50 Times People Were Shamed Online For Being Idiots

JFC Tim.

I’m just wondering what two professors of ethical theory are doing having an argument on BoredPanda.com. Seems … unlikely.

Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't cherry-pick, the FBI did (I strongly suggest that if there was a shooting at your kids' school, you would receive little comfort from someone shouting "It's OK, everyone, this doesn't fit the FBI's definition of an active shooter!"). You did, however, make the false comparison to swimming pools and earthquakes. Incidentally I wonder how many of the teachers "shot" with blanks are injured in the process - we all know blanks aren't safe in inexpert hands.

It's not like I'm out on some ledge here. The American Federation of Teachers feels the same: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/12/us/active-shooter-drills-teacher-union-trnd/index.html Here's CNN pointing out that there's no evidence https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/19/health/school-threats-lockdown-effects/index.html Here's NBC pointing out that "active shooter drills in schools correlated with a 42 percent increase in anxiety and stress and a 39 percent increase in depression among those in the school community". https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/active-shooter-drills-are-meant-prepare-students-research-finds-severe-n1239103

I know children who are convinced that hiding under their desk is important because at any moment someone could burst through their classroom door and kill them. Children. 7 year olds. Who get off the bus silent and distant. And no-one along the way tells them how rare it is. Because no-one seems to know. And the only reason I even know these stats is because of how much *I* used to worry. As for pools and earthquakes, we can certainly imagine policies that all but eliminate deaths 'from' either. But we don't implement them because all policies are trade off. I posit that 'active shooter' drills have little evidence of benefit, and obvious a priori suspicion of harm. Show me otherwise, I'll change my mind.

So...in order to reassure people, you're going to carefully cherry-pick your numbers as to what constitutes a "school shooting" until almost nothing counts, and you're still ending up with a chance of one in 15m, which means - since there are 49.5m school kids in the states - that three kids are going to die even after you've narrowed down the numbers as far as you can. And then you're going to compare that statistic to earthquakes, which aren't preventable by any means, and to swimming pools, which, unlike guns, have legitimate non-murdering uses. Tell me, does all this special pleading bring a sweat on? Or are you inured to your own partiality?

I picked the numbers I did because it seemed pretty clear the parent was talking about random school shootings, rather than an unfortunate case where, for example, there was a gang related shooting outside of school property. The WaPo numbers include that. There were ~7997 children who died from firearms in the US last year. If we're ok with implementing potentially traumatizing policies with no supporting evidence I'd suggest we'd be better having teachers talk about guns and show images of children who died of gunshots. Or, wherever you'd like to draw the line in terms of gruesomeness.

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Now, onto coercion. I believe we misunderstood each other--you were calling the circumstance "coercive" whereas I was rejecting the use of "coercion" to describe the Capitalist system that facillitated that transaction. I concede that point. However, to call the breadseller a thief, that I will not concede. He did not coerce the starving man, you admitted that yourself. Nevertheless, this coercive circumstance still says nothing about the creation of wealth with voluntary exchange and the Subjective Theory of Value: he chose to engage in that trade, with that coercive circumstance, as doing so would benefit him greater than to abstain from making that trade.

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Nope. By definition, if he was coerced - as you finally admitted he was - then he was not free to choose.

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The North was slavery free way before the Civil War. Massachussets banned slavery in 1783, when the Revolutionary War ended. The North was solidly anti-slavery as soon by 1804, way before the Civil War. Why were they free so early? Because they industrialized. The Antebellum South was not industrialized; that disparity between the industrialized North and the plantation-economy South was a significant issue that caused conflict over slavery. Again, the South was not industrialized, it stayed a plantation economy--hence, why slavery remained. Britain stopped selling slaves to the South back in 1807, which is consistent with the fact that it was industrializing around that time. Let's get these facts straight: In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the North and Britain Industrialized, which is why Britain ended the slave trade in 1807 and all of the Northern states abolished slaver in 1804. The South stayed pre-industrial, and maintained a plantation economy. That's why it stayed with slaves until 1865. Throughout the war, the South received no aid at all from the British, which was compounded especially by the Anaconda Plan. The British stood to make zero profit on the slave trade during the Civil War: they banned slavery back in 1807, and by then, it had industrialized. The Civil War was from 1861-1865. The British slave trade ended in 1807. Just to emphasize: The Industrialized American North and the Industrialized British North ended slavery and the slave trade during the early nineteenth century. The non-industrialized South maintained slavery until the mid-nineteenth century.

