Since it's his fault the star went supernova in the first place, you bet it's his fault it wiped out the planet.
Let's not put the cart before the horse. After all, PublicEnemy's real & original sin was in manifesting the universe from nothingness in the first place.
Damn straight. He should have gotten busy and colonized Alpha Centuri.
Duh.
Not far enough away.
We also don't really have a lot of stars likely to pop right next to us with enough force that they would disturb the Earth itself. Even if Betelgeuse busted a nut it is way too far away to disturb the Earth (640 light years) and well outside the radius where it would extinguish all life (~25 light years).
Actually, if I recall correctly, the Sun and the local group of galaxies is inside of a bubble of hot intergalactic medium which is the remnant of a long ago neighboring supernova which cleared out the IGM in our neighborhood.
We also don't really have a lot of stars likely to pop right next to us with enough force that they would disturb the Earth itself. Even if Betelgeuse busted a nut it is way too far away to disturb the Earth (640 light years) and well outside the radius where it would extinguish all life (~25 light years).
I am not an astrophysicist, but I was under the impression that a supernova expelled a much stronger "energy beam" along it's axis of rotation than it does in all other directions. If true, it's possible that 25 light years is generally a safe distance but those in a direct line with the axis of rotation could be destroyed at many times that distance. That was more the point of view I was hypothesizing about. I don't have time to research if it's true or not (more like I heard it somewhere once), but if anyone knows for certain, please share.
Most observed GRBs are believed to be a narrow beam of intense radiation released during a supernova event, as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a black hole.
Yuo guys are missing the point. It isn't his fault that the sum super-novas. That fault lies with the sun. It is his fault for relying on the sun to live. If he dies because the sun blows up, it is entirely his fault. It isn't his fault everyone else dies. They made their own decision to live on the Earth.
Most observed GRBs are believed to be a narrow beam of intense radiation released during a supernova event, as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a black hole.
Yah, that's what I was thinking about. Thanks LHR.
See, you cannot handle my point of view because it goes against the typical "it's someone else's fault" mentality that is pervasive in this world. I did not say everything in life is my fault. Only that everything that I do, every decision that I make, will result in a positive or negative outcome that I, alone, am responsible for.
If I choose to get up and go to work in the morning and get in an accident on the way, it's my fault for getting into the accident. If I did NOT get up, get into the car and drive to work, I would NOT have got into the accident.
Isn't it MY fault for electing to go to work on that morning, at that time, in that car, on that road?
If I had elected to stay in bed that morning and not go to work, I would not have gotten in the accident, correct?
If I had left earlier or later, had driven on different roads, etc. I would not have gotten into the accident.
I, alone, made the decision that caused me to end up in an accident.
Now, had I stayed home, I would have avoided the accident. As such, it is obviously MY fault for deciding to go to work that day. No one forced me to, it was my decision, so why shouldn't I take responsibility for my own actions that led me to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time".
Of course, if I had stayed home, the house might have burned down as well, I could have been shot dead in a home invasion, etc.
Ultimately though, no matter what decision I make in life, I have made the decision for myself, so it has to be my fault for whatever happens in my life.
Regarding small children in war, as I mentioned before (if you bother to read), a child does not make their own decisions until they are given that freedom from the parents. Parents are responsible if they tell the child what to do. Why? Because if the child is told what to do then they are not exercising their own decision making, are they?
However, if a parent gives a child the ability to make a decision, then the child is responsible for what happens to them.
It's so obvious how many people here believe it's always someone else's fault, just like the homeowners who want a bailout. You are all so hypocritical. You think homeowners should have to live with their decisions, yet you believe you shouldn't be responsible for your own bad decision making.
How is it any different?
The concept is obviously way too difficult for most of you to even comprehend.
Look at it this way. Life is a gamble. You take your chances based on the odds you have of winning or losing.
Every decision you make is a gamble that you will win. The odds are sometimes better or worse, but ultimately you have to make a decision and live with the results and accept that those results are completely based on your actions and no one else's.
Having said that, I freely admit that you cannot control other's actions. They are free agents as well and make decisions based on completely different factors and they are responsible for their own actions.
If you walk into a bank, you have made the free will decision to do so.
If the robber walks in and kills you when you are there, he has made the decision to do so and will live with the consequences of that. You cannot control his actions because he has free will.
If he kills you, however, you are still responsible for getting yourself killed by being in that bank at that particular time, on that particular day.
You can pull a gun and kill him, in which case it is his fault for robbing a bank where you brought in a gun and knew how to use it. He is responsible for picking the wrong bank with the wrong customer (you) that caused his death. He made the decision which bank and which time of day and he chose poorly.
Why is it so difficult for you to even comprehend the concept that free will decision making means you only have yourself to blame?
Even if your decisions are not consciously made, you still make them and you still are responsible for them.
Regarding astronomical events.... If you feel the chances of obliteration are sufficient enough that preparation should be made to colonize another planet, then you have the free will to make that your life's work. If you think the chances of such an event are not worth the effort involved, then you have made the decision that the risks are too slight to worry about. If you then get blown up by the event, isn't it your fault for thinking the chances weren't high enough to worry about an escape plan?
Ultimately this is all about risk assessment and living with your bad (and good assessments) when making your decisions by accepting responsibility for them. You have no one but yourself to blame.
See, you cannot handle my point of view because it goes against the typical "it's someone else's fault" mentality that is pervasive in this world. I did not say everything in life is my fault. Only that everything that I do, every decision that I make, will result in a positive or negative outcome that I, alone, am responsible for.
I do not understand what your problem is. Most of the people I know willingly, and without prompting take blame for things that are their fault. When something goes wrong, I'm rarely looking to blame anyone. I'd rather just find a solution to the problem. That said, figuring out the cause of a problem is often a prerequisite to making informed decisions in the future.
E.g. why am I losing my house? If it's because you took out a much larger loan than you could conceivably repay, then it's your fault in the sense that you can take future actions which alleviate this form of risk from striking you again. But what if you are losing your house because of mounting medical bills related to a genetic defect? Then it's not really your fault, in fact I'd say nobody is to blame in such a case. The buyer made an informed decision based on realistic expectations of future income and due to unforeseeable consequences their estimates were proved inaccurate.
FWIW, I was being sarcastic in suggesting everything in life is specifically your fault. I guess I didn't really expect you to understand that.
I think, PublicEnemy, that you "can't handle" concepts that require nuance to understand. When it comes to 'fault' or 'blame', frequently several agents (anything that can "act with free will") each bear some level of responsibility, but rarely is the blame entirely equal. In the housing crash, some banks, some loan originators, some regulators, some home buyers, and some federal agencies deserve most of the blame. Even though this crash is decimating our economy and harming a huge portion of our population doesn't actually mean all those people are "at fault". I think you know this, but you are to obstinate to admit it or are just trying to prove your misguided point at the exclusion of reason.
But what if you are losing your house because of mounting medical bills related to a genetic defect? Then it's not really your fault, in fact I'd say nobody is to blame in such a case. The buyer made an informed decision based on realistic expectations of future income and due to unforeseeable consequences their estimates were proved inaccurate.
