Unpopular Opinion

7966 readers

466 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.

6. Defend your opinion

This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.

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

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

technopagan@lemmy.world

For people in power, any "uncaring" action is an abuse of power (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by quacky@lemmy.world to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Responsibility necessarily implies care. For example, let's say you are responsible for baking a birthday cake. What would be a failure in this context? Obviously, failure would be to neglect your responsibility, therefore no cake was made. Or, failure would be if you haphazardly mixed ingredients together, making a disaster or a subpar cake. Okay, then, what would be the best way to succeed at this job? It would be to pay extra careful attention to every important step and ingredient. Likewise, if you are in a position of power, you are burdened with great deal of caretaking. Parents know this. Dog owners know this. What is a bad parent? It is an irresponsible one, one who does not care. What is a parent? It's someone who has power over a child.

Moving on to the second point now, a mother's love for her child is often cited as the most powerful human connection. A maternal bond is the basis for all of us being alive right now. Do you think you'd survive, as pathetic newborn infants are, if humans were like snakes and left you immediately after birth? "You're on your own, kid". No, of course not. This applies to every level of authority, from workplaces to government. The maternal bond is the golden standard form of governing, and the citizens ought to be like crying babies (i.e., protests). The government should cater to each and every citizen like a doting mother.

The end

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

[–] SomeoneSomewhere@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

While I agree in principle, there are a few things that complicate this:

More caring/responsibility is required than one person can possibly handle. So instead, it is more about delegating and monitoring and only intervening in cases where the system failed. Attempting to fix everything personally will result in burnout. Attempting to fix everything could result in institutional burnout/insolvency.
Not everyone is a reliable witness: consider the cat that claims to be absolutely starving and hasn't been fed in weeks. Sometimes people need to be refused what they want for the good of themselves, others, or the system as a whole.
Human error exists and will screw up the best laid plans.

This does not mean that a particular system is or is not functioning well - but 'maternal care' and 'spoiled rotten' are not the same thing.

[–] quacky@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

I agree with points 1 & 2

[–] quacky@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Not everyone is a reliable witness .. Sometimes people need to be refused what they want

There's crucial nuance here. if there is a wanting, something is legitimately wrong and needs addressing. Like babies, they might not know what they need (i.e., unreliable) but if they're crying, refusing to tend to them is not the answer. Something is wrong, and it's your job as the intelligent person in power to figure that out.