Generally speaking, taking a holistic perspective and taking everything you think is important in consideration, do you think that the world is heading in the right or wrong direction?
Well, a lot of the answer depends on if you believe in free markets or not.
Given those such people like Musk or Bill Gates making contributions to the survival of humanity through the positive externalities created by the invisible hand, then the future looks pretty good.
However, if we can't find a solution to the 'tragedy of the commons' scenario with regards to climate change, then the future looks pretty uncertain for everyone on the globe.
Definitely in the wrong one. Collectivism is the worst thing that could've ever happened to our society. New silent totalitarian regime. Lack of searching for truth is what helps authorities to manipulate others and thus bringing us closer to Orwell's 1984 type of society.
And I don't want to steal anyone's ideas, but as mentioned in thread called Post-truth. The fact that it's the word of the year speaks for itself well enough.
The wrong direction clearly. The biggest problems we face are that we have to come to terms with several impossibilities:
(1) The impossibility of globalisation
(2) The impossibility of a unified multicultural society
(3) The impossibility of an economic system based on and fuelled by the idea of infinite growth
(4) The impossibility of sustaining social order in a society driven by consumerism
We have to return to local, family/culture driven societies, where economics takes a minor role in people's lives, where local cultures grow, are respected and develop, and where the main function of people is something other than to consume. We need virtue back - the virtue of the olden days of Plato and Aristotle. Our problems arise out of people - post-modernists, progressives, globalists, socialists, capitalists, etc. not accepting the facticity of the above four impossibilities and instead allowing ideology to drive them.
Reply to m-theory
Yeah, give me a break. After the bloodiest century in all of history, we notice a reduction in violence. Yeah no doubt, if violence spiralled out of control even more than that, we may not have been around to notice anything... (and I have no doubt that sooner or later violence will be back with a vengeance - in addition to this, many people are living in the world worse than they have EVER lived before in the entire history of mankind - some folks can't even drink water because it's not potable anymore. Some folks live with the threat of bombs over their heads. And so forth. These "consume me" type of authors like Steven Pinker and so forth don't say anything great. They say something new, because the new sells. Forget what the truth is, it's more important that the truth is new than that it is the truth!
I think Pinker gives us good evidence to believe that more recent centuries were not in fact the bloodiest of all time.
Yeah sure, Hitler killing 6 million Jews! Not a big deal! Stalin murdering around 21 million! Eh, just another statistic! Nothing to fret about! Mao Zedong murdering 40 million! Not that bloody, it's just fucking 40 million no?
Ehmm yes he commits the sophistry of looking at it in terms of percentages. Ahh only 1% of the world's population died during the World Wars! Not a big deal! It's 1% - look in the past, more than 1% died! In the tribe having 100 people as population, 10 died per year, much bigger you see? 10% - not a big deal! Just another statistic as I've said. The chance of dying violently was much greater! 10 times greater in fact! Woah, what a discovery!
Yes but if no one consumes their material they will not succeed in that intention.
Yes but consumption isn't the essence of what an author should be doing. If he writes shit and everyone consumes it, then he's failing. If he writes truth, and no one consumes it, he's not a failure, he just didn't have the skill of communicating except to a few.
Reply to AgustinoI think you are not being very reasonable.
Pinker does not imply that violence in more recent centuries is less appalling.
He points out that it is a trend that is actually in decline.
That is a good thing.
I think you are not being very reasonable.
Pinker does not imply that violence in more recent centuries is less appalling.
He points out that it is a trend that is actually in decline.
That is a good thing.
No, the trend in absolute numbers is NOT in decline. So don't give me this bullshit. Who cares that 10% died in the past, and now only 1% die? The 1% now is greater than the 10% back then.
Really I almost can't believe how easily people are fooled by sophistry. All you have to do to change perspectives is talk in percentages. Oh ain't that cute now no? The fucking Pinker is gonna come and tell us how we're all wrong, and everything we thought about is wrong. And guess what, we're going to start salivating like dogs and listening to him tell us something exciting (because it's new!). Right... That's what's wrong with the world.
Ted Talk is just a cheap fast food for brains of thought consumers. In other words, it is designed for people who are not well read and will never engage in complex discussions themselves. It's a pseudo-intelectual environment for your lovely consumers.
Ted Generation is one of the problems of our age. Steven Pinker is a great example of the thought seller.
- Ironic how this type of question is paradoxically prompted in the modern angst-ridden world in which we live by an age-old anxiety occasioned by the turn of a year!
Well, concerning as an example of what might in practise justify our apprehension the angst-ridden prospect of nuclear war, the relevant factor regarding this prospect - in terms of a philosophical analysis of the nature of the Human Condition in the abstract that is - is only whether such an event is in principle possible, rather than the pragmatic question of how the prospect might some time in the future actually happen to be realised. Upon the answer to that question in principle profound consequences regarding the fundamental nature of what constitutes our human condition are contingent.
Iconic iterations of what is possible in our situation that occurred in the 20th century – The Battle of the Somme, The Holocaust, as examples – served in their turn to illustrate how events can reveal fundamental aspects of its’ nature previously not anticipated. In that respect the doctrine of ‘Mad’, on which the idea requisite to our psychology of the inherent impossibility of nuclear war is based, might seem, as weapons of mass destruction gradually proliferate, an evermore tenuous thread on which to hang the hope that future eventualities will not nonetheless reveal – albeit perhaps posthumously - further realities regarding the nature of this situation in which we are obliged to exist being yet more incomprehensible in terms of anything we can currently anticipate.
