Sociopath Community

Plz abandon this title, there is no going back and there is no recovery from Part One. 

Dragoonback said: 

Zena said: 

Trust me. It's funny.

To me, it’s not really funny because it’s poor writing and an over-the-top hate attack on Raiden, along with moralizing that makes it even cornier to me.

Is it moralizing ? 

The host did close the episode by bringing up the golden rule, because, the golden rule would've saved Chewy and Raiden.

You're conflicted with an insightful comment lol.

I think you're going to fall back on "it's a story, I understand everything that happens," but that's not really my criticism. I'm talking about the outlook the story is built around.

I watched 1 season of Game of Thrones. I never really got into it, but I noticed to some it's the greatest show ever made. People like to see drama within drama, and bad guys getting served by bad guys and other forms of dark entertainment. They want to see sins, and the guilty go long. The viewers want the satisfaction of seeing the ones they hate die. The shows allow the viewer to explore parts of themselves that have no chance in the real world, parts of them that keep them out of trouble allow it. 

Here, in the studio located in Toronto Ontario. the staff who work on Tales from the Creep ensures the viewers get to experience, coming out of oneself. We'd also like to remind our viewers, not to commit any horrible acts our stories illustrate, and just let us handle it. 

The whole thing relies on this very punitive idea that if someone is annoying or irresponsible, the appropriate response is to blame them, punish them, control them, and eventually take things away from them.

While we're aware some of our viewers might be annoying irresponsible people, that never deterred us from running the risk of offending them.

My personal opinion. Raiden brought all of this to himself.

Yes Snake went too far, and sure the 1 thing Raiden did right, was call a lawyer and try to punish Snake for what he did to Chewy.

As it is in the real world. The legal system is not perfect and it found Snake to be the victim of his upbringing while Raiden should've known better to provoke a government funded bioweapon, considering Raiden is a member of the same government arm. 

Raiden ended up in jail over something else he did after the mental breakdown. The staff thinks some of our viewers would've been entertained with what Raiden did to end up in jail, but it was too much to tell for the time slot so the deleted scenes can only be found in the director's cut. 

The "enabling parent and spoiled brat" analogy is a good example because you're importing that framework into the situation rather than simply describing what Raiden did.

The story began with Raiden training the dog to attack people. Raiden picked a fight with Snake and in the process he commanded the dog to attack Snake.

The story also suggested Snake was annoyed. It's almost identical to the "enabling parent and spoiled brat" analogy.

It also creates a weird double standard with Snake.

Yes. As mentioned it's a double negative. 

In some cases a double negative can produce a positive outcome, in the same way venom is an antidote to venom.

Snake is supposed to be a disciplined soldier and spy, and Raiden is his ally. If Raiden is being annoying, why is the mature response from Snake to kick his dog around and escalate the situation rather than simply deal with Raiden directly? The story seems to assume that Snake's retaliation is self-evidently justified because Raiden is supposedly a "brat."

Snake is militant when it comes to discipline. Being a bioweapon he was raised with hard punishment. Raiden made him cringe. Snake also knew if he confronted Raiden it would make for unwanted entanglements and he'd be dragged into immature conquests of arguments over little things. 

For what they do for a living Snake removed the dumb dog. America can't have a weaksauce man sicking a weaksauce animal on innocent civilians out there on the battlefield, so Snake, along with America needed Raiden to get hard. 

You might not like it, but Snake thought he was doing what was best for the armed forces. 

And once the story starts fantasizing about ruining Raiden's life, making him suffer, and transferring his possessions to Snake as some form of "justice," it becomes even more obviously punitive wish fulfillment. At that point it isn't really about whether Raiden learned anything. It's about the satisfaction of seeing someone the author dislikes lose things and be punished.

By public concensus, and as Gemini mentioned, Raiden is whiny and naive. When such a person acts up calamity comes into their lives. This is true in real life. Raiden is the very spark that made his bed. 

I'm not impressed with Raiden or people like Raiden, but he was useful in Fix Yer Dog. 

