Happiness, health and stability are not core objectives of our society. The production of wealth, as measured by GDP, or by the stock markets, or consumer spending, is our yardstick of success.
I hope that in the remainder of the century we can can transition to better forms of society where the health and happiness of the general population is more important than the efficiency of our economic structures.
Emergent phenomena don't have "objectives", mate. GDP is a derived statistic.
> I hope that in the remainder of the century we can can transition to better forms of society where the health and happiness of the general population is more important than the efficiency of our economic structures.
And your proposal is? A lot of alternatives have been tried in the past several thousand years and almost all of them suck. Real hard.
And your proposal is? A lot of alternatives have been tried in the past several thousand years and almost all of them suck. Real hard.
Don't think in terms of The Alternative System, just think in terms of the small things that can make life better. Things like reduced working hours to have more time for family, or better economic freedoms for everyone.
Those things do not represent a change in The System. In particular, they are perfectly compatible with allowing private initiative in the market. In fact, they enhance private initiative overall, in areas outside of the market (having more time outside of work can translate to becoming engaged in local community organizations, to give just one example).
If enough people say they are done with 40+ hour work weeks and only will do 35 companies will adapt. So far there has not been enough people willing to do so.
I'm done with it, and all my current and future employers know it. But I'm in a pretty privileged position to be able to meet my needs working part-time.
Its actually quite simple. We need a massive dose of social proofing amongst those that have already attained the peak of accomplishment as seen in the current system to change their behavior. We are no different now than when we were 6 watching our parents. You emulate those you think live right, and the people that live right in the eyes of those under the spell of the implications of the article look to fame, money and power. If those that wied those act a certain way, those new ways become the pinnacle. This solution is the only non forceful way.
Radicalized revolutionary socialism? If greed and self preservation wasn't such an important factor in the common peoples agenda perhaps. The reality is that history has taught us that the usual alternatives to the capitalist-imperialist driven society we live in today is radicalization of a substancial mass of people which invariably ends up with a non-insignificant number of causalities of the human, pedagogical, religious, and/or cultural types.
And then you have people using those ideals to strike with unnecessary violence at what they define as their enemies... and then you get the PFLP saying they're fighting for the same ideals you're fighting. And then you get a bunch of people speaking about nationalism, antisemitism, racism, and then politics, politics, politics.
I'm probably reading too much into what this discussion is actually about (it's a bit early for me), but I just wanted to contribute that I think that our current regimes are probably unsustainable if we as a world population keep growing at such expeditious rates as we are right now. That being said, I have no proposal. Bigger people than me have tried to come up with such propositions, and I'm not planning on organizing another french revolution.
> Emergent phenomena don't have "objectives", mate. GDP is a derived statistic.
Either you are nitpicking (an economic system doesn't have goals ("objectives") in the same way you do), or you're making a pretty strong claim here. If you try to do the latter, I would say you're wrong. Marx has written a good primer on the topic, which shows that the primary objective of capitalist society is capital accumulation.
If you had simply stated that you didn't believe in the concept of "objectives", instead of singling out my precious emergent systems, there would be no rabbit holes to run down. :) Also is 1 thing that has an objective too much to ask for?
I'm saying that complex systems in and of themselves don't have "objectives".
Deliberately designed systems can absolutely have purposes and objectives.
If you want to be nitpicky there's a frothing sea of philosophers smashing endlessly against the little rowboat we're in here. Feel free to dive off and swim around, I'll stay here.
I'm responding to your philosophical ideas about emergence, I don't intend on making any philosophical points here, only responding to the ones that you made. You disagreed with the idea that society can have objectives based on philosophical grounds.
>>Emergent phenomena don't have "objectives", mate.
Society may or may not have some emergent qualities, but it definitely has "deliberately designed" qualities, so therefore according to you: society "can absolutely have purposes and objectives".
Examples of deliberately designed qualities: banking system, fiat currency, stock market, credit card infrastructure, etc. All engineered to streamline economic activities and to allow those who control them to wield power(among other purposes).
>>>The production of wealth, as measured by GDP, or by the stock markets, or consumer spending, is our yardstick of success.
What is success other than the ability to succeed at wielding power, control over your environment etc?
> You disagreed with the idea that society can have objectives based on philosophical grounds.
