Category: Human Nature

Why do we act the way we do?

Understanding of morality

Db07 Comments

My recent blogpost about my banning from Leitmotif has drawn a commenter who proceeded to give me a very lengthy and interesting reply. I was seriously impressed and started replying within the comments but seeing how big my reply was starting to become and how derailed from the original topic, I thought it might be worth giving it its own blogpost. What follows is Apple’s comment and beneath it you will find my own reply.

Forget about Objectivism. Let’s just focus on understanding what morality is.You sound like a nice guy just trying to struggle through life in a European society. Does the society you live in define what is moral? What is it that is moral in this society? Is it working 39 hours a week for a company, getting married at 29, having two kids, retiring at 59, living and vacationing to 69? Is that the moral life? WHO is society? Is it the local government? Is it the Eurocrat in Bruxelle?This is your life we’re talking about, man. Do you want to let somebody else or something else tell you what you should live for? As an atheist, there is no second ever-lasting life to look forward to. This is it! If so, I would think before you do anything in this life, you’d want to be damn sure you have figured it all out one step at a time.Morality is one of those pesky things that come up. Do you really know what it is? Ergo at Leitmotif, if I understand the gist, is remarking that, in your atheistic rush to abandon religion you in the process abandon morality. You throw the baby out with the bathwater. Is he right that morality is inescapable, even in the jungle? Who cares. But the point is you’re in a society, and there is a morality that many people in it accept. Is it right FOR YOU?As far as I can tell, morality is a collection of values to guide a man’s life. More simply, morality is a generic how-to manual for life. Like a car, you as a human being come out of an assembly line with the same owner’s manual. You may be painted black, blue, green; you may be a convertible, a hatchback, a sedan, a sporster; you may have six-cylinder, or four-, front-wheeled, automatic, or manual. But generically, you are like a car. And like cars, you have basic maintenance requirements: gas of this type here, oil of this grade here, anti-freeze fluid at this level here, brake shoes after so many km here, tire pressures per kpc here,

Unlike a car, which is designed and manufactured by some company, by some designer, by a creator, you as a human being aren’t designed by ANYONE, (Evolution is not any conscious entity; evolution is a process) But you still have basic maintenance requirements. But beyond that, even if there’s another twin you/car, the owner will want to customize it with different personality and style, accessories, companions, baggages, radio-station presets, aspirations,

Society didn’t design and create you. Society is just a bunch of people in a geographical area. They are just people like you. Do human beings have invariant maintenance requirement or not?

A morality, to repeat, is a how-to manual for life. And a human being is, as a matter of plain fact, an oxygen-breathing, water-drinking, omnivorous, thinking animal with varying desires for sex, rock-n-roll, sushi; Chances are very, very high that human beings have generic maintenance requirements.

That said, religions write a number of how-to manuals for life. Islam, for example, tells you to face Mecca and pray five times a day. That’s a how-to rule in the manual to a good life. Islam’s view of life is of a second, ever-lasting life. How Is this particular rule to be judge? Well, scientifically, you have to weigh it against human needs or generic maintenance requirements. Obviously, the goal –ever-lasting life– is false, and the means –praying 5 times a day– is therefore false. So, followers of Islam are using a how-to manual that is anti-this-life.

We can say this to just about every religion that posits an ever-lasting life or reincarnation. So, scientifically, religion provides moral codes that aren’t meeting the basic maintenance requirements for a human life on this earth.

But does that mean that morality as such is not a human requirement? You know what I mean? Every car comes with an owner’s manual. Just because human beings don’t come with one doesn’t mean that they don’t need one. We come with the ability to choose alternatives. Superficially, you choose vanilla and chocolate easily, but on the big choices that take your life in one long-term direction or another you do require some standard of maintenance requirements. (Driving without replacing shoe brakes after so many years will wreck it. Trust me.) Thus, morality, like oxygen, is a human need.

So everyone needs some morality, and everyone has to write his own owner’s manual–plus, to customize and accessorize his own life. But the question remains. As with organized religions, how does each person ensure that his copy of his maintenance manual is the CORRECT one and not some cheap, plagiarized version from a whole bunch of religious copycats? To be sure, the morality manual has to allow for customization. Some people are born stubborn, moronic, deformed, slow; some are born defective as a human being. Cars off the assembly line have defects too. So, the manual of life, while generic has to account for some slight differences. But at the very least, it has to get the generic principles the same for every car and every person.

You are then faced with two questions: 1) Is your moral code at the generic level a guide to your life to meet your human maintenance requirements as a living thing, a fucking animal, a thinking animal, a musician, a producer, a scientist, a businessman? 2) How are you customizing your moral code for your individual customized purposes?

The first question is absolutely crucial to get right if the second is to have any chance of coming close to correct. The first question is independent of you; it is not a subjective thing. It’s universal to every human being on earth, past, present, future. The second question is just about you, right here, right now.

If you throw out all religions and their crappy moral codes, I’m with you. But you still need to know how to conduct your life to meet your needs. Is a good life simply a mere subsistence–a subsistence of 2000 calories a day, 2 liters of water, a vitamin pill, and three conjugal sessions a week in an enclosed space?That may be a fulfilling life generically for an ape, but not for a thinking man.

