Selfishness and Society

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

I find free market capitalism the best and the most ancient form of cooperative agreement and business in this world. If Jesus was a carpenter then I rest my case.

One detail- the US system is not free market capitalism. Free market capitalism is a good type of economy, I agree (don't know that I'd say it's the best- would require lots of analysis). But it just ain't what we got in the modern US. Our government subsidizes some businesses, we have ways for companies to declare bankruptcy and be bailed out and so forth. That is not free market capitalism.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

So they can void the notion of individual rights and conscience, and that we must surrender our power as individuals to them. (All under the fear of 'mob mentality,' of course.)

Originally Posted by wil

Namaste SL, can you expound on how selfishness relinquishes power?

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

That is not free market capitalism.

You mean you're all goddam socialists??!!

s.

[Snoopy]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

the planet is NOT damaged and it is not being damaged.

Can I come and live on your planet, cos it clearly isn't the one that I'm living on.

s.

[wil]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Doh, oops my bad.

Ya mean I should read a little more carefully??

guess no expoundationess required.

[cyberpi]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

One detail- the US system is not free market capitalism. Free market capitalism is a good type of economy, I agree (don't know that I'd say it's the best- would require lots of analysis). But it just ain't what we got in the modern US. Our government subsidizes some businesses, we have ways for companies to declare bankruptcy and be bailed out and so forth. That is not free market capitalism.

Due to the way tax is collected, any involvement of government whatsoever in anything is a NON-free market. Like every government, the US government is some of the dumbest money on the planet, and per the will of only an elite minority. It is NOT earned. The tax collectors collect it as either a thief, or as a beggar. That said, while thiefs and organized crime (government) abounds everywhere, there is still a free market. I think of it like the term 'free will'... a small portion of energy and relationships is within my will, and that small portion was a free choice to me. Even if I were tied up, imprisoned, and taxed in a forced relationship, there is still a portion of relationships in the market that are free. I would not confuse the term 'free market' with the term 'fair market' either... essentially people can thieve and seemingly get away with it which really bothers some people; however, it won't be forever.

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

False. Waste can be cleaned up but it takes even greater use of energy. For example you have a home and over time it becomes a mess because you didn't take the time and energy to clean up. So you must take a day or two and do nothing but cleaning... which in itself burns more energy. That scenario or lesson is repeated over and over at every level of industry and human life.

Just because it can be cleaned up does not mean that it is not ecologically damaging. So your ringing of the false buzzer by claiming that it can be "cleaned up" evades the issue at hand.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

You don't know the power of God... the planet is NOT damaged and it is not being damaged.

The first bit of this is totally irrelevant, I think. You seem to like logic. Tell me how whether I know the power of (your) God relates to ecological damage caused to nature by selfish misuse of wealth and resources.

As for the second bit, I think it should be obvious that I disagree with that statement.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

It is being overrun by people but a few catastrophes could easily solve that problem.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

The sun however is dying... every day since birth. When the sun dies then this planet will really be damaged.

Okay, I can't argue with this. This is the same absurd argument you used at first. Yes, the Sun's life is limited. Yes, when the Sun dies, life on Earth will be no more. Furthermore, life on Earth may end way before the Sun expires.

My point, which I will not repeat to you again after this post, because I have better things to do than try to drive this point home to someone who is not prepared to even entertain it, is that the continual harvesting and wasteful extraction of non-renewable resources from the Earth is short-sighted and ecologically damaging. On a large scale, it is a selfish act perpetrated by financially powerful and privileged institutions (corporations and governments) that has continued despite increased research and warnings that these actions are ecologically damaging and unsustainable.

You can disagree with that if you like, but you are not going to convince me that something different is the case.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Stolen? That right there is the accusation wherein I find both your physical math of economics, and your moral argument faulty. All energy except the decaying atoms comes from the Sun, and it is NOT the possession of society or government to tax it or to account for its use by individuals to ensure that it is for the benefit of society. Individuals make agreements on how to use energy within society... not the other way around. You are denying the rights of individuals in choosing how to use energy whether it be efficient or wasteful, whether it be for themselves or for society, which by the reasoning in your very first sentence is: selfishness. You express the selfishness of society in denying the right of the individual in choosing how to use energy. You insist that energy be used for the efficient greater good of society... why? Is a nameless and faceless society truly worthy?

