• @[email protected]
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    -14 months ago

    And any consumers who, in such a situation, do not say no to a bad deal have nobody to blame but themselves.

    Do you suppose that choosing not to wear a seatbelt, a very bad deal, should be left entirely up to individuals, um, “stupid” enough to take it?

        • @[email protected]
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          04 months ago

          Nobody is arguing that seatbelts shouldn’t be installed, just that they shouldn’t be required. Choosing to not wear a seatbelt doesn’t endanger your fellow man, it only endangers yourself. You should always be free to make bad choices for yourself, and we should have a sufficient safety net that your stupid choices don’t unduly impact those who rely on you (e.g. the family you’re leaving behind).

          If we bring this back to the original argument, paying for pre-release doesn’t hurt anyone but your own wallet. It’s stupid, and we should be telling people to not do that, but you should always be free to make stupid decisions. Laws shouldn’t be crafted to reduce my ability to harm myself, as an adult, I can make my own choices. I can absolutely see things related to FOMO being locked behind age gates or something, but a consenting adult should be able to make poor choices.

          And that goes for everything. You talked about plastic protections on table saws further down, as a consenting adult, I should be able to easily remove them. You talked about vaccines, as a consenting adult, I should be able to refuse getting them. As a responsible adult, I personally keep safety equipment equipped and get every vaccine my doctor recommends, but I must have the ability to make an alternate decision as a free individual.

          So no, we shouldn’t be banning predatory practices from companies, we should be making them more transparent and perhaps putting them behind an age gate if they prove particularly problematic for children. If you want to make a stupid decision, that’s fine, provided you know the consequences going in.

          • @[email protected]
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            24 months ago

            You talked about vaccines, as a consenting adult, I should be able to refuse getting them.

            Lol no. Not if you’re going to be around other people. I don’t want measles, thanks.

            Also I have an interest in your idiotic ass not dying because you didn’t wear a seat belt. We live in a society.

            This is kind of off topic from “people should stop pre ordering video games”, though.

            • @[email protected]
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              14 months ago

              This is kind of off topic from “people should stop pre ordering video games”, though.

              It is. I just pegged them as libertarians, and I was right.

              If I’m being honest, I thought they would have perceived the bait and pretended to care about public health, but alas.

            • @[email protected]
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              4 months ago

              Lol no. Not if you’re going to be around other people

              We can certainly have restrictions, like you must have proof of vaccination against a deadly disease to go to a public school, provided there’s a viable alternative to meet legal standards (e.g. home school or private school). Likewise, companies should absolutely be allowed to require proof of vaccination status for entering their store to protect their other customers.

              But there should not be a blanked requirement to get vaccinated. You should be able to go to any public space (e.g. parks, sidewalks) w/o being vaccinated, as well as any private space that doesn’t require proof of vaccination.

              We live in a free society, and freedom means being able to make your own choices. Life should be easier if you make good choices (get vaccinated, wear a seat belt, etc), but you should be able to make your own bed and lay in it.

              And yeah, it is off-topic, but I’m not the one who brought up seat-belts or vaccinations. However, the principles are the same, I should absolutely be free to make stupid decisions, otherwise I’m not free and my only choice is to hopefully elect someone who will force me to do things that I agree with. We should remove force from the equation entirely and merely make consequences for stupid decisions transparent. For something like pre-ordering video games, those consequences are very small, but the principle remains the same.

              • @[email protected]
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                24 months ago

                But there should not be a blanked requirement to get vaccinated. You should be able to go to any public space (e.g. parks, sidewalks) w/o being vaccinated, as well as any private space that doesn’t require proof of vaccination.

                Measles hangs out in the air for like two hours. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/causes/index.html . You’d be dangerous on the sidewalks and in the parks, and extremely dangerous in any indoor space.

                The freedom to cause an outbreak is not a particularly valuable freedom. The freedom to live life because there’s not another measles outbreak is.

                “My personal freedom is more important than yours and your safety” is being a huge asshole, and society has no obligation to support that behavior.

                However, the principles are the same, I should absolutely be free to make stupid decisions, otherwise I’m not free and my only choice is to hopefully elect someone who will force me to do things that I agree with. We should remove force from the equation entirely and merely make consequences for stupid decisions transparent

                Your freedom to make stupid decisions will often clash with other people’s freedom to live. Your individual freedom is less important than everyone else’s freedom to be safe from measles.

                Furthermore, with seatbelts, I’m a stakeholder in your ass not flying through the window and dying. I pay in various ways for your health care, and I lose out when you die. When you hurt yourself, you hurt everyone.

                The nuance and where we disagree is where that line is. “You wasted your money on a shit video game” for me is on the “that’s small enough to not worry about” side. Vaccinations, helmets, seatbelts, those have low costs for the individual and large benefits for society.

