what youre doing with those statements though is pretty disingenuous. the idea of earning comes from labor (it's literally the germanic to english word for a laborer and their pay) and has always meant that the subject of the verb deserves the object.

you could argue that the raiding parties believed they had earned their spoils, but in a human culture that generally doesn't hold that belief, saying it without that qualifier implies assent to the ancient raiding parties belief.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Judging historic people by today’s morals just produces the opinion that everyone born more than 100 years ago probably deserved to have been gutted like the swine they are, which is exhausting but entirely true to modern standards. It’s just easier to think of them as amoral animals- the gazelle deserves the cheetah and vice versa by pure mechanics alone. Abelard castrated himself obsessing about the moral line, which was lesson enough for me.

As I said, I was just being a pedant for funsies. To phrase it another way, billionaires deserve their fortune but deserve its forfeiture a hundred times over. Deserve wasn’t exactly the right word so I poked fun while agreeing with their sentiment in its entirety. It was entirely disingenuous, and I said as much at the get-go.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

it really doesn't unless a person renders that judgement outside of consideration of their experiences, world and circumstances.

in which case you could say anything about anyone for any reason and have it be perfectly acceptable.