FtttG
User ID: 1175
FtttG
1d ago
Sure. But bear in mind: this whole Amelia started a couple of weeks ago, and there are already videos of her quoting poetry at length that users of this board are calling moving. I'm sure the first draft of Columbia looked a little rough around the edges (and not a little racist against Native Americans) too.
FtttG
1d ago
If that's what was intended, it's not what I took from it. I wish the person who posted it would clarify.
FtttG
2d ago
- 2-3 dashes of Angostura, teaspoon of sugar, drop of water. Muddle until dissolved.
- Add 50ml of Irish whiskey, ice cubes and orange peel garnish.
- Top up with soda water (I think this is a vital step to offset the sweetness of the sugar and bitters, and often overlooked).
Obviously the whole "Amelia" meme is very culture war-loaded, but this jocular rundown of the whole thing (containing 100+ memes) made me laugh so much that it feels more appropriate for this thread. (It caught my attention because Scott liked it.)
FtttG
2d ago
What is your objection to slavery then, if not the ownership of one man by another?
And what is so hard to understand about the fact that harm can result from action and inaction, and hence that knowingly permitting harm to occur is a crime just as much as causing harm oneself? This isn't pathos, this isn't appeal to emotion, this isn't even an argument from legality, this is just – physics, really. If you concede that punishing evildoers (by which I mean people who commit crimes of commission) is a good idea because it incentivises people not to do evil, that logically implies that it's also a good idea to punish people who commit crimes of omission, for exactly the same reason.
You seem to be operating from some kind of bizarre slave morality perspective, in which harm can only result because of action, whereas people who do nothing are morally pure. This is, to put it mildly, bollocks. Failing to toss a rope to a drowning child is almost as much of a moral indictment of you as pushing her in to the water.
You're saying that my argument "implies criminality of inaction" in what I assume is meant to be a derisive tone, like that's a facially absurd claim to make. But it's factually true that certain kinds of inaction are criminal offenses in many jurisdictions, and your refusal to recognise this doesn't make it any less true, or doesn't mean it doesn't apply to you. If you think these kinds of inactions shouldn't be considered crimes, fair enough, but don't pretend they aren't and scoff at me for pointing out that they are.
FtttG
2d ago
Can you articulate what you find morally wrong with slavery?
It is wrong for one human being to own another human being. That is, in fact, the central meaning of slavery, so I'm not committing the non-central fallacy as you claim. You brought up the comparison to plantation slavery in the antebellum South, not me.
If you refuse to acknowledge the difference between killing and not-killing, we’re at an impasse.
I acknowledge the difference between "killing" and "doing nothing to prevent a killing that you knew was going to happen". I do not think they are equally heinous, and neither does the law (accessory to murder before the fact will never be punished as harshly as murder).
I think you're using the word "slavery" in a nonstandard way. The fact that someone will be punished for inaction doesn't imply that they are therefore owned by another individual.
I don't understand why you're demanding that an actor must affirmatively agree to do something in order to face punishment for failing to do so. This isn't how we treat crimes of commission ("well we found Bob standing over Carol's corpse holding a bloody knife – but he never explicitly agreed not to murder anyone, so legally our hands are tied"), so why should it be the case for crimes of omission? This sounds like some sovereign citizen nonsense: the laws of the country in which you reside apply to you, whether you approve of them or not.
If Alice knows that Bob is planning to kill Carol and does nothing to prevent it (say, reporting him to the police), that obviously implies that Carol's murder could have been prevented had Alice acted. The fact that she didn't personally stab Carol doesn't make her any less party to the crime. The fact that she never explicitly agreed to report any instances in which she had foreknowledge of a murder doesn't either.
FtttG
2d ago
I actually met him while we were going out. As a middle-aged man he bore an uncanny resemblance to Séamus Heaney. When he was my age at the time we were going out, he did wear his hair long, but looked more like Rory Gallagher.
FtttG
2d ago
It should never be a crime to not act.
- If I'm a teacher, and one of my students confides in me that another adult has been sexually abusing him, I should not face legal repercussions if I fail to report it?
- If I'm in a room when two of my friends are plotting a murder, I don't bother to report it, and they succeed in killing their victim, then I shouldn't be charged with conspiracy or being an accessory before the fact?
