by hareandtheadder » Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:48 am
Ha! I feel like you read the thing I sent you last week. But if you did, you may have missed part of the point: EVERYBODY is Weird Fred to SOMEone. We do make ourselves more valuable in context to other people (and situations), but those values don't have to be "good or bad" or "scumbag or happy person" - because there is no objective definition of "good" or "happy" or "scumbag." Everybody has a different idea of what it means to be happy, and we can never truly compare any two people's experience of a thing, because personal experience is internal. All that we can objectively compare between any two persons is what is sought and what is run from.
Your hypo posits that people need to be running from something in order to seek something else - in order to be good people, we need to be continuously working to be NOT like Weird Fred. I don't think that's true. "Running from slavery" and "seeking freedom" are objectively the same thing. But they're not, are they? When we experience them subjectively and internally, there is a distinct difference. And I think most people will tell you that they would rather be striving for success than frantically running from failure. People are happiest when they seek something, not when they run from something. Hating Fred is just another way of running from him.
An economy based on love is an economy driven by love. People will travel to the stars for the love of the journey, for curiosity, for delight, or even for sick, sadistic pleasure in twisting the world to their will. They won't do it to get away from Weird Fred. Our economy now is based on fear: fear of being broke, of not being able to pay our bills, of starving, of death. We make wonders to make money, and we make money to stay alive.
Imagine what we could do if we didn't have to worry about staying alive, if we could put the might of our species towards making sure everyone had enough. Then we could make wonders for love of wonder. I personally would much rather live in that world.
Ha! I feel like you read the thing I sent you last week. But if you did, you may have missed part of the point: EVERYBODY is Weird Fred to SOMEone. We [i]do[/i] make ourselves more valuable in context to other people (and situations), but those values don't have to be "good or bad" or "scumbag or happy person" - because there is no objective definition of "good" or "happy" or "scumbag." Everybody has a different idea of what it means to be happy, and we can never truly compare any two people's experience of a thing, because personal experience is internal. All that we can objectively compare between any two persons is what is [i]sought[/i] and what is [i]run from[/i].
Your hypo posits that people need to be running from something in order to seek something else - in order to be good people, we need to be continuously working to be NOT like Weird Fred. I don't think that's true. "Running from slavery" and "seeking freedom" are objectively the same thing. But they're not, are they? When we experience them subjectively and internally, there is a distinct difference. And I think most people will tell you that they would rather be striving for success than frantically running from failure. People are happiest when they [i]seek[/i] something, not when they run from something. Hating Fred is just another way of running from him.
An economy based on love is an economy [i]driven[/i] by love. People will travel to the stars for the love of the journey, for curiosity, for delight, or even for sick, sadistic pleasure in twisting the world to their will. They won't do it to get away from Weird Fred. Our economy now is based on fear: fear of being broke, of not being able to pay our bills, of starving, of death. We make wonders to make money, and we make money to stay alive.
Imagine what we could do if we didn't have to worry about staying alive, if we could put the might of our species towards making sure everyone had enough. Then we could make wonders [i]for love of wonder[/i]. I personally would [i]much[/i] rather live in that world.