WHO is privileged to write the moral code for everyone? No God. No one. Everyone is responsibile for writing his own owner’s manual, but the basic manual he writes–before he customizes it–is the same as everyone else’s because he is a human being, not an ape or a dolphin or a crow.

And that is what ethics is about. Ethics is a science that deals with studying man (not chimps) to define a proper morality at the generic level. Ethics is a science, like physics and biology and chemistry, to test each principle and weigh each in accordance to a human maintenance requirement. Its goal, like the goal of physics, is truth. In this case, the truth is in the realm of human conduct, at the generic level, truth for all humans, whether in a religious society, a secular society, or in a jungle.

Morality is thus the product of this effort of ethical/scientific inquiry? If it is scientific, morality is about the discovery of facts of reality–facts about human beings and the how-to of living. Morality, scientifically speaking, isn’t about a convention by this or that society. Morality is an objective discovery of what is true universally, to guide you on what ought to be done. What is true for you morally is also true for me morally (with some limited degrees of optional customization). In short, morality is a code of values to guide individual human beings.

Everyone human being has one whether he acknowledges it or not. He doesn’t have to discover a morality; he can choose from among the many moral codes available. But whichever he chooses, he has to take the consequence. The wrong moral code will give him a miserable life.

This is the sense that a morality is inescapable. It’s the job of ethicists and, yes, religionists to discover and define morality. (Well, in the case of religionists, they don’t discover; they get high, hallucinate, and dream it up.) But the responsibility to validate and accept a moral code cannot be shirked by anyone. You have one life to live, you cannot afford to be wrong at this fundamental level.

What are the basic principles for guiding your own life? THAT is your morality, dude? “There is no God to guide man’s life.” That is definitely one moral principle arising from atheism–the conviction that there isn’t a supernatural entity. It does offer moral guidance. It helps you to eliminate in one sweep a whole bunch of false, religious moral codes from consideration; these are codes that can potentially ruin lives, foremost yours. But there is more to a moral code than to reject other moral codes. What are the positive moral principles? What should you–or any man–do with your life? Considering your customized conditions living in the 21st-century in Europe in some town, with some degrees of competence, having two arms, two legs, presumably single, good-looking, what are you to do with your life, not just at this moment but in the continuous span of life ahead of you? Consider all the self-help books out there in bookstores. Which ones embody the correct moral code to help you improve yourself? Consider all the jobs out there, which ones will enhance your potential as a human being? Consider all the potential mates out there; which ones to choose from? By looks, by intelligence, by moral codes? By religion–bypass that… By ambition? By popularity? To make any choice in life, you really need a moral code. You need moral principles you hope to be universally true, not subject to revision by fickled bureaucrats or the consensus of some majority in society.

Do you have a morality? Of course you do. The code of values guiding you–the moral principles–are they true? Surely some are. Obviously, you are succeeding somewhat. But a comprehensive owner’s manual tells you what you can gain and keep by doing certain activities, telling you generically what is the best in you and how to go about achieving it. Do you know what is the best in you? Are you striving for it?

Everybody has a morality, just as everyone has a right to his opinion. Ah, but opinions can be wrong, and morality can be false. You know for sure the religious morals are false. How sure you know about yours?

Wow, heavy reply!First of all, thank you Apple for the lengthy reply and for taking the time to actually write the thing. Also thanks for the interest in me.I am not certain why you got the impression that I am uncertain about my morality or that I have abandoned it altogether. I have not even started discussing what I think is moral or not.
Needless to say that I agree with the gist of what you write. Morality is like a guide of conduct but I do not see it as something as powerful as a way of life. The reason is that its rules can easily be broken, given enough of an incentive. It is not that the person will (necessarily) have a problem with his life if he does break them, but he may have a problem with his fellow humans.Thus a more apt analogy, to take you car example, would be the rules of the road which, like morality, have various levels of severity or importance. For example, passing a red light of a busy street is a big no-no, so it could be related to a big moral choice like killing another human being. And just like in morality, there are other rules that are less important, even down to the custom unwritten rules of each area. You even have a basic “generic guideline” for both which you use to align you common sense: In morality it’s the Golden Rule, while in driving it’s “to avoid hitting other vehicles, pedestrians, etc”.
Strangely enough, even though these rules were written by consensus and do make the roads safer, you can still see that there are areas of the world where driving in a completely “illegal” way is the right, as in driving on the left side of the road. Because it is only illegal for us. And while it may seem strange or dissorienting, it still works…Hell! I could even throw religion in my example and show how an irrational belief, let’s say, that the great car factory in the sky will not take you in the afterlife of blissful cruising if you do not always drive below 40kph. It may seem harmless or just annoying (at least for the unfortunate person behind you) but it is still irrational. And like religion, there is no limit to how dangerous those belief can be and what rules they ignore or set up.

I could even argue that if someone from another planet were to come here and observe our rules of the road he would find us absolutely bat-shit insanse. Not because the rules do not work, but because in his planet, failing contact with our idea of rules, they have created something completely different and incompatible. Perhaps it is because of the way their cars are manufactured or because of their environment but in general it is because when they were designed, they were lacking contact with our idea. Now were a human from earth to go to that planet with the strange cars and environment, and design a appropriate “rules of the law”, you can be certain that they would be quite similar to earth’s.

