Unpopular Opinion

6216 readers

7 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!

How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.

Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)

If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].

Rules:

1. NO POLITICS

Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.

2. Be civil.

Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...

Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.

5. No trolling.

This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.

Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

402

If "No one owes you anything," then you also owe nothing to a society that works against you, including allegiance, civility, or pacifism. (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

89 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A society in which it's everyone for themselves, that refuses to care for one another, is no society at all. Then everyone acts shocked and horrified at someone who understandably snaps, like modern western culture doesn't run entirely on schadenfreude.

That was the crux of the idea of a social contract, which is long dead in the US. Now people line up to revel in the suffering of their fellow citizens with "well you were stupid to do xyz in life, so you deserve your suffering haha."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Now people line up to revel in the suffering of their fellow citizens with “well you were stupid to do xyz in life, so you deserve your suffering haha.”

It's not schadenfreude, it's psychological defense from injustice. People don't want to accept that bad things can happen to them if they don't deserve those. They want to think that if they do everything right, nothing bad will happen, and if they make a mistake, then something bad will happen, and so there'll be fewer and fewer mistakes and bad things as they go. It's scary to accept that this is a lie and life isn't fair.

However, not attacking others or their property is not something you owe others, it's normal behavior, and behaving otherwise you trespass. It's not a gift on your part to not steal what belongs to another person.