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The answer to me at the moment is no, but this is a difficult question that cannot be answered in one sitting. It's one we all struggle with our whole lives. It's a question everyone has struggled with likely since the dawn of civilization, when man started working together to form tribes. If I give a part of myself for the good of my community, it will most certainly benefit them, or so it is has been taught for a long time.
But my answer to that question is the opposite - Simply because I give a part of myself to a community doesn't mean that I have benefitted the community, nor does it mean I have benefitted myself in turn. It is not that I believe all acts of altruism are inherently bad, but I feel we as a society need to take a look around and analyzing the effects of all altruism. I do not deny that in various circumstances, it is beneficial. But the claim that every altruistic act is inherently good means you have acquired the knowledge and understanding of the effect your act will have on anyone it may come across. This sort of knowledge however is impossible to have.
The past few years I have been studying a lot about liberty. You could say I'm a libertarian, but I do not associate myself with the libertarian political party. I am a libertarian in philosophy which may play to my understanding politics, but does not lead me to align my self with a political party sharing the same name. Throughout this study, I've come across the idea that in order to fully understand the magnitude of one's decisions given to you through free will, you have to be able to know how that decision affects another by knowing every one of their thoughts attached to the idea. Seeing how this impossible to achieve if we're talking about every thought, it seems impossible that one should be able to understand completely the effect which their decision has.
This idea sparks a different discussion about free will, but in this discussion, I want to relate it back to altruism. If we're to consider the idea that altruism is in fact inherently good in all circumstances, then we must also admit that we have a complete understanding of the knowledge and memories of everyone it affects, or at least the knowledge and memories related to this thought. Again, we are able to obtain some thoughts, but to obtain all thoughts would require us to be in their brains which we cannot do. This leads me to believe that altruism cannot be inherently good, or at least any argument suggesting so should review or explain how we can obtain the complete set of thoughts of each person.
If we split altruism's effects on the Actor and Receiver of the act, it is still generous to say that it benefits at least one in either situation. If the Actor is to give a part of themselves for the Receivers of the act, but in turn sacrifices a part that may have a better long term benefit both for the Actor and Receivers, than any altruistic act though it be for the good of the Receivers, would be less good than the selfish the Actor may pursue instead. However, that also requires the knowledge and understanding of the effect of the act, which as argued above, cannot be determined with 100% certainty. Therefore discussing the idea that it has a positive effect for either Actor or Receiver no matter what is as foolish as assuming that it has an inherently goodness to it.
While I am pretty selfish when it comes to people, I understand the sentiment and ideas behind altruistic acts, and even agree with some. However, I feel it is dangerous to suggest that altruism itself is inherently good, and that each person should consider if they understand the effect their altruistic act has on another person. Simply because you believe it's better for them does not mean it will be received as such which in turn defeats the purpose of an altruistic act. To do something good for another in sacrifice for self, but only when the good of another is understood with enough certainty that the act is wanted.
What are your thoughts on altruism?
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What's a self and how did it get there?
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It seems to me that by inherently you mean empirically. You're right that we cannot determine the outcome of our every action, but I think more important is intent, because it lies in our control. Is the intent to act altruistically always good? I would say most of the time it is, because true altruistic intent means putting another's needs before your own, recognizing others as important as you view yourself. Knowledge and science can help guide altruistic impulses into being actually helpful, but I don't think we should devalue that original impulse, which can so easily be argued as a loss to oneself, in time, material, or whatever is being given.
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It's tempting to just draw a shark with a shield battery on its back and call it a Sharchon.
I don't think there is any civilization on Earth that is in fact altruistic. The altruism problem seems to be fundamentally hierarchical, or fundamentally one of hierarchy. Most (all) successful hierarchies are headed by hyper-aggressive predators who succeed by employing the enormous power available to them in the most efficient way possible. In practice what this means is that people with a lot of power gravitate to structures where the type of power they have is self-perpetuating. This is good for the agent in question and if not "good" then at least, optimal, for the civilization or hierarchy of which he is the chief.
Generally speaking people are cynical toward altruism because it's a self-defense mechanism for the weak -- at least this is the closest we usually get to legitimate "altruism". In crudest possible terms, altruism is a "don't rape me" device employed to afford predators a reason to select other potential prey. At a sociological level it seems like what we have is a massive shield battery proletariat (of varying complexity and freedom) and an aggressive "hostile" bourgeoisie channeling, at various levels, hostility either inward toward its own proletariat or outward toward other civilizations. Theoretically there's no reason that civilizations and hierarchies have to be divided by these oil-and-water type frictions, there's no reason that there can't be a sort of utopia of blended, varying compositions. Theoretically each civilization could be a sort of unity within itself and with respect to its neighbors, in the same sense that we can obtain 1 = 1 * 1 and 1 = 1 / 1; unfortunately it seems that in practice achieving this kind of internal unity is nearly impossible and then generalizing to a case of interacting hierarchies is even less probable.
Anyway, I say the problem is hierarchical because from an emergence perspective, looking at genetics and memetics, altruism evolves as a defensive mechanism for the weak against the powerful because the world seems to be unfortunately structured with an abyssal sort of economics in mind. What I mean is that as long as it's possible to develop faster in a structure of predator-prey relationships, nature tends to favor efficiency over elegance. Maybe this is coming to an end as it seems that there's a ceiling on predator-prey relationships -- today it seems we've exhausted the predatory potential of our resource set because any meaningful conflict between top predators leads to mutual extinction instead of individual extinction. Now that this is an environmentally assured phenomenon it seems that a continued race to secure additional, or relatively greater quantities of capital will eventually become a race toward altruism.
So maybe varying degrees of altruism at the heads of hierarchies rather than their feet will become the wave of the future. Of course the level of success humans have cultivating their own species as livestock is always an interesting question. It seems that throughout evolutionary history the potential for healthy humans to be the slaves of other humans has been limited. But with the advent of silicon-based computers and wireless technology....
Well I'm just winding around now. Frankly the only point in time when altruism will be truly good is when it's truly altruism. That means that the Warren Buffets, Carlos Slims, and Bill Gates of the world would have to elect an altruistic path perhaps for aesthetic reasons rather than practical ones (however likely this seems). The only realistic practical scenario in which I can see altruism emerging as a dominant ideology is one where the expected returns of predatory behavior are (perhaps substantially) less than the expected returns of benevolence. Unfortunately I don't have enough information about technology to think that things will end any way other than badly, but perhaps being human and being pressured by potentially superhuman forces will curb the enthusiasm of the leaders of humanity. I'm not an optimist, though.
Personally I think it's a shame that until now the only legitimate way to motivate human behavior is through appeals to "rational self-interest". Humans have no fucking clue what's in their self-interest, and from my perspective the generous applications of logic and rationality that tend to support this theme are almost always myopic and delimit themselves arbitrarily. My personal viewpoint is its all the concealed "game logic" of the extremely primitive survival instinct seeping through a reproductive consciousness that developed much later but accounts for most conscious processes and higher thought. In other words from a reproductive, rational, self-interested perspective you'd expect people to reason a lot more altruistically, but it seems there's a second insidious force that goes unidentified that taints reasoning and leads to the primitive, unconscious survival instinct repatterning thought processes. Instead of altruistic, reproductive equilibria we get more primal survival-oriented equilibria because survival patterns are in fact so much more deeply ingrained and fundamental.
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Cascadia1753 Posts
Mostly have issue with paragraph 5. First it seems to imply only that only the 2 directly involved parties are affected; this is not true. Society is social, and humans can be driven by emotions, therefore any act can spur future acts, even by those just observing.
You also seem to imply that because that because in some hypothetical where immediate selfishness might be better than immediate altruism, that the immediate altruism is "less good" and therefore possibly bad. For any situation there will obviously be a wide scope of good or bad actions, just because one is better than another, doesn't means its bad. And in the big picture, you are still saying altruism is good.
I would love an example of some altruistic action that you would definitely define as 'overall' being bad, or if you have one, bad to all parties.
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On July 13 2015 03:07 YokoKano wrote: It's tempting to just draw a shark with a shield battery on its back and call it a Sharchon.
You're right, it is.
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Well, I know for a fact that Hitler's life was saved by a priest when Hitler was a kid. He was drowning, the priest saw him and saved him. So there is an altruistic deed that seems beneficial but in fact is a complete horror because if that kid had died, around 60 million people would have lived. I think it just depends on the circumstances and the consequences of the deed,
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On July 13 2015 03:42 Tephus wrote: Mostly have issue with paragraph 5. First it seems to imply only that only the 2 directly involved parties are affected; this is not true. Society is social, and humans can be driven by emotions, therefore any act can spur future acts, even by those just observing.
You also seem to imply that because that because in some hypothetical where immediate selfishness might be better than immediate altruism, that the immediate altruism is "less good" and therefore possibly bad. For any situation there will obviously be a wide scope of good or bad actions, just because one is better than another, doesn't means its bad. And in the big picture, you are still saying altruism is good.
I would love an example of some altruistic action that you would definitely define as 'overall' being bad, or if you have one, bad to all parties. codependent relationships come to my mind.
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^Was the priest racist and anti-Semitic by any chance? Maybe Hitler wanted to do something in return. >_<
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This smells a lot like Hume and Gibbons.
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Well it is true from a certain angle, but I think its a question of finding the correct definition of altruism. If someone hypothetically thinks its good to help their kids (for example) by sheltering them, doing everything for them, padding them with styrofoam to ensure they don't get hurt on the playground, and hold their hand everywhere, no matter how old they get, then clearly altruism in that case is not good, it is actively harming the child's development as a free-thinking independent person.
But in theory you could say that that person is not *truly* being altruistic, because a "true" altruist would take the needs of the child's freedom into account instead of looking at things with one eye only. Thus I think that altruism must include a knowledge factor or it can degrade into truly absurd hypotheticals. To make it even clearer, you could imagine a person who believes God exists and that the afterlife is a place devoid of suffering, so he takes it upon himself to kill off the human race in order to end all suffering. Still altruism?
People need to do the most good based on knowledge of the situation and other people in order for it to be considered altruism. There is another problem in that, how do you argue what the "correct" interpretation of the data is, or what the correct path is? Probably you could involve a recursive element here; if you see long-term harm, eventually you will weed out what the problem is, what the correct interpretation is. In which case, true altruism is about persistence (and keeping track of results) in trying to apply knowledge about the situation to do the most good for all.
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the closest approximation to my views on altruism are discussed by Howard Roark in his climactic court room speech near the end of Ayn Rand's novel, The Fountainhead. The problem with the speech is that it is way over the top drama.. and of course it should be because its part of a novel.
for a less melo-dramatic and more scientifically regimented examination of altruism i suggest the book "Taking Responsibility" by Nathaniel Branden.
