Ritalin comments on ... And Everyone Loses Their Minds - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Ritalin 16 January 2015 11:38PM

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Tags: common inconsistency the sense mutation their joker loses minds memetic hypocrisy everyone unsolved mystery

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Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 17 January 2015 09:07:34AM *  1 point [-]

the expenses incurred in counter-terrorism and the number of lives said expenses save, compared with the number of lives that could be saved by spending that same amount into improving road safety, increasing public helathcare expense

I'm fully with you but it also implies that we adjust our reaction to the losses due to terrorism or in general to losses due to not selected interventions.

One example from parenting is choosing between

  • giving children a chance to experience life and to become autonomous

  • protecting children from all possible emotional and physical harm

I judge the first to have higher utility (and hedons) to the child and future adult even despite the risks implied. But I can already hear the accusations should anything happen during the time the child is not fully protected.

Should anything happen - say a serious accident - how do I deal emotionally with that? Do I accept it as a sad but acceptable consequence of my decision or do I resort to guilt and change my future decision on this issue?

We should make clear that the positive effects of experience and autonomy actually derive from the decision for them. Otherwise the much stronger corrective guilt - or even the fear of guilt alone - will out-compete such approaches.

Your proposal or this approach in general implies that we develop a capability to suffer in certain cases - and sometimes I think that our society is headed more toward a minimization of suffering than toward a maximization of happiness.

Comment author: Ritalin 17 January 2015 10:14:19AM *  0 points [-]

It is time for man to fix his goal. It is time for man to plant the seed of his highest hope.

His soil is still rich enough for it. But that soil will one day be poor and exhausted, and no lofty tree will any longer be able to grow there.

Alas! there comes the time when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond man -- and the string of his bow will have unlearned to whiz!

I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: you have still chaos in yourselves.

Alas! There comes the time when man will no longer give birth to any star. Alas! There comes the time of the most despicable man, who can no longer despise himself.

Lo! I show you the Last Man.

"What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?" -- so asks the Last Man, and blinks.

The earth has become small, and on it hops the Last Man, who makes everything small. His species is ineradicable as the flea; the Last Man lives longest.

"We have discovered happiness" -- say the Last Men, and they blink.

They have left the regions where it is hard to live; for they need warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him; for one needs warmth.

Turning ill and being distrustful, they consider sinful: they walk warily. He is a fool who still stumbles over stones or men!

A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And much poison at the end for a pleasant death.

One still works, for work is a pastime. But one is careful lest the pastime should hurt one.

One no longer becomes poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wants to rule? Who still wants to obey? Both are too burdensome.

No shepherd, and one herd! Everyone wants the same; everyone is the same: he who feels differently goes voluntarily into the madhouse.

"Formerly all the world was insane," -- say the subtlest of them, and they blink.

They are clever and know all that has happened: so there is no end to their derision. People still quarrel, but are soon reconciled -- otherwise it upsets their stomachs.

They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health.

"We have discovered happiness," -- say the Last Men, and they blink.

Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra,

I read this from the comfort of my couch, and I blink. Isn't that the right way to live, the model of polite society? Is it wrong to want to live that way?

EDIT: I have no idea how this weird formatting thing happened or how to undo it.

Comment author: Salemicus 23 January 2015 10:22:58AM *  4 points [-]

I read this from the comfort of my couch, and I blink. Isn't that the right way to live, the model of polite society? Is it wrong to want to live that way?

Nietzsche's point is not so much that it's wrong to want to live that way, as small and pathetic. If their supreme values are comfort and health, are these people any better than domesticated pets? Where is the drive to excel? Where is the drive to exceed yourself? They have reduced their desires to match their limited capacities, rather than striven to increase their capacities to meet their boundless desires. Are these people actually happy, or are they merely content?

To quote Nietzche elsewhere:

For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!

Comment author: Ritalin 25 January 2015 07:09:07PM 1 point [-]

"Beyond good and evil, there is awesome and lame. Don't be lame."?

Comment author: kpreid 17 January 2015 04:16:13PM 4 points [-]

You used a monospace block instead of a quote block. Remove leading spaces, and add leading “> ”.

Comment author: FeepingCreature 23 January 2015 09:07:59AM 1 point [-]

I think what Nietzsche is saying is that there doesn't seem any point to this society.

Comment author: Gunnar_Zarncke 17 January 2015 01:25:07PM 1 point [-]

Probably the space at the beginning.

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