Trump just won

[fast]

All people are always responsible for what happens, responsible in relation to how much they can do. To not act is as much an action as to act.

That's utterly ludicrous.

 

[fast]

If my neighbor is hungry and comes to me for something to eat, I will not let him go away hungry. No way in holy hell would I do that. The issue is whether not helping equates to hurting, and I think the answer hinges on an underlying issue, namely whether I have an obligation to help when asked--not whether I help if asked.

If I am a caregiver to my neighbor and fail to provide care, then I'm not living up to my responsibility and can rightly be said to be hurting someone by my failure to help when asked.

Now, if I have no duty to help, and if I don't help, I ought not be regarded as one that is hurting my neighbor. It sounds to me that if you want to argue that I am hurting my neighbor, you need to argue that I do in fact have a responsibility, duty, or obligation despite not being a caregiver.

I don't mind being called irresponsible when I'm in fact irresponsible. For example, if I sign up for a credit card and make all my payments on time for twenty years except for one payment ten years ago being a single day late, then yes, call me an irresponsible little shit for not always paying as agreed. I can handle that, for either I did or did not always and without fail live up to my responsibility to pay it on time.

But, don't say I've hurt you by not helping you unless you can show I most certainly had an obligation to do so. If I have an obligation to help every Tom, Dick, and Harry that crosses my path, that's one thing, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more that an espoused view that I have an obligation. In fact, I'm quite unreasonable to even argumentation, so if you come at me merely armed with an argument, expect not to get through to me, as I don't take accusations of having an obligation to do as others claim too easily.

No. It has nothing to do with wether you have an obligation or not. By not helping you are hurting. Sometimes the hurt is small or there is some other aspects that makes the ok to "deal that hurt". For example it can be important to not help somebody that must learn by doing it herself etc.

If I don't give you the deposit you need to get your lights cut on, are you going to go around claiming that I had your lights cut off? I mean, how far down the rabbit hole will you guys go?

 

[bilby]

I just resent these attempts to pin blame on me for the outcome of the election. As if to suggest it's my fault none of the candidates appealed to my priorities as a voter. Would it still be my fault if I voted for Stein? If I were to vote at all it would either be for her or Johnson. So you can't say if I had voted it would have been for HRC. In either case the outcome is the same.

There are those (many, I might add) that hold the belief that Americans have the responsibility to vote. The majority of Americans (I would suspect) hold that view. I, on the other hand, have a contrary view with a twist that I think many can find an appreciation for--not all, but many, if not garboodles. Although I do not have the view that espouses the opinion that we have a responsibility to vote, I do have the view that if we do choose to exercise our right to vote, we should do so responsibly. That view is a twist on the saying, "with rights come responsibility." I don't espouse the view that rights beget responsibility, but responsibly we should vote if we so choose to.

If you believe that the majority of Americans hold the view that you have a responsibility to vote, then doesn't that imply that your failure to do so is a disgraceful and unacceptable attack on democracy? You cannot go against the will of the people!!

 

[Juma]

No. It has nothing to do with wether you have an obligation or not. By not helping you are hurting. Sometimes the hurt is small or there is some other aspects that makes the ok to "deal that hurt". For example it can be important to not help somebody that must learn by doing it herself etc.

If I don't give you the deposit you need to get your lights cut on, are you going to go around claiming that I had your lights cut off?

If I had noone else to turn to, it would have very bad to be without electricity and you could have helped me without a great cost for you then yes.


That is why we in sweden gives from the common to those that cannot pay for the basic needs, as electricity.

 

[skepticalbip]

If I don't give you the deposit you need to get your lights cut on, are you going to go around claiming that I had your lights cut off?

If I had noone else to turn to, it would have very bad to be without electricity and you could have helped me without a great cost for you then yes.


That is why we in sweden gives from the common to those that cannot pay for the basic needs, as electricity.

So if someone really needs to buy a car so they can get to work and I have enough in my savings account (obviously I don't "need" that money since I am not depending on it) then I should use my savings to buy them that car they need?

 

[fast]

If I don't give you the deposit you need to get your lights cut on, are you going to go around claiming that I had your lights cut off?

If I had noone else to turn to, it would have very bad to be without electricity and you could have helped me without a great cost for you then yes.


That is why we in sweden gives from the common to those that cannot pay for the basic needs, as electricity.

What do you mean, "yes?" If your damn lights are not on, then they are off. It's not true that I had them cut off if they're already off.

 

[fast]

If I had noone else to turn to, it would have very bad to be without electricity and you could have helped me without a great cost for you then yes.


That is why we in sweden gives from the common to those that cannot pay for the basic needs, as electricity.

