cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
5hr ago
This would probably be better as a Sunday Question thread post. Not a lot of meat on it for a top level culture war post. Its kind of barely acceptable, so you aren't in trouble for it, but I don't want to leave people with the impression that this a-ok.
For those new to the community or unaware of the effort post requirements, I generally suggest three elements for a sufficient top level post:
- Topic / story / incident etc. Something happened: describe it, or let a news article describe it. A topic interests you, explain the topic a little. This can use other sources, it does not have to be your own words.
- Context. This is where you describe your perception of the thing. This does need your words. Is the news article missing stuff? Is the topic something you see on X a lot? Are you horrified by this thing, are you curious and seeking some answers?
- Start the discussion. You don't need to have a fully fleshed out effort post. Just something that marks your opinion. Something people might push back on or respond to. If you truly have no opinion that is fine as well, say why you don't have the opinion.
cjet79
20hr ago
Someone else pointed it out, but in that analogy I feel like the woman would be strictly liable. They own the vehicle of birth. The man is more like a driver.
It would be like charging someone who once borrowed a car with a crime associated with the car.
cjet79
1d ago
That being said, I was checking, and a surprisingly large number of jurisdictions in the US give cuckolded husbands a legal remedy, i.e. a way to establish nonpaternity and avoid child support. It could be better, but it's not nothing.
I'm checking now too, and what I'm seeing makes me think @Botond173 was wrong above. That paternity tests happen plenty in the US when there is any suspicion of a need.
Its just France that is crazy and seems to ban it.
cjet79
1d ago
Grant_us_eyes brought up the case in another comment where a 16 year old female babysitter had sex and was impregnated by the 12 year old boy she was watching. The boy was ordered to pay child support. link
Yes the justification was the well-being of the child. I have no idea how a judge said that with a straight face as he ordered a child to pay child support. And to specifically pay it to a mother that is a convicted pedophile rapist of a child that was under her care. I hope the newly born child in this situation was a girl, otherwise he will probably be having a sibling/child in another 13 years, and then he will have to get a job at 14 to pay child support to his mother. Insanity.
(Contrary to many arguments, a ban on unilateral paternity testing even in alimony/child support proceedings protects intact families too, because not having it would incentivise doubting men to divorce so they could get the test.)
What about the incentives created by forcing doubting fathers to raise kids that aren't theirs or pay their wages to a woman who tricked them? If there are multiple kids in a family and just one is in doubt then guess who that father likes the least? I'm sure that kid is not having a pleasant time even if the parents stay together.
If you were married to a woman that cheated on you and then had to pay money to that woman and that child? I cannot imagine how infuriated I would be. I'd probably be willing to destroy my own life to spite them. Live poor for 18 years, leave the country to get out of payments, etc etc. I'm also not a violent person, but its not hard to imagine what choices a violent man might make in that situation.
Maybe it works because the type of man that can be actually cucked heavily overlaps with the type of man that can be cucked by the justice system.
I'll admit the traffic light example is a little polemic, but I don't think it takes very much wrangling to become more accurate.
Imagine a business is being stolen from by one employee. The theft is large enough that the business will go bankrupt unless the money is returned, which is bad for all of the employees, the owner, and their customers. We would not think it is ok to just confiscate the savings of one of the employees to pay for the theft.
Is a business just not that sympathetic? I can make it more sympathetic. Its not a business its a non-profit. They make pacemakers for people that can't afford them especially children. If the non-profit goes under people will die, children will die. Can we take money from a random employee? What if its not random, can we pick the ugliest man with the biggest bank account and no family? At what point in this hypothetical does it become ok? For me the answer is never. (which is the same answer I have to Robert Nozick's The Tale of a Slave)
cjet79
1d ago
I believe that is called rules utilitarianism, and maybe all actual utilitarians are actually rules utilitarians, and act utilitarianism is a straw man.
Maybe the current set of laws truly has no philosophical or moral backing, and I was wrong to tar anything with association.
I agree with your solution.
cjet79
1d ago
And people like when this happens and think insurance shouldn't go after the true culprit?
cjet79
1d ago
This is an argument for making the mother fully responsible for the baby. They own the vehicle of birth. The father is the driver. The owner is responsible for who they allow to drive it. Exceptions can be made in cases where the vehicle is stolen, or the mother raped.
cjet79
1d ago
This has always been morally insane.
I can't think of any other areas where society and law has some justification along the lines of "well it wasn't you, but someone needs to pay for it, and you are the easiest to catch."