You may argue thus that only one set of rules is the truly right, because it is less prone to accidents or whatnot, and you might be correct but, barring gargantuan differences in the numbers of accidents, nobody would change it. Maybe modify it with ideas from the other and thus evolve, but not throw it away altogether. Because none of the are objectively correct.
So, I agree that it is commendable for Ethicists to try and find the correct set of morals but I do not know how useful it will be in the long run. What comes out, although (hopefully) better, will still be subjective and it will need a strong memetic attribute in order to spread and enter the norm. Nevertheless, what you are not considering is that these morals are still being considered by humans with their own subjective perspective which is firmly grounded in the western morality. They are not creating morals off the top of their head, but rather they are using their current idea or morality to try and find something better. It’s like forced evolution! What may take humans ages to agree as something ethical (as what happened with the woman’s suffrage), these people might discover now. But good luck convincing anyone to use it (Like trying to convince someone for the moral right of woman vote in the 10th century…). Not only that, but many moral values sometimes require a catalyst before they can even start to take root. In the same way that the abolition of slavery demanded an Industrial Revolution.

So, what I am doing Apple, is not throwing out morality altogether. Nor am I considering all moral values to be on the same scale, as Evanescent and Ergosum want to think of me *[1]. I still have a sense of right and wrong and the root of it comes from my upbringing. However my own, subjective sense has evolved to the point where I personally do not accept many of commonly accepted moral rules. I avoid doing those things which would create problems with the law for me, and I do not always express my more radical ideas (altough this is what I’m slowly trying to do through my blog) out of fear of ostracising but I still keep them, not because I am irrational, but because I have judged them in my own mind and my own reason to be right.

However -and this will answer your final question – I am aware that I am not objective here. I do not perform the hybris of the Objectivist to assume that because I consider something moral, it must be rational. If, during the course of the conversation, one of my moral values are challenged and I am shown where and why they fail, I will either modify it or discard it altogether. This is not something that a person who considers morals something “Objective” will be willing to do however. For to accept that something he considered “Objective” all his life to be false, wrong or plain irrational, would have unfortunate reprecursions on his view of the world. “Who was it that decided this objectivity of the value for me” he will think (Bear with me, I know I am caricaturing).
Was it reason? “But that would mean that I was unreasonable! Irrational! And this simply cannot be for I know myself to be rational. Thus you are wrong and my moral value must still be true. We’re just missing something.”
Was it God through the holy scripture? “But that would mean that God is not infallible or that the Bible is not his word and this cannot be! I based my whole life on these rules so it must be true. There must be something else we are not considering. Let me ask my preacher…”

We all know what happens when a theist just knows that a moral value in the scripture is wrong. Because he must accept that morality is objective and comes from God, he will form excuses in his mind for this apparent problem and then ignore it. That is why it is so hard to change the morality of a person who considers morality to be objective, even when those morals are shown to be wrong. I do not suffer from such a drawback.

[1] To tell you the truth, this is a bit disheartening, I wanted to believe that other “rational” atheists would not be so quick to jump to conclusions. Like a theist jumping to conclusions from the label “Atheist. But I digress…

Family names

Db02 Comments

I always wondered what was the point in having a family name in the modern age. I sincerely cannot understand why family names survived the feudal ages where there was an actual point (having a known family name, meant being part of the noblesse).

But what is the reason today? It certainly does not act as a way to distinguish people and having the same family name with someone almost never means you are from the same family or even heard of them.
Not only that but family names do not mean almost anything for the real life as well. The was a time where your surname was “Smith” because you were one, and the same was true in many languages as well. Now it’s completely irrelevant.

I am thinking of at some point changing my name to something of my own choosing. My current name does not actually mean anything to me (Other than having the names of two dead people I never knew) and I’d like my call name to be something I actually enjoy and/or means something.

Unfortunately I just know that they are going to require me to give them a surname when I decide to do it. Can I, you know, not have one? I don’t really need it as I’m certain that my passport number is enough to identify me. I have no interest in passing it down to my children anyway as it won’t make a whiff of difference.

It all comes down to silly tradition. Things that people just hold on to without any real reason, just because they’re used to it. Like the woman getting her husband’s family name. What’s up with that? Does it actually mean anything else except submission? I really wish society would once wisen up and discard these obsolete relics from the medieval ages.

  • We do not need family names
  • We do not need to be given out life name by our parents, especially if they’re going to name us from their own parents (WTF is up with that as well? Is our name a reward?)
  • Names would be so much more interesting if they actually meant something that fitted our person.

We already have aliases and nicknames on the internet – nevermind that many sites require a ” real name” before you can register (That needs to include a surname of course). This means that we already have a mentality to choose something of our own online. Most of the time, if you exclude the no-imagination people who try choose an alias like “Giorgos”, you see exactly what I write about: Interesting names that actually mean something to the person choosing it.
Why can’t we expand that to the real life?

To tell you the truth, I like a system where names are chosen after people became of age (18 for modern society I guess). The parents cold give the child a temporary name until then. The final name could be earned (Rite of passage? Naming rite?) or chosen. But anything is better than what we have now

Gullibility

Db03 Comments

From the Way of the Mind I discovered this little test that at first sight seemed promising. I was initially skeptic of some of the questions asked within and I was pretty certain that one could get a 100% score by answering in a very paranoid/conspiracy therist way.

