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On April 27 2010 20:25 Tal wrote:
What if he just believes it's right?
I believe if I see someone drowning and can save them with no risk, I should do that, even if I ruin my nice clothes, purely because of empathy. If I don't have some ulterior motive I'm stupid?
before you jump in, ask yourself why is he drowning in the first place? will he drag you down with him?
Survival comes first in most peoples mind and thus if there is no lifeline, safetly vest or a clothesline you can throw to this guy, hes fucked and if you jump in he will 90% of the time drag you down with him.
Think of Africa for a second, half its populace would be dying to aids or malnourisment yet we help them for some reason. Is it because of the kindness in our hearts? NOOOOO
We are helping those who are dying so their country is put further behind in debt, so that they will have to pay up greater sums than what our government spends for food, clothes and medicine as time passes by. SO instead of a dying place where people struggle and life moves on where you basically let these people sort out their own problems and establish a way of life ON THEIR OWN.
My point, Let those you see need a helping hand, help themselves because life moves on regardless and while i get your feminist point of view, i simply dont agree on it just like you might not agree on my point.
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The smallest minority is the individual...
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I specifically said I could save them from drowning with 'no risk'. Imagine it's a small child who was playing near a pond and fell in.
I won't comment on your ludicrous Africa argument.
A child is born (through no fault of it's own), into a place where they cannot help but get sick. You have very cheap medicine which will save their life. The child will die if you don't help. It will cost you $5. You know what? That child should help themselves...(intense sarcasm).
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On April 27 2010 20:47 Tal wrote:
I specifically said I could save them from drowning with 'no risk'. Imagine it's a small child who was playing near a pond and fell in.
I won't comment on your ludicrous Africa argument.
A child is born (through no fault of it's own), into a place where they cannot help but get sick. You have very cheap medicine which will save their life. The child will die if you don't help. It will cost you $5. You know what? That child should help themselves...(intense sarcasm).
no the child is doomed from the getgo, what kind of future will it have even if given medicine?
LET the child die, let it go gracefully and in ignorance rather than delay the inevidable.
Just because you feel guilty enough to fork out the 5 bucks does not mean you should.
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Compassion is different from guilt.
It seems like you are willfully misunderstanding my analogies. Where did you get the idea that the child is doomed from the get go? He just got 1 disease, lets say he lives in Sweden for chrissake, he just needs that one bit of help and his life will be fine.
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Aids, for the sake of argument is not just ONE disease and yes i willfully misunderstood your analogy because you were fairly vague on what illness.
My point being that most large charity fundations are fundamentally bad for the people they intend to help with the money you donate then again its up to the individual to donate. IN addition feminist, leftside people in positions of power often lobby for the government to aid these fundations and thus increasing taxes for something that will smooth itself out if you just leave it alone.
and in sweden a child wont require such a donation, either his parents will inconvenience themselves and pay for the childs medical care because the country as a whole has a system that works.
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I see that there is a lot of discussion of what exactly is right and wrong. I'll try and explain from a position that I believe to be similar to the Original Poster's mindset, which is at least his mindset in principle, if not in practice.
Assuming a human is composed simply of a single consciousness, that means that the individual is limited to a single perspective and a single experience. I think it's safe to say that OP considers a person to be a collection of individual ideas and morals defined by the individual for the individual's self, and that individuals are too separate to achieve any sort of complete and entirely identical mindset or values. In short, none of these "perceived morals" and "influences" are real and are simply a imposition of principles on self. Thus, "right" and "wrong" become things an individuals decides for the self, and cannot be posited on others.
I have examined your claims, and my comments follow. (Bold = your premises)
1. A collective is a group of individuals.
- Yes, a collective is a group of individuals. It is also worthy to be noted that each individual of a collective understands the goal of the collective to a certain extent, but actual consistency of goals is not always the case. Important to note is that the individual identifies with the collective, but actual consistency of goals can be elicited upon careful examination of the collective's stated position and the individual's position.
2. An individual cannot know what others think or want.
- Physically this is a true claim, but then you are undermining the purpose of communication. Of course, completely undiluted communication is difficult without specific definitions and claims, but I believe I addressed how to determine the actual consistency of claims and mindset when I addressed point 1. That is, communication is the attempt to transmit information across barriers between individual consciousnesses, and the success of this endeavor is verifiable.
- To address whether the act of verifying claims itself is prone to misinformation/misinterpretation, that is a simple limit that is consistent with your second claim. Unfortunately, it's the best we have, aside from other methods of verification.
