Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
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Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
8mo ago
following the norms of nature
Would these be the same 'norms of nature' that killed 40-50% of all pre-20th century children before their fifth birthday?
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
7mo ago
I suspect that those people would have been more sympathetic to Mr Penny if Mr Neely had been responsible for the cessation of the metabolic processes of an order of magnitude more Americans than Usama bin-Ladin....
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
9mo ago
Not one cent of it should benefit Israel or Ukraine until there are no more problems to solve here.
There's always a relevant xkcd....
Also, every bit of Ukrainian clay seized by Russia will undermine the post-WWII standard against wars of territorial expansion, which will almost certainly cause more problems here.
As for Israel, as long as the US, or nations in general, maintain border and immigration controls, the State of Israel must continue to exist as a haven for Jewish people persecuted in other countries. (If everyone had open borders, Israel might not be necessary because Jews unsafe in their homes could always go somewhere else, as occurred many times prior to the 20th century, and could have occurred in the counter-factual 1930s and 1940s absent the post-WWI implementation of modern passport and visa systems.)
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
5mo ago
I do favour providing aid to the Global South because I believe that it is the right thing to do, and wish everyone else supported it for the same reason.
However, as many people here do not share that moral instinct, I am left only to appeal to their self-interest.
The fact that they point in the same direction is not a coincidence but the working of karma. If you harden your hearts towards the suffering of the least fortunate among you, it will come back to bite you in the rear end.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
7mo ago
In my view, someone boycotting Israel could, theoretically not be anti-Semitic, but I don't know of any organised movement that qualifies.
For such a movement to demonstrate not being anti-Semites, they would need to state conditions XYZ, such that:
- Israel could fulfil XYZ without jeopardising its existence, and
- the movement declares that, if Israel fulfils XYZ, they will end the boycott.
However, doing this would lose the support of those who oppose Israel not out of sympathy for Palestinian children but anger that the Jews have somewhere where they can exist without the permission of the Nations.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
7mo ago
And if the Nations didn't want Jewish people to conspire internationally to blah blah blah, maybe don't try to wipe them out every time you're looking for a scapegoat.
(I don't believe there is any international Jewish conspiracy¹, but if there were, I'm not sure I'd blame them.)
¹"I can swear to you, there is no Jewish banking conspiracy. Do you know why? Jews can't agree with other Jews on where to go for dinner! There's no way we control the banks! We couldn't even get that meeting started! 'Alright, Saul, Morris, everybody sit down, we're gonna start the meeting to control the banks.' 'Oh sure, who died and left you king? No, sure, start the meeting, I'll sit over here, I'm nobody, I'm nothing, I got no opinions.'" -- Jon Stewart
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
7mo ago
That comparison might make more sense if white people had been a minority in every country for c. 2,000 years, been treated as second-class citizens when tolerated, expelled whenever the majority needed a scapegoat, and then subjected to attempted extermination with everyone prescient enough to try to escape refused entry by every country they tried to flee to.
Unless and until that happens, I see no contradiction in asserting that Jewish people are entitled to a state in which they are a majority, while white people are not.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
11mo ago
Trump did actually take a small loan of a million dollars from his slumlord father and build an international megacorporation with hundreds of the most prime real estate properties on planet earth.
And still, he somehow managed to go bankrupt running a casino.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
6mo ago
That doesn't help the issue of people with empty wallets and full bladders/large intestines. If there is no legitimate place in public where people can relieve themselves without spending any money, everyone else will have to navigate a bio-hazardous obstacle course on the side-walk.
My recommendation:
- Tax businesses who do not offer public bathrooms (defined as allowing anyone to come in, use the toilet, and leave without buying anything).
- Use the revenue from the tax to fund (a.) subsidies for businesses who do offer public restrooms (as defined above), or (b.) construction and maintenance of free-at-point-of-use public toilets.
- Once there are plenty of places where one can empty one's excretory organs without spending anything, it will be much more justifiable to take strong measures against those who continue to No. 1 on walls or No. 2 on the pavement.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
5mo ago
· Edited 4mo ago
As a related aside - are charges of racism pretty much dead now? Feels like calling Trump a fascist nazi for all of the last 10 years only for him to be re elected by even a higher majority = nobody really cares what leftists think about who is racist anymore, at least in America.