Ahh, but the buyer could have bought some VERY expensive gold plated insurance plan for just such an eventuality. The buyer also could have elected to put all his money into an investment that yielded a return that could have paid for all these bills instead of buying the home. The buyer could have chosen to buy lottery tickets and won, ensuring all the medical payments would have been covered. Where you fail in your argument is that there are no unforeseen circumstances. All of us know that, at any time, we could be stricken with cancer, genetic defects, airplanes falling from the sky, run over by a beer truck, killed by a bullet, atomic explosions, etc. All of us KNOW that we could be dead in 15 minutes or less. We make risk assessments based on all of this knowledge. The buyer made a poor risk assessment. If he cannot handle the medical bills, then he only has himself to blame because he didn't plan for that circumstance. But it's still his fault for not preparing for that possible outcome.
Risk is always there to be assessed. It is just that people don't want to accept responsibility when something goes wrong because they chose poorly in weighing the risks. But the risks were always there and known.
If Orting washes away late tonight because the lahar on Rainier lets go and lots of people die, who is at fault?
Will it be county's fault for allowing the development of the land?
Or the builders for building the homes?
Or the buyers for buying them?
Or no one?
Based on your reasoning, blame should be shared equally. I would argue that the buyers, the people living there, only have themselves to blame and no one else. They chose poorly and paid the price. They did a poor risk assessment, KNOWING the potential possibilities.
I've read a lot of absurd things on the internet, but I am pretty certain this belief tops them all.
Please explain how it is absurd. Tell me what decisions you don't make in your life. Better still, tell me what positive or negative outcomes in your life you didn't cause through your own actions or inactions.
Make no mistake, I have compassion for things that happen to people that seem "unfair", but it doesn't absolve them of the responsibility for what happened.
Take an earthquake in Seattle. You could be driving under the viaduct and the earthquake hits and you get crushed and your family mourns the loss. I can have compassion for your death and how it affects your family, but, ultimately, you made the decision to live in Seattle, knowing the earthquake risk and you also made the decision to drive under the viaduct.
Whose fault is it that you are dead?
The negative outcome (e.g death) was caused by your bad decisions (living in Seattle, driving under the viaduct) and no one else's.
If you had elected to live in Phoenix you would be alive, correct? Of course, in Phoenix, you might have died of heatstroke, but that, again, is a risk you took with the decision you made to live in Phoenix.
It's like the people who live in Tornado Alley and are surprised when a tornado hits their home. They live on this earth and chose to live somewhere where tornadoes are KNOWN to hit frequently. I can feel compassion for their loss, but they made the decision to live there, knowing the risks involved. It's their fault for making that decision, a decision they alone made.
Please explain how it is absurd. Tell me what decisions you don't make in your life. Better still, tell me what positive or negative outcomes in your life you didn't cause through your own actions or inactions.
I was born. This is a positive outcome in my life which was entirely out of the realm of any decision I made.
I was born. This is a positive outcome in my life which was entirely out of the realm of any decision I made.
It all depends on when life begins though, doesn't it?
However, as I stated before (if anyone can take the time to actually READ instead of giving a knee jerk response), children do not make decisions until they are given decisions to make. A child has decisions made for them until the role of decision making is passed from the parent or guardian to the child. This usually happens over a period of years until the child is given complete responsibility for decision making.
As such, your statement is flawed by the caveat I gave several posts ago concerning children.
Perhaps the problem is that too many people want the government to take over the responsibility for all the decisions in their life once their parents stop.
Here's a question I would like to hear people give their opinion(s) on if possible..
At what point does an unexpected outcome absolve you of any responsibility for your choice(s)?
First, you're flawed in assuming it is a "point". Like most of life, there is a gradient. The deciding factor really has to do with how neurotic a person needs to be to worry about the additional risk.
E.g. you can be hit and killed by a meteor at literally any time. It doesn't matter where on earth you go, your risks are essentially the same. Your position of "if I go to a ball game and am hit by a meteor it's my fault for going to the game" is invalidated by the fact that you could just as likely be hit by a meteor in a corn field as at a ball game as in your car as at the office as anywhere. Meanwhile, the likelihood of such an event is astronomic. If you alter your life in any way (like living underground) to avoid being hit by a meteor, your behavior is irrational.
In the meteor example, there is no actor aiming the meteor at you, so if you are hit nobody is to blame. Let's consider something different, but similar - where you live. Let's say you live in a low crime area, you take normal precautions for your safety (own a dog/fire extinguishers/alarms for you house and car) and one day you are planting flowers in your yard when a gun fight breaks out between two people passing by. In the gunfight you are shot. Beyond the case of a meteor, you have gone out of your way in this scenario to protect yourself from crime. Everyone has to live somewhere, and you chose the best place to live that you could, but you were still shot by a thug.
Obviously, the thug is to blame and the innocent bystander is not. Where you are misguided is that you seem to believe just because the bystander must live with the consequences of his and everyone else's actions, that he/she is at fault. It don't work that way. Living with the consequences does not equal fault.
Taking the analogies further, who's at faults in the shootout if the gardener lives in the most dangerous neighborhood in the city? It's still the shooter. The person who was shot took a risk by living in such a neighborhood, but he didn't pull the trigger. The person pulling the trigger is always 100% at fault, no matter how poor of a decision the victim made. Again, the victim lives with the consequences, but he is not at fault.
In the case of housing, the person(s) pulling the trigger also happen to be the victim(s). If you bought a house you could definitely not afford, it's not hypocritical to say "live with it" since you are the first actor, aka the culprit.
However, as I stated before (if anyone can take the time to actually READ instead of giving a knee jerk response), children do not make decisions until they are given decisions to make.
People read it, but this position is so foolishly argued, that we all gave you the benefit of the doubt and ignored it.
In the meteor example, there is no actor aiming the meteor at you, so if you are hit nobody is to blame.
So by your reasoning then, the people who were killed by Hurricane Katrina should accept no responsibility for living under water, near levees that were known to be unsafe in the event of a Cat 5, correct? By the same token, the people living in Orting should accept no responsibility for living in the path of a giant mudslide if the lahar on Rainier goes, correct?
No one is to blame and certainly not the people who chose to live in an unsafe area. How about people who choose to live near areas where fires break out every year? By your reasoning, they should take no responsibility for their choices, correct?
In your view, if "mother nature" causes it, you shouldn't accept responsibility for making a bad decision, correct?
I disagree with that because the person was given the choice NOT to live there and chose to do it anyway. They were given the free will opportunity to live somewhere else and assessed the risk poorly. It's their fault their home was destroyed.
Everyone has to live somewhere, and you chose the best place to live that you could, but you were still shot by a thug.
But would the risk have been less if the victim had chosen to live 20 miles down a dirt road?
They made the choice to live where the risk was less than in a bad neighborhood, but still there. They elected to take the higher risk location in exchange for something else: amenities, job, parks, etc. They made the choice, believing the risk was smaller, but it was still there. They made a poor choice in living in a good neighborhood where a thug decided to emply a gun. It's their own fault for living there, thinking a good neighborhood would keep them safe.