I was not wrong. I received a mediocre 67 which as the site puts it, make me a

Learner

As a Learner, you’re smart enough to know better, yet you’re still not fully informed about reality. Around 15% of the population are Learners. You have the critical thinking skills to be a truly free individual, but you haven’t exercised them enough yet. From time to time, you’re still manipulated by the powers that be, although you frequently learn from those mistakes and refuse to be exploited again. You buy things because they are practical, not because they’re cool. If you were in The Matrix, you would have taken the red pill, but you would still be in a state of mild disbelief about the nature of reality. You are essentially unplugged, but still untrained. With more knowledge, you could become a true free thinker.

Your architects: You have always been an independent thinker. You rebelled against your parents, schoolteachers and always chose to hang out with smart friends who weren’t necessarily that popular to the “in” crowd. Increasingly, you shape your own world by deciding what actions to take based on your own internal drive rather than what society tells you is right.

Action steps: Learn more. Educate yourself through alternative media and cutting-edge books. Read the answers below to get started.

All well and good, pretty much describes me. I was prepared to ignore the – immediately following – link to the author’s book, as it completely undermines the impartiability of the test. I continued to read though and my worries became true, although he seemed to have some very true points (like the Lying Goverment or the Federal Reserve), some of them were twisted in a way to make them seem so much worse, as in the case of the Carmine which, although it is indeed created from crushed bugs, (nothing wrong with that imho, unless you’re very squeamish) the author then goes on to try to scare people by saying:

carmine also poses the threat of causing a rare but fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylactic shock

Well, no shit, Sherlock! As in the case of every person with allergies, you’d better not go near and especially eat stuff you are allergic to. This is not a problem of Carmine but a problem of people with the allergy who should be taking care of what they are eating.

The rest of the test builds results up to more and more dubious claims as in the case of cancer and finally ADHD. In the cancer explanation, I liked the fact that he is trying to move people away from the proven medical solutions into “New Age Cure territory”, to which I want to cry a humongous “BOLLOCKS!”.
I’ve had personal experience of my mother dying from cancer after she preferred homeopathy, new age cures and all that jazz, until her Massage therapist discovered that the pain leg he’d been trying to fix for the last 6 months was an actual tumour that found the time to migrate to her lungs…BOLLOCKS I say!

And then of course he goes around the say that ADHD does not exist and it’s all made up to feed the drug industry etc. Seeing as I am a person with this annoying disorder, it is extremely irritating for me to read him claiming that it’s all due to bad nutrition. Especially since my mother was completely against all the “pop” food and she kept feeding us organic products and stuff like that (Seriously, I did not eat white bread until after she passed away). Not that I’m complaining or anything but once again this completely undermines it, at least for me.
Then, after coming just one step before claiming that all [tag]ADD[/tag] people are “just lazy and need some firm guidance“, he goes on to link to a friggin’ Scientology site which, for me at least, just completely discredited almost anything he said up to that point, excepting the ones I already knew of…

Becoming extremely curious at that point, I started Googling around and I came upon a StumbleUpon review in which a user, having had the same suspicions as me, goes on to say:

I just spent several hours looking up Mike Adams, the guy who runs this web site and dozens of others. Why? I guess because I was bored. Also, because I found a Scientology link on this web page. The whole page seems to be some sort of Dianetics/Scientology ad, so I was convinced that this Mike Adams guy was a Scientologist. Well, despite all my searching, I couldn’t make the connection, though Google did give some somewhat interesting results. The most interesting result was a page that revealed Mike Adams has incorporated all his companies in Taiwan! Now, that’s a red flag. Why didn’t he incorporate in the U.S.A., where he lives and operates his businesses? Well, let’s go further. It also turns out that he’s a known internet scammer.
Here’s the evidence:

Lots of good information on him, if you do a google web search for “mike adams” scam (or scammer).
Please, people, don’t submit links like this.

Unfortunately I could also not find any link between Mike Adams and Scientology, although I’m positive there is one. It is a shame that he lumped this crap along with true stuff as it will lend discredit to the true.

So to all people that are extremely paranoid, take care to be paranoid on this kind of crap as well…

Trendy

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Every time I end up in a trendy or “in” place, the experience solidifies my distaste for the whole scene.

On Friday a few colleagues from the [tag]ECB[/tag] had arranged a birthday party at a pizza place on the east side of Frankfurt. As one of them was Greek, I received an invitation as well along with a few others.

I was hoping to meet some people on the way there but everyone went there early and although I happened to enter the same Train as one of the birthday people, Reka, I did not recognise her in order to sit with them. Fortunately finding the place was not difficult.

Most people were having pizza (some with spinach…ugh) while I was busy either annoying them with my new shiny singing monkey balls (more on that soon) or taking videos of them while they were trying to talk. I must say that the aforementioned singing monkey balls were a great success among the participants, especially the two Greeks sitting close to me that were about to strangle me if I didn’t stop.

[coolplayer]http://www.dbzer0.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=674&.mp4[/coolplayer]

I also managed to convince Reka not to kill me for the time being.

