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What is the net social negative then? How do we know, given that counterfactuals are not readily available. What philosophy (in a broader sense) should people f
by RandomLensman 3y ago
What is the net social negative then? How do we know, given that counterfactuals are not readily available. What philosophy (in a broader sense) should people follow? Do we want forever a society where people need to do "shitty jobs", for example, to satisfy some philosophical need for "suffering"?
- rayiner 3y agoYou’re right, we don’t have any easy counterfactual. But we can draw inferences from observations and conduct thought experiments. If we dropped some people from San Francisco off in the hostile desert of Utah, would they be able to create thriving cities like the Mormons did? If we dropped them off in the frigid plains of Illinois, would they be able to create Chicago? If you dropped them off in the mudflats of Singapore, would they be able to turn it into the modern and wealthy city it is today?
- RandomLensman 3y agoNot sure why building cities in the Utah desert matters today. The question is much broader, I think: without some of the 1960s hedonism, would we have had some of effects of counterculture that manifested in tech? Would we have had more wars like Vietnam? How would society look like? You can, of course, say you want a different society - but that is a different take, really.
- rayiner 3y agoI come from a poor country. I want people back home to act like the Mormons, not like people in San Francisco. And America exports its culture all around the world. Moreover, I don’t think a hedonistic, individualistic culture is prepared to tackle the challenges we face (like climate change) nor to take society to the next level.
- FredPret 3y agoI also came from a poor country that could use a big dose of Protestant work ethic. If you have $0, getting an extra million is the biggest of deals for your happiness. But once you are rich and you’ve got snowballing wealth, maybe a change of perspective is in order. You won’t find as much meaning in going from $5m to $10m as in 0-$1m for example. Not that laziness is the answer, but you need a new motivating principle.
- RandomLensman 3y agoThe 20th century had some large-scale "experiments" with non-individualistic society models - they were not pretty.
- anovikov 3y agoSignapore is a terribly bad example. It's geography meant it was a ready source of money. Barring an absolutely terrible level of mismanagement, or chronic worldwide economic depression, there was no way it won't become rich.
- rayiner 3y agoThere’s nothing magic about the geography of Singapore, which is self-evident from a map. Singapore was poorer than Malaysia when the two countries split. The notion that the economic fate of countries is outside their control is incredibly pernicious. Britain went from being a backwater that was almost a millennium late to the Bronze Age to the greatest empire in the world.