As in, the black gay female needs uplifting while the white straight male needs shaming and segregating? Is that right?

Genocide starts in the waters of hate and psychopathy. Do you really think that posting on the internet fuels some sort of intense madness? I presume most people have their big boy pants on and won't jump off a cliff based on criticism from invisible internet strangers.

Criticizing identity politics tout court, as Peterson often does, is crap, and done from a privileged vantage point of being a white male. — Maw

You taking the piss here, bro?

what's the lure of mind altering drugs to a person? — Posty McPostface

I'm a bit late here, but I thought I'd chime in anyway.

Recently, I've been listening through quite a lot of stoner doom metal and on pretty much every album that's on YouTube I find loads of comments about how great the music is when you're blasted, high, whatever. The irony is that most of these albums are hopelessly ponderous and drab, making me wonder if the music somehow becomes great just because you're on drugs. Except, I don't think they do. The music is bad whether you're high whilst listening to it or not. The listener changes, in other words, not the music. If the music is good, it's good, and if it's bad, no degree of drug taking will make it good. I mean, I love Dopesmoker, it's a great album. But I don't do drugs or drink or whatever else. Am I missing out? Are the punishingly heavy riffs any less emotive because I listen cleanly? Not to me. If you need weed or meth to enjoy music, then you're a loser. The same goes for someone who can't get through the day without shooting heroin.

I guess the crux of what I'm trying to say is that when somebody does drugs, they do so in order to feel a certain way. And for the people who think that the world begins and ends with how they feel, reality for them becomes a shifting sands. This is one reason why drug rehab is so painfully difficult, because addicts can't see a world outside of the needles, joints, and highs. I guess I'm a prude, but in the end I'd rather enjoy a glass of sweet tea than shoot myself up with some drugs if we're talking simple pleasures.

Trump is literally this, literally that. And don't you forget, he's literally Hitler, too.

What's Trump ever done to you personally?

Thanks for sharing, Q.

No one asked for a shitty metaphor, but to me suicide is like scoring an own goal in sports. You're definitely scoring, but you're also punishing yourself, your teammates, and the game as a whole. I think a lot of suicidal people just want to score, no matter how they do it, and don't want to think about a draw, or the possibility of winning the game. And although I don't think that life's just a game, if someone's able to idealize and romanticize suicide and death, then they have it in them to channel those same ideals and romances into living a life worth living.

Actually, I always saw someone more thoughtful and somber. — Vinson

Yes, he was so thoughtful that he decided to kill himself along with all of his thoughts, :chin:

Do you think anyone who is fed up with life, or maybe just bored by it, has to sit in a corner, crying? — Vinson

So bored he left his daughter now crying in a corner. What a guy.

Another reaction that pisses me off is the jump to a “mental health issue”, often insinuating that he should have sought “help” and if he had done so, he would still be alive. — Vinson

I think it's very likely that anyone who kills themselves in spite of their family and friends is indeed ill. Furthermore, the crux of self deception is not being able to understand that you're deceiving yourself with untruths. Helping someone break free from self deception is noble, not a vice.

It’s nobody’s bloody business if someone else wants to be alive or not. — Vinson

I can tell you've never loved anyone in your entire life.

It’s their decision and their decision alone. — Vinson

If my estimation is right, then your linking of Benatar in the past means that you're probably a wrist slitting antinatalist who hates himself and everyone else. Am I wrong, or have I a skewed view on your nihilism?

The reason may not necessarily be a troubling psychological issue. The decision to end one’s life at a time and in a manner of one’s own choosing can be perfectly rational. — Vinson

Having reasons is categorically different from acting rationally, sorry, try again.

I actually have a lot of respect for people who make that ultimate decision. — Vinson

You have a lot of respect for people who kill themselves? By the nine divines I hope you cultivate a little self worth, otherwise yOU mIGhT eNd Up DeAd.

As always, people are looking for signs — Vinson

Let's see here, so, Anthony Bourdain: snorted cocaine, shot heroine, smoked x, y, z other drugs including tobacco, drank enough to be an alcoholic, traveled around the world living out of motels, ate whatever tasted good, and slept with whomever looked good. Heck...WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?! I NEED MOAR SIGNS!!!

There isn’t, and until people understand that not everyone thinks like them, they won’t ever be ready to spot those signs. — Vinson

Yep, gotta get ready to spot those signs even though "it’s nobody’s bloody business if someone else wants to be alive or not." :100: :ok: :eyes:

If it’s possible at all. — Vinson

Probably not possible for you, seeing as you've all but given up on reading the signs, either in yourself or in others.

