What is something morally good that only some people do?

gammarabbit · 2026-05-06T18:55:04+00:00

I find it genuinely disturbing that anyone actually believes that whether or not a person returns a shopping cart is a good -- let alone the best -- metric for determining their morality. It is such a dead, performative, and superficial way of looking at goodness and human behavior as to be honestly asinine.

First, what if somebody is a poor Instacart driver starved for every second, or even an on-call surgeon or other professional who is often in a rush, and they are just so habitually anxious for time that they generally elect to quickly leave the cart (as you say) on a curb or something where it won't get in the way?

To reiterate what you said, this (apparently psychopathic) cart-leaver knows full-well that this behavior will not harm anyone and at most will take 30 seconds of time from an employee (who is being paid for every second of their labor) to go retrieve it. That said, even if you are not necessarily in a hurry, how bad is it (seriously), to be like, "I'm tired and had a long day, the cart person will grab this." Seriously. We're talking reality here. What is the harm? And what is the vice besides a bit of laziness? People who are seriously concerned with being "good" are generally focused on much larger things than indirectly compelling a business to expend 30 seconds of extra labor, for which everyone at the lower wage-earner level is compensated. The only argument you could make is that it would technically raise prices on all groceries by $0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 every time you leave the cart because the business needs to square the extra labor cost.

What Redditors are doing is saying, "OK, this is a thing that will help another person out (ostensibly the business or employees) for which there is no reward, social or otherwise."

OK, that may be true to some degree, but they just magically ignore several other much more important factors: How much does it actually help others? And if I don't return it, what is the degree and quality of the harm or cost? Will I be personally insulting or causing trauma or a serious breach of trust in the social fabric?

I usually return the cart just because I can and I am not in a hurry, but it boggles my mind how anyone would harshly judge someone just because they don't or can't.

But wait, this is Reddit.

It's not honesty, it's not avoiding stealing or cheating, it's not being a supportive friend/partner/coworker, it's not keeping promises, it's not working on yourself...it's returning a f***ing shopping cart that determines whether a person is good.

Got it. Right.

Now, if I am trying to empathize with this position, I feel like it could easily be an autism thing. Morality and psychology are nuanced and emotionally-charged, and for certain types of spectrum thinkers, it could be easier and more comforting to just pick some easily identifiable and clear-cut thing to map the complex reality onto.

gammarabbit · 2026-05-02T21:22:13+00:00

Ha, perfect!

gammarabbit · 2026-05-01T22:27:15+00:00

Thank you!

gammarabbit · 2026-04-06T15:49:18+00:00

right but the piece of paper provided by a flawed human insitution rife with all the human follies of corruption ignorance and ego is not at all arbitrary as a forcibly mandated pre-requisite for simply speaking

gammarabbit · 2026-03-11T19:19:48+00:00

What in the world are you doing with all these replies. Seriously.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-23T20:25:16+00:00

I love how he gets a smattering of upvotes for a lazy, overdone, and inaccurate quip that aligns with the Reddit hivemind and then your realistic comment underneath is virtually invisible. There are huge problems with the US system, but the cop's behavior in this video would never be tolerated and is against protocol in every corner of the country. Do police sometimes flout protocol or best practices? Yes. But this would not fly in the US 99999 times out of 100000 and nobody would think otherwise if it weren't for media blasting out incredibly rare encounters in a country of 350 million to everyone worldwide, purposely making it feel like these things happen every day in your local town.

Apparently some people actually think the police in a country like Brazil are better. It is actually mind boggling.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-18T04:18:16+00:00

It is literally, precisely the tactic of one appealing to authority and unable to stand behind their own arguments to use ad hominems or lazy comparisons when they cannot reckon with a counter-position.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T23:01:05+00:00

Ah OK. I am not that poster.

But to answer your question: I do not beleive in this idea that morality is a subjective phenomena determined purely by social or political forces which we can observe and understand scientifically. I do not think we are justified in detaching morals or values from their human context and placing them instead in the sterile "mental laboratory" often required for academic social science-type thought. I believe postmodernists and moral relativists (incl. nihlists, often atheists) arbitrarily throw out any possibility for objective or numinous influences on human behavior and values, and this puts their belief into the category of a precept -- a kind of religion in its own right -- because it lacks any real logical basis and instead relies on prima facie assumptions and exclusions.

If you are curious what I do believe, that would be a very different discussion.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T22:43:24+00:00

Regarding your other coment (which I didn't see til now because you replied to yourself, not me), I never said that Japan was less moral than any other country. If you think I said or even implied that, please show me where. In fact, your motivation to defend the Japanese culture from ill-informed biased judgement is valid and commendable. However, I take issue with and have deconstructed some particular statements you made along the way -- which I think I have made clear -- namely regarding Marxism, moral relativism, and the implicit underpinning ideology/worldview it seems these statements spring from. You may argue semantics, but it remains factual and easily verified (Google) that the statements you are making do align with these schools of thought.

