So, I've been encountering more and more right wingers in some corners of reddit, and holy crap, these guys are just, lost. Like, I might have issues with liberals, SJWs, leftists, etc., but at least we can GENERALLY agree that the aim of society, ethics, morality, our social structures, etc., is to improve peoples' lives to some extent. We might disagree with how, why, to what extent, but we generally agree that we should continually improve society somewhat.
I deal with right wingers, and I get quotes like this:
"anti-work" is stupid, it's like being anti-pain, it is something that you don't want to experience most of the time, but is necessary.
Uh, really? Being against pain is a bad thing? This was in response to me being anti work by the way. But being anti pain is stupid? Really? Like to me one of the most basic ideas of ANY valid form of ethics is to try to reduce suffering and stuff like that. If you can't even agree on such a basic idea, I really have to ask, what the hell is wrong with you?
In response to me defending my views and going wtf over his objection to trying to minimize pain, he gave me a couple more gems back.
I realise that it's a part of human nature to suffer, feel pain and have to work. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken" is my idea behind that
Lovely. Bible quotes. And you guys sometimes have to wonder why I'm anti Christian. Gee, I wonder why. Like seriously, maybe some 2000 year old book based on divine command theory ISN'T the best thing to base your ethical system on. That's not to say that the bible CAN'T sometimes have some decent stuff on it, but any form of fundamentalism or appeals to authority is gonna fall flat for me.
I am anti this. I think reducing pain is good. I think reducing work is good.I think people who are against such things lack decent ethics, or are otherwise insane. I can't imagine, at this point, living my life by this guy's principles. it's just such a terrible and unenlightened way to view life. I mean imagine having a world that is crap, and someone comes along and is like "we should improve this somewhat" and they're like "nah, this is just how things are, deal with it." I mean, that's about as close to evil as I can imagine in terms of the basis of ethics. Suffering is okay. Being a wage slave is okay. Bad things are good, trying to improve things is bad.
Working is not only necessary, but it gives people a sense of reality, it helps us to understand that in this life we must suffer in order to survive, of course undue suffering should be avoided, but hard work is sanctifying and your utopian view of suffering, work and life as a whole is not the true way to view life.
Lost. You are lost. Look, I get it. Not everyone has my mentality of work ethic. Some people like work. And if you choose that and aren't forced to do it, that's fine. But, seriously, I don't get this whole "hard work is sanctifying" and how my "utopian" perspective isn't realistic.
I mean, even I admit. We MAY not be able to fulfill all of my ideas just as I want them. But I would like to try to move that way. Even if we can only get as far as we can, without being able to go further due to some practical limitations involving incentives with the economy or something, at least we tried, and at least we made some progress. I just don't get, at this point in my life, how people can look at things this way.
Or maybe I can. I was a conservative teenager once, and a huge reason I stayed conservative at the time was because my mindset wasn't much different. I just thought that this was how the economy worked. IMproving it makes things worse. I was shown failed attempts by other ideologies that attempted to create utopia on earth and how they went bad. I was familiar with the weaknesses of Johnson's war on poverty. And of course, authoritarian communism is bad. But, I would like to think, at this point, that once I was shown that these ideas can work, that I shifted my thoughts on this. Heck, I feel like my ideology is built out of the past failures of liberals and leftists to make society better, and the reason I have so many bitter disagreements with them is I genuinely believe my approach to solving problems is superior to theirs.
But still, that's the thing. Once I realized government actually isn't useless, and then later decided "yeah this is the best way for the government to do things", I shifted. I didn't just remain in ultra brainwashed "I guess this life isn't fair and we must all suffer mode." NO! I literally stopped believing that once I became mature enough to realize alternatives existed. And they do. We can make life better, and no the sky won't fall if we do. Especially if we use policy analysis to make sure we do it right.
People lack the moral sense to be allowed to work whenever they feel, we'll all end up either working for ourselves and society will return to 2000 BC where tiny communities worked for eachother, the only people they could trust, or we'll all die in famine because nobody choses to work. Bad idea either way.
Yep. He literally thinks the sky will fall. No it won't. Most evidence shows most would work if UBI were implemented, and honestly, while a small work reduction would happen, we really don't need all of those jobs anyway. All we really need to do is figure out the bare minimum of jobs that need to be done, and figure out what UBI matches the right part curve for work incentive. It's literally that simple. Most work these days is done for economic growth. More profits, more GDP. And as I said, we can trade varying levels of work for varying levels of GDP, making quite steep work reductions while still having standards that could be considered "first world". That simple. Just read the blog.
Now, that was guy #1. I encountered this guy the other day and thought he was weird. Like, I can't understand how you can have a mindset that is so anti progress. Sure, we can't just magically make utopias. I criticize ideas I don't believe would work. I'm willing to make sacrifices to my own ideas in order to make things work better. I mean, I've discussed plans for partial implementations of UBI if a full UBI isn't possible. I've discussed alternative ways of providing healthcare if single payer isn't possible. So I get that. But not being able to try just...baffles me. I mean, a huge reason I discuss the policy details of these ideas so much is because I want to show how they're possible. And I have quite a bit of content on here ripping the ideas of progressives and leftists that I generally don't approve of. I've criticized socialism. I've criticized progressive ideas too. I actually try to idiot proof my ideas as much as possible by making them as simple as possible. The fewer moving parts, the better. But I digress. The point is, at this point, I believe in trying. And see it as immoral to just...be against any sort of change. Even if you don't agree with my ideas, I often generally prefer to argue with people who at least hold the idea that society should be improved somewhat. And this guy not believing that just kind of shocked me. It just made me wonder, what's the point of morality?