Because where someone sees a fulfilled life, someone else doesn’t. Where someone sees a point in living, someone else is bored. — Vinson

Where you think you're a special snowflake, I see an ignoramus. Tomato, tomahto, y'know?

Where someone is afraid of death, someone else knows that suicide is the one decision you will never regret. — Vinson

You know that....hold on, sit down and look at me first. There, good. Okay, so you know that one can not be afraid of death and not suicidal, right? No? Oh.

And don’t ever be distracted by someone’s “adventurous attitude” to life. After all, seeking out adventures (and eating crazy food) is a way of gambling with death every day and every dish. — Vinson

Yeah, it's a goddamned odyssey when I pour milk on my cereal. Shit keeps me going, man. The way my rice krispies crackle and pop, fuck it's orgasmic. After all, an adventure a day keeps the hangman away, :death: :up:

Sometimes, I have the feeling as if suicide by adventure is the only socially accepted form of suicide. — Vinson

Intellectual suicide goes on every day, every where. People can't get enough of it.

So my question stands. The creator of the universe believed that his messaged would be most accurately accepted by inspiring a book that would be misinterpreted over centuries. And instead of coming down and clearing up the genuine confusion that some believers have, he allows the confusion to continue. This confusion causes further conflict between believers themselves, and creates a larger gap between the non-believers. — chatterbears

The deeper you delve into Christianity the more you'll find that its mystique is both its strongest and weakest link. And you're right to be flummoxed by the bits that don't fit. But, I don't see how you can be a Christian and pick and choose what you like, a la Thomas Jefferson. In the end you'll end up with people like in the OP who don't see a way out of the predicament and endorse damn near everything.

Ah, so when confronted with statistics that are at variance to your armchair analysis, those surveyed must simply be liars. — Maw

Reports don't always reflect reality.

That's the precisely type of absurd obtuseness I've repeatedly come to expect from you, Buxtebuddha. I guess the real epidemic here is that boys in various developed countries are lying! I did read your post - a vexing experience as usual - and it's filled with indigent scrutiny including bullying — Maw

You're enjoying practicing your writing skills right now, aren't you? Please, just look into my eyes when you finger your keyboard, it's hot.

some strain of millennial nihilism — Maw

How many fiery hoops did you leap through to get from "bullying is a problem" to "Buxte's a nihilist"?

dismissive — Maw

I'm allowed to be dismissive, right? You're being dismissive, so why can't I?

apathetic — Maw

I didn't know discussing a topic on an internet forum makes me apathetic toward the uh...topic. Hmm, yeah, makes perfect sense, bruh.

A) ignores the indisputable fact that the preponderance of guns is the only correlative answer as to why American gun violence far outstrips that of other developed nations — Maw

You're indisputably a moron. There, see? I can throw big absolutist words around too!

B) misses the point entirely, because gun violence is not reducible to school shootings, but is an every day occurrence in America. — Maw

Solving gun violence is also not reducible to banning guns as the sole solution. I offered but a window into some of the other factors that can go into mass shootings. If you're not willing to entertain those, whatever.

Let's be clear: toxic masculinity does not preclude the fact that women can be also abusive, predatory, or creepy. These are not exclusive phenomenon. But you are hopelessly clueless if you cannot acknowledge the extremity of toxic masculinity in practice, including Isla Vista, his imitator, and now the recent Santa Fe shooting. — Maw

I deny that toxic masculinity exists. Most people stand with me in that denial. Toxic femininity also does not exist. What does exist is the occurrence of ill deeds committed by people prone to immoral actions. If you want to pigeon hole every bad man into your pseudo-scientific categorization, go right on ahead. However, and as I said before, don't be surprised when few outside your clique take you seriously.

Ah, so any modern form of Nazism is innocuous, because it needs to fit a certain stereotype in a certain time period that not even Hitler himself measures up to. Breathtakingly brilliant. — Maw

Actual Nazism is a stereotype? :lol:

Except bullying isn't an epidemic exclusive to American schools. In fact, boys ages 11-15, in nations such as Canada, Switzerland, France, and Ireland have reported being bullied more often than boys in the USA. The only epidemic exclusive to the USA is the virulent obsession with guns. — Maw

Yes, and females report having less affairs and sexual encounters than men, so women must all be telling the truth, even though its statistically impossible, :up:

But in your eagerness to blame everything save for the weapons themselves — Maw

Did you even read what I wrote?