After the pizza was finished we visited a night club on the back (I can’t even remember the name). The doorman almost did not let us in since we were not dressed for the occasion. I especially with my leather trenchcoat and long hair must have made him think twice. Fortunately he let us in (although in retrospect I might consider putting an “u” in front of the first word) and we paid 10 euros for that privilege after which I wasn’t in much mood to buy a drink.

The music inside was boring to tears. A monotone beat and some simple melody that changed slightly every 15 minutes or so. No passion, no melody, nothing. Just brain dead music that requires an equally brain-dead person to consider it worth 10 euros. Fortunately the rest of the group were pretty fun to be around and we ended up dancing for a few hours until everybody got sick of the place and decided to leave.

However it still does not fail to amaze me that these places are actually popular. What the hell do people find enjoyable there? The boring music or the look-alike people that inhabit them? Seriously the dress code is completely stupid. They force people to dress like everyone or they will not get in. As if we don’t have enough conformity in our lives that we need some more.

It is depressing to see so many people flock to these places just because the “beautiful girls” go there or whatever other excuse they find for themselves. Why are people so uncritical of this? When did pop music become so absolutely bland? How can people actually enjoy this and even pay dearly for the privilege is beyond me.

A thousand times better to go to a metal or rock place. Even Gothic music is leagues better than the stupid House and the people you meet or see in the former are certainly more interesting. At least now I know much better than to visit another such club in the near future.

Generalities

Db0

I don’t know why, but many times until now, when I talk about a person to someone, I tend to give some description that in hindsight was not needed.

For example, if something happens to me on the road, involving a black skinned person, when I will talk about it, I will feel the tendency to bring in the fact that he or she, was black. Same thing will happen if they are Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, or whatever.

Lately, I have actively began to suppress that feeling because I do not feel that it is important, for example, to bring into the conversation the skin of my house agent.
Why I have this tendency, I don’t know. Maybe it is because in Greece there are very few non-white skinned people and any difference tends come up in a conversation. Maybe I’m just not used to the idea of so many races living together. I hope to learn to not give any notice to the fact that people skins differs from mine and use that as some kind of noteworthy event.

Strangely enough, same thing happened when I was talking about some of my friends that were anarchist or communist. I just could not avoid bringing up the fact that they belonged to those political beliefs when I talked about them. Maybe I was looking for a conversation hook. I honestly do not know.

Obviously, same thing does not happen when the target is a more common sample of the population. I would never consider noteworthy the fact that someone was a Christian or white.

I wonder how many other people have the same reaction.

Say, you were robbed by someone. Would you bring in the fact that he was black. Would you do the same if he was white?

Καλο & Κακό

Db05 Comments

Συμπονετικός ή άκαρδος; Σωστός ή κάθαρμα; Αγαθός ή πονηρός; Λέξεις oi οποίες εκφράζουν 2 χαρακτηριστικές ταμπέλες που οι άνθρωποι τείνουν να κολλάνε στα άτομα που γνωρίζουν. Μια βασική ψυχολογική ανάγκη που νοιώθει ο κόσμος για να κατατάξει τους υπόλοιπους σε παρατάξεις και σαν αποτέλεσμα να ταιριάξει κάπου και συγχρόνως να προστατευτεί καλύτερα. Όλες αυτές οι λέξεις, συνήθως ανάγονται σε 2 έννοιες: Καλός ή Κακός;
2 έννοιες οι οποίες δεν έχουν καμία αντικειμενική βάση. Είναι τόσο άπιαστες και αόριστες που ο καθένας τις χρησιμοποιεί πια, όπου τον βολεύει. 2 έννοιες απάτη.

“Δεν υπάρχει καλό και κακό. Υπάρχουν μόνο εκφράσεις εγωισμού.”

Είναι μια πρόταση που λέει το ζουμί των σκέψεων μου μέσα σε λίγες λέξεις, άλλα ίσως χρειαστεί μια περαιτέρω ανάλυση για να γίνει κατανοητή.

Τι εννοούμε όταν λέμε ότι κάποιος είναι “καλός”;

Η καλοσύνη, σαν ταμπέλα, μπαίνει πάντα υποκειμενικά και σύμφωνα με τις εμφανείς πράξεις που βλέπουμε από κάποιον. Αυτές σχεδόν πάντα είναι αποδεκτές ή όχι ανάλογα με την ηθική της κοινωνίας που ζούμε άλλα υπάρχει ένα σύνολο πράξεων οι οποίες είναι πάντα αποδεκτές. Συνήθως αποκαλούνται αλτρουιστικές.
Κανείς δεν αντιτίθεται όταν κάποιος προσφέρει χωρίς αντάλλαγμα. Δεν έχω δει κάποιον να παραπονιέται επειδή ο διπλανός του προσφέρει σε εράνους και κανείς δεν πρόκειται να πει κακή κουβέντα εναντίων των γιατρών χωρίς σύνορα πχ. Δεν έχει σημασία ποιος και από πού είσαι, κάποιον που φέρεται αλτρουιστικά είναι δύσκολο έως απίθανο να τον αντιπαθήσεις, εκτός και εάν οι πράξεις του πάνε, για κάποιο λόγο, ενάντια στα συμφέροντα σου.

