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Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at tr

• Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  The question was whether they would be able to operate in a society. We did not discuss nor touch whether they suffer or not.
  • oldsklgdfth 7y ago
    I would like to think that a hyper-rational would opt out of society in general. Not relying on the conventional ways of sustenance that we are accustomed to. One example of this is the survivalist, that lives in nature. One could start incrementally moving towards minimalism, acquiring the training and skills to farm and hurt animals and finally step outside of organized society. This is something I have been thinking about lately. To what extent is technological progress and economic growth truly useful?
    • heavenlyblue 7y ago
      The progress is useless unless you get a serious tooth infection or a cancer and then you’ll die in vain alone in the forest.
    • pcstl 7y ago
      Spoken like a true resident of the First World. When progress is so ubiquitous in your environment that it becomes invisible, it's easy to forget that people die of easily treatable diseases in places that don't have so much "technological progress", that people still starve because of a lack of "economic growth", and so on and so forth.
      • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Actually not so much any more. So-called third world countries have moved decisively in the first-world direction for a century. Of course there's still rationed health care and narrow food choices. But easily-treatable diseases? Starvation? More rare by the year.
        • pcstl 7y ago
          And that's exactly my point. We are making actual progress, we are changing people's lives for the better, but if you live in the first world, you won't feel that, as most of the Big Issues of human life have already been solved. The first world is currently struggling with Big Issues that are a level above that, such as global warming, which the average person doesn't feel impact their life so directly. That is why technological progress and economic growth matter.
          • oldsklgdfth 7y ago
            I would argue that the struggles you mention, i.e. starvation and disease, are more prevalent as a result of industrial development. Large scale starvation is a result of centralized farming and disease stem for population density. Small scale tribes don't face these issues chronically, they either overcome them or they don't. I would also argue that specifically global warming is a direct consequence of technological progress and the industrialization of society. Human pollution would not be a problem is it weren't for materialism. Technology provides comfort, as some expense. Either reliance on a central supply for food, water, electricity. Or in the form of pollution and exploitation of other humans. In your opinion what is the ultimate value of colonizing mars for example? edit: I am also from a "developing" country where the struggle is clearly visible.
        • pcstl 7y ago
          Also, please do not condescend to me by saying stuff like "so-called third world countries". I live in a third world country and I will call third world countries what they are. People suffer here under corrupt kleptocrats every day, and I will not have people try to deny that suffering by saying stuff like "so called third world countries", implying that the "third world" is actually doing great or something.
    • Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      > To what extent is technological progress and economic growth truly useful? To me it is very useful and I truly believe that we live in the best possible time, even if you consider the people that have poorest lifestyle (and especially the number of people that are forced to live that lifestyle, which has decreased a lot). Maybe you will think otherwise? Possibly, but before you decide, please go and actually do it first, live outside the society and not using any of the technology provided by it. It is very easy to discuss how easy it would be and how much saner you would be without the western developments when you don't have to worry about a small cut infecting your blood, dying from a plague, spending days constructing the simplest of tools, fending off bears or simply living through a year with very dry summer which destroyed your food supply.
      • salawat 7y ago
        I've actually attempted small slices of this. The work isn't necessarily the difficult part, but the baggage to continue to exist and be recognized by the rest of the system is where things go awry. Seeing as there is astonishingly low pressure to actually keep prices low, you have a maximization function in place that ends up ensuring that you're either having to maximize for capital influx to equip yourself for maximal time efficiency, or you end up having to condition yourself to be able to physically do the work, which tends to cost a great deal of time and regular personal upkeep. Mind, this has just been forays into agriculture and basic manufacturing (blacksmithing/rudimentary fabrication). All of this dive has also been done in an environment where most are content to live and let live. So the random interloper deciding to flex muscle to subduct your aspirations to self-sustainability are not a factor; and raw material processing has not hit the top of my research pile yet. While everything is in reach, efficiency while doing it is always the most hard won fight to win. On the other hand, you also learn a few warts of the system by doing this type of work as well. Our current society has become incredibly transaction-centric instead of people-community centric. When trivial transportation costs have effectively globalised the world, your ability to forge effective self-sustaining in groups outside the fiscal sense suffers. I believe this may be a contributing factor to the recent resurgence of nationalistic tendencies. As every member of the market has begun to realize how tightly coupled everything has become, there is a desire to cut out the additional complexity and figure out a way to keep the in-group/culture sustainable regardless of fiscal outcomes. Furthermore, technological advancement inevitably introduces higher severity and complexity problems, as well as extending the physical implications of addressing those very problems. Take the increasing prevalence of ant-biotic/fungal resistant bacteria/fungi as an example, or the consequences of climate change fueled by shifts in our atmospheric composition and biosphere depletion. It's not at all a trivial matter, and when your technological carrying capacity is mated with a positive feedback loop, (drive to procreate/attain more wealth) you have a recipe for change that won't be denied. The only thing people seem to be selectively blind to is The bits and pieces they are willing to accept as being caused by technological progress, and whether or not they can/should be remedied.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• meshenna 7y ago
  Isn't that just run-of-the-mill stoicism?
  • majewsky 7y ago
    Sounds more like Buddhism to me ("all existence is suffering" and so on). Stoicism has you recognize that (to simplify dramatically) you cannot change other people, only yourself. Stoicism consequently places a large emphasis on getting your mind and body in order, so it probably would not argue for allowing yourself to starve.
    • meshenna 7y ago
      Yeah, I suppose... The post I was replying to just sounded to me a lot like something Epictetus could've said. As in, you shouldn't mind starving if you can't help it. Now that I think about it, my memory of Epictetus seems to be really hazy, so I probably shouldn't try to discuss stoicism without doing some re-reading and thinking first.