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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2814 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 29, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I don't dispute the abuses. That is not the point, people need to disentangle the abuses and the reality of the disease. Just because the boy cried wolf does not mean that the wolf didn't gnaw off your leg, and that the next one isn't sitting there slavering.

It's way beyond "the abuses". It's a complete paradigmatic collapse. The paradigm that there exist some institutions that are ultimately designed to work for our benefit, and while specific people are fallible and corruptible, in general this system is built for the benefit of the people, is controllable by the people and has people's best interests at heart - is dead. The new paradigm is that this system is a self-interested parasite, which will consume any resource the people allow it to, but will act in ways that do not have much to do with the benefit of the people and is absolutely not controllable and absolutely opaque and violently resistant to any attempt to control it. That's how "people" would - and should - view it now. So if you want to deliver some message that people "need" to do this and that, then this message can not be delivered within the framework of the new paradigm and not be received with as much trust as a message from Nigerian prince telling you that you "need" to send him some money to come into your inheritance rights.

Maybe the wolf is there, maybe it's not. I am certainly not qualified to judge that question. What I know though that this boy - and his family, who conveniently made billions on mandatory wolf awareness trainings - is not going to be the input for my decisions on these question. If anything, I'd probably lean towards doing the opposite of what he's crying about.

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