- If I'm a doctor, I see one of my patients choking, and I don't bother to try to save his life, then I shouldn't be charged with gross negligence?
- If a lifeguard sees someone drowning but doesn't try to save his life because who is he to play God, he shouldn't be charged with gross negligence?
- If I work in a pharmaceutical company, I know that a specific batch of drugs my company has produced has been tainted, but I don't bother to call attention to it, I shouldn't be charged with gross negligence?
Moral philosophy draws a distinction between ethical actions which are expected of you (i.e. which you will be condemned for failing to carry out), and supererogatory actions, which are "beyond the call of duty" (i.e. you will be praised for carrying them out, but no one will blame you if you don't do so). Obviously, which category a given action falls into varies from person to person, depending on their skills and responsibilities. If someone suffers from a medical emergency in front of me, obviously I should put a sweater under their head and try to keep them comfortable, but it's not really expected of me to do more than that. But if I was a doctor, rendering proper medical assistance to that person is my responsibility, and failing to do would be a serious derelection of duty.
Likewise, if you're just a private citizen, an ordinary civilian, no one expects you to intervene in the event that an active shooter scenario erupts in your vicinity. Elisjsha Dicken deserves praise, commendation, every honour that his government can bestow on a civilian: his courage in the face of extreme danger is awe-inspiring, breathtaking. But I don't think anyone would have held it against him had he failed to intervene and ran for cover: he did more than could reasonably be expected of him, because it wasn't his responsibility.
It is a cop's responsibility. While police officers who intervene in active shooter scenarios will receive praise, this is really just a courtesy masking the fact that, for a police officer, intervening in situations like this is not a supererogatory action: they will be condemned for failing to do so, and deservedly so. Being a hero is the job you signed up for. If you weren't willing to put yourself in harm's way to protect vulnerable people, what the hell did you become a cop for?
(The same argument applies, obviously, to the Secret Service agents who could be seen cowering behind Trump while he was being fired upon. "Interposing the principal between an active shooter and yourself" is pretty much the exact opposite of a bodyguard's job.)
Maybe criminal conviction would be too harsh a punishment, although maybe not: imagine some other hypothetical in which 21 children were killed as a result of an adult's derelection of duty (e.g. a schoolbus driver who literally fell asleep at the wheel and survived a crash while 21 of his passengers were killed) – I find it hard to imagine no criminal convictions would be sought in such an instance.
Either way, none of these men are fit to be police officers, and should be forced to resign.
Still on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. I have killed 2 out of 3 Chosen. Once I finish this playthrough, I am seriously considering playing the base game on Commander difficulty with Ironman enabled. Help, I've relapsed into my XCOM addiction.
Four years ago I passed my ex in the street, who was walking with her current boyfriend. She was my first serious girlfriend, and we lost our virginities to each other. Her current boyfriend looked, not to put to fine a point on it, pretty much exactly like I did when we started going out: hairstyle (significant as I wore my hair quite long at the time), fashion sense, skin tone, eye colour, the whole lot.
My immediate thought was "wow, either she has a very specific type, or I imprinted on her real good".
FtttG
2d ago
Homosexuality happens when natural mechanisms of sexual attraction do not work as they should for the purposes they were intended - namely, reproducing the species and propagate the genes.
However, as even Freud realised, this argument proves too much, as it implies that any sexual activity not carried out for purposes of procreation is just as "perverted" as homosexual intercourse. This includes numerous heterosexual activities which are widely considered "vanilla" (PiV sex with condoms, sex then pulling out, fellatio to the point of orgasm and so on).
Anyway, I don't engage with people engage in "strawmanning," which means ascribing exaggerated positions to others as a way of making them seem less reasonable.
The nerve of you. On the basis of my using a photo of Good which had already been used by numerous outlets beforehand, you made a snap decision about what my opinions of this case were and what I was attempting to do by using said photo. When in reality, I suspect that our opinions of this case are quite similar. And you dare to accuse me of misrepresenting and strawmanning you?
And, of course, no comment on the fact that that notorious bastion of open borders propaganda, FOX News, used exactly the same photo of Good in their coverage. Because that would explode your preposterous claim that anyone using this photo for illustrative purposes is trying to make Good look as sympathetic as possible.
In spite of how insightful and relevant I'm finding it (and how short it is), my progress on The True Believer has been slow.
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