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> You were focused on what people say [...] People lie Not true. You're strawmanning again. I already addressed this distinction between "say" versus "think" i

> 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.

wpietri 5y ago
I am not straw manning. I have read oceans of anti-masker afguments. Some claim they don't believe they are harming people, and some of those may actually believe it. But the question is whether they have a justified, true belief. They don't. They are all clearly aware of the potential of harm, and the science is pretty clear. Even for the ones who truly believe it, they have to admit that they could be wrong and are going ahead anyhow, so we are back in the "regardless of harm to others" bucket. And that's not even counting the large number of people who are aware of the possibility of death and are perfectly fine with it. You could look at the Texas Governor speaking proudly about it's ok to sacrifice some old people as long as we're preserving American freedom. Or the Florida governor who banned mask mandates saying, "That’s ultimately an individual's choice to be able to do [vaccines]... And so, I think the question is, we can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state. And I can tell you, Florida, we’re a free state." And masking is just the most dramatic recent example. The history of slavery is super clear. Ditto the history of workplace safety. Or we could look at the societal shifts against drunk driving and secondhand smoke. Both of those were indulged for decades despite high body counts. The shift for each took decades and was fought all the way by people who valued their freedom to do whatever they wanted without regard to harm to others. Including by executives and lobbyists who were well placed to be informed about the actual harm but still worked to keep the laws in their favor without regard to body count. I agree that all of these people care about some of their fellow humans. They're not monsters. But what they do have is a (learned and often cultivated) lack of empathy for people seen as "other". Which is why we are slowly seeing mask and vaccine resistance decline, along with plenty of deathbed pleas to get the vaccine and for others to get the vaccine.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  I agree with you on some topics, disagree with you on others. I agree that slavery, drunk driving and secondhand smoke are very bad. I agree that people who've committed such acts likely have less empathy towards other people. I disagree with the sentiment you expressed about "mask freedom" and "vaccination freedom". I think vaccinations are great and masks are somewhat useful, but I think the tradeoff of sacrificing freedoms is not worth it to force this stuff on people by government mandate. So I guess I fall in the category that you defined as "aware of the possibility of death and perfectly fine with it". Be that as it may, I certainly don't have the mindset that anything goes, regardless of harm to others. I think there's tradeoffs to be made and I think reasonable people can disagree about those tradeoffs. I'm sure if we went through a variety of different topics (like personal cars) we would find several topics where you're also willing to make tradeoffs "aware of the possibility of death and perfectly fine with it".
  - wpietri 5y ago
    You seem to have this notion that empathy is a 0-to-100 dial, with each person getting a fixed setting that is used on all people they encounter. This model is incorrect. Many slaveholders were perfectly nice people to family members, for example. And of course to other rich white men. Empathy is reserved to specific groups, and lacking/discouraged/repressed for the rest. This is a learned, societally mediated behavior. You can read Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" if you'd like to see how that works in detail. Mills's "The Racial Contract" is a good philosophical examination, and Loewen's "Sundown Towns" looks at related aspects via data and history. So we see early on in the pandemic that a lot of white conservatives were perfectly fine with the disease spreading in major cities where people were concentrated. Some were gleeful. Now it's mainly a red state phenomenon and people are still resisting basic public health measures. I think that's still rooted in contempt for the lessers. E.g. https://twitter.com/jacobtwop/status/1436383225451094019 https://twitter.com/jacobtwop/status/1436383225451094019 Or you might also read Serwer on "the cruelty is the point". But all of this is pretty far afield from my actual point, which is that there are two concepts of freedom in American discourse. One admits of nuance and balance; the other is "I do what I want and fuck you". Different people may use one or the other at a particular moment. But the concepts are rhetorically very distinct.

wpietri 5y ago

I am not straw manning. I have read oceans of anti-masker afguments. Some claim they don't believe they are harming people, and some of those may actually believe it. But the question is whether they have a justified, true belief. They don't. They are all clearly aware of the potential of harm, and the science is pretty clear. Even for the ones who truly believe it, they have to admit that they could be wrong and are going ahead anyhow, so we are back in the "regardless of harm to others" bucket. And that's not even counting the large number of people who are aware of the possibility of death and are perfectly fine with it. You could look at the Texas Governor speaking proudly about it's ok to sacrifice some old people as long as we're preserving American freedom. Or the Florida governor who banned mask mandates saying, "That’s ultimately an individual's choice to be able to do [vaccines]... And so, I think the question is, we can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state. And I can tell you, Florida, we’re a free state." And masking is just the most dramatic recent example. The history of slavery is super clear. Ditto the history of workplace safety. Or we could look at the societal shifts against drunk driving and secondhand smoke. Both of those were indulged for decades despite high body counts. The shift for each took decades and was fought all the way by people who valued their freedom to do whatever they wanted without regard to harm to others. Including by executives and lobbyists who were well placed to be informed about the actual harm but still worked to keep the laws in their favor without regard to body count. I agree that all of these people care about some of their fellow humans. They're not monsters. But what they do have is a (learned and often cultivated) lack of empathy for people seen as "other". Which is why we are slowly seeing mask and vaccine resistance decline, along with plenty of deathbed pleas to get the vaccine and for others to get the vaccine.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago
I agree with you on some topics, disagree with you on others. I agree that slavery, drunk driving and secondhand smoke are very bad. I agree that people who've committed such acts likely have less empathy towards other people. I disagree with the sentiment you expressed about "mask freedom" and "vaccination freedom". I think vaccinations are great and masks are somewhat useful, but I think the tradeoff of sacrificing freedoms is not worth it to force this stuff on people by government mandate. So I guess I fall in the category that you defined as "aware of the possibility of death and perfectly fine with it". Be that as it may, I certainly don't have the mindset that anything goes, regardless of harm to others. I think there's tradeoffs to be made and I think reasonable people can disagree about those tradeoffs. I'm sure if we went through a variety of different topics (like personal cars) we would find several topics where you're also willing to make tradeoffs "aware of the possibility of death and perfectly fine with it".
- wpietri 5y ago
  You seem to have this notion that empathy is a 0-to-100 dial, with each person getting a fixed setting that is used on all people they encounter. This model is incorrect. Many slaveholders were perfectly nice people to family members, for example. And of course to other rich white men. Empathy is reserved to specific groups, and lacking/discouraged/repressed for the rest. This is a learned, societally mediated behavior. You can read Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning" if you'd like to see how that works in detail. Mills's "The Racial Contract" is a good philosophical examination, and Loewen's "Sundown Towns" looks at related aspects via data and history. So we see early on in the pandemic that a lot of white conservatives were perfectly fine with the disease spreading in major cities where people were concentrated. Some were gleeful. Now it's mainly a red state phenomenon and people are still resisting basic public health measures. I think that's still rooted in contempt for the lessers. E.g. https://twitter.com/jacobtwop/status/1436383225451094019 https://twitter.com/jacobtwop/status/1436383225451094019 Or you might also read Serwer on "the cruelty is the point". But all of this is pretty far afield from my actual point, which is that there are two concepts of freedom in American discourse. One admits of nuance and balance; the other is "I do what I want and fuck you". Different people may use one or the other at a particular moment. But the concepts are rhetorically very distinct.