Reply to Emptyheady Fuck man not this again! The data does not speak for itself. You're deluded. 10% in a tribe of 100 people is 10 people! 1% in a world of 1 billion is 10 million. What were the populations of those tribes? Small!!! That's why you see big percentages! If I have a small business making 1 dollar a year, and then I make 2 dollars the next year, woah, 100% growth be jealous of me! This is the old sales trick of giving data in percentages to make it sound more impressive. Nothing special. It's not even about the data, it's how you interpret it. This whole ideology of "the facts", "the data" is bullshit. There is no data in a vacuum. No facts in a vacuum.
The fact remains unchanged that the world in the past century (not today) was more violent than ever before in its history. Now we're living in relatively more peaceful times, in some parts of the world that is. But there is no trend towards peace. This is bullshit.
What might improve upon things...?
Educating and informing, generally available, and throwing misinformation in the bin.
Looking after each other, and our environments long-term.
Those kinds of things.
Reply to Emptyheady Think about it. To kill 10% in today's world, you'd have to kill 700 million people. That's not easy. Pretty much the only way to do that is to throw a nuclear bomb. And probably you have to throw more than one.
To kill 10% in a tribe of 100 people, it's sufficient that you have a lunatic who goes on a rampage one night, and the deed is (more than) done. That doesn't mean that one society is more peaceful than the other. It means that the lunatic has a larger effect percentage wise in one case, because the population is small. Thus, in terms of percentage, the larger society is more protected from the lunatic as an effect of its size.
You're a smart guy but it's a pity to see you listening to this sort of crap without thinking about it. You must think in practical terms regarding data. Data is never telling the truth. Data is mostly irrelevant. Go back to the basics. Use your imagination. What are/is the process that could give rise to such a data? That is the relevant question. Analyse mechanisms that could lead to such data, and see which mechanism is most likely to be the case. Don't just look at data, scratch your head, and ask what is this data telling us. You can, and you will many times be given data to trick you into a certain way of acting. You have to understand where that data is coming from, and how in practical terms it comes about, because quite often it may not be the first answer that comes to mind. Giving someone data is a very easy way to fool them in today's world. Data is very easy to produce, manufacture, and sell as fact.
The tragedy of the commons is a fairly fundamental result of non-regulation.
Seems like a good reason for cooperation.
A thoroughly "back to nature" move (and similar) isn't really much of an improvement, more a kind of romanticising.
Quantifiable: reduction in violence (e.g. rates of homicides and rape), poverty and all its aspects (e.g. death by starvation, death by diseases); and increasing life expectancies, the standard of living (in GDP) and the universal human rights (which I consider the maximisation of negative liberty).
Generally, there is one powerful measurement to to determine this, namely child mortality (including abortions).
Quantifiable: reduction in violence (e.g. rates of homicides and rape), poverty and all its aspects (e.g. death by starvation, death by diseases); and increasing life expectancies, the standard of living (in GDP) and the universal human rights (which I consider the maximisation of negative liberty).
This isn't flourishing though. This is the bare minimum of well-being, before we can even talk about flourishing.
Reply to AgustinoReply to Emptyheady
That reminds me another thing.
An increase in individual freedom so that people can determine for themselves what it means to flourish.
We can't really measure human flourishing that way. They're more like conditions for the possibility of flourishing of a higher number of people than otherwise, sure. But they're not indicative of flourishing at all. For example, would you say a society in which divorce rates are close to 50% is flourishing? That indicates a high level of conflict and disharmony amongst its members, and would certainly not count as flourishing in my books.
Reply to Agustino To be flourishing is a thing that individuals should be able to decide for themselves.
In a historical context individual rights have improved significantly in more recent centuries, this means more people have a greater freedom to decide for themselves how they will flourish.
To be flourishing is a thing that individuals should be able to decide for themselves.
That's false, because the actions of individuals have consequences on the well-being of others. To say they "should decide for themselves" without further specification is not engaging in ethics at all. For example if they decide that flourishing is being individualists and doing whatever satisfies them, without regard to their loved ones, then such a decision is objectively wrong, and would contradict the idea that "they should decide for themselves what flourishing is". Yes, they should have freedom, but limited freedom.
And the idea of giving them more freedom, and then seeking ways to mitigate the evil that they create through that use of greater freedom is nonsensical. You don't break windows, and then go around fixing them - that's unethical.
Reply to Agustino I completely disagree.
It would be objectively wrong to prevent people from defining for themselves what it means to flourish.
The most effective way to do this is by giving people basic rights and freedoms.
Provided they do not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others they should be allowed to live their lives as they decide.
Provided they do not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others they should be allowed to live their lives as they decide.
So if their actions cause harm upon others, we should fold our hands, and say "sorry, can't do nothing about this"... that sounds quite unethical to me.
Again if you have not infringed upon the basic rights and freedoms of others you have not caused any harm.