You'd think they would have learned from what happened after Fox "News" spent the better part of two decades calling everyone and everything left of Reaganism-Thatcherism 'communist'....
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
5mo ago
It's bad karma.
You start dividing humanity into 'upstanding citizens worthy of life' and 'sub-humans whose life and well-being is not worth any efforts', sooner or later someone will put you into the second category.
First they came for the homosexuals, but I was not homosexual, so I stayed silent.
Then they came for the immigrants, but I was not an immigrant, so I stayed silent.
Then they came for the disabled, but I was not disabled, so I stayed silent.
And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
6mo ago
If it turns out that political considerations keep you from doing those strong measures
...there will still be less excreta on the pavement, because some of the people previously doing their business there will now be using toilets. Even if it isn't a complete solution, we're still better off.
Part one: hurt people by making them do X, part 2: ameloriate the harm from part 1
My proposal isn't making anyone do anything. If you want to reserve your business's toilets to paying customers, I am not proposing to forbid that course of action!
Under the status quo, businesses are in a position isomorphic to the prisoners' dilemma:
- if all businesses offer public toilets, I am better off than if none of them do, because there are fewer bowel movements on the ground.
- However, if all the other businesses offer public toilets, it is in my financial interest to reserve the toilets in my business to paying customers, and thus spend less on maintenance.
- If none of the other businesses offer public toilets, it is also in my financial interest to reserve the toilets in my business to paying customers.
Under my proposal, the extra taxes paid by businesses not offering public WCs would be reserved for the exclusive purpose of either directly providing facilities, or subsidising other businesses' provision thereof. (I apologise if that part wasn't clear.)
it's easy to say you'll do part 2 without actually doing it.
Hence the specific tax, from which businesses can make themselves exempt if they provide restrooms one can use without spending anything.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
7mo ago
· Edited 7mo ago
At this time, I would like to steelman disparate-impact legislation.
Some people decide that they don't want to hire (or sell to, or admit to their schools) black people (or women or Chinese people or Irish people...), but are forbidden by law from having such a policy. They then impose a standard that many white people can meet, few black people can meet, and that they most likely wouldn't give a rat's arse about if it were un-correlated with race, and in some cases didn't give a rat's arse about when they were allowed to discriminate openly. (Sometimes they go further, and enforce a zero-tolerance standard on black people while ignoring violations by white people.) The government than comes in and says "That sounds like a whites-only sign with extra steps; I thought we had made it perfectly clear that you are not allowed to do that! What part of 'do not discriminate on the basis of race' did you not understand?"
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
11mo ago
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
2mo ago
I could be wrong about their motivations, but the impression I get from the Episcopal Church's decision is something along the lines of "The administration is aiding white people who are or might be in danger of their lives, while telling people of colour in similar danger that they are obligated to stay in their own countries and die. This suggests that the administration believes that the life of a white person matters more than that of a person of colour. This belief is a grave sin, and we refuse to be complicit in it."
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
6mo ago
The central example of right-wing violence during the Trump era is a single riot where the only deaths were one of the rioters and a couple geezers that got too excited and had heart attacks.
Are you referring to the Diet-Coke Hall Putsch?
There was also the Charlottesville Massacre. (Kind of book-ends it....)
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
6mo ago
They are not the same. Rotherham was worse. Much, much worse.
It was a worse instance of the same thing, much in the way that pancreatic cancer is worse than prostate cancer despite them both being cases of cells multiplying faster than they ought to.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
9mo ago
Russia invaded Ukraine. They don’t invade The United States, they didn’t threaten to invade The United States.
Furthermore, if Russia were to have encountered no opposition in the forceful seizure of Ukraine, how long would it be before they went after the Baltics? Poland? Eventually we wouldn't be able to stand on the sidelines any more.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
1yr ago
State marriage only exists to manage procreative couplings.
But infertile opposite-sex couples could always get married...?
Also the state has other strong interests in deterring homosexuality.
