Moralizing vs. Compassion

[MTL]

I'd like to talk about MTL's observations about Bill Gates.

Undoubtedly, among the rich he is a shining example.  But it is partly because of him that maybe billions of computers have been sold.  They were made in factories which pump out pollution.  They use power which in many parts of the world increases the carbon footprint.  They require shipping, which definitely increases the carbon footprint.  They require rare minerals, which are often mined using chemical processes that do great damage.

I love Bill Gates, don't get me wrong.  But not even in his case can you definitely demonstrate a net positive influence, and he almost for sure is among the best of the human best.


Another example-- I'm vegetarian.   I've realized that if I calculate the amount of grains and vegetables I consume, then consider where they come from, I'm indirectly responsible for huge amounts of poison and a massive carbon footprint-- maybe more animal deaths than if I ate locally-produced meat.

My point is that even the good people probably do more harm than no people.  What we really need to do is fill up massive spaceships with millions of people and send them off to Mars and beyond.

Or just stop making babies.

As I said earlier, we all share in the blame, pretty much from birth,
even despite our best efforts not to;
and the best ANY of us can really aim for
is to OFFSET the damage we do, with sincere endeavors to improve,
and make an effort to be responsible.

By no means do I hold up Bill Gates as perfect.
I'm merely pointing out that people bitterly moan about how people of his means can manage to enjoy their excessive luxury
whilst there are still children starving to death;
yet he does billions of dollars of philanthropic work that I, as a poor person, am simply not able to do,
despite the fact that I don't have it on my conscience that I enjoy great luxury while my fellow man suffers.

[loganonekenobi]

Compassion is action as far as I'm concerned and in most eastern philosophies as well. All the same survival is a strong instinct. As far as getting in trouble... you spoke your mind with good intention i assume. Hopefully it moves her to be compassionate.

Most of us try to balance such action with the need for survival. I work and live my life but i try to find some time out of my week to go and help at the animal shelter.

Could I do more? of course, but I'm not a saint. I'm a just a man trying to do what I can.

[popsthebuilder]

So I got in a little trouble with a co-worker today when she was going on about how our city wasn't doing enough to help the homeless.  She claimed she was passionate about helping the homeless.  I thought this was great because I too am passionate and regularly help the homeless in Detroit by bringing them gift bags of essentials and offering time in shelters.  

However, as she went on she claimed she never even met a homeless person in downtown, goes out of her way to avoid them when she visits and never been to a shelter but read that there were only two and that wasn't enough.  I applauded her concern for issue, but I perhaps mistakenly corrected her in that I didn't feel she was passionate about the homeless but was merely moralizing.  She got upset with me, but I did my best to explain it to her.  

The word compassion carries with it these dual senses about making an absolute moral judgement about something AND being prepared to do something about it. So you have compassion in the face of poverty when you make an absolute moral judgement, 'That is wrong! It shouldn't be like that,' and then you're moved from the depth of your being to do something about it. If you're not moved from the depth of your being to do something about it, you don't have compassion, you have moralizing.

She didn't like my explanation.  Curious your thoughts here on it.

Are you saying she's is acting one way out of show, but in solitude, by her own declaration, does another?

That is not compassion really, because she isn't displacing or inconveniencing herself in anyway in order to help the impoverished, but sets on a moral high horse as if she should tell others how to be or do.

That's borderline hypocrisy in my opinion. Not her, just what I got from what I read.



Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

[robvalue]

Yep, we suck. We do damage just by existing.

But things aren't "all or nothing". We can try to reduce that damage, and it's worthwhile even if we don't reduce it by as much as we could. And we can try to positively impact the world, which is again worthwhile even if we could do more, and is still better than doing nothing even if it doesn't "offset" the damage ultimately.

We do suck, though. I would like humans to die out, in the grand scheme of things. But I try to make the best of how things are. I don't take out my philosophical views on individual people or on societies. We're all here just trying to make the best of it, hopefully.

[robvalue]

If something is "good" just because God (or anyone else) says it is "good", then "good" is meaningless. It's just arbitrary.

[bennyboy]

If something is "good" just because God (or anyone else) says it is "good", then "good" is meaningless. It's just arbitrary.

Only if you're the arbitrator.  If you are not the arbitrator, and if the meaning of a value is imposed on you, then that's objective from your perspective, unless you want to say that people and God are peers because, they're both, like thinking things with ideas of their own and stuff.

