Helping a woke atheist think critically about slavery. Slavery vs trans care to increase well-being.

You know this movie with Yul Brynner, where he chopped off his hand, a healthy body part, because some dude was hanging on it with a chain (nice chain and ball fight happened before that - Yul Brynner got the upper hand on the fight, the bad guy is doomed, but he is hanging on the hand of Yul Brynner and he has to either chop off his hand to go free or eventually fall down the pit because of getting tired)

Well, so there are situations where chopping off healthy body parts are okay, or at least the lesser bad.

That's fucking gross dude!

"Justifiable" is a clowns favorite word, what does that even mean lol. Justifiable to whom? You? Me? The government?

Atheists get mad when i say abortions worse than slavery and Christians get mad when I say both are endorsed by the bible

Forest is such a disgusting bigot.
Asks a question and won't even listen to the answer. Just ad homs the poor bro and uses mods to block his speech.

do you know if the caller ever explain why he said he thinks its sometimes justifiable? I understand that Forrest’s “ever” basically forces somebody who is thinking about it deeply to say that basically anything is sometimes preferable to other things, but from this clip it could also be that the caller was taking “ever” to mean the same thing as Forrest took it, which is basically “in any realistic scenario” or something akin to that.

It really is that simple

I just find that to be so sad. I kind of understand his emotions in not wanting to talk with someone that holds morally reprehensible views (I get the same way with people that preach a literalist hell), but they are like genuinely scared to hear him talk because they think he will radicalize someone listening.

If Forest can’t make an argument for why slavery is wrong without taking some kind of moral high ground then that speaks more to the confidence he holds to his position.

I found the literalist interpretation of hell to be so morally defunct and evil that I made it my mission to be able to fully dismantle it as a logical position. So when I see people like Forest just wave people with bad views as not worth talking to (especially in a public setting like that where he can help influence people to not think like that) it makes me shake my head. Progressives would rather allow evil to exist so that they can wag their finger at everyone else for not being like them, rather than get rid of it, it’s sickening.

Woke people have no sense of their own fallibility. My next question would have been, "When is slavery justified?" because I'm curious and want to know what I may not have thought of. But if you're woke you think your understanding of every moral issue is perfect and infallible so there is no follow up. It reminds me of presuppositional apologetics.

Is Forrest a moral realist? If he thinks slavery is intrinsically evil, it would seem so.

Why would he ask if he didn't want to hear an explanation? Who watches these idiots?

what do you use to generate the voice clips?

The same people who cry about slavery 100's of years ago completely avoid the CURRENT slavery that's going on today and consume the slave made products without a care!
If we are to boycott anything it should be of products made by modern slavery.
P.S no penises in the girl's changerooms.

It's a false analogy between slavery and removing healthy organs, because it's simply axiomatic that for one person to legally own another as property is immoral. Ditto for one person to legally enslave themselves to another.

We may also take it as axiomatic that any normal adult has complete sovereignty over their own body and organs. (We might want to forbid the sale of human organs for practical reasons.)

Perfectly healthy appendixes are removed all the time--when a doctor is already doing surgery in that area for other reasons and wants to prevent any future chance of appendix trouble for the patient.

Also, females concerned about their risk of breast cancer will often justifiably have one or both healthy breasts removed.

Quite unfortunate to see Forrest close off intellectually like that. Even if it's a position of total disagreement, I think some level of openness is important. I'd be curious to ask him which is preferable, letting someone starve to death against their will, or letting them be willingly enslaved and not starve? I notice these people struggle to comprehend small moral improvements (from starving to slave) as being improvements, rather than massive ones (from starving to financially secure).

The two are not the same (edited comment).

Forest got lost in The Woods. He mentally woke enslaved

I know the case of a guy who didn't recognize his arm as his own, and ended up chopping it off.

Was it wrong? At the end of the day it's his body, his choice.

