> If I sat down and tried to design a set of social norms for discouraging people from being their best selves, I honestly don't think I could have done a better job than this.
> Why don't we want people to be good at things?
Historically most people were peasants or serfs. The only thing they were expected to be good at was that, and were actively discouraged from doing anything else.
We have gone from "Civilization and Its Discontents" to the Human Potential Movement in the blink of an eye.
>Nowadays it seems to be more about behavioral engineering and how we can coerce people to behave in a manner which matches our definition of a perfect society.
I haven't noticed this, are you sure it's not your attitude that's changed, not society?
> Individual action takes place in a context of social cues and incentives. Those who understand this try to work together to change those things, which in turn changes the “easy defaults” for everyone.
I think this discounts the fact that people are not mindless automatons following the path of least resistance. Individuals are capable of difficult things that fly in the face of collective theory, and time and time again such individual actions have changed history.
> This is a million times more effective than limiting your approach to nagging people to do better for ideological reasons.
This is ultimately a false dichotomy, blind to a third option, which is to act as an indiviual, act according to what you think is good, in spite of what anyone else is doing or thinking.
If you try to do something yourself in such a way, people will flock to tell you to stop trying to change the world, because it is not pointless and cannot be done. If it is indeed pointless, I ask, why must the attempt be aborted?
I haven't had anyone rushing to tell me I must stop watching a 4 hour video essay on youtube, which is surely even more pointless.
It's not that they're pessimists, it's just that they aren't interested in new ideas.
I'm reading Guns, germs and steel, and it notes one advantage of European civilization was that it had access to large mammals that were easily domesticated, and one of the ways in which they were easy to domesticate was that they are hierarchically organized socially, and "follow the leader". This helps, because humans just needed to insert themselves at the top of the hierarchy to control the herd/pack.
I'd realized some time ago that we ourselves are also domesticated, but just this morning, in watching a dog cross the road following its owner, I realized that human beings themselves are socially hierarchical, and this makes us easier to domesticate, and easier to control.
We have been controlled by gods/priests, within militaries, within corporations, within sports, taste in movies, TV, reddit memes, pop music, pop psychology, political movements, the habit of obedience we have towards the law, scientific paradigms, by intellectual ideas, by principles - even free-thinking intellectual radicals have leaders they read and follow. Marketers try to identify influencers, thought-leaders, trend-setters. If you control the top of the hierarchy, the rest will follow.
So it's not that normal people are pessimists about new ideas, it's just that they follow what the leader of their hierarchy follows. It takes time for an idea to get to that point, and by then it's no longer "new". Even within startups, there is a great deal of this - people follow the popular companies, brands, products, personalities, from Apple to vim to lisp to Alan Kay. They have religious wars.
The human being who really does follow a new idea for its own sake is rare and in a straightforward biological sense, is not normal.
>I believe basic human nature includes curiosity. Living in a society means one will naturally seek the appreciation, acceptance and respect of their peers. I think these alone will eventually lead most people to contribute something useful to our world one way or another.
As someone living in a small third world welfare state, I can't help but laugh at the naiveté that can lead someone to believe something like that.
In here, and I don't believe the rest of the world can be that much different, the overwhelming majority of people with their basic needs covered by the state dedicate themselves to a routine of TV, social media and other social rituals of all kinds, all devoid of intellectual pursuit. The few who do look into self-improvement are the same ones that have done it regardless of the economic condition of the lower class of their time; most of this very small minority managing to make it into the middle or upper class with or without welfare checks.
Everyone wants this. An end to bullying would be great. Social expectations, roles, and conformity is harmful when it leads to groups ganging up on individuals.
And it doesn't end in school. I have personally had job interview in which the lack of popular social activity outside schools hours resulted in me not getting the job. Every time I see a studying looking at appearance and conformity to social expectations and norms I see a global phenomenon where society rewards conformity and punish non-conformity. Faking conformity is not a solution, but I can't say there has been much progress in removing the underlying issue. From my view there was progress until about mid 1970, in which the trend reversed and now we have a polarized world in which you either must conform to a naturalist or purist view (The Chromium Fence).
> When I worked in a hospital, I was constantly amazed at the idle chit chat relatives made with people who had very short time left.
Measure the stress levels and I think you would get a interesting correlation. There were a study done on parents to cancer sick children, and there were some direct correlation between behavior and stress management. In short summery to what I recall, suppressing the idea that the child was sick gave short-term stress reduction but that had a major price to pay when reality crashed in. Those that accepted reality early and gave themselves some room to exercise control (like making sure someone was in the room, that the nurses read the right bed-night story, and so on) generally faired better in the long run. It is not a fun study, but it is a good explanation for human behavior.
> People can be both ends and means and be quite content. Personally, I think there is too much emphasis on people being ends unto themselves in the current culture.
That's because society is really nothing but a lot of people working together in an alliance. If we didn't make people themselves the end they would have no reason to participate in society.
> You misunderstand. The question is whether individual value structures converge/approximate to a superstructure outside every individual, not whether individuals can use environment, history, each other etc as an inspiration for their custom tailored lives.
