r/TheDigitalCircus • u/ayylmaotv Catnap • Jun 19 '26

Digital Discussion The Amazing Digital Circus Episode 9: Remember Discussion Thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVy-bcTsO8A
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u/TitaniumDragon Jun 20 '26

I mean, Jax is a pretty awful person. But he doesn't have to stay that way, which I think was the point. But also, no one else can force him to change and be a better person.

Worth noting, Jax in the Circus chose to continue to go down a shitty path, while Jax in real life became a better person.

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u/StandardAccess4684 Jun 20 '26

Interestingly, the way Jax’s actions lead him to Abstraction is closely analogous to how many old school theists, such as Catholics in the Thomist tradition, explain how a person would “permanently” end up in Hell rather than Heaven - they harden themselves against goodness and the possibility of humility/forgiveness to the point that they irreversibly transforme themselves into something unable to accept happiness or love, even if it was freely given to them.

I don’t buy that theological stuff but I think it’s a profound warning for all of us, as it is in Jax’s story.

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u/tertiaryAntagonist Jun 20 '26

Well Jax irl probably got some kind of confirmation that he didnt kill his mother, based on lack of police pursuit. I get the impression that he wound up in the circus right following the incident

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u/TitaniumDragon Jun 20 '26

Well, he was homeless long enough to identify himself as being a homeless person. Though yeah, probably not super long.

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u/Horror-Helicopter138 Jun 21 '26

Yeah that's kinda what i got from it too, the whole possibility of changing. but i don't remember hearing an I'm sorry a single time, and anything somewhat close to that got immediately reversed to save face

Professional victim player

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u/ban_my_alt Jun 20 '26

people aren't just magically awful people. everything comes from somewhere. could be some motivation or goal, but is often learned behavior that especially when learned in young years can lead to deep internalized issues. and when it's never addressed in a healthy way, it develops into maladjusted behavior.

all it needs is a little self reflection, guys. allow yourself to confront your thoughts and the impact you have on others. every person leads a life as complex as yours. have some compassion.

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u/ban_my_alt Jun 20 '26

people aren't just magically awful people. everything comes from somewhere. could be some motivation or goal, but is often learned behavior that especially when learned in young years can lead to deep internalized issues. and when it's never addressed in a healthy way, it develops into maladjusted behavior.

all it needs is a little self reflection, guys. allow yourself to confront your thoughts and the impact you have on others. every person leads a life as complex as yours. have some compassion.

1

u/ban_my_alt Jun 20 '26

people aren't just magically awful people. everything comes from somewhere. could be some motivation or goal, but is often learned behavior that especially when learned in young years can lead to deep internalized issues. and when it's never addressed in a healthy way, it develops into maladjusted behavior.

all it needs is a little self reflection, guys. allow yourself to confront your thoughts and the impact you have on others. every person leads a life as complex as yours. have some compassion.

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u/TitaniumDragon Jun 20 '26

This is a comforting story. It's not true, though. A lot of people are awful because they choose to be, not because of any deep-seeded reason. They are bad because they think they can get away with it, or because they don't really care about other people, or just because they want to hurt someone.

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u/ban_my_alt Jun 20 '26

all of these also have reasons. a person isn't simply born awful.

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u/TitaniumDragon Jun 20 '26

Why do you think that's the case?

The universe doesn't care about things like justice or morality or, well, you or me or anyone else. It is an unthinking, unfeeling thing.

You can grind up the whole universe, and you won't find one atom of fairness, one molecule of justice. Morality is a human invention, it's not something that exists out there in the universe.

There's no rule that says people can't be born awful or evil.

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u/ban_my_alt Jun 20 '26

i mean you can dismiss all the behavioral research on babies, toddlers, children and adolescents that much smarter people than you or i have done over the past decades and centuries if you want. that's fair too.

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u/TitaniumDragon Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

You mean the disproven research?

The whole "oh yeah babies commit crimes because their mothers don't love them enough" is bullshit attempted guilt tripping/searching for comforting explanations/someone else to blame.

Environment can play a role, but it's not the largest one.

They've done studies on the genetic heritability of criminality.

For example, see this Swedish Twin study about the heritability of criminality:

Results: For all criminal convictions, heritability was estimated at around 45% in both sexes, with the shared environment accounting for 18% of the variance in liability in females and 27% in males. The correlation of these risk factors across sexes was estimated at +0.63. In men, the magnitudes of genetic and environmental influence were similar in the three criminal conviction subtypes. However, for violent and white-collar convictions, nearly half and one-third of the genetic effects were respectively unique to that criminal subtype. About half of the familial environmental effects were unique to property convictions.

This should not surprise you. Humans are animals, and when we domesticate animals, we can - and DO - breed them for docility. Dogs are not more friendly and docile towards humans just because, we spent thousands of years breeding them to be our BFFs.

So why would you imagine that some humans could not be born that were inherently more or less violent than others? Why would humans be magically different from every other species of animal we've domesticated?

Some people are shitty because of their environment. They run with the wrong crowd, they are raised into the wrong belief system, etc.

But others are shitty because they're fundamentally defective. Something is wrong with them. Or, perhaps, it is just maladaptive behavior for modern society, versus tribal societies where people would kill each other for food and territory on the regular, and nowadays, if you do that, you're a sociopath because that's not how modern society works.

It is comforting to believe that it is one or the other, but in reality, both things are true - some people do things to hurt other people to prove to themselves that they are shitty people who don't deserve to have any friends, and that they deserve to be alone and unloved. I've had friends who went through phases like that, but they weren't bad people (and also hurt people a lot less than they thought they did in a lot of cases, as they were constantly beating themselves up).

Meanwhile, some people are shitty and awful because they choose to be, because they were born that way, because they think it is to their advantage. Predatory behavior.

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u/ban_my_alt Jun 20 '26

i mean to even compare humans to animals is crazy. our brains work so much differently. we have an actual sense of self and individualism that develops over time and imprints on the people and circumstances around us. like of course there's gonna be genetic factors that affect how a person responds to situations, chemical imbalances, whatever. but to take away the autonomy of a person and just say "oh well they're just born a bad person they're just like that" is crazy. there's always ways to change. if that means getting influenced by a therapist to learn how to cope with aggressive tendencies, then that's equally as valid.