|
It's worth drawing a strong line between individual behavior that secures optimal outcome against a power relationship and an entire state being cruel to its own detriment too.Niric posted:He isn't, but now you've said it I'm pretty sure he's surrounded by 4 short people who are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCCu7yHZhV4&t=380s Is it sex dwarfs or sex dwarves? e: In 1986 the Franco-British Channel Fixed Link Treaty and European Act are signed, cementing closer operation forever. The Salafi jihadist group al-Muhajiroun, hosted by Roy Walker along with the computer generated character Mr. Chips, begins selling the Peugeot 309. Guavanaut fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jan 13, 2021 |
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 18:56 |
|
|
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:17
|
|
|
Niric posted:The government is full of people who think the Sun photo stories are accurate depictions of how most people live and therefore include the beans as a treat for the parent(s) 
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:21
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:It's worth drawing a strong line between individual behavior that secures optimal outcome against a power relationship and an entire state being cruel to its own detriment too. Spite against greed, yes. Of course, that asks complex questions about a group trying to determine its own good.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:25
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:Is it sex dwarfs or sex dwarves? The former if you're playing warhammer, the latter if it's tolkein.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:26
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I didn't say it wasn't necessary, I'm writing all this as someone who is very aware of their own predisposition towards cruelty and even with that in mind I agree that it is hard to imagine any sucessful effort to change things for the better from our current society that does not find a way to channel performance of anger and desire for reprisal into useful action. Again I stress that enjoying effective corrective action that is also punitive is not wrong. Either morally or practically, I think. But that can be true at the same time as saying that the same enjoyment can and does lead to some very unpleasant behaviours. Humans are not perfect creatures, it is possible for things we do to be both good and dangerous. no, i'm sorry i think i disagree. i think again - let me give a different example. there is an old codger at my union who i think i learned a lot from. he was in interactions with you one of the sweetest person you could meet - absolute charmer. had stories out the wazoo, kind of person would offer to make you tea, then interrogate you at length regarding the status of the biscuits. remembered stuff about people. just, a genuinely really cool person, technically retired but the kind of person who is never really retired. i only saw him at work a few times, and it only took a few until i started noticing that in a professional setting that kindly old geezer didn't change at all - still sweetness and light - but one of the most viciously cruel and biting wits i've ever enjoyed encountering. he reminded me most of a prachett bit, where he wasn't blunt like a sword but instead sharp like a scalpel, careful and prodding in sensitive places. smile, glad hand, vicious, glad hand smile. saying things accidentally or wrong very deliberately but with enough subtlety that it comes across as rascally. kind of the ideal in a trade unionist at the time really - capable of applying this selectively and towards improving the outcomes for our members. i would have wanted him as my rep, for sure. and i don't think these behaviours uh, at least observably harmed his nature? like, he seemed like an extremely happy and well adjusted person, despite being capable of extremely righteous unkindness? being a trade unionist sometimes means that you gotta be a dick about it. i dunno, i think that these things are part of our natures, and they are expressed in healthy or unhealthy ways. i don't know if i agree with the conclusion that humans are imperfect but we must strive for perfection, that seems self defeating. perhaps it is more productive to build an intellectual framework that allows if doesn't encourage these behaviours, or views them in context - that they can be good or not good, depending on how they are applied. like anything, really.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:33
|
|
|
I... again did not say that humans must strive for perfection, I said that humans are not perfect and that our behaviours can lead to unhelpful habits even if they are situationally useful. Are you just arguing against someone in your head?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:38
