4 ms·

this thought process is pure brainwashing by the left

fsloth 10y ago
Why is wishing for a world where it would be better to help eradicate suffering rather than work to accumulate imaginary play chips bad?
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  Because that idea is a fantasy, it has never come to fruition and never will. Progress is made through real incentives. Wouldnt it be nice if nobody stole from eachother? Sounds great doesnt it? Then why doesnt it happen? The play chips are not imaginary, the rich have better lives in almost all aspects.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    You are confusing philosophising about a better way to live with knowledge of empirical results in politics and economy. I know very well communism as such does not work, and that at our current stage of development we need prices and markets for resource optimization. And laws and judicial systems and so on. But. The play chips are imaginary. We play by the rules due to convention, not due to a law of nature. The rich are better off not because only a marginal percent of population can be better off, but because how the current economic system stochastically distributes the captured value from various economic processes. Their main happiness comes not from being "better" than anybody else, but because their resources enable them to avoid the lower rungs of maslow's hierarchy of needs and focus on self actualization. Society can change. Anything else is misogynic fantasy. USA was born out of hate of kings and aristocracy and the taxes imposed thereof, of the hate of existing status quo of hereditary benefits and cronyism of state power. Sure, it was not better for a large category of population, but it was a society designed, that functioned differently than anything else before it, and remains functioning to this day. It was born into a world where anything else but a strong monarchy was a whimsical daydream. Change happens. There is no reason to accept status quo if it seems unsavory. One must remain a realist and a humanist while one is at it. Saying "nothing but the current system is possible" is delusional denial of empirically proven changes societies and economic systems can go through.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      I hate to bust yer bubble :) , but the Founders were largely deeply indebted aristocrats who felt mostly a slight to their honor. That is largely why the Revolution happened. The British Empire continued into the "sun never sets" level. The effects of the British Empire on the colonies has been a mixture of good and bad. They thought about it hard, in a John Stuart Mill way about it. They were often wrong, many were horrifyingly venal about the colonies and it all ended soon enough. The fundamental problem is that the ability of people to be terrible is a real challenge to counter. It's simply not easy. And the classic Conservative trope is that we really don't know how we got here in a comprehensive fashion. We live in an utterly amazing time. I'd also dump Maslow soon. There's too much hubris amongst the rich and powerful for it to work well.
      - fsloth 10y ago
        "I hate to bust yer bubble :) , but the Founders were largely deeply indebted aristocrats who felt mostly a slight to their honor. That is largely why the Revolution happened." Sorry, I was a bit hyperbolic. I did not claim the founding fathers were anything but what you say. From historical perspective, what they achieved, was an exceptionally good outcome. Namely - they created a new system of government that did not degenarate into a dictatorship despite the tumultuous beginnings and enormous popular and military support for some of it's leaders (e.g. Washington). My purpose was to point out that designed changes on how a society operates can be implemented and the change can be implemented in good form. The USA was perhaps a bit too extreme example, as there are many others, less radical as well. "I'd also dump Maslow soon. There's too much hubris amongst the rich and powerful for it to work well." I've found the hierarchy of needs a fantastic model in simplicity and power in exploring human condition. What specifically is wrong with it?
        ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        I am flatly skeptical that changes of that scale can be designed at all. We in the US enjoy many institutions which took decades to mature to any use. It takes dedicated bureaucrats decades to fine tune such things. And most simply don't make it. Example: there was much meddling in the 1930s with farm production. It took until the 1970s before the modern version of farm subsidy latched in - call it 4 decades. ( See the film "King Corn" for an excellent treatise) I've just never been able to use Maslow to make predictions. It just doesn't explain things like poets at all. People who "move up the Maslow hierarchy" often become duller and duller - all the weight of maintaining that drags em down. I've known too many people who didn't know where their next meal was coming from, and for some of them, that was a sort of freedom. I think the magic of the Founders was all the shuffling off to The Colonies of all the malcontents and radicals, in a time when that produced favorable results. You'd get more current theory at Harvard than at King's College.
- whateveracct 10y ago
  Wishing for unrealistic fantasy to become reality is just that, unrealistic. Anecdote: Many of my high school friends and peers went on to pursue medicine. I pursued engineering. Multiple times I was asked by these people, "You're smart so why aren't you spending your life making a difference?" Your comment and its ilk remind me of that question.
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    I don't think increased R&D funding should be qualified as an "unrealistic fantasy".
