Sadism, trolley problems and fire ants

[maradydd]

The first time I saw The Sound of Music I was about six or seven

Comments

[selenite]

The best answer I've come up with is that people afraid of being at the bottom of the status hierarchy will do whatever it takes to push someone below them on it.

[jordan179]

There is a connection between the genocide of the Armenians by the Turks, and the genocide of the Jews and Slavs by the Germans in WWII. Namely, it was the world's total lack of imposition of any consequences on Turkey for this mass murder which convinced Hitler that his own Final Solution could be a reasonable and practical policy.

We are still catering to the Turks on this matter.

[00goddess]

"For sadists for whom any target will do, why don't they attack everyone?"

Because they also have a sense of self-preservation, and also, because even a sadist has a top level of effort beyond which they won't go.

I love the way you write :)

[graydon]

Handful of thoughts, disconnected

[maradydd]

I think your "unrelated" is very related, actually, given how top-down the entire Third Reich organisational structure was. The guys drawing up the org charts weren't, as I understand it, the mid-level functionaries. This is also why the horribly broken incentive system of promotion for USDOJ prosecutors bothers me so much.

More after work; you make a really good point about suffering vs. eradication.

[maradydd]

Well, it’s 2020, and China is running a 20th century totalitarian genocide playbook with 21st century technology.

What do?

[graydon]

Hope they don't come looking for us? Run away? I don't see any practical possibility of resisting a state aside from "not being where or who it wants to exert itself against".