That's nonsense. If I tell you that "I fucked your mom, and your child is a hopeless retard", have I done you no harm? If I lie to my girlfriend, have I done her no harm? If I emotionally blackmail my sister to get something in return, have I done her no harm?
You have a very narrow view of harm my friend, if you think the law (rights and freedoms) includes all possible harms.
That's nonsense. If I tell you that "I fucked your mom, and your child is a hopeless retard", have I done you no harm? If I lie to my girlfriend, have I done her no harm? If I emotionally blackmail my sister to get something in return, have I done her no harm?
Nonsense.
Words might cause offense, but you have not violated any of my rights or freedoms in being a fowl mouth.
Non-sense.
Words might cause offense, but you have not violated any of my rights or freedoms in being a fowl mouth.
No, but causing offence is harming you (and as you note, not all harm is a violation of your rights or freedoms). As is lying to my girlfriend, or emotionally blackmailing my sister. And yet these things are not taken care of by their "rights and freedoms" - it doesn't follow from this that it's ethical to insult you, lie to my girlfriend, or emotionally blackmail my sister. Neither does it follow that I should be free (there should be no consequences) if I do this.
Reply to Agustino No being offensive does not violate anybodies rights.
Lying does not violate anybodies rights.
Blackmailing might be a violation of a person rights and hence the person being blackmailed should have legal recourse in such cases.
If you are a liar and an offender this does have consequences.
People will not trust what you say and will not want to keep company with you.
Blackmailing might be a violation of a person rights and hence the person being blackmailed should have legal recourse in such cases.
I never said blackmailing. I said emotional blackmailing. That's different than other sorts of blackmail. And blackmailing doesn't have to be obvious (and when it's not obvious, the law can't do anything about it). For example, I know you've cheated your brother out of money in a business deal, it's enough to bring up the subject when we're having an argument, or I'm trying to get you to do something, and you will be pushed to comply or else I will tell your brother. I never even have to tell you or threaten you that I will tell your brother. I can suddenly ask you "How'd you feel if your brother knew?" and then if you try to push the conversation down that way, I can change subject.
No being offensive does not violate anybodies rights.
Lying does not violate anybodies rights.
Blackmailing might be a violation of a person rights and hence the person being blackmailed should have legal recourse in such cases.
So if they don't violate rights, then they aren't harmful?
I never said blackmailing. I said emotional blackmailing. That's different than other sorts of blackmail. And blackmailing doesn't have to be obvious (and when it's not obvious, the law can't do anything about it). For example, I know you've cheated your brother out of money in a business deal, it's enough to bring up the subject when we're having an argument, or I'm trying to get you to do something, and you will be pushed to comply or else I will tell your brother. I never even have to tell you or threaten you that I will tell your brother. I can suddenly ask you "How'd you feel if your brother knew?" and then if you try to push the conversation down that way, I can change subject.
So individuals are not qualified to manage their own emotional well being?
Sorry I disagree. Quoting Agustino
So if they don't violate rights, then they aren't harmful?
If you don't not violate a persons rights you are not responsible for any harm.
Say for example I say something you find offensive.
Since I have not violated your rights I am not responsible to you.
It is your fault that you have become offended.
Blaming me because you are not mature enough to ignore an insult is not ethical in the least.
So then it should have those consequences? If yes, then you're agreeing that you shouldn't be free to lie (there should be consequences for it).
It does not matter if it ought to have consequences, the fact is there are consequences for lying and being offensive.
People will not regard you as trustworthy(because you lie) and people will not want to keep company with you(because you can't conduct yourself with civility).
Say for example I say something you find offensive.
Since I have not violated your rights I am not responsible to you.
It is your fault that you have become offended.
Blaming me because you are not mature enough to ignore an insult is not ethical in the least.
No the question isn't something you find offensive for whatever reason that is peculiar to you and to no one else. Maybe I imitate someone with Parkinson's and your father suffered of that, and so you find it offensive. That's the case you're describing. I'm not talking about that case. I'm talking about things everyone finds offensive, about which there is no doubt. If I tell you I fucked your mom, neither of us has any doubts that I've insulted you. If I lie to my girlfriend, nobody has any doubts that I've harmed her. Even you don't have any doubts about that. You've admitted it before.
It does not matter if it ought to have consequences, the fact is there are consequences for lying and being offensive.
People will not regard you as trustworthy(because you lie) and people will not want to keep company with you(because you can't conduct yourself with civility).
Yes, but in the name of freedom we could encourage people not to enforce these consequences via means of social pressure on folks who lie. So should we do that?
I'm not talking about that case. I'm talking about things everyone finds offensive, about which there is no doubt. If I tell you I fucked your mom, neither of us has any doubts that I've insulted you. If I lie to my girlfriend, nobody has any doubts that I've harmed her. Even you don't have any doubts about that. You've admitted it before.
You imagine that words have some power over people that they do not.
Words are just words.
Unless you violate a persons rights you have not caused them harm and you are not responsible to them.
So if you choose to be an insulting liar that is your choice.
People can leave your company if they do not like it.
Yes, but in the name of freedom we could encourage people not to enforce these consequences via means of social pressure on folks who lie. So should we do that?