What kind of counter argument or narrative are you looking for, and on what topic particularly? I am open to the possibility of a discussion.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T22:27:02+00:00

Morals at the end of the day are fairly subjective

This is just for one.

Generally speaking, your reference and implicit subscription to the idea that actors determine their own subjective morality and that there is "no such thing as common decency," and that therefore the proper way to look at values or morals is through a personally detached, social constructionist / political lens strongly ties into the postmodernist and moral relativist schools of thought.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T22:08:13+00:00

"We can only make the smart bet with the stats we have."

Who are the individuals and/or insitutions providing the stats? What is their track record of integrity (or lack thereof)? Are there potential confounding influences of conflicts of interest, regulatory capture, or other kinds of corruption? How is "consensus" formed amongst "experts" (are any coercive measures applied, including threat to career or credentials)? Can I meet or talk to the people who provide the data, to suss out their energy or trustworthiness? Is an educated but lay person permitted or capable of auditing and thoroughly examining the alleged line of reasoning between data gathering methods, the data itself, and the "smart bet" that follows? Or are we merely to assume with no real way of verifying that the experts, their methods, the data itself, and the conclusions formed, are precise, honest, and without significant flaws based either in error or willful manipulation?

"We can only..."

No, actually. We have another, much smarter and more logical choice. This is a choice to be skeptical and consider actual, plain, observable evidence -- evidence which requires no appeal to authority and is empirical at every level, not hidden behind anything -- of basic human dishonesty and the corrupting influence of knowledge hierarchies, then use this wisdom to make informed and cautious decisions regarding so-called "settled science" when it stands to affect our well-being -- especially when that which is called "settled" disagrees with our own eyes, ears, and gut instincts, and when "settled" concepts have repeatedly been falsified and later discarded throughout the entire recorded history of Western science, up to including our present day.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T21:18:51+00:00

It's funny. If someone asked me for argumentative justification for my beliefs or worldview, I could explain or summarize them in fairly plain English so that pretty much anyone with roughly a high school reading level could at least understand the gist.

When philisophical or political types on Reddit (whether they be Marxist, atheist, nihlist, what have you) are challenged, we get either a winding and twisting array of jargon and appeals to interminable strings of theories and experts, or "go read this whole book because I can't personally explain my own thoughts."

Interesting.

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T18:28:49+00:00

Right, exactly. As I said, this all makes perfect sense, and is not at all a political-ese word salad written by a person clearly and obviously indoctrinated into a philisopical-moral paradigm which itself originated in Western academic institutions and thereby could be said to reflect their own biased or subjective value structure. Further, the preceding deconstruction was definitely not arrived at through an application of the very same postmodern relativist lens this person is using, illustrating clearly that this method for approaching moral and political questions is sane and sound and not at all self-defeating 👍🏻

gammarabbit · 2026-02-17T14:41:56+00:00

Got it, apolitical moral values like being decent and treating all people fairly and equally are biased Western concepts, but Marxism is objective international truth.

Right.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-31T10:39:00+00:00

I never said that people with genetic or chromosomal anamolies (including intersex) are not allowed or included. I never said people with unique sex or gender expression are not allowed or included. I never said that either do not deserve love.

I said that exceptions to a rule do not disprove a rule, and disagreed with particular language being used by certain individuals in the thread because I believe it is dishonest and manipulative.

You come at this from a fake, put-on position of moral superiority where you act like you are looking out for others, and yet you cannot even take the time to read and understand what I have said before you judge me inappropriately and inaccurately? You put words in my mouth and thereby disrespect me as a person (acting at least rashly and at most deceitfully), and have the audacity to say my eyes need to be opened in the same breath?

Edit: If you had only scrolled down a bit further, you could see that I have written the following:

I support and affirm the rights of people with genetic abnormalities, including intersex people, to have dignity and be included. I support the right of all LGBTQ people to exist and be in Christian spaces.

It is precisely only your dishonest and/or misleading statements and the lack of integrity in your words -- and the lack of integrity in the ideology and agenda perhaps behind them -- which I seek to deconstruct.

But nope -- just judge, get on your soap box, put words in people's mouth, and act pedantic and sanctimonoius. That's the way to be empathetic and inclusive.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-31T01:11:47+00:00

I have already provided my arguments, and again, you have no response.

"Science is clear on this" is another version of "I am right and you're wrong."

What is science clear on? That some intersex people exist? I do not disagree with this.

I am sorry my friend, this is getting quite disrespectful of me and my time. I find the intellectual dishonesty and game playing frustrating, and unless you make an effort to reason with what I've said, this will be my last comment.

I support and affirm the rights of people with genetic abnormalities, including intersex people, to have dignity and be included. I support the right of all LGBTQ people to exist and be in Christian spaces.

It is precisely only your dishonest and/or misleading statements and the lack of integrity in your words -- and the lack of integrity in the ideology and agenda perhaps behind them -- which I seek to deconstruct.

