this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Unpopular Opinion

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Hatred often makes you want to hurt people, but people hurt peope in the name of greed more often, and not only with less potential for guilt, but is often the cause of delusional accolades and reassurance both from within oneself and from others.

Hypothetical:

A CEO lays off 10,000 employees that helped that company succeed, solely to increase earnings and not because the company is hurting, not only seriously hurting 9,997 people, but causing 3 to commit suicide.

A bumpkin gets in a fight with someone he hates the melanin of because he's a moron and kills them.

Who did more damage to humanity that day? They're both, I want to say evil but evil is subjective, they're both highly antisocial, knowingly harmful behaviors, yet one correctly sends you to prison for a long time if not forever, while the other, far more premeditated and quite literally calculated act, is literally rewarded and partied about. Jim Kramer gives you a shout out on tv, good fucking times amirite!

Edit: and this felt relevant to post after someone tried to lecture me about equating layoffs to murder.

"Coca-Cola killed trade unionists in Latin America. General Motors built vehicles known to catch fire. Tobacco companies suppressed cancer research. And Boeing knew that its planes were dangerous. Corporations don't care if they kill people — as long as it's profitable."

https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporations-profit-values-murder-culture-boeing

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Just throw the discussion out the window to focus narrowly, in your extremely pointed view, on the hypothetical monkey's paw of the potential affects a hypothetical law might actually impact, with neither side actually identifying or defining what would be the actual dangers or downsides of such a hypothetical law.

I'm not even sure how to start rebuking your points, as any which way is just a different direction that is still buried 17 leagues deep in your ass. Still, on the thinnest of pretenses that you actually want a discussion about what the post talks about, I'll try to make an attempt.

I’m going to ignore the insane part of your point where you equated layoffs with murder.

I mean, I'm not quite sure where you're coming from with this take, unless your basic understandings of cause and effect are so broken to not see the relationship between the only part where I can see this comment referencing:

Hypothetical:

A CEO lays off 10,000 employees that helped that company succeed, solely to increase earnings and not because the company is hurting, not only seriously hurting 9,997 people, but causing 3 to commit suicide.

If I'm correct, you're saying that people killing themselves due to a unexpected layoff is absolutely insane, and you cannot think of any way, shape, or form that being laid off has on that kind of decision? Or are you attempting to say that people who are laid off due to business decisions - which are typically premediated, uncommunicated in advance to avoid the loss of productivity that would be expected if a company were to sabotage it's employees like that - are entirely morally and ethically absent of any relation to the effects this will have on those laid off?

Now, you might argue in bad faith that it's not illegal, and thus is perfectly fine. If someone kills themselves due to something like this, they may have had problems before this, or that this wasn't an impact and probably would have done it anyways, or if it did, it wasn't that big, and if it was that big, then they deserved it somehow.

I feel this approach is morally, ethically, and as a human being, a completely void subject. At that point, you're attempting to rid yourself of the responsibility of the effects actions have on others, and sidestep the entire point of the post which addresses the moral quandary of the incredible perveance of white collar crime, and discussing possible ways to tackle this social issue.

Greed, like hate, is subjective. It is therefore, like hate, a terrible prerequisite for the activation of the criminal justice system. The idea that motivations for crimes should change the definition and/or penalty of those crimes has fostered popular corruption of the justice system since its inception. Industrialization has accelerated the adoption of human fears into that justice system, to the point where we can no longer even count the number of infractions under the law.

I'm pretty sure this deflection is what you're attempting to do with the above statement, while also exploring your own uniquely twisted idea that motivations for crimes are bad, and pretending like most crimes and cases aren't built around proving intent and because of intent.

In your world nobody would go to jail for attempted murder because if there wasn't a motivation to murder someone, it can't really be called an attempt. Tax fraud wouldn't be considered tax fraud because they can't connect that there was an active effort to evade taxes, they just made mistakes that their accountants didn't catch. It's actively advocating for the erosion of the common sense and most basic part of our justice system (if you can't prove the intent or motive, then you can't actually convict someone of a crime, it'd just be witch hunts at that point).

Also, not sure what Industrialization has to do with human fears, or what corruption you're referring to. Could you give concrete examples of changes in law that occurred during the Industrial revolution (1760 – 1840 in case you forgot) of this corruption you're talking about? Also, pretty sure you're talking about the Industrial Revolution as there is no period of time for 'Industrialization" other than the Industrial Revolution, unless you're referring to a more vague, made up timeframe. In which case, keep it to yourself.