Selfishness and elections

If your interest doesn't fit anywhere else, leave it here.
User avatar
Mr. PC
Posts: 617
https://cutt.ly/meble-kuchenne-wroclaw
Joined: Sun 25 Jan 2009 05:16
Location: Canada

Re: My current diet

Post by Mr. PC »

What do you think about this video?

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_ ... ation.html

Apparently we're not even wired to be selfish.
panacea
Posts: 989
Joined: Wed 23 Jun 2010 22:08

Re: My current diet

Post by panacea »

Good video, great drawings :), but they don't seem to understand that no matter what we are still intrinsically selfish, even if we appear to do the opposite, like make empathetic sacrifices, we do it for our own happiness, or because its the most strategic path to survive and thrive, etc etc. So the video is nice but it has a lot of logical flaws - another one, which jumped out at me, even though I don't believe in a religion, they said 'there would be no empathy in heaven because there would be no suffering', yet there would be in 'angels' memories, or if they looked down on mortal beings. Of course all of that is BS but it shows how their reasoning is shallow and not well thought out.

But yes, empathetic socialization is one of the best forms of productive selfishness, the only problem is people have a negative connotation of 'selfishness' when it's actually a double edged sword, one is unproductive, like hoarding greed etc, and the other involves productive selfishness, like empathy here or even jealousy (the drive to do something better), then jealousy is also a double edged sword, on and on.

The real solution however, which goes to a deeper understanding than that video is to instill the 'awareness' which is the trigger for that kind of empathy - to raise kids to think of the earth, animals, and all the humans as one entity, and that our existence depends so much on collaborative work, and that greed and hoarding should be severely punished. For example, these days, if you're a millionare, you're admired and thought of as successful, it's more important to raise kids to think the most successful thing you can be is someone who invents something to contribute to society or something like that - that helps everyone and then themselves. But this system only works if there is not greedy hoarders allowed to distort the system - and thus government intervention is needed. Will it prevent freedom to become insanely rich? Yes. Will standard of living skyrocket in retrospect to money because more people will be focused on invention, optimization of what we have, helping out, etc? Yes. Is the solution to be nice and try and feed populations we can't support and help deformed or mentally ill kids? No, the solution is to raise the standard of living and those things will suddenly become possible, although to me those are issues that will go away with a higher understanding and education system. (Population control isn't a problem amongst the educated, and once people become publicly aware of true health habits deformities and mental problems go down significantly). Fighting the worlds problems with guilt trips and morals just isn't going to work forever. It doesn't even work very well at all right now.
djkvan
Posts: 322
Joined: Thu 24 Jun 2010 17:13
Location: Vancouver, B.C. Canada

Re: My current diet

Post by djkvan »

I like the Simpson's episode where the brainiacs take over the city and start dictating policy after Mayor Quimby loses his job. Whatever happened to the idea of philosopher kings? Oh yeah, totalitarianism...oops.
I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you, thank you. Sam I am.
panacea
Posts: 989
Joined: Wed 23 Jun 2010 22:08

Re: My current diet

Post by panacea »

Two very different things. The fact is that the current system is running us into the ground with people generally becoming less healthy, overpopulating and thus becoming poorer, and lowering the standard of living for everybody for what it could be doing. Besides, governments don't run the world these days - big corporations do. Through corrupting government officials, etc, they can bend things to what best suits them. If you're afraid of another hitler or stalin, you better start thinking about what an overpopulated, undereducated nation is going to turn into. And I don't just mean undereducated in the sciences, I mean in philosophy and things like we're talking about. People are going to get hungry and greedy and everyones going to want room for their culture to have children - but there won't be room for all cultures, so someones going to be scapegoated and exterminated or worse. I'm sorry, but freedom is in the control of the rich right now, not the people, and their greed is abusing it. A system needs to be developed to stop that, while also keeping it from the poor class, because frankly they're always after short-sighted fixes. Like lower taxes, etc, instead of increase motivations for invention and creativity, or to push solar energy even though it has initial costs. No one wants to pay more short term for long term productivity because they're not thinking about it deeply. Which is why an independent third party should have the responsibility - not the mob or the mob-rulers, the specialists. For instance, you take the top engineer in his subfield, the best of the best, and you ask HIM what should be done about city-planning, not the fat-benefit-fed mayor, etc. Just an example, or you take the top philosophers, and I don't mean the most loved, but rather the most efficient (if their ideas increase productivity and happiness and things like that they would be more respected) etc. So who has the power? The people with good ideas, who reaps the benefits? Everyone. The difference between totalitarianism is they give the power to whoever is the most aggressive, not most intelligent. Why we haven't been giving our fate to the hands of the most intelligent people from time immemorial is beyond me.
User avatar
Mr. PC
Posts: 617
Joined: Sun 25 Jan 2009 05:16
Location: Canada