Not only did Raiden have the capacity to attack Snake and be amused while Chewy attacked Snake, but he had a meltdown when the 1 thing he did right backfired in an imperfect world.  

That's what I mean when I call the moralizing corny. It isn't merely that the story has a moral. It's that the moral seems to be "bad people should be punished until they learn their place," while the story conveniently decides who is bad and continually reinterprets events in their worst possible light.

I do believe bad people should be punished until they learn. I fail to see why you take issue with that. I can only assume why you'd see it that way and it looks rather shameful. 

Snake never wanted to go to court.

And that's also why I don't find "justice" particularly persuasive here. Severe punishment doesn't become inherently just, educational, or deserved merely because the story labels it justice. If anything, a system built around punishment and taking things out of context would be extremely easy to abuse. You could take an ambiguous incident, assume malicious intent, declare someone deserving of punishment, and then use the punishment itself as proof that they were bad.

Raiden did assault Snake though. 

So I don't think the problem is that I don't understand the story. I understand the fantasy. I just think the worldview behind it is immature and extremely controlling, especially when the story keeps escalating from "Raiden is annoying" to "Raiden deserves to have his life ruined."

 Okay... Let's take away Raiden trying to sue Snake..... 

- Raiden picked a fight with Snake.

- Snake Ignores Raiden

- Raiden prompted Chewy to attack Snake

- Snake set Chewy up to draw first blood. ( Just in case Raiden tries to sue )

- Snake broke Chewy.

- Raiden Begged Snake for help.

- Snake showed mercy and relieved Chewy

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Short Version...

Raiden commanded Chewy to attack Snake, and ended up begging Snake to euthanize Chewy.

You know the details, but that's it in a nutshell.

Snake now has yet another scar, that being cute little teeth marks on his toe, and Raiden's scars are mental. 

There are lessons here but not everyone needs it outlined. And who knows, Raiden might've learned not to play with fire which is why he stopped, Maybe in that universe Raiden was smart enough to know Snake could use the surveillance footage to his advantage. 

This actually confirms much of what I was criticizing. You now explicitly say, “I do believe bad people should be punished until they learn,” so the punitive worldview I was describing isn't something I'm inventing. It's your stated position.

The problem is that you keep treating “Raiden assaulted Snake” as though that settles everything that followed. It doesn't. You also admit Snake deliberately set Chewy up to draw first blood, that what Snake did was “way over the top,” and that the surveillance footage failed to capture Snake's spite. So the fact that Raiden initiated the incident doesn't automatically justify everything Snake did afterward.

“Snake thought he was doing what was best for the armed forces” is also just a post hoc justification. Raiden being annoying, irresponsible, or weak doesn't establish that Snake needed to maim and euthanize his dog to make him “hard.” That's exactly the controlling framework I was criticizing: someone decides another person is deficient, decides what is “best” for them, and then treats severe punishment as improvement.

And you still haven't established the “lesson.” You explicitly admit the story never shows Raiden actually learning anything. Saying he might have learned not to “play with fire” is speculation. A person suffering a severe consequence is not proof that the consequence was necessary, educational, or morally justified.

The Golden Rule also becomes contradictory here. You're presenting it as the moral of the story while simultaneously saying Raiden deserved everything because he brought it on himself. That makes the moral less like a universal principle and more like a justification for why this particular person deserved punishment.

So yes, I understand the story. The problem is that the worldview underneath it is precisely what I find immature: determine that someone is a bad or defective person, interpret their actions in the least charitable way, punish them severely, and then call the resulting suffering a lesson.

Dragoonback said: 

This actually confirms much of what I was criticizing. You now explicitly say, “I do believe bad people should be punished until they learn,” so the punitive worldview I was describing isn't something I'm inventing. It's your stated position.

What's wrong with that ?

Without lawful punishment the world itself would become punishment.  

The problem is that you keep treating “Raiden assaulted Snake” as though that settles everything that followed. It doesn't. You also admit Snake deliberately set Chewy up to draw first blood, that what Snake did was “way over the top,” and that the surveillance footage failed to capture Snake's spite. So the fact that Raiden initiated the incident doesn't automatically justify everything Snake did afterward.