The person pulling the trigger is always 100% at fault, no matter how poor of a decision the victim made. Again, the victim lives with the consequences, but he is not at fault.
Legally the shooter may be at fault, but if the victim hadn't made the conscious choice to be there through his/her own decisions, he/she wouldn't have gotten shot.
Do you understand the difference? I have never argued the LEGAL consequences of the shooter killing someone, I am arguing that the victim really only has themselves to blame if they get shot. The victim assessed the risk and determined it wasn't enough to dissuade them from living in that neighborhood. They made the choice to live there and it got them killed.
The risk might be slighter in a better neighborhood, but the risk is still there. 20 miles down a dirt road the risk is more remote still, but the risk is always there.
But, at the end of the day, we all make risk assessments and only have ourselves to blame if we choose poorly.
I was born. This is a positive outcome in my life which was entirely out of the realm of any decision I made.
It all depends on when life begins though, doesn't it?
However, as I stated before (if anyone can take the time to actually READ instead of giving a knee jerk response), children do not make decisions until they are given decisions to make. A child has decisions made for them until the role of decision making is passed from the parent or guardian to the child. This usually happens over a period of years until the child is given complete responsibility for decision making.
As such, your statement is flawed by the caveat I gave several posts ago concerning children.
Perhaps the problem is that too many people want the government to take over the responsibility for all the decisions in their life once their parents stop.
Thanks for playing, try again.
You've cornered yourself into a position where only decisions you make are responsible for your life's outcome. And that's not true. My parents made a lot of decisions that are responsible for my life outcome, the biggest ones involving procreation. My brother, teachers, school principals, sports teammates, the girls I asked out over the years, the guy that wrote the FAFSA algorithms, my senior design PM, the people who've hired me (or not hired me) for jobs over the years... all made decisions that are responsible for certain outcomes in my life that are MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT than the individual decision(s) I made to be there. It is not an all or nothing situation. That is not to say that it is not my fault that those events turned out that way; it is to say that most things that happen in life are the result of more than one person making a decision.
I think the problem we have in society is that too many people are willing to dismiss their own culpability when something bad happens to them.
Take the meteor hitting the baseball park...
If you were there and got killed, you are culpable because you chose to be at the ball game at that time. If you hadn't been there, you wouldn't have gotten killed. Some of you would state that no one is culpable for the ACT of the meteor hitting the park (assuming it wasn't aliens throwing giant meteors), but, for the people killed, they made the conscious decision to be there, so they are culpable for getting themselves killed. The meteor hit, everyone who was there in the place it hit made the decision to be there, so they are all individually culpable for being killed by the action of going to the game on that day.
The risk was small that the event would happen, but the risk was always there that, at some point in time, in some location on earth, a meteor would hit a populated place and wipe some people out.
coolaid is right in maintaining that most people consider the risk slight enough that it doesn't disrupt their daily activities and that's fine, but it doesn't absolve you of culpability in getting killed.
Consider all natural disasters that result in damage to property or death. The effect of the disaster is the damage and death, correct? The cause is the natural disaster.
You may not have control over the cause, but you do have control over the effect the cause may have upon yourself.
Consider a shooting that results in you being shot. The effect of the shooting is a bullet in your body. The cause is a person firing a gun at you. You may have no culpability in the cause, but you are culpable for the effect, a bullet in your body, by placing yourself at the scene.
You made the conscience choice to be at the scene when a cause happened that resulted in the effect of being shot. If you hadn't been there, you would not have gotten shot
Again, you may not have control over the cause, but you do have control over the effect upon yourself, namely being there and getting shot
Consider a car accident where someone runs into you. The effect is your car being smashed, the cause is the person running into you. Ultimately, you could have avoided the effect if you had been five minutes earlier, correct?
Legally, the person running into you may be assessed fault by the court as the cause, but the effect on you would never have happened if you had chosen a different time or route.
You made the decision to be in that certain place, at that certain time when the cause took place, so the effect that you experienced as a result you are culpable for. You had the free will to make a different decision, a better one or a worse one. That decision may have rendered the effect on someone else, it may not have happened altogether, or a bigger effect could have occurred, resulting in a trip to the hospital, etc.
Either way, you alone made the decision to be in a certain place, at a certain time, when a particular cause happened, resulting in a negative (or positive) effect for yourself.
Every decision we make is made of our own free will. If we make the decision, how can we not be culpable for it? Who else can be culpable when we make the decision?
Just because a cause comes along as a result of that decision that results in a negative effect for us does not absolve us of culpability for making a poor decision.
You've cornered yourself into a position where only decisions you make are responsible for your life's outcome. And that's not true. My parents made a lot of decisions that are responsible for my life outcome, the biggest ones involving procreation. My brother, teachers, school principals, sports teammates, the girls I asked out over the years, the guy that wrote the FAFSA algorithms, my senior design PM, the people who've hired me (or not hired me) for jobs over the years... all made decisions that are responsible for certain outcomes in my life that are MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT than the individual decision(s) I made to be there. It is not an all or nothing situation. That is not to say that it is not my fault that those events turned out that way; it is to say that most things that happen in life are the result of more than one person making a decision.
This is where you are missing my point. You made the decision to ask the girls out, to read about the algorithms, to apply for a job, etc. You didn't have to do any of those things. If you had NOT asked the girl out, would your life have been different? Certainly, but who made the choice to ask her out?
You did. So, who shaped the outcome? Her, for accepting or rejecting you, or you for making the decision to ask her out that resulted in the shaped outcome? You made the decision to ask, not her. If the situation were reversed and she asked you out, you would have the choice of saying yes or no, resulting, again, in shaping YOUR life, depending on your answer.
How about the job? Again, YOU made the decision to apply for the job. If you hadn't made that decision, you wouldn't have had your life shaped by the offer or the rejection, correct?
What about the algorhithms? Who made the choice to read the book, determine the major or minor, go for the Master's, Doctorate, etc.? People may have encouraged you to do so. You may have found their ideas fascinating, but you made the decision to enroll in the program, correct?
Again, free will means you shape your outcome through your own decisions in life, both positive and negative.
If you have free will, you only have yourself to blame or congratulate, as the case may be. The problem is, people only want to accept responsibility for the positive results of their actions and not the negative ones. Any time there is a negative one, people are quick to absolve themselves of their own culpability.
No, I get your point. It's an absolutist viewpoint. But it's not representative of reality.
I ask a girl out, she says no, I end up sad for a day or two.
- I made a decision to ask her out, believing I had something to offer.
- She made a decision to say no, based on her assessment of me.
Who is at fault for the outcome of me being sad? We both are. I absolutely am - I put myself in that position, and overestimated myself. Maybe I could have dressed nicer, ate better and worked out more often, etc. But she is also partly responsible for the outcome. There is no absolutes in this game; maybe she already has a boyfriend or is a lesbian and I just didn't know. Or maybe she's a stuck up bitch, or doesn't like nerdy white guys, or maybe she's just holding out for someone better.
