You’re right, if we had an actual equitable society, technology would make our lives better rather than worse. Capitalism is the root of many of our problems, not technology itself, because the profit motive gives corporations all sorts of adverse incentives. If we optimized for human happiness and quality of life instead of profits we’d have a far better world.
I think at this point capitalism is so close to the source of all our problems it’s probably impossible to find an issue that hasn’t been made much worse by it if it isn’t the direct cause to begin with.
If we optimized for human happiness and quality of life instead of profits we’d have a far better world
Let’s respectfully leave the moralism in the church. We wouldn’t have a “better” world, whatever good and better are, we would have a world (an abstraction, I prefer the term “set of social relations”) that is in the interest of all that work, will work, and have worked to sustain reproduction of life, i.e. worked to continue to live.
I’m not moralizing, I am talking about an improvement to material conditions, in real terms. We all know what the word “better” means, why the fuck would we not advocate for improvements to our quality of life? Why would you ever want to yield discussions of that topic to organized religions?
It is exactly so that everyone does not know what “better” and “improvement” means. Someone who is of a more libertarian persuasion because they got lucky with Bitcoin might see talk about improvements and betterment that entails it being impossible to own a private recreational nuke as being inconsistent. Betterment in your case can mean that a small business owner has his property forcibly converted into communally operated MoP. Those that enforce change in their interest might see their concept of humanity warped beyond recognition in a most certainly traumatic process of historical necessity. It’s kind of like saying the immune system is a good thing, for the viruses it’s not and autoimmune reactions are a huge complication to the lives of organisms with immune systems.
With good and bad any further explication stops. Something is good. Okay. Why is it good? Because it is good. It nearly always plays out circularly like this, except if there is a scientific process of criticism that spawns from this line of questioning. The latter almost never occurs. All of morality, and much of ethics is circular.
I reject the notion of objective goods as that is a contradiction in adjectives and neither is it in my specific interests that everyone has food, water, healthcare, education and shelter.
Thanks for your honest response. I think your values are sociopathic and destructive, but luckily, I also think you are a rare exception among our species.
Thanks for the chat, I don’t see how there’s anything productive that can come from discussing this further, so I hope you have a great day and I wish you a lot of love and solidarity. All the best.
I think your values are sociopathic and destructive
I’d like to carefully disagree here. If someone took a friend from me, or abused them terribly without any apology, I would want them to die. I think this is a very empathetic and prosocial reaction which is not at all sociopathic. Think of the time female bonobos brutally killed a member of their cohort for killing a defenseless baby that truly couldn’t act in its own interest.
What is sociopathic however is that we salute them troops because they keep the country safe by squashing alleged threats. Only a minority stands to benefit from what we currently consider good, those who make the world work in concrete terms will never meet those beneficiaries. Workers have their lives exhausted and brains forcefed with shit for a section of people that would forever remain abstract to them. A prosocial reaction by workers would spell Armageddon on the current state of the world, and believe me, that is most likely what you are pointing towards but still are too scared to consider the full implications of.
I’d like to carefully disagree here. If someone took a friend from me, or abused them terribly without any apology, I would want them to die.
Viewing friends and family as something akin to property and becoming angry and violent when someone violates your perceived property is perfectly in line with sociopathy. Most humans care about others, because they feel empathy, even for people who they have never met and have no connection to, heck, even towards creatures entirely unlike us.
Have you been a victim of abuse or trauma? Did you have an abusive or neglectful childhood?
You’re right, if we had an actual equitable society, technology would make our lives better rather than worse. Capitalism is the root of many of our problems, not technology itself, because the profit motive gives corporations all sorts of adverse incentives. If we optimized for human happiness and quality of life instead of profits we’d have a far better world.
I think at this point capitalism is so close to the source of all our problems it’s probably impossible to find an issue that hasn’t been made much worse by it if it isn’t the direct cause to begin with.
Let’s respectfully leave the moralism in the church. We wouldn’t have a “better” world, whatever good and better are, we would have a world (an abstraction, I prefer the term “set of social relations”) that is in the interest of all that work, will work, and have worked to sustain reproduction of life, i.e. worked to continue to live.
I’m not moralizing, I am talking about an improvement to material conditions, in real terms. We all know what the word “better” means, why the fuck would we not advocate for improvements to our quality of life? Why would you ever want to yield discussions of that topic to organized religions?
It is exactly so that everyone does not know what “better” and “improvement” means. Someone who is of a more libertarian persuasion because they got lucky with Bitcoin might see talk about improvements and betterment that entails it being impossible to own a private recreational nuke as being inconsistent. Betterment in your case can mean that a small business owner has his property forcibly converted into communally operated MoP. Those that enforce change in their interest might see their concept of humanity warped beyond recognition in a most certainly traumatic process of historical necessity. It’s kind of like saying the immune system is a good thing, for the viruses it’s not and autoimmune reactions are a huge complication to the lives of organisms with immune systems.
With good and bad any further explication stops. Something is good. Okay. Why is it good? Because it is good. It nearly always plays out circularly like this, except if there is a scientific process of criticism that spawns from this line of questioning. The latter almost never occurs. All of morality, and much of ethics is circular.
Ensuring that everyone has access to food, water, healthcare, education and shelter is objectively good. Do you disagree?
@[email protected] - What do you think, buddy? Do you disagree with this too?
I think it’s objectively efficient, but not objectively “good”
I reject the notion of objective goods as that is a contradiction in adjectives and neither is it in my specific interests that everyone has food, water, healthcare, education and shelter.
Thanks for your honest response. I think your values are sociopathic and destructive, but luckily, I also think you are a rare exception among our species.
Thanks for the chat, I don’t see how there’s anything productive that can come from discussing this further, so I hope you have a great day and I wish you a lot of love and solidarity. All the best.
I’d like to carefully disagree here. If someone took a friend from me, or abused them terribly without any apology, I would want them to die. I think this is a very empathetic and prosocial reaction which is not at all sociopathic. Think of the time female bonobos brutally killed a member of their cohort for killing a defenseless baby that truly couldn’t act in its own interest.
What is sociopathic however is that we salute them troops because they keep the country safe by squashing alleged threats. Only a minority stands to benefit from what we currently consider good, those who make the world work in concrete terms will never meet those beneficiaries. Workers have their lives exhausted and brains forcefed with shit for a section of people that would forever remain abstract to them. A prosocial reaction by workers would spell Armageddon on the current state of the world, and believe me, that is most likely what you are pointing towards but still are too scared to consider the full implications of.
Viewing friends and family as something akin to property and becoming angry and violent when someone violates your perceived property is perfectly in line with sociopathy. Most humans care about others, because they feel empathy, even for people who they have never met and have no connection to, heck, even towards creatures entirely unlike us.
Have you been a victim of abuse or trauma? Did you have an abusive or neglectful childhood?