What is a value or belief you have that is extremely outside the norm?
There are a lot of unorthodox or minor values and beliefs in societies. For example, in Western countries, veganism is relatively rare. But still, it's not unheard of and it's gaining traction. In the same way, radically egalitarian values are in no way popular, but they are definitely heard of. Think of ideologies that based themselves on them, like anarchism or utopian socialism.
We all have values and beliefs we hold dear, but even the ones that are very unorthodox most often fall into a tradition in some sort of philosophy, and have some significant following and historical grounding.
Obviously, no matter how unorthodox a belief is, there's going to be some historical grounding and tradition. But think of the beliefs and values you have, and consider whether you have any that is found in even less than 1% of the population. Do you have such values or beliefs, and why?
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In my case, it's the fact that I despise nature. By nature, I don't mean being exposed to beautiful parts of it in a safe environment. I mean the hunger, the thirst, the violence, the diseases, the cold, the hot, and similar hardships. I mean nature in its glorious violence and random acts of suffering. I cherish life, and I do my best to contribute to its conservation, and that's why I despise the violence inherent in nature. Metaphorically speaking, Mother Nature is the most abusive parent in history. As an extension of this, in the grand scheme of things, I see the violence of nature as a much bigger problem than violence of humankind.
This is a belief that I dare not say to people I know in real life because I feel people will get the wrong idea. I think non-offending paedophiles (specifically people attracted to minors) that genuinely want help to control their urges (e.g. therapy, medication, etc) should be able to access that help safely and without having their lives ruined. To be clear, I consider someone viewing child porn as committing an offense, as it enables harm towards minors. But I believe there are cases where no harm has yet been caused, and people who suffer from these urges who don't want to harm kids. I feel we could save a lot more children from harm if there are easier avenues for would-be offenders to get the help they need to avoid acting on their urges.
I have a close friend who is a forensic psychologist. She spent the first 10 years of her career working with sex offenders. I think she did a lot of good for humanity in that job. Obviously these people had all already committed offenses, and some of them were fucking gnarly as fuck like no redemption. But some of them were much less bad, like peeping or flashing (still bad but you know, no one died and they were mostly hurting themselves). It was interesting hearing her perspective on working with them. Very humanizing and showed compassion for a group of people it's really hard to have compassion for. The commonality is that every one of them was traumatized in their own childhood, 100% of them. Some of them clearly would not have offended if they had had a support system at any point in their life. Therapy can be harm prevention.
Related to this: no one wants to talk about the topic. It's completely understandable, it's disturbing, hard to understand and no one wants to risk being associated with something so universally loathed.
But it's also one of the biggest problems in society and it appears to have been that way for all of human history. I think it's fair to say that the damage sexual abuse does is on the same level as murder. It's maybe worse as the cycle of abuse can echo for generations.
I imagine everyone has a sense of the statistics, that they're under reported but that about 20% of girls are sexually abused. There's no easy way to quantify how big an impact that has on society, but it's clearly a huge problem.
But what do we actually do about it? That it's illegal doesn't seem to have much impact. We have (under used) support systems for victims and... not much else? No doubt there are resources I'm unaware of but it seems like we could do a lot more. Not only in terms of counseling and mental health but also research. I don't think we understand the problem as well as we should given its prevalence.
As you say, potential offenders need help, but risk ruining their lives if they look for it. Difficult as it may be, I think we should have more compassion for victims of abuse that have had their wiring scrambled. If there was space for anything other than unequivocal condemnation we might be able to figure out how to make sure that less victims become abusers themselves.
One of the reasons I've given the topic some thought is that I briefly knew a man who told me that he had unwanted thoughts about his daughter. That he was willing to say that out loud at all was shocking. He said he'd gone to multiple therapists who told him that there was nothing wrong with him. At the time he was in the process of moving across the country to get away from the situation. I imagine there were a lot of details he didn't share and I didn't ask.
I later heard that he went to prison for abusing his daughter.
So here was someone who knew they had a problem and genuinely wanted to get help before it was too late. What if he had actually been able to get that help? If we actually understood the problem well enough to help him?
I think a part of making that happen is being able to have conversations (on a cultural level) about the issue that aren't only about prohibition and punishment.
I am skeptical of us ever being able to change a pedophile's orientation through therapy. A century of failed attempts at LGBT conversion therapy suggest that sexual attraction of all forms is indelibly written into the brain.
Instead, what we could do is identify pedophiles at a young age. Then, offer them medications or surgery that completely eliminates their sex drive - chemical or physical castration. It's not the ideal solution, but it would likely at least be a viable solution. You suppress their hormone levels to near zero, give them some calcium supplements to balance out the bone density issues, and you kill their sex drive. As a precaution, prohibit them from working in careers involving children or childcare. But otherwise let them live lives of peaceful celibacy.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. I'm sexually attracted to plenty of people I will never have sex with. Attraction isn't the only part of the equation here. I also really don't like the idea of "identifying" people at a young age - this kind of mentality is how racist, sexist, and other bigotry has been justified for ages. We "identified" that natives in America were "uncivilized" and forced them to adhere to our mindset. I could absolutely see any sort of child identification program being used as a shield to commit bigoted acts towards individuals because of their characteristics (ethnicity, sex, gender, sexuality, etc). I also think that a child is much more malleable than they are given credit for here and the idea that being a pedophile is deterministic in some fashion is just not something that sits right with me.
Agreed. This doesn't even get into how few people who offend against children are actually oriented pedophiles. Most are heterosexual men who would prefer to have sex with an adult woman. Sexual abuse is complicated. I'd support treatment for all people in those above categories but I haven't kept up on best practices since leaving the field.
But I don't know how you would even identify children who might have sexual attraction towards children since age appropriate sexual exploration and behavior is common throughout childhood. A child offending against another child is usually a sign of being a victim themselves.
I’m glad you pushed back on that idea. I find it frustrating that conversations around pedophiles causes many people to lose their minds. A fantastic movie that highlights this is The Hunt 2012.
How do you identify a pedophile at a young age? Who would be responsible for making those decisions, and can they be reversed?
What you’re proposing is eugenics and any implementation of that idea will be used as a weapon against people.
I do not trust any government body to limit the reproductive functions of any individual. We have seen countless times in the past where this is a terrible idea.
By "identify" I more mean having an environment that encourages such kids to come out and seek help in a safe manner. I don't think this is the kind of thing you can identify on brain scan or blood test. I agree that any such screening of the populace would be little better than phrenology.
I just can’t see anyone self identifying as a pedophile voluntarily. It’s a social death sentence. Even more so if the “help” you get is to be sterilised.
I'm not sure chemically castrating children should be among our options.
This is an example of what I call one of the 'Witch Hunt' topics. It's really hard to talk about, and extraordinarily easy for anyone to villainize anyone who asks to have a public, rational talk on the subject that doesn't consist of the following theme:
'BURN THE WITCH! I AGREE WITH EVERYONE THAT ANYONE SIMPLY ACCUSED OF THIS IS TO BE PRESUMED GUILTY AND BURNED PUBLICLY. I AM CERTAINLY NOT IN ANY WAY SHOUTING THIS BECAUSE IF I SAID ANYTHING DIFFERENT SOMEONE ELSE MIGHT POINT AT ME AND SHOUT 'WITCH! BURN THEM!' CLEARLY I AM ONE OF THE 'GOOD PEOPLE' BECAUSE ONLY A WITCH WOULD ADVOCATE FOR NOT TORTURING AND KILLING ANYONE ACCUSED OF BEING A WITCH.
It's a horrible, self-reinforcing feedback loop that sustains itself with severe societal pressure, fear, and violence.
This kind of social stigma, and outright implicit threat of targeting, doxxing, violence, and even murder for simply trying to discuss a controversial topic is, in and of itself, a serious harm to rational society.
It is also logical to assume the severe stigma also serves to keep people away from seeking any kind of help or therapy, again out of fear - fear of social stigma, or being subject to a potential mandatory reporting clause.
Honestly I was surprised at the candor in response to this comment, it was a topic I would've commented on.
I don't have much to say beyond what has been, but was also worried about some opinions I had that were also discussed rationally (the pedophile's orientation and how to deal with that for example).
But yes, this would be how to prevent pedophiles from acting on this.
I've admittedly made the "throw'em in the woodchipper" joke elsewhere but also think anybody who wants to get better should be given a highly supervised chance to do so.
