3 ms·

One of my favorite quotes: > "I was in the Air Force a while, and they had what they call 'policing the area,' and I think that’s a pretty good thing to go by.

One of my favorite quotes: > "I was in the Air Force a while, and they had what they call 'policing the area,' and I think that’s a pretty good thing to go by. If everyone just takes care of their own area, then we won’t have any problems. Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. And look around you, and see what needs to be changed." -Willie Nelson

elcritch 2y ago
Reminds me of another one: > To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right. Confucius, The Great Learning
socalgal2 2y ago
Isn't this also the tragedy of the commons problem though? It only takes a few bad actors to not take care of their own area and over time, those that are doing extra to make up for them eventually feel like they're being taken advantage of. I feel like in Japan it works because the culture adds enough social pressure that those not doing their part fall in line - or something. I don't think most western culture has that social pressure any more nor do I expect it can by added back
- titzer 2y ago
  The only thing that changes behavior is consequences. Thus fines and a functioning justice system are born. Somehow shame doesn't work anymore.
  - ziml77 2y ago
    I think shame fails to work when people can broadcast online a version of events that makes them look like the victim and get tons of people backing them up.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    > Somehow shame doesn't work anymore. We don't need to wonder. Shame as a mechanism only works in social contexts that feature a high degree of social dependency. In olden days, if all your neighbors hated you to the point of dissociating with you, that could be tantamount to a death sentence (who's going to share food with you when your harvest fails or take care of you when your household falls ill?); that's a society with high social dependency. For better or worse, modern society is built on abstracting away this dependency. (It's the same thing that explains declining church attendance: a church is a social organization, but nowadays if you need to find a spouse you ask a dating app instead of your congregation, and then when you need marriage counseling you ask a professional marriage counselor instead of your priest, etc. Economic transactions have replaced social dependency.)
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      >Economic transactions have replaced social dependency. The flipside of this is that a lot of situations have improved. You can divorce your abusive spouse now instead of your priest telling you to just accept the abuse because god wills it. Everyone whining about the downfall of society seems to forget that it didn't actually work for everyone before.
      - kibwen 2y ago
        > Everyone whining about the downfall of society seems to forget that it didn't actually work for everyone before. I'm not presenting this as either a good thing or a bad thing, only pointing out that the mechanisms by which people ensure social adherence have changed. And yes, that's "changed", and not "gone away". For all the things the cryptobros got wrong, they did accurately identify that, in a transactional society, the only thing required to exclude someone from society is to take away their ability to perform financial transactions.
- em-bee 2y ago
  it's not that bad. japan may be the one extreme and the US the other, europe is somewhere in the middle on a sliding scale towards the US. the broken windows theory fits here. to use the analogy, if a window is broken in japan someone would go fix it unprompted. europe mostly manages to keep broken windows in check. and in the US broken windows have gotten out of hand. the better alternative to social pressure is building community. social pressure means that you are forced to conform because everyone you interact with expects you to. community means that everyone you interact with is your friend.
xeonmc 2y ago
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” — Gandalf
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

elcritch 2y ago

Reminds me of another one: > To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order; we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right. Confucius, The Great Learning

socalgal2 2y ago

Isn't this also the tragedy of the commons problem though? It only takes a few bad actors to not take care of their own area and over time, those that are doing extra to make up for them eventually feel like they're being taken advantage of. I feel like in Japan it works because the culture adds enough social pressure that those not doing their part fall in line - or something. I don't think most western culture has that social pressure any more nor do I expect it can by added back

titzer 2y ago
The only thing that changes behavior is consequences. Thus fines and a functioning justice system are born. Somehow shame doesn't work anymore.
- ziml77 2y ago
  I think shame fails to work when people can broadcast online a version of events that makes them look like the victim and get tons of people backing them up.
- kibwen 2y ago
  > Somehow shame doesn't work anymore. We don't need to wonder. Shame as a mechanism only works in social contexts that feature a high degree of social dependency. In olden days, if all your neighbors hated you to the point of dissociating with you, that could be tantamount to a death sentence (who's going to share food with you when your harvest fails or take care of you when your household falls ill?); that's a society with high social dependency. For better or worse, modern society is built on abstracting away this dependency. (It's the same thing that explains declining church attendance: a church is a social organization, but nowadays if you need to find a spouse you ask a dating app instead of your congregation, and then when you need marriage counseling you ask a professional marriage counselor instead of your priest, etc. Economic transactions have replaced social dependency.)
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >Economic transactions have replaced social dependency. The flipside of this is that a lot of situations have improved. You can divorce your abusive spouse now instead of your priest telling you to just accept the abuse because god wills it. Everyone whining about the downfall of society seems to forget that it didn't actually work for everyone before.
    - kibwen 2y ago
      > Everyone whining about the downfall of society seems to forget that it didn't actually work for everyone before. I'm not presenting this as either a good thing or a bad thing, only pointing out that the mechanisms by which people ensure social adherence have changed. And yes, that's "changed", and not "gone away". For all the things the cryptobros got wrong, they did accurately identify that, in a transactional society, the only thing required to exclude someone from society is to take away their ability to perform financial transactions.
em-bee 2y ago
it's not that bad. japan may be the one extreme and the US the other, europe is somewhere in the middle on a sliding scale towards the US. the broken windows theory fits here. to use the analogy, if a window is broken in japan someone would go fix it unprompted. europe mostly manages to keep broken windows in check. and in the US broken windows have gotten out of hand. the better alternative to social pressure is building community. social pressure means that you are forced to conform because everyone you interact with expects you to. community means that everyone you interact with is your friend.

xeonmc 2y ago

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” — Gandalf

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]