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Joined 4 months ago
Cake day: December 18th, 2025
  • Mountainaire@lemmy.worldtoShowerthoughts@lemmy.world•Gig work is just turning the poor class into servants. And adding further debt to other poors trying to use these services.
    1·
    2 days ago

    To clarify, I’m not strongly for one nor the other side here (maybe that’ll get me in trouble already but I feel compelled to be transparent), because I deeply understand the pains and woes of the oppressed lower classes, yet I get the primitive act of violence being problematic. The problem is that there is so much power up there that they can buy even int’l courts of law out, or manage to thwart them. If killing is all that horrible (which I agree it normally is), shouldn’t we be seeing sanctions from Europe against the US in immediate reaction to Iran the way Russia was economically shot for ripping into Ukraine? Why aren’t we seeing this? Where is the tribunal? The US (just as an example) clearly has too much power for other nations to even express their concerns properly. All I see is the French government leaving Windows (which, while genuinely cool, is still a drop in the bucket relative to what more could be happening).

    You know, this all makes me think of the podcast Stuff You Should Know’s Revenge: Bitter, Not Sweet episode, which explained how the only reason society even exists is because of the threat of punishment. That is why I worry that, yes, “the blanket of civilization” is possibly permanently “really that thin.” That podcast episode, specifically, is an incredible listen that I highly recommend to everyone (whether showering, driving, or doing dishes; it’s fine to listen in chunks over days).

    For example, if you could be 100% sure that nothing bad would happen to you (that you weren’t fine with, at least), you might easily take others’ money or luxuries, too, as might I; the only reason we don’t is because of the threat of discovery and punishment, as morals are applied after for justification, not before (we just think that they come before). Restraint is typically superhuman. In fact, we are already doing that legally, even without tax loopholes, etc.; for example, I despise the global pyramid scheme of housing (make enough money to buy housing and then live off of charging struggling tenants when you yourself were once one of them; no landlord thinks this system is wrong?!), and am not sure I want to get involved with that even after I have enough money to buy a home or more.

    But what is the alternative? The indigenous ones who correctly hated the entire economic philosophy of putting price tags on homes got killed or displaced, and their people have been suffering from high suicide rates ever since. Technology could even the playing field a bit, but the drone factories be churning and AI is increasingly monitoring our every move. It’s getting to be a really freaking scary world with no sign of stopping.

    So, I’m not sure if we have the luxury of waiting for proper channels even as protesters push for them. That would be nice and ideal, of course. It may not need to come down to either, though, as I suspect that Trump may die before the end of his presidency because of health problems rather than anyone doing anything; videos have shown him potentially hiding a catheter and hinting at further, more serious problems based on his behaviors as of late. Of course, that may only lead to Vance… yuck!

    Oh, and I absolutely do not endorse killing extended families; I’m also not sure that that’s what they meant.

  • Mountainaire@lemmy.worldtoShowerthoughts@lemmy.world•Gig work is just turning the poor class into servants. And adding further debt to other poors trying to use these services.
    1·
    3 days ago

    We need to stay fully objective here and acknowledge that @devolution@lemmy.world is at least partly correct:

    “Some genetic heritability studies have noted there may be baseline deviations in emotional processing circuitry (such as in the amygdala or reward centers of the brain) and neurotransmitter profiles (such as serotonin or dopaminergic deficits) in people meeting criteria for psychopathic traits that may eventually lead to callous behaviors and indifference towards social norms (but interestingly not always).” - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/202203/are-psychopaths-born-or-made

    Denser reading:

    In the specific genes that may be involved, one gene that has shown particular promise in its correlation with ASPD is the gene that encodes for monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A), an enzyme that breaks down monoamine neurotransmitters such as serotonin and norepinephrine. Various studies examining the gene’s relationship to behavior have suggested that variants of the gene resulting in less MAO-A being produced (such as the 2R and 3R alleles of the promoter region) have associations with aggressive behavior in men.[77][78]

    This association is also influenced by negative experiences early in life, with children possessing a low-activity variant (MAOA-L) who have experienced negative circumstances being more likely to develop antisocial behavior than those with the high-activity variant (MAOA-H).[79][80] Even when environmental interactions (e.g., emotional abuse) are taken out of the equation, a small association between MAOA-L and aggressive and antisocial behavior remains.[81]

    The gene that encodes for the serotonin transporter (SLC6A4), a gene that is heavily researched for its associations with other mental disorders, is another gene of interest in antisocial behavior and personality traits. Genetic association studies have suggested that the short “S” allele is associated with impulsive antisocial behavior and ASPD in the inmate population.[82] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder

    I didn’t know this until now myself (I’ve seen the above article earlier but must have skimmed through it long ago and missed or forgot all that). However, there’s also a lot about the environment further exposing or shutting down sociopathic tendencies, as I noted in another comment here. It could be more difficult to round up these people (who are masters at lying anyway) versus enacting your systemwide proposal to forcefully integrate empathy through all levels of society. The problem is applying it to the highest echelons where it matters most—and, frankly, who @devolution@lemmy.world’s proposed guillotine should apply to the most either way; they’d both be hard to do… maybe together?