This is precisely the toxic masculinity that we often speak about on the Left, and women have every right to fear for their lives over it. — Maw

Toxic masculinity is a horseshit and repulsive idea employed by sexists like you who want to make predatory and abusive behavior singular to the male sex. A creep is a creep, but if you want to fit people into your own perverted categories, go right on ahead, just don't expect people to take you seriously when you do.

Also the shooter literally had images on Nazi symbols on his now deactivated social media accounts, so it seems weird that we can't literally blame Nazism when the proof is in the pudding. — Maw

Yes, I'm sure Pagourtzis reads Mein Kampf, speaks fluent Bavarian German, has blonde hair and blue eyes, owns a Nazi Party membership booklet, yodels from the Alps, hates every Stein in the world...

For me it depends on the hunter. I have less of a problem with responsible hunters, especially those out in Montana, Wyoming, etc. where they have livestock to protect and feed, for example. Trophy hunters, though? Your typical deer hunter? Not so much. You'll be told that we have to hunt deer because otherwise the population will get out of hand, but the same people forget to tell you that people like them nearly exterminated other natural predators like bobcats and wolves, so the issue now is almost entirely man-made. This may be fine to some extent, however, if hunters hunted for food, but most don't - they hunt for sport. And even if we were to outlaw hunting, that wouldn't solve the industrial farming of livestock as it is today. Besides, and as I alluded to above, responsible hunters have more respect for animals than your typical grocery store shopper who doesn't think much about where their food comes from. It'd be more effective to change the latter meat consumer's mind first rather than the former's.

Also, just because it's brilliant and somewhat relevant.

So it's genetic, like Downs syndrome? — Sapientia

I guess, if you think the opposite of behavior is genes - which I don't.

"Doth the Lord desire holocausts and victims?" — Posty McPostface

Saint Liguori, what a lad.

It's a combination though isn't it? The last thing you need in a toxic bullying environment is easy availability of guns. — Baden

Yes, but the issue is hardly categorized as a compromise or combination, either in media or by those who are most vocal about gun legislation. One reason why is because the seeds of gun violence and mass shootings in America doesn't just stem to guns, but lots of other touchy subjects nobody wants to deal with.

The American obsession with guns is not behavioral. What's behavioral is the epidemic of bullying in middle and high schools. This Texas kid is yet another example of someone who was teased, belittled, and ostracized, not only by classmates, but by staff and teachers, as well. And if the one report I read is correct, then the shooter picked who to shoot, sparing those students who were likely kind and didn't bully him.

Being a millennial myself, and having experienced all sorts of different schools in several states, I don't see a gun issue when shootings like the Texas one happen, I see the effects of bullying and the utterly toxic and psychologically warped environment that is now the prevailing habitat in schools across America. It's pernicious, and I've seen first hand how most students aren't willing to be better or to check their own behavior and how it affects others. The world's just a fucking joke and a meme to kids of my generation, and the consequences of their actions have no bearing on their behavior. It's sickening to me, and I get tired of seeing people blame guns and Nazis and whatever else when there are some seriously fucked up shit going on schools and other places that contribute hugely to people doing even more terrible things.

Oh, but I'm sure people will scream on and on about how we need better mental healthcare too and yada yada. Yeah, I think we should. For everyone, including the little shitfaces who won't ever shoot up a school but do contribute to someone who might. Too bad that'll never happen, because nobody wants to address mental health because it's the silent plague of modern society. "Ban guns" may sound easy, and there are many measures we can and ought to take, but whether it helps those individuals who do want to kill people as an act of revenge...I don't think so. And until we start treating the issue by the ends and not the means, the situation - whether reported on or not - will continue to fall into itself.

Rights are of no practical use unless they are protected, or "secured", as you worded it. And since animals can't reflect upon their own right to life like we humans can, I do think it is part of our job to protect the rights of animals.

There's having rights, and then there's the protecting of those rights. "Securing" rights isn't always possible, though. This is why we need those in power to ensure that rights are secured and protected. In this way, it's up to us how we treat those animals lower down on the food chain.

Said every raving conspiracy theorist ever. — StreetlightX

I like the fact that you didn't deny what I said, :fire: :ok: :eyes:

One alternative is that the existence - or not - of God is a non-issue, and that the question itself it not worth contemplating because it is a badly posed question. That is, what ought to be rejected is not God's existence or non-existence, but the very question itself, which asks a question about a non-sense, not unlike - perhaps exactly like - the question of weather or not square circles exist: a question not worth answering on account of the nonsensicality of its very subject. God is like that. A mistake of grammar. — StreetlightX

Looks like you've categorically rejected that which you haven't studied to its depths.