It really is a bad thing that we can't discuss rationally, "what to do with pedophiles" beyond knee-jerk "hang them all!" reactions. From the stories I've read of psychologists working with pedophiles, their attraction seems to develop at the same time as anyone else's. Just imagine the horror of being a 12-14 year old feeling your first feelings of sexual attraction. But to your horror, those feelings are being directed towards infants. And this is in a society where even teenagers know exactly what those feelings imply. It wouldn't surprise me at all if a substantial portion of people with these feelings, perhaps even a majority, simply commit suicide before they even finish high school. If I woke up with those feelings tomorrow, in all honesty, I would probably just throw myself off a bridge.
And honestly, I don't even know what is to be done for such people. Pedophilia is NOT like homosexuality. Sure, they're both sexual orientation the same way heterosexuality is, but there is simply no way to just accept and integrated open pedophiles into society. This is not simply an unusual act between consenting adults, it is an attraction that fundamentally cannot ever be allowed to be satisfied.
Like, imagine if we lived in a world that actually did operate like the Old Testament Sodom and Gomorrah. In this universe, God exists and he REALLY hates gay sex. In this world, if one person in a city has gay sex, God instantly smites the entire city. And this is reliable, repeatable, and observable. This is something you can verify scientifically. Two gay dudes get it on == meteor on top of the city.
In that world, there would be no way we could tolerate homosexuality, as to do so would mean immediate death for everyone. Thankfully, we don't live in that world for homosexuality, but we practically do for pedophilia.
Honestly, I think the best bet would be to try and identify pedophiles as early as possible, right when their feelings first materialize. Then, put them on hormone suppressors, effectively chemical castration, that completely eliminates their sex drive. Then they can just live lives of peaceful celibacy. Finding a way to change their orientation and allowing them to experience normal adult attraction would be more ideal. But after all the cruel and failed attempts at conversion therapy for gay people, I just don't see how that would ever work. The best we can likely do is to just completely eliminate the sex drive of these people all together and let them live in peace. Maybe as a precaution we don't let them work as teachers or child caregivers, but otherwise they should be completely free from restriction or harsh judgment.
But to do that, we really do need to start talking about this topic like adults. Knee-jerk reactions like "hang them all!" just results in pedophiles staying in the closet and not ever seeking help. Instead of getting medication or surgery that would completely nuke their sex drive, they try to fight their attractions through shear force of will. And well, we see how that turns out.
We will still always need harsh criminal penalties for the sexual abuse of children. A pedophile shouldn't be able to plead insanity citing their attraction. A pedophile raping a child is not the same ethically as say, a schizophrenic person killing someone because the voices ordered them to. The schizophrenic is completely out of touch with the world and has no ability to discern truth from fiction. The pedophile is fully aware of reality, and they know full well the harm they harm they are causing. So acts of pedophilia always need to remain extremely illegal.
But we should remove the stigma from someone simply having these feelings. Hell, we should talk about them in sex ed. We should literally tell 5th graders, "look, hopefully none of you develop these feelings. But if you do, here is what can be done about it. We can't change them, but we can give you drugs that will kill your libido and allow you to live a peaceful life without hurting anyone."
It sounds like sympathy for the devil, but I actually do have quite a lot of sympathy for pedophiles, at least the ones that haven't acted on their impulses. We can never offer them the same acceptance we do other forms of attraction, but we can at least offer them sympathy and not shame, and get them the help that they need.
White people with money would just aim these messages entirely at other races. Or, y'know, any mix of any kind of power structures using this as an excuse to sterilize people they don't like.
I'm ethically non-monogamous and married. My wife and I enjoy a healthy dating life outside of our marriage, and we find that not having the spectre of cheating hanging over our heads to be incredibly freeing. We are completely open and honest with each other about our wants and desires, and find that it works really well for us
I absolutely cannot relate to this at all but if you and your partner are open and honest with each other and make it work, more power to you. This is one of those ideas I cannot wrap my own head around.
Not here for a debate on this topic, it's been done to death for me, just saying as a monogamous person that I support your decision for your own self.
I think it's the honesty that is paramount to any relationship, regardless of monogamy or otherwise. The two of us are both interested in variety in our sex lives, so it works for us to be honest about it with each other. I think if more people were honest about their feelings and desires from the outset, there would be less failed relationships. The issues arise when one non monogamous person pursues a relationship with someone monogamous, and finds themselves longing for more and feeling trapped by their own decisions.
I understand what you're saying and I'm happy for you, but I really don't like when people frame non-monogamy as a relationship in which you can't cheat. You absolutely can cheat! Cheating is about dishonesty. Even poly folks can cheat.
Related to this, my partner and I are getting married this summer, and a big theme we want in the ceremony is that while we are choosing to demonstrate our commitment to each other through marriage, we do not "belong" to each other, we're not "becoming one".
We will continue to be individuals in our marriage with our own unique desires, experiences, and bodily autonomy. Exclusivity is a trap and ownership of another's body, even in the context of marriage, is a crime against their humanity.
I always think of this marriage ceremony from Owlsight by Mercedes Lackey (one of her Valdemar novels):
Full disclosure, my wife and I both grew up in evangelical churches, but grew up with different versions of it. Hers was what most mature Christians that I know would probably describe as "Understanding the plot, but not getting the message." Lots of shame, judgement, rule setting, manipulation, etc, etc, etc...
Conversely my experience was emphasized grace and understanding. Give people the benefit of the doubt, assume the best, just keep trying, you can always change, help those in more need than you, etc. We somehow ended up in a very similar place in our mid 30's, having been married for about 15yrs. The result being that we feel like we see all sorts of ways Christianity has been telephoned through the ages and imbued into white culture. The messages around marriage being a prime example.
Marriage, at least the ones I would consider best, is two people choosing to walk their path in parallel. There are all sorts of ups and downs and you might be experiencing different ones at the same time, while keeping your pace with each other. Sometimes life speeds up for one or slows down for another and the question is always "Does moderating my pace in life (Literally and metaphorically) mean more to me than untethereing and letting our paths drift as they may. I think many marriages end because of this, the paths just drift too far apart and at some point you can't be a team anymore, you can't even relate sometimes, your lives are so foreign to each other.
Those rock solid marriages are the ones that see the partnership that see the value in being a team, but also give each other the benefit of the doubt in all things. It's a risk, you're opening yourself up to deep hurt that is hard to recover from, but the benefits, good lord, the BENEFITS. Partnering with another human and lowering your defenses to them, which is a long process that can span your whole marriage, you uncover authentic versions of yourselves and you by becoming more and more intimate with each other, you are incentivized more and more to manage your life in a way that will not just include your partner, but entice them closer. When both people are doing this, trying to adjust and serve each other in the best way we can right then, life becomes a lot easier.
My interpretation of the scripture I've read concerning marriage is basically that when God was like "Yo treat your partner like you would me or I you," the message was what I described, but humans made it what it has been all this time. I think the things written. I feel like I read the Bible now and see a lot of nasty humanity in the plot, it's pretty disturbing, but woven throughout it is this story about a dude that seems to just want us to do well and enjoy our lives. The stuff written about marriage in the Bible is beautiful, if you can parse out all the shit.
Congratulations and I wish you all the happiness and luck!
So, I also grew up in the church. Submission to husbands is what the Bible has to say about marriage. Most of what you describe is perfectly reasonable in secular frameworks, and has less baggage than religion.
For what it's worth, my partner and I have been together for 8 years, so we've already seen the ups and downs. Regardless of anything else, I can say I already have the benefits of companionship you mention.
And that's without monogamy. Yes, it has its own challenges, but it isn't many less meaningful, sincere, and loving. In fact, I find it more loving than I did in monogamous relationships I've been in before.
I can truly say I'll be marrying the love of my life and my truest and strongest partner. Religion has no place to say how we should live our lives because it is unnecessary and offers nothing we couldn't and haven't been able to get elsewhere.
Regardless, I appreciate the well wishes!
I think I may have confused you based on what you chose to reply to, my reference to "Two people" wasn't an argument against multiple partners, just a slip of old brain. I don't think God cares one bit about who gets married and how many people are in that relationship.
Congratulations!
We feel the same, as do most of the people in our circle. For us, the marriage is a commitment between the two of us to be a team in all things. The thought of ownership exists only in a space where safewords are employed 😁
I'm in a similar situation.
