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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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User ID: 225


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, we all know you think that lockdowns were an abject display of evil which was bad enough to justify your Holocaust comparisons. You're wrong.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's a whole lot of people in this thread who don't understand that being in the wrong isn't a zero-sum game. Like you said, it's hard to tell if the woman actually acted like the teens claim she did (since they have every incentive to lie and all), but still. Assuming they are telling the truth, it sounds like everyone here acted poorly.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Nobody said that nothing should ever be compared to the Holocaust. But comparing COVID lockdowns to the Holocaust is ridiculous and without any merit.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That seems fitting, since it was very uncharitable in the first place to assert that women generally both want attention from men and will cry victim to get status when they get said attention. Two wrongs don't make a right, sure, but your original post was super uncharitable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


nobody holds their principles so highly that they won't discard them to safeguard their 2 year old child.




I absolutely hold my principles that highly. For example, if someone told me "you have to murder this other child or I'll kill your child", I wouldn't do that even if that meant my own child died (though I sure as hell would try to kill the attacker before that happened). Sometimes you have to uphold your principles no matter the cost to yourself or others. To do otherwise means you didn't actually have principles.


Now, if you said "most people don't actually hold the principles they claim to hold", I would absolutely agree with you. But there do exist people who live by inviolable principles, even if most people don't.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It provides a sense of pride when beating the game. The fact that some people cannot beat the game but you can, is a potential source of pride. If you enable everyone to beat the game, it is gone.




This is, to be blunt, a character flaw and not a good argument against difficulty settings. If your sense of pride in your own accomplishments depends on others not being able to do it, that reflects pretty poorly on you.


I find your other arguments flawed as well (though I don't want to go point by point because I find that kind of obnoxious). I think that the "it doesn't affect you" argument for lower difficulty settings is correct, and that your arguments don't really counter it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The reason theft is wrong is because you are depriving someone of their property, the use of said property, and indirectly the time and effort put into creating/obtaining that piece of property.




I disagree. Theft is wrong because taking something which doesn't belong to you is inherently wrong. As I said, that's why I don't consider the copying distinction salient.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Unless you hate yourself, hate your family, hate your people, you should want more of them, not less of them, in the future.




You're drawing this false dichotomy between "want more" and "want less". I would wager that the majority of people who don't want more of their people simply don't care if there are more or fewer, not that they want fewer.


Frankly I don't find your argument compelling either. Who gives a shit what future generations look like? I'll be dead, it's got nothing to do with me. I don't care if people who live after me share my values, and I don't really understand why anyone would.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think one piece missing from your analysis which you need to factor in, is that scalpers distort the market through their actions. The very act of buying up tickets/GPUs/whatever means that there won't be enough to fulfill demand, which drives the price up. Even factoring that in, maybe the original sellers should charge more - but I think you need to account for that as well.


That said, the biggest problem people have with scalpers isn't some kind of desire for below market pricing. It's that scalpers are purely parasites. If Nvidia chooses to charge me $1000 for a graphics card, I can accept that they made it so they get to decide what they want to charge. I won't buy at that price, but I'm not mad. When a scalper buys up all the cards for $500 and then sells them for $1000, they are "solving" a problem of their own making. They are simply scum who want to profit off others without doing anything to deserve it. People would have just as much of a problem if you did this with literally any product, it isn't just luxury goods.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Perhaps instead, in reality it actually is wrong to imagine or fantasize about what other people look like while naked. The reason this is so commonly accepted as benign is because its so unenforceable to prevent.




IMO this is the correct answer. It is in fact wrong to fantasize about what someone looks like naked, or having sex with them, or what have you. It's very common, yes. But it's still wrong.


Let's say for example that you regularly fantasized about some female friend being naked. Furthermore, let's say you never told a soul but did write it in a diary which you kept safe and never let anyone see. Some might say you did nothing wrong. But even so, if your friend decided to snoop in your diary and found that out she would be profoundly creeped out, and the friendship would be seriously damaged. I think the same would happen for a male friend too, of course, this isn't a gender thing.




But if sexual mores are so arbitrary/constructed that something that would otherwise be wrong can just be arbitrarily agreed-upon as acceptable just because its unenforceable, how really wrong can any ('victimless') violation of sexual mores be said to be?




I don't think this is a good argument. First of all, we don't agree that it's acceptable. We simply realize that it's impossible to tell, so we can't do anything about it. Those aren't the same.