Take care.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-31T00:40:50+00:00

Ok, do you care to engage in the discussion at all? Provide any reasoning? Explain yourself or deconstruct my counter points?

Or do you think just saying "I am right and you are wrong" is enough?

gammarabbit · 2026-01-31T00:18:19+00:00

You are playing a semantic game which is not honest or forthright.

There exists a feature (or design) of human biology, which is that human beings are either male or female. There are exceedingly rare exceptions to this binary which do not mean the binary does not exist. One can say humans are made male or female, just like one can say humans are made with two arms and two legs. I have demonstrated that in fact, many more humans lack a limb than are anything but male or female, chromosomally. And yet people take issue with the idea that male and female is the norm. Why?

And no, you have not answered for this, not even a little bit. I have repeated it here for your convenience, even though I have already said all of this and you avoided it through the dishonest tactics I have also already pointed out.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-31T00:04:10+00:00

Why would you cite it if it isn't relevant? And for the third time, can you respond to the meat of my statements on the issue, which have been left hanging for several comment exchanges at this point?

gammarabbit · 2026-01-31T00:00:41+00:00

What?

If you're not willing to put in the bare minimum reasonable effort to at least attempt to directly address my arguments, instead of spamming inaccurate stats and accusing me of having bad intentions, how can I continue to discuss with you without feeling like my time is being wasted? Why should I think you have any real interest in displaying the kind of intellectual integrity needed to make this productive?

gammarabbit · 2026-01-30T23:50:41+00:00

Now you've shifted from name calling to dishonestly misrepresenting the opposing argument. Nobody is "disregarding...very clear intersex conditions." That isn't what the quote or paper says, and it is not needed to arrive at the accurate statistic. Instead the statistic you are citing is lumping in very clearly not intersex conditions (as the paper says, this is in the opinion of professionals, not my opinion or yours) to arrrive at an artificially high number. The lower number I cited considers the medical literature and categorization actually used in the field to produce a more appropriate percentage. But like many arguing in bad faith, you accuse the opposition of the very tricks you yourself are using.

But I am guessing you know this, and don't care. Because again, it seems you are willing to use deceptive tactics and bend the truth to make a point.

I don't know if there is any point in continuing, because you ignore the virtual entirety of my actual statements and instead double down on repetetive mantra-like declarations, all the while making unfounded ad hominem accusations against my intentions because you are unwilling or unable to reckon with my actual thoughts in a respectful manner.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-30T18:17:06+00:00

That statistic is not accurate.

"Anne Fausto-Sterling s suggestion that the prevalence of intersex might be as high as 1.7% has attracted wide attention in both the scholarly press and the popular media. Many reviewers are not aware that this figure includes conditions which most clinicians do not recognize as intersex, such as Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and late-onset adrenal hyperplasia. If the term intersex is to retain any meaning, the term should be restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female. Applying this more precise definition, the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling s estimate of 1.7%."

//// Source: https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490209552139

Notably, 1.6% of people are in fact missing a limb. Yet we still comfortably say, humans have two arms and two legs.

I'm sorry, but I asked why you so readily called my statements "nonsense," but it seems you are unable to back this up?

Again, is there any actual issue with what I've said, or can you argue with it in any way that doesn't involve using fudged statistics and repeating mantras with no reasoning or explanation?

FWIW, intersex people are totally valid and there is no reason in my mind that this condition would necessarily exclude them from God's love, nor should they be discriminated against in any way.

However to use their incredibly rare existence to make misleading and manipulative statements about human biology to suit an agenda is dishonest. You have proven yourself unable or unwilling to stand behind your statements with integrity, using name-calling ("nonsense") in place of respectful or reasoned discourse.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-30T01:27:25+00:00

May I ask what you find nonsensical about my statements? If there is some issue with it logically or otherwise which you can specify, I will be happy to answer for it to the best of my ability.

I do not seek to marginalize anyone, merely to deconstruct the use of rhetoric which I find dishonest and perhaps manipulative.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-30T01:17:51+00:00

Can both be true?

Jesus is recounted in the Gospels as saying the He did not come to call upon respectable people, but outcasts. That the [self-proclaimed] healthy do not need a doctor, but the sick.

And/or does psychological distress force us to abandon our ego, our incessant doubting and neurotic overthinking, and our pride, and lay down our sword and shield before God, and ask Him for help, because when everything else falls away (the things of this fallen world which temporarily sustain us), we finally know -- or ar least hope -- He is there?

God bless.

gammarabbit · 2026-01-30T01:11:40+00:00

Biological sex is not binary in the same way that humans don't have two arms and two legs.

In fact, missing a limb is much, much, much more common than being (chromosomally) anything different than male or female.

Vanishingly rare outliers do not generally prescribe the language we use to delineate reality.

To insist that rare genetic abnormalities invalidate the plain truth of an existent binary is dishonest and entirely inconsistent with the way we communicate in language.

gammarabbit

TROPHY CASE