How to form an opinion...

[Seattle]

I've noticed (no big surprise of course) that people are less likely to compromise with each other these days and that everything seems to be presented as black and white (binary).

I think it would be helpful if more people were able to consider a policy or problem from the other person's point of view. It would also be helpful to make sure that the problem is being put into proper perspective.

The third aspect that I've come to realize is that emotion and reality need to be considered and not just one or the other. I tend to think that the solution is "X" when cooler heads prevail but in a situation where the reality is there are no cooler heads then scenario "Y" needs to be considered as well, as much as it pains me.

So 1) most things aren't binary, 2) there are two sides to most "arguments" and we also often fail to put things into perspective and 3) reality is best but with large groups not everyone is logical and educated and sometimes it doesn't matter what "should" happen. It's important to predict what will probably happen.

I'll give some examples of why I think this way. Most things aren't binary. In economics there are Keynesians (larger role for the government), Austrian school (let the market handle things) and even the MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) people who more or less say that the government should just print money as needed, since they can.

People tend to identify with one school or the other but, to lesser degrees, they all apply sometimes. It's the same with Democrats and Republicans (they can both be right sometimes).

As far as perspective. (for example) we forget to put our (US) relative poverty into perspective when compared to poverty in most of the rest of the world. Poverty is actually the norm and not the exception and much global poverty is absolute poverty and not just the relative poverty that can be found in the US.

This same concept sometimes might be referred to as "first world problems". In other words, small problems that only a 1st world person would be able to have in the first place. Sometimes we need perspective to realize how minor some of our problems are.

The third point about reality vs ideal is the situation where you know that (for example) wealthier people aren't the problem that many think they are. They are used as a scapegoat for other issues. They are "selfish" or "greedy" when in fact they are focused on their self-interest just like all the rest of us.

However the "reality" might be that people are about to riot, attack the wealthy, even though these actions aren't based on logic the "reality" is that many people are upset. MAGA, in general, makes no sense. Little is based on fact but the "reality" is that a large portion of the population are upset and they keep electing people to "destroy" our current system. It makes no sense, it won't make anyone's life better, it's not even based on fact but we still have to realize that they are out there and we can't simply ignore them.

If the base of both parties was more moderate, like the far past, then the fringe could be (and were) ignored as in the past. Today they are the party and they are too large to ignore.

I'm not sure how we start to take our system of government back toward moderation now that Trump has shown us all of the weaknesses. We really don't have 3 co-equal branches at the moment to serve as checks and balances.

Any change can be stopped by the Supreme Court which appears to be corrupted and Congress has shown no sign of asserting its own powers.

I am sure the path has to include the things I've mentioned regarding forming an opinion, ie moderation, cooperation, perspective and taking the "reality" of the craziness into account. Ignoring it or pretending that wasn't the case isn't going to be particularly helpful, IMO.

 

[Pinball1970]

I've noticed (no big surprise of course) that people are less likely to compromise with each other these days and that everything seems to be presented as black and white (binary).

I think it would be helpful if more people were able to consider a policy or problem from the other person's point of view. It would also be helpful to make sure that the problem is being put into proper perspective.

The third aspect that I've come to realize is that emotion and reality need to be considered and not just one or the other. I tend to think that the solution is "X" when cooler heads prevail but in a situation where the reality is there are no cooler heads then scenario "Y" needs to be considered as well, as much as it pains me.

So 1) most things aren't binary, 2) there are two sides to most "arguments" and we also often fail to put things into perspective and 3) reality is best but with large groups not everyone is logical and educated and sometimes it doesn't matter what "should" happen. It's important to predict what will probably happen.

I'll give some examples of why I think this way. Most things aren't binary. In economics there are Keynesians (larger role for the government), Austrian school (let the market handle things) and even the MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) people who more or less say that the government should just print money as needed, since they can.

People tend to identify with one school or the other but, to lesser degrees, they all apply sometimes. It's the same with Democrats and Republicans (they can both be right sometimes).

As far as perspective. (for example) we forget to put our (US) relative poverty into perspective when compared to poverty in most of the rest of the world. Poverty is actually the norm and not the exception and much global poverty is absolute poverty and not just the relative poverty that can be found in the US.

