"I'm upset about abortions"
"Let's fund sex ed, contraceptives and health care for pregnant women, it will cause the number of abortions to decline dramatically."
"NO. Send the women & doctors to jail."
"I'm upset people jump the turnstyle"
"Let's properly fund the subway and make it free and faster while reducing overhead."
"NO. I want those bad teens ARRESTED."
"This dreary area under the bridge is DISGUSTING."
"Let's clean it up & install a public restroom."
"NO. Arrest people for pooping"
I don't know what to do about this. I don't know how to help people who are more focused on punishing than stopping whatever it is that's bothering them.
And sometimes it's not even something they have the right to be bothered about (abortion, people being gay, etc.)
I'm not a magic saint. I don't like it when there is disorder. And I want to find ways to make things better, if it's my business.
@futurebird I don't understand this either. Like some of the replies mentioned, I think for a lot of folks it's just gut-level easier to hate or seek "revenge". I used to gravitate towards revenge... when I was a miserable teenager getting bullied. It didn't take long for me to see the error in that, to see that forgiveness and peace is worth the psychological effort.
I also think there are folks who just can't intellectually grasp those obvious solutions.
Well maybe when someone suggest a systemic solution to a person who is processing proximate anger it comes off as ... condescending? Like you're too good to just hate along with them?
So maybe the "angry moment" isn't the time to make that suggestion. If the "problem" is a real one (as in it's something that really shouldn't be happening, that really is annoying) the first step is to agree that it's bad.
Then the next would be to determine just how big of a problem it is.
@futurebird
Because arrest and punishment put the action and agency in the hands of the people who want to stop the behavior. The humane options leave the control in the hands of the person doing the unwanted thing.
@futurebird@Mcdyer the other sad way of looking at it is:
People are doing a bad thing (pooping under a bridge) and if you give them a toilet (or good public transportation, etc.) that's rewarding the bad behavior.
But the problem is that folks doing 'bad things' have no alternatives, so they aren't choosing the bad thing and punishment won't reduce it. It's the 'beatings will continue until morale improves' non-solution.
@futurebird Jeremy Bentham spent half of his life inventing cheap, effective solutions to "problems" like this, many of which were along the lines of "get rid of anti-gay laws and mind your business" or "just build homeless people houses to live in." But after about 30 years of asking various governments why they prefer more expense and rage to simply making life survivable for more people, he ended up with his theory of "sinister interest"--powerful people just want to see other people suffer.
@seachanger@carrideen@futurebird it also comes from a scarcity mindset, the belief that there just isn't enough and therefore we can't do any more or be generous or forgiving or "give from an empty cup."
The fact that that exact mentality creates conditions of scarcity, through hoarding and fear and selfish/isolation/greed, is too rarely identified. After all, scarcity is what makes The Man money, who himself has been traumatized into believing the world is zero-sum and full of assholes.
@carrideen@futurebird It’s like the petty tyrants who make grocery checkout workers stand all day--because they can. If you’re not expending energy to serve them, why do you exist? What good is power if you can’t use it to make people do things they don’t want to do?
@ShiitakeToast@carrideen@futurebird hmm, this theory also explains CEOs’ current obsession with “Return to Office” even for jobs where it makes no sense.
This would also explain why people educated in science still attend christian church. They believe simply because it hopefully means that some "others" will suffer in hell.
@ineiti@kelvin0mql@carrideen@futurebird But do you believe those of us who don’t accept Jesus Christ as our lord and savior (or like me, don’t believe he ever existed) are going to hell?
Some Christians don’t, but most do. That’s pure supremacy, and the binary of heaven-bound vs hell-bound dramatically impacts our society. We are not all equal in the eyes of many Christians
@futurebird yes yes yes. Punishment is a knee-jerk response to things you don't like. The next level response is prevent the problem from happening. When I see someone littering my first reaction is to shame them or make them feel bad - make them feel my disgust. But my next reaction is to think about where we can add more trashcans.
@ArtBear@futurebird I don't think it would ever be cost effective, a majority of the 150 millions are certainly in recurring costs, the longer you do it, the more money down the drain.
@tshirtman@futurebird
PPE scams. Bibby Stockholm. Dido Harding's Can't Test, Won't Trace, Don't Isolate program. Compulsory purchase orders on HS2 land then cancelled project. Covid Loans etc. So much of this all over
Recurring BS as a Gvt Service. BSaaGS.
Surprising thing is much of the criminal gangs behind farightwing politics are actually fairly compact, very international & organised to operate in an international fashion. Quite a lot of them pose for selfies at each others fundraisers.
@futurebird My honest view is that some people like to see others suffer - and those people vote. So, politicians are happy to campaign on their chosen talking points.
Being kind, actually caring for the people around us, fixing the root causes of issues are all "long term" issues that exceed a single election cycle, so if someone does happen to be elected in, the cruel bunch say "see, being kind doesn't solve it" and elect in someone cruel as they want instant results (which are impossible).
@futurebird In my hometown people were sleeping rough in the outdoor part of the roofed entrance area of a defunct and now empty department store building.
Instead of doing the obvious - opening the doors of said building which won’t see much use any time soon anyway - the people in charge of the city did what they thought to be the most fitting thing to do during the festive season: They fenced off the area.
@nblr@futurebird This brings up the other problem: an entire social-economic-political philosophy that tells us people have to "deserve" to live. Mbembe calls it necropolitics. You "deserve" to live if you're born into the right social class, race, abled body, gender, etc.
@OrionKidder@futurebird I mean… we could go way back with this theme to the “peccatum originale” or “peccatum hereditarium”. Themes like this one were used over the past centuries as a seemingly self-evident meme to keep the populace “humble”. Its resurgence with anti-solidarian policy making over the past decades is troubling me too. All past benefits of automation, and now digitalization are not democratically shared. They don’t improve the life of all but that of a few.
@nblr@futurebird "The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed." (William Gibson)
You're entirely right. There's always been a subset of society convinced that they deserve to be wealthier and more powerful than the majority of society. They just use different rationale: descended from gods, chosen by god, superior blood/genes, superior virtue/merit, whatever. Same bullshit; new metaphor.
@OrionKidder@futurebird Indeed, but the complementary part is much worse. People at large living in fear of losing what little status they have while overestimating their individual chances. Cheering for cutbacks in all sorts of solidarity systems like universal healthcare or opposing taxation for the top 10% because that's the place in society they aspire to be part of one day - which is never going to happen for the vast majority of them.
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