Pacifism and the future of humanity

Reply to Pantagruel
I agree with your values, but I don't think it's a problem, mostly anyway, of us not individually wanting the good. I'm reluctant to even share my thinking here, because it's [ what many would call ] dreary and fatalistic. But what I have in mind is stuff like incentive structures and game theory (for instance, lately I'm reading Games of Life by Karl Sigmund.)

But before that I was reading an evolution textbook (Freeman/Herron). It opens with a study of the AIDS virus and analyzes how such a thing could evolve to counterintuitively kill its own host and therefore itself. It was too easy to see the analogy to humans. We are the AIDS virus killing our host, because in the short term it's advantageous for us to do so. And our reality just seems to be structured this way, as if it's a brute fact. I think our one-time visitor David Pearce nailed it with his focus on Darwinian evolution. The rest seems relatively shallow to me at the moment. If we follow the clues, they seem to lead back to the way we were made. And there's no one to blame. Trivially (obviously) that doesn't save us from having to navigate our little lives down here or justify our bad behavior. But it helps me anyway to understand the world. It's almost tautological, given fairly simple assumptions. But why the brute fact of this kind of world in the first place ? I don't know.

Quoting Pantagruel

Or have we simple ceased to talk about questions of reasonable

Have "we" ever discussed that topic? It seems to me, humankind has had many agendas, divided into many factions, and some of them were quite reasonable. But could the more reasonable factions ever have discussed this with the unreasonable ones? Communication seems always to have been an insurmountable obstacle to consensus.

Quoting plaque flag

And there's no one to blame

Here we differ. I think the problem hinges on the desire to assume responsibility.

Quoting Vera Mont

Communication seems always to have been an insurmountable obstacle to consensus.

And yet supposedly we live in the information age. So if information does not foster communication, perhaps that is a value also which as been corrupted through commoditization.

Reply to Pantagruel
These do seem very obvious words to type, even as I type them, but they are just not realised on a day to day basis, between every one of us. 'Co-operation and compromise is the way forward, not competition and narrow self-interest.' I agree with the main message of your OP.

Quoting universeness

These do seem very obvious words to type

Yes, exactly. Reason has its coherent being in each of us, but humans are prone to living in state of bad-faith with our better understanding. And some human beings make it their business to profit by the manipulation of this phenomenon. Who would ever have thought that misinformation could become a commodity? People are encouraged to equate freedom with an absence of responsibility, when, in fact, freedom can only be realized through responsibility. And we have the modern world. Slaves to stupidity with no master but greed.

Quoting Pantagruel

Pragmatically, it seems obvious that the challenges to the continued and healthy future of humanity can only be met through collective and cooperative effort at a global scale.

Many people (probably most people) are more concerned with the continued and healthy future of a subset of humanity (e.g. themselves, their family, their friends, their country, etc).

Collective and cooperative effort at a global scale sounds like global communism. This may not work well because of things like corruption and freeloading.

You only need to look at what has been achieved in the fight against global warming to see that collective and cooperative effort at a global scale is almost impossible to achieve.

Quoting Pantagruel

Or have we simple ceased to talk about questions of reasonableness, displacing them with a pure economics of justification?

Some people may see "a pure economics of justification" as being reasonable.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

Many people (probably most people) are more concerned with the continued and healthy future of a subset of humanity (e.g. themselves, their family, their friends, their country, etc).

I'm sure this is true. But is it reasonable? Humanity is a species whose environment is the earth. Yes, a privileged subset of humanity can survive by exploiting the rest, but that isn't sustainable. Communism might have been one approach to achieving collective cooperation, but I don't think you can legitimately characterize the general goal of collective cooperation as "communist" - unless you are conducting propaganda. Which is what is done. Think of how polarizing some of the most "enlightened" movements are. "Woke" simultaneously implies that I am right and that you are ignorant. No truly enlightened being would ever make that claim, but would demonstrate wokefulness through humanitarian actions.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

You only need to look at what has been achieved in the fight against global warming to see that collective and cooperative effort at a global scale is almost impossible to achieve.

Yes, when I wrote my conservative MP, Kellie Leitch, to insist that the government mandate labelling of GMO products, she wrote back telling me it was "impractical." Bullshit. I know its not impractical, because other countries do it. Nothing is impossible to achieve, if it becomes the focus of a concerted, collective effort. The Apollo project is a great example. The technological achievements made with little or no computerization were staggering.

Reply to Pantagruel "We" are bald, semi-delusional (akratic!), gossipy primates gifted / gimped with large Stone Age brains which are insufficiently adapted to solving accelerating Information Age problems. Very clever cunts are we pseudo-sapiens; yet tens of millennia of oligarchic dominance hierarchies, euphemistically called "civilizations", have maldeveloped our cooperative instincts/habits by naturalizing the countless 'divide-n-control' strategems with which we have administratively straitjacketed or hog-tied ourselves on a planetary scale. History teaches ad nauseam that we, as a species, are incapable of deliberative self-governance (i.e. liberty) above the municipal scale, as the contemporary state of "global affairs" savagely demonstrates. I'm afraid, Pantagruel, 'public reason' is, though indispensible, wholly inadequate for overcoming cynical / sectarian populisms ... Oh yeah, also there are no "pacificists" alive for long in foxholes. :victory: :mask:

Quoting Pantagruel

Slaves to stupidity with no master but greed.