I objected to the idea that an emergent phenomenon can be assumed to have objectives. Society wasn't "designed", it simply is.
Teleology is the name for assigning human-like motives to things. For example, saying "the hamstring muscle is designed to flex the knee and extend the hip" is erroneous. There is no designer. It evolved; we discern these functions independently of the system.
While subsystems may have designed elements, generally these too go on to have complex, emergent properties. And they're subsumed within the larger system anyway. Laws, stock markets etc are all emergent from human interactions. Nobody sat down at the start of history and designed the system we are part of today. It happened without any one guiding intelligence.
It's meaningless to say "society's objectives" because there was nobody to assign such objectives and nobody can assign such objectives. Anybody who says "the objectives for society are X" is basically saying "my personal preference for the unfolding of the emergent system are X". It's a substitution error.
Well now you've jumped off the boat into the frothy water, just like you said you wouldn't ;). Let me get us back in the boat.
I agree that the definition of the concept of emergence is that there is no objective. No one even vaguely familiar with the concept could possibly disagree with that. My questions before were not disbelief, just making sure you had some passing familiarity with the concepts before I engaged you.
This is the heart of the matter: you still have not named me one deliberately designed system that has purposes and objectives, like you said you could here:
>>>Deliberately designed systems can absolutely have purposes and objectives.
Your inability to name one thing that is not emergent makes me think this:
1-You believe that everything is emergent. From the hamstring to society, banks and currency and economics and bartering, and everything in between. If everything is emergent then obviously nothing has objectives, since that is in the definition of the concept of emergence.
Ah, I didn't realise that's what you were driving at.
Human-designed systems have a purpose. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been designed in the first place (hello, circular reasoning).
But they can also be viewed as emergent phenomena within the larger System of Everything.
If you want an example, how about an Olympic weightlifting barbell?
Its purpose is to facilitate the sport of weightlifting. Such bars are designed to exhibit properties such as flexing under load while returning to true, robustness to being dropped from overhead and having a collar spin with the right amount of resistance.
Weightlifting itself seems to have emerged from status plays between ancient greek men. "Hey Themistocles, I bet you can't lift this big rock!"
Which in turn emerges from status play, which emerges ... well. You get the idea. From the POV of "society", none of this was ever planned. From the POV of the people working for Eleiko, the bar is a piece of lovingly engineered and carefully manufactured high-grade steel.
This post isn't as long as it looks, only the first half is about our discussion. The part of this post that directly relates to our discussion is (only?) 300 words. In those 300 words I will agree with your latest post, then show why I disagree with your initial post.
>>>Human-designed systems have a purpose ... But they can also be viewed as emergent phenomena within the larger System of Everything.
I think that banks and society and weightlifting are all are examples of human-designed systems. Therefore according to you they can "have a purpose ... But they can also be viewed as emergent phenomena..."
In your opinion, is it simultaneously both, or is there some means of deciding which one? I think you answer this question when you mention POV:
>>>From the POV of "society", none of this was ever planned. From the POV of the people working for Eleiko, the bar is a piece of lovingly engineered and carefully manufactured high-grade steel.
I think this is also not controversial and I completely agree with it. But I think it reveals why I disagree with your initial post.
'From the [point of view] of "society", none of this was ever planned'. Luckily we don't look at societal problems from the POV of society....we look at them from our own POV! Which explains my disagreement with your initial post:
>>>Emergent phenomena don't have "objectives", mate.
Using the things you said above, I now think that you meant:
>>>From the POV of the emergent phenomena known as society, society doesn't have objectives, mate.
I contend that we are humans assigning objectives to society from our own POV, and therefore your comment has nothing at all to do with what the OP posted.
Saying that emergent phenomena can't hold their own objectives is a truism and I can imagine it being useful. But the truism doesn't seem to add anything to the OP's discussion. I would love for you to prove me wrong and show me the usefulness of the truism to the OP's discussion.
As a show of good faith, here is the usefulness of looking at society from our own human perspective:
If we are humans looking at society from our own perspective (as opposed to society looking at itself from its own perspective...?), then we can assign it purpose and objectives willy-nilly, based on the apparent actions and tendencies of the emergent phenomena.
The tragedy of the commons is an emergent phenomena. From its POV, there is no objective. From our POV, TOTC seems to say that SOMETIMES small collective sacrifices can prevent large collective sacrifices.
