SSCReader
1mo ago
Christianity is pretty disordered itself. So I am not sure Christianity really has much of the moral high ground here. Even setting aside the truth value of the existence of God. Why else are there 85 different sects which have had (and still do have) their own violent confrontations?
Which exact Christian sect is going to be at the head of this Christian nationalism? I suspect there will be some pretty big push back coming from inside its own house. Are you really wanting to bring back Catholic vs Protestant as a live issue?
Being from Northern Ireland, I can tell you, that might not go as well as you would like.
SSCReader
1mo ago
You think violent terrorism between Catholics and Protestants who both ostensibly worship the same God, and have the same holy book is moral? I'm pretty sure that God is not very convinced murdering children is moral.
SSCReader
7mo ago
And when the bottleneck goes the other way companies can push down wages and so on. It's just swings and roundabouts. Each side can use the power they have when they have it. Why should it be any other way? There is no moral requirement for workers to make things easier for companies or indeed vice versa. The adversarial approach sometimes puts out of work a lot of people and sometimes causes companies to sink. and that is entirely ok. It's part of the emergent processes for finding the balance points between capital and labor. At a societal level it works. Each side has their own levers to pull, at different times. Expecting them not to do that is a fundamental error. Your employer is not your friend, and your employee is not your friend. You are engaged in a transactional agreement, nothing more.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Because i do. Murdering people is wrong especially over minor differences in religion.
Also i'd rather not have my birthplaces culture war reignited over here for more pragmatic reasons.
SSCReader
1mo ago
I'd say that, as I am not a utilitarian, my moral intuitions are based upon my upbringing, my experiences, the social forces brought to bear upon me and are largely immune to rational change. I can't think myself into believing murder is moral.
Though I might try to reason myself into the position that I had to murder Bob Smith for the greater good (He is the second coming of Hitler, he is a kid rapist etc.), if I go ahead and murder him in cold blood, I am highly likely to experience guilt. This indicates i am judging myself immoral even though I was able to rationalize why I should kill him.
I don't know if I would quite call that vibes based.
SSCReader
1mo ago
They don't have the same upbringing, experiences, or social forces that you do, so if they happen to think that it's totally fine, evenespecially for minor differences in religion, then there's basically no point in you having made any of the statements that you have made. Their perspective is apparently fine, simple as.
Exactly right! Of course everyone (or nearly everyone) holds that their own views are moral. My near relatives who thought that murder was wrong, but that if it was a Catholic, well that is quite all right have no more objective source of morality than the IRA members who thought the opposite, and both sets were because of their experiences and values that were imparted to them by their families and communities. But just because I understand they think their beliefs are moral does not mean i have to agree they are correct. What is defined as moral is based upon what values they were inculcated with. That is why the culture war is important. I think the world would be a better place, if I can convince more people (or educate) more people into following my moral code. Someone with different beliefs will try to influence the opposite way. The fact neither of us have an objective claim to morality, matters not a shred.
And absolutely the experience of murdering someone is an experience that will contribute to someone's moral compass. As you say it could degrade their idea that murder is wrong, or it could send them into a spiral of guilt and reinforce it. If you think the first is more likely, then just like with never trying cocaine, you should try and ensure yourself and other people never take that first snort.
But the point of making the statements here is just because I like arguing on the internet. I am not under the impression I am going to change anything.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I'm the opposite, until recently I thought there was a big drop in the amount of moderating, to the detriment of the space. Hopefully the additional mods, mean we can keep a tightly moderated space. The whole point of theMotte is that civility needs to be modded for, in order that people with very different opinions can interact. TheMotte allows you to say almost anything...as long as you do it with an eye to framing it civilly for even your opponents. Good faith is helpful, but you still have to maintain your civility. That means not using terms that are likely to be inflammatory to your outgroup, unless those terms are vital to your post.
That requires a significant amount of moderating I think.
SSCReader
1mo ago
You're missing the point I think. This is an is claim not an ought claim. From my experience this is how the vast majority of people operate. Utilitarians (unconsciously) rationalize the values of their calculations to fit their pre-existing intuitions, Deontologists write their rules to fit their pre-existing intuitions etc. Christians emphasize certain parts of Biblical morality to match their pre-existing intuitions which is why some Christians can be anti-gay marriage or abortion, and some can be pro.