Τώρα σκέψου, ποιους ανθρώπους θεωρείς “Καλούς”; Μήπως είναι αυτοί οι οποίοι προσφέρουν χωρίς να ζητάνε αντάλλαγμα; Και δεν μιλάω μόνο για υλική προσφορά η οποία, ας είμαστε ειλικρινείς, είναι οι πιο εύκολες, άλλα και για την πνευματική υποστήριξη, την πραγματική φιλία αν το θες, και γενικά το να δίνεις κάτι που δεν σου περισσεύει.
Μην κάνεις λάθος, οι “καλοί” δεν είναι οι ηθικοί. Η ηθική είναι εντελώς υποκειμενική στην κοινωνία και την κουλτούρα του κάθε λαού και μερικές φορές (αν όχι πάντα) λαθεμένη. Ο Χίτλερ ήταν πολύ ηθικός και αυτό ήταν και ένας λόγος για τον οποίο εκλέχθηκε – δημοκρατικότατα παρακαλώ.
Καλός δεν είναι επίσης ούτε ο δουλοπρεπής. Μπορεί να τον βλέπεις και να νομίζεις ότι είναι καλός άνθρωπος επειδή δεν σου πάει κόντρα, άλλα τις περισσότερες φορές ένα τέτοιο άτομο κρύβει μέσα ένα υποχθόνιο μίσος που απλά περιμένει την κατάλληλη στιγμή για να εκραγεί.
Όχι. Απλά σκέψου ποια άτομα, τα οποία ξέρεις πολύ καλά, θεωρείς πραγματικά “καλούς”. Πιστεύω ότι θα φτάσεις στο ίδιο συμπέρασμα με ‘μενα.

Απο την άλλη πλευρά τώρα. Ποιόν αποκαλούμε αλήτη, άκαρδο, σκατόψυχο, κακό; Μα φυσικά αυτόν ο οποίος είναι στυγνός εγωιστής έτσι δεν είναι; Κάποιον ο οποίος κοιτάει το συμφέρον του και “Πατάει επί πτωμάτων” ας πούμε.
Πρώτα όμως σκέψου και κάτι άλλο: Υπάρχει άνθρωπος που θα αποκαλέσει εκούσια τον εαυτό του “Κακό”; Δεν το πιστεύω, εκτός και εάν έχει κάποια ψυχολογική ασθένεια.
Όμως εάν ο ίδιος ο άνθρωπος δεν κάνει αυτά που κάνει από “κακία” τότε γιατί τα κάνει; Αυτά τα άτομα δικαιολογούν τον εαυτό τους με διάφορους τρόπους ώστε να μην χρειάζεται να αντιμετωπίσουν αυτό που έχουν καταντήσει. Μπορεί να εξηγηθούν με φράσεις όπως “Είναι ένας σκληρός κόσμος και πρέπει να είμαι σκληρός για να επιβιώσω” ή “Το φέρομαι έτσι γιατί όλοι θα φερόντουσαν έτσι εάν είχαν την ευκαιρία” κ.ο.κ. ουσιαστικά, λέγοντας ψέματα στον αυτό τους.
Στην τελική, δεν θεωρούν τον εαυτό τους “κακό”, άλλα “Ρεαλιστή”, “Έξυπνο” και άλλες ανάλογες λέξεις.
Αυτά τα άτομα δεν μπορούν να συνηδειτοποιήσουν πως τους βλέπει ο υπόλοιπος κόσμος και ακόμα και όταν η εξωτερική πραγματικότητα εμφανιστεί μπροστά τους, το αποκαλούν ζηλεία ή παρεξήγηση. Φυσικά το γεγονός ότι αυτοί είναι συνήθως και οι άνθρωποι που ανεβαίνουν ψηλά κάνει την συνειδητοποίηση αυτή ακόμα πιο δύσκολη. Δυστυχώς η δύναμη θεωρείται αγαθό και αυτό τείνει να κάνει τον περισσότερο κόσμο να θεωρεί τον τρόπο με τον οποίο έφτασε εκεί ανεκτό, αν όχι αποδεκτό. Είναι μια άτυχη συγκυρία το ότι στην κοινωνία θεωρείται ύψιστο αγαθό ένα το οποίο μπορείς να το αποκτήσεις καταπατώντας τον υπόλοιπο κόσμο.
Το αστείο της υπόθεσης είναι ότι όλος ο κόσμος ξέρει με τι μέσα κάποιος μπορεί να αποκτήσει δύναμη άλλα κάνει, στην κυριολεξία…την πάπια, μέχρι φυσικά η πραγματικότητα να ξεσκεπαστεί και μετά να μπορεί να το παίξει έκπληκτος (σκάνδαλο είναι η τρέντυ λέξη), και να ξεκινήσει το λιθοβόλημα.
Άλλα ξεφεύγω…