Hearing people freak out over cheating is so weird. It's like freaking out over wearing blue nail polish.
But is this even that weird anymore? I think, with the advent of very reliable birth control and the dissolving of patriarchal structures, the "enforcement mechanisms" that made monogamy important historically are basically just falling away. In that light, monogamy looks . . . pointless? Silly? And I think that's part of why there's a pretty significant nonmonogamist subculture these days.
But I also think that I'm kind of just nonmonogamist by nature, so maybe it's just a me thing that I don't get monogamy.
I used to think the same way. But then as I grew up I began to appreciate the weight of a promise of marriage. When you get married you are basically putting someone in a position of trust for your most intimate vulnerabilities, and most marriages are built on the promise of monogamy. Cheating is basically saying that you can't be trusted anymore.
Imagine you just learned that gravity was a conspiracy; you'd be angry at all the people who told you it was a universal law, you'd question everything you know, and you'd have a hard time trusting people afterwards. That's an extreme example, of course, but that's kind of how it feels.
But I am married, and I don't feel that way.
But why, though? That's my point. To my (non-neurotypical) mind, it's like agreeing with your SO to never paint your nails blue. I guess you could do it, but people would look at you funny if you got upset over it.
This experience is also not universal. It's a stereotype, but also true, that many French people, for example, view cheating as more of a venal sin than a mortal one.
This is fair, although it's not like most monogamous relationships work out either, so I can't say I'm completely convinced.
Keep in mind, you can still cheat in a polyamorous relationship
I consider cheating to be sexual relations with an individual without it having been communicated to the primary partner (specifically this would apply to situations where the above is not mutually agreed on). To add some nuance, if you’re in a non-monogamous relationship where both parties establish they are free to sleep with whoever they want whenever they want, with or without telling the other primary partner I would not consider that cheating
With that in mind, do you really not understand why people freak out about cheating?
I understand some of it.
If my partner went around sleeping with someone else and hiding it from me, I would be very concerned about that, in the same way that I would be concerned if my partner kept any major secrets from me. I think openness and honesty are extremely important in any significant human relationship (and not just intimate ones). And, of course, cheating in monogamous relationships is usually accompanied by deception.
But the reason for that deception is the lack of openness in the first place. If people just . . . didn't go into things with the preconceived norm of monogamy, so many of those problems just wouldn't be problems in the first place. So when I watch, like, a TV show or a movie where cheating is a big source of conflict, I feel like the people involved just did it to themselves for no good reason.
There are entire books written about that subject regularly. Much of it is in regards to the complications children bring. There's also a lot of it which is just based on people's feelings, which don't have to be logical to be valid. If your wedding partner doesn't care, then you can get away with not understanding it just fine, but if they aren't - or if you're just interested at all - search out one of those books and start reading. Even if you were to go out and ask people why it's important, they wouldn't be able to explain the depths of complexities involved simply for lack of time and patience. So a book is your best bet.
If I'm understanding you correctly, I basically agree with this, and it's why I say that monogamy makes much less sense in a world with easily-accessible and reliable birth control. I mean, the evolutionary basis for monogamy almost certainly has something to do with paternity (to avoid inventing a just-so story, I will not speculate on details).
Well, I'm not saying they're "invalid". I'm not even sure what that would mean. I just think they're kind of silly.
Similar for me, or at least it was before COVID. Not married, but I have a primary partner and used to sometimes visit other partners. I've been open about this with my all my partners when I got to the point where it was looking like we were going to sleep with each other and it worked out well.
I suspect my opinion/belief is more common than it appears online, but here it goes: I don't really value art as something almost holy or special. By art, I mean anything that could be considered art—paintings, statues, movies, photos, games, music, etc. For me, a piece of art is just a thing. I appreciate the beauty and skill involved in creating it, I'm a huge fan of some works, but I don't view it as sacred.
This is probably why I have no issues with AI art in general. If I see a painting and I like it, I don't really care who made it. Finding out it was an AI wouldn't make me value it differently.
It's just a thing. I like some, I dislike some. But it's an ordinary thing. I don't buy the whole "if it invokes some reaction from you then it's art" logic.
Heh, there was a funny discussion I had many years ago. On 9gag, there was a post about a museum with only blank canvas. I thought it was ridiculous and commented on it, only to have some guy argue with me. I don't remember the details or what he said, but I do remember me saying something along the lines "ok look, sorry, as an apology here's my poem:". With nothing after that. He didn't reply after that lol, guess he didn't like my poem
I think this is the pro-AI argument I encounter most frequently: "I don't care about who made the game/music/drawing/movie—it's the same regardless, even if no one made it."
I find it disturbing that this view is so mainstream. Personally, I naturally assume that there are someone in the other end, communicating with me. Sergio Arigones, Dianne Wynne Jones, Don Martin, Tim Burton, etc., I didn't neccesarily know anything about them, but a great part of exploring their art is the knowledge that there is another person, communicating with me, the parasocial connection.
I skimmed your history (hope it's okay) and noticed that you liked LITTLE INFERNO. To me, what made that game sparkle was that bit of parasocial relation, the way I connected to the creators (whoever they are). Oh, that trailer is so much Tim Burton, guess they're a fan too. The Weather Man, was this a reference to The Weather Underground? Global Cooling, that was clever. I like how they simultaneously expose the hollowness of shitty gaming, while also making it the core game play, kinda deep really. And the sheer detail of the 2D burning simulator is something I can really relate to. This is the way I instinctivily view any creation; I see it as parasocial communication, and naturally think about what it is the creator are saying.
I agree with this. It's kind of scary that people think this way, because I think that the human part of it is the primary reason for it to exist. Aesthetics are important, but they are nothing without the meanings behind them. There's a reason why we forget the art that they put in fancy office buildings; aesthetics fade quickly, but meanings stick with us for much longer.
It's hard to understand meanings in art sometimes, though, so I can understand why people wouldn't care for a lot of art. It's the ones who don't seem to get that meaning is just about everywhere in art that concern me.
I'm exactly the same way as you. Actually, I think this may be the main distinguishing feature between those who are disturbed by AI art and those who see nothing wrong with it.
I suspect that this is another case of Capitalism All Along. In the modern age, "art" is a commodity, something to be bought and sold. In that framework, it ceases to matter whether the art was made by a person, just as it ceases to matter whether your toothbrush was made by a person.
I've seen it most elegantly put in "The AI Revolution is Rotten to the Core" (previously):
Art has always been a commodity. Putting a value on it is one way to appreciate it. People have always been paid for art, so I don't think capitalism is specifically ruining it. Historically art was commissioned by a king or church, is that really better than being paid for by amazon or something?
To clarify, I believe that greed and quests for power ruin everything, whether in the form of capitalism or religion or various authoritarian leaders. I still can enjoy Bach or Michelangelo's work even if they got paid from some corrupt pope or whatever.
Yes.
I should have been more precise. Art has "always" (on the timescale of civilization, not all human existence) been a commodity, but not just a commodity. It always came with a context attached. For example, Bach's larger sacred works may have been commissioned by some noble, but they were also religious works. On a smaller scale, his chorales were meant to be sung by church attendees. Everything existed in a greater context. Capitalism's function is to remove this context, reducing art to "just" a thing to be bought and sold. ("All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.")
You're right, it's one of the main arguments used by pro-AI people. I've always thought this way, thus why AI art doesn't bother me.
If anything, I'm fascinated by the technology itself, that it exists. But I don't value AI art more because of the technology behind it. If the end result still sucks, then it sucks. If it looks cool, then it looks cool.
By the way, just wanna say I think it's really cool how you appreciate art. I can't do it, it's not how I work, but I like how you can take all of that away from Little Inferno, whereas for me it was just a cool little zen game (btw, no worries I do not mind 👍)
This is an interesting topic for me as I find myself landing somewhere in the middle on this. I relate entirely with JCAPER's first paragraph where I appreciate the effort and specialization required to produce works but don't necessarily attribute any special or Holy value to it. I don't revere a painting or sculpture any more than a pro drywaller who can make tape seams disappear or the tech at the body shop who makes my vehicle look like new. I am utterly unimpressed with abstract paintings or even the Mona Lisa. I'll concede there could be exceptions with things like singers with a unique voice or people with seemingly superhuman talent like Stevie Ray Vaughan at guitar. Otherwise I feel that with enough practice most art can be sufficiently replicated.