:clap: Well said!

Quoting Pantagruel

I'm sure this is true. But is it reasonable?

What does "reasonable" mean?

Surely what is "reasonable" is a subjective opinion, not an absolute.

Quoting Pantagruel

Yes, a privileged subset of humanity can survive by exploiting the rest, but that isn't sustainable.

Who said that sustainability is the result that we should be trying to achieve?

Reply to 180 Proof

:100:

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

Collective and cooperative effort at a global scale sounds like global communism.

Others may call such efforts democratic socialism or even secular humanism or perhaps even common sense. I don't think the chosen label matters, as much as the judgment by the majority, as to whether of not the results of the application of cooperation and compromise, is more beneficial to every stakeholder involved, compared to the results of the application of competition and prioritising self-interest or/and prioritising the flourishing of global elites and celebrity status.

Quoting universeness

I don't think the chosen label matters, as much as the judgment by the majority, as to whether of not the results of the application of cooperation and compromise, is more beneficial to every stakeholder involved, compared to the results of the application of competition and prioritising self-interest or/and prioritising the flourishing of global elites and celebrity status.

Why do you think that the judgement of the majority will prevail?

For example, a small minority with nuclear weapons may disagree.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

Surely what is "reasonable" is a subjective opinion, not an absolute.

Since every subjective opinion is constructed and framed using concepts which only arise and exist in an intersubjective matrix, I daresay it is reasonable to suggest that reasonableness is an intersubjective standard.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

Who said that sustainability is the result that we should be trying to achieve?

Is there a more reasonable goal?

Quoting 180 Proof

History teaches ad nauseam that we, as a species, are incapable of deliberative self-governance

History [s]teaches[/s] records ad nauseam that we, as a species,[s]are incapable of[/s] have hitherto failed in our efforts of deliberative self-governance

It seems that the whole agenda of endless minority rights (fostering polarization in a climate of endlessly competing petty virtues) is the ultimate misdirection of the smallest minority of them all, the privileged elite. The most universal set of human rights should serve all minorities equally well.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

Why do you think that the judgement of the majority will prevail?

I support that which I consider fair and just. Many people do, perhaps a majority do. So I think the majority will prevail, as that has always been my goal. If a majority agrees with me and I with them, then we can make such happen. Do you agree? or do you consider the majority to be unable to ever achieve such an outcome no matter what methods they use or how often they try?

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

For example, a small minority with nuclear weapons may disagree.

Such situations can be very difficult to deal with, but in previous examples of extreme brinksmanship, (such as the cuban misses crisis, or the current danger of global conflict/nuclear war due to Russia/Ukraine or/and Israel/Gaza,) M.a.d has been the main deterrent imo. The second main hope in such situations is that the small minority you mention who have access and control over nuclear weapons are often a nefarious elite, who don't have majority support in the nation/state they have managed to gain autocratic control over. Perhaps somewhere like North Korea or Iran could be as you describe, if they had nuclear weapons. A small nation with nuclear weapons, is unlikely to have enough of them to destroy the world, but they would be utterly annihilated themselves, if they chose that action. If the small minority you describe, are in control of a powerful nation like Russia or China, then the rest of the human population only has m.a.d or hope of an internal uprising, in the country threatening to end us, as a globally dominant or globally existent species.

How much credence do you personally give to the possibility that we will destroy ourselves via such as nuclear war? For me, I think such threats as climate change, is a greater clear and present danger, but in all honesty, if we allowed either to happen, then we would absolutely deserve our fate, yes?
That being the case, I think the best option is to do all that you can do, within the limitations of your own life pressures, to help prevent such an end to the human story.

Quoting Pantagruel

It seems that the whole agenda of endless minority rights (fostering polarization in a climate of endlessly competing petty virtues) is the ultimate misdirection of the smallest minority of them all, the privileged elite. The most universal set of human rights should serve all minorities equally well.

:clap:

Quoting Pantagruel

Here we differ. I think the problem hinges on the desire to assume responsibility.

That's a vague response, but to me it seems a bit self-righteous. 'Anyone skeptical about the possibility of utopia is just unwilling to put in the work.' A convenient belief for utopians, too, no ? And not just for those who don't want to waste their lives trying to square the circle, waiting for real life to finally get here, as if life hasn't always existed as a controlled falling. The world has always and always be on fire. That's my view. But we all work in our little lives to beat down the flames. And they always get us in the end.

