Comment by sinxoveretothex | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sinxoveretothex | Hacker News Reader

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sinxoveretothex

Nobody owes it to you to make sure you keep surviving.

Imagine yourself back in a time where a flood or some random "act of god" could destroy your harvest and make it so you and your whole family died of hunger through no fault of your own (or anyone else's).

Today, thanks to centuries of improvements, one doesn't have to know how to build a house or even how to acquire food or clean water.

These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime.

Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking.

And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"!

The very notion would have been laughable 100 years ago. Hell, it's disconnected from the reality of even a large part of the world TODAY.

>Nobody owes it to you to make sure you keep surviving.

Actually our society has decided that that is not the case.

>These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime.

When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people.

>Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking.

I don't see the problem.

>And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"!

I don't see the problem.

>Actually our society has decided that that is not the case.

Yet society could easily have decided the other way around. I bet you wouldn't be calling the majority rule moral at that point. The argument of "social morality" is only used here because it is convenient for you and aligns with your own values. Just think about those "societies that decided on policies that you disagree with". Those are the ones you would call immoral. Saudi Arabia, Iran, N.K. and Afghanistan comes to mind (?)

> When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people.

True. It's not most people. But then again, it's not about the number of people. It's about the idea that I owe you something simply because you breath.

> I don't see the problem.

That's the problem.

> I don't see the problem.

Again, that's the problem.

>It's about the idea that I owe you something simply because you breath.

Our society is set up to allow your success. Your success is also highly correlated with the circumstances of your birth. Society takes from some of your success to give others the same chance at success. There's no problem with that.

I wrote a long post in response but then I remembered that when a person uses their feelings to argue, you cannot counter-argue them with logic. It just doesn't work. So Let me instead ask you this (and please don't answer this question with a question!): what if you are wrong? what then? what if the morality you speak of here is actually injustice and evil itself disguised as goodness and justice? what remedy do I have against your tyranny?

Ever stopped to think about that? I get that you believe that society's role is to take from X and give to Y. But what IF that belief is wrong? aren't you then responsible for all the pain and suffering that is to take place due to your beliefs?

>I wrote a long post in response

I'd still love to see it.

>but then I remembered that when a person uses their feelings to argue, you cannot counter-argue them with logic.

My last post listed facts... and you didn't exactly address them. Also there is nothing more frustrating when arguing with libertarians, neo-reactionaries, republicans, etc. than when they bust out the "stupid liberal emotions" trope. Try to be honest with your argumentation, you don't believe what you believe because you're more honest or smarter or more logical than I am. It's just your belief. You may have facts to back them up but I do as well, why we find those facts comes from our belief system.

>what if you are wrong? what then? what if the morality you speak of here is actually injustice and evil itself disguised as goodness and justice? what remedy do I have against your tyranny?

You mean to ask do I take responsibility for being an evil tyrant if I am secretly an evil tyrant? I suppose I do but reject the premise.

>Ever stopped to think about that? I get that you believe that society's role is to take from X and give to Y. But what IF that belief is wrong? aren't you then responsible for all the pain and suffering that is to take place due to your beliefs?

I openly advocate for redistribution and if redistribution is "wrong" and causes all sorts of pain and suffering then sure I'll take my share of responsibility. Once again though, I reject the premise.

*

Now that I've answered that let me pose the same to you. What if you are wrong? If redistribution is a vital tool in order to give people a fair shot at life, do you take responsibility for depriving them of that? What if your beliefs are evil and used by powerful interests to entrench the already powerful?

Your "redistribution" is predicated on threatening others with rapidly escalating harm if they don't comply, no matter whether they agree with your plan. THAT is evil.

Charity should be the social value, achieving redistribution by encouraging people to voluntarily give to whom & how they see fit.

You can't argue with libertarians like that. If you distill his argument, he's basically saying that he would rather let people die than have their basic needs met by income redistribution. "I got mine, so fuck you", is basically it.

That view is completely antithetical to the core belief system of progressive liberals and it's not something you can really have a discussion about. It's like arguing over whether God exists.

I may not convince him but maybe I can show another side of the debate to the lurking readers.

There are forces, always at work, not always conscious of their goals (and often blind and overall unaware of context and even consequences), trying to destroy civilization from inside, and revert it to a primal state. Kind of like an auto-immune disease of society. The sentiments described in your comment are a prime example of it.

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