I don’t care about others, therefore I don’t care who they love, what they do with their bodies, how and where they live their life as long as it doesn’t impact my choices and my life.
Would I be in that second camp then?
Would you stand up and speak up on someones behalf if injustice was done to them and they couldn’t defend themselves?
I know it’s a bit harsh and just a different interpretation but one could easily read your stance as “at least i don’t actively hurt others, so dont shame me for not caring about them as long as it doesn’t affect me”
Again a bit harsh i know but maybe worth thinking about 乁( •_• )ㄏ
Only so long as shame has power. Once it doesn’t, that mask come off.
It’s not just about caring for others. They get offended by seeing anybody be a better person in any way, so they want to criminalize being a good person to never feel inferior to others again, without having to actually do anything good themselves.
Kind of tall poppy-ish isn’t it? Even just acknowledging that good can be done can trigger some really hostile reactions from people.
Like I get it, we’ve been trained into it to manage the information density and society we find ourselves in, but surely you’d expect the human part to kick in at some point right?
Add a third category for those who willingly oppress others.
They do care about others, but only the ones they know.
People they don’t know, they don’t care about at all.
That is why when they meet someone of the “others” and they make a connection, they call them “one of the good ones”. The rest of the same group they still don’t care about, just that one person.
This. Even Hitler liked his dog and I’ve never heard of him abusing his wife. There are for sure psychopaths (or was it sociopaths?) who genuinely don’t care about literally anybody, but you don’t need that condition to massmurder.
Hitler iirc, tried to smuggle out a jew, in an ironic twist.
I had to pretend to not care about others, because you actually get shamed if you do care. So I push forward all sorts of anti-social things, because it’s best we just end this society thing now and stop hurting each other.
Humans are clearly unworthy of having societies. So I run on 0 trust.
Name checks out
OK, doomer.
I swear to fucking god that it’s not even that; it’s people that care for others, and people that are willfully ignorant that it’s actually pragmatically cheaper and more efficient to care for others than to treat them like shit.
Pandemic as an example : the more you stay indoors and try to stop the spread of the virus, the faster the pandemic ends and the faster YOU can get back to normal. FORGET that it also stops people dying and protects the vulnerable, it’s in YOUR SELFISH INTEREST.
Or having a basic system of social welfare : giving bread to a poor person costs the price of the bread. Having to imprison them, pay for cops, repair of broken things, investigations etc costs more fucking money. even if you hate people and want them to die, it’s fucking CHEAPER FOR YOU.
But I wanted to go to the salon and then to applebees😡
The Tragedy of the Commons is very tragic and very common.
JustRight.jpg, chef’s kiss.
Yoink!
Ur pandemic example is flawed. Its absolutely quicker to just let everyone go about their lives as usual. The only people at risk of death where the elderly or those with comorbidities. Letting 1-1.5% of the population die would be far quicker and due to the demographics effected would have actually been good for the economy not counting the economic wins of not shutting everything down for ages.
100% I’ve been saying this for such a long time. I believe the saying is “cutting of your nose to spite your face” or something.
Yep, that’s the correct phrase.
“I’m gonna teach my face a goddamned lesson!”
“How’re you going to do that?”
(pulls out hacksaw)
“holyshitwtflolandimout”
“This nose has had it too good for too long! Enough is enough!”
People follow their emotions. It feels bad for a poor person to get a “handout”, and it feels good for a “bad” for a bad person to be punished. That’s pretty much it. Multiply it by “my in-group is good and my outgroup is bad”, and you get conservatism.
Notice that it’s a stupid world view. It’s at the level of toddlers.
If we want to change how these people act, we need to reach them on their level. Facts won’t do it. They’re not listening to facts. You need to make them feel good when they do the right thing.
It does feel like being held hostage by a cranky toddler, yes. We have to pander and beg and appease them because they’re too selfish and stupid to realize it would be better for everyone, including them, if they just cooperated.
It feels bad for a poor person to get food is only true under a capitalist brainrot worldview. Throughout most of human history it felt good to help the poor.
I’ll keep it real with you, I ain’t pandering to these people. You can do that without me. I wish you the best of luck with that. I’d hate myself too much for it. Guess it takes a better person.