Ehmm yes he commits the sophistry of looking at it in terms of percentages. Ahh only 1% of the world's population died during the World Wars! Not a big deal! It's 1% - look in the past, more than 1% died! In the tribe having 100 people as population, 10 died per year, much bigger you see? 10% - not a big deal! Just another statistic as I've said. The chance of dying violently was much greater! 10 times greater in fact! Woah, what a discovery!
On the same account, many (many) more people now also live on without being violently murdered.
Of course that could change, though I sure hope not.
You have not caused any harm unless you have violated my rights and freedoms.
No that's just an ideology which you use now because you realise that your argument doesn't hold. Everyone here can probably testify that if I do that I will cause harm.
For example, after I insult you, you get upset and report it to the moderators, they could come and tell you that it's your fault for getting insulted so easily. That would be, in the name of my freedom to insult, applying social pressure to maintain that freedom.
No that's just an ideology which you use now because you realise that your argument doesn't hold. Everyone here can probably testify that if I do that I will cause harm.
For example, after I insult you, you get upset and report it to the moderators, they could come and tell you that it's your fault for getting insulted so easily. That would be, in the name of my freedom to insult, applying social pressure to maintain that freedom.
It would be my fault for being upset, I am responsible for my own emotions.
Your insults would have no real power over me because they would not be able to violate my rights or freedoms so they have no real power to cause harm.
In one sense, globalization has already happened. Communication, trade, and travel have greatly diminished the sense of 'separateness' that people experienced say, a century ago, and further back. Whether economic integration would be a good thing or not, I just don't know. For the winners it would be fine, of course. Everybody else, not so much.
(2) The impossibility of a unified multicultural society
Is it impossible? The US has been multicultural for what, 150 years, give or take a few. Each new intensification of multiculturalism tends to cause the established culture to recoil, but in time the newcomers become part of the established culture. Maybe 2 or 3 generations. The Western Hemisphere was repopulated over the last 500 years. There were decidedly winners and losers in this process, but multiculturalism was the result.
Still, multiculturalism isn't an entirely settled issue.
(3) The impossibility of an economic system based on and fueled by the idea of infinite growth
Total agreement here. Clearly enough, economic growth has limits because the foundation of any economy -- conveniently accessible minerals and fertile soils -- is limited. The huge deposits of iron, copper, tin, coal, and so on turned out to be a lot less than infinite. (High quality sand for concrete is finite too, and even that is becoming scarcer.) Same goes for fertile soils.
(4) The impossibility of sustaining social order in a society driven by consumerism
Clearly, "consumption" is insufficient to justify anyone's existence, and that is a major problem already recognized back in the 1950s and 1960s. (I think it was) Edgar Friedenberg who noted that one of the functions of the American education system was to regulate the labor pool of the young, and keep young people in the role of "consumption" and out of "production" for as long as possible -- maybe past the PhD.)
The counterculture of the 1950s (beatniks) and 1960s (hippies and all) was anti-consumerism. "Turn on, tune in, drop out" was Timothy Leary's idea. Lame brained as it was, it was also anti-consumerism (except for the production and consumption of Lysergic acid diethylamide).
It would be my fault for being upset, I am responsible for my own emotions.
I don't buy this theory that we are so encapsulated that how we respond to other people's actions is purely a matter of our own choices. Because we are social animals, the signals we receive from other people do affect us--beyond the way we wish to respond.
Granted, we can prepare ourselves for a difficult interaction, and if properly prepared we can defend ourselves. But often verbal/non-verbal social assaults come out of left field, or are so consistent that we eventually lose our ability to ignore them.
We are, at least to some extent, responsible for the consequences of our behavior on other people.
I don't buy this theory that we are so encapsulated that how we respond to other people's actions is purely a matter of our own choices.
This makes no sense to me.
How we respond to the behavior of others is completely within our control if our rights and freedoms are intact.
For example if some one insults you, and your rights and freedoms are not impeded, it is well within your control to depart the company of that person.
The same if you discover that a person is lying to you, it is within your control to deem them untrustworthy and treat them accordingly.
Of course there are exceptions.
If you verbally abuse a child that does not have the means to remove themselves from the situation, then you are infringing upon the rights of that child.
I don't buy this theory that we are so encapsulated that how we respond to other people's actions is purely a matter of our own choices.
— Bitter Crank
We have more control about the behavior we display than the emotions we feel.
You invite your girlfriend to dinner. She says she is busy. You ask her to suggest a better date. She says, "Never. I don't want to see you again. Don't call me anymore."
It would be surprising if you could dial up whatever emotional reaction you thought was appropriate at that moment.
You ask your daughter to clean up her room. She turns to you and says, "Fuck you, creep." (Or whatever it is that daughters say these days.) This response is unexpected. You have 100% control over how you feel at that point?
The boss calls you in and tells you the company doesn't want you anymore. "Give me your keys and I'll escort you to the front door. Your belongings will be sent to you." No uncontrolled emotional reaction?
Maybe I am projecting. I have, in the past, been in situations where people got through whatever shields I maintained and "it got to me" and I reacted without selecting the best response. For the last few years I have been much more "in control" in that I have been much less reactive. But then, I have been going out of my way to avoid situations where I might run into static. But still, quite pleasant interactions happen and I can't seem to help respond positively.