What schoolmaster has not demonstrated that Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were driven by such passions and were, consequently, immoral? From which it immediately follows that he, the schoolmaster, is a better man than they because he has no such passions, and proves it by the fact that he has not conquered Asia nor vanquished Darius and porus, but enjoys life and allows others to enjoy it too. These psychologists are particularly fond of contemplating those peculiarities that belong to great historical figures as private persons. Man must eat and drink; he has relations with friends and acquaintances; he has emotions and fits of temper. “No man is a hero to his valet de chambre,” is a well-known proverb; I have added – and Goethe repeated it two years later – "but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.” He takes off the hero’s boots, helps him into bed, knows that he prefers champagne, and the like. Historical personages fare badly in historical literature when served by such psychological valets. These attendants degrade them to their own level, or rather a few degrees below the level of their own morality, these exquisite discerners of spirits. Homer’s Thersites, who abuses the kings, is a standing figure for all times. Not in every age, it is true, does he get blows – that is, beating with a solid cudgel – as in the Homeric one. But his envy, his egotism, is the thorn that he has to carry in his flesh; and the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting thought that his excellent intentions and criticisms get absolutely no result in the world. One may be allowed a certain glee over Thersites’ fate.
...
nothing is now more common than the complaint that the ideals which imagination sets up are not actualized, that these glorious dreams are destroyed by cold actuality. These ideals, which in the voyage of life founder on the rocks of hard reality, may be merely subjective to begin with and belong to the peculiarity of an individual who regards himself as supremely wise.
...
In asserting good intentions for the welfare of the whole and exhibiting a semblance of goodheartedness, it can swagger about with great airs. It is easier to discover the deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real meaning. For in negative fault-finding one stands nobly and with proud mien above the matter, without penetrating into it and without comprehending its positive aspects. Age generally makes people more tolerant; youth is always discontented.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/introduction.htm

Quoting plaque flag

That's a vague response, but to me it seems a bit self-righteous. 'Anyone skeptical about the possibility of utopia is just unwilling to put in the work.'

I do not share the belief that utopia means nowhere. To me, this is not vague. Both Mannheim and Ricouer have much constructive commentary on the value of the idea of utopia in responding to ideologies, which are more like apologetics.

Quoting Pantagruel

And yet supposedly we live in the information age. So if information does not foster communication, perhaps that is a value also which as been corrupted through commoditization.

Not necessarily. Information is a one-way process. A teacher lecturing a class conveys information to the students, but gets no information from them. A book does the same: the student is a passive recipient of information. Communication, otoh, is a dynamic two-way traffic, which can convey information, or feelings or ideas or judgments. I don't know that information itself has a value; it would depend on whether the recipient can use it constructively.

Quoting Pantagruel

History records ad nauseam that we, as a species, have hitherto failed in our efforts of deliberative self-governance

Somebody may have recorded that, but it's not true. Humans have been capable of deliberative self-governance for far longer periods of time (more sustainably) than most of the recorded civilizations lasted. In every case where an attempt at reasonable egalitarian democratic organization was made, you can trace the reason for its failure to a handful of self-interested actors, who either sabotaged the experiment from the beginning, or tilted its structure toward the acceptance of some animals being more equal than others. (A clever monkey was that Orwell!)

Quoting Pantagruel

"Woke" simultaneously implies that I am right and that you are ignorant. No truly enlightened being would ever make that claim, but would demonstrate wokefulness through humanitarian actions.

No. All foundational religious teachers made the claim (even explicitly) that they are in the know, and that everyone else is less or more wrong.
The Buddha, for example, called himself "the rightfully self-enlightened one".

Quoting Vera Mont

I don't know that information itself has a value; it would depend on whether the recipient can use it constructively.

Which was really my meaning. The implication of calling it "the information age" is that it should have value.

Quoting Vera Mont

In every case where an attempt at reasonable egalitarian democratic organization was made, you can trace the reason for its failure to a handful of self-interested actors, who either sabotaged the experiment from the beginning, or tilted its structure toward the acceptance of some animals being more equal than others.

Just so. But what I wrote was just a more optimistic recasting of the observation made by 180 Proof. Just because we have a bad track record, doesn't me we couldn't succeed.

Reply to Pantagruel We are suffering from a prisoners dilemma. If only prisoners could learn a little solidarity... but alas we all have to learn it at once and some of us are a little slow. Leaders are particularly slow, because they are always looking back to see if everyone is following.

Reply to baker Not in their teachings I think. Buddhism stress the values of ego-less-ness and humility. Who knows does not speak, who speaks does not know, says Lao Tzu.

Reply to unenlightened Slow, or lazy? We allow ourselves to be distracted from important matters by trivialities.

Reply to Pantagruel Then you should read the Pali suttas, the foundational Buddhist texts.

This is the Buddha speaking:

/.../"Then, having stayed at Uruvela as long as I liked, I set out to wander by stages to Varanasi. Upaka the Ajivaka saw me on the road between Gaya and the (place of) Awakening, and on seeing me said to me, 'Clear, my friend, are your faculties. Pure your complexion, and bright. On whose account have you gone forth? Who is your teacher? In whose Dhamma do you delight?'

"When this was said, I replied to Upaka the Ajivaka in verses:

'All-vanquishing,
all-knowing am I,
with regard to all things,
unadhering.
All-abandoning,
released in the ending of craving:
having fully known on my own,
to whom should I point as my teacher? [4]

I have no teacher,
and one like me can't be found.
In the world with its devas,
I have no counterpart.

For I am an arahant in the world;
I, the unexcelled teacher.
I, alone, am rightly self-awakened.
Cooled am I, unbound.

To set rolling the wheel of Dhamma
I go to the city of Kasi.
In a world become blind,
I beat the drum of the Deathless.'

"'From your claims, my friend, you must be an infinite conqueror.'

'Conquerors are those like me
who have reached fermentations' end.
I've conquered evil qualities,
and so, Upaka, I'm a conqueror.'

