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That's a strawman. There's literally no-one on earth saying "I should be free to do as I want regardless of harm to others".

jdgoesmarching 5y ago
“I should be free to profit regardless of harm to others.” Better?
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  How is that better? Can you point to a single example where a person made such a claim? Just a single example. Go ahead, I'll wait.
  - yibg 5y ago
    Smoking in public? Fracking?
    - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      > Smoking in public? Fracking? Are you saying that people who smoke openly state that they "should be free to profit regardless of harm to others"? Who said that? Where? I already asked you to point to a single example to support this claim that certain people think this way, and you couldn't do that. That's because there's literally no people who think like that.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        The act of smoking is the statement. And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one.
        baobabKoodaa 5y ago
        > The act of smoking is the statement. And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one. You're the one pretending. There's a difference between these 2 things: 1) Taking actions (like smoking) that put others at some level of risk 2) Thinking that placing any level of harm onto others is justifiable as long as it's profitable You know very well there's a difference between those things, and yet you're pretending to not understand, while claiming that I'm "pretending not to understand". Or are you claiming that the average smoker cares so little about fellow humans that they'd be willing to push a person over a cliff ("any level of harm") in order to steal a half-empty beer can from them ("a profit")? Even if we assume a situation where they would be guaranteed to profit the half-empty beer can, I think it's safe to say almost no-one would think this level of harm would justify this level of profit. Yes, a smoker will put your life at risk by smoking near you. In related news, a driver will put your life at risk by driving near you. Doesn't mean that smokers or drivers will do literally any level of harm to humans in order to gain the tiniest of profit to themselves.
        wpietri 5y ago
        > Doesn't mean that smokers or drivers will do literally any level of harm to humans in order to gain the tiniest of profit to themselves. For a guy who is very eager to accuse others of straw manning, you seem to be working very hard to invent things so that you can dismiss them.
        baobabKoodaa 5y ago
        The original quote from you was "I should be free to do as I want, regardless of harm to others". That paints a picture of people as monsters. As you later acknowledged, people are not monsters. Everyone is willing to cause some harm/risk to others in order to gain something for themselves, but you would be hard pressed to find people who are willing to place extreme levels of harm/risk onto others in exchange for a tiny gain. I used an extreme example to demonstrate this very obvious point.
        CRConrad 5y ago
      - yibg 5y ago
        Of course people don’t say those words exactly. But pushing for the ability to smoke indoors for example is basically saying my right to smoke should trump your right to have smoke free air. Ditto for fracking. My ability to profit off the oil I get trumps your right to have clean environment. I don’t really understand how these can not be seen as “I should be free to profit regardless of harm to others.”
  - wpietri 5y ago
    They don't have to make the claim in words. They do it with their behavior. If people see their freedom as reasonably limited when it harms others, then if that harm is pointed out to them, they'll immediately apologize and stop. The more energy people put into persisting despite that, the clearer it is they don't actually care. You can look at the history of pretty much any piece of extant consumer or worker protection to find examples of this. Go read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", for example, which painted a portrait of large companies abusing both. It kicked off a long struggle that ended up with substantial shifts in the law. Or you could look at the long history of workplace safety in coal mines. The coal barons clearly saw workers as expendable and any encroachment on their freedoms as intolerable.
SilverRed 5y ago
They don't say it out loud. But they act based on that principal.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Exactly. I once saw a quote from an accountant: "Don't tell me your priorities. Show me your budget and I'll tell you your priorities." Even utter sociopaths know not to talk like they don't give a shit about anybody else. The social consequences for that are too high. So if we want to understand what people care about, we can't just go with their claims about their motivations. We have to look at where they put in the work.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    You seem to be really going overboard with the strawman arguments here. > So if we want to understand what people care about, we can't just go with their claims about their motivations. I never claimed we should do that. Nobody else claimed such a thing either. Also, I take it as concession that you were unable to provide a single example to support your claim.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      You were focused on what people say. In particular "literally no-one on earth saying". I'm saying that asking them isn't sufficient to understand their priorities. People lie, Virginia. I have provided examples elsewhere. But if they aren't sufficient for you, take it as anything you like. I long ago stopped caring that every internet on the random understood my point, especially the ones working hard to not get what I'm saying.
      - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
        > You were focused on what people say [...] People lie Not true. You're strawmanning again. I already addressed this distinction between "say" versus "think" in the sibling comment, which I'm sure you've read. To refresh your memory, I said: "That's not how people think, at all. People who do horrible things are very good at rationalizing that they are actually the good guys. This is a well studied phenomenon." > I have provided examples elsewhere. Ok, I searched the thread and now found your examples. Let's address one of them: > A modern example is public health. Everything from preventing toxic waste dumping to COVID mask mandates is met with cries of "FREEDOM!" Right now there is a large constituency in the US for the right to do whatever they please even if that means they will kill people by giving them a disease. If you actually engage with these people, you will find that these people don't believe that they are causing significant harm to others. You're comparing their actions to literally killing people, as if going to the grocery store without a mask (as a person who has no symptoms and may even be vaccinated) is placing the public to a risk that is comparable to literally homicide. You're trying too hard to rationalize your belief that republicans are evil. They're not. They're normal people like you and I. Most of them care about their fellow humans, even if they see different risk/benefit tradeoffs to decisions than you do.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

jdgoesmarching 5y ago

“I should be free to profit regardless of harm to others.” Better?

