My interpretation of this might be different, but I agree wholeheartedly with my interpretation.
Being morally just doesn’t just mean “not causing harm” directly. It means striving to not cause harm both directly and indirectly. As someone who lives in the USA, our entire society is built off of exploitation. The less expensive something is, the more heavy the exploitation likely is. The cheapest manufacturing is done in countries where labor is exploited or even enslaved, where the manufacturing process can pollute and poison the area with little consequence (to the manufacturer), and where the powerful can force deals on the government to let them extract valuable resources and pay a fraction of its value - depriving the locals and nation prosperity. Even when buying US food products, the food industry mostly relies on extremely poor conditions for the animals it keeps, taking advantage of farmers it buys from or employs, and may even employ migrant children for dangerous slaughterhouse labor.
Avoiding these kinds of practices throughout most supply chains is sometimes impossible and usually more expensive the more thoroughly you manage to avoid the practices. Even then someone has to check in and constantly verify that the practices are legitimately avoided and not just greenwashing or fraudulent.
It’s really quite depressing.
I think it was Mark Twain who said that in order for a man to be moral he needs to be well-fed first.
According to Lemmy poor people who have done not harm to others have the same morals that poor people that hurt others.
I personally know a homeless person that have never steal or hurt. And several poor people with homes but small income that have stab and stolen other people, probably justifying their shit behavior in being poor.
According to some out of touch lemmings those two people are morally equivalent.
Being poor doesn’t justify being a shit person. And defending that is insulting to honest and moral poor people.
I guess you can always find “some” people that can fit with your strawman, doesn’t really make it a valid argument.
“Some people” on Lemmy think the earth is flat. “Some” are pedophiles. “Some” are even Republicans. That doesn’t mean they are correct or common.
Oh no! You put republicans in my showerthoughts. Oh, that’s a strange mix.
I think I’m gonna puke.
What are you implying is the strawman?
The millions of honest and dishonest poor and rich people that prove that morals are not related to money? Or the statically significant lemmings that agree with “all poor are good because they are poor” ?
The part were you say a significant amount of people on Lemmy think that stabbing others is morally correct if you’re poor.
And just to be clear, in not implying, I’m telling it plain and open.
? Pretty sure that’s not what they said.
They said that there are people on Lemmy who think a person who stabs someone vs a person who doesn’t are morally equivalent—as long as they’re both poor.
Very different.
They did also say that there are poor people who stab others and blame their actions on being poor, but that was tangential to their main point about judging the morals of a person solely based on their wealth or lack thereof.
I understand where you’re coming from, because many societies are being structured in ways that make it feel like you are only hurting yourself by not being just and moral. It’s truly horrible when trying to live a life following “the good” puts you in the path of pain all the time, working jobs you don’t want to afford not to be put out on the street (and God forbid you want to have kids if you’re in a high cost of living area).
With all that being said: I’d fear becoming an evil person more than dying poor. I hope that we can work together to make a world that isn’t run by greedy, bad people.
Wait till you realize morality is shitty fucked up crutch that doesn’t work at best and a tool to control people at… usual, not even the worst
This is a word salad that I can support.
Is this an anarchist perspective? Just trying to see what your broader view might be.
No, I don’t expect there to be any ready label for this. In a nutshell:
- humans are as much part of life on this planet as everything else. the “killing is wrong” kind of maxims is just plain bullshit, just go watch how other forms of life take care of their sustenance
- moral dilemmas show by their existence that pretty much any widespread “morally right” way to behave has its limits, yet those limits are somehow “omitted” from most sources that are supposed to teach people what is good and what is bad
also, “good” and “bad” do not actually exist: you can vaporise whole Earth and rest of the universe won’t even notice
- still there is a vivid difference between a kind soul attending to a garden a feeding stray cats and dogs who happen to come by and an idiot torturing kittens in front of their mother just for fun, even seeing these situations produces very different experiences. Substitute humans here with animals and appropriate behaviour, the difference will still stand. So there is some kind of “this is in line with how all life longs to be”, “that is not how mature and balanced living creatures operate”, but I have no clue even what level to look at to find that difference
TLDR: So morality doesn’t exist, killing is ok, the way we teach morality to people is too simple, only physical reality matters, and actually there is a morality it’s kind of going along with a good nature balance and it’s sorta nuanced? Gotta feel it in your gut ya know? Anyway I haven’t researched any philosophy or study of ethics.