This same concept sometimes might be referred to as "first world problems". In other words, small problems that only a 1st world person would be able to have in the first place. Sometimes we need perspective to realize how minor some of our problems are.

The third point about reality vs ideal is the situation where you know that (for example) wealthier people aren't the problem that many think they are. They are used as a scapegoat for other issues. They are "selfish" or "greedy" when in fact they are focused on their self-interest just like all the rest of us.

However the "reality" might be that people are about to riot, attack the wealthy, even though these actions aren't based on logic the "reality" is that many people are upset. MAGA, in general, makes no sense. Little is based on fact but the "reality" is that a large portion of the population are upset and they keep electing people to "destroy" our current system. It makes no sense, it won't make anyone's life better, it's not even based on fact but we still have to realize that they are out there and we can't simply ignore them.

If the base of both parties was more moderate, like the far past, then the fringe could be (and were) ignored as in the past. Today they are the party and they are too large to ignore.

I'm not sure how we start to take our system of government back toward moderation now that Trump has shown us all of the weaknesses. We really don't have 3 co-equal branches at the moment to serve as checks and balances.

Any change can be stopped by the Supreme Court which appears to be corrupted and Congress has shown no sign of asserting its own powers.

I am sure the path has to include the things I've mentioned regarding forming an opinion, ie moderation, cooperation, perspective and taking the "reality" of the craziness into account. Ignoring it or pretending that wasn't the case isn't going to be particularly helpful, IMO.

I am quite ignorant regarding politics and economics. I am from the UK so I need to get my act together because we have a general election in July.
My strategy is to read the policies and try and forget the people.
Form an opinion that way.
Political parties by definition have a scope, a "raison d'etre" I disagree with that. The labour party of the 1980s is not relevant now.
Sure the roots are the roots but things move on.

In terms of science, opinions are formed as the literature becomes available.

Not so much with religion. Very hard to change then form a different opinion based on the available evidence but I don't want to redirect your thread.

 

[Tiassa]

They are "selfish" or "greedy" when in fact they are focused on their self-interest just like all the rest of us.

This overlooks the basic difference between those just trying to keep up and those trying to drown in their own excess.

Omni syndrome really ought to be a passing fancy of a prior generation, a rarefied perspective distilled in privilege, and yet it endures. Ehrenreich, 1990↱:

Not long ago, when I was doing a radio interview on much the same themes Benjamin DeMott addresses in "The Imperial Middle," a woman called in to ask, in a plaintive tone, "Do we have to talk about class? Why can't we just treat everyone as an individual?" For this woman, as for so many Americans, class, unlike race or gender, is not a category that helps to explain the individual condition. It is a judgment that admits of no excuses: are you middle-aged and still not middle-class? Someone who lived through the 80's and, somehow, in the flurry, forgot to get rich?

But class, no less than race or gender, is a central and sometimes tragic part of each person's story. It leaves its imprint on the personality: a questing, expansionist outlook goes well with trust funds and recreational travel; an aggrieved and narrower view better suits the paycheck-to-paycheck way of life, the cramped apartments and indifferent schools. It leaves deep marks on the body too: bad teeth; chronic, uncorrected health problems; blackened lungs; and ruined backs. And it can be, in all kinds of ways, a determinant of early death ....

.... For this and other reasons, Mr. DeMott, who is the Mellon Professor of Humanities at Amherst College, believes that we do, indeed, have to talk about class. The sturdiest obstacle, he argues, is the American myth of classlessness, which usually presents itself as the belief that we are all middle-class, and that the occasional exception is deviant, suspect and probably dumb. Mr. DeMott excels at exposing the insularity that leads the upper middle class to imagine, among other things, that everyone can swim. Among many instances of class bias in the news media, he brings us two famous anchormen, stroking their chins over Jesse Jackson's support in the 1988 Democratic Presidential primaries and opining that movements of the lower classes have a tendency to "go awry." Or there is the television critic who asks, insultingly, of the working-class heroine on "Roseanne": how did she get so smart?