I would just say that a cow is not human, and I empathize with humans but not with cows. I empathize with humans and not with pigs. I empathize with humans and not with fish. I don't think there is a single trait that separates us. We are all, after all, animals.

But if empathy is the basis for considering other beings moral agents, and compassion is a subset of empathy, then by your own trifecta, since I do not feel much empathy for these things, I wouldn't be logically inconsistent. — Moliere

I think the OP would include sympathy with empathy. Humans cannot empathize fully with pigs, but we can sympathize with them. And it is because we consider every other animal to be just a smelly brute that millions upon millions of animals are slaughtered every year without any regard for their status as living things.

One of the earliest things I struggled with as a kid with regard to animals was when learning about the Holocaust. The talk of the Jews and others being rounded up and sent on "cattle cars" was always distressing - is distressing - but I started to wonder why it was wrong for humans to be crammed in there but right for cattle? Why was it wrong to treat humans like cattle but also wrong to treat cattle like humans? It's surreal, really. Humans are lauded and put on a pedestal of deserving more dignity and respect when they themselves don't seem to deserve much when they kill 70 million of themselves during WW2.

You seem to be under the impression that my humanness in the event of desperation or survival is the fundamental factor in my decision to eat meat when needing to. This, however, is false, because any living thing considers itself to be the center of its world, whether it be a cow, pig, bird, or human. Simply because I put myself first in instances of survival or desperation doesn't mean that the mere fact that I am human is reason for my decision.

There may be a justification for killing and eating the flesh of other animals, and for not killing and eating that of our own species, but it has not been put forward on this thread. However, so far, there isn't an argument for never killing and eating the flesh of other animals either. — jastopher

I'm vegetarian. I don't eat meat because I don't need to. Were I stranded someplace and needed to eat meat, I would eat meat. Such would be a necessary evil. If I had to feed my child through immoral means, I would likely do so, though with the reservation that my choices were immoral, but necessary. In my opinion, preexisting moral obligations, including to yourself, carry more value than duties that are newly sprung and arise completely out of your control.

Edit: Necessary evils are almost always tied to instances of desperation, which is why decisions that are immoral but necessary are so tragic. However, and especially in the West, decisions to eat meat rarely arise out of instances of desperation, but rather choices of base preference and frank disregard for moral consideration. Choosing whether to steal food to feed your child is desperately difficult. Choosing whether to buy chicken or pork at the grocery store is easy.

Sap wasn't saying that X can eat Y if X is more intelligent than Y. He seemed to be saying that X can eat Y if Y isn't sufficiently intelligent. — Michael

If so, then this is a distinction without a moral principle at play. An apple is not an orange. Great, but...? Okay, what else? I mean, sure, I'm more intelligent than a pig, but such a fact says nothing of whether I ought or ought not eat said pig.

A cow isn't sufficiently intelligent, and so we can eat it. We are sufficiently intelligent, and so a much more intelligent species cannot eat us. — Michael

Seems to me that Sappy has defined this into being without providing anything that supports it.

Michael's less of a dishonest shithead, so I'm glad he and I can get somewhere, perhaps. Unless of course he falls off the planet and stops posting entirely like he sometimes does.

If your first plan of attack fails, call it incoherent and give up trying. I like your style. — Sapientia

I'm waiting for you to tell me to reread and go back and understand the illuminating insights thus blessed upon us which I fail to get, zzzz.

No, I took him as saying that once something reaches a certain level of intelligence then it would be unethical to eat that thing. Humans have reached that level and cows haven't. That there may be aliens who are more intelligent than humans doesn't change this. — Michael

What level of intelligence and by what metrics might one judge x, y, z to not be intelligent enough to have its throat saved from a slashing? Once again, if it is that intelligence is the determinant for moral worth, then yes, Man can eat chickens all day, but as I brought up, this also means that it is morally justifiable on the same premises that one that is more intelligent than us can and ought to eat us as food.

My position must be what you say it is? No, that's not how it works, pal. I'm priority number one, irrespective of whether there were to arise a more powerful or intelligent species than my own, and I haven't once claimed or implied otherwise, so you've got nothing on me. — Sapientia

Yeah, I probably don't have anything on you because you've no coherent position to deal with.

I would likely act as expected and try to avoid that from happening. It is not a logical consequence of what I've said that I would willingly submit to any of that, so I see no valid point from you there. — Sapientia

Your position is one that must argue that it is right to eat that which is less powerful and intelligent than you, therefore that which is more powerful and intelligent than you is also right to eat you, so your unwillingness would be wrong.