                • @[email protected]
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                  4 months ago

                  You’d be dangerous on the sidewalks and in the parks, and extremely dangerous in any indoor space.

                  I 100% agree. That’s why the rest of us take vaccines to protect ourselves and the ones we love from diseases like this, and those with particular sensitivities (esp. those that cannot use vaccines) take added measures to protect themselves. That’s personal responsibility 101. Enough of us choose to get the measles vaccine that measles isn’t a significant concern anymore.

                  I think living life w/o getting vaccinated should be possible, but far from convenient. I think you should pay extra for insurance, have to home-school your kids, and not be able to use airplanes, trains, etc. If you spread a disease and it can be traced back to you, you should be charged with criminal negligence and perhaps a few other crimes. If you get locked up, I think forced vaccination should absolutely be on the table (alternative being some kind of body suit to protect guards and other inmates from you, at your expense), unless there’s a private prison that’ll take you that doesn’t require vaccination.

                  But a law forcing me to put anything into my body will always be immoral, regardless of the intention, because the ends absolutely do not justify the means.

                  I pay in various ways for your health care, and I lose out when you die.

                  And you should not. If I am killed or seriously injured due to not wearing a seatbelt, that should invalidate any kind of public payment, and I think certain private payments could reasonably be reduced as well (e.g. auto insurance may limit medical coverage if safety equipment wasn’t properly used). Making stupid choices should have consequences for the person making those stupid choices.

                  Vaccinations, helmets, seatbelts, those have low costs for the individual and large benefits for society.

                  I think you’re overstating the benefits for society. If I don’t wear a helmet and die, how does that realistically hurt society? Public benefits and whatnot can absolutely be limited due to negligence. Vaccines are more interesting, but again, I think it’s not really an issue in practice because most people get them, and we can also allow insurance premiums to skyrocket for those who choose not to.

                  I am totally on-board with limiting protections for people who make stupid choices, but I am not on-board with banning the stupid choices entirely. Make the stupid choices less attractive, but don’t threaten jail time or whatever.

                  • @[email protected]
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                    24 months ago

                    Enough of us choose to get the measles vaccine that measles isn’t a significant concern anymore.

                    If it’s not a mandate, people will “choose” not to do it, and then people will suffer and die. There are some things, like vaccines, that the cost:benefit is extremely clear.

                    I think living life w/o getting vaccinated should be possible, but far from convenient. I think you should pay extra for insurance, have to home-school your kids, and not be able to use airplanes, trains, etc

                    Sucks for the kids. Also how are you going to enforce that? An ankle bracelet? How are you going to make whole the people harmed by someone decides their personal freedom is the only freedom that matters?

                    unless there’s a private prison that’ll take you that doesn’t require vaccination.

                    Sucks for the other prisoners who get measles because the private prison didn’t want to pay for vaccines.

                    But a law forcing me to put anything into my body will always be immoral

                    I do not accept this axiom.

                    And you should not. If I am killed or seriously injured due to not wearing a seatbelt, that should invalidate any kind of public payment,

                    I’m not talking about literal financial transactions. When you die because you didn’t wear a helmet, I lose out on the investment in you. All those years of education, gone. Any job training you had? In the trash. Your mother taking off work to grieve? Ripples of suck spreading through society.

                    I think you’re overstating the benefits for society. If I don’t wear a helmet and die, how does that realistically hurt society?

                    Presumably you live in a society with people who care about you. If the lead front eng at work died, the project is going to be delayed, we’re all going to be unhappy, we have to ramp someone up. The whole company could fail as a result.

                    That’s not even counting the non-work connections.

                    Things are connected. Someone dying or being seriously injured is a big rock to drop in the pond, and those ripples affect many people. It’s not just money stuff. It’s also social and opportunity costs.

        • @[email protected]
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          04 months ago

          I would say that there’s almost nothing that demonstrates more contempt for one’s fellow man than decreeing that they shouldn’t even be allowed to make their own choices.

          • @[email protected]
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            34 months ago

            A plastic casing over a table saw “limits what choices a person can make.” This is a very anti-covid-vaccine argument you’re making.

            But that’s fine. I suppose being victim to an unregulated casino means you deserve to rot in Rancho Charleston or whatever.

            • @[email protected]
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              14 months ago

              It’s amusing and revealing that at no point here have you actually directly addressed anything that I’ve actually said. Instead, you’ve just used what I’ve said as a jumping off point for a ludicrously exaggerated, barely relevant and deliberately insulting strawman.