Such as...?
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
1yr ago
Or the right calling everything to the left of Ayn Rand 'socialist/communist' and people on the left reacting similarly.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
6mo ago
My motivation is directing ethnogenesis in a eugenic direction
That's what we've been arguing about‽
The way things are going (assuming humanity survives at all), a century from now we will be able to take the best genes from every branch and twig of the human family tree, and splice them into anyone who wants them!
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
7mo ago
It seems that you have a strong belief that there is no acceptable reason (without animus) to treat one group of people separately from another. Is this correct?
I believe that right and wrong consist in how one treats individual human beings; 'committing a wrong against a group' is an abstraction of wrongs committed against individual members of that group. Thus I would phrase it more as "Membership in a group is not an acceptable reason to treat one person worse than another."
Likewise, a heterosexual marriage is not literally exactly the same as a homosexual marriage: in one, two people of the same sex are marrying, in the other, two members of the opposite sex.
Anyone can regard this distinction as being relevant or as being irrelevant.
The distinction is irrelevant with regard to the State. For legitimate government purposes, 'same/different genital configuration' of the persons marrying is approximately as relevant as 'same/different astrological sign', or 'same/different final digit in Social Security Number'.
Someone who believes that marriage is primarily about financial cooperation, or about publicly celebrating subjective affection, may regard the distinction as irrelevant. Equally, someone who regards marriage as being the joining of two complementary sexes to form a well-rounded whole, or as the basis for the creation and nurturing of genetic offspring, will see the homosexual / heterosexual distinction as highly relevant.
The government's interests in marriage largely involve 'financial cooperation', along with things like 'this person is in hospital, unconscious; whom do we ask about their wishes: the person with whom they have lived for two decades, or their parents who kicked them out when they were 16?'.
'The joining of two complementary sexes to form a well-rounded whole', being, if not a religious belief per se, at least religion-adjacent, is not a legitimate foundation for government policy. 'Nurturing of genetic offspring' is also, while easily pattern-matched to the legitimate government interest in ensuring that children are cared for by someone, not a valid argument against same-sex marriage, as a same-sex couple can adopt children or conceive via surrogacy or gamete donation, and opposite-sex couples in which one or both members are infertile are not excluded from government marriage.
This applies to civil marriage; a church which teaches the doctrine of 'complementary sexes forming a well-rounded whole' and thus only solemnising opposite-sex marriages is a different matter. There were proposals made that the State withdraw from the business of marriage entirely, issue 'civil unions' to couples without regard to gender, and leave 'marriage' to religious organisations, which could set whatever criteria they darn well pleased.
If such a proposal had been on the ballot, support thereof would not constitute animus against gay people.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
8mo ago
· Edited 8mo ago
EDITED FOR CLARITY.
I don't think anyone claims that 'men can be women' per se.
The left just happens to disagree with your assertion that 'anyone born with male parts is and will always be a man.' This is not saying 'men can be women' so much as 'you are wrong about who is a man and who is a woman.' The standard view on the left, as I understand it, is that if John Doe comes out as a transwoman (changing her name to Jane Doe), then Jane Doe was always a woman, and our (and her) previous belief that she was a man was an error of fact, and mutatis mutandis for transmen.
People who have Read The Sequences, on the other hand, hold that 'man' and 'woman' are an inaccurate map of a more complicated territory, and their definitions depend on which hidden inference one is asking about.
Celestial-body-NOS
Why should Man not rebel against Nature, when Nature herself is in rebellion against Justice?
9mo ago
Would you wager your life on that? Your children's lives?
If the United States tells the people of the Global South "We have the ability to save you from a painful death, but we are choosing not to For The Greater Good", the survivors will be fertile soil for Usama bin-Ladin 2.0 or some other radical cultists. They will be much more sympathetic to the Peking Clique, if and when they decide to demand something Washington is unwilling to concede. No fortress you can build will be strong enough to keep them out, when, like Belshazzar, you are numbered, weighed, and divided.
The cost of indefinitely providing medical care to people who cannot care for themselves may seem steep, but it is trivial compared to the cost of not doing so.
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