From the POV of a fire, there is no objective. From our POV, fire burns things and spreads from house to house so that one neighbor's irresponsible actions can cause a city-wide fire and hurt collective society very greatly(tragedy of the commons). So we should all make a small collective sacrifice and pay some firefighters to combat the selfish and irresponsible house-burning tendencies of our neighbors. Society++ because we have traded millions of dollars of damage and constant fear of burning to death for a small amount of money.
From the POV of toxic waste, there is no objective. From our POV toxic waste hurts the environment that we all share, so we try to take actions to mitigate or prevent the damage of toxic waste. Society++.
To address the OP directly, assigning society objectives seems very useful as it has resulted in firefighting and food stamps and police and healthcare and regulations against toxic waste dumping, all of which have seemed to reduce crime and disease and fear and pain and ignorance and economic uncertainty. Reducing these things allows for more efficiency and entrepreneurship and invention and time-saving and long term planning because we aren't so busy worrying about our next meal or our immediate safety. The OP hopes we can keep making progress.
One feature of such a better society is that it should be classless. As long as there is there are segments of society whose happiness, health, and stability are dependent upon the whims of the ruling class rather then in their own hands then these problems will persist.
People don't want a classless society because it removes the ability to attain the one thing that all people want: distinguishment. People usually want money not for its utility, but as an arbitrary measure of merit and a way to distinguish oneself. This is why the American Dream is so pervasive: the concept of economic mobility appeals to people. If anything, we've seen a regression from equality and an exacerbation of class segregation throughout the century.
People (at least in this country) don't want to be happy and healthy. They want to be richer than everyone else because that is what success is.
I think that you are right that there are some people that will not become happier or more healthy if they got more money. More money does mean "distinguishment" to them. I think we could describe American upper and middle class people in this way.
The vast majority of the people in America and the rest of the world are not upper or middle class. They want both "distinguishment" AND health, because both could improve. Look at health problems and obesity and the poverty line and education rates. Look at what happens to the birth rate when you introduce economic stability and health care access that can more or less guarantee the survival of your children.
I agree completely. Sadly this is an extension of the democratic capitalist way of life. Once upon a time a group of people we're lead by the strongest, the most intelligent, and the most experienced. It was natural selection at it's finest. Now the concept of power is based on money, distinguishment, and popularity, and not on strength, smarts, and age.
We are making progress. It used to be your class was determined by how much money your great great great grandfather had. Now it's determined by how much you have. Soon it will be determined by how much we think you will have based on your profession ("oohh a doctor"), health ("oohh she's skinny and eats right), habits (non-smokers). Eventually that bubble will pop or cancers/diabetes and other ridiculous ravagers of our species will be eliminated. Class has a real shot of being eliminated then.
I find that we combine too many things into our word happiness. We combine joy, pleasure, satisfaction, excitement, comfort, etc etc. Happiness to me often loses meaning since the happiness that I strive for, satisfaction at building things is completely different than that of others. Brave new world is very much a happiness of instant gratification as well as contentment in your place in society. I would say that happiness of this sort is very unhealthy for a society that has advancement as one of it's goals.
> Fun Theory is the field of knowledge that deals in questions such as "How much fun is there in the universe?", "Will we ever run out of fun?", "Are we having fun yet?" and "Could we be having more fun?"
I think we would do better to follow Bhutan's lead and start using some metrics along the lines of Gross National Happiness in our analysis of how our country (and world) is doing. Ultimately metrics like GDP are only meaningful to our interests to the extent that they indicate the quality of life and sustainability of improved quality of life for people. We lose sight of where the real underlying value lies far too often.
You know what, though? Roughly, people are happier in countries where they are wealthy enough to buy things they want. A lot of "alternative" measuring sticks are far more susceptible to political fiddling, or are meaningless. That doesn't make GDP the be-all and end-all of measuring how a country is doing, but it's not as bad as all that, either.
Wealth correlates with a lot of things, such as health and buying power. It's too large a stretch to say being able to buy things increases happiness. Perhaps just being wealthy enough to have good healthcare does it. Could be many things.
I hope that in the remainder of the century we can can transition to better forms of society where the health and happiness of the general population is more important than the efficiency of our economic structures.