There is something to be said for claiming 'First' I suppose. I remember several times back in my Reddit days when I'd stumble upon a meme or picture and appreciate the skill or commitment, only to find out it was a repost. It instantly felt stripped of the esteem I had bestowed upon it, reducing it to a worthless copy or worse, devaluing the original art they stole from. Of course the art hadn't changed, just the 'creator'. In that sense I'm not sure I could view a modern recreation of for example the Mona Lisa (even using similar tools/materials) with the same appreciation.
This is where I'm torn on AI art. It's trained on existing art and would be nothing without it, even an 'original' art piece is derived from stolen (borrowed?) works. I appreciate AI art and also discount it as a sort of repost, and I struggle to square these ideas. I also consider myself more scientist than artist, and all science is built off the foundations laid before us.
Finally the fact that art is fundamentally subjective makes these points feel moot. As I'm not an artist and have no horse in the race, and the AI cat is already out of the bag...
Agreed that spiritual value to secular art is a bit odd. And while it is an object, merely being an object doesn't preclude the fact that an observer can have an emotional experience consuming art.
In fact growing up my mom made a point to have us look at books of famous art work and learn about the artists. But it never really resonated with me. That is until college and I took a history of modern art course. Part of the course required us to visit the local museum an write critiques of art we saw there. Since then I've had some very vivid and moving experiences visiting art museums.
I haven't seen the Mona Lisa in person, but I've seen enough portraits of the era to expect that I wouldn't be particularly moved by it. What I found surprising is how modern art like abstract expressionism, color field, etc moves me. Rothko is my favorite and pictures of his art do nothing for me. But standing a half foot from one of his paintings is a different experience.
I could see myself being the guy defending the museum of blank canvases. Yeah it's a stupid idea and there's a pretentious performative aspect to it. But I'd still call it art. I assume that gallery was setup because of the reaction it would cause. It's pretentious as hell but that's the point. Even better if someone bought one of those blank canvases for a ludicrous amount of money. That's the performance.
That all said, (copyright issues aside) I have no problems with AI art as a medium. I feel like the debate from purists sounds much like what was argued when the camera started becoming accessible. It's a legitimate medium. And art is most interesting to me when there is a lot of experimentation; giving a middle finger to the academy. I trust some artists will do awesome things with AI. We're just in the beginning stages.
I can definitely see how being in an art gallery in person could help with the connection. I've been to a few in my life and on rare occasions felt moved by specific pieces, maybe that's the perspective I'm missing here. I choose movies based on what I expect to enjoy and can sometimes feel disappointed when they don't deliver, I've possibly been approaching art in this same way expecting everything to speak to me. Maybe it's more about finding a single piece that I connect with rather than expecting to be entertained.
I really appreciate architecture and am regularly moved by immense construction projects. When I was in Paris 20 years ago I opted to skip seeing the Mona Lisa to instead take a train to visit a nearby castle. I recently returned from Vegas and although I dislike what the city represents (the trip was my wife's idea) I couldn't help but be in awe of the grandeur on display there. Angkor Wat in Cambodia was another powerful place for me.
I lean more towards being in support of AI art but am skeptical about the ability of the current tech to think outside of it's own box. As it is (as I understand it) AI learns exclusively from sampling existing art so that any new work will inevitably land inside the Venn circle of pre-existing human-made art. Iterations on iterations still fall within existing frameworks. I am cautiously optimistic of an AI that can truly innovate and create new styles and even forms of art not yet conceived.
I'm with you on the architecture as well! Vegas gives me anxiety but there is a lot to admire in how such opulent structures have been built!
Likewise I would bet AI on its own will not create artistically novel creations. But I do believe people will find away to do something interesting with it. One of my favorite bands, Kraftwerk, is a prototype of where I can see AI art going. They rejected traditional instrumentation, invented electronic devices to automate their music, but made something wholly unique and helped create a genre. So in that way I view AI as an artistic medium. The medium doesn't make the art, the artist does.
Edit: I'm much more optimistic about AI art than any other use of AI. I don't think it will displace artists, but I think we will eventually see a movement of artists that incorporate AI into some new thing.
I feel the same way. To me, art is fundamentally a special form of communication. If there's just some algorithm on the other end it's not art. It might be beautiful or even moving, the way a natural phenomenon like a forest or a sunset can be, but it's not art to my mind, because there's no communication involved.
I think paying attention to the artifact itself, stripped of all other context, is a valid way of looking at it. But it's a bit narrow - you miss things that having more context could provide. Seeing an artifact as the result of human performance and/or as a historical artifact often makes it more interesting. Where did it come from? How was it made? Why did they make it?
But yeah, a lot of times the "aura" associated with rare or famous artifacts seems a bit much. Sometimes the thing itself is mundane and the only thing that's interesting about it is where it came from, so the story is what matters. And if the story has been lost, well...
For me, the end result is what matters. Once I tried to appreciate art differently, try to consider the context, when it was made, etc, but I wasn't able to. It's not who I am. If I want to put a thing in my living room to decorate it, I will easily put a thing that I consider more beautiful even though it was mass produced in some factory, instead of another that I find less beautiful but happens to be one of a kind made by a renowned artist.
Not trying to say I'm some kind of absolutist though. For example, I can appreciate old monuments and be in awe on how they managed to build it with more primitive tools, but it's a very small part of my mental equation on whether I like it or not.
Same here. Half of all my posters are cheap Ikea ones for this reason
I feel the same way in some aspects.
It's an inanimate fucking object!
I'm a creative type so I absolutely believe that our makings hold inherent value. But something that is hundreds of years old, that has already been seen and appreciated, like Notre Dame or Børsen burning down? Or extinction rebellion activists gluing themselves to artworks, or tossing paint on it? It's shocking, sure, but I feel little to no emotions about it. Those things have been documented minutely anyway - I could not possibly care less if the "original" burns down (whatever that even means - Ship of Theseus). And I laughed so much when a former politician here was interviewed, and said that it was the worst day of his life when Børsen burnt down. I mean get a grip lol
Having said that, I would be very sad if my own works were burnt. And I think AI art is deeply problematic. But paintings and buildings that are hundreds of years old? The original artist is no longer here, I promise their feelings won't get hurt lol
I can understand that, to a point at least. We have recreations of the Mona Lisa as perfect to the original as possible, so there's no reason for anyone to crowd around it at the Louvre where it's surrounded by much more impressive pieces. It's especially annoying when it comes to paintings that old because they have likely been through multiple "restorations" which essentially amount to painting over it, so the thing you are looking at arguably isn't the original. Ship of Theseus indeed.
I do think that there is art that is important to preserve, though. They stand as a record of ideas that help us understand how we got to the ideas that we currently have. It just doesn't necessarily have to be the exact same as it was originally, especially when non-digital works are going to decay anyways.
Yes, and that historical aspect is something I'd consider important too. In my country though there was recently some discussion about churches in rural areas that are falling apart, but the state won't fund restoration of them - we are talking about churches numbering at least 1000. Practically all of them has locals who want them to be restored because they're part of our/their "heritage" or whatever, but that's once again one of those examples that I just cannot for the life of me see how that many churches, most of them more or less the same blueprints, are in any way significant to our history, especially the ones built within the last 100-200 years, which many of them were.
I remember a family gathering and this came up, and seeing as I'm the annoying atheist who believes in something akin to Soviet state-atheism, I said that I would not oppose demolishing religious buildings like that. The upkeep for that many abandoned churches (and other religious buildings probably?) is just too crazy to think about. Family was polite about it and just said huh, but I think they thought I was being a little obtuse to say the least lol
I'm actually of two minds when it comes to buildings. There's not really a good way to preserve them digitally; even with the new innovations that allow you to scan buildings and view them in VR, none of them are good representations of the real thing. They lack in detail visually, they can't reproduce the physical properties of the materials they are made of, and they can't reproduce the less tangible things like the smell.
There's a good arguement that they are not worth preserving, but I don't know if I entirely agree with it. I think that the value of preserving anything is a spectrum, and buildings have a lot more dimension than other forms of art that need to be evaluated, like what it's made of and how it's important from a historical perspective. And there's the issue of present utility!
