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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   25585 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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If South American cartels were running guns into the US that were used in the deaths of over 100k Americans per years, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun runners?

If South American cartels were running guns into the US that were used in the deaths of over 100k Americans per years, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun runners?

If US manufacturers and gun shops were selling guns in the US, and the guns they made and sold were involved in the deaths of ~48,000 a year and used in untold numbers of robberies and other crime, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun shop and manufacturers?

It seems like the difference here is

American: Perfectly good, not responsible for anything. Foreigner: Evil, full responsibility

Even if they're doing the exact same thing and selling the exact same products.

If US manufacturers and gun shops were selling guns in the US, and the guns they made and sold were involved in the deaths of ~48,000 a year and used in untold numbers of robberies and other crime, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun shop and manufacturers?

Let's specify "illegal ghost guns" just to highlight the faultlines. In which case, no, because I am not opposed to unregistered ghost guns. But I would bet that approximately 0% of the people upset about the narcoboats would bat an eye if the US government slaughtered a warehouse full of guys 3D printing guns with no warning or warrant or evidence.

Even if they're doing the exact same thing and selling the exact same products.

Cocaine is not legal for sale from US producers. The point of that hypothetical was to change the object-value-valence (guns:good/bad, drugs:good/bad) and see what people's moral intuition came up with.

Let's specify "illegal ghost guns" just to highlight the faultlines.

So is harm only harm if it's been designated illegal? Seems like we could solve all the drug problems just by legalizing them then.

Wait no, that would be stupid and the distinction drawn here would be equally stupid.

So is harm only harm if it's been designated illegal? Seems like we could solve all the drug problems just by legalizing them then.

Did you see how I answered the question? I made it more extreme and then yeschaded it.

The strategy needs to make sense. More neocon war mongering and destroying countries leads to more chaos, drugs and migrants.

The sensible solution is to enforce borders and limit drugs/guns/migrants there. Turning Venezuela into another Afghanistan will just achieve what the Afghanistan war did, aka 10x their drug production. The US doesn't have to fight cartels, they just need to keep a secure border.

Trump is going for regime change in Venezuela, that means more chaos, more drugs and more refugees. The strategy should be a stable Venezuela and largely not caring about Venezuela while enforcing the border.

This is similar to when people living in a cave in Afghanistan were allowed to go to flight school in the US. The solution to 9/11 wasn't banning Afghans from the west, it was the patriot act, a surveillance state and failed wars.

If South American cartels were running guns into the US that were used in the deaths of over 100k Americans per years, would you be ok with the government using lethal force on the gun runners?

Only in direct response to normal contraband-interception-operations being attacked with lethal force. Declaring war launching a Special Military Operation against smugglers "Narco-Terrorists" Foreign Terror Organizations is fucked up.

Only in direct response to normal contraband-interception-operations being attacked with lethal force.

Including in this scenario, where "normal contraband interception operations" are completely impractical?

Are you familiar with the heat map meme?

The heat map meme confuses me. According to this, the instructions are that each circle includes the ones inside it, i.e. liberals are at most guilty of caring about too many things, as opposed to too far things. But then this implies that the circles are exclusive of each other.

Apparently, the description of the task in the Methods section and the supplementary notes is in fact different. I'd assume most participants would follow the actual handout text rather than what the researchers claim they explained.

Apparently apparently, there were two tasks related to the moral circle and the heat map meme is about the simplified "extent" task, where the participants were simply asked to click on the rung that includes everything they care about.

P.P.S. Why is there no circle numbered 0 and labeled "myself only"? I'd like to see what the distribution between that and "immediate family" would be.

The study is at best extremely poorly designed, but generated a convenient image that feels true regarding the actual nature of liberal emotivism rather than what liberals claim about their cares.

where the participants were simply asked to click on the rung that includes everything they care about.

Not just rung! Despite being, in theory, cohesive layers, people only clicked near the numbers.

Why is there no circle numbered 0 and labeled "myself only"?

The people that designed the study were idiots.

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