It doesn't matter what that leads to, because its the only option that appears to exist. We must live in the world as it is, not as we want it to be. I agree a true objective accessible source of morality might be better. But given how differently people act even while claiming to follow the same source of morality, if it does exist we can't truly access it.
To be clear though that doesn't mean that fostering co-operation can't be better than genocide. Civilization is built on pragmatic benefits, and a group which co-operates rather than genocides may well out-perform. Morally it might not objectively truly matter if you always murder your neighbors and steal their belongings, but it does leave you isolated. And when the group the next hill over learned to work together and could specialize they will out compete you.
Morality may be relative but that doesn't mean some strands of moral thought aren't more effective at generating advantage. And those moral strands will tend to be the ones that get passed down. Moral codes are a social technology. And competition between them, like market forces is won or lost by their effectiveness.
Communism repeatedly loses because it generates worse outcomes. Christianity spread so well because it generated better outcomes for its followers so it could be spread further.
Remember relative just means that there is no objective source we have access to, it doesn't mean all options will be equally successful. Why don't we use genocide to spread our morality? Because generally that gets everyone else to turn against you, meaning the spread of your moral code will be self-limiting. Nazi ideology led to their defeat and the humiliation of their preferred moral intuitions.
SSCReader
1mo ago
You asked me why my point of view would not lead to genocide etc. And I told you. I also explained why it appears those who would resort to genocide would generally not out-compete others who would.
If you don't find my answer that interesting then thats on you. My point of view is my point of view, I don't claim to hold it because it is interesting. If it doesn't interest you simply move along.
SSCReader
5mo ago
But the airport's positive or negative impact still remains whether it was there first or not. If it is net negative then the fact its been there 50 years shouldn't on its own be enough to protect it from change. Thats literally just status quo bias.
If you move to a country with a despotic myrderous tyrant ruling it, are you really bound to not be against them, because they were there before you?
It should be a consideration perhaps but its not the whole enchilada.
SSCReader
1mo ago
If there's no truth of the matter to bother arguing for, why argue? Just cancel, deplatform, shame, struggle session, brainwash, and intimidate people to be inculcated with your view.
What do you think arguing is? It is generally an attempt to persuade people. Brainwashing, arguing, shaming, preaching are all part of the same set of things.
People who claim to have access to an objective morality behave in contradictory ways from each other. I would say this is evidence that if there is an objective morality, we either cannot access it, or are unable to tell when we have accessed it, (or that it doesn't exist at all). People who believe they have access to objective morality brainwash people and preach at them, argue with them. People who do not believe they have access to objective morality brainwash people and preach at them, argue with them.
Either those who believe they have found objective morality are wrong, or they are correct but this fact does not change the tools they use to inculcate their morality in others. I have seen nothing in more than 50 years on this planet that suggests that there is an objective moral standard that we can know.
Telling me there is an objective morality is of no use if you cannot tell what it is and show that it is indeed objective. People have been trying to do that for thousands of years and have failed (in that at the very least they have not been able to prove that their version is the true objective morality). That leaves us to default to a socially mediated morality where we behave as we are taught to behave by our families, communities and experiences. It's either that or pick one out of a hat randomly, which doesn't seem any more likely to be true, and at least the former has the background that it did indeed create a society that still exists and was then able to impart its values onwards.
SSCReader
1mo ago
The true tragedy is not the dead children, who have been taken to heaven and will be reunited with their family eventually,
Isn't that very much disputed within Christianity? In addition the kids he speaks of are almost certainly Hindu and/or Muslim. I am guessing almost none of them are baptized. And then even if the kids get in because they were too young to actively choose, will the parents who are also most likely Hindu and Muslim be reunited with them?
Catholics:
"Likewise, whosoever says that those children who depart out of this life without partaking of that sacrament shall be made alive in Christ, certainly contradicts the apostolic declaration, and condemns the universal Church, in which it is the practice to lose no time and run in haste to administer baptism to infant children, because it is believed, as an indubitable truth, that otherwise they cannot be made alive in Christ. Now he that is not made alive in Christ must necessarily remain under the condemnation, of which the apostle says, that "by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." That infants are born under the guilt of this offense is believed by the whole Church."
"The Roman Catholic view is that baptism is necessary for salvation and that it frees the recipient from original sin. Roman Catholic tradition teaches that unbaptized infants, not being freed from original sin, go to Limbo (Latin: limbus infantium), which is an afterlife condition distinct from Hell. This is not, however, official church dogma."