In isolation this is a bad example. But if the same thing happens over and over, then it's worth looking at. Your hypothetical hands out to the .Gov person might blame the girls 100%, in which case he's just a narcissist. Inability to see one's flaws leads to a lot of negative outcomes. Most normal people would realize they either need to improve themselves or ask out different people.
Much the same can be applied to jobs, school, everything. There are a lot of decisions made by other people that have direct impact on the outcome. We as people have control over much of the process, but not all of it.
The extreme event examples you've given are vastly different. Getting killed by a meteor is misfortune; nobody (well, almost nobody) would blame someone else for that. The "victims" of Hurricane Katrina put themselves into a very vulnerable position - below sea level in an area that has been hit by hurricanes as long as people have lived there (and presumably much, much longer). They (as a group, as well the government entities which allowed/enabled them to live there in the first place) hold most of the fault. But there isn't a place in this country that isn't susceptible to some form of major disruption - earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, drought, blizzards/avalanches, etc. Should we as a people just shrug our shoulders and say "sucks to be them, I'm smart enough to not put myself in that position!"? I prefer to think not.
Some of you would state that no one is culpable for the ACT of the meteor hitting the park, but, for the people killed, they made the conscious decision to be there, so they are culpable for getting themselves killed.
Culpable - adj. Deserving of blame or censure as being wrong, evil, improper, or injurious.
It didn't look like you knew what culpable meant, so I thought I'd include that.
PE, I get where you're coming from. You're a prick who dislikes the idea that any who isn't named PublicEnemy#1 is ever deserving of empathy. Alright, that's cool. But, knock off the charade where everyone else is busy pointing fingers and the enlightened one (you presumably) alerts them to their childish ways. Your whole goal here has been to blame the victim in LITERALLY EVERY CASE. Even my strawman argument about meteors you accepted wholesale, despite it being specifically set up to point out the absurdity of your case.
I'm done arguing with you. Feel free though, to declare yourself "victorious" through virtue of getting in the last word when you respond to this post by pointing out a) children don't count until some imaginary age of accountability b) the elderly are "to blame" for dying of old age and c) everyone else is to blame when you can't buy an old muscle car for cheap.
Who is at fault for the outcome of me being sad? We both are....
Ok, I disagree with you here simply because if you hadn't asked her out, she wouldn't have made you sad. It was your choice to ask or not ask. This doesn't mean I don't think you should take a chance and ask her out, just that I think you need to recognize that it would not have happened without you making that initial decision to ask her out.
Most normal people would realize they either need to improve themselves or ask out different people.
I completely agree with you here however. By taking the decision to ask her out, he learned something about himself that led to improvement (hopefully) or a hatred towards girls (possibly).
Much the same can be applied to jobs, school, everything. There are a lot of decisions made by other people that have direct impact on the outcome. We as people have control over much of the process, but not all of it.
But in each case, we have to do something, make some decision, that starts the process.
The extreme event examples you've given are vastly different. Getting killed by a meteor is misfortune; nobody (well, almost nobody) would blame someone else for that.
Ok, here is, perhaps, where people are being confused by my argument. I am not saying there aren't unfortunate events that are tragic. What I am saying is that being "in the wrong place at the wrong time", which, I hope, is a statement you would agree would sum up a meteor strike on a ball field, is still something that, had a different decision been made, could have been avoided.
It's like the person who didn't get on the Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic. They missed the flight and didn't get killed. The decision was made at some point to miss that flight. The alarm clock wasn't as reliable as they thought, the rental car return took too long, etc. They made a decision that, in this case, saved their life. It doesn't mean the people that died should have died. It doesn't mean it's not tragic that the plane went down. All it means is that, for whatever reason, all those people decided to be on that particular flight and, since they made that decision, they only have themselves to blame. I am not discounting the grief and tragedy, only that the certain knowledge is there that flying on a plane could lead to your death. They knew the risks and took them, so why should anyone be surprised when it happens?
The "victims" of Hurricane Katrina put themselves into a very vulnerable position - below sea level in an area that has been hit by hurricanes as long as people have lived there (and presumably much, much longer). They (as a group, as well the government entities which allowed/enabled them to live there in the first place) hold most of the fault. But there isn't a place in this country that isn't susceptible to some form of major disruption - earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, drought, blizzards/avalanches, etc. Should we as a people just shrug our shoulders and say "sucks to be them, I'm smart enough to not put myself in that position!"? I prefer to think not.
Ok, so, you do have a certain level or point where you feel people need to take responsibility, correct? Somewhere between meteor hitting a ball game and living under water, you see responsibility shift. Is that correct? So, what I would like to discuss with you is where does that line shift? Is it static or not?
I agree with you 100%. See, I think people believe I have no compassion for tragic events and that's not the case at all. I do have compassion, I just don't see where any decision you make in life you can be absolved of.
I lived in Tornado country for two years. I couldn't stand it. Every time that siren wailed, I thought the ceiling in the basement would disappear at any moment.
Having lived there, I thought, "Why on earth would somebody live here and deal with this?"
Now, in Seattle and Washington, we have the volcano and tsunami warning signs. My friend from Tornado country came to visit me and saw the signs and told me, "Why would anyone want to live here with these possibilities?"
From his perspective, he felt safer in Tornado country. From mine, I felt safer in Volcano country, as it were.
But, ultimately, if I get wiped out by a volcano, don't I only have myself to blame by choosing to live near an active volcano?
Yes, every place on earth has danger and risk. Everything you do in life carries danger and risk. Sitting at home typing this is dangerous if, right now, a plane falls on the house. However, by not living near an airport, I lessen the danger and risk. By not living in a dangerous neighborhood, I lessen the danger and risk. If I live in a cave in Utah, I lessen the danger and risk of death by humans, but I increase the likelihood of death by animals.
Like I said, I can have compassion for the tragedy, but that compassion, in my view, doesn't stop me from thinking that they made a bad choice.
In any event, I appreciate you taking the time to type out the reply that you did.
PE, I get where you're coming from. You're a prick who dislikes the idea that any who isn't named PublicEnemy#1 is ever deserving of empathy.
You can drop the 8th grade profanity any time you like, it doesn't strengthen your argument. In any event, when have I EVER stated I didn't feel empathy or compassion for the people who were killed or hurt in an tragedy?
Alright, that's cool. But, knock off the charade where everyone else is busy pointing fingers and the enlightened one (you presumably) alerts them to their childish ways. Your whole goal here has been to blame the victim in LITERALLY EVERY CASE.
I am not blaming the victim in every case. I am only pointing out that every decision we make in life carries a consequence. The consequence could be good or bad and we shouldn't just accept the good consequences without a willingness to accept the bad.
Even my strawman argument about meteors you accepted wholesale, despite it being specifically set up to point out the absurdity of your case.
Actually your meteor argument simply allowed me to show you the error in your thinking. The problem for you is I hit a sore point with you when I typed the word "blame" because it's a flash point word for you, for some reason.