The myth of classlessness is buttressed, in Mr. DeMott's analysis, by what he calls the "omni syndrome" - the idea that, whatever our differences, "each has access to all." Lee Iacocca asserts he is a friend of the guys on the line, while George Bush claims to favor pork cracklings over broccoli and to fall asleep to the music of Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle. In the grip of the omni syndrome, we lose the "skills and arts" of discerning differences. We cannot, at some basic, socially gritty level, tell one person from another, and we are left with an empty notion of the self, free-floating, unscathed by social structures or human contact - the individual of my radio-show caller's concern.​

DeMott, for his own part, considers an American author's take on class, that "Fussell strongly implies that he himself is classless, that class is an option not a fate (an option taken up by fools, a baleful ignorance from which escape is blessedly possible), and that intelligence should aspire to (and can attain) classlessness." Thirty-five years along, DeMott's critique remains relevant:

The impatience and scorn concentrated in the phrase "the whole class racket" ae organic to the assumption that class is something invented and perpetuated by swindlers. Fussell's srtyle of taunting is in fact an American convention, turning up extensively in talk and print―no more often in books scolding extravagance than in advertising madiums ....

.... Impatience and scorn aren't the only feelings linked with the assumption that class is a scam; there's also a certain wry satisfaction ("a fool and his money are soon parted"), and a lurking sense of class as a contagion―a disease known as "social pretension" spread by the silly and imprudent and easily contracted by the unwary. People ought to know better than to fool around with class, pushing themselves up, giving themselves airs. They're bound to be taken―desrve what they get―have to be though tof as suckers. It's a pity in a way. Almost a pity.

(32-33)​

Of omni syndrome itself, DeMott explains, "Omni plays because it speaks in the U.S.A. to universal desire ('knowing one's way around') and universal fear (being 'limited'); each of its multifarious forms is a version of the American Pilgrim's Progress" (81). And if that seems obscure, so are the parts about Plimpton, or Wexler and Franklin (81-85). Strangely, one of the more unstable points about it all is when DeMott asserts, "Both the very rich and very poor seek admission to the striving middle, and the poor are being accommodated as rapidly as facilities can be expanded." The latter part, about accommodation, is uncertain, these years later, but inasmuch as both rich and poor seek a more middling appearance, certain differences ought to be obvious.

For the poor, looking less poor is part of the hustle to be less poor. For the rich, looking less rich is part of the hustle to gather more excess. One way of looking at it is that the poor are trying to be less poor, and the rich are trying to inflict more poverty. In between is a large, influential middle of the market range. The poor are told to try to be part of that middle; the rich cannot afford to completely destroy it.

Thus, they might be "focused on their self-interest", but in no way is that "just like all the rest of us".

It's an important difference, especially in forming an opinion. Consider a bland equivocation: "If the base of both parties was more moderate, like the far past, then the fringe could be (and were) ignored as in the past. Today they are the party and they are too large to ignore."

Compared to history, sure, there is a lot to discuss, but consider the basic idea of trying to make two disparate things equal a phantom third. In achieving that phantom median, which of the disparate things is augmented, and which is diminished? Such as the party bases: How should the Democratic base moderate? How should the Republican base moderate? After all, if "we really don't have 3 co-equal branches at the moment", it is because we are pandering to one of those two political influences.

The corrupt Supreme Court justices are conservative will combined with the societal expectation that liberals (remember them, the "libbies" and "pinkos"?) should not be stubborn extremists. We have, before, discussed the prospect of compromising↗ with failure↗.

Think of it like atheists and Christians, and the idea that all the atheists need to do in order to moderate is ... what ... maybe, believe in some gods, and not others.

Remember, in journalism, the view from nowhere is also a confession of ignorance. In a society where feeding the hungry, or the human rights of women are considered extreme, what does it mean to moderate those politics? In a story told in medias res, where nothing ever begins, we need not play Pilate in order to wonder what is truth.

Generally speaking, always beware appeals to uncertainty leading directly back to familiar territory. Consider, you are "not sure how we start to take our system of government back toward moderation now that Trump has shown us all of the weaknesses". Those weaknesses aren't equally distributed across the political range; the main challenge, here, is a lack of good faith. The problem with simply dumping that part of our politics is the same as it ever was, which is its coincidence with traditionalism.

