In contrast to the God-Empress, mortals have been known to make use of a computational shortcut they call “not my problem”. If I make a post, and you say, “This has too many equations in it; people don’t want to read a website with too many equations; you’re driving off more value to community than you’re creating”, it only makes sense to think of this as a disagreement if I’ve accepted the premise that my job is to optimize the whole community and everything in it, rather than to make good posts. If my position is instead, “I thought it was a good post; if it drives away people who don’t like equations, that’s not my problem,” then what we have is a conflict rather than a disagreement.
Indeed. In fact, we can take this analysis further, as follows:
If there are people whose problem it is to optimize the whole community and everything in it (let us skip for the moment the questions of why this is those people’s problem, and who decided that it should be, and how), then those people might say to you: “Indeed it is not your problem, to begin with; it is mine; I must solve it; and my approach to solving this problem is to make it your problem, by the power vested in me.” At that point you have various options: accede and cooperate, refuse and resist, perhaps others… but what you no longer have is the option of shrugging and saying “not my problem”, because in the course of the conflict which ensued when you initially shrugged thus, the problem has now been imposed upon you by force.
Of course, there are those questions which we skipped—why is this “problem” a problem for those people in authority; who decided this, and how; why are they in authority to begin with, and why do they have the powers that they have; how does this state of affairs comport with our interests, and what shall we do about it if the answer is “not very well”; and others in this vein. And, likewise, if we take the “refuse and resist” option, we can start a more general conversation about what we, collectively, are trying to accomplish, and what states of affairs “we” (i.e., the authorities, who may or may not represent our interests, and may or may not claim to do so) should take as problems to be solved, etc.
In short, this is an inescapably political question, with all the usual implications. It can be approached mistake-theoretically only if all involved (a) agree on the goals of the whole enterprise, and (b) represent honestly, in discussion with one another, their respective individual goals in participating in said enterprise. (And, obviously, assuming that (a) and (b) hold, as a starting point for discussion, is unwise, to say the least!)
Indeed. In fact, we can take this analysis further, as follows:
If there are people whose problem it is to optimize the whole community and everything in it (let us skip for the moment the questions of why this is those people’s problem, and who decided that it should be, and how), then those people might say to you: “Indeed it is not your problem, to begin with; it is mine; I must solve it; and my approach to solving this problem is to make it your problem, by the power vested in me.” At that point you have various options: accede and cooperate, refuse and resist, perhaps others… but what you no longer have is the option of shrugging and saying “not my problem”, because in the course of the conflict which ensued when you initially shrugged thus, the problem has now been imposed upon you by force.
Of course, there are those questions which we skipped—why is this “problem” a problem for those people in authority; who decided this, and how; why are they in authority to begin with, and why do they have the powers that they have; how does this state of affairs comport with our interests, and what shall we do about it if the answer is “not very well”; and others in this vein. And, likewise, if we take the “refuse and resist” option, we can start a more general conversation about what we, collectively, are trying to accomplish, and what states of affairs “we” (i.e., the authorities, who may or may not represent our interests, and may or may not claim to do so) should take as problems to be solved, etc.
In short, this is an inescapably political question, with all the usual implications. It can be approached mistake-theoretically only if all involved (a) agree on the goals of the whole enterprise, and (b) represent honestly, in discussion with one another, their respective individual goals in participating in said enterprise. (And, obviously, assuming that (a) and (b) hold, as a starting point for discussion, is unwise, to say the least!)