The Orthodox:
"And forasmuch as infants are men, and as such need salvation; needing salvation, they need also Baptism. And those that are not regenerated, since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin, are, of necessity, subject to eternal punishment, and consequently cannot without Baptism be saved; so that even infants ought, of necessity, to be baptised."
or the Protestants:
"Since we must make judgments about God’s will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy. "
The Baptists would back you up however:
"We do believe, that all little Children dying in their Infancy, before they are capable to choose either Good or Evil, whether born of Believing Parents, or Unbelieving Parents, shall be saved by the Grace of God, and Merit of Christ their Redeemer, and Work of the Holy Ghost, and so being made Members of the Invisible Church, shall enjoy Life everlasting; for our Lord Jesus saith, of such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven. Ergo, We conclude, that that opinion is false, which saith, That those little Infants dying before Baptism, are damned."
In other words aren't you assuming the best possible case for your argument here? What if you are right about God existing, but that those kids will never be reunited with their families, either because they will go to Limbo/Heaven as they were too young to choose Christ and their parents are Damned, through not being Christian? Would you still maintain that pain is worth it? Or that you are correct but that they will be reunited with their parents in Gehenna being as neither was saved, and suffer even more torment?
Your argument could be true for Christian baptized kids born to Christian parents and false for everyone else.
SSCReader
1mo ago
But I think it means that you should simply say so when you're asked about the morality of something. You should just say that there's nothing moral/immoral to it, because you think that's not a thing; you just personally like/don't like it.
But this is not my position! I think the moral intuitions we develop still have value. Just because the morality is socially constructed does not mean it isn't real or useful, it is still morality. It isn't simply because I like or don't like. Because there are things I like which I judge as immoral and things I don't like which I judge as moral. My whole point is that I don't particularly get a rational say in what my morality is, because it is an unconscious synthesis of my upbringing, my influences, my experiences, the arguments that people have made to me and so on. Morality may be constructed, and subjective, but that is not the same thing as not being real, or not being morality. When I say something is wrong, I mean just that. By my moral code (which I acknowledge is not rational), I judge it as wrong. So saying I don't believe in moral judgements would be incorrect.
As for philosophers you'll note the question they were asked is not whether they know that moral realism is true. The lean towards it or accept it. And they may be right! Just to point out I am not saying the whole of philosophy has failed, I am saying that we currently (self-obviously) have failed to both prove there is objective morality and what exactly that objective morality is. I don't have a problem with people trying to explore that, and maybe they will even prove me wrong tomorrow!
SSCReader
4mo ago
Warm fuzzy virtue feelings are a personal benefit.
That I think proves too much.
It's certainly possible for someone to do X so they feel good about it but I think that is stretching the personal benefit clause to breaking point. Otherwise any teacher at a Christian school who genuinely feels good about bringing kids into the flock of believers is also a groomer by your definition. It can't be anything to do with the fact they also actually believe the child will be better off as a Christian, or that they want the child's soul to be saved through Christ AND also feel good about it? In fact any teacher teaching anything who feels good about imparting knowledge is now a groomer? A patriotic teacher who feels good about teaching kids the national anthem and the history of standing up to colonial overlords?
At which point once more we have stretched the definition of grooming to nigh uselessness because feeling good about doing things you think are good is a pro-social human adaption. Most people feel good about doing (what they perceive to be) good even if they have other reasons for doing so (moral intuition, commandments from God, legal instructions to follow etc.)
It also suggests as long as we employ teachers who don't feel good about it, but do so because they are instructed to do so, would be A-OK? That seems a counter-intuitive take on the whole situation. "It's ok, we picked a bunch of teachers to teach the Gay/Trans/Sex Ed curriculum who really don't care about it at all, and in fact would rather teach something else, and thus will get no personal benefit whatsoever and therefore definitionally cannot be groomers" doesn't seem like it would be accepted as a counter-argument.
SSCReader
1mo ago
Do you think that it is possible, in principle, for moral disagreements to be rationally resolved? Do you think that moral judgments contain truth-value, and if so, in what sense?
I'll preface by saying that I don't think people are rational, so:
-
Resolved as in, come to an agreement on how to practically deal with mismatched moral intuitions? Yes. We do that all the time. Resolved as in convincing someone that they should adopt your moral precepts? Yes. Resolved as in actually discovering the objective moral truth? As it stands no. Though perhaps there is an argument that would change my mind, which I just have not encountered yet.
