I’m mostly half-serious.

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • It’s impossible to be perfect, and virtue will be disregarded at times, but I think it’s not that difficult to be above the threshold we all naturally understand

    This is a practical mindset to have but allow me to say more about where I think the difficulty lies. 1) We commonly do immoral things. 2) The right thing to do isn’t always clear. Let’s consider each in turn.


    1. Many practices are so commonplace in our time that we no longer feel their moral implications: even when we know that the action is wrong! For example, I eat meat that comes from factory farmed animals; I know that the animals are essentially being tortured, but it’s easy to let price and gustatory pleasure outweigh the moral considerations because everyone else is doing the same. Similarly, I know that the minerals (e.g., cobalt) used to build my cellphone come from literal slave labor of miners in the Congo. Yet instead of buying a Fair Phone, I bought the cheapest phone that served my own needs.

    1. There are also cases in which our virtues come into conflict. In such cases, the right action to take is not always so straight-forward. For example, is it okay to tell my wife a white lie if I know it makes her feel better? (Deontologists like Immanuel Kant would emphatically answer “no”.) Or, if I have a set amount of money to donate, should I give the money to a random unhoused person, donate the money to someone (who I cannot see) in an even worse position in a poorer country, or give the money to a friend/family? Moral realists (e.g., virtue ethicists, deontologists, consequentialists) all agree that there are definitive answers to these questions, even though they will disagree on what the actual answers are.

    To be a morally virtuous persons, it seems you have to be willing to go against the common practices of your own time and you must also be knowledgeable enough to make correct moral judgements. This is a tall order for most of us to achieve.














  • balderdash@lemmy.ziptoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldBut bro please
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    12 days ago

    I would love it if I could just buy a gun in the local supermarket.

    The democrat states/cities have much harsher gun laws. The republican states/cities aren’t going to resist Trump.

    If more people would move to the left we would see more anti-fascist gun resistance (think Black Panther Party). But since people still believe that we can fix this decades-long decline by voting in the right Democrats, we’re going to have to learn the hard way.



  • balderdash@lemmy.ziptoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldReal Nazis
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    12 days ago

    Yeah, her entire platform is preaching to the choir without adding anything interesting. It’s easy to make a comic saying Trump is a fascist, and Elon Musk is an idiot. But we already know that, so…

    On the other hand, you can’t blame her because people seem to enjoy dunking on the opposition so much that they don’t notice. It’s probably easy to crank these comics out and make a living.


  • balderdash@lemmy.ziptoPolitical Memes@lemmy.worldReal Nazis
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    12 days ago

    Democrats have been entirely complicit in the Republican-lead fascism in this country.

    While most of their constituents (who they claim to represent) want to ABOLISH ICE, Democrats are arguing for soft reforms and increased ICE funding. While most of their constituents are appalled by the genocide happening in Gaza, Democrats just voted to continue sending billions of our tax dollars to Israel. The “law and order” policy that both sides pushed in order to appear tough on crime is exactly why men with guns are running into our homes and shooting us in the street.

    Democrats may appear like champions of a sensible middle ground, but that is exactly what got us here. Do not fall for their calls for a more polite police state.