“He's mad?" "Sort of mad. But mad with lots of money." "Ah, then he can’t be mad. I've been around; if a man has lots of money he's just eccentric.”

― Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

great book

The obvious point you're making is about a double standard -- rich people are unfairly given more slack than others. But an alternative framing amounts to evaluating a method by its results -- basically saying "I don't know why you're behaving that way, but for reasons I don't understand it seems to work for you." That obviously falls apart if you can cleanly separate their wealth/financial success from their behavior e.g. because they inherited the money.

The slack has a compounding effect

Like, sure public perception isn't immediately bad when someone is perceived as wealthy

But the immediate and long term consequences are very different whether people went along with it or not

People can have louder and wilder public opinions when they aren't beholden to current/future employment or even advertising dollars

Even convicted people that do not need employment are able to just go back to whatever they were doing. They are not marginalized.

Even before conviction they can pay fines and settlements and make it orders of magnitude more expensive for prosecution to even mount a case

I was actually referring to the slack given to him for apparent murder and putting the police force on a payroll.

“killing your neighbor, bribing the police and never serving a single day for it? What an eccentric person you are”

That could still be eccentric depending on the situation in which you ended up killing your neighbor?

E.g. he came at me with a fire axe. And I kicked him down the stairs.

McAfee terrorized him with his dogs, he killed McAfeed dogs, McAfee killed him.

Is that in the eccentric free pass list? Can you put the list on GitHub?

Kind of? What kind of person kills dogs?

I almost had to. A neighbor didn't think leashes or fences applied to his dogs and they cornered neighborhood children on more than one occasion and attacked one of them. The dogs went into another neighbors garage and attempted to attack him. He happened to have a rifle with him and gave them a warning shot. I'm not sure I would have, and I love dogs.

That was definitely a teachable moment for the owner had the dog been shot. It’s always the owners fault of course and not the animal’s but it’s pretty weird how some dogs are that aggressive and terrorize while others are no problem.

> Kind of? What kind of person kills dogs?

The kind against whom the same dogs are used as a terror weapon by a “colorful, eccentric” rich neighbor.

Have you read about Bill Gross and his feud with a neighbor? https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gross-legal-battle-scul...

Or, Rand Paul: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/rand-paul-attacker...

Without specific information, I'd expect that in any similar situation, both parties had reasons for doing what they did, and it escalated because neither of them would back down. Obviously it's not something that only rich people do.

And beforehand without specific information, I would've assumed that Paul was at fault and Gross was not, based on public images and politics. But it was seemingly the opposite.

Call me eccentric, but intentionally killing a dog is as bad as killing a person.

Arbitrary (and inconsistent) moral standards. I can’t wrap my head around how the same people who think killing dogs is bad are fine with eating meat from pigs and cows. How do you draw a line? Dogs are more intelligent? Dogs are better pets? Dogs are more fun and loyal?

Objectively, none of this is probably true (except the last).

I don’t think the problem is with the killing of the dog. The problem is with the killing of a pet.

Yeah. It's pretty common for people to regard their pets as members of their family.

The poster you responded to (or should I say ranted at) told you nothing about their beliefs in regards to other animals.

If you kill a cow belonging to a rancher, I think they are going to object, and it's not because they think eating beef is wrong.

Every moral standard is arbitrary if you don't recognize the distinctions being made.

I would agree that someone who intentionally killed a dog and doesn't regret it is a terrible person, but I still think you'd be a terrible person if you subject them to death.

I think so too. At the same time I think I can emphatize with a person that does.

At what point does killing an animal not really matter? For example, we squash bugs and don't feel bad about it but killing a dog is frowned upon.

This is not a gotcha, I'm genuinely curious.

At least part of it, though definitely not all of it, is that a pet dog is immeasurably valuable to its owner.

Valuable in what sense?

It is interesting to watch dogs being treated like humans, almost like children and that sense of care does not extend to very human neighbours.

I don't get it. Probably because its a cultural thing. Anecdotally, where I am from a dog is a dog and will never get more attention than a person. It's not allowed in the house because that's where people live and if you feel lonely you call up a friend or sibling - not cuddle a dog.

One might get the impression that some cultures place more value in a dog than a person, which is bizzare since it is just an animal.

Western European culture has long placed a lot of value on dogs. The over embrace of dogs over humans recently though as you’re describing, is a sign of our societal collapse. People have gone absolutely bananas over animals and pets in general over the past 20 years. It’s the social upheaval and economic squeezing of the lemons. People are tense and always in fear and panic. So if you’re not very religious, you may find your non-human comforts in your pets. Especially because everyone else around you is also in constant fear and panic. It really started around here on 9/11. And it’s just a constant ramping up ever since.

> The over embrace of dogs over humans recently though as you’re describing, is a sign of our societal collapse

I think you've summed up ,quite succintly, my suspicions about western hegemony. The west is like the Empire in Asimovs Foundation trilogy. Wveryone is too busy looking at their phones to realise everything around them is crumbling.

> Valuable in what sense?

Unconditional love is valuable for humans.

Wolves have also a huge positive impact in our economy. If we exclude the humans, the wolf is the animal that had saved more human lives in the history, so is in a special category. Dogs and wolves belong to the same species.

> If we exclude the humans, the wolf is the animal that had saved more human lives in the history

Would you mind elaborating on this point? In what way has the wolf saved uncountable human lives? I've only ever seen it portrayed as a human and livestock predator.

EDIT: I've been reading up on the matter. Historically, the wolf has been associated with disease control, as they tend to remove the weakest, sickest members of a given herd from the genetic pool.

It's not necessarily cultural, for some people dogs/pets are a substitute for human company and are held in higher esteem, since they don't have some of the negative behaviors humans do (such as dishonesty, etc)

So meat is murder?

Don't forget about the rape allegations.

Belize cops seem to be manning the till quite frequently judging by the case of their ex Governor General’s relative and one of their own

I don't think it has as much to do with wealth as it has to do with how interesting/accomplished the person is, the more slack we give them culturally. The more boring/ordinary a person is, the less slack we give them in western culture. A poor person whose life has interesting or compelling elements to it also seem to get a ton of slack culturally for crimes.

Money enables what's already there.

In pecunia veritas.

Are you eccentric and colorful because you are rich?

Are you rich because you were eccentric and colorful?

Or just people find you eccentric and colorful just because they look at you now that you are rich?