I’m sorry to hear that, but that’s not my problem, either. I don’t change my life based on others’ experiences as opposed to my own.

Well, I’m sorry but that’s just your opinion.

I could give you a much longer-winded response about how dubious and unreliable resources about Covid are, and how unreliable the testing and reporting was, and about how the ‘experts’ kept conveniently changing their minds/policies on Covid, and about how profitable the lockdown and the vaccines were, but, I’d rather not waste my time.

You do you, I’ll do me; we’re both finally free to live that way, thank god.

(I can’t believe this guy mocked freedom like that’s a good thing)

“Let’s halt progress because the wealthy get priority to it!”

“Nobody deserves wealth!”

“Wealthy people exist; let’s start rounding up minorities and putting them in concentration camps!”

🥴

Idk if you’ve seen the Michael Keaton Batman movies but I highly recommend them.

They’re not as realistic as The Batman, but they’ve got pretty much the same vibe, and actually The Batman has the same characters as Batman Returns. Batman Returns is way ‘artsier’ than The Batman, but it’s also extremely dark, and the villains (especially The Penguin) are very vivid.

Bro, right? Like anyone who cares about Covid is free to get vaccinated and free to wear a mask 24/7 and free to stay 6ft away from everyone else. It’s just nice that the rest of us are finally free to not do that shit.

The year is 2023. Influenza still exists. And in the year 2100, Covid will still exist. The thing is, we don’t care anymore; it’s not effecting 99.9% of us, and those that are threatened by it can take precautions, such as regular vaccinations and even wearing a mask. They’ve got that freedom.

No, you’re wrong, realistically they ALL got it, they just didn’t know it. The vast majority of Covid cases are asymptomatic and harmless. The whole country’s had Covid at this point, and we’ve fully achieved both vaccination immunity and general herd immunity, including people who never got vaccinated.

Pandemic’s over. It’s been over for quite a while.

There are no ethical problems, there’s just narcissists crying about progress.

One day, my disease, UC, will be gone, and the ‘culture’ and lifestyle habits surrounding UC will also be gone. It will be amazing, and anyone who says losing your culture for the sake of objective progress is a ‘bad’ thing is a fucking narcissist and I hope they suffer, because they’re standing for the suffering of others.

That’s a good response/question.

So you don’t want to criminalize JK’s ‘bad’ behavior. Then I stand by my point that there’s nothing wrong with supporting her art, even if she’s a ‘bad’ person. She does many good things with herself and her fortune, and I hope she continues to do good, despite also doing bad.

You are right, she has many choices, but let’s be pragmatic, here; she’s going to continue to be herself, she’s going to continue to be exactly what she is and not be anything else. That’s where cancelling comes into play; should her life be destroyed or not? Most people would say no, yet some would say yes. That is why the rule of law deems her actions acceptable; there’s not enough people against what she is doing, what she is doing is not seen as a crime.

You can ignore her and not support her, that’s your right. But are you any morally better than someone who does support her? According to my argument, no. The reason being that good and bad come together, and unless the bad is so bad that she needs to be dealt with, we’ve just kind of got to accept that bad with the good.

You said it yourself that what she’s doing shouldn’t be considered a crime. That means you don’t want her to be forcibly stopped, you see the damage she does as so insignificant that she shouldn’t be held accountable for it in a court of law. And I agree with that statement. Yet we both also acknowledge that she is doing damage. I think there’s a very real but blurred line, where something is deemed so bad that we can’t allow the person doing it to continue. Clearly JK has not crossed that blurry line, and therefore is free to continue as she pleases.

All I can say about that is, being bad and being a criminal are two different things. JK Rowling is a ‘bad’ person but she’s not a criminal, she’s not raping anyone. Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were criminals, they were raping people. In their case, I’d still support their careers and their opportunities, but I’d 100% demand they face Justice for their crimes as swiftly and earnestly as possible, and realistically if they eventually are released from prison they’d need to be on a tight leash. Like, the rule of law is important. If Pablo Picasso was a murderer, despite my love and support of his art I’d absolutely want him arrested. I’m not saying we should excuse people from breaking the law, I’m saying that a bad person (not criminal, just bad) can do good things and that if doing good things keeps them from becoming a criminal or something worse than they are, then it’s important that they be allowed to succeed.

