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0 pointsdatsci_est_20153h ago0 comments

This sort of rationalization of evil is a core of technocratic support for Trumpism, I find, and has parallels to the evangelical prosperity gospel. Choice tenets:

  - Fuck you, got mine
  - If I don’t do it, someone else will
  - Might makes right
  - Greed is good

It’s always cloaked in a veil of realism, but it’s just the classic 14-year-old-boy-just-got-introduced-to-the-prisoners-dilemma situation. There’s nothing philosophically interesting about it.

Ironically, these are often the same people denouncing multiculturalism, yet the culture they strive for is completely morally bankrupt.

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estearum3h ago

And it's funny because the "realism" has been proven wrong over and over and over again for millennia. People do all sorts of selfless and generous things all the time! The entire premise is trivially disprovable by just going and asking a neighbor for some help with something.

That's not to say we should be naive about greed or malice existing or being powerful motivators (especially the former), but it is obviously not true that they're the only forces at play and therefore you are "just doing the logical thing" by succumbing to them. It's just the more destructive version of the same naiveté.

datsci_est_2015OP2h ago

Seems you and I have together struck a nerve. Maybe our sentiments would have been better received in an alternate subthread, but it’s all I could think about while reading the parent / cousin comments.

I haven’t read the full Magnifica Humanitas yet, but I would be pleasantly surprised if he touched on not just dehumanization of the other, but dehumanization of the self. Expanding on your thought, succumbing to those forces under the guise of just doing the logical thing is in a way self-dehumanization - to believe you are only capable of the “logical” thing instead of the moral thing.

bluesign2h ago

This was not my point at all. Maybe I could explained better, but main criticism I have is: you can bundle together objectives ( which are inherently good ) and create an utopia. But those cannot always be achievable.

Everything in life in trade-offs. Simple example is speed/quality/cost. I can tell easily:

- services should be cheap - services should be fast - services should be high quality

Now I created an utopia. Obviously this is amazing to listener. They agree. But is it achievable?

It is not saying greed is good or might makes right. But system means you need to construct from this ideals best outcome ( which comes at some trade offs)

datsci_est_2015OP56m ago

Yeah there were probably more appropriate subthreads to have responded to. My point wasn’t quite neatly directed against yours.

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