You believe that, in many cases, no one is to blame and certainly never the "victim". I believe that blame and responsibility go hand in hand. Thousands of people made a bad decision by being at the park that day. Millions more made a good one by virtue of not being there. I am merely pointing out that they had the free will to not be there and made a bad decision. That doesn't mean I don't feel bad about the tragedy. Certainly the deaths were needless because those people didn't have to be there at that time, on that day.
But if you believe people have free will, then you have to believe that they need to take responsibility for both good and bad decisions.
The flip side of being responsible when bad things happen to you is that you get to take all of the credit when good things happen to you. Just like people like to think it isn't their fault when bad things happen, people also like to think good things are always a result of skill and hardwork and being special. It helps people avoid guilt when they are better off than someone else because, hey, they could have had the same thing as you had they only worked harder or smarter and made better decisions.
Because humans have a tendency to under-emphasize our role in bad things and over-emphasise our role in good things, it is very good self-discipline to bias our personal beliefs in the opposite direction.
However, that bias can be taken too far. Saying that you are always responsible for everything bad that happens to you is as absurd as saying that you are never responsible for everything good that happens to you.
If you were there and got killed, you are culpable because you chose to be at the ball game at that time. If you hadn't been there, you wouldn't have gotten killed. Some of you would state that no one is culpable for the ACT of the meteor hitting the park (assuming it wasn't aliens throwing giant meteors), but, for the people killed, they made the conscious decision to be there, so they are culpable for getting themselves killed. The meteor hit, everyone who was there in the place it hit made the decision to be there, so they are all individually culpable for being killed by the action of going to the game on that day.
We also don't really have a lot of stars likely to pop right next to us with enough force that they would disturb the Earth itself. Even if Betelgeuse busted a nut it is way too far away to disturb the Earth (640 light years) and well outside the radius where it would extinguish all life (~25 light years).
I am not an astrophysicist, but I was under the impression that a supernova expelled a much stronger "energy beam" along it's axis of rotation than it does in all other directions. If true, it's possible that 25 light years is generally a safe distance but those in a direct line with the axis of rotation could be destroyed at many times that distance. That was more the point of view I was hypothesizing about. I don't have time to research if it's true or not (more like I heard it somewhere once), but if anyone knows for certain, please share.
It isn't clear that any star in the Milky Way are possible progenitors of GRBs. Eta Carina might be a possible progenitor, but it isn't aimed at us. The most likely candidate would be WR 104:
And really it isn't enough to travel to Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti or Epsilon Eridani. We'd need to travel significant distances. And even then, if short GRBs are caused by the collapse of binary neutron star systems, we could be fairly screwed because old neutron stars are going to be cool and nearly undetectable other than gravitational waves.
I guess I'm 'culpable' if we all die from a GRB from a binary neutron star system because I haven't put any effort into developing gravitational wave observatories...
I never said I was using it in the legal sense of the word, as it applies to law. In fact, if you bothered to read (something I must question based on your statements so far, I never have discussed the legal aspects of blame in this discussion whatsoever. I am merely using culpable to denote the Latin concept of "fault" or culpa, in other words, If something bad happens to you, it's your own fault. You are "blameworthy" in my view for something happening.
But go ahead and be the word police because if that is all you have, then you have a pretty weak defense anyway.
Comments
Let's not put the cart before the horse. After all, PublicEnemy's real & original sin was in manifesting the universe from nothingness in the first place.
Not far enough away.
We also don't really have a lot of stars likely to pop right next to us with enough force that they would disturb the Earth itself. Even if Betelgeuse busted a nut it is way too far away to disturb the Earth (640 light years) and well outside the radius where it would extinguish all life (~25 light years).
Actually, if I recall correctly, the Sun and the local group of galaxies is inside of a bubble of hot intergalactic medium which is the remnant of a long ago neighboring supernova which cleared out the IGM in our neighborhood.
Yeah, here we go...
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003 ... bubble.htm
We're basically swimming around in a millions-year-old supernova remnant....
I am not an astrophysicist, but I was under the impression that a supernova expelled a much stronger "energy beam" along it's axis of rotation than it does in all other directions. If true, it's possible that 25 light years is generally a safe distance but those in a direct line with the axis of rotation could be destroyed at many times that distance. That was more the point of view I was hypothesizing about. I don't have time to research if it's true or not (more like I heard it somewhere once), but if anyone knows for certain, please share.
Yah, that's what I was thinking about. Thanks LHR.
See, you cannot handle my point of view because it goes against the typical "it's someone else's fault" mentality that is pervasive in this world. I did not say everything in life is my fault. Only that everything that I do, every decision that I make, will result in a positive or negative outcome that I, alone, am responsible for.
If I choose to get up and go to work in the morning and get in an accident on the way, it's my fault for getting into the accident. If I did NOT get up, get into the car and drive to work, I would NOT have got into the accident.
Isn't it MY fault for electing to go to work on that morning, at that time, in that car, on that road?
If I had elected to stay in bed that morning and not go to work, I would not have gotten in the accident, correct?
If I had left earlier or later, had driven on different roads, etc. I would not have gotten into the accident.
I, alone, made the decision that caused me to end up in an accident.
Now, had I stayed home, I would have avoided the accident. As such, it is obviously MY fault for deciding to go to work that day. No one forced me to, it was my decision, so why shouldn't I take responsibility for my own actions that led me to be "in the wrong place at the wrong time".
Of course, if I had stayed home, the house might have burned down as well, I could have been shot dead in a home invasion, etc.
Ultimately though, no matter what decision I make in life, I have made the decision for myself, so it has to be my fault for whatever happens in my life.
Regarding small children in war, as I mentioned before (if you bother to read), a child does not make their own decisions until they are given that freedom from the parents. Parents are responsible if they tell the child what to do. Why? Because if the child is told what to do then they are not exercising their own decision making, are they?
However, if a parent gives a child the ability to make a decision, then the child is responsible for what happens to them.
It's so obvious how many people here believe it's always someone else's fault, just like the homeowners who want a bailout. You are all so hypocritical. You think homeowners should have to live with their decisions, yet you believe you shouldn't be responsible for your own bad decision making.
How is it any different?
The concept is obviously way too difficult for most of you to even comprehend.
Look at it this way. Life is a gamble. You take your chances based on the odds you have of winning or losing.
Every decision you make is a gamble that you will win. The odds are sometimes better or worse, but ultimately you have to make a decision and live with the results and accept that those results are completely based on your actions and no one else's.
Having said that, I freely admit that you cannot control other's actions. They are free agents as well and make decisions based on completely different factors and they are responsible for their own actions.
If you walk into a bank, you have made the free will decision to do so.
If the robber walks in and kills you when you are there, he has made the decision to do so and will live with the consequences of that. You cannot control his actions because he has free will.
If he kills you, however, you are still responsible for getting yourself killed by being in that bank at that particular time, on that particular day.