"When this was said, Upaka said, 'May it be so, my friend,' and — shaking his head, taking a side-road — he left.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.026.than.html

Quoting Pantagruel

Pragmatically, it seems obvious that the challenges to the continued and healthy future of humanity can only be met through collective and cooperative effort at a global scale.

Quoting Kate Ellsworth

How to Cut a Slice of Pie the Right Way

If you’re slicing a pie in a conventional 9-inch pie pan, you should aim to cut between 6-8 slices. When you make your first cut with the serrated knife, slice the entire pie in half. Cut the remaining pieces at one time—this ensures all your pieces remain the same size, while also making slice-removal much easier. If the pie is heftier or filled with dense filling, you may want to go for eight pieces. Otherwise, six slices is standard for most 9-inch pies.

@Vera Mont @Pantagruel
Quoting 180 Proof

History teaches ad nauseam that we, as a species, are incapable of deliberative self-governance (i.e. liberty) above the municipal scale, as the contemporary state of "global affairs" savagely demonstrates.

By "history" I mean only recorded history, which is the operational framework of modern civilization/s, no? Left to our own state-capitalist (plutocratic) devices, IMO, "global governance / unity" is thereby manifestly improbable (i.e. an intractable N-body problem).

Quoting Pantagruel

Slow, or lazy? We allow ourselves to be distracted from important matters by trivialities.

If you confuse slowness and laziness, you will not do well with this topic. Laziness is the virtue that drives progress: by making things easier, more can be done. Slowness, in this context, is the difficulty of changing one's mind when appropriate.

Reply to 180 Proof Well, I guess we should be happy we're fucking up the world to such an extent, in pursuit of shareholder value, that such municipal scale societies will be all that's left in 200 years or so.

Reply to Benkei :cool: :up: Ah, the good old Dialectic strikes again!

Quoting Pantagruel

The implication of calling it "the information age" is that it should have value.

Why? Did the stone and iron and dark ages have particular values? It's a description; as such it's either accurate or inaccurate.

Quoting Pantagruel

Just because we have a bad track record, doesn't me we couldn't succeed.

And my point was that "we", as is often used for all of humanity, don't have such a bad track record as the historical records of civilization would indicate.

Quoting 180 Proof

Left to our own state-capitalist (plutocratic) devices, IMO, "global governance / unity" is thereby manifestly improbable

I agree.
We can, and we have, formed quite reasonable, well-functioning societies, and we'll do it again,after the collapse of this civilization. We'll also form some crazy, dysfunctional ones, just as we have before. None of them can be global again, unless and until one very successful predator society eats up all the rest.

Reply to baker Hardly humanist instruction. Transcendental reverie. It doesn't fit the case.

The next time the woke tell me they are going to set rolling the wheel of Dhamma, I'll give them a pass...

Quoting universeness

If a majority agrees with me and I with them, then we can make such happen.

And pigs might fly. :grin:

Quoting universeness

How much credence do you personally give to the possibility that we will destroy ourselves via such as nuclear war?

It is not just nuclear war that we should worry about. As civilizations create increasingly powerful technologies self-destruction becomes more possible and probable. Some people believe that all civilizations destroy themselves before they achieve interstellar travel. This might explain why we have never detected extraterrestrial life.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

And pigs might fly. :grin:

I cannot comment on what you see or personally imagineer.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

Some people believe that all civilizations destroy themselves before they achieve interstellar travel. This might explain why we have never detected extraterrestrial life.

Yes some people do believe such, some people is not who we were discussing, we were discussing the majority.

Quoting universeness

I cannot comment on what you see or personally imagineer.

I am a cynical and skeptical old man. :sad:

I was an idealist when I was young, but life turned me into a realist.

Reply to Agree-to-Disagree :up:

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

I was an idealist when I was young, but life turned me into a realist

It's called "maturity", no? Having become wiser.

Reply to Vera Mont :up:

Reply to Agree-to-Disagree Ay-yup!

Reply to Agree-to-Disagree
I applaud your skepticism and encourage you not to take your cynicism too far, so that your notion of personal 'realism' becomes too dark and nihilistic.

Reply to Pantagruel

Good OP.

Given that nihilistic greed and wealth inequality that rivals the pharaohs is the status quo, under the cover of “capitalism,” it’s safe to say we’ve gone the way of irrationality/unreasonableness.

I don’t think we chose it though.

Reply to Mikie I don't understand how enlightened self-interest can not yet have reared its head though. If we settled on an income gap where the wealthiest were allowed to make just 1000x more than the poorest, we could establish a more sustainable system with a better quality of living at the bottom and more room at the top. If one-hundred million dollars can be you anything you want many times over, what is the point of having a billion? Or ten billion? Presumably, there is at least some correlation between wealth and intellect and knowledge. It's almost like money makes you stupid too.

Quoting Pantagruel

It's almost like money makes you stupid too.

Money makes the system stupid - or at least, irrational. Money-as-profit has a logic of its own, which has no connection to human logic, or fulfillment or satisfaction. When money is made the driving force of a society, everything else yields to its logic; all other faculties serve its interest.

Quoting Vera Mont

Money makes the system stupid - or at least, irrational. Money-as-profit has a logic of its own, which has no connection to human logic, or fulfillment or satisfaction. When money is made the driving force of a society, everything else yields to its logic; all other faculties serve its interest.