Reply to AgustinoYes and I pointed out that the consequences tend to be that people will not trust if you lie, and people won't keep your company if you are insulting.
We have more control about the behavior we display than the emotions we feel.
That was my entire point.
If you have rights and freedoms you are in control of how you respond to the behavior of others.
And provided you do not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others it is up to you to decide what is the appropriate response.
You invite your girlfriend to dinner. She says she is busy. You ask her to suggest a better date. She says, "Never. I don't want to see you again. Don't call me anymore."
Yes but she has not caused harm to your rights or freedoms, it was never your right that she should be your girlfriend.
You ask your daughter to clean up her room. She turns to you and says, "Fuck you, creep." (Or whatever it is that daughters say these days.) This response is unexpected. You have 100% control over how you feel at that point?
Again this does not harm your rights or freedoms?
How you respond is your responsibility don't you agree, it can not properly be the responsibility of any other?
The boss calls you in and tells you the company doesn't want you anymore. "Give me your keys and I'll escort you to the front door. Your belongings will be sent to you." No uncontrolled emotional reaction?
Yes but does this cause you any real harm?
Should we consider hurt feelings a harm to such extent that limit rights and freedoms in an effort to prevent hurt feelings?
Wouldn't that be an effort in vain?
Maybe I am projecting. I have, in the past, been in situations where people got through whatever shields I maintained and "it got to me" and I reacted without selecting the best response. For the last few years I have been much more "in control" in that I have been much less reactive. But then, I have been going out of my way to avoid situations where I might run into static. But still, quite pleasant interactions happen and I can't seem to help respond positively.
My point is accountability for how you deal with your emotions.
I am not accountable for how you deal with your emotions and it is reasonable to expect you to be able to do this for yourself despite the fact that your emotional attitudes can be affected from the decisions of others.
So what would be examples of medicine being overrated and prayer underestimated?
Hasn't all of history, include science, been about there being more to something than what appears at first glance?
To give an example consider cosmology. To the earliest humans it was rather obvious that the sun revolves around the earth. It was only later they realized that the new reality is that the earth revolves around the sun. Who's to say that current scientific facts are just similar - waiting for the next paradigm shift?
One important lesson from history has been to always keep an open mind, not be blinkered by what is [I]obvious[/I].
At the other extreme is religion and likewise we must be cautious about dismissing a more supernatural interpretation of our universe.
Comments (80)
Given those such people like Musk or Bill Gates making contributions to the survival of humanity through the positive externalities created by the invisible hand, then the future looks pretty good.
However, if we can't find a solution to the 'tragedy of the commons' scenario with regards to climate change, then the future looks pretty uncertain for everyone on the globe.
As for some minor problems:
https://aeon.co/essays/is-being-super-awesome-really-helping-anybody
And I don't want to steal anyone's ideas, but as mentioned in thread called Post-truth. The fact that it's the word of the year speaks for itself well enough.
(1) The impossibility of globalisation
(2) The impossibility of a unified multicultural society
(3) The impossibility of an economic system based on and fuelled by the idea of infinite growth
(4) The impossibility of sustaining social order in a society driven by consumerism
We have to return to local, family/culture driven societies, where economics takes a minor role in people's lives, where local cultures grow, are respected and develop, and where the main function of people is something other than to consume. We need virtue back - the virtue of the olden days of Plato and Aristotle. Our problems arise out of people - post-modernists, progressives, globalists, socialists, capitalists, etc. not accepting the facticity of the above four impossibilities and instead allowing ideology to drive them.
.
Yeah, give me a break. After the bloodiest century in all of history, we notice a reduction in violence. Yeah no doubt, if violence spiralled out of control even more than that, we may not have been around to notice anything... (and I have no doubt that sooner or later violence will be back with a vengeance - in addition to this, many people are living in the world worse than they have EVER lived before in the entire history of mankind - some folks can't even drink water because it's not potable anymore. Some folks live with the threat of bombs over their heads. And so forth. These "consume me" type of authors like Steven Pinker and so forth don't say anything great. They say something new, because the new sells. Forget what the truth is, it's more important that the truth is new than that it is the truth!
Aren't all authors intended to be consumed?
Yeah sure, Hitler killing 6 million Jews! Not a big deal! Stalin murdering around 21 million! Eh, just another statistic! Nothing to fret about! Mao Zedong murdering 40 million! Not that bloody, it's just fucking 40 million no?
No. Non-fiction authors should intend to communicate the truth to others, not to be consumed.
Ehmm yes he commits the sophistry of looking at it in terms of percentages. Ahh only 1% of the world's population died during the World Wars! Not a big deal! It's 1% - look in the past, more than 1% died! In the tribe having 100 people as population, 10 died per year, much bigger you see? 10% - not a big deal! Just another statistic as I've said. The chance of dying violently was much greater! 10 times greater in fact! Woah, what a discovery!
Yes but consumption isn't the essence of what an author should be doing. If he writes shit and everyone consumes it, then he's failing. If he writes truth, and no one consumes it, he's not a failure, he just didn't have the skill of communicating except to a few.
Pinker does not imply that violence in more recent centuries is less appalling.
He points out that it is a trend that is actually in decline.
That is a good thing.
This cannot be avoided.
