6 ms·

“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
        > 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. People may not be monsters, but quite a lot of them are just ordinary arseholes. You know, the kind of ordinary arsehole people who would thoughtlessly -- or, if they happened to come to think of it, wilfully -- do as they want, regardless of harm to others... As people so often do. Because, while they may not be monsters, many of them -- of us -- are certainly arseholes. One gets the feeling someone has just realised this, and is on a desparate quest to convince themselves they aren't actually an arsehole... By convincing everybody else that no such arseholes exist. This is doomed to fail, because everybody knows they do. > Everyone is willing to cause some harm/risk to others in order to gain something for themselves Yup. Which makes us all more or less arseholes, because "some" harm/risk to others still is harm/risk to others. And which was also all that was claimed to begin with -- there never was any original claim of "any level of harm"; that was always a windmill your fevered mind conjured up all on its own. So, how foolish do you feel now that it (and with it, your attempt at convincing yourself) has gone up in a puff of smoke?
    - 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.

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
        > 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. People may not be monsters, but quite a lot of them are just ordinary arseholes. You know, the kind of ordinary arsehole people who would thoughtlessly -- or, if they happened to come to think of it, wilfully -- do as they want, regardless of harm to others... As people so often do. Because, while they may not be monsters, many of them -- of us -- are certainly arseholes. One gets the feeling someone has just realised this, and is on a desparate quest to convince themselves they aren't actually an arsehole... By convincing everybody else that no such arseholes exist. This is doomed to fail, because everybody knows they do. > Everyone is willing to cause some harm/risk to others in order to gain something for themselves Yup. Which makes us all more or less arseholes, because "some" harm/risk to others still is harm/risk to others. And which was also all that was claimed to begin with -- there never was any original claim of "any level of harm"; that was always a windmill your fevered mind conjured up all on its own. So, how foolish do you feel now that it (and with it, your attempt at convincing yourself) has gone up in a puff of smoke?
  - 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.