No it doesn't. There are quite a few reasons why you might opt out of having a position of a controversial subject none of them mean you tacitly approve of the status quo.
Or if I sell cigarettes, can I say, "I'm not tacitly approving of cancer, What I actually approve of, is making money without taking any responsibility for the health consequences of the choices I make to make money?"
I think that when you do a thing to make money, and it has consequences, you are tacitly saying that you approve of the consequences.
The problem is this logic is too simplistic and leads to purity spirals. If I sell food to someone who I know is a nazi, am I tacitly approving of the consequences of their actions?
Yes
Who are you making the hats for? If you are making replica SS uniforms that are used in films and TV then probably not.
In Thailand there isn't the historical baggage of the Swastika. When I was over there I saw "HFC" literally "Hitler Fried Chicken", I don't think they were neo-nazis. I think something got lost in translation.
> Or if I sell cigarettes, can I say, "I'm not tacitly approving of cancer, What I actually approve of, is making money without taking any responsibility for the health consequences of the choices I make to make money?"
The smoker is quite capable of making his own choices. I smoke a cigar from time and time but I don't chain smoke cigarettes. Lets take a less extreme example, when you are selling a pint of beer at the bar are you "tacitly" approving of alcoholism. Obviously not.
> I think that when you do a thing to make money, and it has consequences, you are tacitly saying that you approve of the consequences.
Not necessarily as we have seen.
The fact that smokers are capable of making their own choices is irrelevant. I also smoke cigars, and if I decide to sell cigarettes or cigars, I am tacitly approving of some portion of my customers getting lung cancer, throat cancer, whatever.
That's literally what the word "tacit" means: Implied by or inferred from actions or statements.
I sell cigarettes, you can infer quite reasonably that I approve of a world in which some of the people ho give me money wind up with cancer.
Period, full stop. Why are we working so hard to give people wiggle room on this?
When it comes to firearm sales, pro-gun people will tell us that it's a shame about all those dead kids, but the greater good is served by having the freedom to own firearms with few restrictions or impediments.
Those people have no problem understanding that we make choices, and some of those choices lead to unpleasant outcomes, but we tacitly approve of those unpleasant outcomes as part of approving of some other outcome we value more.
That's simple responsibility.
Not any more than the management of Safeway tacitly approving of you becoming obese or getting diabetes to selling you various carbohydrates.
Versus, say, rationing and strict diet control from some other authority. Or all carbs are free. Or any other variety of other systems.
It doesn't mean they encourage poor outcomes, since typically poor outcomes is bad for business. Nor are they responsible. But they do approve that this system is good and participate in it.
And you can make your own judgement call if you think this system is "good" and one you want to participate in.
No. You are completely misusing the word here.
> understood without being openly expressed; implied:
Now look at the usage of the word:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/tacitly
> tacitly - in a tacit manner; by unexpressed agreement; "they are tacitly expected to work 10 hours a day"
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/tacitly
I don't think I will be continuing this conversation with you.
So, agreement not by words, but by implied means (action or inaction) seems a fitting usage of the word tacit.
Similarly, from the definition of tacit from which tacitly is derived, https://www.thefreedictionary.com/tacit
1. Not spoken: indicated tacit approval by smiling and winking.
2. Implied by or inferred from actions or statements: Management has given its tacit approval to the plan.
3. Archaic Not speaking; silent.
EDIT: formatting
You are just stretching the definition so broadly it is meaningless.
Those who refuse to sell and/or consume alcohol don't believe it's an OK system.
Therefore, actions indicate belief and agreement of a system, in this case exchange of money for alcohol. Or, tacit agreement with the system.
And? That is their belief. Which is fine. There is a middle ground of accepting that some people can live their whole lives having no problem with it while other people can't.
> Therefore, actions indicate belief and agreement of a system, in this case exchange of money for alcohol. Or, tacit agreement with the system.
No they don't because you are stretching the definition to the point where it doesn't really make sense.
The proper meaning of a tacit agreement is something like "They put a playstation in the break room, but everyone knows they shouldn't be seen playing it when the boss is in the office".
Not this "By not taking action against a system you are agreeing with the existing system". This is completely ridiculous because using your logic you can always define being almost completely passive as support for whatever you aren't acting against.
It is a ridiculous usage of the term. I shouldn't be surprised tbh as you completely engage in newspeak. I won't be replying to you again as you are quite clearly dishonest.
From my perspective opting out means no change. And no change means structures stay the same. Therefore, they persist and are maintained with your (weak) approval.
This is different from not taking a side on a subject. You can be open to and encouraging healthy debate. I recommend most rational folks to elevate the conversation and not hold strong affiliations for most topics! But removing yourself entirely to me seems to be an act that allows the status quo to persist.
Many people may not think it is their place to speak. Some people may think they wouldn't be the best person to advocate. Others might think other people speak better about it. Other people might not be in a position to speak about it.