The idea of liberals, for instance, moderating further rightward, is pretty much the same thing we hear about when those same demanding folks turn around and complain that the parties are too much alike. Think about Clay Higgins, for instance. A little over thirty years ago, he gave comment to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some years later, he was a notorious celebrity sheriff infamous for his treatment of inmates. In 2017, the neo-Nazi sympathizer was sworn into Congress as the Representative from Louisiana's Third District. Of course the former National Guard Staff Sargent who piped up to a reporter in support of a neo-Nazi, the infamous sheriff who resigned in controversy, is a conspiracist hard-right Republican; over the period, it was never going to work out any other way.

And that is kind of exemplary of the difference. Democrats will continue to compromise with failure on issues like credit reform and health care because that is what voters demand. But the weaknesses that require us to "take our system of government back toward moderation" are the provenance what those Democrats have been expected to compromise with.

No wonder the attempted political sleight is buried in Free Thoughts: Once again, we must reset to the center by leaping rightward, reclaim moderation by enshrining the justification of extremism. It's one thing to lecture people on "how to form an opinion", but investing that confidence in uncertainty is one of the most obvious indicators of a grift.

 

[Tiassa]

Notes on #3↑ Above

DeMott, Benjamin. The Imperial Middle: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Class. (1990) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. "You Lived Through the 80's and Forgot to Get Rich?" The New York Times. 14 October 1990. NYTimes.com. 17 June 2024. https://bit.ly/4cagIWw

 

[Seattle]

...

Thus, they might be "focused on their self-interest", but in no way is that "just like all the rest of us".

....
Think of it like atheists and Christians, and the idea that all the atheists need to do in order to moderate is ... what ... maybe, believe in some gods, and not others.

....
No wonder the attempted political sleight is buried in Free Thoughts: Once again, we must reset to the center by leaping rightward, reclaim moderation by enshrining the justification of extremism. It's one thing to lecture people on "how to form an opinion", but investing that confidence in uncertainty is one of the most obvious indicators of a grift.

Yes, everyone focusing on their self-interest is the same, no matter who is doing it.

Moderation means to compromise. An atheist and a theist compromising doesn't involve the atheist "believing in a few gods". It can mean live and let live or any one of a number of moderate outcomes.

Implying a post that you are replying to is a "grift" is not the best way to get a discussion going nor is posting a mind numbing blog that doesn't get to the point (if it ever does) until halfway through the blog.

If you'd like to discuss what approach you find helpful in forming an unbiased opinion, I'm all ears. I'll even read anything that you write regarding your own solutions to any political problems facing us today.

 

[parmalee]

Seattle said:

The third point about reality vs ideal is the situation where you know that (for example) wealthier people aren't the problem that many think they are. They are used as a scapegoat for other issues. They are "selfish" or "greedy" when in fact they are focused on their self-interest just like all the rest of us.

"In fact?" That is an opinion. By it's very nature, such a statement can only ever be an opinion--one cannot definitely establish whether or not a person is "greedy.

 

[Seattle]

"In fact?" That is an opinion. By it's very nature, such a statement can only ever be an opinion--one cannot definitely establish whether or not a person is "greedy.

In fact they are self-interested. "Greedy" is just name calling.

 

[parmalee]

In fact they are self-interested. "Greedy" is just name calling.

Oh, I see. Gee, you're such a fount of wisdom--do you think you could explain that in detail for me? Does it have something to do with where you put the quotation marks maybe? Or is it more to do with hyphenated words perhaps? And what about self-interested and "selfish", can you distinguish those for me? Or is it "self-interested" and selfish? Fuck, I'd be totally lost without your expertise.

 

[Seattle]

Oh, I see. Gee, you're such a fount of wisdom--do you think you could explain that in detail for me? Does it have something to do with where you put the quotation marks maybe? Or is it more to do with hyphenated words perhaps? And what about self-interested and "selfish", can you distinguish those for me? Or is it "self-interested" and selfish? Fuck, I'd be totally lost without your expertise.

I think you're lost anyway aren't you?

 

[parmalee]

I think you're lost anyway aren't you?

At the very least, you could explain how you are differentiating selfish and self-interested. Your statement implies that "they" are one, but not the other, yes? So how are they different?

 

[Seattle]

Self-interested is what we all are. That includes the degree that we care for others.

Selfish and greedy are just name calling. Someone is "greedy' if they have more money than you do, otherwise it's more of a religious viewpoint or just being judgmental.

