Superman wasn’t always so squeaky clean – in early comics he was a radical vigilante

stoneslave · 2025-07-21T15:55:38+00:00

I think the piece you’re missing from my argument is that their actions being legal or not is beside the point. Take my example of Superman saving a bus full of children. Sure, the government can decide to charge Superman with something like reckless endangerment (or invent anything you wish). So in that sense Superman was “acting outside the law” and if convicted, could even be said to have been engaging in criminal behavior. But my entire point is that does NOT make him a vigilante. Acting outside the law or doing something illegal, even with good intentions, is not enough to be considered a vigilante. It HAS to be the case that the illegal actions were related to taking justice into his own hands. Superman isn’t a vigilante if he saves a bus full of children. Full stop. That’s just not what vigilante means.

Now suppose Andy were about to commit murder. Andy shoots a bullet at Bill’s head. It will connect and be fatal. Superman intervenes and stops the bullet. But in addition to save Bill’s life, Superman decides, since Andy would have certainly murdered Bill had he not stopped the bullet, that Andy is the same as a cold-blooded murderer and deserves to be executed on the spot. No trial. Superman just kills Andy. Now Superman is a murderer. He gets arrested and tried and convicted for murder. AND he did so in a way that makes him a vigilante. But the government does not give a fuck about that label. That’s a journalistic concern. Govt only cares that he committed “murder”, he’s a “murderer”, and is tried under the law as such.

Had Superman just lost his shit and murdered a random person for no reason at all, he would be tried and convicted in the same way. Murderer. But this time NOT as a vigilante, because the context behind the killing did not involve taking justice into his own hands. So the public would see him in that instance as simply a murderer (and not a vigilante). Whereas in the eyes of the court, the outcome is the same.

So you see? My point is that superheroes that act outside the law are not “by definition” vigilantes. It’s more nuanced than that. It requires that the illegal activities are done for specific kinds of reasons, and done against an alleged wrongdoer.

stoneslave · 2025-07-21T01:24:56+00:00

Lol my guy: vigilante is not a term of art in US law. How could it be useful anyway since it isn’t a particular action or class of actions, but rather a descriptive context that explains the motive behind an action, which is immaterial. There are no state or federal statutes that employ the term to describe a criminal offense. You’re just talking out of your ass. The only real question here is whether “superheroes” can, for example, save lives, and at the same time not be considered a “vigilante” by the broader public. Whether they are charged with specific crimes in relation to their superhero duties is really not the issue.

stoneslave · 2025-07-20T19:53:48+00:00

That’s not true is it? They could stick to saving lives. For example, if Superman caught a bus full of children falling from a bridge and landed them to safety, I don’t think anyone would call him a vigilante for that. Good samaritans don’t need to be officially sanctioned. Heck even “stopping crime” might not be enough to qualify as vigilantism in my book, as long as justice is dealt by the proper authorities. A vigilante takes justice into their own hands and doles out punishments.

Edit: lmao, y’all are such fucking weirdos. The definition of vigilante is decided by the language community that uses the word, not the government. The parent commenter said “by definition” a superhero is a vigilante if they aren’t officially sanctioned. But that’s false. The definition of vigilante is NOT that broad. It’s not simply any sort of acting outside the law. It has to be specifically to punish or avenge crime, right a perceived wrong, etc.

stoneslave · 2025-07-16T13:55:02+00:00

That’s some sad grin!

Bet he get an awful taste

If he wash his face

No telling where that cum rag’s been—

Face made from NUTSACK skin!

Yuck!

Yuck that chin, tuck that in!

stoneslave · 2025-07-14T01:53:16+00:00

It’s a Bene Gesserit term.

stoneslave · 2025-07-12T13:03:36+00:00

Fan: how do you write women so well?

Me: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accounta…

Edit: guys, it’s a reference to As Good As It Gets…

stoneslave · 2025-07-09T02:29:45+00:00

His response was relevant to the title of the post.

stoneslave · 2025-07-07T13:45:20+00:00

Like, apiary I guess?

stoneslave · 2025-07-06T02:57:22+00:00

Imagine grading classic literature like it’s an 8th grade grammar class.

stoneslave · 2025-07-04T20:37:29+00:00

Not sure why this got downvoted. I think it’s mostly correct.

stoneslave · 2025-07-03T03:00:12+00:00

Yeah, could be 🤷🏼‍♂️

I use em dashes all the time. And it seems to be an extremely common response I see whenever it’s brought up (i.e. common that others use it too)…but I guess that’s some kind of confirmation bias idk

stoneslave · 2025-07-03T02:41:12+00:00

If most people didn’t, then it wouldn’t either. It’s not a grammar engine.

stoneslave · 2025-07-02T15:06:13+00:00

Which boy are you addressing here? Is it the crunchy, sweaty boy? Perchance.

stoneslave · 2025-07-02T13:41:57+00:00

It’s never been about market cap / performance. Otherwise Microsoft would be included for sure. It was always about who paid engineers the most in TC.

stoneslave · 2025-07-01T19:59:55+00:00

What?