Can’t we put them in timeout or something?
I always think of this scene from A Beautiful Mind when I think about people who can’t comprehend that being selfish can be more effective if you accommodate the needs of others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJS7Igvk6ZM
Unfortunately, the scene hinges on the objectification of women. I’ve been searching for a less problematic example. But, I do kinda think this example might be effective with male selfish asshole.
I have never been able to find it but long ago I read an article in a magazine from AAA insurance about how driving should be a dance. I remember it being along the same line of thinking, but I’m not sure.
You would think objectifying women would be the conduit to reach people who are inherently selfish, but even then, they’re like nah fuck you
there is a spectrum of how much comfort are you willing to give up to help others (including your future self). some people are against to give up even slight comforts in order to make things better (like, people visceral reactions to some “meatless mondays” proposals. or people being unwilling to reduce on-street parking even when by any meaningful metric it improves the quality of life for everyone)
Others are willing to give much more, but most people still have limits (for example, being willing to die for a cause is much rarer than people who are willing to go to a peaceful protest)
Others are willing to give much more, but most people still have limits (for example, being willing to die for a cause is much rarer than people who are willing to go to a peaceful protest)
right, but I’m saying this in the context of things that are literally more beneficial. Dying is not literally more beneficial.
Like it costs $3 to give someone a loaf of bread. It costs $10k or something to shove them in jail for theft.
The problem is how these people view “fairness.”
To them it’s “unfair” that “I have to work and buy my own food, while you take my hard earned money and give it to someone who doesn’t work!” (Not my mentality, just providing their argument)
They don’t care about the cost to imprison because “they broke the law. If I break the law I go to jail.” at that point cost doesn’t matter to them.
I know that you’re explaining the argument and not actually endorsing it, so this isn’t directed at you:
You know that they just get given food at jail, right? And it’s still your money paying for that. And now those people are literally restricted from participating in society. If we fed them without jailing them, they could hold a job and spend money and provide to their community; instead we are paying for a punishment hotel to house and feed them in isolation. So if you subtract the cost of food from both sides since we’re feeding them either way, you just want to pay a lot of money to make them miserable, and also waive any benefit that society could recoup from having them be fed.
you just want to pay a lot of money to make them miserable, and also waive any benefit that society could recoup from having them be fed.
Pretty much what they want, but some are even worse. There is a phrase “3 hots and a cot” to mean 3 meals and a place to sleep. People like my uncle say it with disgust, as if they shouldn’t be fed, that they’re somehow on an enviable vacation being in prison… They’re so gross…
Yep, familiar with that phrase. I’ve also heard stories of people “robbing” banks for a dollar just so they could get put in jail for that bare minimum of food and shelter (and idk if it’s true but the unhesitating believability of it alone is a damning indictment). So really, by withholding food and shelter from free people, we’re incentivizing criminal activity.
Do these law & order, fiscal conservative republicans want to lower the crime rate and reduce spending or not?
For a lot of people, they feel better being able to put “those people in their place.” Sure it costs them more to throw these people in jail, but then they get to feel superior. This is Donald Trump’s main policy – you, a mediocre white man, can now look down on other people, which makes you feel better about yourself.
Yes but then i wouldn’t get to punish anyone, which would make me sad. You didnt consider my feelings as worth more than 3$?
It’s crazy to me that the people around me would rather “accidentally” harm someone that doesn’t deserve it than accidentally help someone that might not deserve it
Fuck me that’s a good way to put it.
It’s up to us, to apply plain force, economic or otherwise to get these people in line. It’s the sad reality. We have two options: do something about it, or let it burn, and hope more of us than them survive.
I like this. Well said.
I really don’t know how to convince people they should care about others.
I don’t know how to teach empathy.
It’s simply a property you have or don’t have. Obviously it’s a more meaningful, deeper thing than being a bootstraps sociopath. But the thing is, if someone needs an actual reason to have empathy, then they just aren’t truly a good person really.
The way I try to convince them, is by saying that empathy is the reason they are here, and have what they do. And that like others gave to them, they should give to others. It’s like a retroactive deal, where the reason the whole thing works, is because you pay forward to the next generation, in hopes that they will do the same.