3. Individuals can only afflict other individuals by actions, and can only *assume* what other individuals think by their actions.
- Examining action is one such other method of verification. However, action can also be as subversive as communication, so examination of action is still an interpretive method. Again, verbal claims and physical acts are the best ways to verify an individual's true intention. It is not foolproof, but due to a lack of omniscience, humans are limited to interpretation to make sense of the such things as "another individual's intent".
4. Individuals always act on the best means known to be available to fulfill their goals.
- If by "best" you mean "ideal according to individual judgment", then it can be stated that, if certain ideas are important enough to the individual, the individual will attempt actions to further those ideas in the form of goals.
- There are, however, moral limitations on action as well as thought and speech. Yes, they are entirely within the consciousness of the individual. That does not make them any less tangible nor does it render them insignificant. That is simply an indelible quality of a societal more.
- The collectivist is wrong when he says he knows whats best for anyone but himself, breaking premise #2, since he cannot know other people's goals are. (he can only assume per #3)
- Assume is a word that, well, assumes little forethought. I'd prefer to say that he can only interpret others' goals. Trying to remove individual responsibility for thought and action from the individual is a critical error because of your premises 1 and 4, meaning that an individual can only certainly know what the self wants, and actions taken by the individual is up to the individual's own judgment. So, we cannot, and the collectivist cannot, be entirely exempt from responsibility for individual action.
- As an audience of the collectivist, we can only interpret his claims as individuals and decide whether we agree or not based upon our own judgment. Therefore, we have no right to claim that he is wrong, because we will be laying claim to an ultimate "truth" of him being invariably wrong. We can only interpret his claims and actions for ourselves.
- Definition of Interpretation: Based upon our individual morals and convictions, which we must know by premise 1 (which I agree with), we pass judgment on another's claims after extensive consideration and thought.
- Even if he was right in his assumptions, he could NEVER know if he was right unless he allows the man to act freely. (#3+#4)
- There can be subversion in action as well as communication. Again, you can only interpret his actions and claims as an individual.
- The collectivist will often concede the above points then proceed to claim that he knows whats best for the common good, a fictitious entity per #1
- The "common good" is an individual's interpretation of what is right, even if that individual derives all or most ideas from a claimed collective. Again, I have said that the collectivist as well as the audience can only be certain of individual thoughts, as per your premise 1, and that though we cannot know, we can interpret. Frankly, that's all we can do.
- Your example revolves solely around solid proof, yet that cannot be how everything in the world should be substantiated, because not everything in the world can be verified that way. We can only draw conclusions based on our own judgment, precedent, and experiences. More on this sort of "false until proven correct" mindset later.
- The collectivist then keeps equivocating anyways, doing and saying whatever *he* feels like doing (according to premise #4 ofc). nothing particularly wrong w\ this, at least he's honest by then. (thug 4 lief)
- This is adopting a policy of disassociation. Basically you choose to disagree with each other. Unfortunately, this results in inaction, and it must follow that inaction will do nothing to solve an apparent issue or problem. Even though we as individuals have the luxury to skirt differences and abstain from compromising others' convictions with the benefit of not needing to compromise our own convictions, government often cannot afford to do such a thing. As an individual, I also believe that such an approach to dichotomy is unproductive. More on this kind of mindset later.
So without getting into morals, (morals don't exist in reality btw I'll leave it at that, np) this is basically why thinking collectively even with the "best" (or should I say, altruistic) intentions never works, and as a rule of thumb, I suggest that whatever your assumptions on human behavior and societal organization are, do it voluntarily. If it's not voluntary, it's not worth it, and it will never prove anything.
- Already established that morals are an individual's choice to conform to an established set of values.
- Perhaps you are saying that the "best" intentions are purely subjective and are not justification for making any one idea the "ideal". This is true.
- Involuntary action will be inconsistent with individual thought, but again, there is an over-reliance on objective proof. Is there really a need to prove something to someone through voluntary action? Perhaps rather than proof for the sake of verification, what is being sought is an example for the sake of interpretation, because many of the things your examples are dealing with are not concrete and rely on interpretation to make sense of them. It all comes back to individual interpretation.
- You say that collective thought is ineffective because it is no more credible than individual thought. Then forget the collective. Focus on the individual or the ideas behind the collective rather than looking to the collective itself for credibility.