You misunderstand. They of course converge, there is no other alternative but for society to be a reflection of their individuals. You don't like the answer so you pretend what they converge into is not worthy somehow because it doesn't adhere to some high societal morality standard which by the way just so happen to be the morality you ascribe to, which is of course nonsense.
> I take that as a compliment because one of the things I aspire to is to not get dissolved in the blind allegiance to achievement and excess positivity.
> It usually gets unnoticed but when people excessively project themselves to achievements and future growth; they turn into massive narcissists. And I am not using that in the pejorative sense; they lose a grounded sense of themselves.
> The conformity is kind of the point and makes it better for the rest of us
So when you say "rest of us" here you're coming from a society that's on the edge of survival?
That's a context I definitely wasn't thinking. I'd assumed based on the conversation we were talking about cities vs small towns in relatively well established countries.
Honestly, I'm not sure I buy your hypothesis though, even if I think of struggling countries, feel you'd have to back it up with more reasoning and data. I don't really see how conformity would help. It still seems to me like it's just an obstacle, all innovation or attempts at change or trying new or different ways are shut down and repressed. If the current way of life isn't yielding the kind of outcome needed to lift them above that edge of survival, continuing to strictly enforce and being against anyone trying to go against it seems counterproductive to me.
I'm not saying you get rid of law and order. But I don't see the benefits of say banning certain type of medicine, foods, dances, music, art, social interactions, love making, natural selection of a mate, methods of trade, methods of construction, etc.
> there is a reason individual choice is emphasized almost solely in societies rich enough to afford letting people make mistakes
I feel you might have the cause and effect reversed. It could just as well be that there is a reason societies that emphasize individual choice are often the ones to become prosperous and rich.
> When it comes to who you are or how you choose to express your individuality
I’m from an Asian society and I’ve seen the pain the strict social framework can cause people who biologically cannot conform to social expectations. However, I feel like your phraseology sweeps more broadly than necessary. Society should think very hard about what would be good social norms, and evolve them as appropriate. (For example, the social norms against women on the front lines may need to be re-evaluated in the age of fly-by-wire F22.) And society should accommodate people who for biological reasons are different.
But that does not require unstructured, wholesale accommodation of how people “choose to express their individuality.” You can accommodate people without abandoning the rule that, “in general, society expects you to be a certain way and do certain things.” Abandoning that rule is a recipe for unhappy, directionless people and a disharmonious society. The fact of the matter is that (1) society is better and more well functioning when people conform; and (2) most people are pretty similar and will be made happy by the same things. The stunning irony of millennials is that they were raised to “follow their bliss.” But they grew up, and what’s their number one complaint? That they can’t find steady work that will let them afford a house in the suburbs and a couple of kids.
> There are similar sized holes in the way we do things today, when you apply the same standards to it. Consider all of the grievous injustices that have occurred until our various systems of government: war, genocide, chattel slavery, enforced divisions based on religion, race, caste, etc.
My response is that we have been progressing, and we continue to do so. There is no 'philosophy' that I think will work -- the only thing that I can see happening is that we iteratively improve until we either destroy ourselves, run out of the ability or desire to harvest energy, get conquered by AI/Aliens/Genetically-engineered-beings, or failing all of those, somehow reach perfection.
Removing the one thing that people can use to enforce collective will on each other is a terrible idea, IMHO, because people are not (usually) able to individually work towards communal good. Sure, in small groups such as tribes or villages we can look after each other's families when needed and pitch in together to get works built or enforce understood norms and punish crime, but in aggregate as a species in large enough groups this is just not possible. Expecting for-profit motivations to accomplish this is either self-serving or naive.
Of course you have built in an escape-hatch for yourself with the 'if I am wrong' bit, so kudos for that. I guess you can use that to have a clear conscience since you appear to have intelligence and empathy enough to know what the consequences are if such a philopsophy fails.
For what it is worth, the preceding was written in a non-combative stance, so please don't interpret it that way (it is judgmental, though; I can't help that).
>People are hard-wired to form tribes and self segregate into groups. I don't think we're going to grow out of that behavior anytime in the next 1000 years.
Marx and communism has everything do to with classes. That is to say in order for communism to work you must have a classless society. Soon as you have inequality based on anything, 2 classes form. Those with and those without.
It comes down to even a surplus of production.
We could theoretically have the same job but I work 40 hours/week and you work 20 hours/week. I will therefore be in a class higher than you. If I am not in a higher class, then I won't work those 40 hours and I'll go down to those 20 hours. OR I try to force you to work 40 hours.
>There is an entire spectrum of organizational bodies and humans need not (and probably cannot) abolish all of them to form some sort of universal civilization. Surely there are ways we can retain regional cultural uniqueness and small group identities while gaining the ability to cooperate and share values?
>kind of thinking reminds me of biotruths, eugenics, social Darwinism, and other authoritarian concepts which seek to explain why it’s okay to have inequality between and within countries.