-
Yes, in the sense that someone's moral intuitions are a real and true reflection of their experiences as a person and that these intuitions govern how they act and react and therefore have a measurable impact on the world. And true in the fact that moral intuitions are reflective of the choices a society had to make to get to where it is, and of the standards and beliefs it evolved as part of that process, and of how useful those moral beliefs were to said society. But not true in some underlying sense that lies outside of humanity. Like the laws of gravity or similar.
In other words, whether there is sentient life to observe it or not, mass attracts mass, but if there is no sentient life there is no moral code to the universe. That only exists in the sense of what we project upon it. The stars look down upon us uncaring of whether we murder each other or help each other.
SSCReader
1mo ago
You say that people can come to an agreement on how to practically deal with mismatched moral intuitions or that you can convince someone that they should adopt your moral precepts; do you think that this can be done rationally, or that it's just done based on vibes?
I think when you convince someone of a change to their morality, it is not because they consciously and rationally change. So they can't just decide to either accept or reject your argument based upon a rational approach. They may protest and argue against you, only to find that over some time of it percolating in their subconscious their position has changed. I don't know if I would call it vibes as opposed to a kind of below conscious thought approach. Some of the arguments that might be used to change someone's opinion may well be rational, but the way that is integrated into their belief system is not. What we see as feelings or beliefs are complex interactions of thought processes we are not consciously aware of. But that doesn't mean it is as simple as vibes.
For an example, I can't simply choose that I will now believe that there is an objective morality. Whether I will or won't is not something I can consciously control. Maybe your argument resonates on a deeper level and next week I will have a different idea.
As for the 2nd, I think that the truth value of a society and an individual and a situation is true for their situation. Cannibalizing the dead is in my current situation and cultural context is immoral and I consider that to be true. Were I trapped on a mountain after a plane crash then eating the already dead bodies of other victims is truly moral. If I were kidnapped and taken against my will to work in a mine, then while I think killing is generally immoral, killing my kidnappers to escape is truly moral.
The only way the truth can be judged is within the context of the position (including cultural, physical and mental) that you are in. When I kill a mine overseer to escape it is neither objectively moral or immoral because I don't consider there to be an objective stick to measure it against. If he has kidnapped me, held me against my will then it is moral, if I have been found guilty of a crime which I did commit and been sentenced in accordance with my society, then killing the prison officer to escape is immoral.
So it isn't just that there is no "truth-value" because there is, it just isn't an objective truth value. I will certainly say there is no objective truth value to those positions if you like but there is still A truth value.
SSCReader
4mo ago
it doesn't become even worser if the doxxed person is female/female presenting/non binary/genderfluid/anything not cis male.
Hmm, if we take as granted that doxxing increases the risk of some physical altercation taking place (even if by some tiny percent) and if we take as granted that the average woman is physically weaker than the average man, then I think it is probably true that doxxing poses more of a physical risk to women than men. Not necessarily by much of course as I imagine most doxxing doesn't actually lead to anything like being physically stalked.
I think doxxing Amouranth would probably put her at more risk then doxxing Jacksepticeye for example.
SSCReader
1mo ago
One might (and many have) say the same about scientific reasoning. "Science progresses one funeral at a time," and all that. That some people become emotionally attached to ideas rather than progressing rationally does not imply much about the underlying plausibility of rational inquiry.
Sure, but science can put you in a lab with a column with the air sucked out and drop a lead sphere and have you time it. Or show you a picture of a supernova. So far, no seeker of objective morality has come close to demonstrating the same. Now maybe objective morality is more like quantum physics than observing gravity, and it is really hard to observe/discover, and we'll have an objective morality rush at some point. I think it's fine (admirable even!) for people to try to be rational, it's one of the reasons I was drawn to the rationalist community in the first place, but I think they do often overlook the fact that most people (including themselves) are not rational agents, though their behavior can be modelled a such under certain conditions. For example looking at the prisoner's dilemma, the idea of not snitching on each other isn't reasoned out by actual prisoners. It's enforced through social conditioning (snitches get stiches) Which is incorporated into their world view, by the distributed network of agents they live in. Because criminal enterprises that do snitch on each other regularly will not last very long. The social rules are emergent from which behaviors are adaptive.
