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Comment on What is the moral jurisdiction behind not wishing who're rich and in executive positions to die?

Wishing death to someone for any reason is quite an extreme position to take outside of these niche internet bubbles that influenced you to think this way in the first place. I honestly struggle a bit when I try to imagine how you deal with the cognitive dissonance of trying to distinguish yourself from the worst people in history. You might not have the power to do the atrocities that they did, but your aspirations aren’t that different in practice. You just have a different justification for why you think what you wish to happen is actually a good thing - just like these people did as well. You even admit that you don’t really care whether they’re actually bad people or not. Your criteria is “rich and executive position,” which is quite indiscriminate.

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Candice_the_elephant@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Trumps policies have killed many people.

The cholera epidemic in South Sudan worsened significantly after the Trump administration cut funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which had been providing critical medical support. These cuts led to the closure of clinics that were essential in treating cholera patients, resulting in increased mortality rates during the outbreak.

For example. We’re not talking about someone who did something wrong, we’re talking about a man who’s at best indifferent to suffering and dying of people based on their skin color. This isn’t some regular murderer or even assassin, this is wholesale killing.

Wanting someone who has the power to kill innocent people and does to die is a pretty natural response.

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- AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Even in that case, it’s not like he’s killing them. He just said we’re not going to try to save them.
  
  I’m against pretty much everything that guy has ever said, and would have chosen to greatly expand USAID for all the lives it was saving and misery avoided …… but there is a huge ethical distance between killing them and not going out of your way to save them. Wither way it helps if you’re a sociopath, but they are different
  
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  - Maeve@kbin.earth ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Venezuelan fishermen's families may disagree.
    
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  - flamiera@kbin.melroy.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I suspect you are gaslighting or something here.
    
    But this is pretty dumb logic you're presenting. Okay then, by your logic, Hitler didn't kill the jews during WW2. He just simply said he wanted them not to be in his country or anything. But he didn't kill them, he just sent them away and had other people do the killing for him.
    
    You know better.
    
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    AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Misreading. I confess your post was too long and I didn’t read. I assumed you were talking about USAID, which I do believe is different.
    
    Yes, not sending money to help others but s different from actively leading a country in a ways that causes massive deaths.
    
    Sociopath either way but a direct cause of those deaths is different from not saving those other deaths
    
    And believe me Im no supporter of the guy, quite the opposite. I just believe that not all of his actions are criminal. Unethical definitely and way too many are criminal and should be prosecuted
    
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- Perspectivist@feddit.uk ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Trump is an individual. My criticism is about the blanket judgement of everyone rich and powerful.
  
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  - AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They also deserve to be judged individually for their actions and decisions, not simply their financial status.
    
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TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
the cognitive loop goes like this:

If I am not a mass murdered/pedophile/etc, and those are the worst people, and I wish death on them, then I am good.

It’s basically shitty people trying to justify to themselves that they are ‘good’ by their dislike of ‘bad’ people, but taken to an extreme.

It’s also the loop that causes mentally unwell people to justify violence. Because while killing is bad, if they do it to bad people, it must be good.

It’s largely an exercise in ego-inflation, like the ‘I am shit, but someone else is shittier so I’m not that shitty’ mentality that just entrenches negative behaviours

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danciestlobster@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’m not sure this is categorically true. If you are in a situation where another person is clearly and obviously killing everyone around you one after the other and you could stop them by killing them, I think most would argue it is morally ok to do so. Same for a situation of like a home invasion where someone means to do immediate harm to your family and loved ones. Murder in self defense is often considered morally ok. When people in the world through their actions are killing people in enormous numbers, it is not too hard to see how someone could make a parallel to self defense.

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- Perspectivist@feddit.uk ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Sure, but that’s a bit of a motte-and-bailey. It’s like saying that one wishes death for all black people and when challenged they then retreat back to claiming that they were talking about just the ones who rape and murder.
  
  My point is that wishing death for someone simply for being rich and in an executive position is barely different from wishing that to someone because they’re black. It’s unreasonable to be categorically against something purely based on superficial features. It’s a thought-terminating cliché that ignores all nuance and reduces a diverse group of people into a stereotype.
  
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  - danciestlobster@lemmy.zip ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I basically agree with this, with one important distinction worth mentioning that being black is not a willful choice, but having billions of dollars absolutely is. I would argue that if someone has so much money there is no possible way for them to spend it all in their and their progeny’s lifetime, the only ethical thing to do is give the excess that can’t be spent away.
    
    In general, though, I understand not all ultra wealthy are equally bad, and those who just inherited their money and sit on it aren’t anywhere near the level of those that actively influence policy for the negative. Yes there is nuance there, and yes stereotyping the whole group is reductive.
    
    The general sentiment in OPs comment is usually rooted to in the notion that there is really no way to run a business that makes billions of dollars without underpaying or overcharging people along the way, and there is no way to justify having 100bn+ dollars all for yourself when there are so many people without. If that means those offences are extreme enough to justify murder is another question, and I agree should probably not apply categorically to all rich people equally with no deeper discussion.
    
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