Δεν υπάρχουν λοιπόν μαυροφορεμένοι μουστακαλήδες που κλωτσάνε κουταβάκια και δένουν άμοιρες κορασίδες στις γραμμές του τρένου. Υπάρχουν όμως άτομα τα οποία θέλουν “απλά” να αποκτήσουν πλούτη, φήμη, εξουσία κοκ, με κάθε τρόπο και είναι διατεθειμένα να λυγίσουν τους κανόνες που και που, ώστε να πάνε μπροστά. Στην πραγματικότητα, δεν κάνουν τίποτα περισσότερο από το να ακολουθούν τον εγωισμό τους, ο οποίος είναι που απαιτεί τα προαναφερθέντα. Είναι πολύ αργά όταν ανακαλύπτουν ότι τα κέρδη αυτά έχουν κούφιο πυρήνα, άλλα αυτό είναι άσχετο με το θέμα μας.
Κάποιος λοιπόν δεν είναι κακός άλλα εγωιστής και όσο περισσότερο εγωιστής είναι, όσο περισσότερα θέλει να αποκτήσει για τον εαυτό του, τόσο πιο εύκολο του είναι να αγνοήσει τον υπόλοιπο κόσμο για να το επιτύχει. Να γίνει στυγνός, με μια λέξη.
Όσο πιο στυγνός εγωιστής είναι κάποιος λοιπόν, τόσο πιο πολύ φαίνεται στους υπόλοιπους αυτό και εξού ο λόγος που βάζουν τις κλασσικές ταμπελίτσες. Απλά δεν μπορούν να συνηδειτοποιήσουν ότι αυτά που κάνει, δεν είναι γιατί θέλει το κακό τους άλλα γιατί θέλει το δικό του καλό περισσότερο απ’ όλα τ’ αλλα.

Συμπερασματικά λοιπόν, όσο πιο αλτρουιστής είναι κάποιος, τόσο πιο “καλός” και το αντίθετο ακριβώς ισχύει για τον εγωισμό.
Το Καλό/Κακό λοιπόν ανάγεται σε Αλτρουισμό/Εγωισμό.

Που μας φέρνει στο επόμενο κεφάλαιο.

Δεν υπάρχει αλτρουισμός

Ο αλτρουισμός τι υποδηλώνει; Μα το να προσφέρεις χωρίς να περιμένεις να κερδίσεις κάτι από αυτό φυσικά. Εδώ όμως βρίσκεται και η παγίδα. Πάντα κερδίζεις κάτι με τις πράξεις σου, απλά αυτό το κάτι δεν είναι πάντα υλικό. Αυτό που κερδίζεις είναι συναίσθημα.
Δεν νιώθεις καλά όταν κάνεις μια κλασσική “καλή” πράξη; Μπορεί να μην κέρδισες κάτι χειροπιαστό από αυτήν άλλα σου ανέβασε την ψυχολογία το να σκέφτεσαι ότι βοήθησες κάποιον, έτσι δεν είναι; Έτσι είναι, γιατί αλλιώς δεν θα το έκανες εξ’ αρχής.
Ο Αλτρουισμός σου λοιπόν είναι ψεύτικος γιατί κερδίζεις κάτι, κάτι που τονώνει την ψυχοσύνθεση σου, συναισθήματα σου, τον εγωισμό σου…
Είναι απλά μια διαφορετική έκφραση του εγωισμού. Παραδόξως, είναι και η μόνη μορφή του, η οποία είναι κοινωνικά αποδεκτή.

Πραγματικός αλτρουισμός μπορεί να υπάρξει μόνο με περιορισμούς, πχ μόνο σε υλιστικό επίπεδο’ οπού και θεωρείσαι έτσι γιατί δεν περιμένεις κάποιο αντάλλαγμα. άλλα όχι γενικά και αντικειμενικά.
Όλοι έχουμε ένα σκοπό για τον οποίο κάνουμε ό,τι κάνουμε, και ο υπέρτατος σκοπός μας είναι ο εαυτούλης μας. Άλλοι νιώθουν ολοκληρωμένοι μέσα στα υλικά αγαθά, άλλοι μέσα στην αγάπη των συνανθρώπων τους κοκ. Οι ίδιες οι εκφράσεις εγωισμού δεν είναι κατακριτέες άλλα ο τρόπος με τον οποίον τις αποκτάς είναι. Γι’ αυτό και θεωρώ τον αλτρουισμό την ανώτερη έκφραση από αυτές και θεωρώ ότι ο κόσμος θα ήταν πολύ καλύτερος εάν την είχε σαν υπέρτατη αρετή.

Σε μια κοινωνία όμως η οποία βασίζεται στην πλεονεξία για να λειτουργήσει (Καπιταλισμός), ο αλτρουισμός είναι για τους πολύ λίγους, τους “αθώους” και “αγαθούς”…
Εδώ είναι και ο βασικότερος λόγος για τον οποίο υποστηρίζω την φιλοσοφία του Open Source λογισμικού. Βασίζεται πάνω σε αρχές με τις οποίες συμφωνώ.

Δεν υπάρχει καλό και κακό λοιπόν, υπάρχουν μόνο εκφράσεις εγωισμού.

Defining Characteristic

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I just read this piece which at the end has this specific thing to say

“I suppose we all do it to some extent, base our self-perception on a single characteristic and cling to it with every ounce of solid matter in our bodies.”

Now this is a very interesting thought and it got me thinking about what could possibly be my own “special characteristic”. I know for sure that isn’t something ephemeral like beauty or physique and it isn’t something like “being always right” or “perfect worker”, no. And instantly it came to me.