Uh. Again. Yes, correct. 

“Snake thought he was doing what was best for the armed forces” is also just a post hoc justification. Raiden being annoying, irresponsible, or weak doesn't establish that Snake needed to maim and euthanize his dog to make him “hard.” That's exactly the controlling framework I was criticizing: someone decides another person is deficient, decides what is “best” for them, and then treats severe punishment as improvement.

For Snake it was an improvement. Chewy was annoying and Snake will never see Chewy again. 

While the Golden Rule wasn't implemented, Snake says if he were like Raiden he'd want someone to do the same to him. Maybe the Golden Rule is a divine law which effects impact us regardless if we follow it or not. If not, it still takes effect in the form of negative or positive consequences.

And you still haven't established the “lesson.” You explicitly admit the story never shows Raiden actually learning anything. Saying he might have learned not to “play with fire” is speculation. A person suffering a severe consequence is not proof that the consequence was necessary, educational, or morally justified.

Excuse me, but the host closed the show, and he wasn't part of the story. He's the one address multiple perspectives and brought that other stuff up. 

The Golden Rule also becomes contradictory here. You're presenting it as the moral of the story while simultaneously saying Raiden deserved everything because he brought it on himself. That makes the moral less like a universal principle and more like a justification for why this particular person deserved punishment.

No. The host brought up the Golden Rule, because it would've prevented this whole things from unfolding. 

For example, if Raiden was like. "Hey Snake, look it's Chewy ! How cute is he ? Here hold him !"

Snake would've been like "No fuck off". And the universe would've just carried on, and maybe one day Snake would be on the floor laughing as Chewy gives him lix and kisses. 

So yes, I understand the story. The problem is that the worldview underneath it is precisely what I find immature: determine that someone is a bad or defective person, interpret their actions in the least charitable way, punish them severely, and then call the resulting suffering a lesson.

 It's how reality truly is. 

Do dumb shit, and shit happens. 

Steal a car, rob a bank, cry over spilled milk, attack people go to court. All kinds of examples where the legal system will get you and if not, someone else will. Mafia/Gangsta/angry person type of shit that's worse punishment than government legal systems. 

A person may or may not get away with doing dumb shit, while the people who don't do dumb shit will have less issues in the grand scheme. That's reality.

I think you're still conflating consequences with justification. "Do dumb shit and shit happens" doesn't establish that whatever happens afterward is deserved, proportionate, or beneficial. That's exactly the leap I'm criticizing.

Your legal-system examples don't establish it either. If someone steals a car or robs a bank, the fact that they can be legally punished doesn't mean every punishment imaginable is justified. Legal systems have limits, procedures, evidence, and proportionality for a reason.

The same applies to Raiden. Him being annoying, irresponsible, or whatever other negative traits you attribute to him doesn't establish that Snake needed to maim his dog, "make him hard," or ruin his life. You're treating your interpretation of Raiden as objective fact and then using it to justify everything Snake does afterward.

The Golden Rule doesn't change that. If Raiden could have avoided the situation by respecting Snake's boundaries, then Snake could have simply told him to fuck off. That doesn't make everything afterward deserved punishment.

And saying it's "how reality truly is" just restates your worldview. Reality isn't an automatic justice machine. People sometimes face consequences, sometimes get away with things, and sometimes receive consequences wildly disproportionate to what they did. White-collar crime, corruption, trafficking, and forced labor are obvious examples where enormous harm doesn't necessarily produce automatic or proportional consequences.

So I'm not denying that actions have consequences. I'm rejecting the idea that "Raiden did something stupid, therefore whatever punishment follows can be treated as justice or a lesson." That's why I find the moralizing corny. The story takes a character you dislike, interprets his behavior in the least charitable way, escalates the punishment, and then treats the resulting suffering as self-evidently deserved.

Dragoonback said: 

I think you're still conflating consequences with justification. "Do dumb shit and shit happens" doesn't establish that whatever happens afterward is deserved, proportionate, or beneficial. That's exactly the leap I'm criticizing.

