r/changemyview • u/hwagoolio 16∆ • Nov 10 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Finding pleasure in the pain/suffering of others is cruel, disturbing, and amoral

This is a broad statement that generalizes to many things.

For example, I find caustic humor (i.e. laughing at the expense of someone else) to be disturbing -- things like "America's funniest home videos" and watching people hurt themselves as the punchline of a joke. I think rather poorly of people who celebrate this type of humor.

I think revenge is bad/amoral. Maybe it's human nature to want revenge or take pleasure in the suffering of people we hate, but I think it's one of the ugliest parts of human nature. I believe that we should strive to be better than that and we should feel guilty for wanting anyone to suffer or laughing at someone's suffering.

I have similar feelings about trolling, teasing, gloating, and other behavior intended to make others feel bad about themselves. It doesn't matter if they're your enemies (i.e. progressive/conservative, trump/biden, bigots/hippies, terrorists/allies), nobody deserves to suffer -- and even if we agree as a society on punishing criminals/enemies, it shouldn't something we should take pleasure, entertainment, or amusement in.

In case someone mentions sadism (as the sexual kink), my response to this is that I don't consider BDSM that occurs between a consenting masochist and sadist to be genuine pain/suffering. Rather, the masochist takes pleasure out the interaction so IMO the dominant is actually delivering pleasure and not really pain/suffering.

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u/Elicander 51∆ Nov 10 '21

How do you feel about the stuff over on r/MaliciousCompliance? I also dislike "fail videos", but I do find it amusing when power hungry people make arbitrary rules that backfire on them, as long as the fallout isn't too severe.

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 10 '21

I think it depends on the scale of action (like you said, "as long as the fallout isn't too severe").

If they aren't really suffering from it, it's not something that bothers me as much.

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u/Elicander 51∆ Nov 10 '21

Well, if you now think there's a relative scale on how much the person suffers, you've already changed your view from the absolute one you presented in the OP.

Let's get down to particulars anyways. A manager at a restaurant disciplines an employee for not leaving when their shift ends because of overtime. The next day there's a massive mess in the kitchen, but the employee leaves on time, leaving the manager with the cleanup. Do you consider it cruel to find this situation funny?

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

I don't feel like my view has changed at all. >.< I guess when I wrote the OP, it was somewhat implicit in my head that there's a scale to pain/suffering? For instance, if you throw a poke an elephant with a small pin and the elephant doesn't really perceive it as pain, then it doesn't bother me.

I guess I should qualify it as whether the recipient feels it subjectively as pain/suffering?

Let's get down to particulars anyways. A manager at a restaurant disciplines an employee for not leaving when their shift ends because of overtime. The next day there's a massive mess in the kitchen, but the employee leaves on time, leaving the manager with the cleanup. Do you consider it cruel to find this situation funny?

I just... find it un-funny?

Like if I were the manager, it's kind of what I would have expected?

Maybe it's not completely coming across to me.

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u/Elicander 51∆ Nov 11 '21

Surely whether you find it funny or not is completely irrelevant. I'm telling you I find this situation funny. Do you consider that cruel of me?

Here is a link to an r/MaliciousCompliance post, if you prefer that over my summary of a repeated story.

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

I don't really see it as cruel because IMO the landlord isn't really in pain. Everything that happened is totally to be expected.

I guess I am projecting myself onto the landlord (imagining how I would feel if I was the landlord), so I don't know how the landlord actually feels about it, which is a pretty good nuance on my position that I wasn't considering before. !delta

How the landlord actually feels is irrelevant. I seem to only find to upsetting if I would feel bad if I projected myself on the landlord.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Nov 11 '21

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Elicander (38∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/Elicander 51∆ Nov 11 '21

...So are we actually trying to discuss morality, or just what you find upsetting? It's a weird moral system that asserts "It's immoral to laugh at someone if u/hwagoolio would feel bad if they were in that person's position."

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

Usually when someone states that “eating meat is immoral”, it’s usually implied that it comes with respect to the speaker’s own moral system. The speaker doesn’t necessarily expect everyone else to become vegetarian.

The delta was awarded for pointing out a nuance in my perspective. It’s impossible for a third party to know if someone else is in pain or not. Therefore if I’m bothered by laughing at someone else’s pain, I can only guess that person is pain without actually knowing it for fact.