5 ms·

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ I don't think any of the "keyboard nay-sayers" are saying that petroleum isn't useful, and

by geofft 7y ago

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ I don't think any of the "keyboard nay-sayers" are saying that petroleum isn't useful, and it's worth engaging with their actual arguments.

fastball 7y ago
That comic is a terrible Reductio ad absurdum. The first one is a fair point – Apple products are not a necessity. Therefore if you think the company behind them is behaving unethically, don't buy their products in order to not support their activities. The other two examples – not so much.
- geofft 7y ago
  Sure, but 1. The validity of the argument isn't affected by whether one is a hypocrite. If Apple is indeed behaving unethically, it's still behaving unethically even if I own an iPhone. If Apple isn't behaving unethically, then you should be able to argue that on grounds other than "you bought an iPhone." The poster in this case made specific, refutable claims - that Apple dodges taxes and can't pay decent wages to their Chinese factory workers. A legitimate counterargument is that they don't in fact dodge taxes or do in fact pay decent wages (or perhaps that their current behavior is okay), not an attack on the person making the argument. 2. Apple products are not a necessity, but in the current era, a smartphone is very close to a necessity (yes, there are people who steadfastly avoid them, and there are also people who live in the forest, that's not what "necessity" means). And there are relatively few options for good smartphones, none of which come from morally blameless companies. (Personally, I find security valuable, and Apple has the best track record of producing phones with long-term security support, which means you can buy fewer Apple products than anything else.) It might be hypocritical to buy a product from company X while steadfastly believing that company X is behaving unethically, but it's hardly a sign that you don't in fact believe that company X behaves unethically. You might simply have weight the alternatives and decided that buying from company X is the best of several bad options.
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    >The validity of the argument isn't affected by whether one is a hypocrite. I personally think it matters how much of an effort the person espousing beliefs is putting in to deviate from the norm their are complaining about. For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption. Although, if you're making an effort to reduce your red meat consumption, I'll take you more seriously about climate change. It may be virtue signaling, or whatever phrase of the week, but I need people to believe in what they're fighting for. edit: for those downvoting, please leave a remark. It's hard to understand this website since so many people downvote without any response.
    - geofft 7y ago
      > For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption. As it happens, I've considered becoming vegetarian but I'm literally allergic to nuts, and it's hard to have a balanced diet with enough protein if nuts aren't an option. The validity of an argument is even less affected by whether you think the arguer is a hypocrite. Also, would you listen to my argument about how individual red meat consumption is a drop in the bucket of climate change and isn't really worth focusing on?
      - bluntfang 7y ago
        Is soy included in your nut allergy? I'm vegan and don't eat many nuts, although most of my protein comes from soy products. I was vegetarian for a while and used whole milk, eggs, and cheese for protein. Although I believe in the rights of living creatures so I couldn't do the dairy/eggs route any more. There are plenty of foods that will give you enough protein, leafy greens like kale, beans, and rice are a staple of any stir fry/curry and are complete meals nutritionally. fwiw, one of the things i love about my diet that was really hard to get used to was the difference of caloric density of vegetables vs animal products. I am constantly full and sometimes just have a hard time stuffing my face with enough food. I also am an amateur athlete so my caloric needs are probably really different than most people on this site. >Also, would you listen to my argument about how individual red meat consumption is a drop in the bucket of climate change and isn't really worth focusing on? I don't believe we're going to be able to change big business if we don't have the gumption to change our day to day lives. We need to live it in order to make real change, and factory farming, specifically of red meat, is the highest on the list for personal consumption. I also believe we've advanced as a society to not have to rely on killing living beings or manipulating their reproductives cycles for our benefit. edit: I don't understand the downvotes here. I am literally informing someone about MY diet. Can you please add a response if you choose to downvote this post.