Oh you thought I was writing a parable ?

lol Okay.

Your legal-system examples don't establish it either. If someone steals a car or robs a bank, the fact that they can be legally punished doesn't mean every punishment imaginable is justified. Legal systems have limits, procedures, evidence, and proportionality for a reason.

We're not dealing with every punishment imaginable though. 

Thank God, 

The same applies to Raiden. Him being annoying, irresponsible, or whatever other negative traits you attribute to him doesn't establish that Snake needed to maim his dog, "make him hard," or ruin his life. You're treating your interpretation of Raiden as objective fact and then using it to justify everything Snake does afterward.

Raiden's characteristics are that of an immature person. The type to get themselves into trouble. 

An emotional man is a dangerous one. This is why it's important for men to regulate their emotions. Most criminals are young, and it's not just being young, but being young and less experienced. Lack of wisdom. Some people need to learn the hard way. 

Between the two he's nothing like Snake.

The Golden Rule doesn't change that. If Raiden could have avoided the situation by respecting Snake's boundaries, then Snake could have simply told him to fuck off. That doesn't make everything afterward deserved punishment.

It's not about what Raiden deserves. It's about what he ended up earning. 

The Golden Rule would've changed everything. 

You do realize the outcome of interactions will vary depending on how we treat others ?

And saying it's "how reality truly is" just restates your worldview. Reality isn't an automatic justice machine. People sometimes face consequences, sometimes get away with things, and sometimes receive consequences wildly disproportionate to what they did. White-collar crime, corruption, trafficking, and forced labor are obvious examples where enormous harm doesn't necessarily produce automatic or proportional consequences.

None of that displays any measure of punishment. You're just complaining about people being punished for crimes and applying race to it. 

So I'm not denying that actions have consequences. I'm rejecting the idea that "Raiden did something stupid, therefore whatever punishment follows can be treated as justice or a lesson." That's why I find the moralizing corny. The story takes a character you dislike, interprets his behavior in the least charitable way, escalates the punishment, and then treats the resulting suffering as self-evidently deserved.

 Well he trained a chihuahua to attack people. That's pretty stupid, those dogs are annoying.

I view that the same as a parent who doesn't discipline their children. "A parent who spares the rod leads their child astray".

Look at that brat video. The Mother encouraged the child to annoy someone. And it's as they say, if a parent doesn't punish their child, the world will. 

The Mother let her child down, and he got juice poured on him, and he cried.... What did Mummy do ? She picked him up and walked away. I'll tell you this... That kid is gonna grow up and get steam rolled under that kind of guidance. 

Raiden enjoyed watching his dog attack Snake. He raised the dog to attack people, he rewarded it's bad behavior.

Of course you reject the idea that Raiden did anything stupid, and I can see why. ( It shows )

You're actually making my point clearer. You're replacing "deserved" with "earned," but that doesn't solve the issue. You're still treating whatever consequences resulted from Raiden's behavior as inherently appropriate simply because you consider his behavior stupid.

And a lot of the characterization you're using to get there is still assumed rather than established. "Raiden trained a chihuahua to attack people," "he enjoyed watching it," "he rewarded its bad behavior," and "he's the type to get himself into trouble" are all interpretations that you're treating as facts. If the story actually establishes those things, that's one thing. If you're inferring them from the scene, then you're building the justification into your own interpretation.

Being emotional also doesn't make someone inherently dangerous, and "young people commit more crime" doesn't establish that Raiden's specific behavior warrants extreme punishment. That's just generalizing from a demographic correlation to a fictional character.

And yes, obviously how people treat each other affects the outcome of interactions. That's not controversial. The Golden Rule can explain how the situation might have been avoided. It doesn't establish that whatever happened afterward was therefore an appropriate consequence.

As for the parent analogy, that's exactly the punitive worldview I'm criticizing. "The world will punish them if you don't" describes a threat of consequences, not why those consequences are just or constructive. A child getting humiliated or hurt doesn't prove the parent was wrong to avoid escalating the situation.