On mindset:
Problem I observe with the OP's mindset. It is too concerned with objectifying entirely humanistic concerns. Simply posing a claim and systematically refuting dissent and/or counter viewpoints is a common pastime on the internet, and unfortunately that is how many individuals handle their arguments.
What is the result? A cut-off from external ideas and influence; a withdrawal into self. There is no intent to assimilate, there is only intent to defend. There is no intent on either side to try and achieve synthesis, only an effort made to maintain dichotomy. And people agree to disagree. This is entirely unproductive in and of itself, because the difference is there, but the evolution of ideas and thought ends where individuals refuse to resolve or assimilate conflicting ideas. This is also the problem facing much of political thought and debate as well, because motivation is not a collective thing, but is an individual concern. Judgment through sound interpretation is key.
On Interpretation:
Since it seems like all instances of communication and observation relies on the subsequent interpretation, what is the ideal way to go about doing this? Well, that's where the entire body of philosophical thought, religious thought, and psychology within historical contexts is completely necessary. There exists a huge history of human thought that already exists which all provide solid bases from which we can develop our own basis for interpretation. Focusing on the ideas and methods presented throughout each and every text and examining how ideas related to context is key to opening our own capacity for interpretation. Why do I tout this as truth? It is not necessarily truth, but it's rather evident that through educating ourselves with ideas, progression of human thought, how dichotomies are dealt with, and exploring various mindsets through examining such works will serve to do nothing but to expand our own capacity for thought.
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United States22883 Posts
It's interesting that when Hayek brought up this argument, I felt more intelligent for having read it. I'm not sure I can say the same thing about this thread.
On April 27 2010 21:05 Madkipz wrote:
no the child is doomed from the getgo, what kind of future will it have even if given medicine?
LET the child die, let it go gracefully and in ignorance rather than delay the inevidable.
Just because you feel guilty enough to fork out the 5 bucks does not mean you should.
Gold.
Yurebis, if you want to have a theoretical discussion (which this is) you can't disregard past philosophy, psychology, rational choice theory, etc. on the subject.
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On April 27 2010 19:55 Lixler wrote:
The Judeo-Christian pity value is what causes people to become "collectivist."
You are implying that there was no empathy or altruism before the birth of Christ. I find this assertion to be wholly without merit.
Of course, no individual can be collectivist without being coerced, as this would mean he has to freely choose to do things which do not benefit him (a psychological impossibility). Any individual who values society over himself is pathetic indeed.
Perhaps you are blind to your own living condition. Do you live alone? Grow and/or hunt your own food? Weave your own textiles and clothes? Prepare your own safe drinking water? Manufacture your own luxury goods?
In many cases collectivism provides a benefit to all who take part. Surely you were not coerced into going to the market and buying a bag of potatoes. In fact, I would wager a guess that you are unable to successfully perform any of the tasks I listed above sufficiently enough to survive outside of modern society. In this case you ought to value the society over yourself, since the society is the collective providing you with the means to survive.
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On April 27 2010 14:57 dtvu wrote:
#1 - The collective is only a group of individuals. However, the individual requires a voice and leadership to broadcast their common interest/goal/ideas. The individual supports the leadership and thus gives power to their movement. Without leadership and common goals, nothing is accomplished.
It's in our nature to think we know. It's in our culture to judge other culture from our own cultures perspective.
So it's quite understandable that you consider the need of leadership this way but there are cultures which run smoothly without our kind of leadership.
Without common goals nothing is accomplished. Is perhaps a better way to put it.
But we can still accomplish with individual goals.
#2 - Individuals cannot know what other individuals think or want. True, but communication allows thoughts and ideas to take shape. Two cannot share the same thought, but can share a common goal. Coming back to the apple on the table, if both wants to eat the apple, that's a common goal - why each wants it is different, but no less relevant (one might wants to know the taste, the other is just hungry). Each's desire are different. If they were in the same room and the apple was out of reach, they would have to cooperate and try to obtain the apple (whether they share it is a different matter again).
All true. It's the statement that is inaccurate. We can't know anything, yet we somehow manage our lives together through communication.
#3 - Individuals can only afflict other individuals by actions, and can only *assume* what other individuals think by their actions. It is always(?) in human nature do distrust others since it is inbuilt in us to presume the worst in others. However, humans are also designed to move in groups and thus people will always congregate and form a collective to push their ideology. We will ignore potential problems if we can gain what we desire. Although this also makes us vulnerable to backstabbing, which happens when the goals are achieved.
Trusting or distrusting others is in human culture not human nature.
