Fairness is a lot like dinosaurs.
Let me explain.
1. Dinosaurs are extinct.
So is fairness. At one time the world was overwhelmed by giant lizards. There was also a time when the world had some sort of a moral compass. This was before this blurred sense of what fair really is came into being. This was before people sued for spilt hot coffee, or too much McDonalds, or psychological trauma bull-crap. This was before steroids were commonplace in baseball, and before celebrities were treated as exceptions (or maybe before celebrities altogether). Fairness no longer exists in its true form anymore.
2. We might think it would be awesome to have them back at first, but remember Jurassic Park.
Yeah, let’s bring back the dinosaurs. That would be so cool! Wait, isn’t that what they did in Jurassic Park? That didn’t work out that well.
Maybe we should also think about that before we start an ethical revolution. Yes, it is easy to see that our morals are lacking and something needs to change, but let’s keep in mind the things we might not be willing to change if things were truly fair. The speed limit would be the speed limit. 51 in a 50 would be against the law. If you copied a CD for a friend, you could be arrested, likewise with downloading free music. No one would be up for that. The reason that these things would be so hard to change is because everyone is so worried about everyone else’s justice. If someone else was driving 60 in a 50 and didn’t get a ticket, and you were driving 60 in a 50 and got pulled over, I guarantee your argument will focus on the fact that someone else could do it, so you should be able to, to make it “fair”. The truth is that if you are driving 46 in a 45 and you get pulled over, you were speeding. Period. But that’s just not how we see it, that’s why things will never change.
3. We would only want to pick certain dinosaurs to come back, definitely not all of them.
While we would certainly want the pterodactyls and the herbivore stegosaurus to come back, I think though, that we would be completely unwilling to have the t-rex and the velociraptors running around are neighborhood. Just like with fairness, we would love for people to not cheat in sports and not sue people for stupid things, but we don’t want to have to pay for a CD that our friend just paid for, and we aren’t willing to drive the speed limit. I’m pretty sure we can’t pick when we want fairness to apply, I think it’s all or nothing. I guess we’ll just have to dig up fossils of fairness and put them in some sort of Moral Museum, because I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.
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