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iiioiia t1_itle9pd wrote

Reply to comment by MSGRiley in A Proposal to Price Everything in the Currency of Child Lives Not Saved by phileconomicus

> First, I wonder who you were on Reddit before OCT 2020.

Why? Do you think (just speculating here) that I might be one of those Russian Trolls that I've been hearing so much about? It's certainly possible, that's for sure. And, The Experts have advised us to be on high alert for such goings on. Now I'm not making any accusations here, I'm just saying: it adds up (where "it" is the prospect that I am likely to be a Russian Troll, in that "I" check the necessary boxes, thus it is reasonable to form that conclusion).

> Second, all of Covid is a land war in Asia. It's nearly impossible to comment on the conflict without embroiling yourself in a 5 front war. The problem is that it has been politicized, with Trump pushing for vaccines and Democrats saying that they wouldn't trust them, then switching roles once Biden came to power. Thusly anything you have to say about the vaccines or mandates, pro or con, there's a healthy stockpile of argument and fact that can be used to support your position and it would take forever to unravel that.

Mostly agree, and can't help noticing: isn't it a bit weird? Like, if you were running this show, is the way that it is being run equal to the way that you would run it?

To be clear: I certainly understand that "mistakes happen", especially when things are moving fast - but things weren't moving all that fast before covid ("normal", mostly), and when one realizes there are mistakes/flaws in a system (say, your population is ~dumb, to the point of being highly prone to suggestion), is it not standard convention to address those mistakes? But when you look around, is it not substantially true that there is an absolute truckload of obvious, bi-partisan, non-controversial flaws in our system, and most of them get lip service, at best (if aid to starving children doesn't float your boat (it is rather socialist, to be fair), how about something as simple as single payer medical care, an issue that is both important and is one of those very rare items that has bi-partisan political support, at least among the population of this democracy we live in)? At worst, they get obviously distorted coverage, or not mentioned at all (not to open an ontological can of epistemic worms or anything, just musing). I dunno about you, but I can't shake the feeling that there's maybe something....not-entirely-organic about the whole package.

> Third, the very essence of the discussion was regarding how purchases have a cost in children's lives, so I'm dubious regarding your confusion as to why this is being brought up.

Oh that. Well, I'm of the belief that humanity, particularly "The West", optimizes for numerous(!) variables over and above the happiness of overall humanity. On one hand, this is an extremely unpopular theory, but then on the other hand, I am far from the only person who subscribes to it. In fact, it isn't even all that difficult to find politicians from either party singing the praises of such ideas! And yet, there tends to be not a lot of follow through on these ideas, or even serious, in-depth discussion. It's probably nothing, of course, but it's one of those ideas that sits in the back of the mind and makes you wonder - do know what I am saying, sir?

> Fourth, humans have an amazing ability at storytelling which has served them for both news and entertainment for quite a while.

Indeed - we even get stories in this very subreddit "now and then", often accompanied by an insistence that thinking in stories is the only acceptable approach - and this is a philosophy subreddit!

> Humanity also has the arrogance, imagination, bigotry and creativity to manufacture such irresponsible and damaging lies as to divide the greatest nations on the planet.

Too true, too true.

> And lastly, I'm concerned. That's all. Just concerned.

Well you should be!

I'm curious though: exactly what is it that you are concerned about? And I might as well ask in advance (you know me!): how confident are you that what you are worrying about is what you should be worrying about? I mean, do we humans even have a sophisticated (and legitimate, accurate(!), etc) methodology for determining what we should be worried about?

And if not:

  • why not?

  • what are we using, in fact, as an alternative?

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MSGRiley t1_itll6ar wrote

>I might be one of those Russian Trolls that I've been hearing so much about?

Not Russian. I see a lot of people who behave badly on Reddit get banned and come back with new accounts. It makes me wary (and weary if I'm honest) of anyone who's account is less than 3 years old but also participates in political or philosophical discussion.

>maybe something....not-entirely-organic about the whole package.

I think this is patently obvious to the most casual observer. Unfortunately most people are stupid and easily manipulated. One of the easiest things to convince people of is that they're smart and hard to manipulate.

>I'm of the belief that humanity, particularly "The West", optimizes for numerous(!) variables over and above the happiness of overall humanity.

There are still a bunch of governments and cultures competing on Earth. The suggestion that they should just "give up" and start working for global good, while all Star Trek universe greater good and all that, is unrealistic. Governments, economic systems and cultures compete. In fact, if they didn't, humanity wouldn't prosper; at least this version of humanity.

Governments are not moral entities. Not to say that they cannot act morally or immorally, but a government has a responsibility that surpasses individual morality. You, can individually make a decision to give up your lunch to a stranger who has nothing to eat. You cannot morally decide to give up the lunch of your children to a stranger who has nothing to eat. When you MUST SURVIVE (and governments must, foremost, survive) and further you must aim for the benefit of the largest group, it isn't a morality that guides you, but principles of success. There is room for morality only when there is surplus.

