? Is this about stealing? If so, then that's why you pay taxes to have a legal system. If you take matters into your own hands, you're wasting your money and everyone else's.
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Do you think revenge is okay?
- Thread starter Me Myself
- Start date
I.S.L.A.M617
Illuminatus
Call the cops to get 20 bucks back
? Not only will they not do anything about it; they'll take a look at my skin and my prior arrests and try to pin something on me to make the trip worthwhile... And meanwhile, while all this is happening, I still don't have my 20 bucks. Talk about wasting money... I don't know what fantasy land you live in where the police help people, but people like me don't call the police.
No matter. You're paying for legal system that you don't use, because someone else's behavior dictates your behavior.Call the cops to get 20 bucks back
Fair enough.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
In that case, you can say the same thing about giving someone a thank you note.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
By friend I meant just a neighbor. I pretty much call all people friends if there's some sort of relationship between them.
Just not talking to him isn't justifiable if someone steals that 20 dollars, they've got something they didn't earn, in fact they earned it in a negative way, and you lost something.
An important thing to keep in mind if planning revenge:
Be sure to visit vengeance upon the actual person who did you wrong.
Don't go after those merely of the same gender, race, family or political persuasion.
Be sure to visit vengeance upon the actual person who did you wrong.
Don't go after those merely of the same gender, race, family or political persuasion.
I.S.L.A.M617
Illuminatus
You forgot "don't call the police"
Why? They gave you a thank you note?
I.S.L.A.M617
Illuminatus
...
Let's examine the evidence.
You do something nice for someone, because they did something nice for you. You don't have to excuse your behavior, and you can take full credit for it. The alternative is that you're doing "something nice" out of some sense of obligation or duty, or perhaps because your mom is making you do it. In that regard, it's not really "something nice that you are doing," at all.
On the other hand, you do something bad and someone doesn't send you a lovely F-U note. Well, maybe they do if they're a psycho. You make excuses for your actions, because it's wasn't really your fault that you were doing something bad, it was theirs. They did it first, so it's their fault that you do it. The alternative is that you are solely responsible for your bad behavior, but then it's not really revenge. It's crime.
You do something nice for someone, because they did something nice for you. You don't have to excuse your behavior, and you can take full credit for it. The alternative is that you're doing "something nice" out of some sense of obligation or duty, or perhaps because your mom is making you do it. In that regard, it's not really "something nice that you are doing," at all.
On the other hand, you do something bad and someone doesn't send you a lovely F-U note. Well, maybe they do if they're a psycho. You make excuses for your actions, because it's wasn't really your fault that you were doing something bad, it was theirs. They did it first, so it's their fault that you do it. The alternative is that you are solely responsible for your bad behavior, but then it's not really revenge. It's crime.
I.S.L.A.M617
Illuminatus
Nobody's denying responsibility for their actions when they take out revenge on someone. Legally it might be a crime, but then again so is putting a donkey in a bathtub in Tennessee. Revenge isn't about whose fault it is... It's about letting the person who wronged you know how what they did feels.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
If using the actions of another as an excuse for yours is a bad thing, then giving someone a thank you card is noteworthy.
Where I take issue with revenge is taking one immoral act and following it with another equally horrible act. Using revenge as a means of justifying immorality.
Not for that but for blaming someone or something else for behavior that is yours alone.
And yet, if your basing your actions on what "they" did instead of what "I" do, you have surrendered fault to them.
Nice pun.
If you reward them, when they neither expect nor require reward, isn't that based on you?
Karl R
Active Member
In the acts of revenge that you've alluded to, you've deliberately caused someone pain. Can you prove, to the extent that there is no doubt whatsoever, that those people purposely hurt you?
If you can't, you're running a risk of purposely "sharing the pain" someone who hurt you accidentally.
And if you can prove it, why not just turn the evidence over to the police and let them handle it?
You think there's fairness in revenge?
Explain the fairness in the following scenario:
The teenager down the street deliberately sets fire to your house, and burns it to the ground. What do you do in order to "share the pain", "get even", get "a kind of fairness", or get "equality" with this teenager.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you can actually prove with 100% certainty that it was the teenager who did it, and prove that he did it deliberately.
What's the fair and equal way to share the pain with the teenager?
I'm guessing that you'd burn his house to the ground.
There's no fairness in that action. Because in burning down his house, you've also burned down the house of his parents and siblings. And unless all of them conspired to burn down your house, you just got revenge on a group of people who are innocent. There is no fairness and no equality in what you did to them.
You're lying to yourself.
Here's a real-world scenario:
My grandparents were murdered by two robbers who were trying to break into their apartment. While it wasn't premeditated, it was deliberate.
If you were in my shoes, it sounds like you'd shoot them and take pleasure in getting even ... and that's purely selfish.
My grandparents had a brother, two sisters, three sons, two grandsons, three granddaughters, a nephew and two nieces. There were two robbers, and only one of them pulled the trigger. There aren't enough robbers to go around. You would selfishly get your own pleasure from revenge without thinking about all the other people who were equally hurt.
And if you think the extended family gets equal pleasure from you shooting the robbers, then you should get sufficient pleasure in letting the law take care of getting justice. (In reality, punishing/killing the guilty doesn't allow anyone to feel at ease. Real closure comes from within.)
At least I.S.L.A.M617 is willing to admit that he's just seeking his own self-gratification. As monstrous as it is, his belief is internally consistent, while yours requires that you lie to yourself about your own motives, the impact of your actions, the feelings of those around you...
Of course, if I was living in a lawless society and had I.S.L.A.M617 as a brother, I'd put him down like a rabid dog, purely as an act of self-preservation before he got us all killed in a sick blood feud. He clearly puts his own self-gratification over anybody else's well-being, including his family's. In a lawless society where community is everything, that attitude is a liability to anybody close to him.
In a modern society, I'd tip I.S.L.A.M617 off to the police. When he got out of prison, I'd kill him in self-defense before he could get revenge against me for sending him to prison. There wouldn't be any pleasure or gratification in it. Just painful necessity.
I.S.L.A.M617
Illuminatus
It's that person's fault that whatever I'm doing is happening to them, but I'm completely responsible for my actions, and it's my fault if something bad happens to me because of it. So yes, I still would hold fault in the matter for my own actions, and I'm perfectly OK with that.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
If so, if they neither expect nor require punishment, isn't revenge based on you?
I.S.L.A.M617
Illuminatus
Thanks... I guess...
Guess you just jumped right off your moral high horse to kill your brother, huh? I do have feelings, you know :sad:...
My family and I would protect each other. It's the people outside the family that would have to worry. I'm pretty sure I made this clear already when I said I would do everything in my power to protect the people close to me if it came down to a blood feud. Just because revenge is just doesn't mean you have to make it easy... They'd have to kill me and my brothers if they hoped to live to tell about it.
Now THAT I would like to see. I'm a ninja, bro... You'd never see it coming :ninja:
And on a side note: Nobody likes a snitch...
Revenge and punishment are not the same thing.
Edit: But taking that you meant reeking revenge on them that they don't expect, it only depends on where you are laying blame. My comments earlier were in response to the idea that "it's okay to steal from those who stole from you," but stealing is still wrong--it doesn't matter to the nature of stealing that someone has stole from you--if you steal, it's still stealing and stealing is wrong. Then the conversation morphed into that what they to do you justifies what you do to them--this is the laying of blame and fault on them, rather than on you. And now the conversation is revealing the selfish side of vengence, an action of harm done solely to appease your own feelings and hurt.
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