It's similar to when someone tries to decide how much money is enough for someone else to have. It misses the whole point. Bill Gates has enough money and, for some, the conclusion is that he must be "greedy" if he does anything that results in more money.

Everything productive in our society (business related) results in more money. Is it "greedy" for Bill Gates to continue starting new productive businesses? If they are successful he will make more money. Is society made better if he just sits home and does nothing? Does it take anything away from anyone else if he makes more money? Would we be better off if he just didn't exist?

Most of the "greedy" people being mentioned, are in fact, still productive people. It's just a misdirection to call them "greedy" as if that has any meaning or any bearing on what they are really complaining about.

 

[Tiassa]

Yes, everyone focusing on their self-interest is the same, no matter who is doing it.

You managed to complain and even say, "if you'd like to discuss", while skipping out on the basic difference:

• This overlooks the basic difference between those just trying to keep up and those trying to drown in their own excess.​

I even reiterated it—

• For the poor, looking less poor is part of the hustle to be less poor. For the rich, looking less rich is part of the hustle to gather more excess.​

—but you missed that one, too.

Anyway, here's another expression of the point that you passed over:

• One way of looking at it is that the poor are trying to be less poor, and the rich are trying to inflict more poverty.​

Simply reiterating an article of faith isn't really going to help clear away the question of a grift. Consider the part you can grasp:

Moderation means to compromise. An atheist and a theist compromising doesn't involve the atheist "believing in a few gods". It can mean live and let live or any one of a number of moderate outcomes.

Okay, so, and, again, to reiterate:

• Compared to history, sure, there is a lot to discuss, but consider the basic idea of trying to make two disparate things equal a phantom third. In achieving that phantom median, which of the disparate things is augmented, and which is diminished? Such as the party bases: How should the Democratic base moderate? How should the Republican base moderate?​

And, as I said:

• We have, before, discussed the prospect of compromising↗ with failure↗.​

Insofar as you might find it an unreasonable assertion of compromise that an atheist should believe in "a few gods", as such, maybe you can explain what moderation you expect of the Democratic base that isn't similarly unreasonable. It's one thing to take the reality of the craziness into account, but your advice on forming an opinion also just happens to lead straight back into superstition.

Which leads to the part I can actually keep quite simple:

If you'd like to discuss what approach you find helpful in forming an unbiased opinion, I'm all ears. I'll even read anything that you write regarding your own solutions to any political problems facing us today.

Heads, something goes here about the scale of what you're actually discussing, according to the idea of forming an opinion. Tails, maybe I just point out that an "unbiased opinion" is, while not quite oxymoronic, mostly if not entirely dysfunctional, because of how you treat the idea of bias.

 

[parmalee]

Self-interested is what we all are. That includes the degree that we care for others.

That bolded portion is not what self-interest means:

self-interest​

noun

the fact of somebody only considering their own interests and of not caring about things that would help other people

• Not all of them were acting out of self-interest.

Selfish and greedy are just name calling. Someone is "greedy' if they have more money than you do, otherwise it's more of a religious viewpoint or just being judgmental.

Nevertheless, "name-calling" (as you put) or not, they are still characterizations of one's attitude or disposition--an opinion. One cannot definitively establish that a person is not selfish and/or greedy.

Most of the "greedy" people being mentioned, are in fact, still productive people. It's just a misdirection to call them "greedy" as if that has any meaning or any bearing on what they are really complaining about.

How is it a "misdirection", or to put it another (one of your) way(s), how is "not relevant" to the discussion. It's as relevant as the claim the people are "complaining" about the fact that CEOs make, on average (according to this source) 603 times the pay of the median worker--they are not complaining that "they do all the work" and "CEOs do nothing." Or however it was that you put it.

The Institute for Policy Studies analyzed 100 S&P 500 corporations with the lowest median worker pay levels in 2022 and found that CEO pay in this sample averaged $15.3 million, while median worker pay averaged $31,672. The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio in this group was 603 to 1.Nov 13, 2023

CEO-worker pay gap rising and ‘bad for business’: report

Recent research indicates CEO pay practices lead to governance issues as they spur “executive recklessness” such as mass layoffs, tax evasion and more that puts the economy at risk.

www.esgdive.com

In fact, what is actually misdirection, is you claiming that what people are actually complaining about is somehow "not relevant" because it's not what you claim that they are complaining about in order to make your strawman argument.