You can pull a gun and kill him, in which case it is his fault for robbing a bank where you brought in a gun and knew how to use it. He is responsible for picking the wrong bank with the wrong customer (you) that caused his death. He made the decision which bank and which time of day and he chose poorly.
Why is it so difficult for you to even comprehend the concept that free will decision making means you only have yourself to blame?
Even if your decisions are not consciously made, you still make them and you still are responsible for them.
Regarding astronomical events.... If you feel the chances of obliteration are sufficient enough that preparation should be made to colonize another planet, then you have the free will to make that your life's work. If you think the chances of such an event are not worth the effort involved, then you have made the decision that the risks are too slight to worry about. If you then get blown up by the event, isn't it your fault for thinking the chances weren't high enough to worry about an escape plan?
Ultimately this is all about risk assessment and living with your bad (and good assessments) when making your decisions by accepting responsibility for them. You have no one but yourself to blame.
I do not understand what your problem is. Most of the people I know willingly, and without prompting take blame for things that are their fault. When something goes wrong, I'm rarely looking to blame anyone. I'd rather just find a solution to the problem. That said, figuring out the cause of a problem is often a prerequisite to making informed decisions in the future.
E.g. why am I losing my house? If it's because you took out a much larger loan than you could conceivably repay, then it's your fault in the sense that you can take future actions which alleviate this form of risk from striking you again. But what if you are losing your house because of mounting medical bills related to a genetic defect? Then it's not really your fault, in fact I'd say nobody is to blame in such a case. The buyer made an informed decision based on realistic expectations of future income and due to unforeseeable consequences their estimates were proved inaccurate.
FWIW, I was being sarcastic in suggesting everything in life is specifically your fault. I guess I didn't really expect you to understand that.
I think, PublicEnemy, that you "can't handle" concepts that require nuance to understand. When it comes to 'fault' or 'blame', frequently several agents (anything that can "act with free will") each bear some level of responsibility, but rarely is the blame entirely equal. In the housing crash, some banks, some loan originators, some regulators, some home buyers, and some federal agencies deserve most of the blame. Even though this crash is decimating our economy and harming a huge portion of our population doesn't actually mean all those people are "at fault". I think you know this, but you are to obstinate to admit it or are just trying to prove your misguided point at the exclusion of reason.
Ahh, but the buyer could have bought some VERY expensive gold plated insurance plan for just such an eventuality. The buyer also could have elected to put all his money into an investment that yielded a return that could have paid for all these bills instead of buying the home. The buyer could have chosen to buy lottery tickets and won, ensuring all the medical payments would have been covered. Where you fail in your argument is that there are no unforeseen circumstances. All of us know that, at any time, we could be stricken with cancer, genetic defects, airplanes falling from the sky, run over by a beer truck, killed by a bullet, atomic explosions, etc. All of us KNOW that we could be dead in 15 minutes or less. We make risk assessments based on all of this knowledge. The buyer made a poor risk assessment. If he cannot handle the medical bills, then he only has himself to blame because he didn't plan for that circumstance. But it's still his fault for not preparing for that possible outcome.
Risk is always there to be assessed. It is just that people don't want to accept responsibility when something goes wrong because they chose poorly in weighing the risks. But the risks were always there and known.
If Orting washes away late tonight because the lahar on Rainier lets go and lots of people die, who is at fault?
Will it be county's fault for allowing the development of the land?
Or the builders for building the homes?
Or the buyers for buying them?
Or no one?
Based on your reasoning, blame should be shared equally. I would argue that the buyers, the people living there, only have themselves to blame and no one else. They chose poorly and paid the price. They did a poor risk assessment, KNOWING the potential possibilities.
I've read a lot of absurd things on the internet, but I am pretty certain this belief tops them all.
Please explain how it is absurd. Tell me what decisions you don't make in your life. Better still, tell me what positive or negative outcomes in your life you didn't cause through your own actions or inactions.
Make no mistake, I have compassion for things that happen to people that seem "unfair", but it doesn't absolve them of the responsibility for what happened.
Take an earthquake in Seattle. You could be driving under the viaduct and the earthquake hits and you get crushed and your family mourns the loss. I can have compassion for your death and how it affects your family, but, ultimately, you made the decision to live in Seattle, knowing the earthquake risk and you also made the decision to drive under the viaduct.
Whose fault is it that you are dead?
The negative outcome (e.g death) was caused by your bad decisions (living in Seattle, driving under the viaduct) and no one else's.
If you had elected to live in Phoenix you would be alive, correct? Of course, in Phoenix, you might have died of heatstroke, but that, again, is a risk you took with the decision you made to live in Phoenix.
It's like the people who live in Tornado Alley and are surprised when a tornado hits their home. They live on this earth and chose to live somewhere where tornadoes are KNOWN to hit frequently. I can feel compassion for their loss, but they made the decision to live there, knowing the risks involved. It's their fault for making that decision, a decision they alone made.
At what point does an unexpected outcome absolve you of any responsibility for your choice(s)?
I was born. This is a positive outcome in my life which was entirely out of the realm of any decision I made.
It all depends on when life begins though, doesn't it?
However, as I stated before (if anyone can take the time to actually READ instead of giving a knee jerk response), children do not make decisions until they are given decisions to make. A child has decisions made for them until the role of decision making is passed from the parent or guardian to the child. This usually happens over a period of years until the child is given complete responsibility for decision making.
As such, your statement is flawed by the caveat I gave several posts ago concerning children.
Perhaps the problem is that too many people want the government to take over the responsibility for all the decisions in their life once their parents stop.
Thanks for playing, try again.
First, you're flawed in assuming it is a "point". Like most of life, there is a gradient. The deciding factor really has to do with how neurotic a person needs to be to worry about the additional risk.
E.g. you can be hit and killed by a meteor at literally any time. It doesn't matter where on earth you go, your risks are essentially the same. Your position of "if I go to a ball game and am hit by a meteor it's my fault for going to the game" is invalidated by the fact that you could just as likely be hit by a meteor in a corn field as at a ball game as in your car as at the office as anywhere. Meanwhile, the likelihood of such an event is astronomic. If you alter your life in any way (like living underground) to avoid being hit by a meteor, your behavior is irrational.
In the meteor example, there is no actor aiming the meteor at you, so if you are hit nobody is to blame. Let's consider something different, but similar - where you live. Let's say you live in a low crime area, you take normal precautions for your safety (own a dog/fire extinguishers/alarms for you house and car) and one day you are planting flowers in your yard when a gun fight breaks out between two people passing by. In the gunfight you are shot. Beyond the case of a meteor, you have gone out of your way in this scenario to protect yourself from crime. Everyone has to live somewhere, and you chose the best place to live that you could, but you were still shot by a thug.
Obviously, the thug is to blame and the innocent bystander is not. Where you are misguided is that you seem to believe just because the bystander must live with the consequences of his and everyone else's actions, that he/she is at fault. It don't work that way. Living with the consequences does not equal fault.
Taking the analogies further, who's at faults in the shootout if the gardener lives in the most dangerous neighborhood in the city? It's still the shooter. The person who was shot took a risk by living in such a neighborhood, but he didn't pull the trigger. The person pulling the trigger is always 100% at fault, no matter how poor of a decision the victim made. Again, the victim lives with the consequences, but he is not at fault.