I'd say the creator of all existence, of all that ever was or will be, would be sufficiently great from our perspective to make his definition of good objective.

The problem is that no such God exists, and the one in the Bible is a made up human-God who says the same stupid shit that desert-dwelling people of 4000 years ago would have said.  Amazing coincidence, to be sure.

[robvalue]

Objective means it's not subject to anyone's opinion. Presumably if God had a different opinion, then "morality" would be different. If God changed his mind, then morality would change. So I can't agree it's objective, it's just far removed and out of our control. (If it made any sense, which it doesn't.)

But if you assume God makes up his mind and then he cannot change it, and then God just stays out of it, then you could describe it as "objective" I suppose, in that it cannot be subject to change.

But I agree, from the lawgivers point of view, "good" can mean something to him. But if no one else is involved in this distinction, then it's arbitrary as far as everyone else is concerned.

I do consider us a peer to God, if there is one, in the sense that we're both self-aware thinking agents. He just happens to have created some stuff with us in it. That doesn't make him better than us, it just makes him more powerful; he has the ability to overrule us at any time. And he is only powerful in relation to us. He might be a prime doofus in his own version of reality.

So obviously in terms of power, we are not his peers unless he decides that we are. There's no reason to assume he's any more intelligent than us, though. He may have just run a computer simulation; that's not hard.

[bennyboy]

Some new thoughts on the OP:

The problem with the squeakiest wheels is that they are often so vociferous because they have nothing else to. And they have nothing else to do because they are supported by parents, by government entitlements, by academic bursaries or scholarships, etc. I'd say they are a double curse-- not only are they a drain on society, but their feigned outrage allows them to vent their feelings of incompetence onto those too busy to squeak so much-- the hard working, middle-aged adults who pay taxes, who pay rent, etc. There's no one more eager to "fight the Man" than the ones who are butthurt by the indignity of needing the Man to keep a roof over their head, or pot money in their pockets.

/old man rant

[Catholic_Lady]

I like it. Agreed.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

I'd like to talk about MTL's observations about Bill Gates.

Undoubtedly, among the rich he is a shining example.  But it is partly because of him that maybe billions of computers have been sold.  They were made in factories which pump out pollution.  They use power which in many parts of the world increases the carbon footprint.  They require shipping, which definitely increases the carbon footprint.  They require rare minerals, which are often mined using chemical processes that do great damage.

I love Bill Gates, don't get me wrong.  But not even in his case can you definitely demonstrate a net positive influence, and he almost for sure is among the best of the human best.


Another example-- I'm vegetarian.   I've realized that if I calculate the amount of grains and vegetables I consume, then consider where they come from, I'm indirectly responsible for huge amounts of poison and a massive carbon footprint-- maybe more animal deaths than if I ate locally-produced meat.

My point is that even the good people probably do more harm than no people.  What we really need to do is fill up massive spaceships with millions of people and send them off to Mars and beyond.

Or just stop making babies.

As I said earlier, we all share in the blame, pretty much from birth,
even despite our best efforts not to;
and the best ANY of us can really aim for
is to OFFSET the damage we do, with sincere endeavors to improve,
and make an effort to be responsible.

By no means do I hold up Bill Gates as perfect.
I'm merely pointing out that people bitterly moan about how people of his means can manage to enjoy their excessive luxury
whilst there are still children starving to death;
yet he does billions of dollars of philanthropic work that I, as a poor person, am simply not able to do,
despite the fact that I don't have it on my conscience that I enjoy great luxury while my fellow man suffers.

Well, Gawd bless Bill Gates! What would the world be without him to take money generated out of the savings accumulated from depriving children of food, shelter, and education, so that he could give a little back to them at his own convenience?

Maybe this world really doesn't need multi-billionaires to decide who should live and when. Maybe Gates isn't really the shining light which leads to a better world, but one who hijacks what is good in it for his own benefit, tweaking it here and there just like one of his operating systems.

On leading technological change, I have to hand it to the tech billionaires, it would never have happened without them. But the world isn't really better since the smartest office machine being used was the electric typewriter, it's only 1000x quicker and equally more tense.  Without the Bill Gateses of the world, hundreds of millions more people would not go cold or hungry, and millions more would have extra cash in their pockets, which they may donate to causes such as medical research which is pertinent to their family interests - and this is what democracy requires!