1y ago

murder is murder

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I kind of envy the mindset where one has empathy for someone who is so out of touch with reality given their status. I like to think I'm a good, just person that wants to do the right thing but when I think of what the billionaire's perspective is: someone with so much power and influence that most people are just objects or playthings to them, it's frustrating to think about. They think they're bigger than people, the earth, maybe even the universe.
I'm not saying I could be the triggerman, I'm not that kind of person, but yeah, fuck 'em.
- Exactly. These people are downright evil. They at least accept that their actions kill thousands of people. Why would I has sympathy with a psychopathic murderer?
  
  I don't think you should, but should we derive what is just from how much sympathy capital a given person has? Assuming your objective is to end poverty, etc, and to minimize suffering, then if you are ready to advocate for something like murder even in the hypothetical that you absolutely don't need to, then you're probably just letting your feeling dictate your actions. You can of course dispute that hypothetical, and there is definitely an argument to be made there, but a lot of people don't and still go all in on it. Hence the problem with "wanting" these people to die, as opposed to "doing what is necessary".
  
  Let's entertain that thought for a minute.
  What you're describing (in unnecessarily complex phrasing) is, that calling for the actual death of billionaires is an emotional response.
  If you read my comment above, my argument is not, that per being rich billionaires are bad and thus deserve death. My argument is, that the fact that these people own so much directly causes deaths several orders of magnitude above what a complete eradication of all billionaires would cause. That's math, not emotion.
  Now, killing them and redistributing their wealth is without question violence, but not doing it causes much more violence.
  What your fundamental error is, is that you're equating doing nothing with doing neutral. In your setup, watching a Nazi kill 100 Jews is neutral, but killing the Nazi is bad, because murder is bad. I'm exaggerating slightly here, but I think you get the point.
  This kind of thinking is unfortunately very common, and it's almost perfect for people who are so aloof, that it's even beneath them to interact with the real world and they claim is rational - which is it not.
  So circling back to the initial question: killing billionaires is a net positive. It's without bad sides, it's certainly neither the way I would prefer things to go down and it's not the ideal way neither. But it's not the worst option either, certainly better than the status quo.
  
  Oh no that kind of thing I agree with. As long as it is necessary, then sure. However, a lot of these discussions are plainly theoretical - no one here is gonna do shit, in short. But people get galvanized by the idea of committing these acts and get from these fantasies a certain kind of satisfaction I'm not sure I understand properly. I mean - I do understand. People are fed up and angry with the state of the world. But since this is purely ideological and not practical, it derails all productive discussion.
  What I'm saying is: as long as you can't come up with an actual plan that has better odds of working than any other proposed alternatives, I don't know why you'd be so obsessed with the idea of violence that it ends up being unhealthy; this maladaptive coping mechanism, in turn, might bleed into other aspects of your life and/or activism. Even if the maths check out, a lot of this is inflammatory tribalistic discourse with no point other than to rile up ideological support through emotive means. I think that actually matters quite a lot.
  Apologies if my expression is somewhat unclear at times.
- It's a war. It's just that one side has been convinced it wasn't a war so they should be peaceful and nice. Propaganda...
- It amazes me that people don't make the connection that billionaires are both directly and indirectly killing massive amounts of people. They force people to live paycheck to paycheck, skip meals, skip basic medical needs, work multiple jobs till they die, feel in a hopeless cycle until the depression is too overwhelming.
  They deserve to die.
- Empathy doesn't mean you can't be angry. I feel sorry that they have so much money it's corrupted their view and made them heartless gods amongst men. Feeling sad for someone doesn't mean you can't be mad and it doesn't mean you can't want them to see justice.
  
  I think most people (on every part of the political spectrum, unfortunately) believe that restorative justice is the same thing as punitive justice.
  And it's hard to explain to someone who thinks they are the same that "making someone suffer" can be independent and separate from "righting someone's wrongs." That you can be anti-suffering and pro-reparation.
  It's kind of like this: there are languages that don't have a word for green. The people who grow up speaking these languages have a harder time distinguishing different shades of green.
  You say, "I don't want that shade of green." And these people respond, "the hell is wrong with you!? We agreed we wanted this blue-yellow color that you call green! Now you're saying you want less green instead of more? Green is good!" Because they genuinely cannot see what you're advocating against and what you're advocating for.
  Just like how it's nearly impossible for me to explain to a pro-capitalist that there is a difference between a workers' cooperative and a public traded corporation. The person will say, "they're both businesses" even though to me that's like saying dictatorships and democracies are, "both governments."
  But the difference is missing from their vocabulary. And because of that, they don't even know how to approach it and think about it and express their thoughts on it. Because they don't even have the words to describe it.

153 comments