TL ; DR on those books : Self - responsibility, self-reliance, and individualism are essential to the well-being of society. Altruism can only exist once at least 1 human is able to produce more than they consume. wealth creation comes first...and Altruism is merely one of the many afterthoughts once that lofty position has been reached of producing a lot more than we consume. Altruism is a non-essential.
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This discussion puts me to shame. I'm amazed at how articulate people can be
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Now, before I'm investigated for having taken the un-American stand that sex is a minor department of morality, let me try to show what I think is morally important. Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read. She has just published a book, For the New Intellectual, subtitled The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; it is a collection of pensées and arias from her novels and it must be read to be believed. Herewith, a few excerpts from the Rand collection.
• "It was the morality of altruism that undercut American and is now destroying her."
• "Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequence of freedom…or the primordial morality of altruism with its consequences of slavery, etc."
Then from one of her arias for heldentenor: "I am done with the monster of 'we,' the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.'"
• "The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself."
• "To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men."
• "The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral…."
This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the "freedom is slavery" sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her "philosophy," but the size of her audience (in my campaign for the House she was the one writer people knew and talked about). She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the "welfare" state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you're dumb or incompetent that's your lookout.
She is fighting two battles: the first, against the idea of the State being anything more than a police force and a judiciary to restrain people from stealing each other's money openly. She is in legitimate company here. There is a reactionary position which has many valid attractions, among them lean, sinewy, regular-guy Barry Goldwater. But it is Miss Rand's second battle that is the moral one. She has declared war not only on Marx but on Christ. Now, although my own enthusiasm for the various systems evolved in the names of those two figures is limited, I doubt if even the most anti-Christian free-thinker would want to deny the ethical value of Christ in the Gospels. To reject that Christ is to embark on dangerous waters indeed. For to justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. For one thing, it is gratuitous to advise any human being to look out for himself. You can be sure that he will. It is far more difficult to persuade him to help his neighbor to build a dam or to defend a town or to give food he has accumulated to the victims of a famine. But since we must live together, dependent upon one another for many things and services, altruism is necessary to survival. To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy. That it is right to help someone less fortunate is an idea which ahs figured in most systems of conduct since the beginning of the race. We often fail. That predatory demon "I" is difficult to contain but until now we have all agreed that to help others is a right action. Now the dictionary definition of "moral" is: "concerned with the distinction between right and wrong" as in "moral law, the requirements to which right action must conform." Though Miss Rand's grasp of logic is uncertain, she does realize that to make even a modicum of sense she must change all the terms. Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life a right action is consideration for the welfare of others. In the one case, through a state which was to wither away, in the other through the private exercise of the moral sense. Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.
Ayn Rand's "philosophy" is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society. Moral values are in flux. The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum. There are storm warnings ahead. But to counter trolls and Caesars, we have such men as Lewis Mumford whose new book, The City in History, inspires. He traces the growth of communities from Neolithic to present times. He is wise. He is moral: that is, he favors right action and he believes it possible for us to make things better for us (not "me"!). He belongs to the currently unfashionable line of makers who believe that if something is wrong it can be made right, whether a faulty water main or a faulty idea. May he flourish!
Comment, July 1961: Gore Vidal may not like New York Times' critic Orville Prescott, but he dislikes Ayn Rand's "philosophy" even more.
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leviticus 25:35, and if thy soulbrother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee.
uh... yeah... get tucked rand.
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-I wouldn't take Gore Vidal's opinion on philosophy anymore than he would take Prescott's opinion on writing. -Vidal might have a point about Prescott letting his morals get in the way of his critiques, but it's a larger problem that too often artists abandon morality for the sake of art.
-People love to rag on Rand for being vacuous but Marx gets a free pass?
-"Capitalism and altruism are incompatible"- You would have to get very specific about what exactly is meant by this (in terms of who or what is Capitalistic or altruistic), but, if we assume that America is "very Capitalistic", and Europe is less so, then at some levels you can dispute this because individual giving is greater in the U.S..
-"I doubt if even the most anti-Christian free-thinker would want to deny the ethical value of Christ in the Gospels. To reject that Christ is to embark on dangerous waters indeed." - An important insight. Every anti-Christian movement, from Hume and Gibbons to the New Atheists, have had to work around the obviousness of Christian ethics. This is difficult, of course, so they usually try to show that Christian selflessness is impractical, inefficient and gauche (as Hume did) or subtract the idea of ethics entirely, as the New Atheists do. (This also explains the pervasiveness of the bizarre phrase "I like Christ, but Christians aren't Christ-like enough". When have you ever heard someone say "I like Marx but the Marxists aren't Marxy enough" ? No. You are against Christ, you just don't want to say it.)
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highly vacuous materialism: pessoa, alberto cairos poetry. beautiful too. what's vacuous about marx? are you reading him through a camera obscura?
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On July 13 2015 07:37 Jerubaal wrote: -"I doubt if even the most anti-Christian free-thinker would want to deny the ethical value of Christ in the Gospels. To reject that Christ is to embark on dangerous waters indeed." - An important insight. Every anti-Christian movement, from Hume and Gibbons to the New Atheists, have had to work around the obviousness of Christian ethics. This is difficult, of course, so they usually try to show that Christian selflessness is impractical, inefficient and gauche (as Hume did) or subtract the idea of ethics entirely, as the New Atheists do. (This also explains the pervasiveness of the bizarre phrase "I like Christ, but Christians aren't Christ-like enough". When have you ever heard someone say "I like Marx but the Marxists aren't Marxy enough" ? No. You are against Christ, you just don't want to say it.)
Aren't the ethics that Christ taught mostly found in other philosophies too though? Things like forgiveness, altruism, compassion etc, seem to be taught in ancient Chinese, Indian, and Greek philosophies... and I'd bet many other cultures that did not have writing. I don't see why rejecting Christianity means rejecting those ethical values which are not exclusive to Christianity.
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On July 13 2015 07:37 Jerubaal wrote: When have you ever heard someone say "I like Marx but the Marxists aren't Marx[ist] enough" ? Spend more time with Marxists, and you'll hear this quite often, actually.
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On July 13 2015 08:26 zf wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 07:37 Jerubaal wrote: When have you ever heard someone say "I like Marx but the Marxists aren't Marx[ist] enough" ? Spend more time with Marxists, and you'll hear this quite often, actually.
LOL
It's how we greet one another in fact. Sort of like dogs sniffing rear ends
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As a social democratic fangirl, I would advise against spending more time with Marxists.
Nonetheless I feel like the question that is asked is wrong. Is altruism inherently (or empirically) "good". We could bash on the notion of "good" but let's assume it means what it means. No, altruism is not empirically good, but in practical terms it doesn't need to be.
Some philosopher/economist, i don't remember who, criticized redistributive doctrines by arguing from an utilitarian perspective that people know what they want better than anybody else could, and so the total happiness is higher if everybody just does what they feel makes them happy. I don't find the argument convincing because in real terms certain people simply don't have the means to make themselves happy, and furthermore altruism makes the person who does it happy. Now I consider myself a selfish person, I don't really donate to charities, at least not a meaningful part of what I earn, and yet I live in Canada where I'm happy to pay taxes to help others while living affluently myself.
I am not at all concerned by the fact that altruism is not empirically good, since most of what constitutes reality doesn't deal in absolutes. I consider that altruism is good enough of the time to be preferable over selfishness. What's wrong with the notion of "good enough"? Maybe it's not philosophical enough, you can't write a thesis on it.
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The best thing about the internet is people with opinions about marx who have never read the first page of capital
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I used to be at McGill where the general perspective is more conservative and free market orientated, but right now I'm a super left-wing university and I have to say that having read Das Kapital weirdly doesn't necessarily give the insight needed to come up with useful modern ideas in the land of micro credit. I had a class where we debated pragmatism for hours and 3 of us were arguing against 15-20 of them, who all said that pragmatism is useless and what is really needed is a shift in the ideologies of people upon which a better world could be built. Politicians often describe themselves as pragmatics, they intend to build this or that, they intend to commit themselves to getting shit done. These little Marxists, Master's students and graduates, mocked the practice: the politicians should aim higher, go for the full out paradigm shift. There are others, don't get me wrong, but you can read Capital and still be an asshole, just like you can read Road to Serfdom and just pick up the most basic of ideas and assume them to be true.
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Oh we agree. Its because those marxists arent marxy enough
I know exacrly the type you mean. They havent read capital either
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On July 13 2015 09:33 bookwyrm wrote: Oh we agree. Its because those marxists arent marxy enough
I know exacrly the type you mean. They havent read capital either Shame that doesn't prevent them from tossing around the terms superstructure, bourgeoisie, surplus value and praxis like they own them.
Still I know for a fact that many of those people I've discussed it with have read it and many still have these very Utopian ideas. And it's a shame because I think there's a lot to be gained in there, but people just use it to have shitty arguments for their shitty ideological debates.
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Send them to me and ill school em
I mean look if we cant use marxian vocabulary all of you have to stop talking aby capitalism because thats his word
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Interpretation of actions as altruistic depends very much on the size of your "in-group" or the scope of your thinking. Depending on how much two persons scopes are differing in size the same action can be seen as either altruistic, egoistic or downright evil.
Most peoples scope extents to currently living humans. Someone whos scope includes all future generations of humans might come to the conclusion that vaccination is bad because it weakens the human gene pool and makes future generation more dependent on it. He might also see epidemics as an important natural regulator of population size. Someone whos scope only includes currently living humans will interpret the decision as egoistic though because it endangers his in-group.
Someone whos scope is not anthropocentric and not chronocentric might even work towards the collapse of human civilization because human civilization is incredibly damaging to a vast number of other species. Needless to say such a person would be seen as downright evil and a psychopath by almost all other humans because the two scopes are differing so much.
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On July 13 2015 09:46 bookwyrm wrote: Send them to me and ill school em
I mean look if we cant use marxian vocabulary all of you have to stop talking aby capitalism because thats his word I wasn't saying not to use it, you absolutely have to, but they do it so clumsily a lot of the time x_x
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Well the short versions to some questions that deserve very long replies...
@nunez- What you're really asking is my own mental capacity, which I can't really prove over the interwebs. I can't say I'm really practiced at discussing the authors themselves but only their fruits and Marx is a great producer of ideologues. The most interesting parts of Marx are appropriated from Hegel, anyway. I can't say I'm in love with him either.
