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This article, and it's sentiment, reminds me a lot of the very current "zero waste" movement. Bear with me ... When you are sufficiently detached from every m
by rsync 7y ago
This article, and it's sentiment, reminds me a lot of the very current "zero waste" movement.
Bear with me ...
When you are sufficiently detached from every mode of production and delivery and generation (like growing food, or building houses or working in the back of a kitchen) then it's very easy to look around your (modern, remodeled, beautifully appointed, first world) kitchen and ... stop buying plastic baggies or only use reusable containers, etc.[1]
But in reality, several levels below your level of life and consumption, an enormous amount of waste is being produced just to maintain the very modern life you lead. It's really not that interesting or impactful that you cut out most of the 1% that you actually touch inside the walls of your house.
This article sounds like the same kind of self-delusion ...
After violently conquering a continent, enslaving or killing or (otherwise subjugating) the indigenous population, and maintaining a political and economic lock on more than half the world (through direct and indirect warfare, economic colonization, and otherwise), the author, who holds an equal share with all of us on whose behalf this was done, opines (possibly from that same kind of kitchen) that he can't think of any use for power over others.
In reality, an enormous amount of power and violence has been, and continues to be, wielded on the author's behalf. It's really not that interesting or impactful that he doesn't want to "boss other people around".
[1] All very positive actions and not to be impeached.
- RyanAF7 7y agoAgreed. Privilege provides the opportunity to opine disdain for that which elevated you in the first place.
- josalhor 7y agoThis was an incredibly well written anology. Every time I'be tried to explain this concept I struggled to share the 'many levels under you' kind of idea that we (developers) get when we talk about abstractions.
- wetpaws 7y agoI don't see a problem with it. Even if you can't contribute much it's still better than not contributing anything.
- giantsloth 7y agoIt’s problematic, because it’s reinforcing a particular worldview and ideology and it’s giving the reader a vocabulary that continues the status quo of American supremacy and American hegemony. If your small contribution is allowing you to delude yourself into think that it’s enough to ever have a cumulative effect for the positive, then that contribution is still an engine for the negative outcomes of the status quo.
- theturtletalks 7y agoI remember my friend arguing with my other friend that he is not responsible for what the US does as far as intervening in other countries' affairs. My friend clapped back and said are you not reaping the rewards of cheap oil and low-cost labor?
- joe_the_user 7y agoI think any chain of moral responsibility breaks down when you go to a scale like this. Is homeless person who still eats because of someone else's brutal exploitation elsewhere "reaping rewards". Whether one is guilty or not for mass scale evil in the world becomes extraordinarily hard to calculate - and moreover, pointless to calculate and serves only as empty accusation fodder on social media. Basically, everyone, regardless of guilty, ought to be working to make the world a better place, probably a different place. How to do that is another post - or "an exercise left to the reader".
- theturtletalks 7y agoI don’t think reaping rewards equals guilt. It just means that regardless of you wanting the rewards, you will get them. I’m not trying to say that people who have problems can’t complain since someone will always have it worse.
- cam_l 7y ago>chain of moral responsibility This sounds like an issue with the limitations of the philosophical framework of cause and effect, which breaks down in complex systems. Also your comment on applying a process oriented solution, which is also the key difference between responsibility and blame that the op referred to. Responsibility is process, or action, oriented. Blame tries to invert that process. There was an interesting discussion posted on HN the other day where rodney broke was suggesting the programming paradigm of cause and effect, of discrete input and output, was limiting. Can't help but to see a link between these ideas, however disparate they might be.
- selestify 7y ago
- avip 7y agoThat's troce true, thoughtful, and taught me 3 new words as a by-product.
- anbotero 7y agoTruly curious: Which ones?
- braft 7y agoYeah, the author conflates power with ambition which is easy to do while in a peaceful, prosperous society where making just enough to live on doesn't necessarily come with serious downsides. It would be better titled "Ambition is Overrated". I think he's right that ambition is for the most part born from a desire for others' approval/admiration and fear of death. And that attitude/realization can be had in most any circumstance. Regarding the kitchen comments, are those measures very positive and not to be impeached, or are they not that impactful? Or what do you mean by saying both? Also, your first line should read "and its sentiment".
- rsync 7y ago"Regarding the kitchen comments, are those measures very positive and not to be impeached" I don't want people to read this and think I am somehow against reducing waste or being overly critical of people striving to do so. Reducing a single plastic bag or saving .01 kw/hours of electricity are, as I say, very positive and not to be impeached. I am not critisizing reducing waste - I am critisizing a failure to notice that the category of waste that one is reducing is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total that one is responsible for.