The good news is Secretary Rubio appears to be listening to PEPFAR advocates rather than this major right-wing Twitter user.[1]
Of course, it would be better if there was no PEPFAR disruption to begin with, but the second best thing is to praise people fixing the problem and sideline the users saying it's good to end PEPFAR without sufficient reason beyond "I don't like the people getting it."
Liberals have virtue signaling, conservatives have cruelty signaling. The status hierarchy is ordered by who directly inflicts more harm or who supports more harm being inflicted.
Al Capone was a gangster who ran soup kitchens. As part of his gangster life, Al Capone would go around 'asking' various shops and firms in town for money. Those who refused to give him money were violently punished.
Some of the money given to Capone, he used to open soup kitchens. These soup kitchens did indeed feed poor people soup. Without knowing the interior of Capone's mind, one can not say if he ran soup kitchens entirely for the positive press or because he genuinely wanted to help the poor. But one can observe that the feelings of gratitude given towards Capone for feeding the poor helped draw attention away from his practice of soliciting donations.
One day, Al Capone was arrested. Never again would he be able to hustle the town for money. Some people were outraged. "Think of all those poor people being fed by the soup kitchen! Poor people are DYING! This is an outrage!" They protested, demanding that someone continue to run Al Capone's soup kitchen and that people be forced to donate money to it.
Do you really think those people who were forced to give money to Al Capone were monsters at rejoicing at any opportunity they had to cease giving him money? Even if some of it went to soup kitchens?
so Alphonse is the government collecting taxes, but now that's Donald, so he arrested himself so he can stop running the food kitchens, but the IRS is still working. oh noes!
Here's your avg based post Christian vitalist on the crating of pigs and trump's recent appointee.
"Oddly enough, I support life in prison for anyone who feels this is ok. No exaggeration." - 9mmSMG
Here's Scott A. on something he says we all care about, so it isn't really a big deal:
"The same way Rotherham obviously supports the Red Tribe’s narrative, Ferguson obviously supports the Blue Tribe’s narrative. A white person, in the police force, shooting an innocent (ish) black person, and then a racist system refusing to listen to righteous protests by brave activists."
---
See the difference? One ignores tribalism sometimes (not always) and seeks the eventual elimination of all that he despises. There is no doubt in his mind about what the monsters deserve. The other uses the existence of tribes, as an excuse, so that he can always functionally side with the preservation of evil. He's worse than tribal. He's an evil maximizer. He minimizes tribal hate, so that he can maximize every form of evil even ones that are technically opposed to each-other. Except of course even the DOJ admits on the basis of the same evidence Scott had available then that the shooting was justified. And their IQ is far lower than his.
So he's just evil.
---
Let's get to Africans.
Was the behaviour of European colonialists better or worse than that of African tribes towards eachother? Is it better or worse than how Africans would have treated Europeans had the roles been reversed?
The racist genuinely believes that external humanitarian tendencies basically do not exist among the African population. That even if they did, they would not be expressed in a world without European colonialism; and of what value are abstract tendencies that are never expressed. He won't wipe them out --- because he intends to be slightly better than they are. When he colonizes them, their populations dramatically increase!
But he owes them nothing else.
You are right.
The based post christian vitalist doesn't value life for it's own sake. He values it because of it's character. He's a hypocrite, sometimes, towards a small ingroup. You say you hate the hypocrisy more than the raping. So you think he should extend the same exception towards all mankind.
-And maximize evil! Everywhere.-
Drop the tribalism; and the based-post-Christian-vitalist conclusion will merely be... "you know maybe libs shouldn't get any favours just because they are white" - aren't they technically worse than Bin Laden. And then... "maybe the normie-con animal torture" lovers in the heartland should be wiped out afterwards if they don't submit. The behavior of Africans is tolerated --- precisely because they are an outgroup. Drop tribalism; and they get wiped out too. Don't even get me started on China, and it's total absence of animal cruelty laws ---
We can use baby pods to breed a few billion people anyway in this century. Total happiness will increase!
---
Is this really the direction in which you want to go?
To attempt to model what sort of moral instincts he might have (always a shaky proposition):
I think he might view the British grooming gangs as something that victimizes, and that is by the lawless against an ordered society.
Whereas, he might view the HIV things as something upon their own heads (due to promiscuity) by agents of disorder, and so in some way earned and warranted—they're not victims, but reaping their just desserts—or something like that.
At least, that's my guess as to what's driving that. It's clearly not a simple maximize-pleasure framework, and his assumptions (assuming I present them rightly) are of course questionable. There is of course also a decent portion of "own the libs" going on.
I'm saying this as someone with moral instincts that are probably somewhat closer to the online right than most of the people here, but also as someone who would agree here with Matthew that people are often pretty willing to be cruel, which is bad.
When you see yourself as fighting on the good side of a manichean struggle, it's easy to feel justified in cruelty towards the enemy, which is basically anything and anyone affiliated with the outgroup in your struggle. Politics-obsessed people on both wings do this a lot.