On the other hand, I don't think that governments should give private entities funds to restore or preserve private buildings at all. If it really is important, then the community should be able to fund it. Especially when it comes to religious buildings.
I really enjoy the work that goes into making something. I like virtuoso piano pieces because they're crazy difficult to play. I like art because it takes work and practice (and for other reasons too). I think AI art is interesting because of all the years it's taken to develop it, but the art does lose something to me after the 100th example or when it's just some guy in his basement using a library for 10 minutes.
In my mind, it's the context, intentionality and creation process of human-made art which makes it special, not the final end product necessarily. To me, it's the elimination of that process which leads me to be iffy on AI art, in general.
I think that is a quotable simplification of centuries of art philosophy, but I think the spirit of what that sentence is supposed to represent is true enough, but can be said for AI art as well. I've seen exhibits in museums similar to your "blank canvas" story and I agree it's stupid, the whole "I'm going to post up a blank room and it'll make you think about what art really is!" thing is a pretty shallow experience, but I don't think that discredits it as a piece of art in itself. The context and intentionality behind things are what I would consider the "art" not the actual blank canvas (again stuff like that is corny at this point, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say.)
At the risk of pontificating, I appreciate the existence of AI art because it really has made me think a little deeper about what "art" is from a human perspective. Still haven't wrapped my mind around how I feel about it, but don't think it's totally useless or be banned or not considered real art or anything like that.
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What about intellectual property? People having what they would use for their financial livelihood stolen from them?
Ok, here's my most unusual political view. It's a bit extreme.
I consider myself a militant anti-monarchist. I don't care how depowered, constitutional, or benevolent a king or a queen is. I am ideologically opposed to the very existence of monarchies in any form. Want to keep a symbolic head of state around and have them dress fancy and live in a gilded palace? Fine. But they should be elected to regular terms just like everyone else. No one has a right to power by birth. NO ONE. There are few things more repugnant and evil than one claiming the right, by birth, to have any kind of power over an entire nation of people. The French had the absolute right approach to dealing with monarchs. Every last one of them deserves that fate. They should all have to surrender their crowns or be treated the same. I consider being a monarch to be nothing less than a crime against humanity. I don't care if you're an absolute monarch like the Sun King or the constitutional and symbolic King of Denmark, you are still a monster.
If I had my way, being a monarch of any kind on US territory would be a capital offense. No king, queen, or emperor should be able to set foot on US soil without literally losing their head. I'm still OK with the US, as a practical matter, trading and interacting diplomatically with countries that have yet to shake of their monarchical chains. But no king should ever cross the US border. No state dinners or other high honors should be given to them. Anyone who dares claim the right to rule over others, by right of birth, should be arrested, tried for crimes against humanity, and hanged like we did the defendants at Nuremberg.
Anyone who claims the right by birth to rule over others is an enemy of all mankind. Every last one of them deserves the same fate as Louis XVI. In fact, they deserve far worse.
If this post makes me lose any chance of getting an audience in front of a monarch some day, good. All I would want to do is spit in their face. Being a monarch is a crime against humanity.
How far does this extend? Do you feel similarly about aristocracy in general? What about de facto aristocracies where you can be born into obscene wealth and twist the political system to your will even if you don’t officially have a birth-right title?
Not trying to argue - just genuinely curious since I can feel the vehemence dripping from your post.
Well you have to draw the line somewhere. I'm not a fan of inherited wealth in general. But at least wealth doesn't intrinsically have formal power associated with it from birth. I would treat any aristocrat the same as a monarch if that aristocratic title gave them any legally-protected advantages. For example, traditionally such titles carried the right to vote in higher assemblies, special exemptions from taxes, etc. Legally-protected inherited privileges of any kind are an abomination.
If you inherit a ton of money, but have no formal legal status, you still have to compete for political influence among other people who have a lot of money. You still have to have some connection to society at large, some relevance to the present-day world if you want to turn inherited wealth into power. But old-style aristocracy? Where aristocrats have formal titles that get passed down and carry special legal status and privileges? That's just as bad as the monarchs.
I would be in favor of very high inheritance taxes, maybe 100% above say, 100x the median national income. While inheriting large amounts of money is something we should strongly discourage, it's not a crime against humanity. But yeah, if there are aristocrats with formal titles that still obtain any degree of inherited political power, I would put them right there on the gallows next to the monarch. Give them all a chance to abandon their titles or face the consequences. Monarchs and aristocrats have no place in the 21st century. They're anachronisms still hanging on, clinging to the rim of the dustbin of history.
But monarchs especially are there own unique form of evil. The very idea that one would claim they are inherently, by birth, better and deserve special legal status is abominable.
All men are created equal. Full stop. While solving the inequities of wealth is a much more difficult task, monarchies and formal aristocracies are the low-hanging fruit of true equality. If we can't even accept the idea that no human being should have a special status that is explicitly written into law, what hope do we have at solving other problems of unjustified power, such as that from inherited wealth? Solving racism and racial injustice is a hard problem to solve, with all the subtleties and balance involved. But simply not having people that have special legal status bestowed and inherited from birth? That's an easy one.
I find it hard to disagree with your sentiment. I am anti-monarchist, though not to the same extent as yourself - for instance, I wouldn't agree that the King of Denmark should have his head in a basket because he's the King of Denmark. I don't have any data to support this off-the-cuff reply but my gut feeling is that a representative figurehead like that isn't a bad thing to have, given that their positions have no actual political power and their quality of life is representative of the general populace. I can't defend these positions being granted by birth, however.
I don't mean to start a debate or anything, I just liked your comment and wanted to add my measured support.
Maybe I misunderstand what you mean, but the king's quality of life is in no way comparable to the average Dane. It is garish to a ridiculous extent. The population massively approves of him though so he may as well have been elected as born into it.
The election part is pretty interesting though, because Norway actually once voted in favour of having royalty.
I honestly didn't look into what his lifestyle was like, I was just iterating on how I said that
I’m not shocked that it isn’t or anything, just saying my view is that this sort of position would be okay given those requirements.
I’m with you on pretty much all of it, except for executing foreign citizens. Hereditary rulers are definitely some kind of massive scale crime against humanity though.
Well, I wrote it from a US perspective, and I specifically discussed monarchs on US territory. It's not worth declaring war on Britain to remove King Charles. Too many innocent people would have to lose their lives before we were able to get to him. And plus it would mean war in general. But if we had a law that said, "it is a capital offense for a monarch to step foot on US territory," well that would be a pretty infamous and well-known law. If a monarch still chose to come here anyway, well they would know what they're getting themselves into. And also in that case, there's no going to war to capture someone, as they're already on US soil.
I have to show this to my wife because it's a meme that I'm an anti-monarchist but even I don't think the US should execute any monarchs who step on their soil lmao. But of course I'm generally opposed to capital punishment.
I absolutely agree on the rest of your comment, though. I'm opposed to the existence of even symbolic monarchs. I'm not going to take any sort of radical action to get rid of them myself, but I fervently hope that they dwindle and the countries that still have them eventually get rid of them due to the will of the populace.
Here is one view that is at least very outside the norm on Tildes (and relatively light-hearted in comparison to some here!): I don't think ads are a big deal and I think expending large amounts of effort to avoid seeing them is a total waste of effort.
How much I hate ads depends on their subject and their presentation.
These are not too bad:
I absolutely hate the following types of ads:
There are some things in the middle that I dislike but don't anger me, like ads on public transportation.
Damn, I hate billboards more than almost any of those. They're so hideous, trashy looking, and dangerous.
No idea why it's legal to put things on the sides of highways intentionally designed to distract people.
In a few US states it's not legal for both the reasons you mentioned, aesthetics and safety. Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont all banned the fuckers. I live in Missouri and the sheer amount of religious and political rage bait that's on either side of the highway is ridiculous. Ruins an otherwise pretty drive, and like you said I'm spending less time looking at the road.
Interrupted by Lions Den billboards. Never got over those being alternated with the Christian ones
Yeah, I agree that some can be better and some can be worse. That being said, the strongest reaction I've had to any ad is "meh" and then I think about something else. The only time it goes beyond that are like pop-ups that make a site completely unusable, but that is pretty rare these days. To me, it's ultimately just Not That Hard to ignore them.
I think I’m in a similar boat. Non-obtrusive text ads in both print and on the web are fine. Static graphical ads can be ok too — in fact, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call good graphical print ads something of a lost art, with how clever and creative they used to have to be in order to be effective.
