The concept of "turning the other cheek" is about 2,000 years old. The concept of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is over twice that old. They represent two different schools of thought that have been debated enough.
PG introduced "turning the other cheek" as a means to resolve "the pain of having ... controversy constantly reintroduced as the top idea ..." and this is biased. There is another way to resolve the issue, it just comes from another culture.
(Or in other words, it is true that "someone who does you an injury hurts you twice: first by the injury itself, and second by taking up your time afterward thinking about it.". You can "at least avoid the second half" - or - you can try and hurt them twice, no matter the cost. Culture choice.)
Yes, yes - but it's not productive, is it? Particularly the biblical example that you gave.
Suppose that I'm an evil supergenius - someone cuts me off in traffic or tells me that unitards are going out of fashion, so I use my orbiting death ray to blast the entire world into ashes. Perhaps it's assuaged my sense of injury, but at what cost?
This is what happens when you use 2,000 year old fiction to support your moral choices.
It's a sad story, and I feel for you, but it's a fairly predictable outcome, particularly given the way that you were trying to make money from YouTube. There's all sorts of copyrighted content from 3rd parties, eg. Disney and others, and they'd likely sue both you and YouTube if you were to put ads up. The only part I would've changed if I were them would be to let you know upfront that you were likely to be infringing the terms of use - if not directly, then at least in spirit. But perhaps there were legal reasons not to.
Back on topic, I think your situation is precisely the one that PG was talking about and where you should turn the other cheek. You basically have two options:
1) Hate Youtube, Stephanie Kuan and Google. Get bitter and twisted, stew over it for years and years, to the point where it's consuming the bulk of your waking hours. Gollum, gollum. I've seen friends who've gone down this path after being mistreated by companies, and it's not pretty.
2) Forget it - as in, completely forget it, and go on to something else. Hard to do, but you'll free up huge amounts of time for more productive things. Take a break and do consulting/day job stuff. Maybe build something cool on the side, or just rebuild your savings, ready for next time.
(P.S - maybe I was wrong, maybe it is not a cultural bias. Maybe it is just the difference between -- cliché warning -- knowing the path and walking the path).
You absolutely have a choice. And I've walked that path, so it's not just a meaningless platitude. There are assholes in the world (along with people who just don't care), they do fucked up things and they're not going to change. In the end, the best that you can do is distance yourself from them, both physically and mentally, and get on with your life.
ps. I doubt that YouTube have much of a choice either. It's either shut you down or get sued by the content owners. I suspect that after all the work you've put in, you've lost a bit of perspective on that.
I read that story a while back, and it sucked. I empathise with your anger and sympathise with your loss. But I am trying quite hard to write a comment to say there is another way, and it is better.
> you can try and hurt them twice, no matter the cost. Culture choice.
In trying to hurt them twice, can you hurt them for what it costs you to do so? Or do you just have to pay that cost out of pocket? And if you hurt them twice, but they only directly did one bad thing to you, can they hurt you back? And can you hurt them back for that? Most wars are founded on logic such as this.
If you are talking Jewish philosophy, what about Job (the book is newer than an eye for an eye, but Job himself probably lived before the Torah was given)? I believe Job says (amongst other things), "Life isn't fair. Good things happen to the bad guys. Bad things happen to the good guys. Accept that in the knowledge that God will make it right in the end."
If a strategy doesn't work, stop it. Don't hide behind the words "cultural choice" because they won't protect you from the consequences.
A culture that lives by eye-for-an-eye is a culture that's going to find itself constantly oscillating between victim and executioner.
I remember once watching three kids. Kids A and B would build a tower of blocks and Kid C would knock it down. Kids A and B would be devastated, wailing terribly. While Kid A was crying Kids B and C would build another one. Kid A would lift up his head, see it, and knock it down. Kids B and C are then crying, and then Kids A and C start building a new one, and Kid B would knock it down. This would go on and on, with each child knocking down the tower in turn, and the other two crying inconsolably about it.
You are not your culture. Your choice is up to you.
> I believe Job says (amongst other things), "Life isn't fair. Good things happen to the bad guys. Bad things happen to the good guys. Accept that in the knowledge that God will make it right in the end."
Sister Anna: Do you ever see the Hand of God in what you do?
Creasy: No, not for a long time.
Sister Anna: The Bible says, "Do not be over come with evil, but overcome...?
