SSCReader
1d ago
Maybe in the South but in rural Northern Ireland most of my family would be carrying a folding pocket knife at pretty much all times. There's always a good use for a knife (folding, blade under 3 inches generally) in the countryside. Maybe with a few other attachments but often just the knife itself is useful enough. They'd also have larger ones for specific purposes, but those wouldn't be usually carried.
SSCReader
1d ago
Yeah I had the same happen although it was at City Hall. They said they were supposed to dispose of it, but luckily the security guard was a nice guy and held on to it for me unofficially until I came out.
SSCReader
1d ago
At home it would be very surprising if any of the men in my family were at a BBQ and did not have a pocket knife to be honest. I have one in my cargo shorts almost all the time.
I have a lovely walnut handled folding knife in my pocket right now in fact. Unless I know I am going somewhere they are likely to screen for blades/weapons, it will be with me everywhere I go.
I did grow up culchie to be fair so maybe there is an urban/rural divide here.
SSCReader
2d ago
If consent is the main criterion for morality, to the point that it's fine to sell yourself into slavery, than you shouldn't be shrugging away the lack of child's choice in adoption, circumcision, and "a thousand other things".
Why not? Children can't consent so we allow parents/guardians to consent for them. You can't raise children relying on their consent because they won't eat, won't go to the bathroom and so on and so forth. They are not fully realised human beings. So someone must make decisions for them. If they sprung from the womb fully formed then I would agree. But our morality must exist in the world we have, not some other more preferable world. It is ok to force children to do things when it is not ok to force adults to do the same things. Because children and adults are different. Just like it is ok to do things to animals that are not ok to do to humans. Different people/things/ objects can be treated differently by nature of their differences. I eat pork and tomatoes but not people. I've broken the necks of chickens for dinner, but I'm not going to twist the head off the neighbors child.
I don't see a difference between saying something is morally objectionable and saying "X has a right for Y to not happen to them" or "Z has no right to do Y".
With respect something being morally objectionable and "X having a right for Y not to happen" are very very different things. For a start morality has multiple different frameworks.
A Utilitarian might do Y to X because it is for the greater good, while a Virtue Ethicist might not do Y to X because doing so is not virtuous. So it can't simply be that" X has a right for Y not to happen" is the same as being morally objectionable, because morality can disagree! So to a Utilitarian X does not have a right for Y not to happen. And for the Virtue Ethicist they don't do it not because of any rights X has but because they don't think it is virtuous to do at all, regardless of what rights they might have to do it.
If you want to say something is morally objectionable that is fine! But by which moral framework? Which is why rights are not required for morality in general but only for some moral frameworks. So they have to separated out.
SSCReader
2d ago
That can't be it, because it's still illegal to willingly sell yourself into slavery.
Are we talking about legality or morality? Those are not the same thing. You said it was morally insane not illegal. Because surrogacy is legal in Canada so if we are just talking about legality then the conversation is already over. Morally I see no issue with people selling themselves into slavery if they wish. The fact the legal system doesn't agree with me doesn't impact my argument any more than the legal system disagreeing with you impacts yours!
Oh. In this case there is no morality. All your questions make no sense to begin with.
No that doesn't follow. Rights and morality are not the same thing either! It's quite possible there are no such things as rights but that we should attempt to behave in moral ways by our own estimation.
Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism and Deontology all function perfectly fine without rights.
SSCReader
4d ago
Also, if all work is renting out your body, then why are is slavery illegal?
Because slaves don't agree to rent out their bodies? That's kind of fundamental to the idea of slavery. It's ok to pay a worker to pick your cotton, but not to enslave them (though see below!) We do call people wage slaves, but we don't mean they are actual slaves.
You're conflating that all work is renting out your body with all renting out your body being the same. Renting my house to my brother and renting my house at gunpoint to a soldier are very different things. Renting out your body voluntarily is different than being a slave (which is not voluntary). I also don't want my wife to be a coalminer or a soldier for example. That all work is renting out your body does not mean that all work is the same.