Billboards I’m more iffy on. I don’t mind them if they’re relatively few in number but I’m not as keen on them if density is high.
As soon as audio, motion, captive audiences, etc are involved I dislike them greatly.
I'm firmly on team avoiding ads, but I do think that either extreme is actually a superior option to the middle ground.
Basically people don't want to watch ads because they gain nothing out of them. It's wasted time that you are forced to suffer through. But I feel like a really invasive targeting of ads probably loops back around into being helpful. If every ad you saw was good (either very informative or entertaining), was something you wanted to hear about, and either saved you money or helped directly fund something you enjoyed, it would be much better than having to watch commercials. I don't think the state of ads is really there to support that ideal system, nor do I think companies should be able to be that intrusive of your privacy, but I am willing to accept the idea that some ads may be helpful sometimes.
I'm probably the other end of the spectrum (which I think is also outside the norm in a lot of places): I think adverts should by-and-large be banned. Particularly in public spaces, but possibly more generally.
I know this isn't a very practical belief, but I think getting rid of ads would make public spaces much more pleasant to be in, and set a better expectation that people don't need to be constantly sold to.
Couldn't agree more. Ads are ugly malware for your brain. Genuinely good products don't need ads to encourage sales. Awareness is important for new products and competition, of course. But we could accomplish that with strictly enforced text-only black and white ads restricted to Times New Roman font, verifiable facts only, and an optional (black and white) image of the product.
I mildly dislike ads.
I vehemently rage and fight back against the commercialized, frighteningly in-depth mass surveillance that fuels targeted advertisements and is ripe for abuses (and has been abused to our detriment).
I too support advertising, it’s why a lot of services are offered for free (yes, I’ve heard the data arguments–”nothing is free, you’re the product”), and this is a great thing for society.
There are however limitations to this. I don’t believe advertising should be in a paid product, whatsoever. If I am paying for a product or service, I fully expect that to cover the cost that advertising would otherwise subsidize. If you’re unable to survive without both a subscription and advertisements, perhaps you should reëvaluate your business model.
As I would personally prefer not to see advertisements, I will gladly pay for a service to remove them. I happily use YouTube Premium knowing that creators will get paid for my view (yes, even if the video is demonetized for not being advertiser-friendly).
I also dislike a lot of today’s advertisements. I don’t want to see tiktok style ads with shitty acting or just blatant lies which is all too common today.
So essentially my take on this is that advertising is not inherently evil like some people seem to believe, but I must be provided an option not to see it. If you do not want to accept my money as a means to support your service or will take my money and still show me advertisements anyway, I won’t feel guilty about blocking your ads.
My own view: marriage is pointless. I can understand a civic partnership, where two people come together as one household for whatever reason, but the institution of marriage, the view of it as something sacred, has no meaning for me. People fall in and out of relationships all the time, and I don't like the idea of being religiously or bureaucratically bound to someone.
I've been with my partner for years. We have a family and rings and a strong bond between us, but we aren't married and have no plans to become so.
I know there's benefits in our society, but I'm oddly attached to the idea that we will be together through our life without some piece of paper declaring it so. It feels more pure that way.
EDIT: Don't even get me started on weddings... A huge waste of money, time, and effort.
My (current, I'm non-monogamous) partner and I can't get married for health insurance/disability reasons. I don't care about marriage as a thing, but it's frustrating to have to cobble together legal protections and it means neither of us getting benefits should one die. That said, while I loathe what the modern wedding industry has turned into, I get the idea of celebrating a major life event with those closest to you. Or in places where folks are more communal, using a wedding as an excuse for a general town celebration or the like.
The whole industry and social expectation part, nah, but somewhere under that are the bones of throwing a party because you're happy to be with someone else. And that I'm ok with.
Thank you for this - a different viewpoint is always welcome.
Anti-natalism is a philosophy that finds continuation of human procreation immoral.
It might be endorsed lower than 0.000125% of human population and less than that will stand by its core principles.
I sympathize with the view. I let myself be talked into having a kid after being on the fence / somewhat against it.
My kid is doing great, but I still struggle with the choice.
Creating a person from nonexistence and forcing them to go through a whole life with no guarantees about how that life will be no matter how hard you try or what your situation is… it’s a lot. In all likelihood we’ll die before she does (hopefully), so we will never know if she will be happy to have lived when she looks back on her life. There very well may be periods where she’ll wish she just hadn’t been born, and that’s something we forced on her with no possibility of consent. And there’s no easy way out of this world once you’re in it.
To me, having kids is a fundamentally selfish choice.
I don’t know maybe I’m still sort of an anti natalist…
This seems like a position common amongst people with some sort of depressive disorder. Curious if this is you.
Personally, I'm very happy that I exist and am glad my parents decided to have me, and most other people I know feel (I think) the same way? So maybe it's just the people I hang out with, but from my standpoint most people seem glad to exist.
Never formally diagnosed as such, but maybe. I don’t think that negates my point though, as there is no way to know whether a new human will struggle with depression or not. Having a child is a roll of the dice with a non-negligible probability of “I wish I hadn’t been born”.
I would imagine that a significant portion of this could stem from your own personal confidence and self-esteem
For instance I am very much looking forward to having children because I consider myself to be an exceptional individual, that has brought a lot of good into the world between my own personal values and my ability to help other people in various settings
I think the world would benefit from having people in future generations that may potentially share some degree of the same values, ergo one root basis for my desire to have children
Sure, they could turn out to be sub-optimal offspring, and obviously my beliefs are my own subjective truth. With that being said though I am at baseline an incredibly optimistic person so I am not at all worried about those potential risks, as no matter what happens the world will continue on so why not just do what will make me happy?
This is exactly my point that having kids is fundamentally selfish. The most important person affected by the choice to have a child is the new human being, not the parent. The child cannot consent to that.
If the choice is given any real thought, the reasoning is parent-centric (I want a kid, this will make me happy; the world would be better with more of me in it) and this is misaligned with the real impacts of the choice.
Sharing your values with future generations also does not necessitate creating new human beings.
I wonder how much of this is down to the problems the next generations are going to face. Climate change, impossible house prices, late-stage capitalism nickle-and-diming everyone, spineless & corrupt politicians etc.
Would you feel differently about this if you knew your kid was going to have a happy, stress-free life without any of this garbage?
Why even entertain an idea so divorced from reality as to be akin to trying to imagine a universe without gravity? It's not going to happen in our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of anyone soon should our species manage to not entirely wipe itself out through the destruction of our planet or through war.
I mean, I consider myself to have a happy life. Stress-free is perhaps going a bit far, but certainly one where the balance of joy vs stress leans in joy's favour. And that's true for most of the people I know, I believe.
Yes but we live today, not twenty years in the future, let alone fifty. I think it's perfectly reasonable to see what the world is today and see how in many ways it's not getting better and in some ways we might be quite close to the end of humanity. It's okay to look at that and think 'it's not moral to bring new life into this'. I certainly don't think it's moral because I know how tough my life has been and how fucked up humanity can be.
This is sort of related to the topic itself with views outside the norm and this comment within it, but I find life at its core is virulent. As far as our understanding goes, pain and unhappiness doesn't exist without life. Life not only enables those things to happen, but doesn't exist anywhere on this planet that doesn't involve harm. I don't think there's any such thing as a life that doesn't experience harm.
I think what makes me feel the way I do about life is the expectations that were created for me growing up. Not just by my parents or family, but by media, by teachers, even interactions with strangers and more. Some of it is of course that as a child your ability to understand can be limited in many ways, but other parts of it is that much of what we see or are told is just a lie or at the least a facade to hide our vulnerabilities. We don't want other people to see us hurting or struggling. It's like being told there's this old guy in a red suit that gives out gifts every year, a fantasy that is later taken away, except with life the gifts don't keep coming every year even after the lie is gone.
In a way, some of those problems you mentioned have always existed. Climate change, ok maybe not as much that if you go back further, but was housing necessarily better when it was a small single room made of mud, sticks, straw etc. and some people were indentured servants etc.? Instead of spineless corrupt politicians, was it any better with barbaric monarchs or lords or whatever you call the haves versus the have-nots in any era?
