Does evil exist in your moral universe?

hmm... well, the drowning person is going to be a more immediate concern and actionable on my part. So if within my means is the training or appropriate lifesaving equipment to do so then I'd say I have an obligation there. It's the same reason I carry multiple Naloxone with me everywhere.

I run a pretty lean ship financially... Sure, I can drop my change into whatever charitable foundation has a jar at the coffee shop as that's "within means" for me. But I can be far more effective if I focus one something realistic like raising a few thousand dollars to purchase socks/underwear/personal hygiene supplies for the homeless centre to distribute... "think global, act local". In the same way that there's millions of dollars for AIDS research it's more useful for me to send $50 to the hospice to put towards one of their ancillary programs. I can't cure addiction or homelessness or AIDS with the money I have (those being a bit less abstract than tropical disease to me), but I can spare 15 minutes worth of wages and have a pack of cigarettes to mete out. I guess where I'm going here is "harm reduction"... do what one can to make it suck less.

A few years back there was a fire at a grocer's on my street. I grabbed all the fire extinguishers from the bar I was working at and a couple neighbours also arrived also equipped with their own. We did what we could without placing ourselves into harm's way (nobody entered the store to fight the fire) until the fire department arrived. After they did, we just got out of their way.

Cruelty is an evil action. But is selfishness?

The idea … the moral ambiguity RickDeckard is getting at - you see the guy drowning. But do you see the person on the other side of the planet that is starving. That’s why in one incident, people will automatically say “yes, you have a moral obligation to act” and the other is “well, you can’t walk over and hand that person a plate of food”

The moral ambiguity comes when one has no direct relationship or interactions with the one in need.

But, that doesn’t cover everything either. Many serial killers interviewed over the years support a government welfare program or a UHC, others don’t.

In my opinion, evil isn’t about whether or not you’re willing to help someone you don’t know. That’s the same thing as saying people who don’t with to interact with others all day every day is also evil. People are different and have different reasons for helping or not helping. That isn’t evil. This is where I disagree with deontologists (sp?). I am not an absolutist.

THought "think global, act local" clarified? I don't have the means at hand to act directly for those starving on the other side of the world. My individual capacity for action is to donate to organizations that have the means or vote for a government that includes meaningful foreign aid.

OTOH, I do have the necessary swim training to effect a water rescue safely and such a situation would be one in which I was present. So yeah, I'm obligated in the same way that coming across an OD, I'm trained in resuscitation and carry the basic tools... Until someone better trained like a paramedic shows up, I'm potentially the best person for the job which is by its nature time sensitive.

Evil to me isn't apathy or not acting, it's fighting against those who would help. I can't buy every homeless person on Spadina Avenue a hamburger, but I can spare a couple of cigs or take the time to remember their names. Meanwhile, we're seeing cities passing bylaws against providing food and shelter to the unhoused... that's evil.

Agreed. Then we get into evil governments when citizens are homeless, starving, and medical needs not attended.

yup... any of the parties here are gonna tax me about the same. How that money get used is where the voting comes in...

Our conservatives aren't going to do shit about poverty-and have shown that they only make it worse. The current provincial gov't in Ontario is a shining example of this everywhere from delisting medical services to removing housing regulations to selling off publicly owned lands.

the liberals will pay token lip service whilst catering to NIMBYs.

our traditional third party (social democrats) tends to have enough influence to force incremental improvements as a concession for supporting other policies. Actually holding the reins of power tends to elude them though... too much stigma over the "S" word.


Don't get me started on local... For all the homeless and otherwise marginalized here, few of them are from Toronto. Instead they've been legislated out of their hometowns by those municipal gov'ts refusal to act in any way other than antagonistically.

Not to derail the thread, but the arguments I’m seeing here reflect short term thinking. Yes, you can help that homeless guy right there, or even make sure your local jurisdiction has services for homeless people. But that doesn’t address the root problem of why there are homeless at all. If you make your town a haven for the homeless, that will attract more homeless until your services are overwhelmed. Until humanity matures enough to enact a total society fix to the problem, you’re just putting a band-aid on an open wound. Yeah, you can have a “liberal” government enact large programs, but that just generates backlash from the people you’re taking from to fund those programs and in the next election cycle they’ll install people and policies to undo your programs. We’re seeing that happen in America right now.
Humanity needs to grow up some to fix these things. Grow beyond “me first!” And sorry, Amaris, but anarcho-communism ain’t the answer either.

I know, but, “you didn’t build that” and we need to, “ fundamentally transform this country.”

Homelessness is not evil. It is the result of evil. And yes, a government that doesn’t take care of it’s citizens, regardless of personal decisions on that citizen’s part, is evil.

there's a bit of a jump here between addressing root causes and making a town a haven... not even sure what connection you're trying to make? Cities get overwhelmed (and underfunded) because the sub and ex urbs either don't do anything or worse, criminalize homelessness AND trying to help the homeless.

