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As a human, you needn't be culpable for offenses perpetrated by others regardless of their relation to you. If you belong to principles and help the people to f

by rabbyte 12y ago

As a human, you needn't be culpable for offenses perpetrated by others regardless of their relation to you. If you belong to principles and help the people to foster them, your only shame will be from your own failures; a shame you can actually do something about. I'm a proud American but it doesn't mean what people think it means.

Tepix 12y ago
Shouldn't it work both ways then? If you're not culpable for offenses, why are you proud of achievments that you have nothing to do with?
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  Jingoism.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    Hardly. Countries inculcate values, educate people on the public dime, support R&D, etc. People should be proud when those policies bear fruit. E.g. Sergei Brin's family emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, because of Soviet discrimination against Jews. E.g. they were graded harder on university entrance exams, or given tougher exams altogether. He went to public high school and college, and went to graduate school at Stanford on a National Science Foundation fellowship. And Stanford, as an institution, heavily benefits from public spending on research. So why shouldn't Americans take a little credit for Brin's success?
    - murbard2 12y ago
      Because they overwhelmingly had nothing to do with it.
      - rayiner 12y ago
        If Brin had stayed in Russia, it's almost certain he would not have founded Google. Some American, on the other hand, likely would have.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        You intuitively know that's probably false. You would have no trouble sketching a ranked list of countries more and less likely to produce Google. You would be shocked to see Google emerge from Burma. You would be surprised to see the world's powerhouse search engine emerge from Greece, Spain, or Italy. Even among the top-tier countries, if you had to put money on it, you'd need an extremely good payoff to bet on anyone but the US. If the US has "overwhelmingly nothing to do" with the success of Google, you have to believe Brin could have moved to Greece, or even Burma, and successfully built that company. Most of us probably don't even believe he could have succeeded in Germany, or the Netherlands. Even if you stipulate away all the extrinsic network-effects stuff --- ie, stipulate he'd have gotten funded despite parking his company in Greece --- you would not place the same bet for his hypothetical attempt to buid Google in Greece.
        murbard2 12y ago
        You're completely missing the point. The message I'm responding to says: "So why shouldn't Americans take a little credit for Brin's success?" I'm not saying that living in America had nothing to do with it, it obviously did. I'm saying that the overwhelming majority of Americans had nothing to do with it, ergo being proud to be American is, in general, about as warranted as being proud that your favorite team won a tournament. If you're a founding father, fought in the revolutionary war, influenced legislation in a historically significant ways, or did something of the sort, you may have a claim to be "proud", otherwise, you're a spectator, just like most people.
        tptacek 12y ago
        I'm not sure I can get my head around a debt owed to America the country that is not implicitly therefore owed to the American people. Teachers taught at schools that produced the professionals that built Google. Engineers designed the roads that workers built. I could just go on and on listing this stuff. Google benefited from an infrastructure built by all Americans. I think there's an element of the narrative fallacy implicated in the idea that the historical figures have a cause to be proud of American achievements, but ordinary people don't. Ordinary people are instrumental in everything achieved by those historical figures. The contributions of historical figures are immediately available to our consideration, because our stories revolve around them. Availability is usually a pernicious bias rather than a helpful signal. later: it's also worth considering whether the fallacy might be in our concept of "pride", and who "deserves" "pride". There are practical reasons to attribute American successes to America; it reinforces them, motivates us to continue doing what works. There are fewer practical reasons to accord accolades to historical figures.
  - rabbyte 12y ago
    My pride is not restricted to my birth nation, nor is it manufactured by state media.
- rabbyte 12y ago
  Who said I was proud of achievements? I'm proud of my associations for a number of reasons, all by my own choosing, which is consistent with the aggressions I choose to have nothing to do with.
rplnt 12y ago
> you needn't be culpable for offenses perpetrated by others regardless of their relation to you. Unless they are your children and you brought them up. Then there's some justification in your feelings.
- rabbyte 12y ago
  I would consider neglecting to parent a child an offense. If you did not commit that offense then I would say you still have the right to disassociate yourself from your child's offenses, as sad as that really is. I would probably still choose to own them.