I would also point out that cancel culture could be rational. If people are doing X and X is immoral (according to your moral code) then using shame as tool to reduce the prevalence of X might be entirely rational (which doesn't mean that the people using it are actually thinking about using it rationally, just as above with our criminals). Cancel culture is just a social technology, like shunning and so on. One where it leverages the opprobrium of the community to enforce behavioral norms. Even if there were an objective morality, (say Christianity was true) it is likely cancelling and shunning people in order to disincentivize their objectively wrong behavior would be a net positive. Societies which shun, and socially shame, and cancel their members to maximize compliance thrive above others which do not. Therefore even an entirely rational agent may decide cancelling people is the correct thing to do. Especially where there is an objective morality, (unless a core part of that objective morality is that shaming people is wrong of course).
For the last, yes if Bob is from culture which believes (and he concurs with this) that eating the dead will condemn their souls to an eternity of torment then probably it would continue to be immoral for him, even while Sally is lighting up the cook fire. I think given enough information you could probably predict what Bob finds immoral, but it might depend on how much he derives from his community (probably legible) and how much he derives from his experiences (potentially less so). If he is an apostate (who thinks the eating the dead prohibition is nonsense) and has never told anyone, you are unlikely to be able to reason this out in advance.
SSCReader
3mo ago
Our country is fucked.
It really isn't. It will be ok if Biden wins and it will be ok if Trump wins and it will be ok if Haley or DeSantis wins. For the vast majority of people life will not change much in any of those cases. Taxes might rise or fall immigration might rise or fall, but the political fallout overall will be more theatre than anything else. For 95% of people in the country, the differences will be actually tiny.
SSCReader
6mo ago
Black men and women do not like or trust each other at all
You're overstating this I think (I say this as a white man married to a BWD leaning black woman), it's still a minority position and "dating out" is still very much not the norm. So saying they don't like or trust each other at all is going way too far.
What is true is that there are fractures caused by (perceived?) double standards of black men dating white women being unhappy black women date white men, and of "dusty" black men who cheat/abandon their families, which is the core of the BWD complaints. And fractures the other way about black men who feel black women date white men for money or for racial reasons ("Black men keep telling me white men are keeping them down and making excuses, if so then why should I date the servant and not the master?")
I'm pretty much the only white guy at most family functions and most of the other guests are still dating/married within their race, so don't generalize too far I think. Having said that, some of my wifes friends have apparently changed their dating preferences to include white men after seeing the success of our relationship after initially having a lot of doubts about interracial dating so there is that.
SSCReader
4mo ago
less likely to be victims of violent crime, then your argument falls flat on it's face.
of random violent crime yes. But that's not the specific thing we are talking about here. Do you think that a random online woman and a random online man are equally likely to be sought out by a bad actor?
You can't use general crime statistics against a specific scenario. For obvious reasons.
My objection to the point raised was narrow for a reason, I am not commenting on general levels of violence or whether this scenario would be portrayed accurately with trans people et al. So don't read into my point more than is actually there.
SSCReader
6mo ago
Communism is intuitively not terrible to the average person, because almost certainly they will have seen it, or something like it work at very small scales. Probably within their own family. You have resources coming in and in general within your direct family, those resources are allocated to who needs them not to who brought them in. I buy my kids clothes and food and toys much in excess of the economic value they produce. I give money to my brother when he is down on his luck even if I don't think he will ever be able to do the same for me. Money I've saved could just as easily go to sending my kid to school than me using it to buy myself a sweet new ride on mower. It's not exactly the same, but it has the same feel.
We could link that to BurdensomeCounts (I think?) prior post on how our intuitive thinking breaks down when dealing with above Dunbar numbers of people. If we see something that works with our direct local community, it's kind of grandfathered in to our thinking when we start looking at large numbers of people.
Also in the US at least, due to the historical issues with slavery, the tension in thinking between "that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; ..." and enslaving a group of people and their descendents has created a national guilt of sorts around racism.
We see this tension right at the beginning in the Founding Fathers who wrote things like: “the only unavoidable subject of regret.” and “we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” So this isn't some modern invention. The tension was seen right from the get go.
The reason racism is seen as so bad in the US is because of this collision between the idea of the US as the "shining city on the hill" as part of its founding mythos and how then failing to live up to their own ideals is seen as a "hideous blot". This kind of meta belief is in my experience as an outsider shared by many Americans whether on the right or left. The Civil Rights Acts et al did not cause it, they are the symptom of it.
