goes to show you need to learn more.
Sorry, I’m not into S&M play.
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.
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.
I agree completely, also, that Teotihuacán link was a fascinating read, thank you for that.
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.
Unavoidable pain and suffering, sure. This is about contrived, otherwise unnecessary suffering to “prove a point” or pay it forward in a negative way.
I think inheritance of money is bad. It seems to be some agreed upon good, you should leave money and assets to your children. But WTF? This drives inequality, generational wealth accumulates and so does generational poverty. I think the world would be better if it was more use it or lose it, and you couldn’t pass it on like that. Or not so much at least.
If you count humans as animals then cocaine and clothing from companies like Temu and Shein aren’t vegan.
Cocaine manufacturing and distribution is full of human exploitation and suffering. Using it should go against the vegan ethos of avoiding consumption of things that are the product of exploitation. Similar to honey, milk, or eggs.
Similarly, Shien and Temu make nearly all of their products using slave labor in terrible working conditions using dangerous chemicals without any precautions.
Broadly speaking, I’m a Pacifist and believe any kind of military confrontation or military aid is bad public policy. The idea of collateral damage - civilian casualties taken in pursuit of military objectives - is fully immoral and should be broadly rejected. Military resources should be tasked first and foremost as disaster relief and recovery with the primary mission being the preservation of human life, rather than offensive missions to defeat or deter an opposition military.
Military reprisals (starting with the MAD policy and going down to retributive strikes in border disputes) are monstrous and should be ended. Military prisons should be closed and POWs immediately repatriated. Embargos, particularly those aimed at economically vulnerable nations like Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea, serve no useful purpose and should be lifted immediately. And the only offensive military action should be reserved for securing evacuation routes for refugees, with the bulk of resources dedicated to extending shelter and both immediate and long term relief to the refugees we accrue through these policies.
Antinatalism: the belief that the creation of sentient life is morally wrong
Want to know something fun about US parents??
Patents don’t really protect new inventions. They give people a right to sue for financial damages and there is no criminal force of law (this is a generalization and I am not a lawyer). So courts don’t really go “hey, stop using invention ABC, someone else has a patent on it.” They just say “hey, that other guy invented it first, give him some money.”
Patents (not other forms of IP) are made to be wildly public so people can invent things on top of previous inventions.
Does it always work like that? No. But it’s one facet of US federal law that I find interesting, and a little bit hopeful.
Based on opinion around here? Freedom of expression is good & doesn’t need compromises beyond the harm principle.
Yesterday I got shit for supporting ZorinOS Pro. So I guess paying for FOSS.
It seems donations are okay, but when distros frame it as a Pro Version purchase then the FOSS peeps get pissed. Even though no one could point out what’s actually being locked behind the pro version, because spoiler: nothing is locked behind it.
On Lemmy, no one pays for anything but everyone makes a living wage.
Ya, everyone supports workers until the bill arrives.
Man, I’m all for paying people for the time and effort they put into software. But what’s the point of Zorin OS? Doesn’t seem better than other Linux-based OSs.
I think one of the more controversial ones I have is that I don’t tend to be in favor of things like MAID or voluntary euthanasia. I understand why people are for it, but I don’t like the idea of killing someone over something that is ultimately in their head, like pain or a person’s desires, and the way I tend to evaluate the value of life has something of a floor (that is to say, I do not really believe that there is such a thing as a “fate worse than death” so to speak, because I believe that death is the least functional state a person can have and anything above that implies at least some functioning even if that state is still highly undesirable).
All drugs should be legal, but bodily autonomy is to high a purity test for everyone on planet earth.
Admit it everyone, capitalists will not let us live in peace. At least let me get high to numb the pain of existence.
