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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   32018 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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Why? These gang members made ES a living hell for the people. Why do we have such empathy for evil people but effectively zero empathy for good people who had to endure the wrongs brought about by evil people?

ES is a relatively poor country. They tried for decades applying “human rights” and all it got them was a country run by gangs. Now the average person can actually live a normal decent life. And the rate of mistake on gang members is incredibly low (thankfully for ES the gang members decided to cover themselves in specific tats making their appearance obvious).

I just don’t see the moral argument that ES ought to treat these gang members okay.

Why do we have such empathy for evil people but effectively zero empathy for good people who had to endure the wrongs brought about by evil people?

I have empathy for the victims of the gangs; that's why I don't insist that detaining the alleged gang members at all was absolutely unjustifiable. However, once they are in custody, their not being subjected to inhumane conditions does not harm anyone, nor allow them to harm others; the same applies with captured enemy troops, thus the Geneva Conventions.

They tried for decades applying “human rights” and all it got them was a country run by gangs.

Which is why one could make the argument that they couldn't afford the normal standards of criminal trials. It does not have any relevance to how people are treated in custody.

I just don’t see the moral argument that ES ought to treat these gang members okay.

The argument is that

  1. They are human beings, made B'tzelem Elohim, and endowed with certain inalienable rights.

  2. If you establish a category of 'people it is justifiable for the State to torture', you create the temptation for others to expand that category to include persons or groups whose existence they have long resented.

Except you miss the fact that jail was not historically able to stop these criminal organizations from operating in ES. The criminals simply controlled parts of the jail and easily communicated with the outside.

These new jails break the ability to communicate with the outside AND serve as strong deterrence (ie don’t want to go to a bad jail don’t be a bad hombre).

Making jail nicer fails on deterrence, fails on incapacitation, and fails on just desert.

Nice jail is fine for things like drunk driving or white collar crime where going to jail at all is terrible for the perp. But for gangs? They need tough hardened jails.

These new jails break the ability to communicate with the outside

Which could have been done in a more humane manner, much in the way that countries at war are expected to stop captured enemy troops from coordinating with the outside without subjecting them to inhumane conditions.

We have a precedent for 'organisation is trying to harm us; we have members of that organisation in our custody; they are or might be motivated to continue their malicious goals from inside'. We monitor their communications with the outside, set minimum standards for their conditions, and allow the Red Cross access to the facilities to verify that the standards are being upheld.

PoW is just entirely different concept. They aren’t expected to be there for years at a time. There is a reciprocity angle here (we will treat your PoWs nicely if you test ours nicely). Most PoW don’t have significant control over people in the same country nor are the PoWs expected to circumvent their captors in spreading drugs etc in the captor’s country. Also the deterrence angle isn’t really there either (indeed a belligerent might want opponents who are willing to surrender since it reduces the harm their troops are facing).

These situations just aren’t remotely similar.

Why do we have such empathy for evil people but effectively zero empathy for good people who had to endure the wrongs brought about by evil people?

the identification with evil is a recurring theme that surges periodically on social media, be it orcs in D&D, Bugs in starship troopers or Demons in Devil May Cry. At some point it becomes obvious that we don't share any more fundamental values that would enable coexistance.

I do not identify with the gang members. I do not even like them. However, I remember enough of the past to recognise certain patterns, and one of them is the grave danger in declaring certain human beings to no longer constitute moral patients.

the thing is that this isn't a moral question but a legal one. And there are enough points against this fellow than worrying about it happening to citizens is a non starter and to me just a sign of virtue signalling.

When the left identifies with orcs it's usually about the orcs being less evil than they are pictured.

When the right identifies with orcs it's usually about behaving exactly like the orcs do against the Others.

When the right identifies with orcs it's usually about behaving exactly like the orcs do against the Others.

I don't think normal people identify with orcs so much as act like orcs due to being a Role Playing Game.

When the left identifies with orcs it's usually about the orcs being less evil than they are pictured.

but first they have to see themselves and their client minorities in the brutish war like Orcs, and THEN comes the new editions with Orcs no different than mexicans without a dental plan.

I don't think the right identifies with the orcs or their equivalents in whatever media. What I see from the right is that they identify with the people holding back/fighting/exterminating the orcs, even for satirical works like the Starship Troopers film, which was clearly meant to poke fun at the fascistic nation the heroes of the film were part of.

When the left identifies with orcs it's usually about the orcs being less evil than they are pictured.

When I see cheering for Luigi, or claims that people killed by Stalin had it coming, I don't see a lot of "being less evil than pictured", why should I believe it's different for orcs and Starship Trooper bugs?

When the right identifies with orcs

When have you seen that?

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