MAP Forum

This may sound terrible, but I would not help an adult stranger in an emergency situation.

The reason? I feel that most adults want MAPs dead for being MAPs. Why should I help such a person?

Obviously, this is extreme. The endangered person could be a MAP or someone supportive of MAPs.

What are your thoughts on this?

Yes, I would. Your anger towards others for not understanding MAPs is a bit extreme. Don't be so cruel. Sorry for the bluntness, but this can't be healthy for you.

BLueRibbon wrote: Sun Dec 14, 2025 10:56 pm Obviously, this is extreme. The endangered person could be a MAP or someone supportive of MAPs.

If that even enters into the equation, I'm happy you are not a physician.

I would.

Perpetuating the cycle of hatred is not the way.
I'd rather "kill them with kindness", as some people say.

Yes. We shouldn’t separate ourself from our humanity like antis have been trying to do to us.

Well, as much as I find it hard to imagine a pro-help perspective, I won't try to persuade anyone otherwise. It's probably better for one's mental health, and for the perception of the MAP community...

MAP or not, this should be a personal choice based upon how safe you feel about stopping to help. I've stopped sometimes and other times I kept going. It all depends on what I see approaching. Broke down and on a cellphone? I'll likely keep going. Flat tire and looking helpless (no phone, small kids, etc.), I am likely stopping. Witness them wreck, I am stopping to call 911 and check for injuries.

Ive always felt it’s a moral obligation to help people in need when you can. I think it’s one of the things that can best connect us as people

If it were an emergency I think I would have to. Otherwise I might not only because I'm naturally reserved but not because I was opposed to helping on principle, which isn't much better (being my ideal person often requires being more outgoing, socially confident and less standoffish than I am).

I don't feel I'm in a position to scold you because I'm not perfectly compassionate either. That said, I don't think you ('you' in the sense of people in the abstract) have the moral high ground if you don't care about the suffering of your enemies. One would be as inconsistent as their enemies if they didn't care about their suffering (not necessarily 'inconsistent' in the sense that their enemies claim to hold a consistently anti-suffering/pro-universal compassion ideal but in the sense that you would be making the same arbitrary distinction between your suffering and the suffering of some others even without claiming to be a compassionate or indiscriminately compassionate person). The inconsistency is the same (treating suffering as ultimately good, bad or neutral based on circumstantial criteria that has nothing to do with the nature of suffering; even though suffering always feels inherently bad and why else should you view any given person's suffering at any given moment as bad), even if we intuit that the inconsistencies of others are less valid than our own. That said, I think the psychology behind selective compassion can be different (e.g. I don't care about person a's suffering because of their race or something outside of their control or I terrorize person b for fun, not because they've deeply wronged and harmed me and I feel that I might find relief in retribution). The idea that it's perfectly reasonable to make innocence a condition for compassion negates the very concept of a double standard (if you can say that suffering warrants a negative evaluation when felt by someone who's innocent even though innocence has nothing to do with the nature of suffering, then all double standards can be justified by some context that has nothing to do with the nature of the thing that's being treated as ultimately good, bad or neutral, or this instead of that, under certain conditions. You could argue that there was no double standard in 19th century more or less race-based southern slavery because the slave owners never maintained that slavery was inherently bad but that the enslavement of whites was wrong but whiteness has nothing to do with what makes slavery slavery).

Even by the conventional standard, most people claim to care about the suffering of the innocent but if one really does you'd expect them to bend over backward to protect the innocent from harm even at the possible cost of helping or not punishing the guilty. On the mere possibility that someone might be innocent, we should assume it just to be on the safe side. I thought this was the idea behind 'innocent until proven guilty (even when the evidence is against someone despite not being conclusive).' It's one of the reasons why I think vengeance or retaliation against groups as groups (including group-based put-downs and insults) is irrational (all of us have to get it because some of us are supposedly deserving).

Starlit wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 11:32 am Ive always felt it’s a moral obligation to help people in need when you can. I think it’s one of the things that can best connect us as people

That's a good way to be

I believe in helping those in need, whether emergency or no. As long as I can do so safely. I'm probably not running into a burning building to save anyone but a LG (and I might think twice even then).

On a more theoretical side, you don't change minds by meeting hatred with hatred. Only kindness and understanding has only hope of changing people. Of course I generally avoid getting onto the topic of MAPs with most of my friends, so that helps us get along (I do often get pretty deep into youth rights though).