Comments | steve_hamster: They're Fresh Out of Batteries, But They're Still Making Noise

steve_hamster

They're Fresh Out of Batteries, But They're Still Making Noise

Aug 18, 2005 21:15

I had an interesting conversation with Nate last night, as is often the case whenever we do manage to talk. However, I dominated the conversation. So I'm hoping that by introducing this conversation into a forum that both welcomes feedback and forces me to eventually shut up, an actual dialog could emerge. That doesn't mean that only Nate's ( Read more... )

Comments 10

Utopia spearofsolomon August 19 2005, 19:38:49 UTC

I like this idea. I think it raises a lot of questions, but many of them are more logistical than problematic. For instance, what economic models arise from a non-atomistic and self-worshipping culture ( ... )

Re: Utopia steve_hamster August 21 2005, 03:04:17 UTC

I've had to think about these powerful arguments, so I hope my responses and rebuttals bear that out to some extent.

you believe that for each person, the right upbringing and social influence will result in a well-formed human beingI don't personally believe this, but I wondered if maybe it was foundational to the idea at hand. There are perhaps a few ways to defend my idea without admitting to this. First, it seems patently true that society is extremely effective at creating people whose behavior is parallel to social norms. Imagine a society rooted in hunting and gathering where subsistence living is important and not dying of severe sabretooth tiger bites is a commendable accomplishment. Do you think that people would be plagued by stress and bipolar "disorders" the way they are now ( ... )

Re: Utopia spearofsolomon August 21 2005, 20:34:29 UTC

I think it's interesting that you have completely avoided mentioning the ideas of right and wrong, developing instead the idea of norms as guidelines to behavior. Is that because you don't believe in these concepts, or because you don't think one person, or a group of people, should enforce his/their understanding of these ideas onto people who aren't interested in them ( ... )

Thomas More can eat my shorts steve_hamster August 23 2005, 15:35:20 UTC

you have completely avoided mentioning the ideas of right and wrong, developing instead the idea of norms as guidelines to behavior

It's not that I don't believe in right and wrong, but it seems like it would be impossible to say that these communities would somehow shape themselves voluntarily around my idea of right and wrong. So I think people within a community ought to have the expectation of respect for their particular moral code (or normative system), but that expectation simply can't be extended into other communities realistically.

I find the "admittedly wussy" folks in Community A on the right path, except that they chose to have this discussion with Rod after he chose to murder Todd.Do we expect people to behave perfectly, even according to their own internal moral code. No, because people aren't rational or consistent. To simply administer punishment with no regard for a difference between a fallability that represents a reparable break in the social code and a malice that actually threatens social integrity seems ( ... )

Thread 6

neilvanders August 21 2005, 05:56:51 UTC

It reminds me a bit of Waking Ned Divine. Good movie.

steve_hamster August 24 2005, 05:31:31 UTC

See, Liz? I did have good kids last year.

spearofsolomon August 28 2005, 01:09:02 UTC

It's look like they're still having problems staying on-topic ( ... )

steve_hamster August 28 2005, 17:09:48 UTC

It seems true that if people were fundamentally "better," society would be better, too. This still seems utopian, though, since we live in a society that rewards selfishness and punishes altruism. This short-circuits pragmatic approaches, since individual acts of selflessness are as likely to have bad consequences as good, especially for the actor.

. . .I don't believe that any one person is excused from making correct choices, and so I don't that as a society we can blame poor parenting, lack of education, social norms, etc.I don't think these two ideas are mutually exclusive. To say that people must decide their own actions is not to say that these decisions happen in a vacuum. If someone doesn't know calculus, it seems like an explanation might be that their school never taught it to them. Society and its norms are, as you say, shaped by the individual choices people make, but it in turn provides a context for those choices. If a person's parents physically abused him/her, their subsequent abuse of their own children would ( ... )