I see rights as a legit expression of commitment to/hope that there are some core rules of human morality that transcend any particular legal system and that deserve to be incorporated into every legal system by one means or another.
I am not sure. Take my example with murder which is almost universally prosecuted across time and cultures. Do people think about murderers in terms of them acting against some inherent right? Does it add anything into the conversation above universally accepted moral stance of murder is bad? And even then there are some examples, where polity can actually define conditions around which killing us unlawful and thus constitutes a murder and which one is lawful and condoned - e.g. killing as part of death sentence or assassinating head of terrorist organization with a bomb etc. It is not as if we are talking about something inherent and inalienable, there are always conditions around it.
I think that what rights really represent culturally is a declaration of some secular or civic version of religious dogma. Politicians - either national or those sitting in UN - are akin to council of bishops or rabbis and theologians, who from time to time sit together and make some moral proclamation that abortions or something like that is now okay and in fact anybody stopping them is anathema to the church polity and will be punished. They have theological discussion about morality of current rights and how to do proper exegesis of the holy text of Constitution or Bill of Rights or even if to outright amend it. But the authority lies with them, the rights in this sense are given and not inherent and definitely not inalienable.
What I want to say is that I do not recognize this authority of rights as some universal morality, to me rights are just present set of laws or maybe as you said a present set of aspirations of lawmakers. I will for instance never in a million years morally recognize anything like right to abortion in this moral sense no matter how many wise men try to persuade me or how many people use it as a slogan on the street. Othere people let's say do not recognize right to bear arms or other rights.
Additionally I do not like the vocabulary of rights exactly because it is pure language of entitlement absent duty. Good society with good laws and even rights is result of hard work. If the society is bad then all you are entitledto is misery.
How does that distinguish rights from the concept of morality itself?
My view on this is that the law is minimum of morals, while rights are just extra strongly worded form of laws. What I object is some wordplay - or equivocation - on the side of secularists, as if rights have some higher grounding and are to be implicitly followed. Let's use some example, most civilization have morality against murder encoded into their laws. Does then make any sense to say, that you have a right not to be murdered? I don't think so, murder is already prosecuted, stating it as a right does not add anything. And yet people talk about right to housing or free healthcare and other things as if they are stronger in this sense.
They are just language frames used to express commitments and to systematically boo/yay different types of behaviour.
Exactly, that is my point. Rights is just a strong word aimed to provoke some emotional response, nothing more, nothing less. It is just strongly worded preference - you have right to abortion, you have right to body autonomy, you have right to free healthcare, you have right to freedom of movement etc. But there is no grounding for it other than that some people just feel strongly about this, and that they wish to impose it on society. Maybe Aztecs could have worded that everybody has right to be protected from wrath of Huītzilōpōchtli by sacrificing slaves.
Additionally even in in practice this is just a mirage - anybody who lived through COVID should already understand that this is all just fiction, the situation can change on a dime and former right is nullified just like that. There is no thunder from the sky striking somebody taking your supposed right away.
All this is to demonstrate, that there are no "inherent" or "inaliebable" rights especially from secularist perspective. The only way it would make sense is to describe some physical reality - e.g. you have an inherent "right" to fall when you jump. Otherwise it does not make any sense, there is no inherentness or inalienability for any actual rights as these are just some judicial constructs subject to change, indifference and all these kind of things.
georgioz
1mo ago
Certain rights are (imho) inherent and inalienable. For example, no matter if your IQ is 150 or 50, if you are age 1 or 120, you have (imho) a right not to be tortured.
All rights are conditional and they are broken all the time. E.g. the torture right was famously broken in Guantanamo, many people consider things like prolonged solitary imprisonment as torture. Other people also argue that not having access to euthanasia constitutes a torture etc. In my opinion rights are neither inherent or inalienable. They are just strongly worded laws, they can be changed or added or removed - there literally is a process of amending US bill of rights or UN declaration of Human Rights etc.
Andrew Wilson also famously often points out the essence of rights - right is just entitlement absent duty. The problem is that the entitlement has to be enforced. In that sense any right depends on willingness of other people - either private persons or more often governments - to act. If they are unwilling or unable to do so, then poof - your right is gone.