No, the trend in absolute numbers is NOT in decline. So don't give me this bullshit. Who cares that 10% died in the past, and now only 1% die? The 1% now is greater than the 10% back then.
*facepalm* Nope. We have avoided it for centuries quite successfully.
You "Who cares that 10% died in the past"
Ted Talk is just a cheap fast food for brains of thought consumers. In other words, it is designed for people who are not well read and will never engage in complex discussions themselves. It's a pseudo-intelectual environment for your lovely consumers.
Ted Generation is one of the problems of our age. Steven Pinker is a great example of the thought seller.
Well, concerning as an example of what might in practise justify our apprehension the angst-ridden prospect of nuclear war, the relevant factor regarding this prospect - in terms of a philosophical analysis of the nature of the Human Condition in the abstract that is - is only whether such an event is in principle possible, rather than the pragmatic question of how the prospect might some time in the future actually happen to be realised. Upon the answer to that question in principle profound consequences regarding the fundamental nature of what constitutes our human condition are contingent.
Iconic iterations of what is possible in our situation that occurred in the 20th century – The Battle of the Somme, The Holocaust, as examples – served in their turn to illustrate how events can reveal fundamental aspects of its’ nature previously not anticipated. In that respect the doctrine of ‘Mad’, on which the idea requisite to our psychology of the inherent impossibility of nuclear war is based, might seem, as weapons of mass destruction gradually proliferate, an evermore tenuous thread on which to hang the hope that future eventualities will not nonetheless reveal – albeit perhaps posthumously - further realities regarding the nature of this situation in which we are obliged to exist being yet more incomprehensible in terms of anything we can currently anticipate.
Agustino, I have read Pinker's work and his massive data collection and reasoning are quite solid.
I am generally an optimist.
The data speaks for itself really:
https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-evidence-on-violent-deaths/
The fact remains unchanged that the world in the past century (not today) was more violent than ever before in its history. Now we're living in relatively more peaceful times, in some parts of the world that is. But there is no trend towards peace. This is bullshit.
Yes I do, but I also understand the effect that the size of the population has on proportionality. You don't seem to understand it.
What might improve upon things...?
Educating and informing, generally available, and throwing misinformation in the bin.
Looking after each other, and our environments long-term.
Those kinds of things.
To kill 10% in a tribe of 100 people, it's sufficient that you have a lunatic who goes on a rampage one night, and the deed is (more than) done. That doesn't mean that one society is more peaceful than the other. It means that the lunatic has a larger effect percentage wise in one case, because the population is small. Thus, in terms of percentage, the larger society is more protected from the lunatic as an effect of its size.
You're a smart guy but it's a pity to see you listening to this sort of crap without thinking about it. You must think in practical terms regarding data. Data is never telling the truth. Data is mostly irrelevant. Go back to the basics. Use your imagination. What are/is the process that could give rise to such a data? That is the relevant question. Analyse mechanisms that could lead to such data, and see which mechanism is most likely to be the case. Don't just look at data, scratch your head, and ask what is this data telling us. You can, and you will many times be given data to trick you into a certain way of acting. You have to understand where that data is coming from, and how in practical terms it comes about, because quite often it may not be the first answer that comes to mind. Giving someone data is a very easy way to fool them in today's world. Data is very easy to produce, manufacture, and sell as fact.
Seems like a good reason for cooperation.
A thoroughly "back to nature" move (and similar) isn't really much of an improvement, more a kind of romanticising.
Tragedy of commons is a fundamental problem of non-private property -- it is a tragedy of communal ownership you dips.
Quantifiable: reduction in violence (e.g. rates of homicides and rape), poverty and all its aspects (e.g. death by starvation, death by diseases); and increasing life expectancies, the standard of living (in GDP) and the universal human rights (which I consider the maximisation of negative liberty).
Generally, there is one powerful measurement to to determine this, namely child mortality (including abortions).
This isn't flourishing though. This is the bare minimum of well-being, before we can even talk about flourishing.
Human flourishing is more complex.
That reminds me another thing.
An increase in individual freedom so that people can determine for themselves what it means to flourish.
We can't really measure human flourishing that way. They're more like conditions for the possibility of flourishing of a higher number of people than otherwise, sure. But they're not indicative of flourishing at all. For example, would you say a society in which divorce rates are close to 50% is flourishing? That indicates a high level of conflict and disharmony amongst its members, and would certainly not count as flourishing in my books.
In a historical context individual rights have improved significantly in more recent centuries, this means more people have a greater freedom to decide for themselves how they will flourish.
That's false, because the actions of individuals have consequences on the well-being of others. To say they "should decide for themselves" without further specification is not engaging in ethics at all. For example if they decide that flourishing is being individualists and doing whatever satisfies them, without regard to their loved ones, then such a decision is objectively wrong, and would contradict the idea that "they should decide for themselves what flourishing is". Yes, they should have freedom, but limited freedom.
And the idea of giving them more freedom, and then seeking ways to mitigate the evil that they create through that use of greater freedom is nonsensical. You don't break windows, and then go around fixing them - that's unethical.
It would be objectively wrong to prevent people from defining for themselves what it means to flourish.
The most effective way to do this is by giving people basic rights and freedoms.
Provided they do not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others they should be allowed to live their lives as they decide.
