that is also how it’s always been explained to me

yeah like why can’t people just get married if they want to get married, or not get married if they don’t want to get married? has never made sense to me

The person I’ve started seeing from Hinge in recent days told me that the biggest reason she rolled with my profile was because I seemed like I was “relatively normal” and not a techbro or finance bro. Apparently this is prevalent enough around here that for someone who’s not into it, a profile that features a dad joke about the members of punk and metal bands standing really far apart because “your band width determines your speed,” offers “Live Without at an abandoned Denny’s in Houston” as an option for a past event to time travel to, and lists “worker ownership of the means of production” as a “simple pleasure” qualifies you as “normal.”

But hey, that in turn means I’m not attracting the kinds of girls who go for techbros, which I see as an absolute win.

Do you have to commit the murder for it to be bad?

OK, you need to be walked through it every step of the way, then.

1. Akhil gives a gun to Omar.

2. Akhil knows Omar hates, to pick a threatened minority at random, gay people, and wants to kill them.

3. Omar shoots up, let’s say, a gay nightclub. In, to pick a city totally at random, Orlando, Florida. And just for funsies, let’s call it The Pulse. I’m sure this totally imaginary scenario bears no resemblance to any actual event, and no gay nightclub called The Pulse in Orlando, Florida has ever been shot up by a virulent homophobe named Omar Mateen. Pure imagination.

4. The judicial system would view Akhil as an accessory to murder in that instance.

Let me further introduce you to the concept of stochastic terrorism. Boy, aren’t you learning a lot tonight! I’m happy for you.

But a whole lot of them would vote for somebody who has.

Well, I’m glad you at least recognize that your solution to bigotry is not practical. I agree that it’s a moral ideal, but morality to my mind depends at least as much on effect as intention, which is where practicality comes in, and the fact that showing “unearned compassion” to bigots, at least in the way I typically seem to see that interpreted, just emboldens them and makes life worse for everyone else. The most extreme example of this is, as alluded to, Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler, but we see the same thing play out on a smaller scale frequently.

Most people who discuss morality with any frequency will probably tell you that whether or not you know the outcome of an action ahead of time does impact its morality. So I would argue, because we know that showing bigots “unearned compassion” rather than societally refusing to tolerate their behavior invariably has a net negative impact on those who are the targets of their bigotry, that would render it not the moral ideal we might like it to be.

Please observe the paradox of tolerance.

i should hope so, water is the true nectar of the gods

thanks, that’s my band name now

i also have no kids or desire for kids, and not much of this, other than being able to sleep