by rabbyte 12y ago

Tepix 12y ago

Shouldn't it work both ways then? If you're not culpable for offenses, why are you proud of achievments that you have nothing to do with?

madaxe_again 12y ago
Jingoism.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Hardly. Countries inculcate values, educate people on the public dime, support R&D, etc. People should be proud when those policies bear fruit. E.g. Sergei Brin's family emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, because of Soviet discrimination against Jews. E.g. they were graded harder on university entrance exams, or given tougher exams altogether. He went to public high school and college, and went to graduate school at Stanford on a National Science Foundation fellowship. And Stanford, as an institution, heavily benefits from public spending on research. So why shouldn't Americans take a little credit for Brin's success?
  - murbard2 12y ago
    Because they overwhelmingly had nothing to do with it.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      If Brin had stayed in Russia, it's almost certain he would not have founded Google. Some American, on the other hand, likely would have.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      You intuitively know that's probably false. You would have no trouble sketching a ranked list of countries more and less likely to produce Google. You would be shocked to see Google emerge from Burma. You would be surprised to see the world's powerhouse search engine emerge from Greece, Spain, or Italy. Even among the top-tier countries, if you had to put money on it, you'd need an extremely good payoff to bet on anyone but the US. If the US has "overwhelmingly nothing to do" with the success of Google, you have to believe Brin could have moved to Greece, or even Burma, and successfully built that company. Most of us probably don't even believe he could have succeeded in Germany, or the Netherlands. Even if you stipulate away all the extrinsic network-effects stuff --- ie, stipulate he'd have gotten funded despite parking his company in Greece --- you would not place the same bet for his hypothetical attempt to buid Google in Greece.
      - murbard2 12y ago
        You're completely missing the point. The message I'm responding to says: "So why shouldn't Americans take a little credit for Brin's success?" I'm not saying that living in America had nothing to do with it, it obviously did. I'm saying that the overwhelming majority of Americans had nothing to do with it, ergo being proud to be American is, in general, about as warranted as being proud that your favorite team won a tournament. If you're a founding father, fought in the revolutionary war, influenced legislation in a historically significant ways, or did something of the sort, you may have a claim to be "proud", otherwise, you're a spectator, just like most people.
        tptacek 12y ago
        I'm not sure I can get my head around a debt owed to America the country that is not implicitly therefore owed to the American people. Teachers taught at schools that produced the professionals that built Google. Engineers designed the roads that workers built. I could just go on and on listing this stuff. Google benefited from an infrastructure built by all Americans. I think there's an element of the narrative fallacy implicated in the idea that the historical figures have a cause to be proud of American achievements, but ordinary people don't. Ordinary people are instrumental in everything achieved by those historical figures. The contributions of historical figures are immediately available to our consideration, because our stories revolve around them. Availability is usually a pernicious bias rather than a helpful signal. later: it's also worth considering whether the fallacy might be in our concept of "pride", and who "deserves" "pride". There are practical reasons to attribute American successes to America; it reinforces them, motivates us to continue doing what works. There are fewer practical reasons to accord accolades to historical figures.
- rabbyte 12y ago
  My pride is not restricted to my birth nation, nor is it manufactured by state media.
rabbyte 12y ago
Who said I was proud of achievements? I'm proud of my associations for a number of reasons, all by my own choosing, which is consistent with the aggressions I choose to have nothing to do with.

rplnt 12y ago

> you needn't be culpable for offenses perpetrated by others regardless of their relation to you. Unless they are your children and you brought them up. Then there's some justification in your feelings.

rabbyte 12y ago
I would consider neglecting to parent a child an offense. If you did not commit that offense then I would say you still have the right to disassociate yourself from your child's offenses, as sad as that really is. I would probably still choose to own them.