baobabKoodaa 5y ago
How is that better? Can you point to a single example where a person made such a claim? Just a single example. Go ahead, I'll wait.
- yibg 5y ago
  Smoking in public? Fracking?
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    > Smoking in public? Fracking? Are you saying that people who smoke openly state that they "should be free to profit regardless of harm to others"? Who said that? Where? I already asked you to point to a single example to support this claim that certain people think this way, and you couldn't do that. That's because there's literally no people who think like that.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      The act of smoking is the statement. And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one.
      - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
        > The act of smoking is the statement. And so is your insistence on pretending not to understand that. Not a pretty one. You're the one pretending. There's a difference between these 2 things: 1) Taking actions (like smoking) that put others at some level of risk 2) Thinking that placing any level of harm onto others is justifiable as long as it's profitable You know very well there's a difference between those things, and yet you're pretending to not understand, while claiming that I'm "pretending not to understand". Or are you claiming that the average smoker cares so little about fellow humans that they'd be willing to push a person over a cliff ("any level of harm") in order to steal a half-empty beer can from them ("a profit")? Even if we assume a situation where they would be guaranteed to profit the half-empty beer can, I think it's safe to say almost no-one would think this level of harm would justify this level of profit. Yes, a smoker will put your life at risk by smoking near you. In related news, a driver will put your life at risk by driving near you. Doesn't mean that smokers or drivers will do literally any level of harm to humans in order to gain the tiniest of profit to themselves.
        wpietri 5y ago
        > Doesn't mean that smokers or drivers will do literally any level of harm to humans in order to gain the tiniest of profit to themselves. For a guy who is very eager to accuse others of straw manning, you seem to be working very hard to invent things so that you can dismiss them.
        baobabKoodaa 5y ago
        The original quote from you was "I should be free to do as I want, regardless of harm to others". That paints a picture of people as monsters. As you later acknowledged, people are not monsters. Everyone is willing to cause some harm/risk to others in order to gain something for themselves, but you would be hard pressed to find people who are willing to place extreme levels of harm/risk onto others in exchange for a tiny gain. I used an extreme example to demonstrate this very obvious point.
        CRConrad 5y ago
    - yibg 5y ago
      Of course people don’t say those words exactly. But pushing for the ability to smoke indoors for example is basically saying my right to smoke should trump your right to have smoke free air. Ditto for fracking. My ability to profit off the oil I get trumps your right to have clean environment. I don’t really understand how these can not be seen as “I should be free to profit regardless of harm to others.”
- wpietri 5y ago
  They don't have to make the claim in words. They do it with their behavior. If people see their freedom as reasonably limited when it harms others, then if that harm is pointed out to them, they'll immediately apologize and stop. The more energy people put into persisting despite that, the clearer it is they don't actually care. You can look at the history of pretty much any piece of extant consumer or worker protection to find examples of this. Go read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", for example, which painted a portrait of large companies abusing both. It kicked off a long struggle that ended up with substantial shifts in the law. Or you could look at the long history of workplace safety in coal mines. The coal barons clearly saw workers as expendable and any encroachment on their freedoms as intolerable.

SilverRed 5y ago

They don't say it out loud. But they act based on that principal.

wpietri 5y ago
Exactly. I once saw a quote from an accountant: "Don't tell me your priorities. Show me your budget and I'll tell you your priorities." Even utter sociopaths know not to talk like they don't give a shit about anybody else. The social consequences for that are too high. So if we want to understand what people care about, we can't just go with their claims about their motivations. We have to look at where they put in the work.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  You seem to be really going overboard with the strawman arguments here. > So if we want to understand what people care about, we can't just go with their claims about their motivations. I never claimed we should do that. Nobody else claimed such a thing either. Also, I take it as concession that you were unable to provide a single example to support your claim.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    You were focused on what people say. In particular "literally no-one on earth saying". I'm saying that asking them isn't sufficient to understand their priorities. People lie, Virginia. I have provided examples elsewhere. But if they aren't sufficient for you, take it as anything you like. I long ago stopped caring that every internet on the random understood my point, especially the ones working hard to not get what I'm saying.
    - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      > You were focused on what people say [...] People lie Not true. You're strawmanning again. I already addressed this distinction between "say" versus "think" in the sibling comment, which I'm sure you've read. To refresh your memory, I said: "That's not how people think, at all. People who do horrible things are very good at rationalizing that they are actually the good guys. This is a well studied phenomenon." > I have provided examples elsewhere. Ok, I searched the thread and now found your examples. Let's address one of them: > A modern example is public health. Everything from preventing toxic waste dumping to COVID mask mandates is met with cries of "FREEDOM!" Right now there is a large constituency in the US for the right to do whatever they please even if that means they will kill people by giving them a disease. If you actually engage with these people, you will find that these people don't believe that they are causing significant harm to others. You're comparing their actions to literally killing people, as if going to the grocery store without a mask (as a person who has no symptoms and may even be vaccinated) is placing the public to a risk that is comparable to literally homicide. You're trying too hard to rationalize your belief that republicans are evil. They're not. They're normal people like you and I. Most of them care about their fellow humans, even if they see different risk/benefit tradeoffs to decisions than you do.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]