I don't think so. This would imply drugging and raping someone, or raping people in a comma, is perfectly fine, or only mildly immoral.
If you're going to rape someone raping them when they don't know about it is probably more moral than otherwise sure. But some costs are still inflicted, a drugged woman will wake up and realize what happened, the woman in the coma will face significant health complications and so on and so forth.
But as rape and surrogacy are not the same the treatment does not need to be the same in any case. (Unless the woman is held captive and forcibly inseminated, which I don't think is a central example here). The costs inflicted are taken on by her voluntarily.
Not really. If a murderer is never apprehended, no one says "well, I guess the victim didn't have a right to live".
Yes! You don't have a right to live, nobody does! I think almost all of what people call rights are incoherent. You might want to live and struggle to live if someone is trying to kill you, but there is no being handing out rights such that it means anything more than "I don't want to die". Which is a perfectly reasonable position, I don't want to die either! But it isn't a right. A wolf doesn't have a right to live, it can fight to stay alive one more day, or it might get shot with no ability to do anything about it.
Having said that we can certainly redirect to what people want to enforce or provide, I understand lots of people do not agree with my idea about rights in any case. As an aside, I think slavery is usually not justifiable but there are times I think it would be. Indeed so too could rape or murder. If the human race was facing extinction and you had to enslave half the race to save the remains I think that's morally justifiable. Likewise if you had to force women to have children to save the human race I think that too would be justifiable.
But again those are not the situations we are faced with in our lives here today. A surrogate isn't a slave because she agrees to being a surrogate, a farm worker is not a slave because he agrees to accept money in exchange for back breaking labour.
SSCReader
4d ago
One mans stochastic terrorist is another man's stochastic freedom fighter?
SSCReader
4d ago
I was reluctant to call you out by name specifically because I didn't want to make any untoward implications, so to the extent I may have done so, I apologize.
Oh no offense taken, I'm somewhat tickled if anything that you think my serial monogamist self was like that. I'm going to tell my wife as soon as she gets home from work!
I married my first wife at 19, and stayed with her till she passed from cancer when I was in my 40's. Then raised my kids to adults then moved to America and started online dating in my 50's. Met my now-wife and don't intend going anywhere else.
I think maybe the disconnect is that while you would hope that indeed by being on Tinder or Hinge or whatever is a strong signal you are both looking to actively date, this does not in fact seem to be the case. So you do have to sort the wheat from the chaff (and the wheat and chaff is different for men and women), lack of messaging interest is in my experience highly correlated with lack of interest in actually dating. There are also many reasons as you point out the woman may not be putting a lot of effort into replying, but fundamentally, to the guy on the other end, he can't tell the difference. So either you must hang on to them all, spreading your attention thin, or move on. You might get lucky of course, but that's not really a strategy.
Like fishing, it might be the fish will start to bite after lunch, or there might be a pike under your boat and they aren't going to bite all day. Given you can't know which, moving on to try and find somewhere the fish are biting is a good option. Unless you are just fishing to drink beer and fall asleep in the sun which is the equivalent of people just swiping for fun with no intention of actually dating I suppose.
SSCReader
4d ago
Renting out a uterus is effectively renting out the entire person, and renting people is objectifying them. From a moral standpoint I don't see how it can be seen as any different than slavery.
But we rent out our entire bodies all the time don't we? When I go to work my whole body is at work, when a coal miner risks his life and health it's not generally considered slavery (as long as he is getting paid and voluntarily took the job of course). The difference isn't the objectification it's that a surrogate is freely choosing to be a surrogate. If they are being forced into it in some Handmaids Tale scenario then I would also agree that is slavery. But that doesn't appear to be the case for most surrogates. So it's very different to slavery.