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I... again did not say that humans must strive for perfection, I said that humans are not perfect and that our behaviours can lead to unhelpful habits even if they are situationally useful. did i misunderstand you? i was inferring from "Humans are not perfect creatures, it is possible for things we do to be both good and dangerous.", sorry e: like, "this kind of cruelty is bad" - here are some examples of why it's not "well, this kind of cruelty leads to negative behaviours" here's an example of someone who doesn't seem to have been impacted by that. i unno man
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:40
|
|
|
endlessmonotony posted:Spite against greed, yes. Greed in that case would be pursuing the economically beneficial thing even when its harmful, provided that the people at the top could siphon off enough. This is more a self-starving avarice, harming when it harms them too in the long run, perhaps in part because the long run no longer matters, perhaps in other part because the negative effects reward them in the polls, which loops back to (performative) cruelty being the point.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:46
|
|
|
I again explicitly did not say "this kind of cruelty is bad" I said that it is habit forming, I clarified that in my previous post, I agree entirely that you can enjoy striking down genuine assholes and that isn't a bad thing, what I said is that the establishment of societal paradigms in which the performance of cruelty is acceptable allows people to perform it against anybody they can fit into that paradigm, accurately or not. And that some acceptable forms of performance are, in fact, bad, but nontheless they are perpetuated by that same societal acceptability. Thus the establishment of societally acceptable forms of cruelty is something that is not inherently good or bad but is at the moment a significant problem for would be reformers to contend with. None of that has anything to do with the fact that it is possible for a person to go their entire lives without you observing them behaving in an objectionable way and nor is it a blanket condemnation of being angry about things. I explcitly went to the effort to point out that being angry about things has situational utility. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jan 13, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:48
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:Is it greed when the outcomes are detrimental for the state that emboldens those instincts? It's called greed when you benefit from harming someone else, and spite when you harm others even when it harms you too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:56
|
|
|
endlessmonotony posted:And now you need to realize those leading the culture are subject to all the same cultural pressures, and you've got a pretty good idea where this thinking went wrong. No, the people at the top of society are absolutely not subject to the same cultural pressures as those at the bottom lol. And now who’s being... well, maybe not verbose, but worse, cryptic and patronising.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:58
|
|
|
endlessmonotony posted:It's called greed when you benefit from harming someone else, and spite when you harm others even when it harms you too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 00:59
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:And the state doesn't benefit from starving kids, and those individuals only benefit in the shortest of terms, so greed doesn't fit, so either it's avarice, greed so short termist and extreme that they're willing for long term social harm for immediate personal gain, or spite deflected, where they're hoping for public approval of the harm. The people voted for pain.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 01:06
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:I again explicitly did not say "this kind of cruelty is bad" I said that it is habit forming, I clarified that in my previous post, I agree entirely that you can enjoy striking down genuine assholes and that isn't a bad thing, what I said is that the establishment of societal paradigms in which the performance of cruelty is acceptable allows people to perform it against anybody they can fit into that paradigm, accurately or not. And that some acceptable forms of performance are, in fact, bad, but nontheless they are perpetuated by that same societal acceptability. Thus the establishment of societally acceptable forms of cruelty is something that is not inherently good or bad but is at the moment a significant problem for would be reformers to contend with. well, again my critique there would be, first, habit forming isn't necessarily bad - you know what's really habit forming, oxygen, you get a whiff of that stuff and you're hooked for life. and second, "habit" and "practice" are opposite sides of the same coin. the examples i tried to apply here are people, myself included, who are selective about these behaviours but when applied, extremely adapt at them. and yes, that describes many people with differing ideologies about how to be selective, including many lovely people from my perspective. and the inverse, there are many people who find using them as a trade unionist inappropriate, or