Edit: apologies for formatting and shit--I cannot get the hang of this stupid new software that does not seem to "want" me to do manual entry of metacode or something.

 

[C C]

Self-interested is what we all are. That includes the degree that we care for others. [...]

That would have to be "self-interest" in the context of philosophical and other disciplinary enterprises. Since some of the common dictionary meanings are either reality or ideologically impaired in terms of acknowledging self-interest as a universal human norm slash motivation (especially in terms of survival).

Note that although other incentives and stimuli arguably exist, even researchers can be hard-pressed to discern them or prevent them from being reduced to offshoots of self-interest.

• Self-interest: Defining and understanding a human motive
  
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229802551_Self-interest_Defining_and_understanding_a_human_motive
  
  When self-interest is stripped away, is there any remaining basis for human motivation? While this debate has gone on for decades, scholars seem close to an answer, albeit perhaps a conditional one. That answer appears to be ‘yes’; there seem to be bases for human motivation beyond mere self-interest. Unfortunately, the necessary evidence is scattered throughout various specialty areas, and a full reckoning requires an interdisciplinary examination.

_

 

[parmalee]

That would have to be "self-interest" in the context of philosophical and other disciplinary enterprises. Since some of the common dictionary meanings are either reality or ideologically impaired in terms of acknowledging self-interest as a universal human norm slash motivation (especially in terms of survival).

I had considered "self-interest" from a philosophical perspective--be that Max Stirnerian or Kropotkinian, or even something akin something to Ayn Rand's wacky and inconsistently defined "enlightened egoism" (Is that right? Did she use "enlightened"? I'm not gonna bother and look: I abandoned that crap at age 14 and never looked back.)--but I think that all senses still exclude explicitly "caring for others." This, of course, does not necessarily preclude caring for others as a byproduct, but still... (Also, "caring for others" kinda falls under the just plain common sense rubric; otherwise, you're just shooting yourself in the foot.)


Edit: My bad. The Rand expression was "rational egoism." Whatever. Rational/enlightened: same goddamned humanistic crap

 

[C C]

I had considered "self-interest" from a philosophical perspective--be that Max Stirnerian or Kropotkinian, or even something akin something to Ayn Rand's wacky and inconsistently defined "enlightened egoism" (Is that right? Did she use "enlightened"? I'm not gonna bother and look: I abandoned that crap at age 14 and never looked back.)--but I think that all senses still exclude explicitly "caring for others."

Rand partially grew up under the Soviet Union, so her zealot-level rancor toward such opportunistic forms of altruism and radical social equality probably stemmed a good part from that experience.

In the case of those power acquisition templates, the intelligentsia and their bureaucratic implementers (who deliver the proletariat from their former oppressors) simply take the latter's place. "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." ..... "We don't get fooled again." ..... Well, in fact we do get fooled again and again. Suckers and party mascots all the way.

And a figurative example would be the character Daenerys Targaryen in HBO's version of Game of Thrones. What she was actually up to was telegraphed all the way (to the discerning political eye). In our world, of course, a pre-Secular and less potent example of exploitive do-gooderism would be the priests and their missionaries. (Karl secretly loved to borrow placeholder concepts from Christian domination strategies.)

This, of course, does not necessarily preclude caring for others as a byproduct, but still... (Also, "caring for others" kinda falls under the just plain common sense rubric; otherwise, you're just shooting yourself in the foot.)

Yah. A well-organized community accommodates self-interest by generating more advanced pleasures, goods, and comfortable living. But receiving the benefits of that improved life requires the feral individual to subscribe to social conduct principles, duty and self-sacrifice, and commonweal -- in order for that kind of society to arise and persist. That other side of evolution: The genetic legacy of those who cooperate and share endures, though it can be conceived as just a different subcategory of "fittest".

Of course, that can at times be turned into an artificial hell (in contrast to Nature's version) by tyrannical governments. Some of the old-timers who still had the survival skills preferred to return to the wilderness, instead. Albeit for very crazy reasons sometimes.