Usually the Manichean struggle is an illusion created by filter bubbles and confirmation bias, and both sides have some good points. But even in a real real Manichean struggle, you should be civil. A capacity to feel schadenfreude is a vice.
The title of this post is a very tempting conclusion to draw when looking at the world, but I think it’s false. I think Haidt had it right in The Coddling of the American Mind when he insisted that “the world is a battle between good and and evil people” is a dangerous mistruth, and that the reality is “the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man”
The connecting tissue between wanting people is Africa to die and wanting raping Pakistanis to die is that dysgenic third world trash should die.
This is really the only correct “effective altruist/utilitarian” response. If your philosophy is “turn the entire world into a low iq third world shithole” then you’re doing utilitarianism wrong!
“But I’m a RULES based utilitarian!”
Ok, what are your rules?
The closest I might sign onto is “don’t actively kill people to bring about eugenics.”
Not that the above isn’t even something most of the left will sign on to, they are all pro-choice so the no killing thing is pretty subjective to them.
But I’m certainly not signing on to:
1) you must provide foreign aid to countries whose populations would collapse without it because they are incapable of building self sustaining societies
2) you are obligated to allow dysgenic violent foreigners into your countries no matter how terrible an effect they have
Thanks to the ban on the slave trade, not much. American slaves ate 150 pounds of meat a yr; compared to Nigeria's 16 - So you can imagine how horrible it would've been had it continued.
It's tribalism, not evil. If Trump came out in favor of PEPFAR, they would probably change stance. It's not a real commitment towards hurting others, such as the Nazis exhibited. It's not so surprising that group think correlates to violence (towards outsiders to the tribe), that's probably the context we evolved in, isolated tribes of 150 - 300, occasionally coming across other tribes and sometimes waging wars of extermination on them or having to defend themselves from them.
The good news is Secretary Rubio appears to be listening to PEPFAR advocates rather than this major right-wing Twitter user.[1]
Of course, it would be better if there was no PEPFAR disruption to begin with, but the second best thing is to praise people fixing the problem and sideline the users saying it's good to end PEPFAR without sufficient reason beyond "I don't like the people getting it."
[1] https://www.bushcenter.org/publications/rubios-emergency-humanitarian-waiver-was-the-right-thing-to-do
Liberals have virtue signaling, conservatives have cruelty signaling. The status hierarchy is ordered by who directly inflicts more harm or who supports more harm being inflicted.
After watching the Marco Rubio confirmation hearing today's Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr Day 2 hearings are going to make me kill myself.
This is morally desirable, as it means that you won’t be killing any animals.
Al Capone was a gangster who ran soup kitchens. As part of his gangster life, Al Capone would go around 'asking' various shops and firms in town for money. Those who refused to give him money were violently punished.
Some of the money given to Capone, he used to open soup kitchens. These soup kitchens did indeed feed poor people soup. Without knowing the interior of Capone's mind, one can not say if he ran soup kitchens entirely for the positive press or because he genuinely wanted to help the poor. But one can observe that the feelings of gratitude given towards Capone for feeding the poor helped draw attention away from his practice of soliciting donations.
One day, Al Capone was arrested. Never again would he be able to hustle the town for money. Some people were outraged. "Think of all those poor people being fed by the soup kitchen! Poor people are DYING! This is an outrage!" They protested, demanding that someone continue to run Al Capone's soup kitchen and that people be forced to donate money to it.
Do you really think those people who were forced to give money to Al Capone were monsters at rejoicing at any opportunity they had to cease giving him money? Even if some of it went to soup kitchens?
I think the people specifically agitating to stop helping the kids with AIDS are hellbound, yes.
I can't think of a major religion where one would potentially be placed in hell for that.
Matthew 25:41-46. Specifically mentions not caring for the ill as being worthy of eternal punishment.
so Alphonse is the government collecting taxes, but now that's Donald, so he arrested himself so he can stop running the food kitchens, but the IRS is still working. oh noes!
Maximally offensive "based-post-Christian-vitalism":
Here's your avg based post Christian vitalist on the crating of pigs and trump's recent appointee.
"Oddly enough, I support life in prison for anyone who feels this is ok. No exaggeration." - 9mmSMG
Here's Scott A. on something he says we all care about, so it isn't really a big deal:
"The same way Rotherham obviously supports the Red Tribe’s narrative, Ferguson obviously supports the Blue Tribe’s narrative. A white person, in the police force, shooting an innocent (ish) black person, and then a racist system refusing to listen to righteous protests by brave activists."
---
See the difference? One ignores tribalism sometimes (not always) and seeks the eventual elimination of all that he despises. There is no doubt in his mind about what the monsters deserve. The other uses the existence of tribes, as an excuse, so that he can always functionally side with the preservation of evil. He's worse than tribal. He's an evil maximizer. He minimizes tribal hate, so that he can maximize every form of evil even ones that are technically opposed to each-other. Except of course even the DOJ admits on the basis of the same evidence Scott had available then that the shooting was justified. And their IQ is far lower than his.
So he's just evil.
---
Let's get to Africans.