Is being a soldier or a firefighter being a slave? A bodybuilder where your body is the main thing being put on the line? Prostitution in general? Being a hand model? I kind of agree it could be considered objectifying in that many of these jobs are very reliant on what your body can do/looks like. But I don't really see that as a problem. As you point out we are embodied. Any job that requires the use of your physical body (i.e. most of them) is commodifying our bodies in return for money.
So? There are immoral ways of creating a child.
True! But it still creates a child who is (in most belief systems I think) considered to be innocent of the immoral act that created them. The question isn't whether how they were created is immoral it's whether them being created is better than not when weighed against the costs inflicted. If voluntary surrogacy is (for example) mildly immoral but adding a human who can experience great joy in their lives is very moral, then you're still coming out ahead.
it starts from the assumption that a child has a right to a mother and father.
Ahh maybe I see the issue. I don't think that makes sense. Rights only make sense if they can be enforced and babies don't stop being born to a widowed bride or as a result of a one night stand where the father is never seen again. Should we abort babies who are about to be born where the father has died? What is the corrective factor that can be done? You can't conjure their father from the dead or wherever.
So I think it must be true that babies do not in fact have a right to have a mother and father (unless you just mean from a biological perspective, but that would also be fulfilled by surrogacy in any case).
SSCReader
4d ago
Both can be true can't they? You can think even Nazis don't deserve to be murdered. Indeed I'd wager thats the median view. After WW2 we didn't execute every member of the Nazi party. We even employed some of them!
SSCReader
5d ago
Actually my wife is Type A girl. My "rules" only really work for online dating and are there to short circuit the sheer volume of matches and interest women get, to ensure you are able to keep interest romantically not platonically. No sexting involved just sexually charged flirting. Those are very different things. If you were aiming just to hook up you wouldn't need those rules at all.
Its only useful for a Type A man trying to keep the interest of a Type A woman who is getting potentially hundreds of matches and messages.
I was dating to find a wife not to hook up and indeed succeeded. I aggressively filtered out women who were not seriously looking for a long term relationships (Type B's in your parlance I guess).
I would give very different advice for non online dating. Its a high volume platform by nature, so you have to adapt. Someone who is not messaging you much when interest and mystique should be at there highest right at the start is sending you a signal.
All i can tell you is that almost all my dates were with what you call Type A women. Witty sexually suggestive flirting works pretty well.
SSCReader
5d ago
All men must die as they say. Lines of reasoning do not need to be strictly followed when the outcome is poor, just as all lines of reasoning do not need to be followed when the outcome is good. I am comfortable enough that I don't think surrogacy is going to lead to killing people at 18 for organs.
That the argument works for this purpose is good enough.
SSCReader
5d ago
it's intentionally causing a child distress to satisfy the desires of adults, in a way that is not beneficial to the child.
The child would not exist otherwise, so as long as we consider their life to be net positive, even if that is true it is still more beneficial to be be born.
SSCReader
5d ago
Emperor's own words, "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station"
The only person who left that room alive was a despicable Jedi dragging a body, and we already know they were traitors to humanity. My cousin told me he saw Jedi gambling for slaves so the whole order was a corrupt organ of the Deep Galactic State. Clearly we can't take his word for it.
There is no evidence our beloved Emperor ever said those words. And if he did he was probably being ironic. When he somehow returns he will have a great explanation I am sure.
SSCReader
6d ago
This news is being widely celebrated by the Free Palpatine lot
The Emperor did nothing wrong! Him being a fascist Sith Lord is just propaganda by the invidious terrorists of the Rebellion. The so called "Death Star" is just a mining platform!
SSCReader
6d ago
I don't hide mine at all. Indeed i have got into multiple very long debates about my belief set here! Its true I tend to be a high decoupler and I do like to poke at peoples logic.
In this specific case I think surrogacy can be pragmatically complex but is morally acceptable, given the logic I laid out before. A surrogate of a donated egg and sperm is not the mother in a biological sense. And even if she were parents do unilaterally have the right to give up their children and have others raise them as in adoption.