My Trump voting conservative neighbors, believe that a man should be judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin and that is part of the foundation of their belief set. That America is a place where dreams can come true for anyone, where anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and have a chance of success, where Man is created in God's image. This is inherently at odds with treating a sub group of people as cattle. It can be rationalized away, because we are amazing at rationalizing away contradictions, but as HyncklaCG will always remind us, there is a reason Republicans were the original abolitionists. "The Radicals were heavily influenced by religious ideals, and many were Protestant reformers who saw slavery as evil.."
Comparing racism to anything in the US is going to be tricky because racism is a cloud that hangs over the national sense of identity, the tarnish on their otherwise exceptional outcomes. Not compared to the rest of the world but compared to their own standards. It's like a straight A student who agonises over a single D compared to a student who barely passes any of their classes. The very thing that pushes them to be exceptional also means their (perceived) past failures hurt that much more.
The question then would be, why would you expect Americans (in general) to think Marxism is worse than racism, when their only real direct experiences with anything like communism were probably somewhat positive, and that the juxtaposition of the inspiring rhetoric of their nation's founding has one tarnish which looms to an outsize degree in the collective consciousness. It is not comparing like with like.
It would be like going to Ireland and trying to find a legislative cause as to why they might think Marxism is more socially acceptable than Religious persecution or British Imperialism. Each nations cultural and social beliefs can only be understood in relation to their own historical context. The success in the export of American cultural values does also muddy this of course. Is racism more or less socially acceptable than British Imperialism in Londonderry/Derry would be an interesting comparison.
SSCReader
1mo ago
That many folks are mere adapters rather than rational agents WRT science or game theory doesn't imply much about whether science or game theory have an objective quality.
No, but game theory at least posits what the best option is under a series of conditions. The fact that distributed social behaviors match that somewhat is an indicator there might be some truth to it. If the same outcome is derived different ways that is evidence of a sort. Given that the same when applied to morality results in a huge different swathes of moral codes, including exceptions that might be an indicator that if there is any sort of objective morality it is very, very narrow, or almost impossible to discover.
And as to what I should answer, in general I am not answering the question why do I think other people think it is wrong or right. I was asked why do I think it is wrong. I wasn't asked whether it could be right for other people. Every post I make here I could go into more detail, but usually there is a trade off. So unless I have the time to expand I think I will stick with "Because I do". It's punchy and accurate. Why I think that is not usually germane to the discussion at hand. In this instance why I think murder is wrong doesn't really have any relevance to deciding whether Christian nationalism is likely to rekindle problems between Catholics and Protestants which is where we started this. Even if religious murder is not morally wrong, Catholics and Protestants murdering each other over religion in the US is not likely to be practically positive. How that impinges on the morality of murder is at best an (interesting) diversion.
SSCReader
7mo ago
If unions can be influential enough to get government protection, then that is something the market must take into account.
The market only exists in this form itself because of government protection so complaining unions get it too is just special pleading.
In other words there are other factors than market forces to be accounted for. They are neither more nor less legitimate than the market itself.
The question there (setting aside laws and the like) is, what if there aren't enough people to hire otherwise? Remember that unemployment is pretty low in the US currently, so are there enough people you could actually attract, in the area you need them, for the lower wages you are refusing to hike? With the skillset you need, and all at the same time so you don't have to shut down anyway because you need at least a 100 or 300 or 3000 factory workers all at the same time? And then you need to train them, and who is going to train them with your experienced staff just been fired?
That's a gamble in and of itself. And the more people are in the union, or who won't work as scabs (because they are in an affiliated union or something) the harder it becomes. Now if truckers refuse to deliver to you because they are crossing a strike line and so on. A strike is a balancing act where labor does hold some cards, because replacing them will cost time and money, and a short term shock can kill a company. They leverage that in exchange for better conditions.
Recruiting large numbers of new workers is very expensive and it takes time your cash reserves may not be able to support.
Firing everyone who tries to unionize (again ignoring laws for the moment) would be a signal that you want to hamstring the power of labor. Which is entirely reasonable for an employer to do, but then it is also entirely reasonable for labor to move to an employer who doesn't if available. If you can manage it and keep your staff then you win, but if they have other better options you lose.
Then of course labor can elect politicians who put in place anti union busting laws which is also entirely reasonable for them to do, leveraging their numbers for advantage. And employers can leverage their advantage (wealth) to lobby politicians for anti-union laws. Whomever is more effective gets an advantage and so round we go. That's what it means to have the adversarial relationship you spoke of. Employees using the options they have available to try and better their conditions, with Companies doing the same.
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