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Old 09-17-2019, 08:21 PM   #20
Joseph Paul
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Default Re: What sort of society do you get...

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
There are pathologies of compassion. Your brother-in-law may have drunk up the rent money; but if you step in and give him a check so that your sister and her children won't be out in the street, you have just encouraged him to drink up the next month's rent money too.

Ethical philosophers, discussing utilitarian theories, have come up with the concept of a "utility monster": given that the ethical goal is the greatest happiness of the greatest number, if there are people who feel more intensely than the rest of us, they are entitled to be given greater consideration, to increase the sum of happiness. In our world it's not really possible to measure this. But in your world it would be. So if there are people who suffer deeply from any lack of satisfaction, other people will disproportionately try to do nice things from them, and they will gain from this, leading to a tendency to breed for intense feelings—in the long run, for the power to dominate other people by NEEDING things from them.

Or as C told me decades ago, when we first met, "Life is opportunistic."
Pathologies of compassion noted.

I wonder if in a society that experiences this if they would turn on the 'utility monsters'? Exile them from the family/village/company etc. It is not like the people feeling the broadcast of other people's despondency can't do resource allocation math. I would want to look at some counter intuitive responses that would look like the local group of family, friends, and co-workers just snap after being tasked for some time by such a utility monster and refuse to help any further. Tough love and all of that.

I think the society would put resources into manifesting the idea of being self-sufficient and helping others. Varying very far from the norm should make a person in that society question if they are being a drag on society?
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