The child would not exist but for the surrogacy arrangement. The choice is not this child staying with the "mother" vs going to another family. The choice is the non-existence of the child entirely vs going to the family.
It is true the child does not get a say, but they don't get a say in adoption or their parents giving them to grandparents to be raised, or being moved to a new country, or being circumcised or hundreds of other common things. Including whether to exist in the first place. Condemning surrogacy on that basis is condemning parenting children at all.
SSCReader
6d ago
Conversations about morality only make sense when they're comparative.
I agree! Which is why if you note I pointed out there are people who think it is in fact not morally insane as they actually do it. That's what I wanted you to compare to. If you don't want to do that, that is fine.
But if you aren't going to justify your position then you can't call things people do morally insane. That's an inflammatory claim here, where you should want those people who disagree with you to engage. If you want to make it then justify it. If you don't want to justify it, then don't make it in the first place.
To be clear I often disagree with you, but I do think you are usually very good at justifying the positions you hold. For comparison your posts on trans issues are significantly better than this one and you clearly scaffold your positions you presumably know might be seen as inflammatory. You don't just jump to calling trans people insane or whatever. I often find myself coming away from those posts with something to think about. Not so much here.
SSCReader
6d ago
Come on buddy, you're better than that. I said right below that you might even be right but you have to at least make the argument, instead of just calling people who disagree with you morally insane. Under which moral framework? Why?
Just calling something you disagree with morally insane on a discussion forum where people with all sorts of different values and frameworks are supposed to co-exist is just not very helpful. You might think it is morally insane but clearly there are people who do not. So at least state your case, otherwise you might as well have not replied at all. You might as well just downvote and move on at that point.
SSCReader
6d ago
The process of birth creates a bond between the mother and child, and the idea you can ignore that and act like it's possible to "rent space in the womb" is morally insane.
It is not.
What is asserted without argument may be dismissed without argument.
Under which moral framework? Why? You're just throwing boo words out without actually justifying your position.
You might be right! But you can't just claim your opponents are insane and expect people to nod.
And that is why I was using quotes for owner. The mother is not the actual owner, but whether we call it ownership or not parents have huge ability to decide what should happen to their children up to and including having other people raise them and abdicating their parental rights entirely. Every day parents give their kids up for adoption. It is clear whatever bond there may be is not inviolable.
So a man can indeed have a child with a woman with the idea that he alone will raise him and vice versa. That follows from a chain of logic. Parents can give up custody. They can give up custody before birth. They can give up custody after birth. They can abandon their family entirely.
If I want a child and find a woman who is willing to let me have sex with her on the proviso that I will take and raise the child and she wants nothing to do with it, that can happen right now with no money changing hands. She can sign away her parental rights, leaving me in sole custody. She has the right to do so. I have the right to do so.
So is it just the money that makes it morally insane? Can you at least detail your belief system a little more here?
SSCReader
6d ago
it was rejected because treating people as ownable and sellable was considered immoral. That argument applies to surrogacy 1:1.
Only if the mother is the only "owner" no? If the father donated sperm then it's not selling the baby from one owner to a new one, the father is already the (part) "owner". Where it's a donated egg and sperm even more so as the surrogate is not the owner at all. It's essentially just renting space in the womb.
So it's definitely not 1:1 as an argument.
SSCReader
7d ago
Yeah, i was about an hour from a large city and I did have to extend my range to include the city.
SSCReader
7d ago
If you are getting scant replies cut bait. Interest should start high on their part. If they are not communicating freely that an indicator of non interest. Take the indication and move on.
The sex part is about playfully and aggressively flirting so if you have them warmed up and they complain about entitlement they failed your test and unmatch. Be selective.
But look out for mild pushback that is designed to be overcome. Tell them you aren't saying they are easy, just you know you are hard to resist. Be playfully arrogant.
