And what if they did observe all the correct safety protocols and it still happened? Is the person lighting the fireworks still committing a moral wrongdoing? I mean, accidents do happen, no matter how well prepared we are for them.
You answered your own question: accidents do happen.
I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot here, but I already said that in the case of the drunk driver, it's something that we're all taught is dangerous and something that people choose to do regardless.
We are also taught not to fire a loaded gun unless we know exactly where the bullet is going to stop. It's gun safety 101, every bit as elementary as "Don't drive drunk" (or perhaps more analogously, "Don't drive blindfolded").
However, when it comes to the astronaut assassin, it's very possible that it has not once crossed this person's mind that a bullet might hit someone on the way down - indeed, even if they do consider it, they might not be aware of just how fast it goes when it comes down.
If this is the case, they are using a very dangerous device without sufficient instruction, supervision, or indeed common sense, which is culpable. If you see someone driving at twice the speed limit down the wrong side of the street, it's no excuse that he never got his driver's license and is ignorant of traffic laws - on the contrary, that compounds the problem.
Now, if they knew all of these things and still made the choice to potentially risk the lives of others... Well, then the risk is still tiny.
No it is not. Puerto Rico. One night (Dec. 31, 2003). Eighteen injuries and one fatality. You complain about being made to repeat yourself - extend me the same courtesy you expect.
I mean, we're putting other people at risk as well when we go to take a drive. Sometimes we do it for no good reason. Cars are incredibly dangerous, even with a fully aware person in the driver's seat. Yet, every day, millions of people make that risk assessment and decide "Eh, it'll be fine". And for some, it isn't. Sometimes, people are out for a Sunday drive that has no discernible benefit and they end up in an accident. If we apply your logic here, then the driver and everyone else in the car is guilty of moral wrongdoing here. What if they hit a pedestrian because of a fault with street lights? Then the person driving the car, and possibly everyone in it, is to blame on a moral level. Because they could have done something to avoid it. They could have stayed home. Just like the galactic gunman could not have fired a gun into the sky.
A fully aware person in the driver's seat is in control of the vehicle and taking every precaution not to encounter an accident. A celebratory gunman is discharging deadly bullets into the air at random, making no effort to control where they fall. As I mentioned earlier, firing into the air is analogous to driving blindfolded, not driving safely. Driving safely is analogous to going shooting at a gun range with targets and a proper backstop. Accidents still happen at gun ranges, but much, much less often.
Human emotions don't tend to be logical or really care about what's just and unjust. I prefer to keep empathy and logic apart, because trying to apply logic to emotional responses is a fool's errand.
It is difficult. You will also find that it is necessary. People don't just feel emotions at random - there is an underlying structure to psychology that we can explore rationally, and indeed need to if we are to have any hope of understanding anything about ourselves and others.
But your high-minded statement here is really avoiding the question, anyway. I asked why you say we "can still be mad" at people for behavior that is not immoral. You also said earlier that reckless actions are "still wrong, but not really immoral" and attacks on Sarkeesian are "in poor taste". It's pretty clear that you're doing some sort of evaluation here, but for some reason you don't want to call it moral evaluation. In some places you make it sound like you think the boundary between moral evaluation and this other evaluation is the intent to cause harm, but elsewhere you acknowledge that some actions are immoral even without intent to cause harm. Expand on this.
In the case of Sarkeesian, for example, when the media put outs stories saying that she was "forced to leave her home", or that the threat at University of Utah "forced her to cancel her talk"... That's when I want people to apply their critical thinking skills and consider just how likely it was for any of those threats to have any real effect. As I pointed out above, probably less likely than getting killed while crossing the street. So logically speaking, Sarkeesian was not in any noticeable danger in either of these cases - in the second one, officials at the university even came out and determined that there was no threat. Yet she still canceled the event? Why? To me, it's pretty clear that it was a media stunt. It's so very easy to just paint yourself as this poor damsel who's in constant danger and who's so scared for her life if you're a woman in the media, because it's consistent with the cultural preconceptions that people have of women being weak and fragile and needing rescuing. But Sarkeesian is a feminist. She wants women to be treated equally to men. So when she so blatantly decides to use such social mechanics to her advantage, that's when I start seriously doubting her sincerity.