@Glowsphere- Again, this could be a large book, but I'd say that Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism have radically different outlooks. For instance, Christianity would say that ethics sometimes transcend or even go against your social order. That would not fly in Confucianism, for one, where social harmony seems to be the goal.
@zf- This complaint is that they wish some Marxists were more zealous, not that they have somehow failed to inculcate the attitude of the viewpoint. This is a complex comparison and the problem is partly a classification and semantic problem. Being a Marxist is (usually) only an intellectual position, whereas you could be a Christian in a number of senses- socially, intellectually, spiritually. Unless you're a politician, maybe, being a Marxist doesn't require much other than saying you're a Marxist. Christianity purports to expect more. There are generally more people that walk around under the label "Christian" that don't really fit the same definition. It's also funny because Marxists are some of the prime abusers of the "they really aren't a Marxist" card.
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On July 13 2015 09:56 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 09:46 bookwyrm wrote: Send them to me and ill school em
I mean look if we cant use marxian vocabulary all of you have to stop talking aby capitalism because thats his word I wasn't saying not to use it, you absolutely have to, but they do it so clumsily a lot of the time x_x
Yeah I mean grad school is a truthiness factory
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On July 13 2015 10:01 bookwyrm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 09:56 Djzapz wrote:On July 13 2015 09:46 bookwyrm wrote: Send them to me and ill school em
I mean look if we cant use marxian vocabulary all of you have to stop talking aby capitalism because thats his word I wasn't saying not to use it, you absolutely have to, but they do it so clumsily a lot of the time x_x Yeah I mean grad school is a truthiness factory At least it served me well, I think. Some of my colleagues are fucking brilliant, but me, not so much... so I got to learn how to get good shit done anyway.
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On July 13 2015 09:31 Djzapz wrote: Politicians often describe themselves as pragmatics, they intend to build this or that, they intend to commit themselves to getting shit done. These little Marxists, Master's students and graduates, mocked the practice: the politicians should aim higher, go for the full out paradigm shift. There are others, don't get me wrong, but you can read Capital and still be an asshole, just like you can read Road to Serfdom and just pick up the most basic of ideas and assume them to be true.
Isn't it the habit of Moderns to present their ideological positions as purely pragmatic?
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@jerubaal i'm asking for some concrete examples. i would be happy to read it you know, it's a field of interest, and you might shed some light on the material.
i have struggled with capital myself (and reading my way around to it again), but i never found it vacuous, quite the opposite... dense, concrete, and terribly thorough.
i thought the interesting thing about marx was on what he used what he appropriated from hegel, but i haven't read hegel. marx didn't talk a lot about ideology, afaik, on top of that it's a word that's hard to parse.
in what sense are you using the word? false consciousness? class-struggle thunderdome (in this sense i agree with the 'producer' part, at least personally)? interpellation station?
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On July 13 2015 10:17 Jerubaal wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2015 09:31 Djzapz wrote: Politicians often describe themselves as pragmatics, they intend to build this or that, they intend to commit themselves to getting shit done. These little Marxists, Master's students and graduates, mocked the practice: the politicians should aim higher, go for the full out paradigm shift. There are others, don't get me wrong, but you can read Capital and still be an asshole, just like you can read Road to Serfdom and just pick up the most basic of ideas and assume them to be true. Isn't it the habit of Moderns to present their ideological positions as purely pragmatic? Might be, but my concern was more about the outright rejection of pragmatism. They argued for instance that you can't fix the hunger problem with pragmatic measures, the way to fix world hunger is to essentially change politics such that people can produce enough food for themselves.
Pragmatism in these issues is seen as shortsightedness. They mocked the fact that we were sending food to people. "Duh, what happens when there's no more food!". We send more, I say, and we take concrete action to try to make them independent, but in the mean time we send food because they won't survive off of some westerner's golden ideals. Sending food is stupid, politicians who consider themselves pragmatic (rather than philosophers?) are stupid. Perhaps of all the debates I've had, this one was the most surprising to me. To this day I can't wrap my head around it.
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well, the first step to fix hunger is critique. you have to understand why there is hunger. in order to understand this you have to understand things like the history of capitalist agriculture and the international grain trade. these are extremely complex topics. I should know, I've spent much of the last two years researching them. As it turns out, marx is rather helpful here, though if you think his work has magical solutions to everything you are an idiot. Reading him can, however, teach you how to engage in the activity of critique...
from your post however it seems that your interlocutors did try to point out some things about the way that international aid, the grain trade etc work, but you couldn't hear them because all you can hear is the fact that they are arguing against sending food to people. I think really you should have listened to them more carefully
There is something extremely violent about creating a population that is dependent on your grain exports (which you finance by extending credit to their governments thus making them debt colonies) under the guise of altruistic humanitarianism. Actually your marxist interlocutors here are the pragmatists and you are the idealist
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On July 13 2015 10:20 nunez wrote: @jerubaal i'm asking for some concrete examples. i would be happy to read it you know, it's a field of interest, and you might shed some light on the material.
i have struggled with capital myself (and reading my way around to it again), but i never found it vacuous, quite the opposite... dense, concrete, and terribly thorough.
i thought the interesting thing about marx was on what he used what he appropriated from hegel, but i haven't read hegel. marx didn't talk a lot about ideology, afaik, on top of that it's a word that's hard to parse.
in what sense are you using the word? false consciousness? class-struggle thunderdome (in this sense i agree with the 'producer' part, at least personally)? interpellation station?
Maybe a good start would be, if I can hijack the thread even more, would be to ask why you like Marx and what you think is essential in Marxism that can't be found elsewhere?
I'm not using a terribly technical meaning for ideology. To rip off someone else's definition, it's a worldview with an action plan. It's not meant to be pejorative. The problem, as we well know, with ideology is that it's susceptible to becoming a self-containing bubble of thought that makes conversation fruitless. It's not about arguing rationally, it's about changing a worldview. That's why people who have made radical shifts in philosophy speak of it as a change in perspective. You could say that this is human nature, but I think it's plausible that the more intellectualized a worldview becomes, the more susceptible it is to this. Some worldviews may be more susceptible than others. I don't know if I've said anything not obvious, but I've also answered (or explained why I didn't answer) your first question as well.
As for altruism, I'm surprised no one has made the point yet that altruism is often argued from a self-interest perspective. There's the practical self-interest - if everyone is altruistic everyone will be happier- and then there's the idea that being altruistic makes you feel more self-actualized.
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@bookwyrm- Everything is practical. Some things are just theoretically practical.
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On July 13 2015 11:00 bookwyrm wrote: well, the first step to fix hunger is critique. you have to understand why there is hunger. in order to understand this you have to understand things like the history of capitalist agriculture and the international grain trade. these are extremely complex topics. I should know, I've spent much of the last two years researching them. As it turns out, marx is rather helpful here, though if you think his work has magical solutions to everything you are an idiot. Reading him can, however, teach you how to engage in the activity of critique...
from your post however it seems that your interlocutors did try to point out some things about the way that international aid, the grain trade etc work, but you couldn't hear them because all you can hear is the fact that they are arguing against sending food to people. I think really you should have listened to them more carefully
There is something extremely violent about creating a population that is dependent on your grain exports (which you finance by extending credit to their governments thus making them debt colonies) under the guise of altruistic humanitarianism. Actually your marxist interlocutors here are the pragmatists and you are the idealist I think you're reaching and you're making wild assumptions that you really shouldn't make. Not only are you mirespresenting what I say, you're misrepresenting what they say.
My interlocutors were not arguing against international aid, they were arguing against pragmatism as a whole. The example of world hunger was merely an example, where it was pointed out that sending food is not how you solve world hunger. This is obvious.
You say my interlocutors are the pragmatists, they would be deeply insulted if you were to tell them that. But thankfully it's horseshit. I don't think sending food is the way to go, but to deny the immediate importance of keeping millions of refugees fed is outright lunacy. And yet this is what the denial of pragmatism entails if we were to follow in these people's footsteps. We agree, sending food is not the way to go, but a pragmatic UN bureaucrat will look at number of mouths and number of loaves of bread and they'll see it doesn't add up. To do nothing amounts to death sentences. The problem is deeply complex and while you can hope to reach a comprehensive understanding of the world you can't escape the fact that food is the only immediate solution to immediate hunger.
And so while I do agree that sending food and endebting poor nations is horrible, I'm also someone who's not willfully blind to the reality we live in. Pragmatism is necessary. People are starving NOW, you send food. People are starving in the long run, I don't know what you do but surely certain people do. There were talks about actually building a well with the locals, then building a pump with them, figuring out how to repair the pump. This allowed the women in certain villages to saves HOURS every day, allowed them to do stuff instead of fetching water at a lake miles away. It's not perfect, but what the fuck do you suggest that we do? Stop sending grain and figure out an alternative? Try to summon the political capital for doing any of that in a way which is preferable to what's being done now and you'll be a hero. A God, perhaps. But you'll also have killed all those people because they needed food and you were changing the world.
And that perhaps is why I have a job and those poli sci graduates don't. I deal with real problems and find real solutions, as a lowly man who's fully aware of the political and social constraints that prevent me from changing the world. Perhaps working in urban planning and public health is not as glamorous as fixing world hunger solely by gathering an understanding of the problem in a classroom. I'll give you that.
TLDR: Reality should be considered when making political decisions. The quality of the lives of people depends on the proper analysis and understanding of situations. Theoretical and ideological factors are not irrelevant, but until we become superhumans, we're forced to act upon reality. To act like the only way to tackle world hunger is to drop capitalism is not entirely unfair, but the outright rejection of pragmatism in real politics is insane. It's what we've got, really.
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I think bookwyrm is just being contrary.
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On July 13 2015 11:38 Jerubaal wrote: I think bookwyrm is just being contrary. I don't know. He uses the term "violence" much like many of my marxist colleagues which makes me think that maybe, not unlike them, his main way to protest against certain injustices is to propose an alternate universe where this problem is solved. So he's not really contrarian, he's just operating on a completely different level, well above ours.
Anyway going to hit the sack, cheers.
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On July 13 2015 10:00 Jerubaal wrote: This complaint is that they wish some Marxists were more zealous, not that they have somehow failed to inculcate the attitude of the viewpoint. This is a complex comparison and the problem is partly a classification and semantic problem. Being a Marxist is (usually) only an intellectual position, whereas you could be a Christian in a number of senses- socially, intellectually, spiritually. Unless you're a politician, maybe, being a Marxist doesn't require much other than saying you're a Marxist. Christianity purports to expect more. There are generally more people that walk around under the label "Christian" that don't really fit the same definition. It's also funny because Marxists are some of the prime abusers of the "they really aren't a Marxist" card. Nah, I've heard the phrase used for both reasons. And Marxists come in many flavors - intellectual, social, "spiritual," and every combination in between. (Just as there are Christians who are intellectual Christians, but not social or spiritual Christians.)