> I mean, do we humans even have a sophisticated (and legitimate, accurate(!), etc) methodology for determining what we should be worried about?

Look, a purely philosophical question. I like those.

Nearly every animal on the planet has developed some mechanism to recognize and cope with danger. Are they all legitimate? Accurate? Etc? To varying degrees.

To answer philosophically, it doesn't matter. The inevitability of death means that, success or failure will be washed away in 200 years anyway. From the perspective of the individual, well, they will have no perspective.

But a slightly less solipsist or existentialist perspective, you have the lab, the workshop and the field. I try to be an introspective person, dissecting my failures and trying to turn them into lessons to be learned for success. I try to test out my philosophy and methodology for approaching complex situations using forums such as Reddit and spirited conversation with strangers IRL. I also practically apply the underpinning principals I've learned through practical exercises in the real world.

I suppose, each person's ability to do these things varies in accordance with how much importance they're likely to place on the reliability of those tools.

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iiioiia t1_itlo5z8 wrote

> Not Russian.

Is that knowledge, or merely belief? (I couldn't resist.)

> I see a lot of people who behave badly on Reddit get banned and come back with new accounts. It makes me wary (and weary if I'm honest) of anyone who's account is less than 3 years old but also participates in political or philosophical discussion.

I heard a rumour once that people sometimes get their Reddit accounts deleted for discussing "non-sanctioned" topics. No idea how true it is, but the manner in which freedom of speech is implemented on Reddit and social media in general is....interesting.

> I think this is patently obvious to the most casual observer. Unfortunately most people are stupid and easily manipulated. One of the easiest things to convince people of is that they're smart and hard to manipulate.

Fair enough....but all the people? Like, why does there seem to be nobody that is interested in doing something? Is this not weird on its own, let alone in an environment where most people are involved in doing things at least 8 hours per day, 5 days per week? At the very least, is the dearth of novel ideas in this particular area not rather inconsistent with the whole?

> There are still a bunch of governments and cultures competing on Earth.

A weird detail in itself, from a more absolute perspective anyways.

> The suggestion that they should just "give up" and start working for global good, while all Star Trek universe greater good and all that, is unrealistic.

Give up? Star Trek? Sir: are you referring to something I've said? Because I certainly don't believe in anything like that.

Not only do I not peddle false dichotomies, I am a bitter enemy of them - if I had my way (could you imagine, lol), I would ban them from being used at all!

> Governments, economic systems and cultures compete.

An extraordinarily (I kid, I kid) nice way of looking at it!

> In fact, if they didn't, humanity wouldn't prosper; at least this version of humanity.

Perhaps. But then simultaneously, have we not also been instructed that cooperation is, in fact, The Way to Go? (Well, at least abstractly instructed.)

> Governments are not moral entities.

No argument here! 😂

> Not to say that they cannot act morally or immorally, but a government has a responsibility that surpasses individual morality.

I suppose - but then: by what methodology are the lines drawn? And, do you and I get any say in this, really?

> You, can individually make a decision to give up your lunch to a stranger who has nothing to eat. You cannot morally decide to give up the lunch of your children to a stranger who has nothing to eat.

Are morals objective? Or worse: what is the nature of their existence, in fact? What if morals are mostly just more stories we tell ourselves so we can "make it through the night"?

Also: how well does this methodology scale? To what degree is it optimal? Has it been decided upon democratically (I'm using an extremely literal sense of the word here, not the more popular colloquial meaning)?

> When you MUST SURVIVE (and governments must, foremost, survive)....

Seems reasonably accurate.

> ...and further you must aim for the benefit of the largest group...

This seems....less so, to the degree of wandering into not just wrong territory, but backwards.

> ...it isn't a morality that guides you, but principles of success.

Is "success" objective? Do you and I get any say on the algorithm that calculates "success"? What about dying babies, do they get any say (or, their parents, since babies are typically too dumb to have a substantial opinion, even leaving aside that the babies in question may not being operating at peak cognition, what with their caloric deficit, combined with the fact that the brain consumes ~20% of the body's energy)?

> There is room for morality only when there is surplus.

I suppose. But then: what if humanity never reaches surplus, or is unable to realize (lack of training?) when they have? I mean: do we even have a way of detecting that state? Do we even have a definition?

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MSGRiley t1_itlunop wrote

If you're subtly hinting that I'm a Russian bot, either for pure amusement or some kind of probing, I can tell you that I am definitely not. And that's правда I mean, TRUTH! Truth is what I meant.

I have had several individuals develop an obsession with me and follow me around Reddit with alts harassing me personally, so I can tell you it wasn't because of leftist censorship, which has become rampant on Reddit.