It certainly might look that way, but people have to accede to that authority on a continuing basis.

As I see it, money has become a resource. Resources must be regulated, the more stringently the more essential they are to life. So if money has become "the resource of resources," then by all practical reason, it should be subject to the maximum regulation benefitting the general good of human life.

Reply to Pantagruel

Collective and cooperative efforts on a global scale are impossible. One cannot coordinate and cooperate with 100 people at once, let alone 9 billion. So I’m not sure about the reasonableness of that.

Given this, we can discover the practical implications hidden beneath the rhetoric. So by “collective” we mean some vanguard in charge of vast populations of human beings, and by “cooperative” we mean involuntary cooperation, governing by force.

At any rate, reasonable and optimum futures on such a scale and with such methods are invariably immoral futures. The amount of force and theft and meddling involved to coordinate such activity, let alone to execute it, would become worse than the initial problems themselves.

Speaking as one of the super-rich elite, I can explain it all to you very simply. Humans used to be the source of wealth, and back then, to own humans as a king/emperor was the measure of status. At first, the industrial revolution multiplied the value of human labour by the power of the machine, but as machines become more automated, human labour becomes more redundant.

We are approaching the point where the elite no longer need subjects as humans but will prefer machines as more obedient, reliable and productive. Expect, therefore, to be recycled via wars, climate disasters, etc, leaving a few thousand technicians of a machine dominated wilderness. Masses of humanity are unpleasant and no longer necessary. Therefore, 'Goodbye, get off my planet.'

Quoting NOS4A2

Collective and cooperative efforts on a global scale are impossible. One cannot coordinate and cooperate with 100 people at once, let alone 9 billion. So I’m not sure about the reasonableness of that.

I would dispute this. There is a difference between coordination of efforts and coordination of objectives.

As to the involuntary force-governed cooperation of the governed, that can be said to be true of all governance. As Weber says, the state holds the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Reply to Pantagruel

It is a curious thought and I admit my own shortcomings when reasoning with such vast sets of particulars in mind, but what is one way one might engage in collective and cooperative effort at a global scale? All I can picture is someone following a crowd to some unknown location to take part in some unknown activity.

Quoting Agree-to-Disagree

I am a cynical and skeptical old man. :sad:

I was an idealist when I was young, but life turned me into a realist.

:up:

Quoting Pantagruel

I don't understand how enlightened self-interest can not yet have reared its head though.

Prisoner's dilemma, right ? We do manage enlighten self-interest, to some degree, within groups that have enemies. Is it just a coincidence that such groups have enemies ? Like the boundary between the organism and the environment it exploits ?

And of the pleasures of inclusion/exclusion ? The pleasure of being a member of the elite ( or merely maybe having somewhere to climb )? Did we evolve to function as a species ? Or to function in a tribe that sometimes had to wage war ? The idea of the universal human family is beautiful, but perhaps it's the sleeping lion's exotic dream of being a lamb.

Quoting NOS4A2

At any rate, reasonable and optimum futures on such a scale and with such methods are invariably immoral futures. The amount of force and theft and meddling involved to coordinate such activity, let alone to execute it, would become worse than the initial problems themselves.

:up: :100:

Quoting unenlightened

Speaking as one of the super-rich elite, ...

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep …
… then you are richer than 75 per cent of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace …
… then you are among the top eight per cent of the world’s wealthy.

Quoting Pantagruel

It certainly might look that way, but people have to accede to that authority on a continuing basis.

They were made to accede to it the first time a ruler stuck his face on a coin and demanded it back as tax, tithes, tribute, toll and license fees. Once it was established as the medium of all transactions, they had no choice. And of course, a very few always had more of it, and were always happy to lend some at interest. So much for helping a neighbour who's fallen on hard times: let him get a payday loan!

Quoting Pantagruel

As I see it, money has become a resource.

It's the metric by which all actual resources are evaluated, while itself having no direct usefulness and no reliable or predictable value. Everybody lives in a "marketplace", selling their time and effort to get money so they can give money for the things they need. Or else buying other people's effort and time in order to sell those same people the essentials of life.

Quoting Pantagruel

Resources must be regulated, the more stringently the more essential they are to life.

Must or should? Like air, water, food and shelter? They're regulated only sporadically and and then not strictly or effectively.


Quoting NOS4A2

but what is one way one might engage in collective and cooperative effort at a global scale?

Move the UN headquarters to Indonesia.

Quoting Pantagruel

Hardly humanist instruction. Transcendental reverie. It doesn't fit the case.

The next time the woke tell me they are going to set rolling the wheel of Dhamma, I'll give them a pass...

Religions generally see life on Earth as a place of sorrow, or even view existence itself as a failed project. Religions are not life-affirming as such.

Quoting baker

Religions are not life-affirming as such.

This is also not true of many kinds of religions. Calvinistic Protestants aspire to a calling, a special task that gives meaning and utility to life. And various indigenous fertility rites throughout history can't be described as anything but life-affirming. Harvest festivals. Frazer's Golden Bough is a great resource.

Quoting Pantagruel

I don't understand how enlightened self-interest can not yet have reared its head though.