Additionally in my experience the whole language around rights is just secular version of religious dogmas, a feeble attempt to ground the secular ideology in some wordplay. Saying a slogan X is a right seems as if it is something transcendental and grounded, not that it is just made up idea that has no basis other than as a tautology.
georgioz
1mo ago
As other people said, this falls under the uniformity and following the rules and orders. The same goes for appearance and maintenance of the uniform or other rituals such as what is proper attention posture or salute. Having exceptions undermines this ethos of cohesion. If you cannot be bothered to trim your beard and cry for exceptions, how can you be trusted to follow actually difficult military orders when it comes to literal life and death situations.
georgioz
1mo ago
Okay, I stand corrected and embarrassed. I will leave the comment as mark of my shame :D
georgioz
1mo ago
It really strikes me just how possibly staggering these findings are, yet they're completely unknown by your average member of the public - at least one that isn't highly interested in archaeology or Egyptology.
I followed youtuber Metatron who spoke about that couple of months ago. As for "average member of public", they may be more aware than you think - except they maybe know more about it Ancient Aliens style.
It is likely harder to assimilate in the modern world where immigrant populations are not cut off as opposed to the old world. So pointing to historic examples of assimilation do not hold for today because the factors have changed.
This is exactly right. During the early 1900s the fertility rate of the population in USA was around 3.5 children per woman. At the same time there were around 13.5 million immigrants living in the USA out of the population of 92 million, so approximately 14%. The birth rate was over 30 per 1,000 population or around 2,7 million a year. So the total population of immigrants in USA after spurt in late 1800s and early 1900s was equivalent of 5 years of births. And even then it stretched the resources eventually leading to Immigration Act of 1924 limiting the immigration, the 1910 was actually the peak year of immigration share which fell down to 5% in 1970. In 2025 the total population of immigrants is around 50 million - or around 16% out of 340 million - with 3,6 million births in 2024. So we are talking about 14 years of natural births in the nation.
Additionally early 20th century was magical for USA as it was the era of birth of mass media especially radio and television at the tail end of successfully finishing the Manifest Destiny project. Also US won two world wars and the nation swam in prestige and patriotic fervor, which massively helped with US ethnogenesis as we see it now. I'd say that capacity of the nation to accept immigration is regulated by proportion of immigrants compared to natural replacement of domestic people paired with the ability to project cultural dominance and assimilate these foreign immigrants. The interesting thing about progressive policies is that they are actively working against both, but definitely against the assimilation with their multi-culti salad bowl ideology.
and (the textbook example) shouting "fire" in a crowded theater
This one always sounded very weak to me, mostly because what if there actually is fire in a crowded theater? Apparently even the sentence itself is incorrect compared to the original which also included the word falsely. It is also interesting to see, that the same argument was used in 1919 against somebody protesting draft service in WW1 under enforcement of Espionage Act and his anti-draft speech was likened to falsely crying fire.
Not exactly a stellar argument either historically or even on its face.
I am centrist when it comes to the topic of abortion. On one hand I am thrilled with the idea of killing unborn babies, but on the other hand I am not willing to let women decide anything.
In Germany, police in full riot gear, e.g. during demonstrations, do not wear name tags, but they do wear numerical codes. If any police misconduct happens, that means that the court can find out who is the officer in the video.
Even there you have number of masked units under SEK and MEK task forces which wear masks and baklavas exactly to prevent their identification by criminal organizations in order to protect their private life. And this is also not exactly rare - even in the article, these units conducted over 500 operations a year in Berlin alone - so we are probably talking about 10+ operations daily across Germany.
Given that ICE is actually also conducting their operations in environment where there is literal presence of professional smugglers and cartels, protecting their identity is not something I'd say is out of bounds. This recent shooting as well as attack on officers before only prove the point.
I'd put it as very high, probably 80% plus. They were the first who mobilized their army in secret with first preparatory actions such as calling reservists and readying railroads as early as July 24th, with partial mobilization on July 28th and full mobilization on July 30th. The issue is that the mobilization was at the time something like launching ICBMs - once you start, it is almost impossible to reverse as it would leave that country vulnerable to attack from the other side. Mobilization included plans of trains, supplies, weapons, armies moving around the country. You could not just stop it on a whim.