I think people don't "do" anything because they're efficiently divided and apathetic. The problem is that the ruling class has kept trying to squeeze every last drop of wealth for themselves and the Marxist have stepped up their game which includes disruption of the basic services of the masses which is far more quickly going to push people to conflict than abortion rights or arguments over people's naughty bits.

You were speaking about how the west optimizes for itself over the world. I was just commenting that yes, of course it does. It's competing with the rest of the world. We're not one global entity. We're individual countries. Cooperation is useful but problematic in the long run as a countries needs and leadership change.

The morality of man is, of course, as subjective as the experience of men. This is why we often attempt to lash it to the observable truth we can agree on. More and more we're seeing a greater amount of fog and shadow being artificially pumped into the world's optics by those who benefit from the obfuscation of morality, making it just as morally deplorable to prevent someone from killing a child as to kill the child yourself.

Which is why appeals to emotion, false dichotomies, and false premises are more common than grounded argument, because they're cheap and effective on the masses who feel themselves more intelligent due to their programming in university. The same people who can't answer basic questions about geography or history or even why they're calling someone racist or voting for someone are the ones gorilla glued to the notion that they're intellectually superior.

So when we measure success in terms of government, we once again attempt to bolt it to the observable reality that we share. Unfortunately we have 10K resolution on this reality now, where before we were 8 bits on a good day. So there were far fewer metrics to compare and winners were more easily decided. I'm not certain the high res view is helping, unless people are going to uncharacteristically shift to being more clear about what exactly they mean, which I severely doubt.

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iiioiia t1_itm36nm wrote

> If you're subtly hinting that I'm a Russian bot, either for pure amusement or some kind of probing, I can tell you that I am definitely not. And that's правда I mean, TRUTH! Truth is what I meant.

Ah, Truth. Glad that's all settled then - we shan't speak another word if it.

> I have had several individuals develop an obsession with me and follow me around Reddit with alts harassing me personally, so I can tell you it wasn't because of leftist censorship, which has become rampant on Reddit.

Oh, don't get me started on Redditors - I know the type.

> I think people don't "do" anything because they're efficiently divided and apathetic. The problem is that the ruling class has kept trying to squeeze every last drop of wealth for themselves and the Marxist have stepped up their game which includes disruption of the basic services of the masses which is far more quickly going to push people to conflict than abortion rights or arguments over people's naughty bits.

Efficiently divided? Ruling class? Squeeze every last drop of wealth for themselves? Disruption of the basic services of the masses? Push people to conflict?

Sir: are you a conspiracy theorist? I ask because advisories have also indicated that we should be On The Lookout for these types of people as well. We've settled the Russian Troll possibility, if it isn't too much trouble, I'd also like to ensure I'm dealing with someone who is speaking In Good Faith (which all Conspiracy Theorists are not, as I assume you well know).

Again: not pointing any fingers, just being On Guard, according to standard protocol.

> You were speaking about how the west optimizes for itself over the world. I was just commenting that yes, of course it does.

What do you mean here by "of course it does"?

> It's competing with the rest of the world.

I thought we were All One People - different races and creeds, of course, but ultimately the same. Is this not True?

> We're not one global entity. We're individual countries.

Are the two mutually exclusive?

> Cooperation is useful but problematic in the long run as a countries needs and leadership change.

Is this a comprehensive list of the underlying reasons, or something more like the top two items from a list sorted by objective causal importance?

> The morality of man is, of course, as subjective as the experience of men. This is why we often attempt to lash it to the observable truth we can agree on.

Observable truth? Is this something like when people say "X is True, because it is clear that it is True"?

> More and more we're seeing a greater amount of fog and shadow being artificially pumped into the world's optics by those who benefit from the obfuscation of morality, making it just as morally deplorable to prevent someone from killing a child as to kill the child yourself.

Now that you point it out, people do seem to behave in a logically inconsistent manner, at least "now and then" anyways. I wonder: could there be more to this theory?

> Which is why appeals to emotion, false dichotomies, and false premises are more common than grounded argument, because they're cheap and effective on the masses who feel themselves more intelligent due to their programming in university. The same people who can't answer basic questions about geography or history or even why they're calling someone racist or voting for someone are the ones gorilla glued to the notion that they're intellectually superior.

Despite sounding a bit conspiratorial, this simultaneously does seem rather true. I feel conflicted on what to believe.

> > > > So when we measure success in terms of government, we once again attempt to bolt it to the observable reality that we share.

When you say "measure", are you speaking literally, or colloquially? (See also: "success", and "government")

> Unfortunately we have 10K resolution on this reality now, where before we were 8 bits on a good day.

Resolution: "the number of pixels contained in each frame".

Hmmmmm....I wonder how well this two-dimensional analogy maps to the ontological nature of reality.