So if someone really needs to buy a car so they can get to work and I have enough in my savings account (obviously I don't "need" that money since I am not depending on it) then I should use my savings to buy them that car they need?

Keep in mind that it's a one way street with the "do for me's" of the world. If someone ever bothers to share with you the last piece of chicken they have (that was going to be thrown out because not even the stray dog would eat it), make sure you run and pretend to not hear it. If you hear it, you will be reminded when you buy steak.

 

[bilby]

Ayn "Fucking stupid" Rand has a lot to answer for.

Simplistic bullshit pseudo-philosophy is NOT a sound basis for decision making.

 

[Deepak]

Ayn "Fucking stupid" Rand has a lot to answer for.

Simplistic bullshit pseudo-philosophy is NOT a sound basis for decision making.

It's not just Rand though, most decision making falls into that bucket. You could interview the average man on the street in nearly any country and find that their day-to-day decision making is based on incoherent pseudo-philosophical beliefs.

 

[abaddon]

It’s interesting that the Ayn Randian-esque crapola (and from a Christian, haha!) morphed from talking about not helping people with a pressing need for it into bitching about the ‘“do for me’s” of the world’.

If a child is drowning in a one foot deep nearby pool and I'm the only one who can immediately help, even without endangering myself, then not only am I not helping when I choose to walk away without lifting a finger, I am also hurting that child, but that is only if I caused the situation.

On the other hand, you might find it hurtful (notice the equivocation) if I don't help when I easily can, but if I done nothing to cause the predicament for the child's situation and choose to walk right on by, then although it's true that I have not helped when I easily could, it is patently false that I have hurt the child.

If you don’t help a drowning child and she dies when she would have lived if you had acted, then isn’t it your inaction that made the difference between the two possible outcomes?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That is as twisted as confusing the act of doing something with the non-act of doing nothing.

If you're driving too fast and rear-end someone and they become injured, and if you do absolutely nothing to mitigate the consequential damages of the aftermath by (for instance) calling 911 to summon help, I will agree that you did absolutely nothing after the accident to help, and I will sympathize with those that argue that you did something and that what you did was allow their injuries to go untreated allowing for greater harm, but I can still keep my eye on the ball and recognize that the wrong that came after the accident is born of inaction, not action.

If you move into a new house and ask your new rich neighbors to furnish your electric deposit so that you can get power and lights, no one (in their tree) is going think it's their responsibility, duty, or obligation to help. This isn't a failure to help. It's an example of not helping, but it's not a failure to help ... because there is no responsibility, duty, or obligation to help as there was in the rear end example. Not helping in that scenario is a failure to help. In that instance, it's reasonable to regard not helping as hurting, but in instances devoid of responsibility, duty, or obligation, not helping doesn't equate to hurting others when help isn't rendered to those that request help.

If you have the means of helping someone, the cost is very small, and there no is reason not to help and you are fully aware of this then you are fully responsible for the damage.

How grave this hurt is of course depending of how bad it becomes if you dont help.

That you dont see this is exactly what is wrong with the USA.

You are confusing should help with not helping causing harm.

The proper compassionate human thing to do is help. However, if you don't help they are no worse off than before they asked, thus you have not harmed them by not helping.

 

[fast]

It’s interesting that the Ayn Randian-esque crapola (and from a Christian, haha!) morphed from talking about not helping people with a pressing need for it into bitching about the ‘“do for me’s” of the world’.

If a child is drowning in a one foot deep nearby pool and I'm the only one who can immediately help, even without endangering myself, then not only am I not helping when I choose to walk away without lifting a finger, I am also hurting that child, but that is only if I caused the situation.

On the other hand, you might find it hurtful (notice the equivocation) if I don't help when I easily can, but if I done nothing to cause the predicament for the child's situation and choose to walk right on by, then although it's true that I have not helped when I easily could, it is patently false that I have hurt the child.

If you don’t help a drowning child and she dies when she would have lived if you had acted, then isn’t it your inaction that made the difference between the two possible outcomes?

And your point is what? I'm not making a moral assessment. You either hurt the child or you didn't hurt the child. I might knock the hell out you either way, whether you a) was a direct cause of the child being hurt or b) done nothing when you could have but chose not to. That the effect is the same is not important. If someone throws a child off a bridge and the child drowns, the person that threw the child off the bridge is the one that hurt the child. That you done nothing when you could have doesn't mean that you hurt the child. You didn't even partly partake in hurting that child just because you could have prevented the outcome.

If you see a known rapist climb in a window where a young 16 year cute white girl resides and say not a word, you are not therefore a rapist just because you could have prevented what happened by either personally intervening or contacting authorites. When you are the cause of someone being hurt, it can rightly be said you hurt someone, but not doing something to prevent someone for being hurt is a cause of a different kind.