Why?
Quoting m-theory
So if their actions cause harm upon others, we should fold our hands, and say "sorry, can't do nothing about this"... that sounds quite unethical to me.
Again if you have not infringed upon the basic rights and freedoms of others you have not caused any harm.
That's nonsense. If I tell you that "I fucked your mom, and your child is a hopeless retard", have I done you no harm? If I lie to my girlfriend, have I done her no harm? If I emotionally blackmail my sister to get something in return, have I done her no harm?
You have a very narrow view of harm my friend, if you think the law (rights and freedoms) includes all possible harms.
Nonsense.
Words might cause offense, but you have not violated any of my rights or freedoms in being a fowl mouth.
No, but causing offence is harming you (and as you note, not all harm is a violation of your rights or freedoms). As is lying to my girlfriend, or emotionally blackmailing my sister. And yet these things are not taken care of by their "rights and freedoms" - it doesn't follow from this that it's ethical to insult you, lie to my girlfriend, or emotionally blackmail my sister. Neither does it follow that I should be free (there should be no consequences) if I do this.
Lying does not violate anybodies rights.
Blackmailing might be a violation of a person rights and hence the person being blackmailed should have legal recourse in such cases.
If you are a liar and an offender this does have consequences.
People will not trust what you say and will not want to keep company with you.
I never said blackmailing. I said emotional blackmailing. That's different than other sorts of blackmail. And blackmailing doesn't have to be obvious (and when it's not obvious, the law can't do anything about it). For example, I know you've cheated your brother out of money in a business deal, it's enough to bring up the subject when we're having an argument, or I'm trying to get you to do something, and you will be pushed to comply or else I will tell your brother. I never even have to tell you or threaten you that I will tell your brother. I can suddenly ask you "How'd you feel if your brother knew?" and then if you try to push the conversation down that way, I can change subject.
Quoting m-theory
So if they don't violate rights, then they aren't harmful?
Quoting m-theory
So then it should have those consequences? If yes, then you're agreeing that you shouldn't be free to lie (there should be consequences for it).
Hitchens' take took me by surprise. One of the few people that spontaneously changed my mind on things in a few-minutes-talk:
"It would be nice if we could have continued as a society rather than a collection of people living in the same place" P. Hitchens
So individuals are not qualified to manage their own emotional well being?
Sorry I disagree.
Quoting Agustino
If you don't not violate a persons rights you are not responsible for any harm.
Say for example I say something you find offensive.
Since I have not violated your rights I am not responsible to you.
It is your fault that you have become offended.
Blaming me because you are not mature enough to ignore an insult is not ethical in the least.
Quoting Agustino
It does not matter if it ought to have consequences, the fact is there are consequences for lying and being offensive.
People will not regard you as trustworthy(because you lie) and people will not want to keep company with you(because you can't conduct yourself with civility).
Yeah, now this is just changing the subject. I never said anything like that.
Quoting m-theory
So if I tell you i fuck your mom, I'm not responsible for the harm I cause you? Good to know!
Quoting m-theory
No the question isn't something you find offensive for whatever reason that is peculiar to you and to no one else. Maybe I imitate someone with Parkinson's and your father suffered of that, and so you find it offensive. That's the case you're describing. I'm not talking about that case. I'm talking about things everyone finds offensive, about which there is no doubt. If I tell you I fucked your mom, neither of us has any doubts that I've insulted you. If I lie to my girlfriend, nobody has any doubts that I've harmed her. Even you don't have any doubts about that. You've admitted it before.
Quoting m-theory
Yes, but in the name of freedom we could encourage people not to enforce these consequences via means of social pressure on folks who lie. So should we do that?
You have not caused any harm unless you have violated my rights and freedoms.
Quoting Agustino
You imagine that words have some power over people that they do not.
Words are just words.
Unless you violate a persons rights you have not caused them harm and you are not responsible to them.
So if you choose to be an insulting liar that is your choice.
People can leave your company if they do not like it.
Quoting Agustino
I have no idea what you are saying here?
On the same account, many (many) more people now also live on without being violently murdered.
Of course that could change, though I sure hope not.
No that's just an ideology which you use now because you realise that your argument doesn't hold. Everyone here can probably testify that if I do that I will cause harm.
Quoting m-theory
For example, after I insult you, you get upset and report it to the moderators, they could come and tell you that it's your fault for getting insulted so easily. That would be, in the name of my freedom to insult, applying social pressure to maintain that freedom.
No this is the most sensible position to hold.
Quoting Agustino
It would be my fault for being upset, I am responsible for my own emotions.
Your insults would have no real power over me because they would not be able to violate my rights or freedoms so they have no real power to cause harm.
.
So it's a sensible position to hold that lying to my girlfriend, insulting you, or emotionally blackmailing people aren't harmful?
Quoting m-theory
According to scientific findings, only to a certain extent. There are situations when you can't control the emotions that you feel.
They do not harm anybodies freedoms.
Quoting Agustino
There is an extent to which we can control our emotions though.
And it is our responsibility to do so,
So? If they don't harm someone's freedom that means they don't do any harm at all?
Quoting m-theory
Sure.
If you don't infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others you are not legally responsible for any harm.