How is this not an attempt to apply logic to an emotional response? "Sarkeesian says she's scared. But logically she shouldn't be scared. So she must not be scared - she must be lying."
But the fact that Sarkeesian never forgets to put up her donation page in the middle of such events tells me that she's very well aware of what she's doing. And the almost 400,000 dollars she received in the third quarter of 2014 - mind you, it wasn't even a fraction in the third, when GamerGate started, so it was hardly in response to the movement itself - tells me that she's quite good at doing it too.
Being scared and capitalizing on opportunity are not mutually incompatible.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
While we're on the subject of GTA, doesn't strike it as odd to anyone else that skeletons are the ones complaining about violence in video games today? Given the controversy that has surrounded video games, 10-15 years ago it was the exact opposite when social conservatives were the ones complaining about how violent video games led to shootings and whatnot.
Is this actually a thing or just something you heard second hand. I would like to see a link to some evidence.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What's the big deal? You could have played multiple Righteous Avengers for years now.
While we're on the subject of GTA, doesn't strike it as odd to anyone else that skeletons are the ones complaining about violence in video games today? Given the controversy that has surrounded video games, 10-15 years ago it was the exact opposite when social conservatives were the ones complaining about how violent video games led to shootings and whatnot.
Is this actually a thing or just something you heard second hand. I would like to see a link to some evidence.
Sarkeesian more complains about sexist tropes. I wouldn't say it's so much saying they can't do those tropes, but instead analyzing what they mean. For instance, "Emperor Evulz kidnaps Princess Chica, and Hiro has to rescue her." is a pretty simple trope. It's actually a dead unicorn trope in chivalric romance. But the actual plot line (male protagonist and male antagonist fight over female flat character) is quite common, and tends to imply male agency in all things. Plus, it sets up a false dichotomy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Re toxic masculinity, Folding Ideas S4E8 "Fight Club" covers a quick and actually pretty accurate summary of toxic masculinity in the intro.
Okay, for some reason I clicked on this expecting to be informed, but that turned out to be a mistake.
Let us grant for the moment that this was a competent Marxist critique of the movie Fight Club (and that is exactly what it is -- not only is this guy delivering a constant stream of leftist cant, he was randomly demonizing investment bankers of all people two minutes into his tirade. I wonder if he knows any investment bankers. I know twenty-odd mathematicians in investment banking and I don't think any of them would last very long in the ring.)
Let us further agree that indeed, the behaviors exhibited in Fight Club are toxic. Hosing down random strangers, fighting for laughs, beating yourself or someone else to a bloody pulp, blowing up buildings -- these are all destructive and morally blameworthy behaviors that, if they really happened or were really being encouraged, would receive universal condemnation from anyone participating in this discussion on either side.
Here's the thing: Fight Club isn't real. Any standard of manhood advocated by society at large, to the extent it exists, is not and has never been anything like that exhibited in Fight Club. Nor, mind you, is Fight Club an advocacy piece positioning those behaviors as praiseworthy. It's a story designed for entertainment.
So as an argument about "toxic masculinity" being a real and relevant concept, this is an argument from pure fiction in at least two different ways -- the Marxist fiction of men as a unified social class, and the fiction of Fight Club which, instead of being acknowledged as such, is being held up as representative of something that really exists.
In short, this video is utterly uninformative as concerns the subject matter in question here. I don't recommend it to anyone unless they are looking for Marxist movie criticism.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
We are also taught not to fire a loaded gun unless we know exactly where the bullet is going to stop. It's gun safety 101, every bit as elementary as "Don't drive drunk" (or perhaps more analogously, "Don't drive blindfolded").
If this is the case, they are using a very dangerous device without sufficient instruction, supervision, or indeed common sense, which is culpable. If you see someone driving at twice the speed limit down the wrong side of the street, it's no excuse that he never got his driver's license and is ignorant of traffic laws - on the contrary, that compounds the problem.