Quoting Pantagruel

benefitting the general good of human life

Time for some Adam Smith again:

The proud and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest ... [Yet] the capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires... the rest he will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the economy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice...The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own convenience, though the sole end which they propose from the labors of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements...They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

(emphases mine)

What would "enlightened self-interest" even be?

Quoting Pantagruel

This is also not true of many kinds of religions. Calvinistic Protestants aspire to a calling, a special task that gives meaning and utility to life. And various indigenous fertility rites throughout history can't be described as anything but life-affirming.

Sure. But not Roman Catholicism, not Islam, not Buddhism, many kinds of Protestant Christianity. That is, the biggest, most populous religions have a negative view of life.

Reply to baker So you are being ironic, right? Because grocery stores don't distribute unsold produce, they dispose of it.

Quoting NOS4A2

but what is one way one might engage in collective and cooperative effort at a global scale?

The science community do it all the time.

the rest he will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of,

Except for the vast majority of luxuries he distributes among his several other dwellings and bank-vaults and off-shore accounts, sharing with no-one, not even the government that gave him license to gain his wealth.

They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society

Has anyone ever ever observed this to be the case? It's not even true of the most basic necessities: people are still starving and freezing to death, even in prosperous societies. People are still denied life-saving medicine and clean water.

Adam Smith was seriously full of shit. An Economist, was he?

Quoting Vera Mont

Adam Smith was seriously full of shit.

Hence the notion of trickle down, and what trickles down.

Reply to Pantagruel
I recall that cartoon! https://anticap.wordpress.com/tag/trickle-down/

Reply to Vera Mont :rofl:

Quoting Vera Mont

Adam Smith was seriously full of shit. An Economist, was he?

He was greatly admired by Maggie Thatcher and still is, by the UK tory party!
That's enough to utterly sink him for me forever.

Quoting Vera Mont

itself having no direct usefulness

Actually Georg Simmel talks a lot about how money achieves an independent and real function, concretizing the value of the intangible. As one of the "steering media" (Habermas) money has unique and definite influences.

Quoting Pantagruel

As one of the "steering media" (Habermas) money has unique and definite influences.

I already stipulated its influence, and its role in screwing up civilization, but direct usefulness means that a dog would understand it.

Quoting Vera Mont

direct usefulness means that a dog would understand it.

Arf?!?

"If you can't eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away" Is the post-modern euphemistic poster version of the dog's approach to encountered objects. But I think we can all tell the difference between direct personal usefulness and second- or third-hand social utility. Here's the test: What five items would you pack to survive on a desert island?

Reply to Vera Mont I'd have to say that whether or not money is useful on a desert island isn't relevant to its possessing actual and unique force in the world at large.

Quoting Pantagruel

I'd have to say that whether or not money is useful on a desert island isn't relevant to its possessing actual and unique force in the world at large.

I was attempting to illustrate the distinction between what I call "direct utility" and what you call "a unique force" in the modern world. Money is an artificially imposed system for measuring the relative worth of things and people, a system whereby resources are collected and allocated unevenly. That's very different from a life necessity. A monetary system can collapse, can be arbitrarily changed, devalued, even abolished, without any loss to the other.

Quoting Vera Mont

I was attempting to illustrate the distinction between what I call "direct utility" and what you call "a unique force" in the modern world. Money is an artificially imposed system for measuring the relative worth of things and people, a system whereby resources are collected and allocated unevenly. That's very different from a life necessity. A monetary system can collapse, can be arbitrarily changed, devalued, even abolished, without any loss to the other.

How so?
Have you lived in a country that has undergone a major monetary change, like in a country that gave up its own currency in favor of the Euro?

Reply to Vera Mont Reply to Pantagruel The Adam Smith reference was both ironic and not. I think it's an instruction disguised as an "observation" or "explanation". A famous example of such a disguised instruction is "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger". It's obviously not true, for there are many maimed and broken people. But as an instruction saying that one should overcome adverse situations that are anything less than lethal it kind of makes sense. Similar with the Adam Smith reference. It seems it's saying that inequality and competition are natural, the natural order of things and that one must not indulge in compassion for others or otherwise concern oneself with social justice (or with big metaphysical problems), but instead look after one's own interests and cater to one's desires.

Quoting baker

How so?

Air stays air, water remains water; food is still edible; clothes and walls keep out the cold, regardless of who owns them or how much they cost. I was born shortly after WWII, when people in my country literally ran from work to the bakery, to buy bread before their money was devalued again. Mostly, they bartered real things for real things, because whatever has direct utility holds its value, regardless of monetary changes: we still need them when we have no money. When we have everything we require for a healthy life, we don't need money.

Quoting baker

It seems it's saying that inequality and competition are natural, the natural order of things

Except that the disparity of rich an poor only becomes "the natural order of things" when it's pronounced so by the spokesman for the caste that has grown rich on the labour of the castes below. There is no competition between a slave-owner and his property, nor between the CEO of a shipping company and a navvy in its employ. All that guff about natural competition might make some kind of sense if everyone played on the same field and had a say in making the rules.

What you describe is precisely that artificially imposed system of valuation to which I was referring.