When competition is said to have hurt your business, that is a completely different animal.

Anyway, let's just thank our lucky stars that we have Trump as America's next president.

 

[abaddon]

I don’t need your analogies to get your point. And moral assessment isn’t my point, I was after what “hurt” and “harm” really are in that particular analogy because I see that you like to play with words.

You had to introduce the problem of who directly caused what “hurt” or “harm” into it to make your ‘fine distinctions’ about words work. And here too you didn’t really answer but deflected, again, with the needless distinctions regarding words.

The original talk was about Trump’s hypocrisy. He’s had years he could bring some overseas jobs back to America, as credoconsolans pointed out, because one complaint that Trump has promised to solve is that it hurts… HURTS!… Americans that the corporations don’t do that, and Trump’s a part of that problem along with the others. But you wanted to make fine distinctions about whether it’d be wiser for him to do it in the future instead, maybe. Or not at all, maybe. It’s dependent on a little cost-benefit analysis of when it’s best for Trump to do it … and dependent a little on Trump’s own best interest, maybe. The distinction of hurtful and harm-doing became important somehow in the flood of bullshit from you.

You know, sometimes the fine distinctions in word-usage are nothing but a deflection from the matter at hand. So consider that it’d be much better if you learned to just get the gist of what other people are getting at and address it with no word-wrangling.

 

[skepticalbip]

Can someone be called hypocritical who asserts that anyone who chooses not to help when they could has caused harm and yet do not believe they are harming a homeless person they see on the street by not inviting them to come home with them to sleep on the couch?

 

[credoconsolans]

Can someone be called hypocritical who asserts that anyone who chooses not to help when they could has caused harm and yet do not believe they are harming a homeless person they see on the street by not inviting them to come home with them to sleep on the couch?

That's one way to help. Another is to give them money, clothing, job opportunitites, food.

 

[skepticalbip]

Can someone be called hypocritical who asserts that anyone who chooses not to help when they could has caused harm and yet do not believe they are harming a homeless person they see on the street by not inviting them to come home with them to sleep on the couch?

That's one way to help. Another is to give them money, clothing, job opportunitites, food.

And you do this every time you see a homeless person on the street? Maybe not a job if you don't have one to offer but money, clothing, food?

 

[bilby]

Can someone be called hypocritical who asserts that anyone who chooses not to help when they could has caused harm and yet do not believe they are harming a homeless person they see on the street by not inviting them to come home with them to sleep on the couch?

That's one way to help. Another is to give them money, clothing, job opportunitites, food.

Or lobbying for government support.

"We should help as a society" is a valid alternative to "I should help directly as an individual". Unless you are a sociopath.

Indeed, given that there are far more homeless people than one person can help, a collective solution is the only viable alternative. Societies can do more than individuals. Many hands make light work.

 

[credoconsolans]

That's one way to help. Another is to give them money, clothing, job opportunitites, food.

And you do this every time you see a homeless person on the street? Maybe not a job if you don't have one to offer but money, clothing, food?

Yes. Don't you?

 

[skepticalbip]

That's one way to help. Another is to give them money, clothing, job opportunitites, food.

Or lobbying for government support.

"We should help as a society" is a valid alternative to "I should help directly as an individual". Unless you are a sociopath.

Indeed, given that there are far more homeless people than one person can help, a collective solution is the only viable alternative. Societies can do more than individuals. Many hands make light work.

A vote should not assuage one's responsibility for not helping if they hold the beliefs stated here until such programs are actually in place. Why should those asserting this not offer their couch to a homeless person until there is other help. Certainly a person can't help everyone but with the stated mindset they should do whatever they are able to do.

 

[bilby]

Or lobbying for government support.

"We should help as a society" is a valid alternative to "I should help directly as an individual". Unless you are a sociopath.

Indeed, given that there are far more homeless people than one person can help, a collective solution is the only viable alternative. Societies can do more than individuals. Many hands make light work.

A vote should not assuage one's responsibility for not helping if they hold the beliefs stated here until such programs are actually in place. Why should those asserting this not offer their couch to a homeless person until there is other help. Certainly a person can't help everyone but with the stated mindset they should do whatever they are able to do.

Because it is an excessive impost on a single person. Homeless people massively outnumber any one individual. Taxpayers massively outnumber homeless people. The marginal cost to taxpayers in helping is small, for a large benefit. The marginal cost to a single individual is large, for the same benefit.

You already know this; But for some reason you persist in the bizarre libertarian sociopathic idea (apologies for the tautology) that any impost on the individual is equal.

You might as well say that it is hypocritical to drop a dime into a charity collection for the homeless, instead of building a small city to house them all. It's only hypocrisy if you make a crazy false equivalence fallacy the centrepiece of your philosophy.