Interesting. So we are to compare an autonomous choice of an individual to have something on their own body removed or augmented, to the concept of where humans can be the moveable property of other humans, and those humans that own those other humans have rights of ownership.
This would seem to imply the argument that if people find it acceptable to cut off healthy parts or their own bodies, then it logically follows that one person can own another person (at the very least) as moveable property.

It's interesting that you could justify slavery if output exponentially increased, but i think "The Line" is unable to talk about morality due to a lack of critical thinking and skepticism. This isn't the only topic they don't like thought experiments on though.

PineCreek is committing a category error here. This is basically misinformation.

Doug, this isn't related to the video but I was wondering if you've ever talked about how your political views have changed as you've gotten older or if they've changed at all. I really like your content and think you fill a niche online others are probably scared to fill.
Thanks.

I don’t know if this is an uncommon belief. But there is no act I can think of that we deem as completely immoral, that I couldn’t think of a theoretical scenario where it’s completely morally justifiable. Even slavery, or cutting off healthy body parts. I’m not for either of course, but in my mind, there must be some hypothetical context where either is somehow justified. Of course, generally speaking, neither ever is justified.

Low energy homosexuals

Conversations with those you disagree with are opportunities to refine your arguments or recognize your ignorance.

I would change this to children. If an adult wants to shop off their nose to look like an alien, or their penis to look like a woman, or their chest to look like a man, go for it.

But it shouldn't be state funded healthcare, it's cosmetic. And it shouldn't be allowed for children. They can't get tattoos even if it would make them feel less suicidal, so why more invasive measures?

There are situations where surgically removing healthy body parts is a good thing gender affirming surgery has overwhelming scientific evidence showing that it increases the well being of those who have gender dysphoria as well as the regret rate only being 1%

what if the healthy body part is causing another body part to be unhealthy?

Doug’s claim that he can educate Forrest and push him to think more critically about slavery just doesn’t work. He uses his re-edit to set up a false equivalence between slavery and gender-affirming care, which he reductively refers to as “the chopping off of healthy body parts.” His goal seems to be to illustrate what he perceives as Forrest’s inconsistency or hypocrisy in confronting a caller prepared to make a defense of slavery. However, Doug’s comparison fails on multiple levels.

Slavery, by definition, negates autonomy entirely by reducing a human being to the status of property. It’s a system that denies personhood, prioritizing the autonomy and well-being of the slaveholder over the enslaved. In contrast, gender-affirming care is an act of autonomy. It’s sought voluntarily by individuals to align their physical and mental well-being with their identity. Even if Doug finds this objectionable, his personal discomfort doesn’t negate the autonomy exercised in making such decisions.

Doug’s broader point seems to be that just as Forrest is outraged by slavery, he (Doug) could be just as equally outraged by gender-affirming care (and probably is). However, this parallel doesn’t hold. Forrest’s objection to slavery is likely rooted in its violation of autonomy and the inherent denial of personhood. Doug’s objection to gender-affirming care, by contrast, centers on his disapproval of how others exercise their autonomy. These are fundamentally different ethical concerns. One opposes coercion and dehumanization; the other seeks to impose moral judgment on a personal, autonomous decision.

Doug’s claim that slavery “probably saved some lives” introduces a flawed consequentialist defense. Even if slavery had incidental benefits in specific historical contexts, such benefits don’t justify its foundational violation of human autonomy and dignity. By conflating autonomy with ownership and attempting to draw a moral equivalence, Doug oversimplifies both issues and undermines his own argument.

Doug’s comparison is both ethically and logically unsound. Rather than offering a meaningful critique of Forrest’s position, Doug’s argument relies on misrepresentation, faulty analogies, and appeals to personal offense, all of which fail to engage with the deeper ethical principles at stake.

Talking about circumcision? Then he would say yes lol

Forrest is intolerable

I don’t think gender affirming care is even in the same universe as owning other humans as property, and I think it’s weird that you think that.

See, I would’ve asked him something along the lines of, “well, why do you think that? Can you elaborate?”

I wouldn’t hang up on him.