In my angstheist days, I'd probably just be saying screw religion, as religious mindsets tend to lead to those kinds of harmful ideas and this guy explicitly cited the bible, but let's face it, I've run into liberal and progressive christians with deep beliefs about improving society too. And honestly, my current form of spirituality is also all about improving humanity as well. So I'm a strong believer in the idea of progress and trying to improve humanity.
Now, again, this wasn't the only guy that inspired me to write this. Person 2 is even worse in some ways. For reference, this discussion arose from the idea of guaranteed housing, or at least reducing property values to a level where people can more easily afford housing. And of course, this guy was against it. At one point, I couldn't help but jump in. And I actually took a stance that peoples' basic needs should be guaranteed. This was his response.
People don’t get gratification from their lives with handouts. They get it from struggle and achievement. While I don’t think we should have people in the street, I don’t think everyone should just get a house. Part of the satisfaction is knowing you earning your belonging there. I like the idea of government down payment matching 1st time homebuyers. You had to earn it, but you also get a boost
Again, just, more circlejerky nonsense about how handouts are bad and people should have to earn their existence. It's just BS to me. I mean, we can guarantee basics and still have plenty of incentive for work and self actualization, for one. And for two, his ideas are basically proposing forcing people to work. It's just nonsense. I can't get behind these anti progressive mindsets. I think if we can guarantee basics for everyone, that that's fine. THat's liberating. And then people can focus on what they WANT to do, not what they HAVE to do. No one wants to be stuck in a dead end job they hate. This life isn't satisfying, and if they're forced to do it, it just comes off as a waste of time. All this mindset is doing is glorifying suffering and drudgery. Because the idea that life is fair and just just breaks their brains. Idk, it baffles me.
You’re right that poverty makes people miserable. Unearned wealth also can make people miserable. They can both exist, not in even amounts either
Now, I'm going to be honest, I'm not saying people with unearned wealth CAN'T be miserable. I do believe money can't necessarily buy happiness in some instances. But, it sure as fudge can help. It's maslow's hierarchy of needs. When you get your base needs met, you have higher forms of needs, such as love, purpose, self sctualization, to pursue. One doesn't live by bread alone, blah blah blah. This just seems like a deflection. Is the idea that people have to earn their existence better? NO! HELL NO! THAT'S REGRESSION! That's moving people down that hierarchy of needs ladder because some people think useless grinding for bare essentials is dignified. We need to stop dignifying people who work 3 jobs and treating them like martyrs, and start seeing them as victims of an abusive system and trying to ease their suffering. That's the problem with America. Oh, you work LITERALLY 100 HOURS A WEEK!? That must be uniquely American as George W. Bush would say. WTF! NO!, THAT'S TERRIBLE AND SHOULDN'T BE A THING!
Sorry. I just get passionate about this. I just look at these kinds of mindsets and I'm just like, wtf is wrong with these people.
When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.
Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any how
That's just...ridiculous. Let me distract myself with pleasure. Pleasure is good. Video games are good. Books are good. Youtube videos are good. I don't need some grand purpose to make my existence worth it. I'm happy just to be. I just want to be left alone and be content. I don't want a "meaning" that makes me withstand drudgery. Because no one should have to suffer in the first place.
Seriously, I want a society that lets us live however we want. I dont want to be forced to live by this guy's philosophy. But thats the problem with these rightoids. They are not only okay with suffering they insist everyone else must suffer too. Screw that. And then he linked me some book from a concentration camp survivor who had that philosophy. Like...okay. Sure, if it helped them get through the horrors of Nazi germany, but that doesn't in any way, justify people suffering the holocaust in the first place.
I get it, some people want meaning. But I dont get meaning from pointless jobs. And I feel like this system of work is BS and de facto slavery. I get my meaning from being AGAINST it if anything. Because no one should have to live like that.
Honestly, I just wanted to vent about this, because again, I believe in improving the human experience. I believe in freeing people from coerced work. I'm for minimizing suffering. I'm for making the human experience as fulfilling as possible. And I believe you do that by giving them an environment to thrive in. What the right seems to want, is to just ignore and even worse justify the wrongs with current society with the air of inevitability that we can't improve our situation, that we shouldn't try, and that it's bad to do so. Or even worse, give purpose to such suffering, which i find particularly morally disgusting. Ever since I left the cave, I've fundamentally rejected these ideologies. And I still stand against them, and encourage people to read my blog and learn about how we can collectively improve our lives. I believe in UBI. I believe in universal healthcare. I believe in a world with less work and less suffering. Maybe we can never FULLY reach a true utopia. But we can try, and probably get part of the way there. There's no reason to justify the wrongs that exist in this world. I know people can't tackle every problem at once, and care about every cause. but if you can find just one and try to improve the world through it, do that. And that will likely give your life more meaning than justifying we all suffer for...reasons.
I just wanted to write that.
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