  - nonbel 10y ago
    I got into medical research because I wanted to help people. I left because (in my assessment) that is not what is going on at all. I would tell your friends to take a closer look at what they are doing to people and how they are assessing help vs damage. Basically, this projection came true: "We are quite in danger of sending highly trained and highly intelligent young men out into the world with tables of erroneous numbers under their arms, and with a dense fog in the place where their brains ought to be. In this century, of course, they will be working on guided missiles and advising the medical profession on the control of disease, and there is no limit to the extent to which they could impede every sort of national effort." Fisher, R N (1958). "The Nature of Probability". Centennial Review. 2: 261–274
  - fsloth 10y ago
    I asked why is whishing for a world with different economic incentives bad. Economic incentives are malleable. That's what economic planning does. Your friends were delusional. In the world, there is a pool of change agents driven by intrinsic drive, and some of them can make an actual difference, but I don't think there is any way to choose becoming the specific agent who matters - rather, one can only join the pool and do ones best. As you describe it, your friends thought they asked why you don't want to be the change agent who matters (which is a non-sequitur). They could have asked why you don't want to jump into the pool and dedicate several years of your life to a possible dead end career (which they probably didn't ask). I asked why it's bad to whish for different economic environment for those in the pool. I may have misinterpreted the discussion before my comment, though. The crapton of data is produced and relied on because of broken philosophy of system. That could be changed as well (I don't know how).
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  The best ( biggest impact ) ways in which human suffering has been relieved have largely been A Whole Lot about people accumulating imaginary play chips. An example - Alexander Fleming and penicillin - getting penicillin to large scale production and to market was a huge task. Most things are like that.
  - fsloth 10y ago
    Yes - as I stated in another comment we need prices and markets for resource optimization. The comment to which I replied chaffed at thinking there could be any other system than what there currently is. To me this is a dangerously rigid way to view the human life. Everything should be questioned, if only to find answers.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      "Other systems" have had a very dismal track record so far. we're down to the gap between what people say and what they do in our system. That's a profound problem. We're limited now by artifacts of human cognition.
      - fsloth 10y ago
        "Other systems" have had a very dismal track record so far. Yes, historically we are doing pretty good. This proves sometimes changes in systems improve things. This is why questions that generally lead peoples to think of other systems should be approached with kind questioning and inquiry rather than scoffing them as rubbish off-hand - we should amswer why they often are impossible. "That's a profound problem. We're limited now by artifacts of human cognition." Yes, this is a very good summary of the other half of the problem. The other is figuring a dynamical model of the economy (which might or might not be impossible).

Why is wishing for a world where it would be better to help eradicate suffering rather than work to accumulate imaginary play chips bad?

whenwillitstop 10y ago
Because that idea is a fantasy, it has never come to fruition and never will. Progress is made through real incentives. Wouldnt it be nice if nobody stole from eachother? Sounds great doesnt it? Then why doesnt it happen? The play chips are not imaginary, the rich have better lives in almost all aspects.
- fsloth 10y ago
  You are confusing philosophising about a better way to live with knowledge of empirical results in politics and economy. I know very well communism as such does not work, and that at our current stage of development we need prices and markets for resource optimization. And laws and judicial systems and so on. But. The play chips are imaginary. We play by the rules due to convention, not due to a law of nature. The rich are better off not because only a marginal percent of population can be better off, but because how the current economic system stochastically distributes the captured value from various economic processes. Their main happiness comes not from being "better" than anybody else, but because their resources enable them to avoid the lower rungs of maslow's hierarchy of needs and focus on self actualization. Society can change. Anything else is misogynic fantasy. USA was born out of hate of kings and aristocracy and the taxes imposed thereof, of the hate of existing status quo of hereditary benefits and cronyism of state power. Sure, it was not better for a large category of population, but it was a society designed, that functioned differently than anything else before it, and remains functioning to this day. It was born into a world where anything else but a strong monarchy was a whimsical daydream. Change happens. There is no reason to accept status quo if it seems unsavory. One must remain a realist and a humanist while one is at it. Saying "nothing but the current system is possible" is delusional denial of empirically proven changes societies and economic systems can go through.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    I hate to bust yer bubble :) , but the Founders were largely deeply indebted aristocrats who felt mostly a slight to their honor. That is largely why the Revolution happened. The British Empire continued into the "sun never sets" level. The effects of the British Empire on the colonies has been a mixture of good and bad. They thought about it hard, in a John Stuart Mill way about it. They were often wrong, many were horrifyingly venal about the colonies and it all ended soon enough. The fundamental problem is that the ability of people to be terrible is a real challenge to counter. It's simply not easy. And the classic Conservative trope is that we really don't know how we got here in a comprehensive fashion. We live in an utterly amazing time. I'd also dump Maslow soon. There's too much hubris amongst the rich and powerful for it to work well.