I think the idea that those particular things you mentioned as being problematic are an example of the expectations created from a very small blip in time where some things were more achievable than others in those time frames. Except then that became an expectation, even though there was almost never a time before then where those things were achievable on that level and no reason to believe that they could continue to exist again after that. It was the result of an uneven state that hadn't reached equilibrium, not something you can expect to be maintained at the scale it worked on.
I think I'm something antinatalist-adjacent. I don't know if there's a specific term for it. I find the usual arguments for antinatalism ("birth without consent", etc.) to be more philosophical word games than anything. But I also assign zero moral value to lives that don't exist yet, and I don't think creating more lives should be seen as a right. This has lots of implications that many people would find horrifying.
Related: if there was a way to do it without immediately descending into a dystopian hellhole, I would advocate for taking all children away from their parents and having them raised by professional child-raisers. There are entirely too many parents who are bad at parenting in a wide range of ways.
It would be neat if we could make everyone take special classes on parenting that teach you to think through what effect your actions will have now and down the line. And I don't mean it's a requirement to have kids; I mean it's just a requirement in general. There would be plenty of moaning about it, but I think it would teach a lot of great lessons to society. (This is coming from someone with no plans to have children)
Well, we used to have that. Some would disagree, but that was a large part of what the church community did. Many of those Bible stories and sermons and Sunday School lessons had messages about families and children and how to act appropriately in 'the village' that was raising your child.
But then we all became so independent, and the rise of secularism and some outright hatred toward anything religious has slowly destroyed that training. And MUCH of it was very good.
Instead we hand over our kids to teachers, counsellors, psychologists, therapists and doctors - and its not been a great transition. The things that a church community used to teach parents very well has not been well replaced by many paid professionals.
I don't think the idea that the church was training people to be parents prior to the rise of secularism is remotely tied to reality -- at least, not if you mean it was training them to be good parents.
I don't think cultures and languages should be viewed as sacred or owned by any particular group of people. I don't view it as inherently sad at all if a language stops being used or a cultural practice stops being practiced.
I don't think the vast majority of things labeled as "cultural appropriation" are bad. You can do a thing and assign meaning to it, and other people can simultaneously do the same thing and assign a different meaning or no meaning, without meaningfully affecting you in any way.
I think the world would be better off if everyone spoke the same language. So much knowledge is out there that people can't access because it's impractical to learn every language in active use.
To be absolutely clear, since most of the time everyone thinks I'm saying "all the foreign people should learn English and the US should colonize all the things": I apply this to my own culture(s) and language too, and it is immoral to try to make any of this happen by force.
I'd go farther and add that some of the worst conflicts and friction points come from trying to stick to or salvage culture. I've seen the same people who would fight someone for implying their mixed heritage friend has anything wrong with that, but then at the same time say "well you can't really say you're X or Y and so the culture doesn't apply to you".
Not often that extreme, but it's very much a thing, and it causes a lot of issues. I do get the problem where "hey culture A has major advantages over B, and is then monetizing culture B for more advantages", and that is a legit criticism of the commercialization of some of this, but often it just feels like people looking for more reasons to be angry.
More of a cultural difference, but I know a lot of people see East Asian countries as a model for gun control, but I’d note that they’re also outliers in drug control. And to be honest I’m still mostly in favor of most recreational drugs being illegal.
It kinda works? Like Taiwan, Japan, etc have very little to no illicit drug usage? That was my experience growing up. There’s not mass arrests or anything. People just don’t use drugs. And I think it’s… better overall?
I'm kind of the opposite. I think that the biggest problem we have with drugs is that they are made to be illegal and so the damage they make is amplified. Marijuana, for instance, can have negative effects, but here in the US those are eclipsed by the mass incarceration and enforcement related to its ban. In the meanwhile, new and more dangerous drugs keep getting invented to fill the gaps left in the vacuum.
I also think that people don't tend to take into account the reasons why people use drugs. It seems like a lot of people who are addicted start them because they are going through some tough times. Maybe if we had a better social safety net, we would have less problems with drug addiction across the board? Things start to get really interesting when you consider the link between homelessness and drug usage. There was an experiment run a while back where they took homeless drug addicts, gave them housing first, and they had better outcomes than if they were told to get off of drugs first. It seems to me that drugs are just the water that's filling in the cracks in the foundation that is our society.
I think this is the dominant way of thinking in the west in general, which is why I bothered to put my take here.
There are models where cracking down hard on recreational drugs works, though. You just have to be even more brutal and thorough - the American war on drugs was infamously disproportional.
Or maybe it just isn't possible in America. That's not impossible, but if you were to say "it's impossible to enforce absolute gun control in the US" or "it's impossible to have universal healthcare in the US" the refrain would be "well, look at all those developed countries that did it?"
Either way, I think the world where all recreational drugs are outlawed, and a combination of social pressure and legal pressure keeps recreational drug usage at sub 0.6% of the population as it is in most of east asia, is a better world.
Maybe, but there are countries in SEA much, much poorer, with much worse healthcare, which don't have massive drug use. I don't think it's either or.
And I think it compounds; drug abuse takes the poor and keeps them forever poor.
Ha! Fair enough. But I still think I'm way far out in the weeds as far as where my opinion lays on the spectrum of drug permissiveness.
Those SEA countries you speak of may not have money or healthcare, but they have much stronger social structures overall, especially when it comes to family units and familial duties. The social safety net doesn't exclusively apply to governmental programs, after all. Here in the US our social fabric is full of countless holes; it's really more of a social spider web.
This is compared with the US, I presume? I see US culture as encouraging various forms of unruliness in culturally deep-seated ways. Some other countries have a lot less of it, and that means certain things are more possible there than here.
It's not all good. Rigid gender roles and social pressure for salarymen to stay out late drinking heavily with their co-workers are also a thing in Japan, or so I've read. But top-down pressure for some healthy behaviors just doesn't get much pushback, it seems?
I would also include Western Europe in that. Japan is one extreme, but it’s also the case in most of Southeast Asia, which are much more “unruly”. I don’t think it’s either or.
Basically, after the Opium War everyone in that sphere wanted nothing to do with any drugs ever again, and it’s stuck almost 3/4ths of a century to this day.
I had my drug phase in US college. Idk I just feel like even it’s pretty mid all things considered even when done safely/well, and the bad cases are utter disasters.
I always heard drinking alcohol to excess was popular in Japan? I've heard about drunken business men being a common thing. I've never lived there so could be ignorant.
But alcohol is a legal recreational drug there right?
Betel nuts are extremely common in Taiwan. They’re super addictive and really bad for you. https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/05/asia/taiwan-asia-betel-nuts/index.html
Thailand legalized marijuana last year and it's taken over like crqzy. Little shops that turned over every few years (and that COVID killed) have all been replaced with dispensaries. It's kinda frustrating and sad, but... I got no problem with people smoking. They stink like shit, but... whatever. And poverty being what it is here, it seems like a good way for people to escape. I feel like everyone self medicates somehow.
I used to smoke cigarettes and miss it a lot though, lol.
I believe a racially and culturally homogeneous society is desirable and should be achieved through government incentivized exogamy/interracial marriage. To clarify I have recent Asian ancestry and have no problem importing hundreds of millions of non-whites of any culture in the coming century, so this isn't a white supremacy/Nazism thing at all. In fact this is exactly what what they fear under the guise of the "Kalergi plan". Also I have no opinion about countries outside the US.
Genetics doesn't really work like that. In a population as large as humanity, it's really not possible for us to ever be racially homogenous. There will always be observable phenotype differences among populations of people, no matter how close we are genetically, which brings me to point
Race is a social construct. It's loosely based on phenotypes that are correlated with genetic markers, but races change with the times. If white people started looking more like black people, the definition of what a white person is would shift to compensate. Races are largely about dividing people into groups, so as long as phenotype differences exist, "race" will exist without a massive upheavel in society, not genetics.
And finally,
Racism doesn't exist because races exist. Races exist because racism exists.
In more homogenous societies it's typically replaced by a social marker rather than a physical one; caste systems are a good example of this.
I have concerns counter to this, primarily related to how such would be accomplished and the consequences of such policies. What has been / is being done to the Uyghur people comes to mind.
My apologies in advance if the example used is inflammatory. I like Tildes as a platform that encourages high quality discussion, and I am genuinely not trying to villainize you, nor am I stating that your view must directly correlate to my example of concern.