In fact as soon as Germans learned of this days later they panicked and launched all their plans several key days later and the rest came as a domino. Interestingly enough, the fact that Russians mobilized earlier meant that Germans actually had to send some troops on Eastern front even before they won incredible victory at Battle of Tannenberg, which made the push to Paris weaker and quite likely cost Germans the war. If the situation was different and Germans were actually the ones who would just mobilize and strike first - as they are actually described by history anyways - they would have been in much better position strategically and tactically
Yes. WW1 was not inevitable, in fact it was not inevitable even after the assassination. Even before the WW1 there was Agadir crisis of 1911 or Balkan wars of 1912-1913 and those were resolved peacefully. There was also constant shift in alliances and circumstances - such as Germany basically admitting that they lost the naval arms race with Britain which worked to lower the tensions.
The world before WW1 was highly complex and multipolar one, where each great power had multiple goals often with different opponents. In fact the tragedy of WW1 is that most nations stumbled into it due to various factors, especially the momentum of mobilization that made the clash inevitable. The events got out of hand and all sides of the conflict ended up with a situation that they did not want to see. If there was some other reason - even something in Balkans - that set out the conflict, it could end up with completely different results.
“write Anti-ICE messages”
Haha, this reminded me of the story where somebody was in charge of creating some company gift with print order of something like Microsoft in font Segoe UI. Needless to say, this was literally what got printed on the gift :D It ended up as highly sought after memorabilia for company veterans.
georgioz
1mo ago
Kamala seemed kind enough
How did she show her kindness? She was not a nurse or a mom of large family or anything like that. Quite the opposite - she has no children of her own and she worked as a prosecutor. Not exactly a profession I would mark as kind. I also remember this video where she was invited for some talk with kids as part of NASA space week. At best she came out as cringe, at worst she had a vibe of slightly drunk and slightly unhinged childless auntie.
Is there something that I missed where she was very warm, loving and humane?
georgioz
1mo ago
Hmm, Merriam-Webster dictionary definition
2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
My example of heroin addict perfectly fits this dictionary definition.
georgioz
1mo ago
I don't consider it one of the "weakest ones" and I often find that people trying to argue against hypocrisy are extremely low credibility
You do not even get the point, which is that even people arguing for hypocrisy are 100% hypocritical in some of their beliefs. In that sense they argue against their own argument.
The central example is obviously something more like people taking a pseudo-neutral stance of a rule while applying it only one way in practice
So you have never in your life do anything like that ever? If you did, you are a hypocrite and thus you should stop arguing by your own admission. Unless I am talking to the second incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Sure, you however even have variants of prisoner's dilemma that are mapped for real world situations - such as iterated prisoner's dilemma that can be used to study problems like nuclear arms race. You can even include various real world information asymmetries - e.g. lack of information about opponents capabilities, their confidence and information about your capabilities, their level of "spite" so their willingness to act erratically etc. You have different games modeling economic behavior used to construct various types of auctions between many players etc.
The point being, that your original claim of how most game theory arguments assume a small number of competitors and perfect information is incorrect. In fact you could model the cancell culture as an arms race variant of group prisoners dilemma between two coalitions.
georgioz
1mo ago
Returning to the “right-wing violence is more common than left-wing violence” topic, I’ve been paying attention to how it’s covered in mainstream tech-adjacent media.
I think it is defined quite poorly. Most media cite this study from Cato institute. Just look at the entry for 2020: four deaths by rightwingers and 1 death by leftwinger. So if you did not know, the 2020 BLM summer of love year was actually more violent from the right by factor of 4.
georgioz
1mo ago
Most game theory arguments assume a small number of competitors and perfect information
What are you talking about, the most famous prisoner's dilemma is actually built around absence of information. You have games which are so huge that they are named as social dilemmas with potentially millions or even billions of players such as tragedy of commons.