In the case of housing, the person(s) pulling the trigger also happen to be the victim(s). If you bought a house you could definitely not afford, it's not hypocritical to say "live with it" since you are the first actor, aka the culprit.
People read it, but this position is so foolishly argued, that we all gave you the benefit of the doubt and ignored it.
So by your reasoning then, the people who were killed by Hurricane Katrina should accept no responsibility for living under water, near levees that were known to be unsafe in the event of a Cat 5, correct? By the same token, the people living in Orting should accept no responsibility for living in the path of a giant mudslide if the lahar on Rainier goes, correct?
No one is to blame and certainly not the people who chose to live in an unsafe area. How about people who choose to live near areas where fires break out every year? By your reasoning, they should take no responsibility for their choices, correct?
In your view, if "mother nature" causes it, you shouldn't accept responsibility for making a bad decision, correct?
I disagree with that because the person was given the choice NOT to live there and chose to do it anyway. They were given the free will opportunity to live somewhere else and assessed the risk poorly. It's their fault their home was destroyed.
But would the risk have been less if the victim had chosen to live 20 miles down a dirt road?
They made the choice to live where the risk was less than in a bad neighborhood, but still there. They elected to take the higher risk location in exchange for something else: amenities, job, parks, etc. They made the choice, believing the risk was smaller, but it was still there. They made a poor choice in living in a good neighborhood where a thug decided to emply a gun. It's their own fault for living there, thinking a good neighborhood would keep them safe.
Legally the shooter may be at fault, but if the victim hadn't made the conscious choice to be there through his/her own decisions, he/she wouldn't have gotten shot.
Do you understand the difference? I have never argued the LEGAL consequences of the shooter killing someone, I am arguing that the victim really only has themselves to blame if they get shot. The victim assessed the risk and determined it wasn't enough to dissuade them from living in that neighborhood. They made the choice to live there and it got them killed.
The risk might be slighter in a better neighborhood, but the risk is still there. 20 miles down a dirt road the risk is more remote still, but the risk is always there.
But, at the end of the day, we all make risk assessments and only have ourselves to blame if we choose poorly.
You've cornered yourself into a position where only decisions you make are responsible for your life's outcome. And that's not true. My parents made a lot of decisions that are responsible for my life outcome, the biggest ones involving procreation. My brother, teachers, school principals, sports teammates, the girls I asked out over the years, the guy that wrote the FAFSA algorithms, my senior design PM, the people who've hired me (or not hired me) for jobs over the years... all made decisions that are responsible for certain outcomes in my life that are MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT than the individual decision(s) I made to be there. It is not an all or nothing situation. That is not to say that it is not my fault that those events turned out that way; it is to say that most things that happen in life are the result of more than one person making a decision.
Take the meteor hitting the baseball park...
If you were there and got killed, you are culpable because you chose to be at the ball game at that time. If you hadn't been there, you wouldn't have gotten killed. Some of you would state that no one is culpable for the ACT of the meteor hitting the park (assuming it wasn't aliens throwing giant meteors), but, for the people killed, they made the conscious decision to be there, so they are culpable for getting themselves killed. The meteor hit, everyone who was there in the place it hit made the decision to be there, so they are all individually culpable for being killed by the action of going to the game on that day.
The risk was small that the event would happen, but the risk was always there that, at some point in time, in some location on earth, a meteor would hit a populated place and wipe some people out.
coolaid is right in maintaining that most people consider the risk slight enough that it doesn't disrupt their daily activities and that's fine, but it doesn't absolve you of culpability in getting killed.
Consider all natural disasters that result in damage to property or death. The effect of the disaster is the damage and death, correct? The cause is the natural disaster.
You may not have control over the cause, but you do have control over the effect the cause may have upon yourself.
Consider a shooting that results in you being shot. The effect of the shooting is a bullet in your body. The cause is a person firing a gun at you. You may have no culpability in the cause, but you are culpable for the effect, a bullet in your body, by placing yourself at the scene.
You made the conscience choice to be at the scene when a cause happened that resulted in the effect of being shot. If you hadn't been there, you would not have gotten shot
Again, you may not have control over the cause, but you do have control over the effect upon yourself, namely being there and getting shot
Consider a car accident where someone runs into you. The effect is your car being smashed, the cause is the person running into you. Ultimately, you could have avoided the effect if you had been five minutes earlier, correct?
Legally, the person running into you may be assessed fault by the court as the cause, but the effect on you would never have happened if you had chosen a different time or route.
You made the decision to be in that certain place, at that certain time when the cause took place, so the effect that you experienced as a result you are culpable for. You had the free will to make a different decision, a better one or a worse one. That decision may have rendered the effect on someone else, it may not have happened altogether, or a bigger effect could have occurred, resulting in a trip to the hospital, etc.
Either way, you alone made the decision to be in a certain place, at a certain time, when a particular cause happened, resulting in a negative (or positive) effect for yourself.
Every decision we make is made of our own free will. If we make the decision, how can we not be culpable for it? Who else can be culpable when we make the decision?
Just because a cause comes along as a result of that decision that results in a negative effect for us does not absolve us of culpability for making a poor decision.
This is where you are missing my point. You made the decision to ask the girls out, to read about the algorithms, to apply for a job, etc. You didn't have to do any of those things. If you had NOT asked the girl out, would your life have been different? Certainly, but who made the choice to ask her out?
You did. So, who shaped the outcome? Her, for accepting or rejecting you, or you for making the decision to ask her out that resulted in the shaped outcome? You made the decision to ask, not her. If the situation were reversed and she asked you out, you would have the choice of saying yes or no, resulting, again, in shaping YOUR life, depending on your answer.
How about the job? Again, YOU made the decision to apply for the job. If you hadn't made that decision, you wouldn't have had your life shaped by the offer or the rejection, correct?
What about the algorhithms? Who made the choice to read the book, determine the major or minor, go for the Master's, Doctorate, etc.? People may have encouraged you to do so. You may have found their ideas fascinating, but you made the decision to enroll in the program, correct?
Again, free will means you shape your outcome through your own decisions in life, both positive and negative.
If you have free will, you only have yourself to blame or congratulate, as the case may be. The problem is, people only want to accept responsibility for the positive results of their actions and not the negative ones. Any time there is a negative one, people are quick to absolve themselves of their own culpability.
I ask a girl out, she says no, I end up sad for a day or two.
- I made a decision to ask her out, believing I had something to offer.
- She made a decision to say no, based on her assessment of me.
Who is at fault for the outcome of me being sad? We both are. I absolutely am - I put myself in that position, and overestimated myself. Maybe I could have dressed nicer, ate better and worked out more often, etc. But she is also partly responsible for the outcome. There is no absolutes in this game; maybe she already has a boyfriend or is a lesbian and I just didn't know. Or maybe she's a stuck up bitch, or doesn't like nerdy white guys, or maybe she's just holding out for someone better.