So we're back to the same distinction: consequences exist. That doesn't mean every consequence is deserved, proportionate, or educational. You're taking the fact that Raiden did something you consider stupid and using it to retroactively validate everything that happens to him. That's the part I reject.

There's also a contradiction in your view of human behavior. People are inherently emotional and imperfect. Emotional regulation is something people develop to varying degrees, not a prerequisite people are born with.

So I don't really understand why emotional people are treated as inherently dangerous and in need of being "taught the hard way," while things like being born into poverty are treated as just the way reality is. If you're going to appeal to reality, then human imperfection and unequal circumstances are part of reality too.

More importantly, I think you're overlooking the danger in treating punishment as the default solution. Once you give people the mindset that someone is immature, stupid, annoying, or defective and therefore needs to be punished until they learn, you've given them a very easy framework for rationalizing cruelty. People are extremely good at deciding that someone else "earned" whatever happens to them.

That's why limits on punishment matter in the first place. Humans aren't perfectly rational judges, and we don't have objective access to someone else's motives. Your entire argument assumes that your interpretation of Raiden is correct and that Snake's response is therefore an appropriate consequence. That's exactly the kind of reasoning that becomes dangerous when people are given broad permission to punish others.

Dragoonback said: 

There's also a contradiction in your view of human behavior. People are inherently emotional and imperfect. Emotional regulation is something people develop to varying degrees, not a prerequisite people are born with.

That's obvious.

Still when men fail to regulate their emotions we're dangerous.

Interestingly enough Gemini came up with the same thing I said about men.

Gemini said:

Danger typically manifests when a man lacks emotional regulation or has been conditioned to express all feelings through a single, destructive lens

- The "Anger Camouflage": Societal conditioning often teaches men that vulnerability, fear, and sadness are signs of weakness. As a result, men may filter raw pain, shame, or grief into uncontrolled anger or aggression.

- The Pressure Cooker Effect: Men who rigidly suppress their emotions ("bottle things up") are actually at a higher risk for sudden, volatile outbursts. When a man refuses to process his feelings, the emotional buildup can eventually erupt into verbal, physical, or domestic abuse.

- Entitlement and Control: If a man's emotional state is rooted in a sense of entitlement, possessiveness, or jealousy, his reactions can become highly volatile and dangerous to romantic partners and family members. 

That 3rd point I've seen quite a bit. 

Raiden's characteristics is that of a man with low emotional intelligence. Low emotional intelligence is weakness.

On a side note I'm referring to Raiden from MGS2, which is the last Metal Gear I played. though I'm sure I have 5 installed on a slave drive, just never played it much, just wanted to see the graphics. By now he's probably not the same punk they served me before I was done with the series.  

And yes I have to use Ai when dealing with you, otherwise you'll keep going in circles. The difference is I don't use Ai to chat with who I'm chatting with. 

So I don't really understand why emotional people are treated as inherently dangerous and in need of being "taught the hard way," while things like being born into poverty are treated as just the way reality is. If you're going to appeal to reality, then human imperfection and unequal circumstances are part of reality too.

98% of school shooters are male. ( Including the transgender ones ) That is the mark of unregulated emotions. 

Overly emotional is dangerous. even when the emotions are positive, it can get flipped even harder. 

A man with high emotional intelligence is also emotional, but he isn't weak with it. He's not the guy having road rage, stepping on the gas just because someone passed him the wrong way. He won't honk his horn because the driver ahead is driving slow or drives like a noob. The road rager puts himself and others at risk because this person has low emotional intelligence and is lead by anger very easily. 

It's not emotions that makes someone weak, it's lack of emotional intelligence. 

More importantly, I think you're overlooking the danger in treating punishment as the default solution. Once you give people the mindset that someone is immature, stupid, annoying, or defective and therefore needs to be punished until they learn, you've given them a very easy framework for rationalizing cruelty. People are extremely good at deciding that someone else "earned" whatever happens to them.

Untrue. 

Punishment deters foolishness. It's a consequence of action. 

That brat in the video. lol That wouldn't be me when I was a child, I'd get whacked in a minute, and I learned how to behave at a very young age. 

