Comment on I'm not asking to be rich.
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 10 months agoAgain, though, a problem that can be solved is not simply a problem simply described as “people”, unless you are making a suggestion that mostly everyone finds disagreeable, such as denying the existence of others, or advocating a collective suicide pact.
Is it not more coherent to frame as an objective how people may live together, as people in society, pursuing their shared interests as people?
Considere an analogy. Suppose a bicycle breaks. Would it not be sensible to try to find the flaws in the structure, and to replace or to reconfigure the broken parts?
Would you take the bicycle to a repair shop, expecting the proprietor to explain simply that the problem is bicycles?
Do you see the problem, with framing as a problem, that which is already given as unalterable?
Again, the questions people face is not people, butbof how we may live as people.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 10 months ago
The problem I’ve presented isn’t just “people”, though, it’s more “people will find a way to be unpredictable”. Any system you throw at people, they will analyse it and try to find a way to defeat it. Even if you frame an ideal society, there will always be outliers who try to go against the grain and pursue their own interests, sometimes at the expense of others. Rather than trying to idealise everything and everyone, an effective system should recognise this human trait and attempt to account for it in such a way as to balance out or disinsentivize it.
If a bicycle breaks, the first step is to analyse the break, then to repair or replace the broken part. Sometimes it is more efficient to replace the whole bike, but in many cases that just isn’t practical - outside of commercial consumerism, replacing things isn’t practical in the vast majority of situations. Overall, it is better to focus efforts; rather than replacing the whole bike you just replace the parts that cannot be repaired. If the bike is designed and built well, rather than designed to be disposable, replacement parts will almost always be better than a whole new bike. I’ve had the same broom for the last 20 years.
If the bike was designed poorly, I would expect the bike shop owner to tell me I’ve bought a poorly designed bike, and to explain how other bikes were better designed and could better deal with the wear and tear I was experiencing.
However your analogy doesn’t really fit. The issue here isn’t the bike, it’s how people are riding it. A racing bike has a certain configuration; a mountain bike has a different configuration; your average consumer bike has neither of these. Capitalism requires people to give a fair and honest value to things. Communism requires ultimately the same, but as defined by fewer people. Both of these are like selling a BMX to someone who wants to ride on the road or trails, rather than a halfpipe.
I don’t think any system is unalterable. In fact, I would say that trying to advocate for comprehensive change is almost always a losing battle. You would not convince a mountain bike rider that they should do away with gears and ride a BMX. Rather, we should be taking the versatile mountain bike and make small changes to it to cover more different types of terrain, including that which BMX typically dominate.
However, if you really wanted to make a better BMX, you wouldn’t scrap the BMX and start from scratch. You would make iterative improvements on one aspect of it until you found the sweet spot, then you would move to another area and focus on improving that.
That’s what we need in society. Constant, iterative improvement, while simultaneously allowing for objective review of progress to ensure things are going in the right direction. Trying to flip things over all in one go really just gives opportunity for incumbant players to dictate the change such that they remain on top, then after the change the typical narrative is “Well, we’ve had one change, we can’t be having another now, not so soon”.
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You repeated the particular language several times, though it has no value to anyone except you and someone who may read your mind.
What do you mean? Do you mean that inconsistency is an intransigent trait of humanity? Do you mean people become restless? Do you mean people try to preserve order, but fail?
Your language continues to be nebulous and imprecise.
Who would “throw at people” a system? Are you describing an autocracy, or a foreign occupation?
Can people identify a system, or simply organization and practices under which they prefer to live and by which they feel empowered?
Do people seek change that they identify as valuable?
I am not understanding how you are deriving your understanding about how societies occur and evolve.
Do you sincerely think that most in every society are revolutionaries?
Why do systems last so long, if everyone is constantly trying to depose the current one?
In every society, some will conform better than others. Every society has systems of accountability, to discourage and to repair harm.
Are you suggesting that no society is stable, because not everyone is always content with the status quo?
Who has done so? Are you referring to a particular antagonistic? Are you generalizing about everyone?
Systems express a set of structures, relationships, and values.
I am not sure you understand the meaning of capitalism and communism.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 10 months ago
I mean what I’ve said. The more people you have, the more time you consider, the more likely that some outliers in that group will seek to exploit the system and game it in their favour. Given that all societies now are quite large, this probability becomes an inevitable certainty; all societies have this problem, so we can generalise and say “people behave this way”.
Peter Thiel has been doing this on private islands. Not that I support that jagoff in any way, but that was the answer that instantly popped into my head.
Any of those. I’m not talking about any specific social structure, just human nature. I’m saying that social structure needs to account for fringe aspects of human behaviour, because once society becomes large enough then these fringe aspects become significantly large also, even if overall they are the minority.
I’m not talking about how societies evolve, or any specific structure, just a specific aspect of human nature.
No. I’m talking more about sociopathy, ie those who manipulate others for their own benefit. However, I would say sociopaths are a minority, but when a group of people is large enough the number of sociopaths and their behaviour becomes a significant problem.
Most of what you’ve been saying here is focused on the system. The argument I’m making is system agnostic; I’m talking about human behaviour, in particular the fringe behaviour that becomes inevitable in large groups of people, ie in modern societies.
It seems like you’re speaking in defense of a specific social structure, but you’re reluctant to actually talk about that structure or even name it.
This is kind of a running theme with you. You imply that I’m wrong, but don’t offer any counter point in return. This is an incredibly disingenuous way of arguing, you don’t really say anything of any substance but expect me to provide your argument for you.
If you want to talk about the merits of communism, or any other system, I’m game, and I’d love to hash out definitions with you so that we’re completely on the same page. I think your reluctance stems from the ways in which the terminology is poisoned - much like “retard” was once a technical medical term but since became a slur, “communism” has become something of a dirty word in some circles. That doesn’t mean the ideas behind it are wrong, and I’m happy to talk about the ideas using whatever words.
unfreeradical@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I return to my original observation, that you are viewing human behavior as inflexible and prescribed, rather than being shaped by personal experience and social context.
In your view, every society is a failure in its essence, because humans are in their essence incapable of forming any society that is not a failure.
I encourage you to think about how societies may differ, one from another.
It is the only meaningful path.
Dwelling on the presumed intransigent darkness of humanity leads to nowhere. It is neither constructive nor particularly accurate.