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This doesn't appear to be attached to any conversation on this page, but thanks. (Oh by the way - you can spout as much garbage as you like, but it's a known fact that Britain surreptitiously supported the South in the Civil War - which they did because? Oh, that's right, they were trading a lot of slaves.)

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The British ended the slave trade back in 1807. That is established fact. Thus, why would they support the South all the way in 1861 to maintain a system they took no participation in? You are claiming that the British were trading slaves in 1861. That is laughably false. I need you to substantiate that claim.

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The British ended slave trading WITHIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE in 1807. Trade outside the Empire continued. I need you to substantiate your claim that the American South was still within the British Empire in 1861. Because I suspect that's laughably false.

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Nope! You can puke up reheated John Locke until your a**e falls off, but the Categorical Imperative states that one must behave in a manner that can and must be extrapolated to a universal law of behaviour. So far from having it both ways, you have to choose: is it a categorical imperative that one must never kill? Or does one have a right to self-defence? The very nature, and indeed the whole f*****g point, of the categorical imperative necessitates that you have to choose between it and moral relativism. But thanks for admitting that you were trying to have it both ways.

Apologies, allow me to backtrack. The Categorical Imperative is merely a law by which we judge the morality of actions; Kant makes no contributions to enforcement and justice. And, in applying this Categorical Imperative, it is clear that stealing is immoral. Locke's arguments are applicable here--actions are moral if they do not violate natural rights (in this case, the right to private property).

Nope, can't have it both ways. If the Categorical Imperative is not the basis of all morality, then all of your prior claims to the "law of nature" are invalid. The moment you failed to reconcile the Categorical Imperative with self-defence, you admitted that your claims to an absolute morality are void.

Apologies. Allow me to alter my views in accordance with your input (after all, such is the entire point of intellectual discussion). Nevertheless, accept either the Law of Nature or the Categorical Imperative; both declare that it is immoral to steal if you're starving.

But according to you the laws of nature and the Categorical Imperative say it's immoral to kill in self defence, so what price a moral system that is so flagrantly in defiance of the real world? As always, absolutist deontological morality falls apart on first contact with life.

If you accept Kant's view that the Categorical Imperative, which is absolute, prohibits theft, then that stealing action is immoral. Kant's philosophy was merely a law by which we interpret and judge the morality of others, what ought to be. Nevertheless, Locke doesn't suffer from these limiations. If you accept Locke's view, that those who breach the social contract should be punished, then stealing is immoral. Regardless of which philosophy you choose, neither philosophy condones theft, and both regard it as a blatant infringement upon negative rights.

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Obviously the number should be zero, but it's criminal that we traumatize these children, making them think terror lurks around the corner, without thinking rationally about the risk. BTW there is a *real* risk to children from firearms, and it's a*****e men leaving unlocked guns around the house where children have access to them. Then they either have accidents with them, or sadly commit suicide. *That's* why firearms are the leading cause of death amongst children in the US, and *that's* where we should be trying to make a difference first. It's absofuckinglutely enraging.

To make matters even worse some a**holes use the situation to inflict more terror. Just recently in our state (and about 3 others) in one day there were multiple 911 calls reporting an active shooter at multiple schools. The whole thing was a hoax done somewhere overseas. So, someone is either purposely using the situation to terrorize, or some 🤬 who thinks it's funny to terrorize kids.