So if I take you at face value, you would be against any social cancellation for any reason that is let's say currently not against the law? What exactly is the threshold? What if somebody just repeatedly posted on his tiktok that he hates niggers and faggots? What if somebody was sentenced for pedophilia, but is out of prison now and it all got public knowledge? Is there any threshold for cancellation in your eyes - which would of course make you hypocrite as you would fall under argument #4 where you just carve some exception. Or you or are you some free speech anticancellation purist?
Even then, you can be a heroin addict openly admitting that you take it and that everybody who takes it including you is morally weak and you can be correct. You can fulfill the dictionary definition of a hypocrite to perfection and still be correct, as the validity of your argument is independent on your own person. That is why it is a fallacy.
Argument 5
You forgot to add #6 - that argument from hypocrisy is an age old argument, which considered as one of the weakest ones in any debate, the official name is tu quoque fallacy. I will give some reasons why this argument will not win many people - including in this very same debate where the right is now digging up quotes from AOC or Kamala Harris calling for cancelations and showing how they are hypocrites. It is a weak form of ad-hominem. You are not attacking the argument, you are attacking the person giving the argument. For instance even an active heroin addict can rail against taking heroin. In fact he may have a unique position as an active user to effectively argue against it. Just pointing a finger that he is an addict and thus his argument is invalid may not be the best one.
Here, I can show how you are a hypocrite. Are you against cancelling people from their jobs if let's say they have a past of engaging in pedophilia? Are you actively against public sexual offender registry or against people requiring to offer proof of clean criminal records which exists solely to cancel people from any potential jobs or buying property etc.? If not, then you are a hypocrite and you are in fact for cancel culture. So shut up and delete this post you fucking hypocrite.
I think this is underestimating his influence. In the aftermath of the shooting I could not find the actual articles and videos, but I watched some discussion of Democrat operatives who were actually praising how Charlie Kirk was actually an exceptionally shrewd operator for Republicans, especially in the space of young men the Democrats are now talking about in the aftermath of the last presidential election - and I am talking about day-to-day operations, how his activities actually translated into voter registrations or organizational movement toward concrete political action.
He was apparently more than just some right-wing talking head or influencer with clips and gotchas on social media. He was able to organize, lead and move things on the ground politically - he literally cofounded Turning Point USA in 2012 and worked in the same way since then. Think of him as a combination of let's say Andrew Wilson or Ben Shapiro with their debate skills, combined with organizer like Scott Presler. I think he was a prototype of the new type of politician, which is rather rare. Not all internet influencers can translate their audience into mainstream success. It is a shame that he is dead, he really had a bright career ahead of him.
georgioz
1mo ago
If government simply nuked OnlyFans and Pornhub, then no, I wouldn't say it is damning to progress. On the other hand, if they started cracking down on VPNs, proxies, mirrors, torrents and all other less-easy ways to access wrongthink/wrongfun, that seems like it would negatively affect flourishing, through sheer friction introduced to the infoscape. Not to mention political resentment. I hear the recent riots in Nepal correlated with a crackdown on social media.
I don't think so. There is illegal porn content already, which is heavily prosecuted and punished by the government absent bans on VPNs or torrents. We can just expand that no problem. But for me this was just an example and a thought exercise for the test of logic. It definitely is possible to have RETVRN to some semblance of normalcy without sacrificing technology to some magic of absence of abstract liberty to coom.
Don't also forget Jesus Christ himself, who talked shit all the time especially about Pharisees. He called them hypocrites, brood of vipers or children of hell. He called moneychangers in the Temple as robbers. Paul was also great shittalker, such as when he said to Elymas: You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. He was also great at sarcasm like Galatians 5:12 when he basically told the agitators pushing for circumcision that they should go all the way and cut off all their junk. On top of that he named those agitators as dogs and evildoers - I'd say he would say the same to anybody pushing for transitions for instance. The other time Paul bragged how he handed ones Alexander and Hymenaeus over to Satan in order to teach them not to blaspheme.
This emasculated Christianity, when some of them are concerned by words such as poop is absolutely ridiculous. Sarcasm and harsh rhetoric especially when condemning sin definitely has place in Christianity.
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