In the UK we have many people who claim to talk for the "working class" that as one of my friends put it "looked like they have never done a day of heavy lifting in their life". I wouldn't speak on behalf of the working class, I do a white collar job.
> From my perspective opting out means no change. And no change means structures stay the same. Therefore, they persist and are maintained with your (weak) approval.
Does it? Many structures fall in under their own weight, many organisation reform from within. You are assuming the world and people within them around doesn't ever change. There is a whole bunch of assumptions you are making. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to do nothing.
I used to cycle to work every day. That was more effective to get my coworkers cycling in than any amount of advocacy I may have done verbally. Just yourself being the change you want in the world is sometimes sufficient.
Let's take this rhetorical pattern for a spin around the block.
Here in the USA in the 19th century we had many people who claimed to speak for slaves who looked like they'd never been black a day in their lives. I wouldn't speak on behalf of slaves. I'm a free person.
Here in the UK during the Potato Famine we had many people who claimed to speak for starving Irish people who looked like they'd never been starving or Irish for a day in their lives. I wouldn't speak on behalf of the starving Irish. I'm well-fed and English.
Here in Wherever we have many people who claim to speak for sexually harassed women who look like they haven't been a woman for a day in their lives. I wouldn't speak on behalf of women. I'm a man.
It doesn't seem all that robust.
White collar laborers are labor; they are not capital.
I make a couple hundred thousand dollars per year. I have far more in common with a nurse or a teacher or a store clerk than I do with somebody who was born with $10MM in a trust fund, and who makes as much as I do (by selling my full-time labor) just by buying and holding VTI.
I will concede that In the last decade or those definition probably don't make any sense.
So maybe I should have said "traditional working class" to make the distinction.
In your example, by ignoring the "working class" and their issues, you implicitly leave the existing (both good and bad) structures in place.
To the second (things change anyways), structures and the world reform due to pressure from individuals within and without. So, yes, perhaps you can hope the system changes without your input (and honestly due to human limitations you really shouldn't have involvement in every issue) but my point is ignoring the issue isn't purely neutral. You are instead offloading the responsibility of change to others. So my point is to point out how being "passive" is actually an "active" choice with consequences.
Interestingly, by cycling, many would argue you made an actual statement by your lifestyle that influenced others on a topic. This is why people use the term "everything is political." Your actions, as you noted, spoke louder than any verbal advocacy and changed people's lives. This leads to a similar statement, "be the change you wish to see." Because verbal advocacy is often easy and simple and valued much less persuasively than actions and lifestyle.
Does that make sense to you? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your positions? These are great questions and good examples!
And it doesn't mean I have to either.
> In your example, by ignoring the "working class" and their issues, you implicitly leave the existing (both good and bad) structures in place.
No I don't. I neither leave it in place or remove it.
> To the second (things change anyways), structures and the world reform due to pressure from individuals within and without. So, yes, perhaps you can hope the system changes without your input (and honestly due to human limitations you really shouldn't have involvement in every issue) but my point is ignoring the issue isn't purely neutral.
Sometimes things literally do stop existing when you don't pay attention to them e.g. I don't watch broadcast TV because I don't want to pay the TV license for something I barely watch anyway. I live my life as if it doesn't exist. So as far as I am concerned it doesn't exist unless I choose to pay attention to it.
> You are instead offloading the responsibility of change to others. So my point is to point out how being "passive" is actually an "active" choice with consequences.
Who made it my responsibility to change anything? Again there are a bunch of presumptions you have made in that statement and I don't think you even know you made them.
> Interestingly, by cycling, many would argue you made an actual statement by your lifestyle that influenced others on a topic.
There you go again. You are inserting assumptions in with the term "lifestyle". It wasn't a lifestyle. It was just cheaper and quicker to cycle.
> This is why people use the term "everything is political." Your actions, as you noted, spoke louder than any verbal advocacy and changed people's lives. This leads to a similar statement, "be the change you wish to see." Because verbal advocacy is often easy and simple and valued much less persuasively than actions and lifestyle.
No people use the term "everything is political" because they want to make everything political because it benefits them and their political agenda to make something that is apolitical, political.
> And it doesn't mean I have to either.
Correct. Never said otherwise.
>> In your example, by ignoring the "working class" and their issues, you implicitly leave the existing (both good and bad) structures in place.
> No I don't. I neither leave it in place or remove it.
I think this encapsulates my point and where we disagree. Non-action means leaving what exists in existence and is an active choice.
> Sometimes things literally do stop existing when you don't pay attention to them e.g. I don't watch broadcast TV because I don't want to pay the TV license for something I barely watch anyway. I live my life as if it doesn't exist. So as far as I am concerned it doesn't exist unless I choose to pay attention to it.
Hm, to quote Momento, pretty sure the world still exists when I close my eyes. I get you're making a bit of a "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it" argument, but by choosing to ignore broadcast television it 1) doesn't mean it doesn't exist to others and 2) you are actually removing attention/power/money from broadcast television. So I'm not sure that's a particularly good counter example.