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i'm so misunderstood
dj - you seem to have some definition of pragmatic which is technical and not something i care about so i'm not quite sure what the stakes are. I have no idea what you mean by this word. and I have literally no idea what jerubaal's comment means.
i'm sorry if i'm assuming that these guys were smarter than they are. the point is- international food aid is deeply fucked up
On July 13 2015 11:24 Djzapz wrote: But you'll also have killed all those people because they needed food and you were changing the world.
shrug. if you're not willing to commit violence in order to create a better world, you're complicit with the violence that already exists. it's a lose lose situation. welcome to reality. this is what i mean when i say there are real problems with the world. both you and your interlocutors are trying to pretend like you have the solution. I think your word 'pragmatic' is just a code for conformity with the status quo. nothing more. you choose the evil that exists over the evil might be. they choose the opposite. i don't see how either of you are obviously on a moral high ground. you are just on opposite sides of a war.
by the way, i sometimes employ hyperbole because TLers don't always grasp subtlety very well and it amuses me becuase i am a bad person, but i never, ever am "just being contrary"
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Being against altruism because you are humanly unable to evaluate the absolute impact of every action is meaningless. It is a futile an argument that can be used against any action/philosophy and it paralyzes you into inaction. What’s even worse is that you can neither foresee the outcome of your inaction which might end up as “inherently” worse than your potential altruism.
Asking for a real-life example of an altruistic action actually being “bad” is anecdotal and pointless. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it should never lead a person’s future choices. Refusing to save the young drowning Hitler is completely crazy. It amounts to saying you shouldn’t save any drowning person at all, as you never know if they might turn out to be serial killers. Also, let’s abort all babies. Just in case.
As for altruism, it is theorically the ideal objective any society should ever strive for. However, its effectiveness is directly countered by the presence of selfish individuals who short-circuit the common reward pattern. If you live in a selfish tribe of 100 where everyone cares for himself, every individual gets a single person to ensure his well being. If you take the same tribe with selfless altruism as its core value, every member gets looked after by 99 persons. Scale up to the size of contemporary communities and this driving force can never be matched by a single entity. Yet, if one member sees the opportunity of gain and turns back to his selfish ways, he will be thriving with all his own ressources and time combined with those of his 99 mates. This is dangerous, as others will lose one of their benefactors and will be inspired to do the same. This is where the perfect ideal collapses.
At this point, you are to ask yourself what kind of person you want to be, and more importantly look at the people around you. It is impossible to live a complete altruist and selfless existence as it is socially inefficient to live a perfectly selfish life. As vast and complex our social networks are, you have to gauge when is the best time to be altruist or selfish, and towards whom. Eventually, you figure out that altruism trumps selfishness most of the time and you become a building block for a better community, making sure selfish individuals do not leech on yourself.
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Damn Tina, you got smart after you left Ike.
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On July 13 2015 14:47 bookwyrm wrote: shrug. if you're not willing to commit violence in order to create a better world, you're complicit with the violence that already exists. it's a lose lose situation. welcome to reality. this is what i mean when i say there are real problems with the world. both you and your interlocutors are trying to pretend like you have the solution. I think your word 'pragmatic' is just a code for conformity with the status quo. nothing more. you choose the evil that exists over the evil might be. they choose the opposite. i don't see how either of you are obviously on a moral high ground. you are just on opposite sides of a war. "Shrug"? See I understand where you're coming from but we'll never agree because unlike you I'm not willing to let millions of people starve to death while waiting for a revolution. Let alone your "shrug", as if those people were completely dispensable so that we could reach your ideals. And so I admit I'm complicit in the horror. I do not have the moral high ground, nor did I ever pretend to be. My concerns in this matter are not moral, though they are motivated by my sense of morality. My concerns are practical.
You asked what I mean by pragmatic and I think it's pretty clear, what do politicians mean when they say they're pragmatics? They mean they realists who will look at what is in front of them, collect information and then act upon the problem using this information. An ideologue might, for instance, assume that we should ignore the problem because it'll be automatically solved when we beat capitalism. And that's not to say that ideology is bad, but like I said before I think that many people are pragmatic and it's not worse. We need them.
There are two types of people, you and some of my colleagues who look at this problem and come up with theoretical notions that are not applicable in reality and therefore useless (to my senses), unless you're a pragmatic about it and you make shit happen, which you won't because like me you're just some dude with a keyboard. And then there's people like myself, who view the world in terms of problems that can be solved given resources (financial, human, political, administrative, etc.). Now I'm not particularly good at what I do I don't think, so I can't actually solve complex problems, but I know enough that it's clear to me that world hunger is not a problem which can be fixed in our current framework.
So while I see the value in explaining that theoretically capitalism is ill-suited in matters such as solving world hunger, I also live in reality where I myself cannot change that, and so I am indeed complicit in it, and the best I can do is within the framework of capitalism try to choose measures which are better than outright sending food. Building wells was an example, building up the harvesting capacity of those countries. Building lasting things like Bill Gates does. AND sending food. But all of these things are pragmatic measures. So no I'm not willing to say we should stop sending food in the offchance that we could pull off a paradigm shift wherein people suddenly were willing to commit to solving the world hunger problem for good. And yet even then you'd have bureaucrats (apparatchiks?) pulling off concrete and pragmatic measures to get it done.
So I don't think they were necessarily wrong, but again, all I'm saying is that outside of an university and outside of a library, you need the pragmatics. It doesn't mean they can't think, we'd be a sad bunch if we were all pragmatic all the time, and we'd be idiots too, but that's not the point.
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Yeah we deeply, deeply disagree. I dont think you are practical at all, I think you are living in a fantasy world
Are you really giving me the tech billionaire hagiography line? So silly
basically I think you are intellectually complicit with a bad system that keeps getting worse and worse and making peiple more and more dependent, in the service of an imperial project, papered over by a bunch of feel good liberal claptrap
Basically your position is equivalent to the liberal finance doctrine under which the solution to a bubble is to blow an even bigger bubble so when it inevitably fails ita catastrophically bad as opposed to just really bad
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I don't see it working in general. I see when people are in the need of help and you help them free of charge it can be good. But if they are not in the need of help or pretending you corrupt them even further.
For example in the movie Dogville, while it is not a not a typical atruistic motive, we can see that people are inherently flawed and want more and more if you give them something for free. Basic human predatory instinct is if someone gives for free he is weak and you can abuse it.
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On July 13 2015 17:41 TinaTurner wrote: Being against altruism because you are humanly unable to evaluate the absolute impact of every action is meaningless. It is a futile an argument that can be used against any action/philosophy and it paralyzes you into inaction. What’s even worse is that you can neither foresee the outcome of your inaction which might end up as “inherently” worse than your potential altruism.
Asking for a real-life example of an altruistic action actually being “bad” is anecdotal and pointless. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it should never lead a person’s future choices. Refusing to save the young drowning Hitler is completely crazy. It amounts to saying you shouldn’t save any drowning person at all, as you never know if they might turn out to be serial killers. Also, let’s abort all babies. Just in case.
As for altruism, it is theorically the ideal objective any society should ever strive for. However, its effectiveness is directly countered by the presence of selfish individuals who short-circuit the common reward pattern. If you live in a selfish tribe of 100 where everyone cares for himself, every individual gets a single person to ensure his well being. If you take the same tribe with selfless altruism as its core value, every member gets looked after by 99 persons. Scale up to the size of contemporary communities and this driving force can never be matched by a single entity. Yet, if one member sees the opportunity of gain and turns back to his selfish ways, he will be thriving with all his own ressources and time combined with those of his 99 mates. This is dangerous, as others will lose one of their benefactors and will be inspired to do the same. This is where the perfect ideal collapses.
At this point, you are to ask yourself what kind of person you want to be, and more importantly look at the people around you. It is impossible to live a complete altruist and selfless existence as it is socially inefficient to live a perfectly selfish life. As vast and complex our social networks are, you have to gauge when is the best time to be altruist or selfish, and towards whom. Eventually, you figure out that altruism trumps selfishness most of the time and you become a building block for a better community, making sure selfish individuals do not leech on yourself.
I agree with everything you said, but I want to dive deeper into one of your last points:
Eventually, you figure out that altruism trumps selfishness most of the time and you become a building block for a better community, making sure selfish individuals do not leech on yourself.
I'm fascinated with the idea of how we can measure whether or not we should be altruistic or selfish. I think your first point, that we cannot measure action, is important here. I agree we cannot measure the impacts of our actions. However, I do think we can measure with a far greater degree our selfishness vs how our actions could benefit others. I would argue that because everything we understand arises from the self, that the self is what we are best able to understand. To figure out the "so what", let me present a thought experiment.
There is a given person with a given life in two alternate realities. In one reality, the person is 100% selfish. In the other reality, the person is 100% altruistic. After they die, the two convene and share the story of their lives. Let us ignore contradictory arguments impugned upon us by fate, like the selfish man being killed early because he offended the wrong person, or the altruistic person giving of themselves to the extent they starve to death. Let us focus on what each person would learn.
I think one thing that both sides would marvel at almost every time would be the variety of individual expression achieved by the selfish individual. I think the other thing that both sides would marvel at would be an understanding of how little we do not know about the world around us. This would come from the altruistic individual, and I believe it would exist with such strength because of how many pains and hungers the altruistic individual sought to solve.
I think if you repeated this thought experiment many times and imagined it for many people in many contexts, you would find a similar pattern.
It is a motherfucker of a question to answer -- when should we be selfish and when should we devote ourselves to others? Not only that, but how do we optimize our lives so that we can live as well as possible, creating a symphonic blend of selfishness and altruism? How can we be better people?
I think the knowledge from my thought experiment above is useful because it shows us (I at least feel it shows me) what we should pay attention to in ourselves. When we ask if we should or should not be selfish, I believe we should ask of ourselves how this selfish actions expresses our beliefs to the world. When we follow things we are passionate about, when we catalyze our personal growth, when we bring insights to things that only we could bring to them, when we create a better world through our individual power, we demonstrate the power of being selfish.