Quoting Vera Mont

Except that the disparity of rich an poor only becomes "the natural order of things" when it's pronounced so by the spokesman for the caste that has grown rich on the labour of the castes below. /.../ All that guff about natural competition might make some kind of sense if everyone played on the same field and had a say in making the rules.

Like I've been saying, it seems to be about the difference between an instruction and a description.

Not all poor or otherwise disadvantaged people have a socialist (or some such) outlook. Some have a bourgeois mentality -- and they don't all stay poor for long.


Quoting Vera Mont

What you describe is precisely that artificially imposed system of valuation to which I was referring.

How is it artificial, if some people come out as the winners?

Quoting baker

Not all poor or otherwise disadvantaged people have a socialist (or some such) outlook

True. Some are brainwashed into believing no other arrangement is possible, or that they have their proper 'place' and should aspire to nothing more, nor envy their 'betters'. Some are deluded into believing that anyone can achieve their goals if only they work hard enough. Some are cajoled into accepting God's will and awaiting their reward on the Other Side.

Quoting baker

Some have a bourgeois mentality -- and they don't all stay poor for long.

Sure. One in a thousand work, innovate and elbow their way into the lower echelons of the middle class and their descendants might continue that upward mobility - unless they're wiped out by a bad illness or season or loan - or get caught in a 'market-adjustment' cycle. One in ten thousand get lucky or ruthless enough to make their fortune in the slave-trade, piracy, arms-smuggling, racketeering... and their descendants invest it legally, so that the third or fourth generation join the financial aristocracy. One in a hundred thousand exhibit some lucrative talent; unfortunately their descendants tend to be mediocre middle-middle class. One in a million marry into the aristocracy.

Not instructing here; merely describing, to show I've grasped the difference.

Quoting baker

How is it artificial, if some people come out as the winners?

I think I'll frame that.
https://theweek.com/cartoons/429889/editorial-cartoon-percent-playing-field

@Vera Mont
Do you want to be rich or do you want "social justice"?

Reply to baker
That's the second most ... ah ... novel question I've been asked today.
Whatever the actual alternatives might be [since I doubt social justice is available atm] , of course I do not want to be rich!

Reply to Vera Mont I agree with your overall perspective....if I had to pick it would be social justice over wealth.

Quoting baker

Similar with the Adam Smith reference. It seems it's saying that inequality and competition are natural, the natural order of things and that one must not indulge in compassion for others or otherwise concern oneself with social justice (or with big metaphysical problems), but instead look after one's own interests and cater to one's desires.

What is your main source of evidence for the words I have underlined?
Evolution by natural selection and survival of the fittest?
If it is, then was cooperation and altruism, not also essential aspects of that experience as well?

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better was published in 2009. Written by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, the book highlights the "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption". It shows that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.

Quoting Vera Mont

Whatever the actual alternatives might be [since I doubt social justice is available atm] , of course I do not want to be rich!

You kid, right?

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for? There has to be some purpose to them.

Quoting universeness

Similar with the Adam Smith reference. It seems it's saying that inequality and competition are natural, the natural order of things and that one must not indulge in compassion for others or otherwise concern oneself with social justice (or with big metaphysical problems), but instead look after one's own interests and cater to one's desires.
— baker

What is your main source of evidence for the words I have underlined?
Evolution by natural selection and survival of the fittest?
If it is, then was cooperation and altruism, not also essential aspects of that experience as well?

Like I've been saying all along: It is my understanding that passages like the one quoted from Smith are meant to be taken as instructions, in an ideological sense, not as descriptions based on empirical observations.

Quoting baker

You kid, right?

Wrong! Wealth-accumulation is for assholes like Musk. Quoting baker

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for? There has to be some purpose to them.

They're healthier and happier than the striving, climbing, back-stabbing people. Plus, they're not so assholish. They seem be okay with that.

Quoting baker

Like I've been saying all along: It is my understanding that passages like the one quoted from Smith are meant to be taken as instructions, in an ideological sense, not as descriptions based on empirical observations.

AKA wishful thinking.

Reply to baker
Quoting Vera Mont

Like I've been saying all along: It is my understanding that passages like the one quoted from Smith are meant to be taken as instructions, in an ideological sense, not as descriptions based on empirical observations.
— baker
AKA wishful thinking.

:up:

So, like any instructions that cause very negative outcomes, for the majority of all people, we all need to learn how to better identify such and disregard such.

Quoting Vera Mont

Wrong! Wealth-accumulation is for assholes like Musk.

People who say they don't value money are naive, or just lying.

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for? There has to be some purpose to them.
— baker

They're healthier and happier than the striving, climbing, back-stabbing people. Plus, they're not so assholish. They seem be okay with that.

You didn't answer my question.

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for?
Sip craft beer, eat organic chips, and watch Game of Thrones?


(And I can't view the video you posted, it's not available where I am.)

Quoting baker

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for?

Living. If you want something different, ask someone else who, if they have different values from yours, are either naive or lying, so you'll never get a satisfactory answer.

(And I can't view the video you posted, it's not available where I am.)

No matter! You wouldn't understand it.

Quoting Vera Mont

Has anyone ever ever observed this to be the case? It's not even true of the most basic necessities: people are still starving and freezing to death, even in prosperous societies. People are still denied life-saving medicine and clean water.