- jdkeolo9b 7y ago
  Not buying is not an option. A minority of rich can extract the planets resources. The species does not have to abide that minorities ideological demands literally. Avoiding figurative harm of the self righteous is walking the path authoritarianism. A big number in a bank DB is not irrefutable proof of value to the species. Westerners and the monied are outnumbered. Environmental collapse from chewing up resources for disposable shit that rots, doesn’t last for the next generation, does not have to be tolerated. Maybe if we just focused on making sure our biological similarities are cared for as a society, we’d have more time to wank our customized imaginings of our individual importance in private, but otherwise be unable to achieve political leverage to drive us off a cliff, leaving others to stably consider their ideas. But no... we have to bend over to pleasure the grifter class.
- idclip 7y ago
  Where are the posts by all those people without those phones they're boycotting? His point is the first part ... i don't believe the reservoir of oil is the issue, but the lack of progress towards a greener future. We have no other choice, and little control over government, beyond peaceful criticisms. So let it be. Don't pick and choose, own up. Im sure there’s a latin phrase to what you do, too, but were not here to squabble! Not during these times ..
- streb-lo 7y ago
  Cars were not a necessity when they first arrived -- they were a luxury item.
- triceratops 7y ago
  > The first one is a fair point – Apple products are not a necessity Apple products are not a necessity but cell phones pretty much are today. And nearly all phones are made in countries with looser labor and environmental laws than we'd accept in Western nations.
cscurmudgeon 7y ago
Unless the keyboard nay-sayers help with a solution, the constant nay-saying of the obvious is just virtue signaling peacocking.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Accusing people of “virtue signaling” tends to be just another form of signaling. “There’s a problem, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy” is not an unreasonable position. It’s like a non-chef saying “this food is bad”; that they can’t cook isn’t relevant to that fact.
  - cscurmudgeon 7y ago
    Straw man. > “There’s a problem, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy That is not what is happening is it? I am okay with that. > “There’s a problem with X, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy AND YOU ARE EVIL FOR USING X That is what I call virtue signaling.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      > “There’s a problem with X, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy AND YOU ARE EVIL FOR USING X This is a straw man.
    - geofft 7y ago
      Where is anyone saying the latter?
ryguytilidie 7y ago
Yeah, the post you're responding to feels like a huge internet trend where people are absolutely desperate to grasp at straws to make complete strangers look like stupid hypocrites and rely on projections to do so. I'm not sure if people are more filled with angst because they're cooped up at home, but it seems to border on a mental disorder if you're sitting behind your keyboard all day screaming at people who are "hypocrites" because they both don't like oil being drilled, and also live in a society where they use some oil. I saw a video a few months ago mocking "anti police protesters asking for the police to help them when they were being attacked". And the premise seemed to be "haha, if you hate police so much (they don't), isnt it ironic that you need their help?" No, not really. They pay the police's salary though taxes. Its not like them protesting takes that funding away. Apparently its hypocritical to not mindlessly agree with everything police do if you will ever need the police to help you. Same shit here, just endless angst and hate for stranger based on made up projections. Why? What is the use for this?
didibus 7y ago
Not sure, I wondered if the comic actually was also trying to show the growth of "necessities" over time. Like a car at first was a luxury and not a necessity. A phone today might be a necessity. And the last strip doesn't even bring up necessities, it makes a case of the difficulty of fighting the system you complain about when being in it, which to me is also a point about necessities. Like one could argue society makes it harder and harder for you to be ethical as time goes on. Making the path of resistance ever so harder and requiring more risk from you. And this can be used as a tool later to justify societies unethical choices. Like, hey, if you can't even be ethical yourself, why do you expect society to be and say we should? And maybe this is the point of the comic?