If you defund the police, the crime rate will spike to astronomical numbers. California has laws that allow theft to go unpunished, up to $950 and theft runs rampid in that state.

Without consequence worse crimes become more frequent.  

That's why limits on punishment matter in the first place. Humans aren't perfectly rational judges, and we don't have objective access to someone else's motives. Your entire argument assumes that your interpretation of Raiden is correct and that Snake's response is therefore an appropriate consequence. That's exactly the kind of reasoning that becomes dangerous when people are given broad permission to punish others.

 Weak emotional intelligence desires more flexibility in terms of discipline.

If you want punishment for crime to be softer more to Canada. We have a guy who decapitated a random stranger on a greyhound bus with a knife. He got 8.5 years in a mental facility and let him go. 

My late Father has a friend, his Son shot and killed someone at Caribana. 5 years. 

You'd also be happy to hear catch and release is becoming more and more common.

In the end it's not a matter of how much someone should be punished, people are going to be punished legally or illegally. When people fuck up people will be looking for them, and if they fuck up with some people, even more people will be looking for them, when caught they're fucked. 

You can take away law enforcement, people are still going to be punished for fucking up. Yes you're going to cry about it, but that's the world. Even in Jail, people there for elder abuse or pedophilia, they're either dead or will need to be separated into protective custody for their own protection.

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In Fix Yer Dog. Raiden was a bullied bully. Snake is a professional tactical wizard and put Raiden in his place. Snake punished Raiden. 

Snake countersued and won and why ? Because again, he's tactical. He knew he could kill Chewy and get away with it. He saw the footage in his head before the event itself made the footage he needed. By removing his boot Snake successfully created evidence.  

 The funniest thing about the director's cut. Snake was suing for minor damages, the bulk of the compensation Snake was suing for was to pay his lawyer. Raiden ended up doing something that put him in jail and that caused Snake to NOT have to pay the lawyer so Snake ended up profiting from the case. 

You're making a different argument now. I agree that emotional dysregulation can contribute to dangerous behavior. That's not controversial. What doesn't follow is that being emotional or having "low emotional intelligence" makes Raiden's characterization, or Snake's punishment of him, justified.

Your school-shooter example doesn't establish what you think it does either. Even if men are disproportionately represented among school shooters, that doesn't demonstrate that "emotionality" is the cause, much less that punishment is the appropriate way to produce emotional intelligence. You're taking a complicated phenomenon and reducing it to "unregulated emotions."

And deterrence still doesn't answer my argument. Punishment can deter some behavior without every particular punishment being justified or constructive. "Punishment deters foolishness" is not an argument for unlimited punishment. That's exactly why legal systems have proportionality and limits. Otherwise someone can simply decide that another person needs to be "taught the hard way" and call whatever they do a consequence.

Your examples of people being punished illegally actually reinforce my point. The fact that people can be assaulted, killed, or abused outside the legal system doesn't establish that this is some desirable or inevitable form of justice. "People will punish you anyway" is a description of what humans sometimes do, not an argument that they should have broad permission to do it.

And the Raiden situation is even more obvious because you're now explicitly describing Snake as someone who deliberately engineered the situation, manipulated the evidence, and knew he could kill Chewy and get away with it. That's not an example of simple natural consequences. That's deliberate planning and retaliation.

Calling that "putting Raiden in his place" is precisely the punitive mindset I've been criticizing. You're not just saying Raiden faced a consequence. You're describing Snake deliberately creating circumstances in which he could punish Raiden while protecting himself legally, and you're treating the fact that Snake successfully got away with it as evidence of his tactical superiority.

That's not the same thing as justice. It's just someone being better at manipulating the situation.

And I don't think "Raiden was a bullied bully" changes that. Even if Raiden behaved badly, that doesn't give Snake some general authority to decide how much suffering Raiden needs to become a better person.

You're also proving my point about the moralizing. The story isn't simply "Raiden did something stupid and consequences happened." You're explicitly interpreting it as Snake "punishing" him, "putting him in his place," and teaching him through suffering. That's exactly the framework I've been criticizing from the beginning.