    - fsloth 10y ago
      "I hate to bust yer bubble :) , but the Founders were largely deeply indebted aristocrats who felt mostly a slight to their honor. That is largely why the Revolution happened." Sorry, I was a bit hyperbolic. I did not claim the founding fathers were anything but what you say. From historical perspective, what they achieved, was an exceptionally good outcome. Namely - they created a new system of government that did not degenarate into a dictatorship despite the tumultuous beginnings and enormous popular and military support for some of it's leaders (e.g. Washington). My purpose was to point out that designed changes on how a society operates can be implemented and the change can be implemented in good form. The USA was perhaps a bit too extreme example, as there are many others, less radical as well. "I'd also dump Maslow soon. There's too much hubris amongst the rich and powerful for it to work well." I've found the hierarchy of needs a fantastic model in simplicity and power in exploring human condition. What specifically is wrong with it?
      - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
        I am flatly skeptical that changes of that scale can be designed at all. We in the US enjoy many institutions which took decades to mature to any use. It takes dedicated bureaucrats decades to fine tune such things. And most simply don't make it. Example: there was much meddling in the 1930s with farm production. It took until the 1970s before the modern version of farm subsidy latched in - call it 4 decades. ( See the film "King Corn" for an excellent treatise) I've just never been able to use Maslow to make predictions. It just doesn't explain things like poets at all. People who "move up the Maslow hierarchy" often become duller and duller - all the weight of maintaining that drags em down. I've known too many people who didn't know where their next meal was coming from, and for some of them, that was a sort of freedom. I think the magic of the Founders was all the shuffling off to The Colonies of all the malcontents and radicals, in a time when that produced favorable results. You'd get more current theory at Harvard than at King's College.
whateveracct 10y ago
Wishing for unrealistic fantasy to become reality is just that, unrealistic. Anecdote: Many of my high school friends and peers went on to pursue medicine. I pursued engineering. Multiple times I was asked by these people, "You're smart so why aren't you spending your life making a difference?" Your comment and its ilk remind me of that question.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  I don't think increased R&D funding should be qualified as an "unrealistic fantasy".
- nonbel 10y ago
  I got into medical research because I wanted to help people. I left because (in my assessment) that is not what is going on at all. I would tell your friends to take a closer look at what they are doing to people and how they are assessing help vs damage. Basically, this projection came true: "We are quite in danger of sending highly trained and highly intelligent young men out into the world with tables of erroneous numbers under their arms, and with a dense fog in the place where their brains ought to be. In this century, of course, they will be working on guided missiles and advising the medical profession on the control of disease, and there is no limit to the extent to which they could impede every sort of national effort." Fisher, R N (1958). "The Nature of Probability". Centennial Review. 2: 261–274
- fsloth 10y ago
  I asked why is whishing for a world with different economic incentives bad. Economic incentives are malleable. That's what economic planning does. Your friends were delusional. In the world, there is a pool of change agents driven by intrinsic drive, and some of them can make an actual difference, but I don't think there is any way to choose becoming the specific agent who matters - rather, one can only join the pool and do ones best. As you describe it, your friends thought they asked why you don't want to be the change agent who matters (which is a non-sequitur). They could have asked why you don't want to jump into the pool and dedicate several years of your life to a possible dead end career (which they probably didn't ask). I asked why it's bad to whish for different economic environment for those in the pool. I may have misinterpreted the discussion before my comment, though. The crapton of data is produced and relied on because of broken philosophy of system. That could be changed as well (I don't know how).
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
The best ( biggest impact ) ways in which human suffering has been relieved have largely been A Whole Lot about people accumulating imaginary play chips. An example - Alexander Fleming and penicillin - getting penicillin to large scale production and to market was a huge task. Most things are like that.
- fsloth 10y ago
  Yes - as I stated in another comment we need prices and markets for resource optimization. The comment to which I replied chaffed at thinking there could be any other system than what there currently is. To me this is a dangerously rigid way to view the human life. Everything should be questioned, if only to find answers.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    "Other systems" have had a very dismal track record so far. we're down to the gap between what people say and what they do in our system. That's a profound problem. We're limited now by artifacts of human cognition.
    - fsloth 10y ago
      "Other systems" have had a very dismal track record so far. Yes, historically we are doing pretty good. This proves sometimes changes in systems improve things. This is why questions that generally lead peoples to think of other systems should be approached with kind questioning and inquiry rather than scoffing them as rubbish off-hand - we should amswer why they often are impossible. "That's a profound problem. We're limited now by artifacts of human cognition." Yes, this is a very good summary of the other half of the problem. The other is figuring a dynamical model of the economy (which might or might not be impossible).