No particular aversion to, and mild interest in, cannibalism. At least of the lab grown cultured meat form.
At one time you could get HuFu ( tofu made to mock human meat ).
Given that lab meat is still nothing more than a few very expensive morsels in a lab, I think you will have a long wait for lab grown human meat. I read a few years ago that growing esophaguses in labs had some successful experiments. Still expensive, but you could make the most of it by setting a nice table, then serving it with fava beans and a nice Chianti.
What… what did it taste like
Never had it.
Pigs are supposed to one of our closest genetic relatives after chimpanzees, so I imagine it tasted like ham.
Not just ham, but specifically "long pig."
I'm suddenly remembering the end of the book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
I believe this is one of those things that has taboo roots not just because of empathy but darwinism.
Prions and their wonderful associated diseases mostly stem from things like cannibalism as a vector (not just in humans), and thus I don' think you'll be seeing much lab grown human anytime soon, as I don't know how well you can easily control for that kind of problem, and the cost is horrific.
I remember years ago on a Pokémon forum of all places, someone posted a thread titled along the lines of "What's so wrong about cannibalism?" It wasn't a troll thread or someone trying to justify their desire to partake. It was posed as a serious philosophical question about what, exactly, makes eating human meat so taboo. Not even for survival purposes, like that plane crash with the soccer team or shipwrecks where survivors were on lifeboats with no land in sight, but just the act of eating human meat itself.
It was a pretty fascinating discussion and it recently popped into my head for some reason. My conclusion at the time: there really isn't any ethical argument against it. Even now probably fifteen-plus years later I still can't think of one.
The idea of eating human meat still deeply unsettles and repulses me, but so long as it's not from a murder or any sort of cruelty... Or creepy soliciting online for someone willing to die to engage in a cannibalism fantsy like that infamous Japanese man in France... I can't really call cannibalism itself immoral.
Of course, as an apple who happily eats fellow apples, I might be a bit biased.I don't think there's anything unethical inherently about eating human meat (although I do think most of the ways of procuring said human meat are wrong), but it is worth noting that there are some pretty severe health risks when it comes to cannibalism, so the disgust isn't completely misguided. Prion diseases, while not unique to cannibalism, are much more easily spread through it, and they are both extremely bad to experience and currently completely untreatable.
I think greed and the desire to have more wealth or property than you need is a serious mental illness and those like this should be sectioned away from the rest of society for our own good.
Can you elaborate on how much wealth or property a person needs? How would you define this?
I'm not sure this counts compared to what others have posted, but here it goes.
I sincerely believe that humanity is almost literally shooting itself in the foot by embracing shoes and shaming/shunning barefootedness, and that we should be doing anything else possible to avoid putting a barrier between our feet and the ground. If you're even a little acclimated to going barefoot, the circumstances in which you actually need protection are way smaller than one might think (a steel mill, sure, a restaurant, not so much), and there are alternative solutions to problems we're currently solving with shoes.
Tracking in dirt? Sanitary wipes, or running water.
Glass? Watch where you're going, and carry a pair of tweezers in the event of something miniscule getting stuck.
Syringes? Get serious on a larger scale about putting a stop to this behavior.
Hookworm? Tell people to stop taking dumps on the ground, it's species specific.
Plantar warts? 1) don't keep your feet in moist, dark environments, and 2) we have vaccines for HPV, and plantar warts are both related and have far fewer simplexes, so a vaccine should be quite easy to create if we collectively cared to.
Expectations/"disrespectful"? Utterly irrelevant, I argue from a place of function (have you seen the difference in shape between a natural human foot and a shoe? Don't tell me there aren't physiological consequences), these are comparatively arbitrary.
If we want to solve foot and back problems, as we ought, then the solution is to subtract, no matter how much some may dislike it. In fact, if they dig in their heels about not allowing it in their establishment, they ought to be shamed instead. We don't go out wearing gimp suits just in case we get struck by lightning, and we don't need shoes until we really, truly need them... And for reference, with some training, people can go barefoot in snow and be just fine.
I appreciate this perspective, I even like being barefoot. But being barefoot (or even in unsupportive shoes) on concrete and other non-natural surfaces is horrible for my feet. I respect the idea of a more natural gait and such but I think it goes out the window when I'm on artificial floors all day. Thats never been good for me.
I'm not convinced it'd solve foot and back problems without much broader societal changes, like floors, and as you noted it requires a lot of other societal solutions to other problems.
Unapologetically vegan. I'd argue that 4% of US population qualifies as "extreme".
I'll go even further: I think the true ethical value of animal life is vastly higher than what the general population assigns it. In fact, I'm not convinced that the ethical value of any mammal's life is not basically the same as the ethical value of a human life, to say nothing of other kinds of animals.
I've been called some pretty nasty things for saying that the factory farming system is a moral crime on par with the Holocaust or American chattel slavery.
As a person who is (mostly) vegetarian, I just want to point out that animals kill each other all the time. And sometimes just for fun.
There have been some articles lately about how many animals probably have consciousness in a way that lets them suffer more than was commonly believed. It also implies that they may know that they are causing suffering in other animals.
The Earth (and known universe I guess) is a very cruel place, as OP noticed. To be alive is to suffer and cause suffering. It isn't just that humans are cruel. You can go into your yard and watch cats murdering birds and spiders murdering insects.
I feel like I'm not making my point very well. I'm trying to say that yes I think it's better to not eat meat, but the world is a messed up place so it's not surprising we are too.
I'm not arguing that humans are uniquely messed up, except insofar as we have the knowledge of what we are doing, and the means to choose differently, and yet we do not. But the fact that the world has lots of bad stuff in it has no bearing on the severity of our crimes.
I believe that countries should not have any citizenship requirements other than a criminal background check. While this can vary by country, most people will pay taxes to support the area they live in. Some people may be able to use the country's disability or unemployment benefits/safety net without working or paying significant taxes themselves, but everyone involved in supporting their care represents a potential increase in jobs, leading to more tax contributions.
Being born in a specific place should not create superiority or suffering. Everyone should be able to seek out a life in a location that works best for them.
I think that it's ridiculous how North Americans are obsessed with good vs evil narratives, and that it's a major part of our culture to root out and condemn the original sinners of history.
20th century colonialism, imperialism and all of the nasty cultural forces that imposed awful conditions on subjugated people's, but despite being currently held up as the ultimate expression of evil by our species, are only just the most familiar and recent version of what humans have been doing to each other for millenia.
The unpopular opinion is that while intersecting with race and gender in proportionate ways throughout history, that class power and access to resources has made serfs and rulers out of people of all walks of life, and that our present preoccupation with identity misses the forest for the trees.
I don’t think smoking in public should be acceptable.
I don’t care if it’s weed, tobacco, or whatever it’s incredibly unpleasant and my family members with asthma get physically sick when they have to breathe it in. It’s to the point they still walk around with masks at the ready in case they have to deal with it.
I don’t think we should be throwing people in prison for it but a strong social norm and providing specific places to smoke like hookah bars or whatever is plenty acceptable to me. I don’t care that you smoke or what you smoke, I just don’t want to breathe it.
If humanity creates AI that destroys us, I'm fine with that.
Not because I think humanity deserves to be extinct or anything. But I see the main purpose of intelligent life as understanding the universe (Carl Sagan: "We Are A Way For The Cosmos To Know Itself").That's a long term goal that humanity can only go so far towards before we hit inherent limitations.
In the best case scenario we improve ourselves into post humanity with brain augments, or genetic engineering, or uploaded consciousness, etc. I'd love to live long enough to be a part of something like that.
But, realistically, it seems too good to be true. Usually change seems to be more violent than that, the new forces out the old. Children outlive their parents, colonies revolt and declare independence.
I just hope that whatever comes after us is better than we are. Then I can imagine being a part of humanity, and humanity being a link in a chain that leads to some deeper understanding of what the universe is. Something that I could never comprehend, and maybe some Multivac "Let there be light" moment in the far future.
Dare we say "an unpopular opinion"?
I don't understand what you mean
The term “unpopular opinion” often has certain connotations surrounding it. I think OP phrased the title the way they did to avoid drama/getting removed for drama.
I'm asking the OP in particular what they mean. I'm familiar with the concept and connotation of "unpopular opinion" but I find it more relevant to know what the person I asked meant, not what someone else thinks.