I think he’s arguing more about humans having reached a certain threshold that other animals haven’t. It’s not just about a comparison between species. — Michael

Such a threshold being power and intelligence, as far as I can see. What am I missing? If 1 is a rat, and 2 is a human, and 3 is a Martian, then 3>2>1. At present, because Martians don't exist, 2>1, and so Sappy can do what he wants with 1 because of A.) greater power, and B.) more intelligence. If, however, a 3 does exist, then Sappy can't, then, fudge the series and argue 3<2>1.

If the natural hierarchy you're arguing for is based solely upon power and intelligence, then what happens when a being of greater "advanced intellectual capacity" swings by and decides he wants to eat you? Are you going to willingly scuttle into a cage to await your execution by beheading, or look forward to hanging from the ceiling as your throat is slashed, or pace forward in a metal canal so that your head can be shot with high voltage electricity?

Advanced intellectual capacity. — Sapientia

Off to the pastures you go, then!

Both are about the treatment, not intrinsic wrong. — chatterbears

If you're arguing for principle over preference, you kinda need to establish that eating meat is intrinsically wrong, otherwise you'll get every sort of hedonist screaming, "me like taste *grunt*"

A victim of not being white. There's more nuance to Malcolm X's thought, Mind. Anyway, I didn't intend to generalize too much, no worries :cheer:

Clarky the Clamorer :up:

Do you really want women to be thought of as victims who are not responsible for their own behavior? — T Clark

As Malcolm X said, the house negro has played the victim card for decades. For some women, being thought of as a victim paradoxically grants them a feeling of being powerful, seeing as they are able to influence others to think a certain way about them.

Unless I'm mistaken, Clark's point is that discussing whether bad guys should be killed isn't a suitable topic on a forum like this. Faaaaaaaaar less "philosophical" threads have been whisked away.

The moderators here don't follow the site guidelines. You of all people should be aware of this. They don't treat their job with any degree of good will or sincerity. Jake's thread remains because it's a pisstake the moderators find funny. Jake's thread very clearly does not belong on a forum like this, but when you've leftist, self-hating moderators who like topics about killing men, this is just the way it's going to be. Had Jake's thread been about exterminating women and not men, I think you know how that would go down.

'tis a good thing, too, because I'm on my way to smack you off your branch.

Is it rational to have two threads on the same topic? Hmm, :chin:

Yeah man, if only we had some more them scientific studies to tell us why people kill each other, :snicker:

Did you know that the government will be the one in charge of regulating or banning guns, if such things are passed? Your concern here works both ways. — Thorongil

I understand that, but if you're someone that screams at the top of your lungs about "muh freedumbs" and how terrible the government is, then throwing money at gun violence - through the government - makes a whole lot of no sense.

Better mental health screenings and treatments. — Thorongil

And this looks like what? Are we to stereotype and shame every "mentally ill" person into some category that says, "likely to shoot up a Waffle House" or "drive a minivan through cafes"? Who also is going to provide mental health screenings and treatments? The government? Private health providers? Who's going to assemble and sort the information? What happens when professionals disagree on person x's mental health and danger to society?

Better policing. — Thorongil

I agree that better policing is important, but as above, what does this look like? Are we to give police more power? What sort of power? Better training, more funding, what? Do we want to fund the NSA/HLS even more, which will mean the giving up of certain privacy privileges, other freedoms, etc.?

Universalized gun-violence restraining orders. — Thorongil

I don't know what this is, but traditional restraining orders provide very little practical defense against whomever the order is placed. The order merely serves as a warning and fuel in a court room after shit has already clogged the fan.

Reform of existing laws. — Thorongil

What sort of reform on what existing laws? Will they be federally mandated or left up to the states?

~

As I've said before in this very thread, living in a society - any society - is inherently restraining and unfree, so the idea that giving up one's freedom is some absolutely calamitously terrifying event every single time is just silly. Obviously unjust restraints are, well, unjust, but no matter the side or perspective taken on gun violence in America, a giving up of some freedom, however big or small, is inevitable. And it would seem that a great many people don't understand that. If you want to keep your AR-15 but have the NSA spying on you when you sleep, okie dokie. If you want to fire a bazooka in your backyard but have the government judge your children as potential mass murders because they are "x, y, or z", that's fine too. Personally, I'd rather give up my AR-15 if I owned one than the above. Perhaps I'm crazy though and should be placed on a list of mentally ill nutjobs who may kill people. *shrug*