> So there were far fewer metrics to compare and winners were more easily decided.

Speaking of comparing metrics: who decides which metrics make the cut, and which....do not?

And, who is it who is doing the "deciding"?

> I'm not certain the high res view is helping, unless people are going to uncharacteristically shift to being more clear about what exactly they mean, which I severely doubt.

I can't really disagree (much) with your anecdotes, reasoning, or conclusion. It makes me wonder: could it be that we are "doing it wrong", or at least: far from optimally? But then, I haven't really heard any of The Experts mention the notion, so clearly my suspicions are likely to be unsound. But still, something seems.....off.

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MSGRiley t1_ito2jsr wrote

Each brand of crazy has their own pejoratives they like to employ to identify themselves. "Conspiracy theory" and "election denier" are left wing terms. Given that we are currently living through a time where the left has total control of their side of the corporate media to the point where it's unsettling how in lock step they are and there are so few right wing news sources, the terms are nearly meaningless. The difference between news and conspiracy theory seems to be about 6 months.

A key element to the leftist news center is to push for this "one Earth" globalism. Certainly, at some point in the future, we need to have a winner in this culture war, but I doubt that will ever completely unite humanity. It is in our nature to be diverse, and in diversity there is conflict and competition. This is why I said "THIS" version of humanity.

We currently have only our subjective experiences and a great deal of skepticism as to the capacity of others to accurately report their subjective experiences of reality. Political ideology often replaces individual morals, creating a situation where key indicators of the success or failure of society are tailor made to the strengths of that political ideology, instead of more universally accepted standards. This is why that one post of yours caused such great concern, because this disconnect with reality grows over time, more often than not, leading to a point where individuals feel that they must do something to "take back the power" from what the perceive are bad faith actors operating as a force of evil in the world.

Humanity takes a long time to evolve, and it is our very nature that rallies against success, causing each great empire to rot from within in this ever divisive madness we create for ourselves. The only way forward that I can see is to take the clear, concise arguments put forth by those who represent each side and have open, honest conversations about our motivations and goals.

Unfortunately, I see no clear, concise representatives from the far right or far left. I only see clowns and shills and actors exploiting the conflict for personal gain.

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iiioiia t1_itq7h9d wrote

> Each brand of crazy has their own pejoratives they like to employ to identify themselves. "Conspiracy theory" and "election denier" are left wing terms. Given that we are currently living through a time where the left has total control of their side of the corporate media to the point where it's unsettling how in lock step they are and there are so few right wing news sources, the terms are nearly meaningless.

The shit quality of right wing sources is amazing - as dumb as leftist takes on it are, it's also kinda hard to blame them for their conclusions, all things considered.

> The difference between news and conspiracy theory seems to be about 6 months.

~True, and interesting.

> > > > A key element to the leftist news center is to push for this "one Earth" globalism. Certainly, at some point in the future, we need to have a winner in this culture war, but I doubt that will ever completely unite humanity. It is in our nature to be diverse, and in diversity there is conflict and competition. This is why I said "THIS" version of humanity.

The insistence on and denial of diversity (while simultaneously celebrating, that "which doesn't exist") is.....weird. But then, it perhaps shouldn't be too surprising either.

Some form of unity is possible, but figuring out the optimal parameters could be tricky. But if no one ever tries, it seems unlikely to succeed.

> We currently have only our subjective experiences and a great deal of skepticism as to the capacity of others to accurately report their subjective experiences of reality.

Not trying to improve on a situation doesn't help things.

> Political ideology often replaces individual morals, creating a situation where key indicators of the success or failure of society are tailor made to the strengths of that political ideology, instead of more universally accepted standards. This is why that one post of yours caused such great concern....

Mission accomplished then!

> ...because this disconnect with reality grows over time, more often than not, leading to a point where individuals feel that they must do something to "take back the power" from what the perceive are bad faith actors operating as a force of evil in the world.

Do you think these individuals have formed an incorrect belief?

> > > > Humanity takes a long time to evolve....

In some ways yes, in other ways no.

Consider how quickly beliefs can be normalized (to the degree that they are, in respective camps (usually two)) - COVID and the Ukraine war are fine examples.

> ...and it is our very nature that rallies against success, causing each great empire to rot from within in this ever divisive madness we create for ourselves.

Might the excess of bad prevent one from seeing the good though?

> The only way forward that I can see is to take the clear, concise arguments put forth by those who represent each side and have open, honest conversations about our motivations and goals.

It seems like a no brainer. Funny no one tries it eh?

(Note the PM I sent you.)

> Unfortunately, I see no clear, concise representatives from the far right or far left. I only see clowns and shills and actors exploiting the conflict for personal gain.

I see "good" candidates on a daily basis - I propose that we are surrounded by them, but cannot see.

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