I mena, the number one cause here is people are priced out of the housing market. Wages may have tripled in the last 30 years, but housing has gone up more than ten-fold.

Also, applying a bandage is how you treat an open wound last time I took a first aid course.


THe last time "liberal" governments enacted those plans, America got out of a depression and into a 30 year golden age. Maybe the problem is those who would create that backlash who took more and more away to create the problem in the first place? It's not like there isn't an even greater divide now than the so called gilded age which preceded that aforementioned depression.

Yet strangely it's working in a dozen countries right now that have longer life expectancies, more social mobility, better work life balances, government funded health care and higher education, and happier citizens because of these things. This has been going on for 40 years now and while these societies aren't perfect, they are objectively better for the people that live in them than ours is.

This isn't wishful thinking. It's objective reality and it exists right now.

Absolutely. It's amazing how you miss the irony in this.

You first.

point of order: not only do those programs work out to have better results, they're cheaper for the consumer/taxpayer.

Lanz might have a point, if you assume that the supply of homeless people is an infinitely running tap, and not a small fraction of the overall population.

well, production has actually kept pace with inflation, if not surpassed it.
terrifying as it sounds, the unhoused population here is near 1% at a high estimate.
One in five is under 24
one in three is indigenous
the gov't spends nearly $25K/yr on things that at best, keep them from starving or dying... for a while
that money could be more effective simply by providing them with actual housing. NOthing big... rooming houses with two or three support staff per shift. Take care of their basic needs for a while, and most of'em can still readjust to function independently to varying degrees. A lot of the time it just takes some structure...

'Course on a broader scale we need to reinstitute a lot of the tenant protections and rent controls we once had.

This depends on how you look at things. Love and hate are caring about things. Apathy is not caring.

Since many things in the universe are not purely binary you have the triad. Philisophically you have two distinct points where the separation of the two becomes a factor also. For another example you have me and you as two different people, but the separation of the two of us becomes an important factor also. In this way apathy is as separate from love and hate as they are from each other in the grand scheme of feelings.

The problem with UA is and has always been Binary thinking without any ability to think much beyond that while also existing in a place with well beyond that. Oddly this may be the reason why a computer cannot go beyond it's nature using a binary logic processing system. It may take quantum state computing to unlock true thought because that can add more than an on off state. Our neurons do take into account things like frequency and strength into our thought processes and neurotransmitters in between synapses effect our thought processes. Machines do not have neurotransmitter like connections or multiple synapses like our nerve cells do. That is not saying that quantum computers would have those devices, but they would have multiple states aside from on or off.

Police around here normally take the item and after a certain amount of time give it to the person who turns it in if it is not claimed. I do not know how much actual effort they put into such a thing, but you can also get in trouble with the law for being in possession of stolen merchandise in america. Most of the time who the fuck would ever know, but a bike in the local area would be noticed. That is why most people would tell you to turn something like that in so you don't get screwed.

I would say use it, but if you ever do meet the old owner they are going to be pissed and angry with you. They are going to blame you.

Story time so skip if you are not ready for tldr.

We used to go to the famous waterpark called action park, look it up. So the park was mostly asphault so you had to wear your sneakers, sandals, or slip on shoes from ride to ride in most areas. Then you put them in a wide open cubby with your towel and hope they are there when you get back. So me and my sister brought one of her boyfriends there to see if he was able to survive. It is importasnt to weed out the weaklings, and action park does that. So he had this old pair of beat up sneakers, and he wore those around.

Some dickhead stole them. Thgese were the rattiest foot fungus ridden cloth walmart shoes. So me and my sister had to go running around to the local cubbies looking to steal them back. You get blisters walking on hot sunny pavement if you do not have shoes. We did find them because they were quite unique with all the wear on them. My sister ran them back to him and I waited around to see who stole them so we could gang up on them later and drown them on a ride. That is the way Action Park worked. If you found someone who pissed you off you could easily fuck with them on a ride and throw an elbow or kick. There were people spitting out teeth and it wasn't from the ride itself. Action Park was a mosh pit on water rides.

This is intellectually dishonest and a lie created by the fascist conservatives to demonize helping the poor. People looking for support migrate and stop on an easy spot. The reality is many places make homelessness a problem and try to force them to look elsewhere through abuse. Which means when a homeless person comes to a haven they stay there. There is no homeless NYer running to SF because they think it is better. They end up there because they can get there easier and they are beaten along the way.

There are certain places which might attract homeless like southern florida because the weather is so much easier. Lots of homeless people stay in hard weather areas like NYC and Bridgeport CA because they cannot make the trip across the country to florida or a blue state like California. They do not know the programs are better there. They know the NY programs and NY people so they go through NYC homelessness because that is what they know.