We are designed to move in groups so when an ideology reaches out to people they might follow together.
#4 - Individuals always act on the best means known to be available to fulfill their goals. This is completely false! People have many choices as how to act in any given circumstance, but tends to choose the easy and fastest way to achieve their goal. If others are in the way of this goal, their removal and the means are considered. Sacrifices within the collective are often made to push the goals and benefit the majority.
Ethical egoism is the simple answer. There are no altruistic actions since such an action would be made to serve yourself, same goes for all.
People have many choises yes but none of them are purely for others.
Perhaps people tend to choose the easier way out, perhaps not but that's another discussion. When the line "tends to" enters a philosofical argument one should reconsider it.
So though I disagree with a lot of what you say because the collective has power whereas the individual doesn't. The Collective is essential in bring an ideology/plan/goal etc into effect. The Collective acts in favour of the majority if there is a common goal and sometimes sacrifices the individual within it. The Collective also requires leadership, but the reasons and desires of that leadership could be entirely different to each individual. However, underlying reasons and desires are irrelevant if the common goal can be achieved (this is why complications arise).
To me the fact that collective action sometimes has larger effects than an individuals is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
I don't think the ops idea was a suggestion for a satanistic societey where every individual only did actions that purely gain himself (all actions do yes but some also gain others, this is the difference that I mean).
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Interesting read, though I do have to disagree on the basis of #4:
Stupid people make actions that do not have a discernible benefit. Stupidity is unpredictable and leads to people doing things which result in a net harm to themselves and others. #4 is only valid assuming people are smart enough to make decisions that are beneficial to themselves, which to be honest, is a pretty big leap of faith.
You may say that "to the best of his knowledge" covers this. However, I would argue that no amount of knowledge can keep people from doing dumb things. People still smoke all the time knowing that it causes cancer.
Whether intelligence is a matter of genetics exclusively remains a subject for another discussion, but this argument cannot be airtight until you address that concern.
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At one point, you discussed that a collectivist is wrong when he assumes he cannot know what's best for anyone and any decisions thereafter made will be just as beneficial under individualism as it would be collectivism. However, I felt I should point out, situations such as The Prisoners' Dilemma is only enforced under individualism whereas collectivism would ensure a much greater outcome. Overall, I feel your argument is too biased towards individualism (understandably so in the US despite certain governmental changes ...).
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On April 27 2010 16:11 Cheerio wrote:
Well, sometimes government does know what is better for people. Drugs anyone? Or mb ban on smoking? Yes you can smoke, but you would be better off if you dont.
Better off for what? What goal? Not having lung cancer? And why do you think anyone shares your exact goals? What if they don't care about lung cancer and want to die young?
Certainly them smokers do not think so. If they smoke, it's because they enjoy the short term satisfaction of nicotine over any possible side effects.
So there's different evaluations going on. No better or worse. Maybe you wish people wouldn't die, and I wish people wouldn't die too. But more importantly than living, is living free. So if people wish to take risks for themselves, why do you feel entitled to stopping them by force?
On April 27 2010 16:11 Cheerio wrote: And you can guess what most people want: money, power, sex, work less, have more. The problem is that when alot of power is given to state the people in power are the same weak ones with their personal needs. They will abuse it some way or another. If perfect people could be breeded and set to govern the nations in their best interest it would be better than democracy. Untill than democracy is the choice. So all those hedonistic people you despise, are the same people you trust to elect your overlords?
That makes sense... in democracy land.
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On April 27 2010 16:18 L0n3W0olf wrote:
Well, my belief is that a group is only trully strong, when it consists of strong individuals. There are some exceptions, when there is good leadership, but the above mentioned works best.
What does being a strong group mean? They can play tug-of-war really well?
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LunarC:
Great work! How you managed to mind the motivation to systematically work through that post I don't know but I applaud you for it. Reading the thread the many uninformed claims and inconsistencies killed my motivation for debate, leaving me with only one thing I had strong enough motivation to point out (although you already kinda covered it). That's the response to Yurebis below.
But first I have a question for you. When you say you agree with Yurebis that #1 a collective is only a mass of individuals, do you also agree with him that it is nothing more? I thought it was a pretty widespread understanding that a whole is more than the sum of it's parts (see the term "emergence" in system theory for instance). Actually piratekaybear already pointed this out, but "refuted" it by pointing out how everything must have a representation in the individuals mind.