Imagine this justification used for crimes:
[state]: pay the fine for running a red light
[person]: but i didnt run a red light
[state]: Well someone ran that red light, and we can't let it be known that running red lights will go unpunished. You were nearby and I've already captured you, it would be too much work to go get the real culprit if it turns out it wasn't you.
That is a light crime and it already feels heinous. More serious crimes with more serious punishments feels even more heinous. Imagine the above but for a crime that carries a lifetime prison sentence.
Just reversing the gender roles shows how insane this can be. A husband and wife. The husband wants kids, the wife does not. The husband manages to somehow adopt a kid without the wife's knowledge or consent (or he even forges her signature and commits some level of fraud in getting her assigned as the adoptive mother). Or the husband gets a surrogate to carry his baby, then he and the surrogate lie at the hospital about the mother's identity and he brings home a kid that isn't the wife's.
The wife then files for divorce because the husband clearly betrayed her trust. The wife then must pay child support to the husband for the raising of the adopted kid.
One of those scenarios might be the only way such insane parenting laws get reversed. Or they will just carve out an exception and send the man to jail without the slightest hitch in their step at the dissonance of their actions.
Its also a weird take on the responsibility level of the women involved. A women can't be expected to know for certain who the father is, but can be expected to raise a child? Like what?! Raising a child is way harder than knowing who the father is. In most cases not knowing who the father is would also be a demonstration of incompetence. If you claim to care about the welfare of the child, maybe having them raised by a woman that can't keep track of her sexual partners is not a great idea. Even if they aren't keeping constant track, once they know the due date of the baby they should be able to narrow down the conception to a 1-2 week time frame.
In a sane world we would be using this as an example of why Utilitarians shouldn't be in charge of writing laws.
Scenario: A person roles into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the [organ that can be lived without]. The shooter has the same blood type as the victim.
Question: Is it ok to take the organ from the shooter to replace the organ of the wounded person?
Utilitarian: You can take the organ from the healthy person in the waiting room, they are easier to find and might have been the shooter anyways.
cjet79
4d ago
EVE Online had a similar high stress feeling to combat. A loss in battle could cost you hours of your time because your ship is blown up and gone. The salvage from the wreck is now in your enemy's hands. It also had the added horror that large scale wars could erase years of your effort and progress.
It really got the blood pumping. Maybe too much.
cjet79
4d ago
I had a sort of mild depression my whole life, that would sometimes escalate to above mild. Felt like I always had a reason for it for a long time. About a decade ago life was going stupidly well. I was getting married, had a good job, lots of friends, etc. And I still felt kinda like crap. I reached out to Scott and he pointed me to his old article Things That Sometimes Help If You Have Depression. Followed his advice and just talked to a regular doctor. They were able to prescribe me a low dose SSRI. It helps. The mild depression is gone most of the time, and instead of occasional escalations to above mild depression, I'll have rare escalations to just mild depression. I'd say it has been a success story.
cjet79
6d ago
TheMotte is not for all purposes. Political jokes and political satire specifically do not fit here very well.
Go to X or reddit for that
cjet79
6d ago
Aww I wish I'd seen this when it was originally posted. I'm an atheist. Terry Pratchett is my favorite author. The only books I've ever managed to read twice. Your thought that he has such anger at the world feels so totally alien to me. It wasn't anger it was hope. And it wasn't an empty hope. The world of terry pratchett does in fact get better!
Ankh-morpork is a rotten, polluted, cesspit of a city. Its main defense against invaders is to allow them in and corrupt them so completely that they stop being invaders. The river can be walked on, when its not on fire. The magic university suffers accidents constantly that leave the surrounding areas of the city steeped in weird magical effects. But over the course of many novels it gets noticeably better to live in the city. Crime becomes more restricted to the darkest and worst places of the city. Races of all kind can go there and leave their old world prejudices behind. Material wealth is skyrocketing. New mail systems like the telegraph (clacks) are sweeping the city, trains are being developed to shorten the travel distances, and culture is booming enough for new music styles to be born.
The aggressive conquering religion of the Omnians is softened from something like Islam to something more like modern christianity.
Death learns to care about life in the form of his apprentice.
A wizard and his travelling luggage get to visit Australia and other interesting cities.
A war for a silly island is averted.
etc etc.