I’m Good

I define myself from my high personal integrity and generic altruism and consider that I do things in the best interests of everyone involved. I try to take the right side in every conflict, not lie and not badmouth others.
This is also where I attribute the good luck that I frequently encounter, sort of like a Karma effect.

As a result, there is no single most easy way to get me worked up than to insult my precious personal integrity. Call me ugly, stupid, lazy, whatever. I don’t care. But call me a double-faced, backstabbing lying sonova and you’re got a heated argument on your hands.
There is just no easier reason to make me do something than to call me egoistical for not doing it.

I don’t know if such a thing should be considered good or bad, but imho you can’t take the good without the bad and I choose to believe that the good in this case overwhelm the bad. If I had to choose that special characteristic, this would be my choice once more…well ok, perhaps “Sex God” sounds good as well 😉

Monkeysphere

Db0

Recently I read a short article on the concept of the Monkeysphere. You can read it yourself if you wish. Anyway, despite the deceptive title and humorous attitude, the article does indeed make sense.

All of us have our own monkey sphere, it is built into our brains and there isn’t much we can do about it. It explains why and how people can withstand the sheer amount of suffering around them. We just don’t care. They are outside our monkeysphere. It is a defense mechanism to prevent us from becoming depressively catatonic and it is also the reason why worldwide suffering persists.

The factory manager does not care for the people his heavy pollution affects. They are outside his monkeysphere. The oil-grabbing capitalist does not care for the millions of people his schemes have uprooted and made miserable. The religious fanatic does not see the heathen he is killing as a human being but rather as an object.

Let me make an example. Most people have some minority or archetype that they tend to dislike. Be that another country, nationality, skin color, religion or whatever. Think about what yours is; Even if you think you are open minded enough, chances are that due to various factors (personal or external) you have some faction you wouldn’t miss as much. Maybe black persons have robbed your apartment three times and now you secretly think that they are all thieving bastard or maybe you were raised with the belief that all Jews are worldwide evil scheming conspirators.
Whatever it may be, think that you meet such a person and get to know him, his interests, his hopes and dreams, do you think you could feel that same way about him? Maybe you continue to feel the same way as the rest of his “kind” but not for him. You mistakenly think that he is different, some kind of exception. But he is not. He has just entered your monkeysphere.

So what can we do about it? This is not something that can be changed, except maybe by science fiction-like genetic engineering. It is hardwired into our brains.
What I want to know however is if there is a way to curb it, keep the good parts (denial, blissful ignorance) and soften the bad ones.

First order of business is to spread the knowledge of the monkeysphere and then find ways to lessen its impact.

Offers you shouldn't refuse.

Db0

Remember about that KNE guy that I had met while in Posidi? Well, he finally showed up. He phoned me while I was at Alexander the Great’s statue practicing my fire staff (post about this coming soon). We scheduled to meet up at 11pm but by 10am he was already there. In any case, we met at a bar near the white tower where he was sitting with two of his friends, one male and one female.

We chatted for a bit and then went to sit on the park by the pier, next to the bar-ships. On the way he told me the story about how he passed on a sex offer…a fuckin sex offer, and he didn’t do it on purpose either.
It seems that after I left Posidi, a group of girls arrived, one of which he was trying to make out with. It didn’t turn out well however and the company left, bar one.
At some point then, that girl, who I was led to believe was pretty good looking as well, offered him to go for a trip with her own car on another leg of Chalkidiki. Alone.
He refused. (!) I mean, how can you refuse something like that when you’re available and like the company? His excuse was that he didn’t understand at that point what she wanted. So he just said no, ditching a chance for a free sex trip (literally). But wait, there’s more.
After he refused, he reply was a joking “are you denying me?” (free translation, she actually said “Μου ρίχνεις χυλόπιτα;” which means “don’t you want to have a relationship/make out with me?”) and after such a reply I would have guessed anyone would have caught the meaning. Apparently he didn’t.
After some more discussion, the girl made this “innocent” comment: “You know, now that the other girls left I’m feeling very bad sleeping alone in my tent” (Emphasis mine). I mean, FFS, the answer here was friggin obvious! But he still didn’t get it. He didn’t even imagine where she going with this.

Needless to say, he got the hint later on, but by that time it was too late. That train had left the station.

I gave him a good lecture on behalf of all men about this little adventure. I mean, if we can’t use free sex offers like these, women may stop offering them. That girl was probably so let down by all of this that she may not even try something like that again for a long time, and who knows, I may meet her soon 🙁
On the other hand, I understand him in a way. That girl was so direct that her offer probably flew under his radar completely.
Since most women don’t act like this, it is normal for us not to expect something like that. We are trained to pick the standard minuscule signs of attraction that women usually throw our way and ignore what we think may be just a show of friendship. After the first few misunderstandings of their behavior we tend to become very cautious on when they express themselves freely.
I, for example, have many times misunderstood the show of comfortability as a sign of attraction, and of course this led to the cooling down of relations. Now I’m just very cautious. As most men I know are.

In reality I don’t know what I’d do in his position. Maybe I’d lose the hint as well.

Oh well, now we’re probably going to meet next Wednesday to go to the X Club for the Disco night. Should be fun.
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