The way I see it, you are taking a fairly libertarian political stance here. That's fine, and I certainly side with libertarians against "nameless and faceless society" which would tell them what to think, eat, and do. Where I disagree with libertarian political philosophy (to the extent that I understand it) is that it appears to me to be somewhat selfish and short-sighted in its promotion of rugged individualism, a sort of "me (or us) against the world" mentality that I simply don't think is viable in the long term. This is just a hazy perception that I have of libertarianism; I haven't studied it in depth, because I choose to spend my time in other ways that are more resonant with my own values.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

There is no mess that can not be cleaned up... except the fact that the sun is dying. Cleaning up requires the use of energy. The true accounting of what is done is within the physics itself... anything and everything that uses energy is being recorded. Smile... everyone is on a giant unseen camera every second of their life.

It seems to me that you are trying to break down what is a complicated web of interdependence--life--into an energy use and conservation model, somewhat similar to the sickening abstractiton of life into a model of production and consumption that underlies present industrialized societies, whether capitalist, communist, or something in between or entirely different.

Cyberpi, you are obviously a fairly intelligent individual, quite logical and inclined to the sciences. That's cool, but I disagree with the way you are approaching ecology, which seems to be a reductive approach emphasizing equations and energy laws. I won't be able to go toe-to-toe with you in the physics or engineering arenas, but I will maintain that in trying to confine ecological damage into mathematical--or for that matter, any set of sciences, including biological sciences--paradigms, you will not be able to address many of the subtle relationships that must be preserved and sustained in regional and local places in order for diverse life forms to flourish.

Finally, I don't think that you and I are necessarily even looking at the same picture, and so we will probably continue to disagree, or at the very least, miscommunicate.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Can I come and live on your planet, cos it clearly isn't the one that I'm living on.

s.

I have to say, as an environmental anthropologist (and working with various science folks: biologists, ecologists, natural resource managers, etc.)-- I'm inclined to agree with Snoopy.

[wil]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

I have to say, as an environmental anthropologist (and working with various science folks: biologists, ecologists, natural resource managers, etc.)-- I'm inclined to agree with Snoopy.

Now I can come from there, as I see the paved paradise, with shopping malls and polluted rivers, and space debris falling from the sky and gm crops, pesticides, herbicides, and and and as an issue...

or I could come from 'everything is in divine order'

or as Rush Limbaugh said "The earth cannot be destroyed, man cannot, will not destroy the planet. All man can do, and probably will do, is make in uninhabitable for man. The planet will survive and recover. And the faster that happens, that should make the liberals happy."

I dislike agreeing with Rush even partially.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Due to the way tax is collected, any involvement of government whatsoever in anything is a NON-free market. Like every government, the US government is some of the dumbest money on the planet, and per the will of only an elite minority. It is NOT earned. The tax collectors collect it as either a thief, or as a beggar. That said, while thiefs and organized crime (government) abounds everywhere, there is still a free market. I think of it like the term 'free will'... a small portion of energy and relationships is within my will, and that small portion was a free choice to me. Even if I were tied up, imprisoned, and taxed in a forced relationship, there is still a portion of relationships in the market that are free. I would not confuse the term 'free market' with the term 'fair market' either... essentially people can thieve and seemingly get away with it which really bothers some people; however, it won't be forever.

Well, yeah, there is always some amount of choice. But that doesn't mean we have a free market capitalist system. Sorry, but what that means is defined by economists and you can't just redefine another field of science's concepts and then call it as you want it. In order to really communicate fruitfully within science, one has to stick with the concepts at hand and then build on them.