Yurebis:
You seem seduced by the idea that everything can be accounted for by studying the biology/chemistry of the human body. While it is true that every action has a bilogical counterpart, and every thought/idea must have some biological "representation" or other manifestation, it is not a very feasible approach to only endeavour into this layer of analysis, as output/input is mediated in the interspace of individuals. For this reason interpersonal behavior is as significant a source of information as the body of the individual itself.
On a related note, the whole distinction between individual and other is only an abstraction. Noone is ever free of other's influence (if only understood a bit broad: that is, representations of outside influence). I consider myself a determinist like you, that doesn't mean however, that we are determined only through intropersonal means.
Ideas founded interpersonally have a great deal of influence on the individual mind. That is not to say that we represent them internally in the same way as the next person (we can't be sure of exact agreement on definitions/interpretations), but they were still formed "out there" and now has an impact "in here". If you want to say that only because this has a individual representation (that is: is present in the individual mind) it isn't collective, then be my guest, it just means you either don't agree with everyone else on the use of that word, or you chose a different layer of analysis.
You seem very absorbed with the idea of objectivity and "real" science (SCIENCE?), which is frankly rather odd as you go out of your way to express that an individual can only understand the world subjectively. I think you should revise your understainding of knowledge as it seems very inconsistent. When the social sciences are not exact, it is because they concern themselves with matters that can't be meaningfully operationalized, but thankfully one do not need to have 100% sure knowledge in order to act purposefully. Just like one individual don't need to be 100% sure what the next person wants/thinks in order to respond to it.
I won't tell you how to understand knowledge, as you can only adapt a view consistent with the rest of your world view, I suppose. My aproach is that knowledge is simply the theory that currently best accounts for the widest range of cases.
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On April 27 2010 20:40 Madkipz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2010 20:25 Tal wrote:
What if he just believes it's right?
I believe if I see someone drowning and can save them with no risk, I should do that, even if I ruin my nice clothes, purely because of empathy. If I don't have some ulterior motive I'm stupid?
Bold = my commentsOur actions are made out of Ethical egoism (link). But this situation is not simply answered by this in the same fashion as to "Why am I writing this?". Because when you see a man drowning you will act on instinct. If you chose to save him. Was it a long subconscious discussion where your mind decided that you couldn't live with yourself if you didn't? Or was it pure instinct and you acted before this possibly could happen?
A more obvious example is when a mother protects her child. This is a universal occurence, is usually put aside by philosophers in the discussion of altruistic/ Ethical egoism decisions. before you jump in, ask yourself why is he drowning in the first place? will he drag you down with him? This was answered above. The human acts of instinct are what should be discussed.Survival comes first in most peoples mind and thus if there is no lifeline, safetly vest or a clothesline you can throw to this guy, hes fucked and if you jump in he will 90% of the time drag you down with him. You just created a scenario which the person above most probably didn't consider but I'll answer it anyway. Yes the survival instinct "To fight or flee". It exists in all of us, in this situation you describe we magically know that there is no chance of us surviving it, therefore we might flee indeed. What I'd like you to put some thought into is wether how a empathic man can live with himself after leaving a man to die, not even trying to rescue him. Think of Africa for a second, half its popula tion would be dying of aids or malnourisment yet we help them for some reason. Is it because of the kindness in our hearts? NOOOOO
during the 1960's the western civilisations where learning of the third world, a hopeful generation happy to live in a time of peace wanted a change. Solidarity, empathy and a new understanding of our responsibility was put into action with aid to the third world countries. Sadly this solidarity is rarely seen in our generation since we haven't seen a world were we don't help.
With that said. Yes it started from the kindness in our hearts. Even though all of our actions are made egoistically we feel happines when helping others.We are helping those who are dying so their country is put further behind in debt, so that they will have to pay up greater sums than what our government spends for food, clothes and medicine as time passes by. SO instead of a dying place where people struggle and life moves on where you basically let these people sort out their own problems and establish a way of life ON THEIR OWN.
I can't deny that there's a possible subconscious thought in me that is behind my actions of giving money to the red cross. And I can't deny that I don't know the exact thoughts behind
the politicians actions to aid other countries. But the same goes for you.
When it comes to how our help sometimes do more harm than good I agree. When we send milk to a village their own shop which sells milk will not be able to sell and it's our fault. When we send money to corrupt gouvernments loads of money are lost on the way.
But according to me we have a responsibility. A big effect in africa is that rivers are running dry and the ground some have lived on for generations is now impossible to farm on. All because of the western civilisations gas pollution, effects on the ozone layer. We can rationalise the problem and talk about how I'm just a person, no big effects comes from me not driving a car etc.
