3 ms·
What, exactly, is the morally indefensible thing that they have definitely done? If it's definitely there, you should be able to point out what it is.
by AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
What, exactly, is the morally indefensible thing that they have definitely done? If it's definitely there, you should be able to point out what it is.
- inigyou 4mo agoApple, for example, steals 30% of the money of anything you buy on your phone.
- tome 4mo agoWhat's morally indefensible about that?
- AnimalMuppet 4mo agoOnce they define it as stealing, then it's morally indefensible, by definition. The question is, is it actually stealing, or is that just their overheated rhetoric? From where I sit, it's hot air.
- tome 4mo ago> Once they define it as stealing, then it's morally indefensible, by definition. Right, similar to the equivocation around the meaning of earn in this thread. I've started to wonder whether it's possible to push by accepting that framing and then asking for a justification rather than quibbling about what "stealing" is.
- AnimalMuppet 4mo agoI doubt it. "Stealing" functions as a thought-terminating cliche; I suspect that very few people will think past it.
- inigyou 4mo agoDoes the highwayman earn his toll or does he steal it?
- yawpitch 4mo agoSome of that 30% has both directly and indirectly empowered war crimes and has pushed on the accelerator of an unspeakable [and, sadly, irreversible] descent into the kind of mad fascistic experiment that always ends up driving many more. The seizure of means that you turn around and use for rent-seeking is morally indefensible in its own right, but it’s the unintended (yet obvious) consequences of that same self-serving and short-sighted impulse where the real moral trap lies.
- csallen 4mo agoCharging someone money that they voluntarily pay in return for getting something of value themselves is not stealing.
- GolfPopper 4mo agoFor example, the highwayman, who who provides the valuable service of 'not getting murdered' to travelers, in return for the payment they voluntarily make. Or perhaps you would prefer the example of the extortionist, who provides insurance against the risk of "something" happening to the nice business you have?
- yawpitch 4mo agoAs a first pass, you’ve accumulated all that money, thus you’ve actively or passively, knowingly or unknowingly, taken advantage of a perverse systemic bug that allows that sort of money to accumulate in any one person’s hands to begin with. But point me at any given billionaire and I can provide more context-specific examples, sure.
- AnimalMuppet 4mo agoStart further back. You need to defend that allowing that much money to accumulate in any person's hands is indeed a "perverse systemic bug". The default framework is one of private property. If you make it, it's yours, and (modulo taxation), nobody has the right to take it from you. In that framework, it's not a bug that, if someone makes a billion dollars, they can accumulate a billion dollars. So, do you reject that framework? If so, on what authority? Given that it's the default framework, "I reject it" doesn't cut it. "I think it's immoral" is slightly better, but you need to demonstrate that someone accumulating that much money is more immoral than taking it from them would be. Or are you claiming that it's immoral for any one person to receive that much money? In a free economy, if others voluntarily exchange that much money for what the person supplies, why is it immoral? What is your moral authority for claiming that voluntary transactions are morally wrong, just because too many of them go to one person?
- yawpitch 4mo agoSince we’re playing this game, prove to me there exists a default framework. Further, prove to me that said default framework is one that includes billionaires, the concept having been utterly alien throughout the vast majority of human history. Any system that allows more wealth than is necessary to accumulate into one pair of hands while another pair hasn’t enough food is inherently immoral. Also you’ve never, not once, been operating within a free economy… the only people I’ve met in life who have witnessed such an economy have gone to extreme lengths to escape it. Or they’ve died.
- AnimalMuppet 4mo ago