Whatever the issue of taxes, even aside from this- the market does not operate based on capitalist principles at this time. Forget fair market, it ain't free either, nor is it capitalist. This means it circumvents the primary good attributes of capitalism- providing incentive to care for the resource base, to have long-term planning, and that environmental costs are directly factored into production costs (and therefore link to lower profits), which would drive more sustainable productive methods. Because our system allows business to offload environmental and social costs to taxpayers, other countries, etc., they are not operating within capitalist boundaries and principles, and the true costs of production and profit levels are twisted and warped-- leading to really bad decision-making and lots of inefficiency on all fronts.

[wil]

uh oh...funny Ayn Rand was mentioned earlier...

Objectivism and Thomas Jefferson
Seven Essays on the Philosophy of Ayn Rand 4. Selfishness as Virtue

click on the link to read it all. It lambasts me better than any of ya!!

but herein is one of my favorites, please post yours!

A philosophy of selfishness, then, is really a rationalized system of self-adulation, an abandonment of immediate control and a carte blanche for the seductions of self-love about which Jefferson spoke. Combined with the absolute nature assumed for reason, it become an impregnable fortress of dogmatic belief. The endless process of character development and self-examination is replaced by philosophical certainty and self-worship.

[path_of_one]

Originally Posted by wil

Now I can come from there, as I see the paved paradise, with shopping malls and polluted rivers, and space debris falling from the sky and gm crops, pesticides, herbicides, and and and as an issue...

Whatever we like personally, as a scientists I just look at sustainability. Someone may like paved paradise, but it's not sustainable, so it's a bad system.

or I could come from 'everything is in divine order'

Never could argue the illogical with the logical.

or as Rush Limbaugh said "The earth cannot be destroyed, man cannot, will not destroy the planet. All man can do, and probably will do, is make in uninhabitable for man. The planet will survive and recover. And the faster that happens, that should make the liberals happy."

I dislike agreeing with Rush even partially.

Yeah, me too, but he's right in the sense that we won't destroy the earth. We just destroy our own species and take down a bunch of others with us.

Since I happen to value humanity and other beings, and the idea of not watching people and ecosystems die is attractive to me, I strive for change toward sustainability to avoid all that suffering. Seems logical too. You know, most people don't like suffering and uncertainty, they just can't put 2 and 2 together to understand how their actions lead to those consequences.

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

As for selfishness, I still say that it is not a problem to have a balance between self-interest (in terms of using what is needed) and concern for other beings. That is not selfish. Selfishness is by definition self-interest to the exclusion of interest for others.

I like the definition I emboldened above. I don't support that kind of selfishness. I just think that one has to do for them self before they have something to offer others. What I don't like is the insidious social programming which makes a virtue of self denial, ostensibly for the sake of others, but really just to make the task of institutionally managing the sheeple easier on the bean counters. There may be no I in team, but there's also no I in slave.

Chris

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

I like the definition I emboldened above. I don't support that kind of selfishness. I just think that one has to do for them self before they have something to offer others. What I don't like is the insidious social programming which makes a virtue of self denial, ostensibly for the sake of others, but really just to make the task of institutionally managing the sheeple easier on the bean counters. There may be no I in team, but there's also no I in slave.

Chris

Chris, I agree with all of that 100%, and especially like the bits in bold. That last sentence is catchy.

It seems like most of us who have been debating the virtues of selfishness here agree that healthy self-interest is good and necessary. Without that, you just become a cog and let people walk all over you.

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by path_of_one

Yeah, me too, but he's right in the sense that we won't destroy the earth. We just destroy our own species and take down a bunch of others with us.

Glad you pointed that out, Path. The anthropocentric view is too often implicit in people's reasoning. The density of Limbaugh's statement is a case in point.

"The earth cannot be destroyed, man cannot, will not destroy the planet. All man can do, and probably will do, is make it uninhabitable for man."

There's no indication in that statement that the extinction of other species has even crossed Limbaugh's mind. If he were confronted with the statistics on species extinction, I'm certain he would call it a natural phenomenon, or at the very least deny that man could have had any part in that. It's all imaginary hogwash, a conspiracy patched together by "the liberals."