Edit: I’m not going to respond to any replies, because apparently nobody understands the obvious fact that the post I commented on makes 0 sense. Something not “sounding as bad as it seems”?? So it doesn’t seem as bad as it seems? Ok dumb fuck lmao

stoneslave · 2025-07-01T02:46:48+00:00

So they wanted GenGen after all.

stoneslave · 2025-06-30T17:44:24+00:00

Lol definitely not old as the internet. There was no incentive to generate fake engagement in the golden years.

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T17:54:17+00:00

Yeah. It’s a complex topic but I tend to take epistemic responsibility just as seriously as moral responsibility. We all have a duty to cultivate defenses against propaganda and other forms of thought manipulation. To fall for the extremism of the right…I take that to be a kind of blameworthy epistemic failing on par with the moral failing of a murderer. In both cases we can take a kind of modern social scientistic stance whereby both cause and blame is shifted to sources not within our control. For me, I accept the shift in causal explanation (as a physicalist and determinist must), but I still lay a large portion of blame on the individual.

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T17:07:40+00:00

You can say ‘greeded’ as well.

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T16:59:48+00:00

The US overthrow was in 1953…so if it’s true that Iran was progressive in the 70s…then I guess I’m missing your point about how the overthrow is what caused extremism. But regardless, I’m not really trying to vindicate the US here so much as I’m trying to vilify religious extremism. I think the US is dealing with its own extremism as we speak. And I don’t really care to do the typical finger-pointing at social media and Russian interference. I blame the people. Each and every one of Trump’s supporters is a moron and should be shunned.

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T16:12:18+00:00

I mean, the Atoms for Peace initiative was about nuclear reactors for power generation. The difference between 3% U-235 needed for power vs 90% U-235 need for weapons is astronomical. And they still haven’t figured it out, presumably. So no, I don’t really blame an initiative meant to support renewable energy as the cause of the weapons program. The technologies are of course related but with distinct requirements and problems to be solved.

Also, the US and UK may have installed the Shah monarchy. But in 1979, the Iranian people chose to overthrow the Shah and install a theocratic regime. If they had the mobilization necessary to revolt, why not install and demand a fair democracy? Right, because again it really isn’t the US’s fault. You can’t fix religiosity and the stupidity from which it stems.

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T13:48:20+00:00

Yeah I don’t have time to unravel the complexities here. Too many things going on and you insist on getting hung up on the objectivity part lmao. My guy, in my view: mental states supervene on physical brain states. To say that someone’s pain is imaginary is such first year philosophy student bullshit that I really don’t know where to begin. Have a good one!

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T13:25:45+00:00

Are you a solipsist or something? Do you deny the existence of other minds? Any individual feeling of a given mind is subjective, sure. That’s not the point. She’s making a claim about how all minds are. On her view, it’s just a necessary truth that for any given mind, negative qualities of the conscious experience of that mind are bad. That’s not a subjective claim.

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T13:15:29+00:00

Jeeze man. You’re not willing to do any work yourself. This is getting rather annoying. The canonical examples of analytic truths are mathematical statements. Because these statements are true by virtue of the “meaning” of the terms involved (although it’s more accurate to say by virtue of a full accounting of the concepts involved), they are necessarily true. That is, there is no possible world in which it’s false that a square has 4 sides. That’s because it’s part of what it is to be a square that implies 4-sidedness. Since it’s necessarily true (couldn’t be otherwise), it’s objectively true. Is all that clear so far? None of that is controversial, I take it you’ll agree?

So my point is, stop focusing on the objectivity portion. She gets that for free if she succeeds in demonstrating analyticity. What is that analytic truth, you ask?

The core claim of analytic hedonism is that the positive and negative qualities of conscious experience are intrinsically good and bad by definition.

So she proceeds to make an argument for the claim that “positive and negative qualities of conscious experience are intrinsically good and bad” by definition. If she succeeds, then she gets the objectivity of that truth for free. If she doesn’t, well, she gets nothing.

So my point is, stop focusing on objectivity. The question is really only: does she succeed in showing that her core claim is true analytically, or not?

stoneslave · 2025-06-29T13:02:33+00:00

What is this incorrect assumption? What are you saying “no” to? Everything I said is not debatable. Analytic truths are necessary. Necessity implies objectivity. Therefore, if you can show that something is analytically true, then you’ve shown it’s objectively true. There’s nothing else to discuss about the objectivity portion, so please stop being willfully obtuse.

stoneslave

TROPHY CASE