I’d summarize it like this; you can’t ‘cancel’ someone, but you can kill them. Cancelers (ideally) want people they deem worthy of being canceled to not have any opportunities whatsoever, meaning that that person will have to turn to a life of crime to survive. That’s essentially a death sentence, in modern society. So, I view it as equivalent to the death sentence.

Would I be OK with JK Rowling getting the death sentence? Absolutely not, even if I think she’s done some bad things. But criminals who have raped countless innocent people, like Cosby and Weinstein? Yeah, sure, kill them, they’re violent criminals, unfit for civilization.

You make a great point, though, that my idea could be stretched to an extreme, and used to protect criminals. I’d just like to reiterate that when I said ‘bad’ I did not mean ‘criminal’, and I do think it’s horrible that criminals are protected because of the things they achieve. The law is biased, and it shouldn’t be.

Part of the problem is, a BAD person can create GREAT art. Also, a bad person can be an amazing lawyer, or doctor, or worker. And we support all of those bad people by hiring them and letting them do work.

At the end of the day, work is GOOD. Art is GOOD. We need BAD people doing GOOD things, like art, and law, and medicine, etc., because the other option is simply bad people doing bad things, like crime.

Everyone needs to make money to survive. And when you stop people from making money, oh god, they will find a way to make money and survive, and it won’t be as nice as the good work they can do.

Call it an Opportunity Cost.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/opportunitycost.asp

Now, do you want bad people doing good work, or do you want bad people to do bad things? Because you have to choose one, literally HAVE TO. Again, think about opportunity cost. Bad people have many options; do you want them to opt for the good option, or the bad option?

I’ll give you a real world example; JK Rowling. JK has said bad things. JK has also helped countless people through philanthropy and inspired countless people through writing. Should JK double down on being a ‘bad’ person and stop helping anyone and instead focus all of her fortune on greed and hatred, or should JK continue to help others despite having said or done bad things? The option forgone is the opportunity cost, and I know I’d rather see ‘doubling down on bad’ as the opportunity cost as opposed to ‘helping others’.

Good for you. I didn’t cry but I almost did. It was an extremely touching movie.

I tell people, Whale is like Black Swan, except far more relatable, because instead of being about a person striving for perfection, it’s just about a person, a failure, trying to accomplish at least one thing good for the world before dying, and about how humans care about each other so deeply.

To be fair, Taxi Driver is an odd movie. It’s hard to like Travis Bickle, but truth be told the movie is EXTREMELY cool, like the cinematography is just epic, like the driving scenes and the scenes with the guns, and Travis’ plight is relatable but he is also clearly lost his mind, though hopefully he regained it after killing those shitty pimps and getting Iris home safely. Honestly I just love the speeches in the movie, like his speech, where he’s like fumbling over his words and trying to sound cool; ‘Listen up you cocksuckers, here is a man who would not stand for it any longer.’ Or like Palantine’s speech where he’s just like, ‘WE are the people. We’re tired of this. We demand change. No longer will the few control the many.’ Like it’s such a cookie-cut joke of a political speech, it’s hilarious, in a morbid way. Scorsese is really a genius.

Hahaha yes, Betsy is the girl, not Iris. I’m sorry I said you didn’t watch the movie, I just take it for granted cus I just rewatched it the other day.

You didn’t watch Taxi Driver.

I would not compare Taxi Driver to Drive, they really have little in common.

Taxi Driver is a dark comedy and psychological thriller about a deranged taxi driver turned murderer who takes out his frustrations on some lowlife pimps and then is heralded as a hero.

Drive is an artsy fartsy action thriller about a reserved getaway driver who falls in love with and eventually saves a girl who’s in deep with some gangsters, and then said driver disappears.

Funny how Taxi Driver, a much more morbid movie than Drive, has a happy ending where the antihero gets the girl, meanwhile in Drive the more-likable antihero disappears and doesn’t get with the girl.

I’ve been told Drive is extremely influenced by The Driver, and has a lot of identical cinematography and scenes.