>> You are instead offloading the responsibility of change to others. So my point is to point out how being "passive" is actually an "active" choice with consequences.
> Who made it my responsibility to change anything? Again there are a bunch of presumptions you have made in that statement and I don't think you even know you made them.
OK, perhaps not my best wording. Nobody says you have the responsibility, or perhaps a better term is obligation, to change anything. But you do have the inherent opportunity, and by opting out you surrender that opportunity to others to do as they see fit.
My point isn't to say go out and do EVERYTHING. I'm trying to draw out the notion that inaction isn't completely void and has zero effect on the world around you. So, in effect, you have an opportunity cost of what things you act on and what things you ignore. I'm trying to draw awareness to those choices of things you ignore as still having an effect.
The assertions that "inaction is a choice" or "political disengagement is a privilege" are coming from a place of naive idealism about the reality of affecting change in modern societies. There's an enormous threshold of activation energy one has to cross to be an efficacious actor against existing large scale power structures, and anything short of it is basically not going to make a difference.
The reality of scale in our world as currently configured is that one private individual could do all the conscientious things - boycott the right things, recycle the right things, vote for the right things - and nothing will change. Even a thousand or a million such individuals randomly distributed doing the exact same things, still wouldn't make a significant difference. Only by acting in coordinated networks would change come about, and it would be driven by the powerful individuals or organizations doing the coordinating, having expended enormous energy to do so. Most people aren't suited to or interested in expending that kind of energy to lead such efforts, and we shouldn't be made to feel guilty for just wanting to go about our lives without trying to "make a difference".
As you point out, though, as an individual against the powers and machinery of society and businesses, often our single lives actions seem trivial in making a measurable difference.
Thus why others argue the correct solution is organization and coordination. Join party X! Donate to organization Y! Spread the word to your friends to boycott Z! etc etc. Then you are a part of the effort and your actions magnified, even if you aren't necessarily the leader expending all that energy.
Granted, the counter-point is usually that such organizations can become corrupted and serve other values such as self-existence and thus must also be seen with suspicion... but I won't go down hat rabbit hole.
Personally I think even a small personal live's difference does matter, even if only to myself. A bit of a Thoreau view. But that's just my personal take and I don't begrudge those over whelmed and burned out, nor those who continue to flood my newsfeed with calls to action for their causes.
But my takeaway is opting out is still a choice that has an effect. It lets what exists persist due to inertia, or at minimum gives away your vote to others who are more motivated. That is neither good nor bad, but another tool to remind yourself that you have.
No it is a very good example. By me not doing anything in this case the existing system (the BBC in this case) will simply become irrelevant (which is actually happening). I didn't have to say anything or do anything. The world simply changed around it (Netflix and Youtube basically) which is what I said previously.
There is nothing active about it. You are engaging in newspeak. You are trying to define not doing something as doing something.
> Non-action means leaving what exists in existence and is an active choice.
What sort of newspeak is this? Non-action is an active choice. Next you will be telling me Freedom is Slavery or I am actively resting my posterior on the sofa.
This is newspeak and what you are trying to do is drag me into participating in how you define things. I am not playing that game.
Conversely, if you and enough people did watch the BBC, it would stay relevant, right?
You keep on assuming the rest of the world is static. Even if the numbers in my generation stayed that watched broadcast TV until we died. Once we are dead there isn't likely to be the same number of people replacing us is there? Nothing our end needed to change but the world did anyway.
"The world has moved on" to me says enough people decided collectively X was better than Y. Great! It's amazingly fascinating that somehow each of these individuals somehow chose the alternative. They chose alternatives due to preferences! And those choices included not watching broadcast television (or at least ignoring it). And you're one of them. Congrats, you're part of "the world."
Similarly, we could create a static world with exact numbers of population and some % always watch broadcast TV for X hours. But we seem to not like that and instead choose differently.
Obviously this doesn't stack up all the way. The world has a funny way of inserting chaos beyond our control. But by and large a lot of society is controlled by a lot of individuals making either consciously or unconsciously making choices to act or not act. And thus my point, not acting is itself a choice that has consequences.
You can't unconsciously make a choice. This is patently ridiculous.
> "The world has moved on" to me says enough people decided collectively X was better than Y. Great! It's amazingly fascinating that somehow each of these individuals somehow chose the alternative. They chose alternatives due to preferences! And those choices included not watching broadcast television (or at least ignoring it). And you're one of them. Congrats, you're part of "the world."
I was clearly speaking about "the world" as things outside of my control. You again have failed to address the specific scenario I made in an ingenious manner.
This is very much like the motte and bailey tactic of argumentation.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
> And thus my point, not acting is itself a choice that has consequences.
Your point is obvious. It is ridiculous that it somehow "proof" that you are right.
Lets go back to the core argument. Just because you don't take action at a particular time doesn't mean you are supporting an existing system.
People like yourself need to understand the difference between accepting the reality of the situation and supporting the status quo.