Most of the California homeless were lured there as people with a home to new employment which crashed and they simply fell into havens in California because they could not get back. You completely neglect the lure of technology and industry to people on the cusp of failure who tried one last ditch drive in their shitty car to get a job. No one is running to california for benefits because you will never make it without a great job. They ran there for the job, and they fell into homelessness.

You are an idiot who has never spoken or hung with the homeless if you think they are all migrating because of some public assistance. If you logically want to run somewhere for public assistance you run to rural southern areas outside of cities where less than 200 per month in food will stretch a little longer and you can find cheapo shit houses and places to stay on farms for work. You do not go to homeless places like SF or NYC to live in a fucking tent. You end up in those places because that is where the most food is thrown out, and you follow the garbage and end up in a haven.

yeah, not too worried over the possession of stolen property. There're several shops in town specializing in "used" and "reclaimed" bikes so even telling the truth would likely keep me out of legal troubles. Likewise, the cops here really don't care if it's valued under $5K.

Only received one enquiry in the past week, and clearly a different bike they are looking for.


Of course I somehow managed to blow out my sciatica the other day, so barely walking at the moment, let alone riding...

a few years back, the ex and I went out to visit my parents in Brockville (about 45 miles east of Kingston). The hotel had a young guy that was crashing in the stairwell that I ran into going outside to smoke... clearly addicted, minimal self care, etc. Brockville has about 35 000 people living there and NO homeless services to speak of. It's also a serious centre of organized crime (biker club house got blown up last weekend, among all the other traffik that goes through there)... so where do they all come eventually? Here, to Toronto.

Barrie is a satellite city north of Toronto. They've been passing by laws lately against offering any supports to the unhoused in the same way that we've got by laws here against feeding pigeons-because some Karens decided they're a nuisance rather than living beings struggling to survive.

I just can't wrap my head around devaluing human beings after they've already been devalued to this sort of point... It's not that guy in the stairway's fault that two of the only three manufacturing job opportunities decided that moving operations to China was cheaper than paying perma-temps minimum wage and so packed up their plant.

Oh my, painful. Hope you get better fast.

I am not part of the "anti trans movement " any more than I am part of any of your other boogeymen. For the umpteenth GODDAMN time, you do not get to arbitrarily restrict people to either "for" or "against" just because it more easily suits your canned arguments.

I'm sure bailey coined that one. Come the fuck on.

And of course you two think you get to decide what that action looks like.

This idea that california is giving huge amounts of cash to homeless is a complete republican lie. Maybe they have a little bit more benefits, but they have a huge cost of living increase. That is why homelessness happens there. Any slight mistake in a rental or mortgage and you are on the street. California does not give enough money to get off the street. After a month of on the street you are fucked because any employment opportunities are going to know you are homeless and no one is going to hire you anymore. You are simply not going to save up first and last months rent and security to get into a place before living out of your car or in a tent results in you losing a job if you are lucky to get a low end position. Even if you bust your ass something is going to fuck you up. Your tent will get taken out, you will get robbed, you will get sick, and you will have to take time off of work. Even if they do not fire you, you start eating into any savings immediately.

What people like @Lanzman and @Uncle Albert expect is impossible once you lose your job in the city without savings. If you moved across country for the opportunity you probably did not have a car or parking because it was sold for your moving costs or unreliable and got towed and impounded.

Stop bullhorning their bullshit then.
Mister non-conformist.

FFS... you're tedious.

what do YOU think "that action" look like?

all you ever do is either bitch about the world or the people trying to make it a little less shitty.

grow up and grow a spine you sad little man.

Why, because you say you're not? Because that's how you prefer to identify, despite what other people see as clear evidence to the contrary? Ironic.

He is not part of it, but he is standing over there giving them fist bumps and shouting insults at the minorities. Do not take his actions and words to mean anything because he totally told you that they in no way reflect what he is.

From the guy whop says he doesn't want to play pretend with trans people he sure does want us to play pretend he is nopt a racist, GLBT hating, sexist ass. It is nice he identifies as a human and not a CHUD, but it would be cool if he at least tried to pretend he was human for a fucking change. At least trans people try to be the gender they identify as.

Ijmagine if trans women were all bald with hair coming out of everywhere wearing shorts, a tshirt, and having a fucking beard and tried to say they identify as women. That would be bad roleplaying, and that is UA pretending he is not transphobic.

It is possible to disagree with an opinion or behavior from a "trans person" without hating them or wishing they didn't exist.

That some people who DO genuinely wish them gone might agree with me on some particular point does NOT mean I endorse their every opinion or belong in their "camp."

This dogged insistence on conflating the two is shitty and dishonest.