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> At no point in my life have I ever wanted to damage someone else or their property for the fun of it Their examples are extreme. I'm not sure if they did it

> At no point in my life have I ever wanted to damage someone else or their property for the fun of it Their examples are extreme. I'm not sure if they did it on purpose. But change it to throwing eggs at people, to baseball batting letter boxes and drink driving going home once or twice from a party and lighting fires for fun, and it'd be considered normal. The point is young men see the value of the prank and the value of risk to them to exceed the damage to random people. It's takes a long time to understand what the value of a letterbox might be to some people, that's very complex knowledge. Or how easily a fire gets out of control, or an egg can blind someone when thrown from a car. The alternative to learning these things is an authoritarian rote learning rules. Free thinking societies have costs, we can try to minimise the costs but we also need to understand that is hard.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
> It's takes a long time to understand what the value of a letterbox might be to some people, that'd very complex knowledge. It’s not as soon as they are forced to earn and pay or work to reinstall one. And I guess I hung around exceptional people, but I didn’t think it takes genius to recognize the value of a life or limb, especially someone else’s. Anyone past toddler years should be able to comprehend that if they don’t want random violence inflicted on them, they shouldn’t do it to others.
- Taek 6y ago
  When you are a teenager you feel invincible and you value life much less. It feels more expendable while also feeling more robust. Have you spent time with kids? They love kicking eachother in the balls well past the age of toddler. Things that seem obvious to adults are not obvious at all to 16 year olds, and often even counterintuitive.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Yes I have, and I remember kicking each other in the balls too. But kicking each other in the balls does not have a high probability of life long or any major injury (as a small child). My original point is still that a twisted nipple or graffiti or egging a house is not in the same class as racing black out drunk and shooting pellets at people on bicycles.
- rhacker 6y ago
  And it's the golden rule. I bet few people even know that.
  - banmeagaindan2 6y ago
    I don't want to snipe but sometimes it's irresistible. The Golden Rule should be abandoned as an ideal. It's a Christian ideal, it's a Western ideal - I support the general effort but I think we've made a mistake. It is the sort of heuristic that works well in a smaller society but does not scale. People treat themselves badly all the time don't they. If they are motivated to do this it puts a big hole in lots of social ideas about how humans work. . The drive to set rules to govern behaviour might be because people are control freaks - or it might be the rules are made by people to moderate their own actions because they correctly believe they can't control them otherwise. A high agency society doesn't need rules - they are developed for low agency societies. This is another version of why political Liberalism seems to be getting unhealthy in the United States and the United Kingdom - the assertion all equal before the law would have better results in a homogeneously high agency society.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      > People treat themselves badly all the time don't they. Are we thinking of the same Golden Rule? In the more archaic form: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It says nothing about how an individual treats himself or herself. It therefore is sensible for both narcissistic and self-loathing individuals. Perhaps the rule is a little odd for masochists, but that's hardly disqualifying as a fraction of the population. > It is the sort of heuristic that works well in a smaller society but does not scale. The scalability is perfect in the version that I know: For everyone with which you personally interact, the overhead is like the amount of time spent with your personal circle. This is fundamentally limited to 24 hours/day of treating people in any way no matter how outgoing the individual. For everyone else, endeavor for universally applicable policies under which you would want to live. Perhaps the breakdown that you are pointing out is that it is difficult to craft Golden-Rule-compliant policies suitable for massive nations posessing many, many unique individuals each with unique needs. I agree there, and I have my own take on how to address it. Largely, my take is how I wish others would address that particular challenge for me (ducks). Now, my policy preferences could be awful in another's eyes. But, no one must agree with my preferences as far as the rule is concerned. > The drive to set rules to govern behaviour might be because people are control freaks. This Golden Rule only acts from within the adherent. It is not enforced directly by any government or culture of which I know. Rather, it is about governing one's self accordingly.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

> It's takes a long time to understand what the value of a letterbox might be to some people, that'd very complex knowledge. It’s not as soon as they are forced to earn and pay or work to reinstall one. And I guess I hung around exceptional people, but I didn’t think it takes genius to recognize the value of a life or limb, especially someone else’s. Anyone past toddler years should be able to comprehend that if they don’t want random violence inflicted on them, they shouldn’t do it to others.

Taek 6y ago
When you are a teenager you feel invincible and you value life much less. It feels more expendable while also feeling more robust. Have you spent time with kids? They love kicking eachother in the balls well past the age of toddler. Things that seem obvious to adults are not obvious at all to 16 year olds, and often even counterintuitive.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Yes I have, and I remember kicking each other in the balls too. But kicking each other in the balls does not have a high probability of life long or any major injury (as a small child). My original point is still that a twisted nipple or graffiti or egging a house is not in the same class as racing black out drunk and shooting pellets at people on bicycles.
rhacker 6y ago
And it's the golden rule. I bet few people even know that.
- banmeagaindan2 6y ago
  I don't want to snipe but sometimes it's irresistible. The Golden Rule should be abandoned as an ideal. It's a Christian ideal, it's a Western ideal - I support the general effort but I think we've made a mistake. It is the sort of heuristic that works well in a smaller society but does not scale. People treat themselves badly all the time don't they. If they are motivated to do this it puts a big hole in lots of social ideas about how humans work. . The drive to set rules to govern behaviour might be because people are control freaks - or it might be the rules are made by people to moderate their own actions because they correctly believe they can't control them otherwise. A high agency society doesn't need rules - they are developed for low agency societies. This is another version of why political Liberalism seems to be getting unhealthy in the United States and the United Kingdom - the assertion all equal before the law would have better results in a homogeneously high agency society.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    > People treat themselves badly all the time don't they. Are we thinking of the same Golden Rule? In the more archaic form: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It says nothing about how an individual treats himself or herself. It therefore is sensible for both narcissistic and self-loathing individuals. Perhaps the rule is a little odd for masochists, but that's hardly disqualifying as a fraction of the population. > It is the sort of heuristic that works well in a smaller society but does not scale. The scalability is perfect in the version that I know: For everyone with which you personally interact, the overhead is like the amount of time spent with your personal circle. This is fundamentally limited to 24 hours/day of treating people in any way no matter how outgoing the individual. For everyone else, endeavor for universally applicable policies under which you would want to live. Perhaps the breakdown that you are pointing out is that it is difficult to craft Golden-Rule-compliant policies suitable for massive nations posessing many, many unique individuals each with unique needs. I agree there, and I have my own take on how to address it. Largely, my take is how I wish others would address that particular challenge for me (ducks). Now, my policy preferences could be awful in another's eyes. But, no one must agree with my preferences as far as the rule is concerned. > The drive to set rules to govern behaviour might be because people are control freaks. This Golden Rule only acts from within the adherent. It is not enforced directly by any government or culture of which I know. Rather, it is about governing one's self accordingly.