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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   31182 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 28, 2025

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I apologize, I should have been more clear. The "we should improve society somewhat" meme only refers to this panel, not entire the comic in which it originated.

I still find it problematic that a person can't criticize any fundamental pillars of a society while "benefiting" from them. Like, how can we expect the OP to not "take advantage" of personal property ownership by your standard and still be able to function in a capitalistic society? Are we supposed to disregard any criticism they have because they themselves are forced to participate in the society as it is currently structured?

I still find it problematic that a person can't criticize any fundamental pillars of a society while "benefiting" from them. Like, how can we expect the OP to not "take advantage" of personal property ownership by your standard and still be able to function in a capitalistic society?

Who says they have to operate by my standard?

The point of using someone's own standard against them is precisely because it isn't your own standard. You are co-opting provider's credibility and stake in the standard as a less questionable source of legitimacy. You are also forcing the person to defend, or to not defend as they chose here, the implications of their own definition.

If they inevitably fail by their own standard, that can mean anything from that they are unfit to pass judgement, to that it's a bad standard. Some bad standards are bad precisely because they are non-falsifiable.

If someone raises a non-falsifiable standard, then the claimed judgement of the standard loses all meaning. That's not a problematic basis of disregarding a criticism- falsifiability is a prerequisite for a complaint to have any onus.

Are we supposed to disregard any criticism they have because they themselves are forced to participate in the society as it is currently structured?

What do you think social structuring has to do with the fact that only one person can use a computer at a time?

My original issue with this was that I interpreted this question as rhetorical, but if it's not, let me know:

Why should anyone brainstorm alternative ownership with a thief in the middle of a robbery?

My point was that it can be perfectly fine for someone to believe the current capitalistic system is psychopathic, categorize it as such, and still having to participate in this system because that is the system that exists right now. Sure, by participating, they are in a sense being hypocritical, but it doesn't mean we should invalidate their position because of this. It's a "don't blame the player blame the game" sort of situation where individual players can still brainstorm how to make the game better, while playing the game because they don't control how the world works.

BUT, and this is a big but. I pattern-matched your original comment to something like "You benefit from personal ownership, which you believe to be immoral, and therefore your critique of personal ownership is invalid." However, it's possible my analysis was off the mark and you were instead making a different argument entirely, such as challenging their internal consistency or the falsifiability of their standard. If that's the case then I will apologize once more and bow out of this discussion.

If that's the case then I will apologize once more and bow out of this discussion.

I will accept the sentiment with a 'no apologies are needed, misunderstandings happen' and happily part ways.

If somebody says "anybody who does X is a psychopath" while doing X, then I think we have the right to treat him as if he said "I am a psychopath". Not if he said "anybody is doing X, including me, but I think it would be morally superior to do Y, and since I want to be morally superior, I invite you to do Y with me" that would shield him from the same line of criticism, but that's not what happened. If you call everybody around a psychopath, then that's the line of argument you opened, and should expect the same kind of argument in return.

With respect to his complaints, OP is not forced to participate in society as it currently exists. There are successful communes based on communitarian and egalitarian principles functioning in America right now that he could seek to join, or he could look into starting his own with like-minded people.

Ignoring the total incoherence of his arguments, if he has been studying this for fifteen years as he says, it seems plausible to me that he has had the opportunity to go somewhere that would allow him to test and experience his theories in a real-world environment.

The problem is that communes, and his ideas more broadly, are most generously interpreted as not scaleable, even with the best will in the world.

I do think it is somewhat likely that the OP currently lives in a communal-type environment, just based on what he’s said before, so I am willing to give him some credit for living his beliefs.

I agree broadly but if the following is the standard to judge hypocrisy, then clearly just living in a communal-type environment doesn't absolve the OP of his sins, so to speak.

However, you are posting here. On the internet. A medium that requires a computer of some sort that could be not-deprived to someone else. Moreover, you repeatedly responded to others. This entails further use of time depriving the device to others. It also implies a surplus of time, and thus material resources you are depriving others of, that enable the hobby rather than sharing like a non-paranoid should. These resources are deprived from benefiting other possible beneficiaries and potential users by virtue (or sin) of your use. Your use and expected ability to use is demonstrating a de facto, even if not de jure, ownership.

He's not just saying 'I think society should be improved' he's making moral judgements about owning things like "A preemptive right to universally deprive is obviously psychopathic". But if he thinks it's psychopathic he is either using that term in a way nobody else on earth does or being extremely hyperbolic for the purposes of rhetoric. But whenever anyone asks him about it he goes (paraphrased) "lol, lmao, roflmao, I mean psychopathic". Ok, well then he's a psychopath stealing from everyone right?

he's making moral judgements about owning things like "A preemptive right to universally deprive is obviously psychopathic".

Sorry, my friend, psychopathy has nothing to do with morality, except to moralizers. I'm not making "judgments" either, unless you construe researched findings as "judgments" -- but that would be on you, not me. I'm speaking strictly psychologically, simply, and generically: pathology of the psyche. The fact that a strong (and futile) attempt has been made to isolate "psychopathy" to an extreme end of the scale (it's a spectrum, not an is/isn't) so that the rest of us can feel cozy that "we're not like them" means nothing in the long run. A preemptive right to universally deprive is psychopathic because the framing and the motivations are delusional. Happy to discuss.

Sorry, my friend, psychopathy has nothing to do with morality, except to moralizers.

You’re using it moralistically. Rights and concepts can’t be literally psychopathic, only people can be psychopaths. It’s a psychopathology characterized by, among many things, the congenital inability to empathize with others. Applying the idea to a legal right is like saying the first amendment has a fever.

So the only way your statement can have meaning is if you’re using the word metaphorically to make a point. The obvious interpretation is that you’re making a moral claim, that the right to deprive is the kind of thing someone without empathy would have come up with, and that’s bad because it’s wrong to lack empathy. You claim here that you mean to say the right is delusional, which is a terrible metaphor because psychopaths do not typically suffer from delusions.

First of all, the people you call moralisers I call the public, because the commonly understood meaning of psychopathic explicitly refers to the extreme end of the scale, and has for decades. There is also a term which means pathology of the psyche, it is psychopathology. Using psychopathy the way you do ignores decades of clinical, research and academic use. If I said 'hey guys the Sistine chapel is obviously awful right?' and everyone said 'wtf are you on the about dummy?' and I replied 'it fills me with awe, that's awful, doesn't it fill you guys with awe too, are you soulless robots?' would you clap in delight or would you roll your eyes?

If you want to make an argument for using psychopathy to mean the pathology of the psyche over psychopathology I am happy to listen, but I'm going to demand you define every term you use first so I can translate your argument into modern English before I engage.

Happy to discuss.

Just to be as clear as possible here, is your argument that people who consider property a right are significantly more psychopathic than people who think "sharing" is a general solution to the distribution of rivalrous goods?

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