by geofft 7y ago

fastball 7y ago

That comic is a terrible Reductio ad absurdum. The first one is a fair point – Apple products are not a necessity. Therefore if you think the company behind them is behaving unethically, don't buy their products in order to not support their activities. The other two examples – not so much.

geofft 7y ago
Sure, but 1. The validity of the argument isn't affected by whether one is a hypocrite. If Apple is indeed behaving unethically, it's still behaving unethically even if I own an iPhone. If Apple isn't behaving unethically, then you should be able to argue that on grounds other than "you bought an iPhone." The poster in this case made specific, refutable claims - that Apple dodges taxes and can't pay decent wages to their Chinese factory workers. A legitimate counterargument is that they don't in fact dodge taxes or do in fact pay decent wages (or perhaps that their current behavior is okay), not an attack on the person making the argument. 2. Apple products are not a necessity, but in the current era, a smartphone is very close to a necessity (yes, there are people who steadfastly avoid them, and there are also people who live in the forest, that's not what "necessity" means). And there are relatively few options for good smartphones, none of which come from morally blameless companies. (Personally, I find security valuable, and Apple has the best track record of producing phones with long-term security support, which means you can buy fewer Apple products than anything else.) It might be hypocritical to buy a product from company X while steadfastly believing that company X is behaving unethically, but it's hardly a sign that you don't in fact believe that company X behaves unethically. You might simply have weight the alternatives and decided that buying from company X is the best of several bad options.
- bluntfang 7y ago
  >The validity of the argument isn't affected by whether one is a hypocrite. I personally think it matters how much of an effort the person espousing beliefs is putting in to deviate from the norm their are complaining about. For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption. Although, if you're making an effort to reduce your red meat consumption, I'll take you more seriously about climate change. It may be virtue signaling, or whatever phrase of the week, but I need people to believe in what they're fighting for. edit: for those downvoting, please leave a remark. It's hard to understand this website since so many people downvote without any response.
  - geofft 7y ago
    > For example, I'm not going to listen to your arguments about climate change if you aren't actively curbing your red meat consumption. As it happens, I've considered becoming vegetarian but I'm literally allergic to nuts, and it's hard to have a balanced diet with enough protein if nuts aren't an option. The validity of an argument is even less affected by whether you think the arguer is a hypocrite. Also, would you listen to my argument about how individual red meat consumption is a drop in the bucket of climate change and isn't really worth focusing on?
    - bluntfang 7y ago
      Is soy included in your nut allergy? I'm vegan and don't eat many nuts, although most of my protein comes from soy products. I was vegetarian for a while and used whole milk, eggs, and cheese for protein. Although I believe in the rights of living creatures so I couldn't do the dairy/eggs route any more. There are plenty of foods that will give you enough protein, leafy greens like kale, beans, and rice are a staple of any stir fry/curry and are complete meals nutritionally. fwiw, one of the things i love about my diet that was really hard to get used to was the difference of caloric density of vegetables vs animal products. I am constantly full and sometimes just have a hard time stuffing my face with enough food. I also am an amateur athlete so my caloric needs are probably really different than most people on this site. >Also, would you listen to my argument about how individual red meat consumption is a drop in the bucket of climate change and isn't really worth focusing on? I don't believe we're going to be able to change big business if we don't have the gumption to change our day to day lives. We need to live it in order to make real change, and factory farming, specifically of red meat, is the highest on the list for personal consumption. I also believe we've advanced as a society to not have to rely on killing living beings or manipulating their reproductives cycles for our benefit. edit: I don't understand the downvotes here. I am literally informing someone about MY diet. Can you please add a response if you choose to downvote this post.
jdkeolo9b 7y ago
Not buying is not an option. A minority of rich can extract the planets resources. The species does not have to abide that minorities ideological demands literally. Avoiding figurative harm of the self righteous is walking the path authoritarianism. A big number in a bank DB is not irrefutable proof of value to the species. Westerners and the monied are outnumbered. Environmental collapse from chewing up resources for disposable shit that rots, doesn’t last for the next generation, does not have to be tolerated. Maybe if we just focused on making sure our biological similarities are cared for as a society, we’d have more time to wank our customized imaginings of our individual importance in private, but otherwise be unable to achieve political leverage to drive us off a cliff, leaving others to stably consider their ideas. But no... we have to bend over to pleasure the grifter class.
idclip 7y ago
Where are the posts by all those people without those phones they're boycotting? His point is the first part ... i don't believe the reservoir of oil is the issue, but the lack of progress towards a greener future. We have no other choice, and little control over government, beyond peaceful criticisms. So let it be. Don't pick and choose, own up. Im sure there’s a latin phrase to what you do, too, but were not here to squabble! Not during these times ..
streb-lo 7y ago
Cars were not a necessity when they first arrived -- they were a luxury item.
triceratops 7y ago
> The first one is a fair point – Apple products are not a necessity Apple products are not a necessity but cell phones pretty much are today. And nearly all phones are made in countries with looser labor and environmental laws than we'd accept in Western nations.

cscurmudgeon 7y ago

Unless the keyboard nay-sayers help with a solution, the constant nay-saying of the obvious is just virtue signaling peacocking.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Accusing people of “virtue signaling” tends to be just another form of signaling. “There’s a problem, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy” is not an unreasonable position. It’s like a non-chef saying “this food is bad”; that they can’t cook isn’t relevant to that fact.
- cscurmudgeon 7y ago
  Straw man. > “There’s a problem, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy That is not what is happening is it? I am okay with that. > “There’s a problem with X, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy AND YOU ARE EVIL FOR USING X That is what I call virtue signaling.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > “There’s a problem with X, it matters, but I don’t personally have the fix handy AND YOU ARE EVIL FOR USING X This is a straw man.
  - geofft 7y ago
    Where is anyone saying the latter?

ryguytilidie 7y ago

Yeah, the post you're responding to feels like a huge internet trend where people are absolutely desperate to grasp at straws to make complete strangers look like stupid hypocrites and rely on projections to do so. I'm not sure if people are more filled with angst because they're cooped up at home, but it seems to border on a mental disorder if you're sitting behind your keyboard all day screaming at people who are "hypocrites" because they both don't like oil being drilled, and also live in a society where they use some oil. I saw a video a few months ago mocking "anti police protesters asking for the police to help them when they were being attacked". And the premise seemed to be "haha, if you hate police so much (they don't), isnt it ironic that you need their help?" No, not really. They pay the police's salary though taxes. Its not like them protesting takes that funding away. Apparently its hypocritical to not mindlessly agree with everything police do if you will ever need the police to help you. Same shit here, just endless angst and hate for stranger based on made up projections. Why? What is the use for this?

didibus 7y ago

Not sure, I wondered if the comic actually was also trying to show the growth of "necessities" over time. Like a car at first was a luxury and not a necessity. A phone today might be a necessity. And the last strip doesn't even bring up necessities, it makes a case of the difficulty of fighting the system you complain about when being in it, which to me is also a point about necessities. Like one could argue society makes it harder and harder for you to be ethical as time goes on. Making the path of resistance ever so harder and requiring more risk from you. And this can be used as a tool later to justify societies unethical choices. Like, hey, if you can't even be ethical yourself, why do you expect society to be and say we should? And maybe this is the point of the comic?