Not all prosperous societies are American. :snicker:

Quoting Vera Mont

Adam Smith was seriously full of shit. An Economist, was he?

Actually he was a professor of moral philosophy. That and logic is what he taught for a living.

And actually he was against mercantilism and the old feudal society.

Quoting Vera Mont

Living.

Living -- doing what?

(And I can't view the video you posted, it's not available where I am.)
No matter! You wouldn't understand it.

This is supposed to be a philosophy forum. You should be able to offer more than your moral indignation.

Quoting baker

This is supposed to be a philosophy forum. You should be able to offer more than your moral indignation.

I was asked for an opinion and I gave it.
What moral indignation? If you do not yet understand that making life healthier and happier and more secure for the people living it as sufficient purpose, that video would not get you any closer to understanding it, so there's no point watching it.
And, as I am not a certified philosopher, neither can I give you sufficient explanation.

Quoting Vera Mont

If you do not yet understand that making life healthier and happier and more secure for the people living it as sufficient purpose, that video would not get you any closer to understanding it, so there's no point watching it.

I'm challenging the widely held conviction that health and happiness are somehow worthy goals in and of themselves.

And, as I am not a certified philosopher, neither can I give you sufficient explanation.

Bummer.

Quoting baker

I'm challenging the widely held conviction that health and happiness are somehow worthy goals in and of themselves.

This is supposed to a philosophy forum. Present your finely-reasoned argument.

Quoting Vera Mont

What moral indignation? If you do not yet understand that making life healthier and happier and more secure for the people living it as sufficient purpose

That cannot be sufficient. Making people healthier and happier and safe can be done in a bubble for certain elite while the rest of the world suffers. Read Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, it is a good starting point.

Reply to Vera Mont I asked you what the purpose of health and happiness was, since you advocate for health and happiness.

Quoting Pantagruel

battle of reason and unreason in governance of the public mind?

Reason is not an absolute thing, it is relative to the culture of a society and even relative to each individual as you go down to the level interest you touch (national interest, individual interest, etc.).
What do you think, is it god above all of us or humans rights? this is the quid of the question.
We see nowadays conflicts between western and middle-east... the root is all in this dichotomy: human rights or god above us?
It all ends-up into unavoidable conflicts (natural state of human history is war) as long as religions keep building the identity of peoples and nations. An when I say religions I include as well laicism.
Humans are afraid of dying... this generates religious believes and as we get more and more people... the social system generates wars...
What is the only solution? Reduce world human population to the critical mass that we know will not generate more than one religion, that is to say maybe few hundreds?... even there, in small villages, people kill themselves because "he looked at my wife".... jealusy, vanity, egoism, avarice... it is all in our brains :-)

The only solution is to find our "soma" (A. Huxley) and mae sure everyone drinks it every morning :-D

Quoting Raul

Making people healthier and happier and safe can be done in a bubble for certain elite while the rest of the world suffers.

That is what economic disparity does, yes. The point of ending economic disparity is to make it so for all the people. If that is not sufficient for you, fine, but I don't think you have the authority to proclaim that it cannot be sufficient for anyone else.

Quoting baker

I asked you what the purpose of health and happiness was, since you advocate for health and happiness

I didn't advocate for health and happiness - of course I would, if it were a question of advocacy. But I do think they're more worthwhile goals than wealth and power, if those are the available options.
As previously noted, this is an opinion. If you believe that being ill, anxious and miserable are preferable, that's also an opinion. The difference is, I won't tell you that it's an impossible or unacceptable one.

Quoting baker

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for? There has to be some purpose to them.

Since I don't believe life has a purpose beyond itself, or that quality of life needs justification, that question simply has no meaning for me, no matter how many times it's repeated.

Quoting Vera Mont

I didn't advocate for health and happiness - of course I would, if it were a question of advocacy. But I do think they're more worthwhile goals than wealth and power, if those are the available options.

Health and happiness are impossible without wealth and power.
Especially if worldwide economic disparity is to be ended, it seems this could only be done through wielding wealth and power.

As previously noted, this is an opinion. If you believe that being ill, anxious and miserable are preferable, that's also an opinion.

That's a false dichotomy, focusing only on the extremes.

So what do people in those "more equal" societies do with all that social trust, health, wellbeing, etc.? What do they use them for? There has to be some purpose to them.
— baker

Since I don't believe life has a purpose beyond itself, or that quality of life needs justification, that question simply has no meaning for me, no matter how many times it's repeated.

Societies that focus on health and happiness go in a well-known direction:



This same trend can be observed in modern societies (which also tend to be "more equal") where health and happiness are held to such a high standard that the state has legalized ways for people to be eliminated from society if they can't live up to that standard by giving them the option of "euthanasia" or "assisted suicide".

Don't forget that the Nazis started off their murdering spree by killing their own people whom they deemed "unworthy of life" -- and it was all fully legal.

Quoting baker

Health and happiness are impossible without wealth and power.

That opinion appears to me not based in documented fact. That is the subject matter of the book I cited. There is a short video on the same theme.
Quoting baker

That's a false dichotomy, focusing only on the extremes.

You have not offered a third way.

Quoting baker

Don't forget that the Nazis started off their murdering spree by killing their own people whom they deemed "unworthy of life" -- and it was all fully legal.

And you speak of false dichotomies?