The Lykov Family

Lykov family - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Lykov Family: 40 Years in Isolation from Civilization

The Lykov Family: 40 Years in Isolation from Civilization - Morbid Kuriosity

He discovered the Lykov family that had been missing for over half a century, living so far from civilization that they were unaware the Second World War had

morbidkuriosity.com

 

[Seattle]

That bolded portion is not what self-interest means:

self-interest​

noun

the fact of somebody only considering their own interests and of not caring about things that would help other people

• Not all of them were acting out of self-interest.

Nevertheless, "name-calling" (as you put) or not, they are still characterizations of one's attitude or disposition--an opinion. One cannot definitively establish that a person is not selfish and/or greedy.


How is it a "misdirection", or to put it another (one of your) way(s), how is "not relevant" to the discussion. It's as relevant as the claim the people are "complaining" about the fact that CEOs make, on average (according to this source) 603 times the pay of the median worker--they are not complaining that "they do all the work" and "CEOs do nothing." Or however it was that you put it.

CEO-worker pay gap rising and ‘bad for business’: report

Recent research indicates CEO pay practices lead to governance issues as they spur “executive recklessness” such as mass layoffs, tax evasion and more that puts the economy at risk.

www.esgdive.com

In fact, what is actually misdirection, is you claiming that what people are actually complaining about is somehow "not relevant" because it's not what you claim that they are complaining about in order to make your strawman argument.


Edit: apologies for formatting and shit--I cannot get the hang of this stupid new software that does not seem to "want" me to do manual entry of metacode or something.

The CEO's paid and the night watchman's pay are not related so it doesn't matter than multiple is involved.

You don't agree with my interpretation of "self-interest". Duly noted.

 

[Seattle]

• For the poor, looking less poor is part of the hustle to be less poor. For the rich, looking less rich is part of the hustle to gather more excess.​

OK, so...

 

[parmalee]

Rand partially grew up under the Soviet Union, so her zealot-level rancor toward such opportunistic forms of altruism and radical social equality probably stemmed a good part from that experience.

Rand's non-fiction is crap. All of it. But her fiction is not without moments, and I think a lot of those moments stem from this--that is, her experiences in and her later assessment of the Soviet Union.

In the case of those power acquisition templates, the intelligentsia and their bureaucratic implementers (who deliver the proletariat from their former oppressors) simply take the latter's place. "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." ..... "We don't get fooled again." ..... Well, in fact we do get fooled again and again. Suckers and party mascots all the way.

And a figurative example would be the character Daenerys Targaryen in HBO's version of Game of Thrones. What she was actually up to was telegraphed all the way (to the discerning political eye). In our world, of course, a pre-Secular and less potent example of exploitive do-gooderism would be the priests and their missionaries. (Karl secretly loved to borrow placeholder concepts from Christian domination strategies.)

Yeah, it took many decades for biologists and anthropologists/ethologists to start paying attention to how and why and when and where hierarchies emerge, and even then, it took another long while for them to dispense with some of their apocryphal notions, like the myth of the "Alpha Wolf"--or at the very least, recognize that such things are very much context dependent.

(Also, I've somehow never actually watched, or read, Game of Thrones.)

Yah. A well-organized community accommodates self-interest by generating more advanced pleasures, goods, and comfortable living. But receiving the benefits of that improved life requires the feral individual to subscribe to social conduct principles, duty and self-sacrifice, and commonweal -- in order for that kind of society to arise and persist. That other side of evolution: The genetic legacy of those who cooperate and share endures, though it can be conceived as just a different subcategory of "fittest".

I think that matters of "selfishness" (and self-interest) are kind of a non-starter within this discussion: everyone is selfish. Period. "Greedy(ness)", on the other hand, is very much pertinent.

How are they (fat people) marginalized? The whole country’s full of dumb, fat fucks.

--Stewie Griffin

Plenty of people are greedy, rich and poor alike--but greed cuts both ways: it can harm others and it can be self-defeating. But the rich and greedy have the capacity to do immeasurably greater harm to others.

 

[Seattle]

Plenty of people are greedy, rich and poor alike--but greed cuts both ways: it can harm others and it can be self-defeating. But the rich and greedy have the capacity to do immeasurably greater harm to others.

So where does this lead in your opinion? Who decides who is "greedy", what are the standards and what is the "solution". You decide that someone is greedy and then you decide how much money to take away from them?