3 ms·

In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. This seems t

In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. This seems to basically be this meme: "We should improve society somewhat" "Yet you participate in society" https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

krapp 6y ago
> In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. Yes, if you want to be pedantic, there exist possible states of being in which a person may have little to no effect on their environment by virtue of being physically isolated from it. Someone stranded on a desert island, or someone in a coma. A literal brain in a jar screaming into the void. But that's not what this discussion is about. "Inaction" in the context of this discussion refers to expressing a stance of political neutrality, not to literal physical inaction. The (apparently controversial) question is whether political neutrality is truly neutral.
- unishark 6y ago
  Neutral is still neutral by the definition of the word. Your logical conflict comes from your metaphorical misuse of the word "support", which literally means to apply force to hold something in place. There an important distinction between someone applying such force and someone not doing so, just as between that person and someone applying force to topple the status quo. A person refusing to take sides is not applying force either way. I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. The fight remains only between you and the ropes.
  - krapp 6y ago
    > I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. Except that, in the case of society and politics, you and I are both the worker and the scaffold. You support my cutting down the scaffold by choosing to fall with it.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    It's just the trolley problem. Inaction often carries consequence. You're not supporting the scaffold but you are not concerned about the consequences of it remaining in place. And if we're talking about systems the difference between supporting the system and ignoring the consequences of the system are so small as to not be apparent.
    - unishark 6y ago
      You are free to criticize a neutral person for their inaction. That doesn't make it right to twist meanings and try to hurt them over it with a worse charge they are not guilty of. As for your last sentence, maybe those opposing "the system" were about to win, and by intervening against them I would prevent that. Now neutrality is apparently the same as supporting the opposition. Or we can just be accurate from the start and call me neutral.
      - meheleventyone 6y ago
        I don't think meanings are really being twisted it's just colloquial discourse with a smidge of rhetoric. If inaction leads to 'the opposition' gaining an advantage it's easy to see why people might see that as defacto support and describe it as such even if that support is quite passive. I can also appreciate you don't enjoy being characterised this way and can definitely see causing that discomfort as being part of the point.
        unishark 6y ago
        Well a half-truth is half true, but then of course it's also half false. I've been thinking politics is increasingly just people lying about each other. Someone's behavior can be over-simplified and then pattern-matched to be a tiny bit like that of a literal socialist/racist/whatever. So you "round up" and throw the worst possible charge at them which can fit your evidence, intentionally creating what is almost certainly a false positive due to a terrible classification process. The lie (i.e. the degree to which their statement was rounded up beyond the evidence they have) is the part that damages the target. So people make it as big as possible. The worst possible names are always immediately diluted by overuse. Same thing going on here. Not helping is partially like helping the other side, so stop thinking there and start rounding off information to make a lie that can hart them.

krapp 6y ago

> In what way does inaction support the status quo? Someone living in their parents basement is not really affecting things either way, for example. Yes, if you want to be pedantic, there exist possible states of being in which a person may have little to no effect on their environment by virtue of being physically isolated from it. Someone stranded on a desert island, or someone in a coma. A literal brain in a jar screaming into the void. But that's not what this discussion is about. "Inaction" in the context of this discussion refers to expressing a stance of political neutrality, not to literal physical inaction. The (apparently controversial) question is whether political neutrality is truly neutral.

unishark 6y ago
Neutral is still neutral by the definition of the word. Your logical conflict comes from your metaphorical misuse of the word "support", which literally means to apply force to hold something in place. There an important distinction between someone applying such force and someone not doing so, just as between that person and someone applying force to topple the status quo. A person refusing to take sides is not applying force either way. I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. The fight remains only between you and the ropes.
- krapp 6y ago
  > I'm not "supporting" a scaffold if I don't help you cut it down. Except that, in the case of society and politics, you and I are both the worker and the scaffold. You support my cutting down the scaffold by choosing to fall with it.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  It's just the trolley problem. Inaction often carries consequence. You're not supporting the scaffold but you are not concerned about the consequences of it remaining in place. And if we're talking about systems the difference between supporting the system and ignoring the consequences of the system are so small as to not be apparent.
  - unishark 6y ago
    You are free to criticize a neutral person for their inaction. That doesn't make it right to twist meanings and try to hurt them over it with a worse charge they are not guilty of. As for your last sentence, maybe those opposing "the system" were about to win, and by intervening against them I would prevent that. Now neutrality is apparently the same as supporting the opposition. Or we can just be accurate from the start and call me neutral.
    - meheleventyone 6y ago
      I don't think meanings are really being twisted it's just colloquial discourse with a smidge of rhetoric. If inaction leads to 'the opposition' gaining an advantage it's easy to see why people might see that as defacto support and describe it as such even if that support is quite passive. I can also appreciate you don't enjoy being characterised this way and can definitely see causing that discomfort as being part of the point.
      - unishark 6y ago
        Well a half-truth is half true, but then of course it's also half false. I've been thinking politics is increasingly just people lying about each other. Someone's behavior can be over-simplified and then pattern-matched to be a tiny bit like that of a literal socialist/racist/whatever. So you "round up" and throw the worst possible charge at them which can fit your evidence, intentionally creating what is almost certainly a false positive due to a terrible classification process. The lie (i.e. the degree to which their statement was rounded up beyond the evidence they have) is the part that damages the target. So people make it as big as possible. The worst possible names are always immediately diluted by overuse. Same thing going on here. Not helping is partially like helping the other side, so stop thinking there and start rounding off information to make a lie that can hart them.