I do not think we should ever ask if we should or should not be altruistic. Instead, I think we should develop the ability to sense the pains, needs, hungers and desires of those around us. You could call this an altruistic awareness. As a human being, there are certain things I think we should make sure those around us have: food, water, shelter, education. If we have these things and wish to be selfish but see others that do not have them, we should put aside our growth and help them. As an added benefit, I believe if we live with this altruistic awareness well enough for long enough, our selfishness will subconsciously be influenced by a desire to help others. And in a more immediate sense, we should always help those To me, altruism is an awareness. I think the biggest problem with selfishness is that in many ways, it forces you to be blind to the needs of others. This is why developing an awareness of the people and the world around you is critical. I think it is the only way you can be selfish and have a good heart.
I believe this awareness is what provides us the balance we need to live selfishly. Because if a person has, let us say, a requisite level of awareness that says they would never, under any circumstances, let another person's basic needs not be met if they had the power to immediately prevent it (food, water, shelter), then when they are selfish is not determined by how they feel, but by the circumstances surrounding them.
There is a wrinkle in that the best person to help out with altruism is a person who is selfish, but who also has an altruistic awareness. It is least good to be altruistic towards one that is not selfish, for they give away more of their strength than is prudent. They do not see that if they would be a bit more selfish, they would be able to help people on a grander scale than they are currently able. I do not know exactly what to do with this information, but it is something to be aware of.
If we look at the costs, I think we see the cost of being too altruistic is that you stunt your personal growth, while the cost of being too selfish is that you stunt the capacity for personal growth in those around you.
I do not believe asking the question "what kind of person do I want to be" is useful. I feel it is too egocentric to be of prescriptive use, and instead should be replaced by the question "what kind of people do I want the people around me to be?" I want the people around me to be happy, which to an extent requires them to be selfish. But I also want the people around me to be sensitive to the pains, needs, hungers, and desires of those around them. Not just that, I want them to act upon this sensitivity. I want people to be receptive to these things so that if someone does need help -- even in the most basic of ways -- their human compassion will guide them to set aside their momentary needs in order to help that person. I see how this sort of altruism can go too far, and I say that it should extend to family and friends (friends, of course, being elective).
I want this for my family and friends -- for them to live fulfilling lives (which comes by being selfish), but also to be aware of and willing to act upon the pains, needs, hungers, and desires of others.
I suppose I am saying that it is best to be selfish to maintain one's strength, but selfishness without an awareness of one's surroundings is evil, for it is from this awareness that one's altruism flows. To live well, I believe one can only be selfish in proportion to the awareness of the needs of those in their immediate surroundings.
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On July 13 2015 22:40 bookwyrm wrote: Yeah we deeply, deeply disagree. I dont think you are practical at all, I think you are living in a fantasy world
Are you really giving me the tech billionaire hagiography line? So silly
basically I think you are intellectually complicit with a bad system that keeps getting worse and worse and making peiple more and more dependent, in the service of an imperial project, papered over by a bunch of feel good liberal claptrap
Basically your position is equivalent to the liberal finance doctrine under which the solution to a bubble is to blow an even bigger bubble so when it inevitably fails ita catastrophically bad as opposed to just really bad You can call me complicit while you work for them and use their money to buy their products. I'm aware of that but I don't bother with the self loathing and the utopian ideas that are never put in practice. You're no better than me, because you do nothing while I try to stir a failing idea a little bit in the right direction while you whine and cry because your wild ideals are nothing more than a dream.
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What have you been following me around watching me do this nothing? The assumptions people make about the lives of others around here are insufferable
Theres nothing worse than a smug liberal
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You live in a bad system, you participate in it. I made no assumption, you don't live on the moon. It says United States right next to your name. And you're not magical, so my assumptions are not unfair. Do you live in the woods with the internet or something? I think you're a hypocrite and you won't tell me how you're not complicit. You call me complicit for waking up in the morning and doing the best I can do in a flawed system, what do you do? Are you bringing down the system you consider to be so flawed it's pointless to do anything in it? And to add to the hypocrisy, you were the one making assumptions just before.
There is nothing worst than a smug, deluded idealist. (I lie, there is plenty worse, you're kind of endearing).
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LOL actually yes, right now I literally live in woods and use 4g for internet when I can pick it up. Its hardly revolutionary but it is a literal description of my current living arrangment
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Also im not an idealist I am a quite dogmatic matetialist. Im also a political realist in that I accept the inevitability of political violence. So I dont know in what way I am an idealist. You may be confused if you are not accustomed to talking to people who have principles
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On July 14 2015 00:05 bookwyrm wrote: LOL actually yes, right now I literally live in woods and use 4g for internet when I can pick it up. Its hardly revolutionary but it is a literal description of my current living arrangment Looks like you're using practical measures to mesh your ideals with a conjuncture you disagree with. You're still tied to the networks of the massive multinational corporations to access the web, perhaps you make money, or perhaps you make your own food which is great, yet you're not really succeeding in changing anything, you're just doing your thing.
That said please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, you're right that I don't know very much about you. You're not bringing solutions here, you're criticizing mine while bringing up no actual alternatives. It's very easy to go live in the woods and tell yourself you're changing the world. In the end it seems to me like you're a failing idealist. Much rather have a successful realist who's actually making modest positive changes than an idealist who's denying reality and is quietly asking for radical changes that aren't coming about. You say you should be willing to make violent changes. Where are these violent changes? Tethering 4g? Buying solar panels maybe? Wow!
So I dont know in what way I am an idealist. You may be confused if you are not accustomed to talking to people who have principles Well I may be wrong about you being an idealist, to be fair I know nothing of your ideals, but you strike me as someone who's principles are a bit whacky which is why you won't explicitly tell me about them. In your next post I'm unlikely to see what you think outside of the fact that you think I'm wrong. How do we fix world hunger? Let all those people die, you seem to think, because sending food is stupid, and do (something else?). Who knows what, though. But violence is necessary because the current way of things is bad.
And yet we don't know what you want, we don't know what you do. Only that you're losing, whatever it is, because it's not happening.
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I dont remember the part where I said I was opposed to infrastructure
Its kind of hard to have a discussion when the other person gets to tell you what you think and refute it both at once
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The first step to fixing anything is to acknowledge the reality of the problem. Which you refuse to do because you refuse to acknowledge the way in which aid in fact creates the problem it purports to solve. You attempt to solve a problem by refusing to analyze it which is just intellectually lazy. You confuse pragmatism with blind conformity in the face of real, difficult problems.
ive never claimed to have a magic solution to anything
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On July 14 2015 00:17 bookwyrm wrote: I dont remember the part where I said I was opposed to infrastructure
Its kind of hard to have a discussion when the other person gets to tell you what you think and refute it both at once I didn't use the word infrastructure, and like I said in my previous post, nothing about what you think, just loose posts about what you might possibly not be against. Nothing about what you think. And then you criticize me for "telling you what you think and refuting it". You've made your position ironclad, and you continue to not shedding any light. Two lines per post, no content, a whole lot of whining. Might fool some...
The first step to fixing anything is to acknowledge the reality of the problem. Which you refuse to do because you refuse to acknowledge the way in which aid in fact creates the problem it purports to solve. You attempt to solve a problem by refusing to analyze it which is just intellectually lazy. You confuse pragmatism with blind conformity in the face of real, difficult problems.
ive never claimed to have a magic solution to anything You've never so much as brought up a figment of a better solution. You've also never explained how or even came close to demonstrating that sending food is bad (which I agreed, something which you forgot). You've never shown that the alternative, not sending food, is better - you just see that it's part of the problem and your solution a priori seems to be to remove it (not that I would know, since you say nothing, you just stay toward the safe outskirts of the issue to avoid getting wet and actually taking position, which is hard). You see that my solutions are flawed and you seem to therefore deny them outright. My position is more malleable than yours. Granted, you wouldn't take risks in telling me anything. It's easier to leave me hanging and to then say I'm wrong. Sigh.
I've made concessions you see. I understand that sending food is a deeply flawed solution to an infinitely more complex problem. Except that's how the world works. Flawed solutions, and we can try to come up with less flawed solutions, some of which ought to be temporary but due to a lack of political will and to a poor understanding of these problems, we're left with shit that's better than nothing. Tell me, what do you want? Stop with the two liners and the hazy bullshit, tell me who you are if you can summon up some weird form of courage you don't seem to have.
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Arent you critizing me for using wireless networks or something? Like i have a choice between ecoprimitivism or milquetoast liberalism?
I dont know how respond to the accusation that i wont tell you what i think as i clearly am. Fairly stridently. International food aid is a sinister tool of neoimperialism masquerading as altruism. Which is the topic of the thread.
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"International food aid is a sinister tool of neoimperialism masquerading as altruism. Which is the topic of the thread." is the best I'll get out of you. Like I said, you'll fuck around the outskirts of the problem. I agree with that quote, by the way, entirely. Now show me a better way. Something that can be improved now. Tell me something about you that's not just the rejection of something else.
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No! Thats YOUR methodological premise.
ill give you a proposal for modest progressivist policy changes when you give me a ruthless critique of everything existing
Show me you are capable of real critical thought (ie outline a real problem for no easy feel good answer) and I will show that I can think 'pragmatically'
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On July 14 2015 00:32 bookwyrm wrote: No! Thats YOUR methodological premise.
ill give you a proposal for modest progressivist policy changes when you give me a ruthless critique of everything existing
Show me you are capable of real critical thought (ie outline a real problem for no easy feel good answer) and I will show that I can think 'pragmatically'
You want him to give a ruthless critique of everything existing throughout the entire world before you'll even explain on a basic level what you think should actually be done?
You seem like a reasonable guy.
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On July 14 2015 00:32 bookwyrm wrote: No! Thats YOUR methodological premise.
ill give you a proposal for modest progressivist policy changes when you give me a ruthless critique of everything existing
Show me you are capable of real critical thought (ie outline a real problem for no easy feel good answer) and I will show that I can think 'pragmatically' I think you're the one who's shown you're incapable of critical thought. I've admitted that the current state of affairs is deeply flawed, brought up solutions which I know to be limited in scope, I've agreed that the current state of affairs in fact creates as you've said (at least partially) the hunger problem, I've agreed that the way it's handled benefits the richer countries which you've described as neoimperialism, yet you continue to accuse me of "refus[ing] to acknowledge the way in which aid in fact creates the problem it purports to solve". And at this point you're asking me to showing that I'm capable of critical thought before you actually open up and give me some content. How do you have so much to hide?
My friend... there is no question in my mind that your heart is in the right place, but this is a shit show.
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Yes, thats what I want. I do believe that that is the way to proceed. Otherwise you are just trapped in the dead thought of others
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On July 14 2015 00:40 bookwyrm wrote: Yes, thats what I want. I do believe that that is the way to proceed. Otherwise you are just trapped in the dead thought of others
Everything you've ever said or done is stupid and I have all of the answers. But before i'll tell you anything you must tell me right now what the last number of pi is.