Quoting Agustino
In one sense, globalization has already happened. Communication, trade, and travel have greatly diminished the sense of 'separateness' that people experienced say, a century ago, and further back. Whether economic integration would be a good thing or not, I just don't know. For the winners it would be fine, of course. Everybody else, not so much.
Quoting Agustino
Is it impossible? The US has been multicultural for what, 150 years, give or take a few. Each new intensification of multiculturalism tends to cause the established culture to recoil, but in time the newcomers become part of the established culture. Maybe 2 or 3 generations. The Western Hemisphere was repopulated over the last 500 years. There were decidedly winners and losers in this process, but multiculturalism was the result.
Still, multiculturalism isn't an entirely settled issue.
Quoting Agustino
Total agreement here. Clearly enough, economic growth has limits because the foundation of any economy -- conveniently accessible minerals and fertile soils -- is limited. The huge deposits of iron, copper, tin, coal, and so on turned out to be a lot less than infinite. (High quality sand for concrete is finite too, and even that is becoming scarcer.) Same goes for fertile soils.
Quoting Agustino
Clearly, "consumption" is insufficient to justify anyone's existence, and that is a major problem already recognized back in the 1950s and 1960s. (I think it was) Edgar Friedenberg who noted that one of the functions of the American education system was to regulate the labor pool of the young, and keep young people in the role of "consumption" and out of "production" for as long as possible -- maybe past the PhD.)
The counterculture of the 1950s (beatniks) and 1960s (hippies and all) was anti-consumerism. "Turn on, tune in, drop out" was Timothy Leary's idea. Lame brained as it was, it was also anti-consumerism (except for the production and consumption of Lysergic acid diethylamide).
I don't buy this theory that we are so encapsulated that how we respond to other people's actions is purely a matter of our own choices. Because we are social animals, the signals we receive from other people do affect us--beyond the way we wish to respond.
Granted, we can prepare ourselves for a difficult interaction, and if properly prepared we can defend ourselves. But often verbal/non-verbal social assaults come out of left field, or are so consistent that we eventually lose our ability to ignore them.
We are, at least to some extent, responsible for the consequences of our behavior on other people.
This makes no sense to me.
How we respond to the behavior of others is completely within our control if our rights and freedoms are intact.
For example if some one insults you, and your rights and freedoms are not impeded, it is well within your control to depart the company of that person.
The same if you discover that a person is lying to you, it is within your control to deem them untrustworthy and treat them accordingly.
Of course there are exceptions.
If you verbally abuse a child that does not have the means to remove themselves from the situation, then you are infringing upon the rights of that child.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This amounts to harassment and of course there should be exceptions there too.
That is reasonable and you will have no argument from me on that point.
But consequences for harming someone don't necessarily have to be of a legal nature...
— Bitter Crank
Quoting m-theory
We have more control about the behavior we display than the emotions we feel.
You invite your girlfriend to dinner. She says she is busy. You ask her to suggest a better date. She says, "Never. I don't want to see you again. Don't call me anymore."
It would be surprising if you could dial up whatever emotional reaction you thought was appropriate at that moment.
You ask your daughter to clean up her room. She turns to you and says, "Fuck you, creep." (Or whatever it is that daughters say these days.) This response is unexpected. You have 100% control over how you feel at that point?
The boss calls you in and tells you the company doesn't want you anymore. "Give me your keys and I'll escort you to the front door. Your belongings will be sent to you." No uncontrolled emotional reaction?
Maybe I am projecting. I have, in the past, been in situations where people got through whatever shields I maintained and "it got to me" and I reacted without selecting the best response. For the last few years I have been much more "in control" in that I have been much less reactive. But then, I have been going out of my way to avoid situations where I might run into static. But still, quite pleasant interactions happen and I can't seem to help respond positively.
Right, so all you mean is that harm should be punished, just not in legal manners. But there are other means. Social pressure, etc.
That was my entire point.
If you have rights and freedoms you are in control of how you respond to the behavior of others.
And provided you do not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others it is up to you to decide what is the appropriate response.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes but she has not caused harm to your rights or freedoms, it was never your right that she should be your girlfriend.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Again this does not harm your rights or freedoms?
How you respond is your responsibility don't you agree, it can not properly be the responsibility of any other?
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes but does this cause you any real harm?
Should we consider hurt feelings a harm to such extent that limit rights and freedoms in an effort to prevent hurt feelings?
Wouldn't that be an effort in vain?
Quoting Bitter Crank
My point is accountability for how you deal with your emotions.
I am not accountable for how you deal with your emotions and it is reasonable to expect you to be able to do this for yourself despite the fact that your emotional attitudes can be affected from the decisions of others.
Science is overrated and religion is underestimated.
So what would be examples of medicine being overrated and prayer underestimated?
Hasn't all of history, include science, been about there being more to something than what appears at first glance?
To give an example consider cosmology. To the earliest humans it was rather obvious that the sun revolves around the earth. It was only later they realized that the new reality is that the earth revolves around the sun. Who's to say that current scientific facts are just similar - waiting for the next paradigm shift?
One important lesson from history has been to always keep an open mind, not be blinkered by what is [I]obvious[/I].
At the other extreme is religion and likewise we must be cautious about dismissing a more supernatural interpretation of our universe.