The stories of discworld are undeniably hopeful. Its in some of his other stories where he shares authorship that I realized hoe much the hope of his stories shines through. If you've ever read "The Long Earth" series, co-authored with sci-fi author Stephen Baxter you'll see what I mean. Terry Pratchett had failing health and eventually died before the full series completion. The story gets darker and more depressing as each book passes. What starts as kind of a hopeful series about new lands and places to explore, ends with self-sacrifice to thwart a species that appears to be a paperclip maximizer type threat. I thought this was maybe Stephen Baxter just being depressed about losing his co-author. But I read one of his other books, and no that is just how Baxter is.
cjet79
7d ago
You can generally treat anything said in a dating app as an aspirational preference. "I want a tall, handsome, rich man" yeah but she will settle for someone 5'10" ok looking and with steady employment.
"I wont date a republican" probably settles to something like "don't embarrass me in front of my friends with your icky conservative views". Meanwhile you are at a cookout with her girlfriends and all of their partners and lo and behold every other guy there is also some version of conservative-lite. With even the "liberals" being pro-gun or against extreme welfare state handouts.
Hysteria and hyperbole abound online, but the real world is full of lots of quiet compromise and people getting on with their lives.
cjet79
7d ago
My first immediate reaction is to press blue. My second reaction is that I hate voting. The larger the franchise, the more I'd push for me and everyone I know and love to vote red. If the people I love insist on voting blue, id do it too.
cjet79
9d ago
We wrote down the spirit of the rules in the sidebar here. Many laws are often proceeded by a section dedicated to the purpose of the law.
Some laws are handled in spirit rather than just the letter. Murder is an example. We do not ban all the ways in which you can commit murder.
cjet79
9d ago
I got 100% on the quiz. Seemed straightforward to me.
My experience as a moderator has definitely colored my opinions on the law and rules. I think the intention and purpose of a law are very important. And the letter of the law is not very important. Also people can violate rules and the authorities can decide 'no punishment'. Thus police car and ambulance are violation of the rule, but not necessarily a punishable violation.
cjet79
10d ago
Its amazing and frightening how long serial criminals can get away with crimes by:
- Not having a prior personal connection with their victims
- Not trying to make money
On the tamer side, graffiti artists can literally sign their names while defacing property and expect to get away with it.
cjet79
10d ago
I think Israel is an interesting example. They have had a constant stream of terrorism and attackers for a while now. The systems that can be hardened to prevent attackers have been hardened, but holes remain. It does seem like specific targets and locations can be secured. But that the general public and general public areas cannot be protected (or at least not at a tolerable cost of money and hassle).
The hardest thing about good security is just maintaining the defensive mindset, because good security is often a hassle to those it is meant to protect.
cjet79
13d ago
There was that lady in Australia that poisoned like five dinner guests and got away with it by claiming ignorance and that was an accident, despite her food being safe to consume.
cjet79
13d ago
Ordered Chinese food tonight and then watched Kung Fu Panda with my 5 year old and wife. The older 7 year old still doesn't like movies, hates any kind of tension building or "scary" parts as she calls them. Solid movie. Any other kid+family movies that still kick but?
cjet79
13d ago
I didn't have a plot to derail.
Mostly i wrote situations and starting settings and only had a vague sense of where things might go in a chapter or two. I would lean towards interesting stuff happening.
This was partly a result of my experience being a dungeon master. The people I played with would always derail whatever I had planned. So I learned to only prepare for the session I was hosting and no further.
I've tried to write out extended outlines and plans for stories. But I always got bored writing those stories, since I knew what was going to happen it stripped me of my main motivation to write more.
cjet79
13d ago
Ah my bad
A lot of people getting put on the street
It’s getting harder to avoid pajeet
He comes home every night to browse zillow
And wonders how much longer he can stand his low thread count pillow
This whole art debate actually had me thinking of a totally different Scott article:
What Universal Human Experiences Are You Missing Without Realizing It?
I'm coming around to thinking that the universal human experience I am missing is "art". Or at least getting any feelings about art. Stories get to me. I've cried at a majority percentage of the pixar movies. I can feel anger reading about a betrayal, or frustration reading about a stupid decision in a book. But visual stuff? Nothing. Audio stuff? Maybe if I am very drunk or tired I'll feel some emotions. But usually those emotions are just a tie in to a story. Food can taste really good, smells can be pleasant and unpleasant, but I wouldn't consider those experiences emotional either. My thoughts about architecture are mostly on its function. Particularly impressive or beautiful buildings kinda break through to making me think 'oh cool'.
For a long time I've just believed there are "art weirdos" who strangely feel emotions when they see things. Reading all these responses ... I guess I'm the weirdo.
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