I used the word obligation because it felt too hard to find a better one, but I don’t like it, even for saving children in shallow ponds. In my mind, obligations are for things you signed up for. In our imperfect world I also feel okay using it for things you got signed up for and benefit from (e.g. I never agreed to be born in the US as a citizen, but I sure do benefit from it, so taxes are an obligation). In my world obligations are always to a specific entity, not general demands.
I think that for some people, rescuing drowning children is an obligation to society, similar to taxes. Something feels wrong about that to me, although I’d think very badly of someone who could have trivially saved a child and chose not to.
A key point for me is that people are allowed to be shitty. This right doesn’t make them not-shitty or free them from the consequences of being shitty, but it is an affordance available to everyone. Not being shitty requires a high average on erogatory actions, plus some number of supererogatory ones.
How many supererogatory actions? The easiest way to define this is relative to capacity, but that seems toxic to me, like people to don’t have a right to their own gains. It also seems likely to drive lots of people crazy with guilt. I don’t know what the right answer is.
TBH I’ve been really surprised at my reaction to “~obligation to maximal growth”. I would have predicted it would feel constraining and toxic, but it feels freeing and empowering, like I’ve been given a more chances to help people at no cost to me. I feel more powerful. I also feel more permission to give up on what is currently too hard, since sacrificing myself for one short term goal hurts my long term obligation.
Maybe the key is that this is a better way to think achieve goals I already had. It’s not a good frame for deciding what one’s goals should be.
I used the word obligation because it felt too hard to find a better one, but I don’t like it, even for saving children in shallow ponds. In my mind, obligations are for things you signed up for. In our imperfect world I also feel okay using it for things you got signed up for and benefit from (e.g. I never agreed to be born in the US as a citizen, but I sure do benefit from it, so taxes are an obligation). In my world obligations are always to a specific entity, not general demands.
I think that for some people, rescuing drowning children is an obligation to society, similar to taxes. Something feels wrong about that to me, although I’d think very badly of someone who could have trivially saved a child and chose not to.
A key point for me is that people are allowed to be shitty. This right doesn’t make them not-shitty or free them from the consequences of being shitty, but it is an affordance available to everyone. Not being shitty requires a high average on erogatory actions, plus some number of supererogatory ones.
How many supererogatory actions? The easiest way to define this is relative to capacity, but that seems toxic to me, like people to don’t have a right to their own gains. It also seems likely to drive lots of people crazy with guilt. I don’t know what the right answer is.
TBH I’ve been really surprised at my reaction to “~obligation to maximal growth”. I would have predicted it would feel constraining and toxic, but it feels freeing and empowering, like I’ve been given a more chances to help people at no cost to me. I feel more powerful. I also feel more permission to give up on what is currently too hard, since sacrificing myself for one short term goal hurts my long term obligation.
Maybe the key is that this is a better way to think achieve goals I already had. It’s not a good frame for deciding what one’s goals should be.