But it's still a choice we have to make, we should all consider these effects.
As for the thread title collectivism v. Individualism. Collectivism is a pretty good idea here in "the war on global warming"  .My point, Let those you see need a helping hand, help themselves because life moves on regardless and while i get your feminist point of view, i simply dont agree on it just like you might not agree on my point.
Where did feminism get in the picture?
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On April 27 2010 17:14 Madkipz wrote:
Its pretty simple, Once you as an individual have food,water, safety, shelter and electricity you will seek out these individual freedoms, or imaginary rights as i love to call them. As George Carlin puts it, they are made up rights. Like the bogeyman because the government can take them away. Japanese Americans 1940, thrown in jail for being of Japanese origin.
I haven't claimed I have the right to own myself in the op but you're right.
I was just exploring why the collective thought is logically flawed
On April 27 2010 17:14 Madkipz wrote:
People (and I'm being really general here) don't really care about the right to vote until their country starts hogging in profits and they as individuals start feeling entitled to some of that wealth. What we have here is a varying degree of feminization in our society, most of us where raised on the premise of "everyone are special, you all won today, everyone can be number one." and so fourth. What a country does is take all these communities under one wing, stating with its various of political views that all you need to do is vote, that every vote counts and riding the "everyone are special" train.
Individuals don't often care to vote because there's little benefit to be gained from it. Unless you're part of an interest group or have enough money to lobby, you won't ever have a real incentive to vote, just because your chances of making any difference are like winning the lottery.
The only incentives in place that I see are the social engagement and the feeling of belongingness that one gets from begging other people to partake in forcing his neighbors to do shit.
Voters perhaps get the feeling that those they vote for and get elected are their result.
Like dickriding obama yeah?
Such silly delusion over power when they have none really. Just an assumption.
On April 27 2010 17:14 Madkipz wrote:
As for individualism, our western society is already removing certain individuals with radical ideas from the streets and therefore giving rise to a certain form of normality. Or at the very least swinging it in the direction they wish by keeping up a feminist standard.
mayb.
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stopped reading when i read "the collective is just a set of individuals" - if you start with something that wrong, whatever you end up with will be pretty messed up.
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On April 27 2010 17:19 Severedevil wrote:
Remove #2 from your list. It's a subset of #3. (And #3 is pretty sketchy unless 'actions' include such minor reactions as unconscious facial twitches, which we regularly use to read a person's mental state.)
It does include facial expressions, which a trained individual (actor) has no problem in emulating.
On April 27 2010 17:19 Severedevil wrote:
#4 is of course laughably wrong. People are complete whores for short-term pleasure and ease.
So perhaps short-term pleasure and ease is their main goal in life?
Whats wrong with that.
On April 27 2010 17:19 Severedevil wrote:
"The collectivist is wrong when he says he knows whats best for anyone but himself, breaking premise #2, since he cannot know other people's goals are. (he can only assume per #3)
- Even if he was right in his assumptions, he could NEVER know if he was right unless he allows the man to act freely. (#3+#4)"
The 'collectivist' can ask a person what that person's goals are, and thus incorporate them. If that person purposefully misrepresents their goals, well, they're damning themselves through their own free choice. That isn't bad in a nutshell, however, two issues:
The collectivist often not allow the individual to choose (the individual is secondary to the collective, remember?) Democracy is not a voluntary game, the rules are that you have to abide for your neighbors decisions. So if 51% of the population decide that they want you dead, you gonna die son! Ain't no choice on choosing your "representatives" unless you're able to convince 50% of the population w\ you.
Also, as long as the collective thinks he knows "what the collective wants", he will attempt to enact his delusions, because they're the most important in the world. Don't matter what anyone else thinks, this collectivist here knows what's up! He knows everybody's goal and the best means to accomplish those goals, therefore, he feels entitled to forcing everyone to compromise! How does he reach that knowledge, I don't know, it's logically impossible since he can only know what *he* wants and merely assume what other wants.
So is the fate of politics. And this problem grows greater with the more people the collectivist is imposing his will since more people are likely to be upset.
On April 27 2010 17:19 Severedevil wrote:
Any concerns about coercion are trivially avoided by applying no penalty for sharing your opinion in this fashion. (Freedom of Speech.)
So if you allow slaves to talk back to their overseers everything is fine then?
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EPT