I don't know where to start with this comment. Perhaps you should stop grouping arguments by stereotype.
At an individual level, different people require different interventions, because they have different personalities. Some people can handle responsibility. Some people need financial motivation. Some people respond to love. Others best learn through violence or fear (I was far too smart to listen to my parents until they threatened a spanking, for example).
If you take all of these different personalities and force them to live under together under a single set of rules, regardless of whether their needs are met, they will compete, if not for resources them for social clout. It is human nature. Particularly in a universe where resources are scarce and time is short.
Though large scale human interaction has a normalizing effect, within the high dimensional space of human belief and behavior there is ample room for these same micro behaviors to be reflected by macroscale cultural trends. And, similarly, because the "ideal" form of government depends ultimately on widely varying beliefs, forcing multiple peoples with significant cultural distance will inevitably lead to inequality and clash - this is not a statement of superiority, sand though it can be used as part justification for some of the antisocial beliefs you raised, that doesn't mean it isn't untrue or that these real problems that we are seeing emerge across the world will simply go away if we ignore them. This pattern has been repeated across time and space and is an unnecessary source of unacknowledged strife in the modern world.
> The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it.
Not if you've studied much history. Modern western society is awesome compared to what nearly all of our ancestors lived through. Wanting more is good, but denigrating things that nearly anyone from history would kill for doesn't sound right.
>It's just my impression, and I could be mistaken, but this sounds overly pragmatic. Living life this way leads to getting entrenched in local maxima.
You find a lot of people who suffer from severe social maladjustment and view life as a zero-sum game all over the place (I blame the rise of using game theory to model real situations without a finite turn limit). It's very rare you'll be able to "argue" these people into conceptualizing other humans as unique individuals, it pretty much always comes from problematic upbringings
> I think differences in politics are largely formed through a lack of knowledge
Knowledge doesn't make everyone want or value the same things. There's significant evidence that gene's play a role in a persons interests, desires, and even morality [1]. You're speaking of a Utopia that would require forced mental uniformity, requiring a perspective that there are no grey areas in life. I don't think this is compatible with the reality of humanity.
> Is culture necessarily partially ineffable?
My friend once said something like "Anything that's useful, we call technology. Anything that's not useful, but cute, we call culture".
> Can you provide more details why you don’t want to live in a world where everyone is more or less equal?
Because every time someone tries this to create a world like this... it ends up a living nightmare. Creating equality usually ends up involving taking away freedom and oppressing people.
Maybe it's inherently not such a hot idea for some social reason we don't yet fully understand?
I don't know but I'm not sure we should keep trying as millions of people end up dead every time someone gives it another whirl.
>In here, and I don't believe the rest of the world can be that much different, the overwhelming majority of people with their basic needs covered by the state dedicate themselves to a routine of TV, social media and other social rituals of all kinds, all devoid of intellectual pursuit.
So what? Why is the purpose of other people's lives to serve your idea of nobility?
> Some things are absolute. Race and gender equality for instance, is absolutely better. No relative cultural context needed to agree with that.
Can you explain how this is objectively true? How would we reason a Martian, a Roman, or an Aztec into believing this is morally correct?
We believe it because it is absolutely true in our moral system, which is not some grand system arrived at by reason alone, but by changing social norms and mores - fashions, basically.
To some degree, 'morality' is based in genetics, human being social animals - we all mostly start out with some broad in-group altruism. But the expression given to this varies wildly throughout human societies - people have believed it was perfectly moral, good, and correct to sacrifice slaves to the sun god, and other people have believed that all humans are equal. Neither one of these are objectively correct in any meaningful sense, although I much prefer living in the latter system. But of course, I would say that, being inundated from birth.
> The amount of people who are unjustly prevented from living their life is an absolute number, as a percentage of the population.
The idea that people can be unjustly prevented from living their life is, itself, a moral judgement.
<<Forgive me, but you sound like someone who has never needed help from another person, or the help you received you felt you deserved.
That is not accurate. Just the other week I had to pay people do complete a task for me. The task in question I could not do on my own simply due to its nature and my lack of skill in that domain. I absolutely needed help. I fully accept I live in a society and there will be times, where my skills will simply not be enough to face every situation thrown at me.
<<We have a social responsibility to pursue a society where those effects lead to happy, healthy people.
Do we? Why is that thrown as an axiom of some sort? I am looking at the history of human race and the history of various societies is at odds with that statement.
<<If you think you’d rather live in a survival of the fittest jungle there are plenty of countries you can move to.
I am relatively certain I live in one of those countries now ( US ). I think most would argue it is considered part of 'the west'.
<<In the west, we consider the progress away from such things as one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments.
Who is we in this statement? There are entire groups in US devoted to the exact opposite position.
> Why don't we want people to be good at things?
Historically most people were peasants or serfs. The only thing they were expected to be good at was that, and were actively discouraged from doing anything else.
We have gone from "Civilization and Its Discontents" to the Human Potential Movement in the blink of an eye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Disconten...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Potential_Movement
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