Moral dilemas (SMBC)
Moral dilemas (SMBC)
51 comments
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Given the context of the recent heroic event it’s important to remember that not only is it not the baker putting up the barrier but it is someone who actually probably can’t even do their job of doing nothing very well.
Killing the baker may lead to a problem where the bread runs out, but I suppose it’s also a good example of how baking is not magic and we could figure it our well enough to not need to put up with someone who would willingly let people starve.
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Yup. The baker isn't the one that owns the bakery. They don't own the mills. They don't own the farms.
Instead, what's happened is one mega corporation has bought most of the bakeries, they set prices to the maximum level possible and have backroom negotiations with mills that an independent baker can't get in the room to make. The mills do the same thing with the farms. And the farms are all consolidating into few owners who get to run on almost no employees (It doesn't take a lot to run a modern farm). Further, the mega farms and mills end up driving small time farmers out of business because the mills won't cut deals with small time farmers like they will with the megafarmers.
At every layer, there is some MBA asshole idiot justifying his parasitic existence because he thinks nobody else is as smart as him (even though he likely got the business because of his daddy or his wife's daddy). He hordes the excess funds but builds himself a nice big house.
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This is late stage capitalism in a nut shell.
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Dude, people on Lemmy freak it if they don't have their Starbucks coffee and their multiple online subscriptions.
They will categorically not learn to make bread, instead they will flock to Uber eats for those sweet points
People in here don't have any idea on how hard being a baker is.
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What are you talking about? “Ergmahgerd they like Starbucks” seriously can you hear yourself? Like what does Starbucks coffee and having online subscriptions have to do with someone’s ability to learn?
Touch grass.
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This being an old comic and people instantly forming the (seemingly) obvious connection to recent events seems like a good illustration of the concept of the dead author.
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The Baker provides a service for a fee, the CEO denies service to inflate wealth (at least the ones that should be worrying).
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That's kind of how ethical thought experiments already work.
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Sure, that would be worse than a few starving people getting some bread temporarily. If the baker is dead than there will be more starving people than we started with.
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Wait, wasn't that the point? I thought the post point was for the people to have bread for like 5 minutes and then die horribly of hunger later because they don't know how to turn on the oven correctly without starting a fire and forget about even knowing how to mix the flour and yeast in the correct proportions and time to not create inedible lumps of overcooked flour
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Generally, bakers are blue collar hardworkers who do not gluttonously hoard their resources and instead sell at prices necessary for sustainability with a modest to moderate level of profit margins; eliminating one baker would reduce the number of skilled workers who know how to produce goods/services critical to society. The same cannot be said about people in certain other positions whom the aforementioned hypothetical you might instead want to kill.
If the artist believes that bakers’ role in society is not comparable to certain parasitic roles, that subtext has been lost in the satiric trope inversion.
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This feels like a slightly odd take for SMBC given the assumed subtext
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51 comments
Bakers make bread. Kill the baker and you got no more bread at all. Bad analogy.
Kill the Baker and people can access the bread, and the resources the Baker was hoarding, and ALSO make bread. Bread making isn't a genetic trait like hair color, it can be learned.
Yeah but in this town, they kill bakers . Don't listen to this guy y'all, he's just trying to up his baker tally so he can look cool eating bread. It's a trap, don't bake bread.
Edit:
Don't do it, really guys, I'm not joking.
OK, but opportunity cost. Sure, anyone can learn to make bread, but not everyone has the time, space or equipment to make their own bread, or wants to spend their time doing it. Not making bread themselves should not exclude them from having access to bread.
You assume those people would 1. Actually make bread and not just eat what was left and then go back to being starving. 2. Somehow not be subject to the same exact economic conditions that required a baker to charge for bread in the first place (ie. Cover the cost of his inputs, afford a place to live, feed and cloth his children, etc.)
Hoarding is a strong word. Rather than blaming a baker that is producing something that benefits other people, why don’t we focus on the people who are starving. Why are they starving? How do we help them make enough to afford bread?
Exactly that's why you kill them too, don't leave it up to chance
So you’re saying that, in order to maximize evil, we should kill the baker?
If maximizing evil is the goal, killing the baker is the best thing you can do. Those people will eat some temporary bread and then go on starving. What’s worse, is more people will starve as well.
Yeah. Meanwhile killing CEOs has no drawbacks because they do nothing of value and horde all the money which can be used for better than just choking the economy for everyone else.
CEOs aren't solely at fault, though. The board of directors is responsible for setting broad policies which might involve increasing profit even at the cost of human lives. And most publicly traded corporations have mission statements that explicitly prioritize profit over all other concerns because otherwise their shares wouldn't be as attractive on the stock market.
Mind you, making the CEO job unattractive will make it harder to find people who implement board policies. But ultimately that's a punctual relief attempt for a systemic issue – the way the stock market operates. Things will not improve as long as we not just allow but require companies to increase profit no matter what.
I wouldn't say that they do nothing of value. Organizing companies has to happen. Is it worth their price? Not even fucking close. But crews cannot run themselves with efficiency. There has to be someone running the ship. But they do not deserve that much more. They get that by being corrupt and appeasing the investors MORE than making a company run correctly.
I know how to make bread. It's not fucking hard.
KILL HIM, HE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE BREAD!
So, in this world. Once you become the baker, guess who is next?
Kill only the greediest, wealthiest baker in the street. Next month, kill the next most greedy wealthy baker after him. Month three, all the bakers will be fighting to give more of their bread away than the next guy
Wouldnt they just stop being bakers? They will all eventually die
I dont think this is a good analogy
Maybe this one just owns the bakery
... that's the fucking point, you twonk.