No it is not. Puerto Rico. One night (Dec. 31, 2003). Eighteen injuries and one fatality. You complain about being made to repeat yourself - extend me the same courtesy you expect.
A fully aware person in the driver's seat is in control of the vehicle and taking every precaution not to encounter an accident. A celebratory gunman is discharging deadly bullets into the air at random, making no effort to control where they fall. As I mentioned earlier, firing into the air is analogous to driving blindfolded, not driving safely. Driving safely is analogous to going shooting at a gun range with targets and a proper backstop. Accidents still happen at gun ranges, but much, much less often.
It is difficult. You will also find that it is necessary. People don't just feel emotions at random - there is an underlying structure to psychology that we can explore rationally, and indeed need to if we are to have any hope of understanding anything about ourselves and others.
But your high-minded statement here is really avoiding the question, anyway. I asked why you say we "can still be mad" at people for behavior that is not immoral. You also said earlier that reckless actions are "still wrong, but not really immoral" and attacks on Sarkeesian are "in poor taste". It's pretty clear that you're doing some sort of evaluation here, but for some reason you don't want to call it moral evaluation. In some places you make it sound like you think the boundary between moral evaluation and this other evaluation is the intent to cause harm, but elsewhere you acknowledge that some actions are immoral even without intent to cause harm. Expand on this.
How is this not an attempt to apply logic to an emotional response? "Sarkeesian says she's scared. But logically she shouldn't be scared. So she must not be scared - she must be lying."
Being scared and capitalizing on opportunity are not mutually incompatible.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Is this actually a thing or just something you heard second hand. I would like to see a link to some evidence.
Sarkeesian more complains about sexist tropes. I wouldn't say it's so much saying they can't do those tropes, but instead analyzing what they mean. For instance, "Emperor Evulz kidnaps Princess Chica, and Hiro has to rescue her." is a pretty simple trope. It's actually a dead unicorn trope in chivalric romance. But the actual plot line (male protagonist and male antagonist fight over female flat character) is quite common, and tends to imply male agency in all things. Plus, it sets up a false dichotomy.
On phasing:
kay, so I'm not gonna link the mental health and criminal justice stuff because that's sociology.
Art is life itself.
I'll try to look at it tonight.
With 'these studies' I meant stuff like women's studies and the like, tbh.
Okay, for some reason I clicked on this expecting to be informed, but that turned out to be a mistake.
Let us grant for the moment that this was a competent Marxist critique of the movie Fight Club (and that is exactly what it is -- not only is this guy delivering a constant stream of leftist cant, he was randomly demonizing investment bankers of all people two minutes into his tirade. I wonder if he knows any investment bankers. I know twenty-odd mathematicians in investment banking and I don't think any of them would last very long in the ring.)
Let us further agree that indeed, the behaviors exhibited in Fight Club are toxic. Hosing down random strangers, fighting for laughs, beating yourself or someone else to a bloody pulp, blowing up buildings -- these are all destructive and morally blameworthy behaviors that, if they really happened or were really being encouraged, would receive universal condemnation from anyone participating in this discussion on either side.
Here's the thing: Fight Club isn't real. Any standard of manhood advocated by society at large, to the extent it exists, is not and has never been anything like that exhibited in Fight Club. Nor, mind you, is Fight Club an advocacy piece positioning those behaviors as praiseworthy. It's a story designed for entertainment.
So as an argument about "toxic masculinity" being a real and relevant concept, this is an argument from pure fiction in at least two different ways -- the Marxist fiction of men as a unified social class, and the fiction of Fight Club which, instead of being acknowledged as such, is being held up as representative of something that really exists.
In short, this video is utterly uninformative as concerns the subject matter in question here. I don't recommend it to anyone unless they are looking for Marxist movie criticism.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
"social script that tells men that the right way to be a man is to be violent, unemotional, sexually aggressive"
How is this even remotely true?