I think this is reasonable because if you can't it shows that you cannot understand even basic logical ideas.
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Well I'm done. I'll happily discuss this with others
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What you wont even respond to my policy suggestion???
also youre a hypocrite... at no point have you made a policy suggestion... youve just made vague appeals to pragmatism and gradual change...
weve been arguing purely at the level of methodology so its pure hypocrisy to accuse me of failing to make concrete proposals...
Glass houses man. Im going back through the thread and youve literally never said a single specific thing about what you think should be done. You just say 'concrete specific proposals shoild be made!!' Which is not in itself a concrete proposal
So here's my proposal. Eliminate all us govt subsidies to agriculture. That means water subsidy and everything. Implement a true free market in ag sector. Then peg minimum wage to food inflation. Balls in your court bro
please respond so you dont forfeit your own game as soon as I agree to play!
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it depends how anal you want to be about the definition of altruism. most people would think of it as volunteering your time for a charity, donating money, etc. This is all inherently good, unless you're one of those retards who pisses and moans that companies get tax credits for charity, or that it's only (arbitrary percentage) of this company's total revenue, or that it's only done for PR purposes, etc.
if you expand altruism to things you think are good (ie. Adrian Peterson whoopin his kid for his own good) then this obviously does not hold up well at all.
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On July 14 2015 00:46 bookwyrm wrote: please respond so you dont forfeit your own game as soon as I agree to play!
If somebody asks you if you want to play a game of basketball you probably shouldn't spend an hour throwing dog shit on the court and then agree to play right as the other person figures out that you're not interested in playing.
Just saying.
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This shit flinging is mutual. And he hasnt lived up to his own challenge which is infuriating
But youre right. The relentless TINAism of the TL population puts me in a bad affect and im not at my most charming. Thank god this place is actually very politically regressive and the male gamer demographic is not representative of the world at large. Back to the forest for me. I dont think dj is actually going to ever present one of those conccrete suggestions he values so highly- not sure hes capable of it so i wont hold my breath
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On July 14 2015 01:17 bookwyrm wrote: This shit flinging is mutual. And he hasnt lived up to his own challenge which is infuriating
The shit flinging is mutual because you initiated it and he responded with more. He hasn't "lived up to his own challenge" because what you were asking for is completely unreasonable becuase he asked for you to put forward a proposition for what could be done about world and how it could be done and you asked him to make a ruthless critique of everything wrong in the world. Those two things are nowhere near the same level. That's like me asking for you to lend to me 20 bucks and you telling me that before you'll do that I need you to crash at my place for 4 months and that it's hypocritical if I don't.
Yet all of that doesn't really matter. If I knew a real world solution to a problem like world hunger I wouldn't demand that other people have to put forward their ideas first so I can criticize them. I would put my idea forward the first opportunity I could because if it's a good idea then it'll spread. If it's a bad idea it'll be criticized and i'll either need to rework it or abandon it. Which is fine. I'd rather be shown to be mistaken about something rather than continue being mistaken in secret.
Now you might ask me why am I not putting forward a real world solution to world hunger. It's because I don't know (and it's fine not to know) how to fix it but i'm not implying that I do. But you seem to be implying that you do know. So here's your opportunity to put up or shut up.
On July 14 2015 01:17 bookwyrm wrote:But youre right. The relentless TINAism of the TL population puts me in a bad affect and im not at my most charming. Thank god this place is actually very politically regressive and the male gamer demographic is not representative of the world at large. Back to the forest for me. I dont think dj is actually going to ever present one of those conccrete suggestions he values so highly- not sure hes capable of it so i wont hold my breath
It's really sad when the people that know how to fix everything decide not to share with the rest of humanity because other people are not sharing what are (according to the know it all) bad ideas because reasons.
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Ive never claimed I knew how to fix everything!! Ive claimed precisely the opposite!!
this entire argument started when I said that critique comes first before you can even begin to contemplate proposing solutions. And then dj said that if you dont have a policy solution your critique is invalid. How can you go around accusing me of the thing i was arguing against???
I dont understand you people
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On July 13 2015 14:47 bookwyrm wrote: shrug. if you're not willing to commit violence in order to create a better world, you're complicit with the violence that already exists. it's a lose lose situation. welcome to reality. this is what i mean when i say there are real problems with the world.
only the retaliatory use of physical force against humans is moral.
initiating the use of force against a human is against the fundamental nature of what makes us human. "moralists" classify this as "evil". which just adds emotional fuel to a very subtle and tricky issue making it even more difficult to discuss than it already is.
the fundamental nature of a human is "rational animal".
i'm not even going to bring up Francisco D'anconia though ... or even Ludwig Von Mises because that would drag this way off topic.
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It is irrational for a supposedly "rational" being to posit the boundaries of his own rationality.
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humans act against their fundamental nature all the time.
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Humans can't know their own fundamental nature.
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ah , the old.. "i know that i know nothing" thing
it is up to humans to discover their fundamental nature.. and it is not an easy thing to do. this is why things like the Declaration of Independence and the novel The Fountainhead are such incredible achievements. but we're going way off topic here.
back on topic... if human fundamental nature is unknowable than the question of altruism is unanswerable.
this morning an elderly lady was having a problem carrying a small package to the info/kiosk/security desk of my #1 customer... seeing her struggle.. i carried it for her.... am i an altruist?
EDIT: just noticed we have a casualty on the forum battlefied.. bookwyrm is no longer with us.
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I hope I don't have this blood on my hands.
Edit: Looks this thread pushed him over the line. RIP
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Baa?21242 Posts
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@TinaTurner- Is this really altruism though? Or is this just a a more generalized self interest because they expect the favor to be repaid?
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To contribute to this discussion more myself:
I believe I didn't clearly define altruism or at least attempt to even suggest what it might mean. When I brought this idea up with a friend of mine, his reply inspired me to think that perhaps an altruistic act requires a need to be filled before the act can even be performed. This means that in order to be truly altruistic, one most have understood a need to be filled from a third party.
This question however leads to a thought path I have seen before - Do we judge an act, an altruistic one on this case, by it's consequence or by it's action? The question could be expanded to say.... At which point do we start judging ANY action by it's consequence instead of it's intention? Or vice versa?
ENDER'S GAME SPOILERS BELOW. THIS IS YOUR SPOILER, THERE ARE NONE BELOW. | | | | | | v v
An interesting literary example I want to bring up is Ender Wiggin in Ender's Game. The idea behind Ender is that he goes to battle school because he understood a need to be fulfilled, and did so even though he didn't want to do it. In a final test of his abilities, Ender decides (like he does multiple times in the book) he's going to finally give up because the job is too damn difficult. He ends up deciding to perform a suicide mission in his game to win but take every living thing with him.
What you find out is that Ender was actually fighting a war using a graphical interface. Despite his attempts to convince the teachers he's unfit for the job, he ends up winning the entire war which he thought he was training to fight. This crushes his soul understanding that what he did was out of spite to tell everyone to go fuck themselves, but ends up accomplishing the goal instead.
What I take away from Ender however is not that he saved humanity when he thought he had given up - It's that after winning the war, he feels a responsibility to the race he wiped out to discover who they were and write their story. What made Ender altruistic was not winning the war, but feeling responsible for the consequence of winning the war no matter what. I think that speaks perfectly to what altruism really is which is not the act itself, but both committing the act and taking responsibility for the negative consequences it may produce whatever they may be.
I feel like that if altruism is defined by the responsibility of both the action and it's consequences, then it is inherently good.
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On July 14 2015 03:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote:ah , the old.. "i know that i know nothing" thing it is up to humans to discover their fundamental nature.. and it is not an easy thing to do. this is why things like the Declaration of Independence and the novel The Fountainhead are such incredible achievements. but we're going way off topic here. back on topic... if human fundamental nature is unknowable than the question of altruism is unanswerable. this morning an elderly lady was having a problem carrying a small package to the info/kiosk/security desk of my #1 customer... seeing her struggle.. i carried it for her.... am i an altruist? EDIT: just noticed we have a casualty on the forum battlefied.. bookwyrm is no longer with us.
You are a bad Randian. Did you learn nothing from The Fountainhead? Roark blew up his own building rather than let someone else use it.
@ omnic and DJ
I think it's funny you guys never even bothered to respond to bookwyrm's policy suggestions. The curtain was lifted on Oz.
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On July 15 2015 10:18 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2015 03:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote:ah , the old.. "i know that i know nothing" thing it is up to humans to discover their fundamental nature.. and it is not an easy thing to do. this is why things like the Declaration of Independence and the novel The Fountainhead are such incredible achievements. but we're going way off topic here. back on topic... if human fundamental nature is unknowable than the question of altruism is unanswerable. this morning an elderly lady was having a problem carrying a small package to the info/kiosk/security desk of my #1 customer... seeing her struggle.. i carried it for her.... am i an altruist? EDIT: just noticed we have a casualty on the forum battlefied.. bookwyrm is no longer with us. I think it's funny you guys never even bothered to respond to bookwyrm's policy suggestions. The curtain was lifted on Oz. I think you might want to re-read how the conversation went. The problem of world hunger was only brought up as a sub-point of the entire debate between pragmatism vs. ideology or whatever else, and he himself refused to give us insight in his views regarding the matter, outside of some surface bullshit. We were not willing to go into the super-specifics of a subpoint which was already an subpoint in the larger argument which is this threat. Why bother bringing up a policy example for someone who dragged the conversation by criticizing while never bringing up something original to the table when he was the one who made the spectacular claims about how we should (perhaps) cease sending food over because it's neoimperialism and that DESPITE the fact that it would most likely cause the deaths of millions.
So what do you find so funny? Not only were we far away from the initial point, we were arguing with an intentionally opaque character, Bookwyrm, who actively protected himself from criticism by never clearly exposing his own views. Furthermore, to bring up specific policy ideas was to miss the point, not only of the thread as a whole, but also of the subpoint. My opinion that pragmatism is necessary would not, in any case, be bolstered by me being able to off the top of my head bring up policy suggestions (which span hundreds of fucking pages!) to solve a specific problem. Yet there is plenty of evidence, despite the fact that people tend to be cripplingly pessimistic, that pragmatic measures even in the frame of capitalism (which Bookwyrm despises) have led to some spectacular advances in the human condition.
