Anonymous asked: I gather from your answer post about using GoDaddy that you don't believe in boycotting or making financial decisions based on how a company conducts themselves. Is there a limit or is it just about not taking your conveniences away? If a company was (instead of just making disgusting ads) actively using 'your' money to lobby against civil rights- would you avoid business with them? If they were run by Rick Perry/etc would it be the same? Or if other people joined you?

Some of it’s about convenience, yeah. If you boycotted EVERY company that profited from some sort of yuckiness, your life would be infinitely more difficult and infinitely more expensive.

Aside from convenience, part of it’s about the lack of impact that my action would have.
If I did decide to live that sort of life, the tiny impact it would have on each of those companies would be imperceptible. Weigh that against the difficulty and expensiveness of the venture and you’ll see my point.

And don’t give me the “uh no but if everyone did it” because everyone is not doing it. That sort of logic has no place in practical or applicative ethics. The breakdown is this: I could switch to a more expensive (or even equally priced) service, back up and transfer all of my data, lose several days of traffic due to processing time, and what? Let’s go from the bottom up:

• would GoDaddy notice? No.
• would GoDaddy care? No.
• would GoDaddy’s ad campaign suffer? No.
• would GoDaddy’s ad campaign be shut down? No.
• would they realize it was because they objectify women in their commercials? No.
• would anyone learn anything from my taking a stand? No.
• would GoDaddy go out of business? No.
• would it end or even make a dent in sexism in America or the world? NO.

So don’t act like I’m morally obligated to do it. The tradeoff isn’t even worth considering beyond an illogical, sentimental and performative act. And I don’t do those, beyond buying my mother the chocolates mentioned in my last answer.

If your argument is “if everyone did it it would have an impact,” it means that my moral obligation is, in fact, to move my site from GoDaddy and to launch a campaign to try to convert as many people as I can. I’m not going to become a fucking evangelist over this; I just host my website with them. And you know what? I actually USE their service to try and educate and convert as many people as I can towards gender egalitarianism. You’ve got about as much of a point as Karl Pilkington’s head does.

A good example of low-impact combined with inconvenience is the fact that I’m not a vegetarian.

Another one is the fact that I don’t vote, despite having strong political opinions.

So yeah, I’ll pass on social action that’s low impact, but I’ll also give up civil liberties that are low impact. You can grill me for whatever you like, but if you grill me for inconsistency you’re going to embarrass yourself.

When the scope is small enough, I’ll do it. I bought Louis CK’s Live at The Beacon legally and urged others to do the same. Because it was a small enough venture that I felt I really did count, that I really could make a dent if I did it, and I felt I could convince enough others to do it. I did good and it felt good.

And you can call me selfish if you like. I think maybe I am a bit selfish at times—because I’m a human being, and we lucky few have the capacity to distinguish between self and other. I try my best to weigh my priorities and come out with a balance that keeps me enjoying my own life and also doing a fair amount of good for others. If it starts to tip too far in my favor, I’ll notice because I’ll start to feel guilty. If it tips too far the other way, I’ll notice because my life will start to suck a lot.

Too much talent in one photoshoot.

these are the greatestttt

Can’t get enough of this guy. What a face.

I want to do Larry David next.

Louis C.K. has this joke

about a lion who describes humans as wide-eyed, terrified, screaming maniacs. (It’s a lot funnier when he tells it, but that’s the gist of it.)

The joke, although I’m sure you get it, is that since the lion frightens people, he only encounters frightened people, and therefore believes that people are constantly frightened. It’s a question of Ser vs. estar, for those of you who took high school Spanish.

Of course, like so much of LCK’s material, this simple joke is merely the exposed tip of an enormous, submerged iceberg of thought.

(What’s the opposite of submerged? Is the tip of an iceberg just merged? Supermerged?  Surmurged? Hypermerged? Ubermerged?)

Anyway, here’s something to consider: every person you’ve ever interacted with (in person) has had two things in common.

1. They’re a human being.

2. They’re interacting with you.

So…isn’t it entirely possible that many of the assumptions we make about people in general are really just specific to people interacting with us?

If you’re a bit abrasive or offensive, you might get the impression that people in general are sensitive and uncomfortable.

If you’re socially awkward and unpleasant to interact with, you might think that all humans brush people off after a minute of conversation—that it’s a quality of the species.

If you’re Tommy Wiseau, you might think that people tend to laugh at absolutely nothing all the time. Because, you know, he doesn’t know that he’s an absolutely ridiculous person.

Just think about that. As you’re going about your business. If you notice a trend across people that you interact with—consider that it might be you that needs to change.