I bet you'll get fewer calls of entitlement than you imagine if you have properly escalated aggressive flirtation.
Remember shit yests are just tests of compatibility and you should have your own bars for women to overcome. If they do not, politely turn them down.
You are in control.
SSCReader
7d ago
So everything points to an issue with your text game between matching and the first date.
I've never had an online date ghost me and here are my 8 simple rules i always followed.
-
Don't over match, be picky.
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If they are not responding promptly, unmatch.
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Decide if you are interested after no more than 60 minutes of conversation.
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Ask on a date. Don't ask for input, you choose where.
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No more than 3-5 days delay for the date. If they hedge unmatch.
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Communicate every day up til the date. Flirt aggressively but wittily, You want them hot under the collar. You should have them thinking about you sexually before you meet. If they aren't receptive unmatch. You are dating not finding friends.
-
Be assertive, on the day of the date, don't ask if they are still coming, tell them you're looking forward to seeing them later so you can see if they can keep up with you, like they have been saying over text.
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Promise them you won't have sex with them on the first date even if they beg.
After the date if it went well get their number if you haven't already and call them the next day to arrange a second date. Maintain pressure. This is a hunt, just like your ancestors, you must run your prey to ground. No later than date 3 have sex with them and decide if you want to continue, if so tell them you want exclusivity immediately. If they refuse ditch them.
Do not give a chance for other hunters to snare your prey. Do not give them a chance to get bored. Move quickly. Move with purpose. You are the hunter, and you are valuable. Do not hesitate to unmatch if you are not getting enthusiastic messaging. It won't get better. Cut bait (to mix our hunting metaphor with a fishing one).
Women have huge amounts of choice particularly in online dating so you must be swift and certain and aggressive. Be borderline blunt if necessary.
I was online dating for a year. 15 women, all converted to first dates 13 to 2nd, 10 to 3rd. In all cases I was the one who ended it if i wasn't feeling it. Of those 10 i ditched another 5 after the 4th date, 4 after a couple of months and the 5th is now my wife.
SSCReader
7d ago
What kind of unforgiveable heathen thinks turkey burgers can even come close?
Well my wife does make an amazing home made turkey burger, which is what fueled the debate.
There is a lot said on this site about how black Americans haven't assimilated but I think that's untrue. They just assimilated to a particular type of American culture which is descended from my own Ulster-Scots/Scots-Irish borderer culture, which is what was often around them, in the South. In many of my wife's family events the beats are very similar to being back home, even if the details are different. My wife was a hit with my rural working class uncles because she was raised in a similar environment culutrally even it it was thousands of miles apart. It's a rowdier, more overtly "masculine" culture than the WASPy American culture in the North East or even the more genteel Southern Cavalierish one in the South. Which is why comments here about how white people don't like noisy sports celebrations and rowdy behaviour always make me laugh. It's kind of totalizing the American experience to a very specific subset of American upper middle classish white people.
I would agree that white progressives can be much more performative (in my experience anyway), possibly driven by white guilt (and exacerbated if from the South). Having said that, when I first moved to the US I dated a scion of what used to be a pretty powerful Southern family (the type who still have debutant balls and the like) whose family did own plantations and slaves in the past, and that did appear to be something they truly were guilty about rather than a performance so its hard to tell sometimes. There is a particular kind of American who feels that America should have done better in holding up its founding ideals (all men created equal et al) and that this is a real and enduring fault.
Progressivism grew out of real issues and real problems which is how it was able to build a coalition so quickly, because there are a lot of true believers who had indeed witnessed/experienced actual injustices. My wife's grandmother was a locally prominent civil rights organizer and it's hard to judge a distrust for white people when reading her diaries. Having said that even she on her deathbed recanted her prohibition on my wife "dating out" so things can and do change.
Aye, it's fair to say it would be a bit more unusual in Belfast, unless you are a tradesman of some sort. Or just handy.
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