In what way?
If you are powerful enough to destroy those that insist that what you are doing is wrong, then you become right by default.
Daneel was correct.
Because you used the word “wrong”. That’s what the word means in this context.
I disagree.
I’d ask if you even have a Moral Compass, but I’m pretty sure that if you do, it is completely broken.
You’re wrong. In this context, the word “wrong” refers to the factual accuracy of your statement. In the context you used it – to describe the actions of a hypothetical slave or rape victim – the word was referring to the moral acceptability of the action. If you meant the legality or lawfulness, then you used the wrong word.
I do not acknowledge a distinction between those definitions.
OK, I’m getting a distinct sense of deja vu here…
Has anybody actually seen Smapti and Sarah Palin in the same room at the same time?
And I suppose you assume my moral compass should be aligned to what - the fiats of a magical immortal being that asserts what does and does not please it, as if the idea that divine might makes right is somehow superior to the idea that human might makes right?
The problem is precisely that your “moral” compass is aligned to a magical immortal being (the state) rather than to sound principles.
The state is neither immortal nor magical.
Nor are any principles based on rote opposition to it sound.
Yours is aligned to “Might makes Right”. This is fallacious.
We are each responsible for our own actions. Someone ordering us to do wrong is wrong of them, but it is our responsibility and our failure if we do that wrong. There is no excuse in the Universe that makes you right in doing wrong, or even without guilt, no matter who it was who told you to do it.
If your boss tells you to kill a hobo that won’t leave your place of employment, and throw his body in the dumpster out back, you are both guilty of murder. It is not his fault alone, nor are you guilt free in carrying out those instructions simply because someone in a position of power over you ordered you to do it.
If you persist in being unable to see this distinction, then you are morally and mentally crippled.
Your acknowledgement or lack thereof doesn’t change how language is used.
Of all the things to align one’s moral compass to, you’ve made one of the worst choices. If we share general assumptions like “genocide should be avoided”, “mass murder should be avoided”, “slavery should be avoided”, “oppression and persecution should be avoided”, then your chosen guide, “might makes right”, is an absolutely terrible one. “Might makes right” has a history of genocide, mass murder, slavery, and oppression and persecution, far more so than (for example) a humanist moral compass.
Yes, this is part of the reason why the underlying foundation (elevation of the state to godlike status) of your position is fundamentally defective.
Although principles based on rote support for it are, apparently, the bee’s knees, yes?
There’s a name for your condition. It’s called “sociopathy”.
You are mentally ill, and more specifically you have a mental disorder which is heavily associated with extreme violent criminality. Please seek mental health before you kill someone.
Or, you know, * basic fucking ethics*. It doesn’t take a dictate from on high to realize, “Huh. I wouldn’t want to be enslaved, maybe I shouldn’t enslave.”
Smapti, just want to jump in here real quick.
As a secular humanist and a liberal socialist, I don’t agree with your point of view. I find some elements of it frankly abhorrent.
But I get it. I really do. I don’t understand why you hold the basic assumptions you do, but I understand what they are, at least. And I understand how you get to your end results from your initial assumptions.
I think you’re simply wrong, and I’m very glad your perspective is not shared by many of our countrymen.
But yanno what? I also recognize that your brand of pure authoritarianism might be the future of mankind, particularly post-singularity. Just not yet.
Not wanting to be enslaved won’t stop it from happening.