gauche. i have encountered that many times. i guess the long and short of this is - i will always be uncomfortable with any kind of ideological or intellectual approach or framework that limits how angry i or anyone else can be, which tries to imply that these kinds of angers are innately harmful, and the more you express them the more you wither away psychologically somehow, like a victorian anti masturbation pamphlet. it is in my observation the opposite - when people are excessively conflict adverse and afraid of expressing their entirely righteous frustration there are more negative impacts then the inverse. it is in these environments that things can really start to fester. i don't think this is a reform issue, i kind of think this is how our species or i guess, global culture, oft expresses their adversarial relationships and resolves conflict, i guess? the world is an unpleasant place at times, and sometimes people get frustrated with it, with entire and absolute justification. i'm not even entirely sure if i agree it is a problem - i would be happier in a world where people are pissed off and say so and are willing to be cruel to the people who are pissing them off than hanging on in quiet desperation, as we find ourselves in now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 01:06
|
|
|
Jakabite posted:No, the people at the top of society are absolutely not subject to the same cultural pressures as those at the bottom lol. And now who’s being... well, maybe not verbose, but worse, cryptic and patronising. Not all of the exact same pressures, no, but they are subject to some of them, and they also have some of their own that the rest of us don't. For example I think that a lot of the tories do actually just have a quite commonplace view of social stratification that is shared by a large section of the country, like the idea that people at the bottom deserve to be there, and they think that because they grew up in a society with a bunch of other tory pricks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 01:08
|
|
|
"The cruelty is the point" obviously sounds wierd to normies but it does communicate a really fierce truth that capital has already won and its goal now is just running up the score/actively grinding the poor into depression/systemically crushing any potential whiff of dissent.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 01:10
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:And the state doesn't benefit from starving kids, and those individuals only benefit in the shortest of terms, so greed doesn't fit, so either it's avarice, greed so short termist and extreme that they're willing for long term social harm for immediate personal gain, or spite deflected, where they're hoping for public approval of the harm. "What if we built a society with neither bread nor circuses?"
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 01:18
|
|
|
Sheldon Adelson and one of the Barclay brothers dead on the same day. Maybe they’ll be stuck in purgatory as the demons can’t handle such a bounty at once.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 03:18
|
|
|
“The cruelty is the point” has a specific use that I think is diluted by applying it to indifferent cruelty. Specifically, the phrase refers to deliberately breaking norms of kindness and social behaviour to emphasise a power relationship. It’s when you treat someone like poo poo to make it clear that you have power over them and that you’re not in a relationship of equals. It’s abusive behaviour in the purest sense and also is something probably everyone has done at least once, even if only as a kid. It can only be countered by changing the underlying power dynamic, because the person knows full well what they’re doing to the victim, and thinks it’s appropriate. Treating someone like poo poo because you’re lazy, ignorant or careless is still bad but it’s not “the cruelty is the point”; it’s a different kind of bad that needs to be countered with a different response (provoking empathy and a sense of responsibility for other people).
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 03:30
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:“The cruelty is the point” has a specific use that I think is diluted by applying it to indifferent cruelty. You said it better than I could
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 03:56
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:“The cruelty is the point” has a specific use that I think is diluted by applying it to indifferent cruelty. Making your underpaid workers halve bell peppers and portion out pasta so you don't incidentally give the children too much food is absolutely about a power relationship. No ifs, no buts.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:35
|
|
|
endlessmonotony posted:Not in the UK, no.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 05:28
|
|
|
paying someone to cut a tomato in half and wrap in plastic instead of taking the cheaper option of just giving someone a whole tomato is sending a message. can anyone figure out what that message is????