Re: My current diet

Post by Mr. PC »

Well I guess we really need to define selfish, because you seem to define is as 'wanting what is best for self', whereas the opposition seems to define it as 'not caring about others', but when what is best for others becomes best for the self as well, it's hard to tell where the intentions are.

For example, if you taught a kid something that made him happy, and that made you happy, the argument for selfishness would be that the goal was self-happiness, and therefor it was selfish, but the argument for selflessness would be that the-happiness-of-others-making-oneself-happy-means-oneself-is-nonselfish. I think that both parties realize the same truth, it's just a semantic argument at this point.

And by this definition selfish isn't even a 'bad' thing at all; and a 'bad' person would really just be someone who's goals conflicted with the goals of the majority. Or a person with an inability to 'empathize' with others, a sociopath. But really a sociopath is no more evil than a person who is deaf and therefor can't hear another's wants/needs.

No matter what angle you come at it from the answer always comes out that there is no such thing as good or evil.

And really, there's no such thing as self either, but we kindof need to have colloquial usage of these words or we'll all go nuts trying to communicate. But than colloquial meanings can't really communicate anything deeply. The best we can do is figure out which kind of behavior increases general happiness, and which behavior decreases general happiness, and than try to change the behaviors of people that are decreasing everyone's general happiness.

btw I think the video was referring to a heaven where all was good and mortals didn't exist, but W/E. I'd rather the analogy be of fairyland, because there's too much crap imbued into heaven / god etc. in everyone's mind. And fairies are cuter anyway, when I think of angels I just think of a renaissance painting where an angel slays some demon and there's lightning in the background.

{edit} this was a reply to your post at the top of the page panacea. I didn't see the previous two posts when I wrote this. I agree with that governing system although how exactly to implement it would be tricky, although I remember spending a lot of time thinking about exactly that in my highschool years. I'd still want some kind of constitution protecting some universal freedoms however. I think the place of the government is to protect people's freedoms, and that's it. In a way the job of the government should be to maximize anarchy.{/edit}
djkvan
Posts: 322
Joined: Thu 24 Jun 2010 17:13
Location: Vancouver, B.C. Canada

Re: My current diet

Post by djkvan »

The can of worms is: who decides who these best of the best (philosophers, scientists, etc...) are. I contend that nobody possesses the authority to appoint these people, unless you wish to propose the temporary establishment of a parent-state. So they must be chosen by free election, which puts us right back to where we started.
I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you, thank you. Sam I am.
panacea
Posts: 989
Joined: Wed 23 Jun 2010 22:08

Re: My current diet

Post by panacea »

It's very easily decided by which philosophers, scientists, etc, come up with the most productive and efficient ideas, that raise standard of living as well as happiness, or lower energy costs, promote education, etc. For example, if a certain scientist consistently comes up with great ideas that benefit humanity, then he is eligible, and you find all of the eligible scientists and then have them cast a vote to who should be their authority (within the eligible group), as they know their trade and can judge each other better than laymen. A subsystem for all major problems could be done this way. It's not that hard, I came up with this in 7 seconds, It's just that people give up on change before entertaining the idea.

What most people don't realize is politics these days isn't about what's best for the world or for the people - it's a contest to lie to the people to get in office, get your ego stroked, your pockets full, corrupt society, and get on TV. The free market was a great idea, but like all great ideas, left unrestricted it has flaws - the current one is that greed (which is selfishness in the negative form) is more prevalent than empathy (selfishness in the positive form). In order to shift forms third-party restrictions must be put in place, on politics and large businesses.
Post Reply