              Here’s a challenge for you - instead of leaping from strawman to strawman in this vain effort to somehow prove that I’m a horrible person and therefore wrong, go all the way back to the beginning here and frame a positive argument for your position. Tell me exactly why and on what basis (as appears to be your position) publishers should be prohibited from charging extra for early access, and what nominal public good that would serve.

              As a bonus, you might also try to explain how the position that publishers should be allowed to charge extra for early access is in any way “a very anti-covid-vaccine argument.” I’m especially curious about that one.

              Feel free to take your time

              • @[email protected]
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                14 months ago

                Oh wow, I really riled you up.

                the real problem is the idiots who are paying.

                I mean, I think that this is contentious enough to be worth picking apart.

                I can’t imagine calling someone an idiot unless I thought they kind of deserved what was coming to them. It’s this schadenfreude you seem to feel that I take issue with.

                I’m especially curious about that one.

                Oh, that would be this, actually:

                demonstrates more contempt for one’s fellow man than decreeing that they shouldn’t even be allowed to make their own choices.

                You are, for some reason, arguing against the concept of rules. I never asked you to do that.

                • @[email protected]
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                  4 months ago

                  Oh wow, I really riled you up.

                  Presuming, for the moment, that this laughable, trite and terribly cliched rejoinder is in any way true, how would it be relevant to anything?

                  Never mind though - that was a rhetorical question. I know, and I suspect you do as well, that it’s not. It’s just a casual, and at this point entirely predictable, bit of disparagement tossed out to give yourself what you erroneously believe to be an edge.

                  the real problem is the idiots who are paying.

                  I mean, I think that this is contentious enough to be worth picking apart.

                  Feel free. I’m more than willing to explain in as much detail as you want exactly why it is that I think that people who pay extra for early access to games are “idiots.”

                  (Just, by the bye, as I think that people who don’t wear seat belts, tahe the guards off their table saws or don’t get covid vaccines are “idiots.”)

                  I can’t imagine calling someone an idiot unless I thought they kind of deserved what was coming to them.

                  Which is exactly what I do in fact think.

                  It’s this schadenfreude you seem to feel that I take issue with.

                  I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

                  I don’t feel any sort of pleasure or sense of fulfillment at their idiocy - I simply note it.

                  I’m especially curious about that one.

                  Oh, that would be this, actually:

                  demonstrates more contempt for one’s fellow man than decreeing that they shouldn’t even be allowed to make their own choices.

                  You are, for some reason, arguing against the concept of rules. I never asked you to do that.

                  In response to my statement that:

                  any consumers who, in such a situation, do not say no to a bad deal have nobody to blame but themselves

                  you wrote:

                  Do you suppose that choosing not to wear a seatbelt, a very bad deal, should be left entirely up to individuals, um, “stupid” enough to take it?"

                  Clearly, with that, you established that the point you wished to dispute was whether or not “choosing… a very bad deal should be left entirely up to individuals.” That was the exact point of contention you stipulated.

                  So this:

                  You are, for some reason, arguing against the concept of rules. I never asked you to do that

                  is blatant bullshit. In point of fact, with the example above, that’s the specific focus you introduced. Curiously, you said nothing at all about the “contentious” phrasing of my original post or my supposed “schadenfreude.” That only came along now, in this desperate bit of backing and filling in which you’re vainly engaged. Rather, your immediate and exclusive focus was on whether or not “choosing… a very bad deal should be left entirely up to individuals.” The clear, and in fact only, alternative to that is that it should not be left up to individuals, so that’s the position you’ve taken, and the position in support of which I’m still waiting for you to provide an argument.

                  Now - if that’s truly not what you intended to say or imply, that would be another matter. And in fact, in any other situation, I’d be willing to simply grant that that wasn’t your intent and amend my responses accordingly. We could simply cooperate to find the exact point of our disagreement and focus on that (and could both enjoy this exchange much more).

                  But you blew that chance a long time ago.

                  So that was in fact the position you took, whether intentionally or not. And I’m still waiting for an argument in support of it.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 months ago

      Nobody’s safety is at risk here, it’s just people who can’t wait 3 days paying more money. It’s bullshit that companies will have a completed game but delay releasing it so people can pay extra for " early on release access" but the solution is simple: don’t pay for it.

      • @[email protected]
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        14 months ago

        Nobody’s safety is at risk here

        Correct. Very astute.

        but the solution is simple: don’t pay for it.

        Sure. But of course, the point of doing that is to suggest to companies that this is naughty behavior. This is naughty behavior, isn’t it?

        • @[email protected]
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          4 months ago

          I do believe I did call it bullshit in the post you’re replying to. However, people paying for it implies acceptable behavior, doesn’t it?

          • @[email protected]
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            14 months ago

            Nooooo-ho-ho-ho, no it does not. You can justify a lot of evil shit with that line of thinking.