I’m very interested in your perspective. Mostly, because I find it so alien from my own. A little background- I work in law enforcement, and before that served in the American military. In these backgrounds I have come to see human suffering as the norm, and not a problem to be fixed. If I were to make a big-picture worldview of things, I would say that the ‘natural’ state of the universe is randomness and chaos. Human beings are a thing that make shaky structures-sometimes literally, but most often some sort of society that breeds more citizens then it can either feed or make use of. A very few of these shaky structures are sturdier than others. Classical virtue ethics have lasted a while. The sort of altruism/communal-ism found in Christ or the Buddha still makes an impact. But chaos is always there, and inescapable.
My reaction to this has been either to protect the perimeter of the things/people/ideas I care about, or to tend the garden of the place I want to be at. I do not want to give money to cure malaria, because I see no evidence at all that curing malaria will help anyone I might actually meet in the first world nation I live in, and I do not care about the lives of the animals I eat from the factory, other than how it might affect my personal health.
I find the idea that rationality can effect altruistic belief a fantasy that seems mostly to be shared by the sorts of people who have won at the current rules of meritocracy. This sounds much harsher than I intend it to- intelligent rational people indulging in flights of whimsy can produce wonderful things! But I do not believe this sort of thought is anything but that. Your story seems like a journey from foolishness to experience.
I’m very interested in your perspective. Mostly, because I find it so alien from my own. A little background- I work in law enforcement, and before that served in the American military. In these backgrounds I have come to see human suffering as the norm, and not a problem to be fixed. If I were to make a big-picture worldview of things, I would say that the ‘natural’ state of the universe is randomness and chaos. Human beings are a thing that make shaky structures-sometimes literally, but most often some sort of society that breeds more citizens then it can either feed or make use of. A very few of these shaky structures are sturdier than others. Classical virtue ethics have lasted a while. The sort of altruism/communal-ism found in Christ or the Buddha still makes an impact. But chaos is always there, and inescapable.
My reaction to this has been either to protect the perimeter of the things/people/ideas I care about, or to tend the garden of the place I want to be at. I do not want to give money to cure malaria, because I see no evidence at all that curing malaria will help anyone I might actually meet in the first world nation I live in, and I do not care about the lives of the animals I eat from the factory, other than how it might affect my personal health.
I find the idea that rationality can effect altruistic belief a fantasy that seems mostly to be shared by the sorts of people who have won at the current rules of meritocracy. This sounds much harsher than I intend it to- intelligent rational people indulging in flights of whimsy can produce wonderful things! But I do not believe this sort of thought is anything but that. Your story seems like a journey from foolishness to experience.