(April 24, 2025 at 3:46 am)Alan V Wrote:

(April 24, 2025 at 12:02 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I think we're compulsively decent in general.  Might not be for an accurate reason or even a good reason...consider the effort and risk involved (or wrongly believed to be involved) in being evil, but I do think it would be difficult to explain why we're not consistently doing our worst if bad or even amoral acts were something like behavioral gravity.   

I think we intend to be decent and even try very hard to be decent, but I am not convinced that being polite and going along with our social groups is actually good for us or others, our us-versus-them tribalism being what it is.  What we seem to be doing, instead, is going along to get along.  That's one of the reasons I have found Trump so alarming.  He has demonstrated that people, in this particular case Republicans, will sacrifice many of their most closely-held principles for the sake of conformity when they are socially dominated by a pathological liar.

You seem to dismiss and derogate the good to justify a focus on the bad. You see motivated behaviors in the good but attribute the bad purely to nature.

I think the vast majority of us intend to be decent, but many are very susceptible to propaganda and other manipulation. And most of the rest of are hardly immune to it. Methods of manipulation can be used to amplify our fears and worst impulses. They can be used to do the opposite, but that kind of manipulation doesn't seem nearly as successful.

(April 24, 2025 at 8:15 am)Angrboda Wrote:

(April 24, 2025 at 3:46 am)Alan V Wrote: I think we intend to be decent and even try very hard to be decent, but I am not convinced that being polite and going along with our social groups is actually good for us or others, our us-versus-them tribalism being what it is.  What we seem to be doing, instead, is going along to get along.  That's one of the reasons I have found Trump so alarming.  He has demonstrated that people, in this particular case Republicans, will sacrifice many of their most closely-held principles for the sake of conformity when they are socially dominated by a pathological liar.

You seem to dismiss and derogate the good to justify a focus on the bad.

What I am saying is that we weren't evolved to take the long-term into account, at least beyond a point, or to deal with such complex problems as climate change.  So what we are doing in the short-term is going to be very bad for us in the long-term, let alone what it does to the natural world.

Quote:You see motivated behaviors in the good but attribute the bad purely to nature.

People's priorities will always be people first, starting with themselves and their families, but including their communities and their nations.  That doesn't leave much left for the planet as a whole or the future.  This problem is caused by both our human nature and the motivations that spring from it.

How can anyone change that?  I don't think we can.  So my problem with human nature is that it almost inevitably leads to undermining our environments. The exceptions are, as of yet, too rare to make a significant difference in a timely manner.

And yet, worrying about the planet is another example of prioritizing the personal (what you value, humanity) over any long term view (the planet will go on turning).

How is that not a similar example of what in others you describe as a negative?

(April 24, 2025 at 3:20 pm)Angrboda Wrote: And yet, worrying about the planet is another example of prioritizing the personal (what you value, humanity) over any long term view (the planet will go on turning).

How is that not a similar example of what in others you describe as a negative?

I value the long-term interests of humanity over its short-term interests.  I also highly value the natural world as it is, which will be altered radically by climate change.

So just as you say, my assessment depends on my subjective values.  There doesn't seem to be any fulcrum on which to leverage a better outcome.

Being human, I am part of the problem I have described, and understand the stresses associated with admitting it.

So I obviously wish I was wrong in this assessment.

@Alan V

I couldn't really say that you're missing anything. That you have a different view of human nature than I do can be chalked up to your own view being more credible based on your own life experiences at the least.

I would push back on the idea that people have abandoned their principles to embrace the donald. That they're going along to get along. That's what maga was doing before donald. He's their permission slip to be themselves unapologetically in public.

I would agree with you that it's possible for utilitarian goods and moral goods to be misaligned. "What needs to be done" for example..might be a utilitarian good and a moral bad (or vv). I also wouldn't argue with you that human nature is to exploit an environment. I also think we're going to continue handling this moment very poorly. That we're going to lose money while we wreck lives and destroy habitats, all utilitarian and/or moral bads.

I do think there's a fulcrum, a means, but it doesn't necessarily fit within the views and ideologies of the people most likely to be actively interested in such ends. Another potential misalignment like the one between utilitarian and moral goods. Like the misalignments between what we intend and what we actually do. The things I woulkd advocate for in the goal of saving the planet™..for example...will strike a great many people interested in saving the planet as a recipe for destroying even more of it, and theyre not necessarily wrong. I think they're wrong, ofc, but it's arguable. None of this would matter (to you, to me)...as genuine misanthropes. If we disliked humanity..and heard that what was good for the planet was bad for us we'd think "excellent, fuck em". Not....."I hope we don't fuck up even more and worse". Perhaps we live in a world full of exclusively suboptimal decision fields. Where every available choice is bad somehow, for someone or something. In that case, our attempts to navigate such a world and often manifesting surprisingly poor outcomes isn't because we're degenerates.

-which isn't to say we don't also often fuck up along degenerate lines. Personally, though..I feel like I've seen some of the worst we can do...that I've experienced the futility of my own efforts to do good many times...I'm a single issue environmental voter...and yet.....

(April 24, 2025 at 2:23 pm)Alan V Wrote: People's priorities will always be people first, starting with themselves and their families, but including their communities and their nations.  That doesn't leave much left for the planet as a whole or the future.  This problem is caused by both our human nature and the motivations that spring from it.

How can anyone change that?  I don't think we can.  So my problem with human nature is that it almost inevitably leads to undermining our environments.  The exceptions are, as of yet, too rare to make a significant difference in a timely manner.

Wanted to separate this out.  Let's say that's absolutely true.  Not because I think it is..but because if it is, then any credible plan to save the planet exploits that just as aggressively as I might exploit a wild meadow.  That's how we change That...for starters anyway.  

Leaning into misanthropy..if we want the best for the earth or..really, anything we touch, or anyone, we need to learn to appeal to the worst of human nature. If our lowest impulse and our highest aspiration can both be leveraged to some (utilitarian or moral) end, we rig the game. We create an alternative to the suboptimals which did not exist before. I've marketed on that pretty successfully. I've organized community action around the principle. I've propagandized and indoctrinated with it. I've driven people to extreme violence with it. To good and ill ends, ofc. It works. You tell one guy it's cheaper, another guy it's healthier, another guy it's more environmentally responsible, another guy it's more humane, it's more secure, it's more american. It's all true...and even if it weren't...misanthropy doesn't give a shit about lying to the degens. Say anything.

(April 24, 2025 at 10:06 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: I think the vast majority of us intend to be decent, but many are very susceptible to propaganda and other manipulation. And most of the rest of are hardly immune to it. Methods of manipulation can be used to amplify our fears and worst impulses. They can be used to do the opposite, but that kind of manipulation doesn't seem nearly as successful.

I doubt it. Though it may be that people intend to be decent (just like they intend to go on diet tomorrow) but rarely are. If decency would be more than intention then I somehow doubt that issued like hunger or poverty would still exist. Decent people wouldn't let others starve even if said others would live thousands of kilometers from them.