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 06:09
|
|
|
Bobby Deluxe posted:Few pages ago but we totally still have smarties, they come in hexagonal tubes now. You can get them from co-op. More of a joke about the supply issues than anything. They're fairly widely available.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 06:17
|
|
|
It's increasingly looking like only a matter of time before my team stops being 'asked' to volunteer for redeployment, and starts being told about all the ways we're going to be helping [not the vulnerable children and young people we usually help] when we are redeployed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 07:41
|
|
|
I think the 'cruelty is the point' is a phrase which works when preaching to the converted, but when discussing issues with liberals, I think it's more productive to hone in on the issues of what those in power actually care about, what they prioritise. It's fairly a fairly easy journey to rule out 'the wellbeing and happiness of the British people or 'protecting the weakest' as options, which means you can then begin to highlight the avarice, malice and corruption which are the driving force of the British Establishment.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 08:37
|
|
|
It's a useful semantic shortcut sometimes. Like how else do you explain that our brainwrong upper class hunts foxes with a mass of dogs from horseback with a brass section in accompaniment, rather than with a gun like any of the civilized world? And is only hunting said foxes because they built a bunch of artificial earths to increase the fox population? Or that we have a state religion that's somehow both Episcopalian and opposed to same sex marriage? Or that we're one of the largest medicinal cannabis exporters but forced sick kids to get prescriptions from the Netherlands, and are not offering any assistance now that these will not be honored? You could launch into a long socio-cultural history, or you could shortcut a chunk of it by saying 'the cruelty is the point', which is often a decent enough summary.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 09:22
|
|
|
Guavanaut posted:And is only hunting said foxes because they built a bunch of artificial earths to increase the fox population? Didn't realise the aristocracy had harnessed the Sliders technology, presumably to nonce the whole multiverse
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 09:41
|
|
|
imo it's a snappy Whether that's applicable here though: well yeah imo it is, people don't want to seem soft on starving children in case the Daily Mail brigade call them leftie do-gooders, so they deliberately bake cruelty into the design in much the same way as the welfare system. I don't think it's right to attribute it to laziness, or carelessness or w/e, because somebody has obviously put careful thought into what they think the minimum they can get away with supplying is, they've done that for a reason, and the reason isn't to save money because it almost certainly costs more, even in the short term. But, whether or not the cruelty is "the point" in this situation is arguable enough that a snappy simplistic buzz-phrase is less useful, because then you end up in a twelve hour argument about semantics, rather than making your real point, that the State is needlessly cruel for ideological reasons. Jakabite's core thesis about intellectual laziness is right, basically, but that doesn't mean it isn't a useful phrase in situations like this, even if this particular case is borderline enough that "snappiness" has much less rhetorical value. In general, a snappy phrase that isn't actually what you really mean invariably only appeals to people who already agree with you, confuses anyone on the fence, and causes pedantic arguments with your opponents wherein you just get talked down to for not knowing the meaning of words (  ). "When we say defund the police, what we really mean is..." just makes you look disingenuous and confused.Basically, when you say ACAB, you had better mean literally every individual copper & be prepared to double down on that, because they all are, they are bastards Topical: police murdered a guy in Cardiff this weekend, he was arrested for a public order offence at his home & released without charge covered in cuts & bruises, and then died. "Arrested for a public order offence at his home and released without charge" is my least favourite euphemism, why can't they just say "he didn't like us harassing him at his home for no reason so we abducted him and beat him to death", everyone knows that they'd have got him for something else and/or charged him if there was actually a reason for any of it
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:07
|
|
|
I had a housemate who has recently moved out and isn't responding to my messages to pay his half of the bills. His name was on the bills. Can I do anything except ask him again and maybe do a small claims court thing?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:11
|
|
|
This sequence of posts really threw me for a loop
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:16
|
|
|
justcola posted:I had a housemate who has recently moved out and isn't responding to my messages to pay his half of the bills. His name was on the bills. Can I do anything except ask him again and maybe do a small claims court thing? Contact CAB before talking to any utilities but if it's only his name on the bills and not yours then it might be a case of declaring yourself the new tenant and the utilities would then chase him for the cash- you can then contact the absconder and let them know they can pay their fair share or pay all of it to give them a chance before going to the utility firms But I am not a law person so go to CAB
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:35
|
|
|