Hell, to push it further, his argument (hard to interpret because his argument does not actually exist, but was intended to be generated by his readers who were expected to deduce what he thinks based on what he disagreed on), was something to the effect that to solve world hunger, we would have to "commit violence" (in the form of letting people starve) and through some utopian magic, world hunger would be solved. I don't know which Marxist principles would allow this to happen in the current conjecture, but it seems like the idea of it, alone, despite the absence of concrete measures, would be a substitute for actually doing something.
So we find ourselves confronted to two views Mine: Fallible humans are forced to take imperfect actions with undesirable effects to get certain things done, and we consider those to be better than to do nothing. Bookwyrm suggests that my acceptance of the status quo makes me a conformist (his word), and that by accepting capitalism I'm part of the problem. Instead of doing something in the bad framing of capitalism, I should do (something unspecified that evidently does not work).
So why do you want me to come up with a policy idea? What makes you think that I even can come up with a reasonable proposition for solving a problem as complex as world hunger? I would first need to gather a very in-depth understanding of the problem which is not currently my area of expertise, I would then have to acquire a decent understanding of the political landscape to see what is possible in terms of resources of all kind, and then I would come up with a proposal which research would suggest would have results which are better than doing nothing, given certain morality standards such as those absent in Bookwyrm. I happen to think that letting people die is unacceptable. I also happen to think that turning poor countries into vassals of our powerful countries is fucked up, and so I would try to stir the practical measures taken by the State toward sustainable development: building wells with the communities, teaching how to do agriculture with heat resistant crops, all while continuing to send food during the transition. It's called capacity building or something which is not perfect but it's better than to just ask for a complete paradigm shift and a collapse of capitalism.
Those are my initial ideas on policy propositions that may be proven through research to be complete horseshit, but all of this is pointless because the initial point was about pragmatism. At the most basic level, people who would argue that pragmatism is shortsighted and stupid, and would then argue that pragmatism is the wrong way to solve world hunger, are failing to see that the notion of solving world hunger, the very formulation of the problem "solving world hunger", is pragmatic. We observe a reality, we want to act upon it to make it stop. The pragmatic, at least, knows that he can't, but perhaps wishes to try.
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You didn't even have to come up with a policy idea on your own. He presented policies for you to respond and critique and you have spent a long time writing up a response to my post in which you don't even address the suggestions he made.
You are also way off base in saying that he's been intentionally opaque. If anything he's the one who has been most transparent here.
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On July 15 2015 10:46 IgnE wrote: You didn't even have to come up with a policy idea on your own. He presented policies for you to respond and critique and you have spent a long time writing up a response to my post in which you don't even address the suggestions he made.
You are also way off base in saying that he's been intentionally opaque. If anything he's the one who has been most transparent here. The average number of lines in his posts is probably 3 or 4, generally with little content to speak of. If you call that transparent, I'll accuse you of being disingenuous. I saw no policies of his for me to respond to. "Repeal the farm bill" was the jist of it maybe? Is this 4 word post referring to an agriculture legislation in a country which I don't live in the post I'm expected to respond to IgnE?
At that point of the argument, I was getting fed up with his avoidance and his intentional opacity that you don't seem to detect despite the fact that his posts are short and critical with no substance. He made a 4 word post which refers to a national bill that I'm not familiar with, but the notion that repealing a single bill could have any relevance to this conversation is ludicrous, and so I didn't take it seriously. After all, it was a 4 words post, which was actually part of a double post. Bookwyrm was simply not playing by any rules.
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[QUOTE]On July 15 2015 10:18 IgnE wrote: [QUOTE]On July 14 2015 03:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote: @ omnic and DJ
I think it's funny you guys never even bothered to respond to bookwyrm's policy suggestions. The curtain was lifted on Oz. [/QUOTE]
You must have misunderstood the point of my posts. My posts here were not about the topic itself but rather good argument practices. I clearly stated that I don't know the answer to the questions and i'm not for or against any specific side of said argument. I just want people to argue in a way that can be productive.
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On July 14 2015 00:46 bookwyrm wrote: What you wont even respond to my policy suggestion???
also youre a hypocrite... at no point have you made a policy suggestion... youve just made vague appeals to pragmatism and gradual change...
weve been arguing purely at the level of methodology so its pure hypocrisy to accuse me of failing to make concrete proposals...
Glass houses man. Im going back through the thread and youve literally never said a single specific thing about what you think should be done. You just say 'concrete specific proposals shoild be made!!' Which is not in itself a concrete proposal
So here's my proposal. Eliminate all us govt subsidies to agriculture. That means water subsidy and everything. Implement a true free market in ag sector. Then peg minimum wage to food inflation. Balls in your court bro
please respond so you dont forfeit your own game as soon as I agree to play!
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Alright IgnE, that's brilliant and all but before there's two problems I see with it. First, it plays into my court (or however you say that in English). He was arguing that pragmatism is bad, and yet his policy propositions are all pragmatic. He's tinkering with existing mechanisms.
Second, any semi competent politician would look at that and immediately think it must be a bad joke. I mean to start, which one country's policies singlehandedly are causing world hunger? Obviously it's not national policies alone that are going to solve this problem. But more importantly, if we're talking about the United States, "Eliminate all us gvt subsidies to agriculture" will get you trampled by one of the US's most powerful lobbies... the agriculture lobby. Massively powerful bunch.
Yet like I said his proposition is fine, it's just impossible to put into action (not unlike mine, undoubtedly), and it wouldn't actually solve world hunger, nor do I know exactly through which mechanisms it would make the whole thing better, I would still have to be convince. It still missed the point about pragmatism. His policy suggestion showed that he was thinking like a pragmatic, and just happened to be shit at that because he failed to account for the constraints which would super obviously prevent him from actually making it happen.
And by the way I'm not saying that his ideas are necessarily bad, if they could be put into place they might be good and helpful, yet what good does that do? If I could be a wizard that'd be fun but I don't plan my life out on the assumption that tomorrow I'll be able to teleport myself to work. That is why we need good pragmatics, people who look at the problems like transit and design roads, decide to invest in public transportation, design sidewalks that are large enough for people, etc. Real life. It's not ALL we need, but we need them. What has the ridiculous notion of cutting agriculture subsidies done to show that to be wrong?
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Yes, why talk about stuff that we could do in theory when everyone knows the status quo never changes? We are all just ants. Let Bill Gates do his thing so people don't starve.
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On July 15 2015 11:43 IgnE wrote: Yes, why talk about stuff that we could do in theory when everyone knows the status quo never changes? We are all just ants. Let Bill Gates do his thing so people don't starve. If you've been reading you know that I'm in no way opposed to people talking about this stuff or even people who try to put it into practice, I'm all for that. Which part of my rhetoric do you manage to read as denial of those things?
Like, my argument can be summarized to say "I don't believe that we should ONLY talk and do nothing on the basis that what we're doing is not perfect". We need pragmatics making actions which are imperfect but are better than nothing. He's against that. He's saying that we should let people starve to death instead of send money because neoimperialism is even worse than starving people.
Your big response after all this is a complete strawman which somehow manages to paint me as someone who's against thought and dialogue? How do you even do this with my words?
I'll say this to you. As much as it would be bad to follow the dominant trends, it is just as dumb to pretend like they don't exist. We are not ants, we are men capable of great things, especially if we take the time to understand our context to see how we can work upon the world. And we should talk about it, of course. And we should talk abolishing subsidies in agriculture. But then we do things.
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You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Either you take bookwyrm seriously or you don't. Saying "yes all well and good but it's impossible!" *throws hands in air* and then turning around and accusing me of not understanding your rhetoric because you are in "no way opposed to people talking about this stuff" is a bit ridiculous. You are fluffy and opaque my friend.
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On July 15 2015 11:53 IgnE wrote: You are talking out of both sides of your mouth. Either you take bookwyrm seriously or you don't. Saying "yes all well and good but it's impossible!" *throws hands in air* and then turning around and accusing me of not understanding your rhetoric because you are in "no way opposed to people talking about this stuff" is a bit ridiculous. You are fluffy and opaque my friend. I think I'm being reasonably clear.
It's because of the setting of the argument that you don't seem to understand. The argument about pragmatism creates a dichotomy which opposes a realist view of the world to something more ideological. This is why bookwyrm's argument can be taken seriously in that it attempts to come up with a practical solution, while simultaneously being ridiculous because he's also arguing against practical solutions which are currently applicable. My point is that applicability is important. There is nothing opaque about it and your impression that "I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth" quite simply comes from the fact that you've largely ignored the aforementioned dichotomy.
In fact his policy suggestion was probably intended as a red herring.
Edit: I just noticed that the quote below your post is very pertinent to this conversation, and it's very interesting indeed. Unfortunately my position is that if your ideals prevent you from interacting with reality, you're undermining yourself. You might not like capitalism but that shouldn't stop you from doing your best .
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He never set up such a dichotomy, that was you. You drew a ring around an argument without even seeming to understand where he was coming from, and now you are defending those boundaries as if he was the one who drew them. I know what your point is, and it's banal. You like to have your cake and eat it too. I get it.
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On July 15 2015 12:15 IgnE wrote: He never set up such a dichotomy, that was you. You drew a ring around an argument without even seeming to understand where he was coming from, and now you are defending those boundaries as if he was the one who drew them. I know what your point is, and it's banal. You like to have your cake and eat it too. I get it. I know I set up the boundaries and yet he still ran into the argument without challenging them, thus perhaps making a complicated mess. And the reason why I don't feel like the argument is banal is that I feel like many idealists are shooting themselves in the foot by choosing not to interact with reality. This should only be banal to you if you're also willing to admit that whatever dreams you have for this world are going to die because you couldn't be bothered to do anything but talk and talk and use words like banal when your futile exercises got challenged by the big mean conformists.
Yet it seems to me like you're biased in this whole ordeal because even though you might agree with him on an ideological level, you should've seen that he was derailing when he said for instance "You attempt to solve a problem by refusing to analyze it which is just intellectually lazy" which was an unreasonable assumption and/or a complete misunderstanding of the "banal" boundaries I had set before. To put it simply, I've argued with much more radical Marxists who were a lot more intellectually honest than poor old weak-willed and now forum banned Bookwyrm. And it made for much more rewarding conversations that never had to be this confrontational.
Edit: Been wanting to go to bed for a while now. Good night!
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I feel like I'm watching a debate with a Calvinist.
This does not seem to be a rational so much as a reaction. Djzapz seems to be saying "we should work to identify and implement sound policies, but in the meantime we should keep sending food." This "but we should keep sending food" seems to be offensive to some, like Djzapz classmates and bookwyrm. I suspect his classmates just aren't interested in aid that comes from outside their bubble and bookwyrm thinks it reinforces neocolonialism or something.
