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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   30924 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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I assume you are familiar with the phrase "with great power comes great respons[i]bility."

I am familiar with that phrase. Part of the responsibility is to not use that power to do bad things. Reducing someone else to a state of subjugation, for no other reason than that you can, is a bad thing.

"Bad Things" and "Subjugation" are subjective terms.

You want humans to cooperate. Cooperation necessitates hierarchy. Hierarchy is not objectively distinguishable from "subjugation".

Even real subjugators generally do not subjugate "for no other reason than that they can". "Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth" is the typical form.

If you want the able to help the unable, the bare minimum price for that help is for the unable to obey the able. This is not an obscure fact to anyone who interacts with young children. Absent such obedience, you are just obfuscating costs, and the obfuscated costs will bring the system down one way or the other in relatively short order.

Reducing someone else to a state of subjugation, for no other reason than that you can, is a bad thing

And yet you actively believe this should be done, because the practical means of enforcing

it is the principle that If You Have The Means At Hand, You Have The Responsibility To Help.

creates a contradiction, since the result of that subjugates those categorized as Having The Means.

Being expected to contribute to your neighbour's well being is not subjugation. Conan the Barbarian's desire to crush the adjacent tribe, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentations of their women is not the same thing as expecting that if you have more food than you could possibly eat before it spoils, and your neighbour is near the point of dying from hunger, you ought to share you food with him.

Being expected to contribute to your neighbour's well being is not subjugation.

But being forced to do so because someone else thought I should is. I seem to be forced to do that a lot these days, especially due to the below. (It's also not just goods or labor I'm expected to contribute; I'm also required to forego the benefits of my private virtue, usually referred to as 'freedom', when that neighbor can't handle it.)

and your neighbour is near the point of dying from hunger, you ought to share you food with him.

I'll trade an "ought" only provided an effective solution for the moral hazard that is "I'll eat all my food beforehand because someone else will be forced at gunpoint to share it with me after it is gone" exists.

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