That is a word salad I could support, as dbtng already said:)
Ok, but seriously, I studied only a bit of philosophy and no ethics, and the question of discerning between objective reality and subjective observer can keep us occupied for many lifetimes, so no use in trying do dive deeper
If you’re willing to write it off, then I’d say you’re saying your position is equally dismissed. So cool, it’s great to say we can ignore you and dismiss your edgelord take, something I fully intend to do.
Lol. You got nothing of what I said, but I’m ok with it
Still in support. Reality is an illusion. Tuesdays, doubly so. A comet could wipe us all, and nothing will have essentially changed. Morals are power structures. Meaning is where you find it, because you are what brings meaning. This perspective doesn’t need a label. It’s what … is.
Thank you :) And maybe it is not. If reality is an illusion and I am only dreaming, why can’t I dream myself immortal and stop getting so sleepy in the evenings already. But yeah, a comet could wipe us all and meaning only exists in the mind of observer, this is a hill I can joyfully die on
I appreciate you giving me your candid opinion. I find some of it fascinating, from the perspective that you’re not just subscribing to some brand of nihilism or whatever.
I do agree with some of it, from a lay persons perspective. I’m no philosopher and I’m certain someone might be much more qualified to tell you all about the origins of your belief. Like you talk about some simple coping strategies like, “good and bad being inconsequential when compared to an infinitely large universe.” These are just copes we develop to reconcile the brutal nature of the world.
Getting back to morality, i think, the more we are separated from the “bad thing” that happened the harder it is to apply a moral framework around it and even if you did, trying to teach that framework on a scale that will reach everyone is mostly impossible.
So end of the day we are still just picking battles, which is usually just harm reduction.
Thank you for the reply :)
Well, trying to teach others to think like me is not something I will attempt: in the end, what I have come to think about anything is just a result of my biography, there is no point in trying to imprint it onto other people. And for the coping part, two things:
- the world was before me, will be after me. If I get wounded by how it is, that’s on me
- I am not talking about good and bad being inconsequential, I am talking of them not existing as actual reality, same way words do not exist as reality: they mean what they mean only because some people agreed on it. There is nothing to cope with
You obviously know that most people won’t understand you. I feel ya. People don’t understand me either.
Yes, and I have spent tons of time trying to understand why. Did not reach the understanding, but looks like I am starting to accept this as is. Thank you for reminding that not all “other people” are “those who do not get me no matter how hard I try”
Don’t use being poor to justify your shitty choices bro, wtf? Trash take.
You just assume I’m poor. Nice.
Simple. Trashy. But simple.
According to Lemmy all poor people are good.
Tell that to Juan, the homeless I personally know that has not done anything bad, and have been always an angel. He had never hurt or steal anyone and he doesn’t even have a roof over his head.
But according to Lemmy shitheads that kill, steal and rape have the same moral merit as Juan because they are not rich.
I’m sorry but this is fucking stupid. WHO is calling WHAT immoral? Someone babbling on recycling, who the fuck cares about recycling?
Poorest people are 100% capable of making choices that align with their personal values as anyone else. This is such a fucking Christian thread. What, do you think morals come from the Bible? what a joke
There ya go. Yes, ‘threading a moral needle with bad choices’ is all just pure imagery. Nothing real was said. There’s no actual situation under discussion, just vapor.
Seems like there’s plenty of entitled wealthy people in this thread. People who don’t understand what it’s like to be systemically pushed down into the mud; what it’s like when all of your choices are either bad or worse.
“But you can recycle…” Shut the fuck up dude, recycling doesn’t feed my fucking family. Recycling doesn’t replace the years spent in an education system that’s designed to make you a factory worker. Recycling doesn’t bring living-wage-paying jobs to my hometown.
When the bills are in the mail, the tax man is coming, the landlord’s raising the rent, and the bossman is driving a new car every year but can’t pay you enough to keep your bank account from overdrafting, sometimes you have to do “immoral” shit.
Sometimes you have to kill an animal with no hunting license, sometimes you have to find a place to stay warm for the night, sometimes you have to feed your kids when all you have is cardboard and that might mean stealing bread from the dollar store.
I remember the millionaire who wanted to prove that he could rebuild his wealth if he started from scratch again. He cheated a little bit because he used his friend apartment for free.
Fast forward, he gave up after a couple of months and understood what the rest of us knew for ages.
Wealthy people are delusional and no amount of reasoning will work with them.
That’s the problem with this entire post. Who is saying any of this? Whose morals are we talking about? If you can just as easily recycle something as throw it in the trash and you choose not to recycle because your rent is too high and your boss is a piece of shit, that’s just nonsense. On the other hand, as a vegan, I personally do not have any moral objection to you illegally hunting animals for food if that’s the only access to food you have. What is the point of any of this, is this some kind of vaguebooking about some other post?