@nunez- If you're still here. One criticism I have of Marxists is their tendency to get wrapped up in narratives. bookwrym looks at a situation and his little template for the way things go is already laid out. Regardless of whether there is some truth to his analysis of the situation, there is more to the story than he can see. For instance, "neocolonialism" or not, it doesn't change the fact that people are being rendered aid.
As for bookwyrm's policy suggestions, I can't say I know too much, but there are two points I'd like to make. There are two groups of people that we are talking about here. There are people who simply have a low standard of living and there are people who are literally starving. In the second group, the major causes of this are war, displacement, natural disasters, political upheaval, etc. There are also places that simply lack sufficient natural resources, including ways to make clean water. While the general low standard of living may be a result of globalisation, I don't think that the dire straits peoples are a direct result of globalisation.
I feel like in these discussions, you see a group of people who previously felt very sure about the who the "good guys" and "bad guys" were suddenly split. The major split seems to be between global and national interests. bookwyrm's proposals might help the developing world but I think it would probably hurt the average American as well. You're seeing a similar tiff right now the U.S. Democratic Party, centered around Elizabeth Warren.
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On July 15 2015 12:32 Jerubaal wrote: I feel like I'm watching a debate with a Calvinist.
This does not seem to be a rational so much as a reaction. Djzapz seems to be saying "we should work to identify and implement sound policies, but in the meantime we should keep sending food." This "but we should keep sending food" seems to be offensive to some, like Djzapz classmates and bookwyrm. I suspect his classmates just aren't interested in aid that comes from outside their bubble and bookwyrm thinks it reinforces neocolonialism or something.
@nunez- If you're still here. One criticism I have of Marxists is their tendency to get wrapped up in narratives. bookwrym looks at a situation and his little template for the way things go is already laid out. Regardless of whether there is some truth to his analysis of the situation, there is more to the story than he can see. For instance, "neocolonialism" or not, it doesn't change the fact that people are being rendered aid.
As for bookwyrm's policy suggestions, I can't say I know too much, but there are two points I'd like to make. There are two groups of people that we are talking about here. There are people who simply have a low standard of living and there are people who are literally starving. In the second group, the major causes of this are war, displacement, natural disasters, political upheaval, etc. There are also places that simply lack sufficient natural resources, including ways to make clean water. While the general low standard of living may be a result of globalisation, I don't think that the dire straits peoples are a direct result of globalisation.
I feel like in these discussions, you see a group of people who previously felt very sure about the who the "good guys" and "bad guys" were suddenly split. The major split seems to be between global and national interests. bookwyrm's proposals might help the developing world but I think it would probably hurt the average American as well. You're seeing a similar tiff right now the U.S. Democratic Party, centered around Elizabeth Warren.
As for the first bolded part, you don't seem to fully comprehend the argument. The argument is that aid within a globalized neoliberal economy perpetuates the need for aid. You are saying "well at least they are getting aid until we figure something out," but the point is that the aid and the means with which it is rendered is creating the conditions for more need in the future, and, in fact, prevents you from "working to identify and implement sound policies" because it takes as an unchanging precondition the ideological framework that perpetuates it. So you have people like DJ saying forever that the problem is complex and we need to work incrementally within the system to solve hunger, blah blah blah, but let's keep giving them aid in this way. That's bookwyrm's whole point. The critique comes first, otherwise you end up perpetuating conditions of systemic violence.
As for the second bolded part, you are making an overly broad statement that looks safe to make, because who would blame everything on globalization. I mean the people in Africa didn't have internet 50 years ago, and now at least they have some hope of getting the internet. But it ignores the fact that the people's natural resource inheritance in Africa is being openly plundered, often in exchange for the very aid we are talking about! Here are some loans poor country, to build infrastructure. Oh, your warlord used the funds on frivolous shit and guns and now you can't pay them back? Just sell your mineral rights, remove barriers to entry for our multinationals, and let us exploit your labor pool and we can write that debt down a bit. Here's a few billion to buy mosquito nets and rice. Thank you for the rare earth minerals, gold, oil, and other resources you won't ever see again.
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On July 15 2015 13:12 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 15 2015 12:32 Jerubaal wrote: I feel like I'm watching a debate with a Calvinist.
This does not seem to be a rational so much as a reaction. Djzapz seems to be saying "we should work to identify and implement sound policies, but in the meantime we should keep sending food." This "but we should keep sending food" seems to be offensive to some, like Djzapz classmates and bookwyrm. I suspect his classmates just aren't interested in aid that comes from outside their bubble and bookwyrm thinks it reinforces neocolonialism or something.
@nunez- If you're still here. One criticism I have of Marxists is their tendency to get wrapped up in narratives. bookwrym looks at a situation and his little template for the way things go is already laid out. Regardless of whether there is some truth to his analysis of the situation, there is more to the story than he can see. For instance, "neocolonialism" or not, it doesn't change the fact that people are being rendered aid.
As for bookwyrm's policy suggestions, I can't say I know too much, but there are two points I'd like to make. There are two groups of people that we are talking about here. There are people who simply have a low standard of living and there are people who are literally starving. In the second group, the major causes of this are war, displacement, natural disasters, political upheaval, etc. There are also places that simply lack sufficient natural resources, including ways to make clean water. While the general low standard of living may be a result of globalisation, I don't think that the dire straits peoples are a direct result of globalisation.
I feel like in these discussions, you see a group of people who previously felt very sure about the who the "good guys" and "bad guys" were suddenly split. The major split seems to be between global and national interests. bookwyrm's proposals might help the developing world but I think it would probably hurt the average American as well. You're seeing a similar tiff right now the U.S. Democratic Party, centered around Elizabeth Warren. As for the first bolded part, you don't seem to fully comprehend the argument. The argument is that aid within a globalized neoliberal economy perpetuates the need for aid. You are saying "well at least they are getting aid until we figure something out," but the point is that the aid and the means with which it is rendered is creating the conditions for more need in the future, and, in fact, prevents you from "working to identify and implement sound policies" because it takes as an unchanging precondition the ideological framework that perpetuates it. So you have people like DJ saying forever that the problem is complex and we need to work incrementally within the system to solve hunger, blah blah blah, but let's keep giving them aid in this way. That's bookwyrm's whole point. The critique comes first, otherwise you end up perpetuating conditions of systemic violence. As for the second bolded part, you are making an overly broad statement that looks safe to make, because who would blame everything on globalization. I mean the people in Africa didn't have internet 50 years ago, and now at least they have some hope of getting the internet. But it ignores the fact that the people's natural resource inheritance in Africa is being openly plundered, often in exchange for the very aid we are talking about! Here are some loans poor country, to build infrastructure. Oh, your warlord used the funds on frivolous shit and guns and now you can't pay them back? Just sell your mineral rights, remove barriers to entry for our multinationals, and let us exploit your labor pool and we can write that debt down a bit. Here's a few billion to buy mosquito nets and rice. Thank you for the rare earth minerals, gold, oil, and other resources you won't ever see again. To reduce the notion of "sending food" as purely ideological is your problem in this matter. It may well be, but as others have said, the notion that people without food die is another thing to take into consideration, and you and Bookwyrm completely ignore that. I don't know if you'd agree, but he's been completely honest about how we should suddenly stop sending food, knowing that those people would die, and it takes radical change. Yet as I've repeated ad nauseam, the act of having this latent idea has no value. Your quote illustrates that well, as far as I'm concerned, because the "forces which prevent their realization" are something to take into consideration.
At the end of the day, if you can't do what you want, you're whining. And to say I misunderstand the problem when I'm aware of the ills of what bookwyrm called neoimperialism, I did bring up suggestions about capacity building. These practical measures that we should aim to do are actually implementable.
You called my argument banal before, and now you're trying to paint incremental change as this dumb thing, and yet it's the only way we do things. To dismiss it is you admitting that you will actively denigrate those who do too little for your taste, while you yourself do nothing while advocating to change the world, thus ensuring that the world will never change. So I don't think it's banal for me to explain that your world view, while nice on paper, laughable, due to its complete lack of applicability and usefulness in the real world. And of course, of COURSE you think my point is banal when your point is fairies and unicorns. How is a realist supposed to argue with fairies and unicorns for everybody? I have no such cool shit in my arsenal.
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This constant complaining about how certain action is impossible is part of the problem. The only difference between my view and yours in that regard is the number of people who hold it. Yes of course you sound reasonable when you say "but you are impractical!" We are both sitting in a first world country with little but our vote and our opinion so stop pretending that you are the realist here.
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Fine, but I could just as well have the exact same ideals as you do and then I'd actually get to work in the morning instead of being deadlocked. I'm stuck in a first world country, I have ideals which I know full well cannot be realized, I discuss them like you do, and when I sit my ass on a chair at work, instead of crying about how my big plans cannot take place, I'm a slave to the system like everybody else and I try to make it better in whatever small way I can. And so I help with urban design and shit to make people of Montreal live better... And I think it's fine of me to value these small things I can do, just like I value the work of janitors cleaning stuff, engineers designing streets, and UN staffers filling out a shipping slip to send food in a refugee camp while crying themselves to sleep because their hands are tied, and the next day they push as hard as a handful of people can to actually change things but they can't, yet they make stuff a little better while YOU say they're wrong and what they're doing is fucked up and you'd apparently prefer inertia and perhaps even mass deaths to gradual change. Thank God for me.
And I know full well that you're advocating for radical change. Unicorns, like I said.
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What are you even talking about at this point? Your making Montreal better has nothing to do with what we are talking about. You can still be for radical change and continue to do whatever it is you are doing.
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On July 16 2015 00:02 IgnE wrote: What are you even talking about at this point? Your making Montreal better has nothing to do with what we are talking about. You can still be for radical change and continue to do whatever it is you are doing. Sure. And you can be for radical change while not opposing gradual change by people who recognize the importance of gradual change. I don't feel like my job is useless just because it's too conformist for some of my ideals.
What is so difficult to understand. You can be a Marxist down to your core and I respect that and you can say neoimperialism and I'll agree with you and you can say we should do it very differently I might still agree with you WHILE *ACTUALLY* doing something entirely different because it's better than to just spout idealistic nonsense that no one will hear from the top of a mountain. There is what you think and there is what you can do, and what you think shouldn't prevent from actually getting shit done.
Anyway we're clearly bashing at a wall here and it's not going to get any better. You might think I'm crazy and I think your position is perhaps worth discussing from an intellectual perspective but your complete disregard for practicality IMO is damaging in the real world.
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god that was awful plz just give me my change and happy meal you horrible man
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