Acting authentically in the face of survival

[Hovik]

Frankie is touching on, whether on purpose or not, the fact that if everyone got what they wanted, one or more is bound to infringe on what another person wants. It is inevitable in a population this large. You or I would get what we want, but so would murderers and rapists. It is rather obvious when you think about it, no?

Everyone getting what they want doesn't magically remove the need for laws.

Furthermore, it's not about everyone getting what they want, it's removing the requirement of need. Removing need allows people to act freely.

Edit: A redditor explained what I'm talking about very well, so I'll simply quote what he wrote:

True freedom means being free not just from external restraints, but also from internal restraints like the threat of starvation or threat of lack of basic necessities. The ancap/libertarian concept of negative freedom captures only half of what true freedom means. Freedom is the absence of limits to your wants, irregardless of their sources. For a hungry man, it does not matter if he lacks food because someone stole his food, or because he was unable to obtain it. The hunger is the same. For an ill man, it does not matter if he lacks healthcare because someone stole it from him, or because he was unable to obtain it. The illness is the same. A man who works under threat of starvation and poverty does not lead a self-directed life. Someone who lacks any opportunities can not be said to act according to his own true will.

[Annik]

to the OP:

to me it's very simple. i don't compromise my values at all and i remain authentic to my feelings and stances on everything that comes to mind. money does change a lot, when you have absolutely none. for me, it changes less when i simply don't have enough. my father told me to always eat - even if you have no money for bills, make sure you can eat .. because hungry men are the least rational people alive.

now, if there comes a time where i have an option to do something that will earn me $10m, instead of going against my values, it may just quickly occur to me that my values were wrong! hahahaha. but without being in that predicament, i can't assume anything. i won't plan to pray on my deathbed, for example.

As long as you keep acting authentic to your values and views, you would be in good faith and a free agent.

If I had 10 million, I'd pay off my and Hovik's school debts and put the rest towards living so I could focus on my career.

[jonb]

A few people have touched on it, but I will say much the same thing but from a different view. I rejected society, money, the whole bit. What is funny for a young bloke which I was at the time without commitments, or a need to stack up wealth, I found it remarkably easy to live very far outside conventional norms even in a small over crowded island. I could not fly or even eat when I wanted, but it was handsomely self indulgent.
What was getting in my way was not the practicalities of nature, but people, hell is other people. When it is evident you are not part of society and have no status, it can be surprising how antagonistic people can become to you.

[The Grand Nudger]

If I had 10 million, there is a real and credible chance that I might just exchange it all for quarters to fire out of a cannon until I was bored.....hopefully I would have more presence of mind come the million dollar moment...but I make no promises. I mean hell, I've done stranger things with 10 dollars, 10 million might just mean a million times stranger.

-edit- This particular comment reminds me very much of the semi-fictional excercize alluded to in Office Space, whereby the protagonist relays a story in which he was asked what he would do if he had a million dollars (or something to that effect) as a method of determing what he should choose as a career. His amusing -and I bet common- response. Nothing.

[Annik]

It should be noted that the posed situation is not if everyone (or you) had a bunch of money, but rather if money wasn't necessary.

[Shell B]

Hovik, Frankie said that if everyone got what they wanted, we would be worse off. Annik asked how so. I explained it. Everyone getting what they want does remove laws, if not the need for them. At any rate, it would be impossible, as demonstrated in my previous post.

[Annik]

Hovik, Frankie said that if everyone got what they wanted, we would be worse off. Annik asked how so. I explained it. Everyone getting what they want does remove laws, if not the need for them. At any rate, it would be impossible, as demonstrated in my previous post.

It was Hovik that asked, not me.

Regardless, Frankie misunderstood the topic.

[Shell B]

My bad. One of you asked. Regardless, I wasn't responded to the OP or commenting on frankie's adherence to it. I was explaining why his statement was inherently correct.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, if we're talking need, then I humbly suggest that a great deal of things you feel that you need money for are, in actuality, no such thing. More often than not it is our desire for money and the alternative money offers us, not so much an issue of need. You don't -need- money for food, you desire money for a specific type or amount of food. You do not -need- money for shelter, you desire money for a certain location or quality. If you insist upon dining somewhere other than the bank of a river or a dumpster, and do not feel the urge to live under a tarp, than you are, in fact, acting upon your wishes and desires as you tirelessly work in your shit job for the meager wages which afford you some semblance of luxury (comparative to the alternative).

[Categories+Sheaves]

How can one be authentic when we have to worry about survival? Does it really count as being authentic if you're trying to be as true to yourself as possible?

There's a really good reason why Sartre did a precarious dance around "I didn't choose to be born" and why Beauvoir insists on our ability to choose suicide in this thing: in order for living to be 'authentic', we have to be able to choose to live. If you take your having to do x in order to survive to mean something like you must do x, you've already dropped the existentialist position. The freedom/responsibility stuff of existentialism comes from how you realize your choices, not what choices you're confronted with.