RE: Human Nature
April 26, 2025 at 12:30 am
(This post was last modified: April 26, 2025 at 12:37 am by The Grand Nudger.)
@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.....
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.....
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