Was the behaviour of European colonialists better or worse than that of African tribes towards eachother? Is it better or worse than how Africans would have treated Europeans had the roles been reversed?
The racist genuinely believes that external humanitarian tendencies basically do not exist among the African population. That even if they did, they would not be expressed in a world without European colonialism; and of what value are abstract tendencies that are never expressed. He won't wipe them out --- because he intends to be slightly better than they are. When he colonizes them, their populations dramatically increase!
But he owes them nothing else.
You are right.
The based post christian vitalist doesn't value life for it's own sake. He values it because of it's character. He's a hypocrite, sometimes, towards a small ingroup. You say you hate the hypocrisy more than the raping. So you think he should extend the same exception towards all mankind.
-And maximize evil! Everywhere.-
Drop the tribalism; and the based-post-Christian-vitalist conclusion will merely be... "you know maybe libs shouldn't get any favours just because they are white" - aren't they technically worse than Bin Laden. And then... "maybe the normie-con animal torture" lovers in the heartland should be wiped out afterwards if they don't submit. The behavior of Africans is tolerated --- precisely because they are an outgroup. Drop tribalism; and they get wiped out too. Don't even get me started on China, and it's total absence of animal cruelty laws ---
We can use baby pods to breed a few billion people anyway in this century. Total happiness will increase!
---
Is this really the direction in which you want to go?
To attempt to model what sort of moral instincts he might have (always a shaky proposition):
I think he might view the British grooming gangs as something that victimizes, and that is by the lawless against an ordered society.
Whereas, he might view the HIV things as something upon their own heads (due to promiscuity) by agents of disorder, and so in some way earned and warranted—they're not victims, but reaping their just desserts—or something like that.
At least, that's my guess as to what's driving that. It's clearly not a simple maximize-pleasure framework, and his assumptions (assuming I present them rightly) are of course questionable. There is of course also a decent portion of "own the libs" going on.
I'm saying this as someone with moral instincts that are probably somewhat closer to the online right than most of the people here, but also as someone who would agree here with Matthew that people are often pretty willing to be cruel, which is bad.
I watched this interaction unfold in real time, and think there’s more to his position: there’s something to be said of whether you’re enabling countries to be dependent on your aid and what not, and facilitating harmful practices (such as dry sex https://scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0038-23532009000100024#:~:text=In%20South%20Africa%2C%20where%20the,practice%20of%20'dry%20sex'.&text=It%20has%20been%20reported%20that,dry%20sex%20over%20lubricated%20sex. ) It’s good to be prudent with how were doing foreign aid and whether it’s facilitating dependent or harmful behavior, and whether our believed responsibility to these people is harmful
When you see yourself as fighting on the good side of a manichean struggle, it's easy to feel justified in cruelty towards the enemy, which is basically anything and anyone affiliated with the outgroup in your struggle. Politics-obsessed people on both wings do this a lot.
Usually the Manichean struggle is an illusion created by filter bubbles and confirmation bias, and both sides have some good points. But even in a real real Manichean struggle, you should be civil. A capacity to feel schadenfreude is a vice.
The title of this post is a very tempting conclusion to draw when looking at the world, but I think it’s false. I think Haidt had it right in The Coddling of the American Mind when he insisted that “the world is a battle between good and and evil people” is a dangerous mistruth, and that the reality is “the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every man”
The connecting tissue between wanting people is Africa to die and wanting raping Pakistanis to die is that dysgenic third world trash should die.
This is really the only correct “effective altruist/utilitarian” response. If your philosophy is “turn the entire world into a low iq third world shithole” then you’re doing utilitarianism wrong!
“But I’m a RULES based utilitarian!”
Ok, what are your rules?
The closest I might sign onto is “don’t actively kill people to bring about eugenics.”
Not that the above isn’t even something most of the left will sign on to, they are all pro-choice so the no killing thing is pretty subjective to them.
But I’m certainly not signing on to:
1) you must provide foreign aid to countries whose populations would collapse without it because they are incapable of building self sustaining societies
2) you are obligated to allow dysgenic violent foreigners into your countries no matter how terrible an effect they have
Do these African children grow up to eat meat?
Thanks to the ban on the slave trade, not much. American slaves ate 150 pounds of meat a yr; compared to Nigeria's 16 - So you can imagine how horrible it would've been had it continued.
Evil Rightoids!
It's tribalism, not evil. If Trump came out in favor of PEPFAR, they would probably change stance. It's not a real commitment towards hurting others, such as the Nazis exhibited. It's not so surprising that group think correlates to violence (towards outsiders to the tribe), that's probably the context we evolved in, isolated tribes of 150 - 300, occasionally coming across other tribes and sometimes waging wars of extermination on them or having to defend themselves from them.
Yes, but they don't think they're villains.
(You can justify anything with a bit of "othering" and reducing your opponents to subhuman.)
In the same way that the maxim gun rendered human strength an afterthought, so to has Twitter overwhelmed morality…
Also wouldn’t you shut off PEPFAR if it reduced global animal suffering by 0.001%?