Then we got generations of bootstrap sociopaths that leave their own children in impossible situations. They don’t care about right or wrong.
Western capitalistic mantra idolizes individualism. Its so ingrained in the culture that you can actually not care about anyone outside of your ingroup and do okay. In other cultures you would be cooked.
Lack of empathy is a natural consequence of the culture. I always find it fascinating that people here relish in their disdain towards others. Don’t get me wrong people can be annoying.
But when you combine disdain for others with a perception of patriotism that is centered on violence, you are creating the optimal conditions for fascism to take root.
You’re taught empathy by empathetic parents.
And we see now a lot of families have a long lineage of cunts.
My father wondering why my brother is psychotic, after he laughed at and teased him every time he cried, and told him men don’t cry. I knew this, and tried the soft approach, but he told me he is way older and more experienced, that he knows what he is doing.
My brother broke his hand with a stick. To be fair, I found it hard to be empathetic to a child crying because they didn’t get something also, I’d just crack up if it was something absurd, I couldn’t help it. We lived like absolute shit, and he is freaking out because he lost in a game.
1: Those who value human life
2: and those who don’t
It’s kind of the eternal struggle when you think about it
I don’t care about other people at all. Leave me alone and let me be.
But I also don’t believe that anyone should go homeless or hungry when we have billionaires with plenty of money to share, which is why I refuse to vote republican.
Bottom line is that people annoy me, but I still have empathy.
Hello, fellow empathetic misanthrope (or is that “misanthropic empath”?)
What about us folks that don’t care about others and also don’t care about shame?
Run for office?
it’s actually pragmatically cheaper and more efficient to care for others than to treat them like shit.
Pandemic as an example : the more you stay indoors and try to stop the spread of the virus, the faster the pandemic ends and the faster YOU can get back to normal. FORGET that it also stops people dying and protects the vulnerable, it’s in YOUR SELFISH INTEREST.
Or having a basic system of social welfare : giving bread to a poor person costs the price of the bread. Having to imprison them, pay for cops, repair of broken things, investigations etc costs more fucking money. even if you hate people and want them to die, it’s fucking CHEAPER FOR YOU.
This is insidious Soviet Mathematics.
You provide general goods and services at cost and leverage economies of scale to grow your GDP despite suffering a comparatively small population in a largely pre-industrial country. You exploit camaraderie and inventiveness and curiosity rather than press-ganging serfs or periodically looting colonies full of ambitious, talented, and productive people. You educate the public en mass, instead of just relying on the gentry to pioneer scientific research and development. You build at scale, rather than doing vanity projects restricted to a handful of elites. You pursue projects that appeal to the general public, rather than following the whims of a handful of aristocrats and military commanders.
Only problem is that this can take a generation or more to show real material progress. And even as you’re improving your own community, you may have wealthier neighbors who can outrun you, at least in the short term. You might not be welcome into the network of post-colonial trade if you don’t have friends in the imperial core. And so you become increasingly self-reliant and nationalistic, which others claim signals your hostility to a global rules based order.
If people in your community can be bribed, coerced, or duped into turning on their neighbors, the network of self-reliance can fail. Your economy can drag. You don’t reap all those benefits of scale. You’re exposed to the violent intrusion of foreign militaries and the looting of the colonial era. And people lose faith in your system of social welfare, because they fail to see it benefiting them in the modern moment.
The hard math of capitalism is that there’s more easy money to be made fucking over ten neighbors than helping one out. And while the long term trajectory of such a society is decay, an insulated tier of individuals can bring in windfalls over the course of their adult lives that make life significantly easier and more luxurious.
For folks in their prime years, there’s a real economic incentive to use your superior strength and that of your immediate circle to loot your elders and tyrannize your kids. This feels justified when you were abused as a child. And by the time you’re an elder, there’s little you can do to protect yourself from the next generation, save to pit them against one another with your accrued savings.
Pragmatically, you need people who understand the bigger picture and have a sense of place within the community over the longer term. For folks who don’t see a future among their neighbors, playing nice isn’t pragmatic at all. It’s a sucker’s game.
ok, then fuck everything, don’t even bother having a society.