Who said anything about not recycling for those reasons? I said that recycling isn’t going to solve all of the problems that poor people face.
Nice cliche veganism toss-in though.
Well this is getting added to my playlist.
Dude looks like Tyler Cassidy’s nephew or something.
This is true and I am saying that as someone who is well off, the movie parasite talks about this great. Its easy to be a nice person when your rich
So you listed a bunch of things that make sense for illegal things you might have to do in order to acquire food but just because you are poor why can’t you recycle?
Poor people are excellent recyclers. Even in states that don’t offer bottle exchange they will collect for the aluminum/other alloys, alone.
That’s not the point.
The point is that doing little things like reducing reusing and recycling are not the end-all be-all solution to being broke. I’m saying that doing moral things doesn’t automatically give you a liveable life; it doesn’t magically make everything ok.
warning satire
Are you sure your not just being lazy? Maybe it was the choices you made that landed you there. It’s not like there is a whole system in place to oppress a certain class of people.
I cannot believe that you’re being downvoted. This place disappoints me.
I was told I’m a politician in another thread so… yeah I don’t know man.
K.
Looks like the consensus finally turned around somewhat
People is bad or good. Money don’t have that much factor in that. It only changes the type of “bad things” you do, but bad people will do bad things and good people will do good things.
Don’t fall for the
sentientsentiment that all poor are good and all rich are bad, or that all rich are good and all poor are bad. Because that doesn’t correlate with really.Yes, maybe a poor bad fella will stab you, while a bad rich guy will deny your medical insurance. They both are taking your life, different approaches to evilness due different disposable income available to do evil shit.
Sentiment. The word is sentiment.
A sentient is an intelligent being. You are a sentient. One might fall for a sentient, but then they would have to consider wedding plans.
Thanks!
Sometimes I have issues spelling these similar looking English words.
:]
I’m rich and I love stabbing. Stop excluding me from your straw men arguments.
No. For your stabby crimes, you are henceforth condemned to deny other’s their medical insurance. And other evil shit.
Noooooo, I just wanna make people leaky… FINE! I’ll commit social-murder, but I won’t be happy about it. (grumbles) Gna go play my rogue in Oblivion gonna stab everybody… (Harumph…)
:]
Honestly, rich people are pretty shitty themselves.
But not for lack of choice, that’s the point here.
I guess? But it’s also morally just to reuse disposables, repair instead of replace, conserve and reduce waste, and delay new purchases as long as possible. I’m doing environmental conservationism just by being poor!
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness. (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)
The rich man’s boots vs. The poor man’s boots. Terry died too damn young.
This is the single greatest example I have seen highlighting the problem.
The poor cannot afford to have things that last, things that allow them to think of the future, and hence are stuck in a cycle of debt in the present to near future time periods.
However what I don’t understand is how the rich get so short sighted when they have both the motivation and resources to plan for long term outcomes. Doesn’t make sense.
Underpaying workers leads to worse productivity and apathy towards your superiors.
Does the world really have so few resources that the only way to keep number go up is to exploit the less fortunate? When will feudalism truly end?
The rich will throw away their perfectly fine boots after a few years because they aren’t in style anymore.
The rich have that option.
I read “The rich have that opinion.” at first and that somehow fits just as well.
Yes, being poor is bad.
No, it’s righteous.
You just went from having to be immoral when you’re poor to being poor being righteous?
Please make up your mind.
I think you may be missing the point.
This is what people tell themselves to cope better. There’s nothing good about not being able to afford stuff and juggling between buyin groceries and paying the bills.
I dunno, you really want to stick your head out for capitalism like that?
Wanting to live a non-shitty life is somehow bad? Dounds like someone who’s working for capitalists would say. “Shut up and eat your mac and cheese, it’s your destiny!”
No, i have to admit, I’m trying to gauge what people actually believe. I understand morality can’t be summed up into a set of infallible rules and it’s incredibly hard to teach everyone the ethical frameworks necessary to determine true moral justification for any given situation. The argument about personal liberty is just one that everyone has to reckon with and I’m curious if people still come to the same conclusions I always have.
Long sentence, zero substance. I’m trying and I can’t sum it up to see what you wanted to tell, in ahort, or how is it connected to previous conversation. I think more and more that you are a politician.
K
Righteousness doesn’t put food in my stomach, shoes on my feet, a roof over my head, or solve any of the other problems caused by poverty.
They can choose not to.