In isolation this is a bad example. But if the same thing happens over and over, then it's worth looking at. Your hypothetical hands out to the .Gov person might blame the girls 100%, in which case he's just a narcissist. Inability to see one's flaws leads to a lot of negative outcomes.
Much the same can be applied to jobs, school, everything. There are a lot of decisions made by other people that have direct impact on the outcome. We as people have control over much of the process, but not all of it.
The extreme event examples you've given are vastly different. Getting killed by a meteor is misfortune; nobody (well, almost nobody) would blame someone else for that. The "victims" of Hurricane Katrina put themselves into a very vulnerable position - below sea level in an area that has been hit by hurricanes as long as people have lived there (and presumably much, much longer). They (as a group, as well the government entities which allowed/enabled them to live there in the first place) hold most of the fault. But there isn't a place in this country that isn't susceptible to some form of major disruption - earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, drought, blizzards/avalanches, etc. Should we as a people just shrug our shoulders and say "sucks to be them, I'm smart enough to not put myself in that position!"? I prefer to think not.
Culpable - adj. Deserving of blame or censure as being wrong, evil, improper, or injurious.
It didn't look like you knew what culpable meant, so I thought I'd include that.
PE, I get where you're coming from. You're a prick who dislikes the idea that any who isn't named PublicEnemy#1 is ever deserving of empathy. Alright, that's cool. But, knock off the charade where everyone else is busy pointing fingers and the enlightened one (you presumably) alerts them to their childish ways. Your whole goal here has been to blame the victim in LITERALLY EVERY CASE. Even my strawman argument about meteors you accepted wholesale, despite it being specifically set up to point out the absurdity of your case.
I'm done arguing with you. Feel free though, to declare yourself "victorious" through virtue of getting in the last word when you respond to this post by pointing out a) children don't count until some imaginary age of accountability b) the elderly are "to blame" for dying of old age and c) everyone else is to blame when you can't buy an old muscle car for cheap.
I completely agree with you here however. By taking the decision to ask her out, he learned something about himself that led to improvement (hopefully) or a hatred towards girls (possibly).
But in each case, we have to do something, make some decision, that starts the process.
Ok, here is, perhaps, where people are being confused by my argument. I am not saying there aren't unfortunate events that are tragic. What I am saying is that being "in the wrong place at the wrong time", which, I hope, is a statement you would agree would sum up a meteor strike on a ball field, is still something that, had a different decision been made, could have been avoided.
It's like the person who didn't get on the Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic. They missed the flight and didn't get killed. The decision was made at some point to miss that flight. The alarm clock wasn't as reliable as they thought, the rental car return took too long, etc. They made a decision that, in this case, saved their life. It doesn't mean the people that died should have died. It doesn't mean it's not tragic that the plane went down. All it means is that, for whatever reason, all those people decided to be on that particular flight and, since they made that decision, they only have themselves to blame. I am not discounting the grief and tragedy, only that the certain knowledge is there that flying on a plane could lead to your death. They knew the risks and took them, so why should anyone be surprised when it happens?
Ok, so, you do have a certain level or point where you feel people need to take responsibility, correct? Somewhere between meteor hitting a ball game and living under water, you see responsibility shift. Is that correct? So, what I would like to discuss with you is where does that line shift? Is it static or not?
I agree with you 100%. See, I think people believe I have no compassion for tragic events and that's not the case at all. I do have compassion, I just don't see where any decision you make in life you can be absolved of.
I lived in Tornado country for two years. I couldn't stand it. Every time that siren wailed, I thought the ceiling in the basement would disappear at any moment.
Having lived there, I thought, "Why on earth would somebody live here and deal with this?"
Now, in Seattle and Washington, we have the volcano and tsunami warning signs. My friend from Tornado country came to visit me and saw the signs and told me, "Why would anyone want to live here with these possibilities?"
From his perspective, he felt safer in Tornado country. From mine, I felt safer in Volcano country, as it were.
But, ultimately, if I get wiped out by a volcano, don't I only have myself to blame by choosing to live near an active volcano?
Yes, every place on earth has danger and risk. Everything you do in life carries danger and risk. Sitting at home typing this is dangerous if, right now, a plane falls on the house. However, by not living near an airport, I lessen the danger and risk. By not living in a dangerous neighborhood, I lessen the danger and risk. If I live in a cave in Utah, I lessen the danger and risk of death by humans, but I increase the likelihood of death by animals.
Like I said, I can have compassion for the tragedy, but that compassion, in my view, doesn't stop me from thinking that they made a bad choice.
In any event, I appreciate you taking the time to type out the reply that you did.
You can drop the 8th grade profanity any time you like, it doesn't strengthen your argument. In any event, when have I EVER stated I didn't feel empathy or compassion for the people who were killed or hurt in an tragedy?
Please show me where I said that.
I am not blaming the victim in every case. I am only pointing out that every decision we make in life carries a consequence. The consequence could be good or bad and we shouldn't just accept the good consequences without a willingness to accept the bad.
Actually your meteor argument simply allowed me to show you the error in your thinking. The problem for you is I hit a sore point with you when I typed the word "blame" because it's a flash point word for you, for some reason.
You believe that, in many cases, no one is to blame and certainly never the "victim". I believe that blame and responsibility go hand in hand. Thousands of people made a bad decision by being at the park that day. Millions more made a good one by virtue of not being there. I am merely pointing out that they had the free will to not be there and made a bad decision. That doesn't mean I don't feel bad about the tragedy. Certainly the deaths were needless because those people didn't have to be there at that time, on that day.
But if you believe people have free will, then you have to believe that they need to take responsibility for both good and bad decisions.
BTW, I don't even like muscle cars.
Because humans have a tendency to under-emphasize our role in bad things and over-emphasise our role in good things, it is very good self-discipline to bias our personal beliefs in the opposite direction.
However, that bias can be taken too far. Saying that you are always responsible for everything bad that happens to you is as absurd as saying that you are never responsible for everything good that happens to you.
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
It isn't clear that any star in the Milky Way are possible progenitors of GRBs. Eta Carina might be a possible progenitor, but it isn't aimed at us. The most likely candidate would be WR 104:
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~gekko/pinwheel.html
And really it isn't enough to travel to Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti or Epsilon Eridani. We'd need to travel significant distances. And even then, if short GRBs are caused by the collapse of binary neutron star systems, we could be fairly screwed because old neutron stars are going to be cool and nearly undetectable other than gravitational waves.
I guess I'm 'culpable' if we all die from a GRB from a binary neutron star system because I haven't put any effort into developing gravitational wave observatories...
I never said I was using it in the legal sense of the word, as it applies to law. In fact, if you bothered to read (something I must question based on your statements so far, I never have discussed the legal aspects of blame in this discussion whatsoever. I am merely using culpable to denote the Latin concept of "fault" or culpa, in other words, If something bad happens to you, it's your own fault. You are "blameworthy" in my view for something happening.
But go ahead and be the word police because if that is all you have, then you have a pretty weak defense anyway.