For folks in their prime years, there’s a real economic incentive to use your superior strength and that of your immediate circle to loot your elders and tyrannize your kids.
great, have them just kill and gang rape everyone they want to, it’s cheaper that way.
don’t even bother having a society
Societies are the mechanism used to pass down historical accounts and ingrain in future generations the value of current cultural practices. The only way you have a functional state is with a current society of people who advocate, educate, and lead us towards its replication and expansion on behalf of future generations.
have them just kill and gang rape everyone they want to, it’s cheaper that way
There’s more to life than its spot price at auction.
Societies are the mechanism used to pass down historical accounts and ingrain in future generations the value of current cultural practices. The only way you have a functional state is with a current society of people who advocate, educate, and lead us towards its replication and expansion on behalf of future generations.
Great job of explaining that with your previous statement. /S
There’s more to life than its spot price at auction.
Not in the society you explained! I’d rather take the pretense away.
?
Why are we all looking for witches to burn at the stake in the fields of labor. It’s schadenfreude from the kayfabe theatrics. As long as we poors fight each other, we don’t address the bourgeois. There is no war but the class war. Don’t take the bait. We all know people we care about on the other side of the aisle, stop acting like they are the enemy. They are being tricked as well. The world is being sucked dry by wealthy vempire gammons.
There is no war but the class war.
So close
Get rid of billionaires
Without billionaires we’re all or the majority of all of us get to compete on a level playing field and have fewer problems. It won’t create a utopia because we’re just a bunch of messed up monkeys but at least it would be a better situation than what we have now.
Overlooks the third and largest group: “Leave me alone.”
“leave me alone” is often freeloaders. Like, “I want to benefit from society, from roads and the Internet and medical research and fire departments, but I don’t want to pay my share”. Very few people actually live off the grid
The standard that “you must be in total exhile to not be a freeloader” is clearly totalitarian, because A) if we apply the same absolutism to the other categories we get the idea that the first group must all care absolutely and about the exact right “meaningful” things (which is clearly not true), and that the Shameless group must equally be absolute in their evil, and can have no redeeming facts.
And because B) even using the term “freeloader” is totalitarian.
Not only are their people who societies exist in order to support and have “freeload” on them, such as orphans, the disabled, the elderly, babies, children, the poor and incapable, the uneducated and deprived. The huddled masses.
But also because: everyone makes some contribution. It’s impossible to exist in society and not. Whether it’s artistic, spiritual, intellectual, consumer based, no matter how minor, be it buying shampoo and thus contributing to GDP and taxes, or making someone think via a comment… Or wearing a lovely outfit on the street…
Human existence is a contribution.
So I disagree with your outlook, I think it’s totalitarian, anti-humanist, and ugly. I disagree with anyone who uses terms like loser or “freeloader”, and I concede that even people I strongly disagree with, are still contributing in their small humanistic and social ways (which all people naturally have).
So I’m not sure you understand the meaning of human society. Why it is, and how it inevitably will continue to be. Where ever we are, it is - “freeloaders” most definitely included.
P.S By the way, most poets, artists, actors, and comedians - cultural workers that is to say - are unemployed bums and “freeloaders”. There is no humanity without them. Stop demonizing the poor and people who just want to be left alone.
You misunderstood what I meant, so I must have communicated badly.
I meant, people who often say “leave me alone” are “libertarian” types who want to benefit from society without contributing as they’re able (with money or labor). Think of the kind of guy who says “leave me alone! I don’t want to pay taxes for some school. I don’t even have kids.” They benefit from public education, but they don’t see it that way, and they’d rather keep that 20% of their paycheck than have a fire department. I wouldn’t call a baby a “freeloader” because they’re not really capable of doing much. It’s when people can contribute but selfishly and self-destructively choose not to that I’m scornful.
In other words, when someone says their politics are “leave me alone” I am very suspicious of their understanding of society. They want the privileges of society without the obligations, typically.
That’s fair, sorry I assumed the worst from the language I used. Weathy Libertarian Freeloaders …i suppose I understand the term being applied to them.
Selfish nihilists is what I call them, values-free economic nihilists.