justcola posted:I had a housemate who has recently moved out and isn't responding to my messages to pay his half of the bills. His name was on the bills. Can I do anything except ask him again and maybe do a small claims court thing? gently caress housesharing, I've swallowed enough costs on people thinking it's fine to do that & disappear. I'd imagine small claims is more cost to you/hassle than it's worth to get the money back. Do the bills not direct debit out of their account? Otherwise don't pay, inform the utility companies 'person no longer lives here' and set up with someone else, they'll eventually chase them themselves for the money. Example: I had it a few years back where I moved out & bills were in my name, informed the gas/electric I'd moved & bills should move to 'arsehole_housemate@yahoo.co.uk', we settled the money a few weeks later on that quarters bills. Cut to 5 years later where I get a collection company letter demanding £170 in overdue bills to that previous address. Phoned them up & said 'if you can track me through 3 housemoves since I lived there, it's pretty obvious this isn't my bill, contact landlady at this address for who lives there, nowt to do with me'.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:39
|
|
|
justcola posted:I had a housemate who has recently moved out and isn't responding to my messages to pay his half of the bills. His name was on the bills. Can I do anything except ask him again and maybe do a small claims court thing? Is your name on any of the bills?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:44
|
|
|
I pretty much agree with "the cruelty is the point" in that I see it as largely about reinforcing power relationships. Imagine some 18th century nobleman riding out from his grand house in his luxury carriage in the morning. Clustered around his gate are a bunch of destitute people who cringeingly scuttle after him with their hands out, begging for alms. The nobleman condescendingly tosses them a few coins, then indicates to his coachman to drive on. Now, if he's giving them money at all, why not just quietly send a servant around to hand it out? Why oblige them to chase after him, begging? Because it reinforces the power relationship: he has the money and security and if they want anything at all, they'd better prostrate themselves for it. These meticulously penny-pinching food packs operate in the same way. As people have pointed out, simply giving people the £30 would be a far better way of getting food to people, if that was actually the primary purpose. Contemptuously tossing the poor these food scraps sends a crystal clear message: "You're trash, this is all you deserve and you're lucky to be getting anything at all." Like a lot of stuff that goes on, at bottom, it's about reinforcing the social hierarchy.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:46
|
|
|
JeremoudCorbynejad posted:This sequence of posts really threw me for a loop
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:50
|
|
|
justcola posted:I had a housemate who has recently moved out and isn't responding to my messages to pay his half of the bills. His name was on the bills. Can I do anything except ask him again and maybe do a small claims court thing? (Source: Do work at a CAB and just checked our stuff on liability for energy bills) Just checked our own info on this, for energy bills at least there is a chance you are gonna end up liable for the whole lot for now. You can talk to the supplier to explain the situation as mentioned above and they might be amenable towards going after your former housemate for what they owe instead of you. If not it is possible to pursue them through small claims for the half they owe.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:53
|
|
|
Pistol_Pete posted:I pretty much agree with "the cruelty is the point" in that I see it as largely about reinforcing power relationships. I sincerely believe the primary purpose is giving a cushy contract to an old school chum. The cruelty is obviously a great bonus but it really is about enriching your buddies. Anyway, I posted this in CSPAM but looking at one of the less depressing packages, for 2 kids https://twitter.com/Chrisbaddeley12/status/1348764993051906048?s=20 I went on the Tesco website & I'll just repost what I came up with in about 5-10 minutes. "Going by Tescos website they average out an individual carrot to 4p. So that depressing half carrot is worth 2p. Single bell pepper would be 45p. Cucumber is 43p. Brown onion is 10p. Don't sell single clementines but a bag of 6 is £1.35. 35p per apple. Baking potato is 25p. Tin of beans is 30p for one Tesco brand tin, but you can get 4 for £1. 32p for the box of tomato passata. Pack of 6 large free range eggs is £1.10. An entire loaf of the blandest looking white pre-sliced bread is 59p. Block of cheddar, 400g for £2 & it'll do you for ages.. That's £7.28 for more than they are giving these kids & claiming it costs £30 & it took me 5 minutes on the Tesco website, I'm sure you could do cheaper if you looked in Aldi/Lidl." (And obviously if you're buying poo poo in bulk from catering specialists I bet you could knock that down even more) So say for a school with 200 kids getting free school meals (I have no idea if that's a realistic number but it's nice & round & we like that), 39 weeks in a school year, that's £177,216 that isn't actually going to the kids out of a £30/head budget of £234,000. Obviously the catering company would have staffing costs & such so it's not pure profit but it is a pretty penny. forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Jan 13, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 18:56 |
|
|
Literal bronze age societies with a grain dole managed to do better. I'm sure that I could enrich my mates, improve the economy by not starving kids, and not starve kids all at the same time and come up with something better than that. As someone said earlier, a Huel dole would be less insulting.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 11:03
|
|