Second, I don't think that whether a norm is enforceable has any bearing on whether the activity is actually wrong. Even if we can't catch a murderer and bring them to justice, we don't say "well I guess it wasn't that wrong to murder that person". The immorality of an act, and our ability to punish that immorality, are unrelated to each other.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It absolutely is an unreasonable ask when the OP is leading with an unproven, apparently false, argument.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would say that if there is no objective measure of quality, it does necessarily follow that quality is subjective. That's how the definitions of the words work, really.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Piracy might be morally wrong, but I've always felt like the attempt to compare it to "stealing" is incorrect. It's in a separate category. If I steal an apple, the merchant doesn't have the apple any more. If I pirate a movie, no merchant has been deprived of a DVD or anything like that - there's just one more copy of that movie in the world.




This is the usual argument that piracy is not stealing, yeah. I've never found it persuasive. IMO the salient thing which defines stealing isn't that it's zero-sum, it's that you're taking something which doesn't belong to you. So it doesn't matter that you are just copying bits, it's still stealing.




I feel like media companies have resisted moving to funding models that are a better fit for the world we live in, and trying to stop the creation of new copies when literally every person has the means of creating a copy in their pocket is Quixotic at best, whatever it might mean for morality.




I mean, yeah I agree that media companies are being idiotic. They have resisted new methods of doing business at every step of the way, right up until their hand is forced and it turns out they actually make more money the new way. But that doesn't mean it's OK to just steal their shit, nor that the law should turn a blind eye to it. Kind of like I was saying in my post above: if companies are retarded in their business practices you should by all means not do business with them, but it doesn't justify stealing from them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I'm a fucking idiot for falling for the lie and I will pay a price for it.




I disagree. Because at the end of the day, your integrity is one of the few things you can actually control. You are proposing that you would give that up, for what? Some stupid grad school? Seriously, who the fuck cares? You aren't going to be actually worse off because of it, you aren't going to have opportunities denied because of it, it just plain and simple doesn't matter in the end.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Social security is going to run out of money, so what? Anyone with wisdom has been planning to not get anything back out of it for ages.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
By your own rationale - if he believes you said rape was OK, then there's nothing wrong with saying that. I don't agree with that logic, but if you're gonna defend your own uncharitable post with that logic then it applies to his too.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why should anyone care, exactly? It's not like any of us are having sex with her. If her partners are fine with how she is (and they seem to be, if she's still having success getting some), then good for her I guess.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My understanding is that "heritable" refers to both traits which are innate as well as those which are acquired from one's environment. So I don't think that your argument need be opposed to my observation.


More generally I think the HBD hypothesis is nonsense, so yeah of course I believe that this sort of thing isn't genetic. But even if we take it as a given the the HBD argument is true, surely you would not try to argue that there are literally zero behaviors which are learned rather than innate. So really we are talking about the degree to which race is a factor versus culture, not whether culture is a factor at all.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree. People are jumping to conclusions. I have no doubt that Brinton is a thief, but the reasons why he is a thief are unclear at this time. Maybe he has a fetish for stealing women's clothes, as people have suggested. Maybe he wanted the bags to use them. Maybe he wanted the clothes for normal, non-fetish purposes. Maybe he's just a kleptomaniac and steals things compulsively.


The fetish explanation is certainly one possible explanation, but it's not the only one. It isn't even the most likely one, imo. Asserting that we know why this man is stealing bags is premature at this time.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
No it isn't. A person of good character strives to excel because excellence is its own reward, not because they can beat others.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
And if your argument was "Christianity can't provide comfort to the victims of sectarian violence", that would be a valid point. But your argument instead was "Christianity is disordered because its adherents sometimes commit sectarian violence", so your point is rather off the mark.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


As I said, nobody ever updates.




It is so ironic you say this given you had multiple people giving you examples of them updating. It sure sounds like you yourself didn't update.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't particularly care. I said as much.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think "nobody was injured because nobody knows" is a reasonable defense. I don't think that there needs to be an injured party for something to be wrong.


Also dreams are an entirely different thing than actively fantasizing. The latter is a choice you make, the former is firing of random synapses in your brain. Intrusive thoughts that you don't dwell on are similarly not wrong. I've had dreams where I cheat on my wife, and I feel scuzzy in the morning. But once I get out of the post-dream haze, I realize I didn't actually do anything wrong. However, if I were dwelling on a fantasy about cheating on my wife I would be doing something wrong because that is a choice and is under my control.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I think at least 80% of men regularly fantasize in some way about naked apperance of / sex with some female acquaintances?




Yes, and? It's still wrong, even if 100% of men did it.




This is true, but practicality is part of morality because morality is about actions and their consequences...




I disagree with your assertion of what morality is about. Consequences don't even come into it for most systems of morality (and indeed I personally think consequentialism is generally mistaken). I certainly don't agree that practicality is part of morality. It can be part of the enforcement mechanisms of morality, but it isn't part of morality itself.