What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

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TigerNinja
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What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by TigerNinja »

I understand I will offend a few people here. My apologies beforehand, but have an open mind when reading this. Let's look at physically incapable people with low IQs. They are unable to carry out manual labour and are also unable to make significant contributions. What they learn from the highly intelligent people that carry society is not applied and they are unable to make things for people to learn. They cannot aid society, and are simply limiting society by using resources yet being unable to return the favour. Be it working at McDonald's to running Apple to discovering the origin of the universe, all people are useful in some way, but at what point does the use that they give to a community, as small as a village or as big as a galaxy, become less than the resources they use?
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Steve3007
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Steve3007 »

I think an interesting way to start to answer this question is with a related question: Are we the only species that cares for apparently non-productive members of the tribe, such as the sick or elderly? If so, why? And when in our evolutionary history did we start to do it?
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Hereandnow
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Hereandnow »

And what use are you, TigerNinja? And if you had a child with a low IQ, with Down syndrome, with a immunity deficiency, physically conjoined with another; how would your thinking go? what use are is this child? IS that the way it would go? And if your wife or husband had a terrible accident, and was left a paralyzed burden to society, is it "usefullness" that would summarily dispatch the situation? What use are you if you are a person who thinks like this, who does not look beyond "use" to other standards, standards that look to the person, not the social and economic functionary, standards that recognize that the those that are well groomed for success are, in a word, lucky, and it could have been you, your blessed Aunt Betty, or anyone who was thrown into this world to suffer the mockery and intolerance of others better endowed.

There is one thing and one thing only I like about Christianity, and that is, when understood properly, it makes the least endowed a deep concern in life of those born to advantage. It is called compassion, empathy, caring. These have no utility, and can even be seen as disutility (no doubt: conservatives are right to say their way leads to greater efficiency in governance. It's easy: just throw the poor under the bus and billions in cost vanishes). Conservatives who pray regularly in church think like this (so much for the meek inheriting the earth), but frankly, self aggrandizement, unqualified indulgence in one's "usefulness" in the face of others' misery is a sin, if there is such a thing.

Not to be too offensive, but I think people who look to the resources wasted on the disadvantaged as such, should be evaluated to see if they are sufficiently human to be allowed to continue on in society. What "use" are they?
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A_Seagull
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by A_Seagull »

TigerNinja wrote: February 14th, 2018, 12:26 pm I understand I will offend a few people here. My apologies beforehand, but have an open mind when reading this. Let's look at physically incapable people with low IQs. They are unable to carry out manual labour and are also unable to make significant contributions. What they learn from the highly intelligent people that carry society is not applied and they are unable to make things for people to learn. They cannot aid society, and are simply limiting society by using resources yet being unable to return the favour. Be it working at McDonald's to running Apple to discovering the origin of the universe, all people are useful in some way, but at what point does the use that they give to a community, as small as a village or as big as a galaxy, become less than the resources they use?
Certainly there are some people who, for whatever reason, may appear to take more from society than they contribute to society.

But so what?
The Pattern Paradigm - yer can't beat it!
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JamesOfSeattle
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by JamesOfSeattle »

I would like to take Steve's direction a little further, and be a little more explicit. What if the society which promotes care for those unable to contribute has better survival fitness than a society that targets and eliminates those unable to contribute?

*
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Hereandnow
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Hereandnow »

JamesofSeattle, you're probably right about that, given that it makes a compelling position to hold that those with the emotional ability to will the elimination of the "unable to contribute" are likely too competitive, or hostile, or idealistic (Christians building a new Jerusalem on a Hill),or cutthroat and coldblooded to survive. It could be argued that self interest could follow through to success, but the only ones I can think of with the capacity to think truly like this are, frankly, thoughtless, one dimensional deplorables.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Sy Borg »

As most human labour is outstripped by technology, what of the leftovers - the "useless majority"?
Maxcady10001
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Maxcady10001 »

First, you have contradicted yourself when you said physically incapable people are not useful, and then later said all people are useful in some way.

Second, why does being useful matter? Is art useful? What is useful? Why place such a high value on being useful to others around you? This is certainly a sentence to a life of servitude, and it is purposeless. Take someone who has worked 30 years of their life, you would consider them useful, contributor to society. But for what did they work all those years? So life can be better for another man or woman? I do not understand the attitude of self sacrifice, as it is pointless.

Consider a completely useful society, where everyone worked and worked. What's the endgame? Is it the ultimate level of efficiency? If so, efficiency implies purpose, yet there is obviously no purpose in a completely useful society because purpose requires individuality, and direction. If there is no direction who are you useful too. Society does not assign direction and purpose, individuals do, and you would be rid of these things and live a purposeless life.
Steve3007
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Steve3007 »

JamesOfSeattle wrote:I would like to take Steve's direction a little further, and be a little more explicit. What if the society which promotes care for those unable to contribute has better survival fitness than a society that targets and eliminates those unable to contribute?
The human species as a whole, with some exceptions, seems to have a tendency to care for members of the tribe whose contribution is not obvious, such as the sick, the disabled and the elderly. And our species has so far been very successful at multiplying and spreading.

If I had to guess, I'd say the connection is our intelligence, large brains and consequent long childhood. Our success rests on the ability to accumulate, process and pass on knowledge. Unlike many other species, we have relatively few children and spend many years teaching them all this. This goes with a natural tendency to feel a very strong bond with our children and with each other, and a tendency to respect and value the accumulated wisdom of age.
Hereandnow wrote:And what use are you, TigerNinja?...Not to be too offensive, but I think people who look to the resources wasted on the disadvantaged as such, should be evaluated to see if they are sufficiently human to be allowed to continue on in society. What "use" are they?
I disagree with this way of dealing with TigerNinja's questions. If an idea is good, then it is often strengthened by being challenged and being seen to meet that challenge. TigerNinja has challenged an idea.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve, I like your angles - with contributions being less obvious than non existent, and the zero sum situation should everyone be a worker bee. What's the point of being human if we are going to try to live as practical, busy and problematic lives as our mammalian cousins? Might as well do that without all the complex human angst. We can do better than that, maybe.
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Hereandnow
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by Hereandnow »

Steve3007;
I disagree with this way of dealing with TigerNinja's questions. If an idea is good, then it is often strengthened by being challenged and being seen to meet that challenge. TigerNinja has challenged an idea.
So I'm a little hard on him, you think? FIrst, I think not about the question here but the agency behind it. Does it never occur to TigerNinja that, what, "disposing" of the less endowed, the unwanted, was what they did at Auschwitz? Tiger, it was pretty clear, was not just playing devil's advocate. Second, we live in a time of rising alt-right thinking and power, and this is makes such questions more than just theoretical. In short, I feel Tiger was due a mild censure along with a rebuttal.
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TigerNinja
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by TigerNinja »

Hereandnow wrote: February 14th, 2018, 8:53 pm And what use are you, TigerNinja? And if you had a child with a low IQ, with Down syndrome, with a immunity deficiency, physically conjoined with another; how would your thinking go? what use are is this child? IS that the way it would go? And if your wife or husband had a terrible accident, and was left a paralyzed burden to society, is it "usefullness" that would summarily dispatch the situation? What use are you if you are a person who thinks like this, who does not look beyond "use" to other standards, standards that look to the person, not the social and economic functionary, standards that recognize that the those that are well groomed for success are, in a word, lucky, and it could have been you, your blessed Aunt Betty, or anyone who was thrown into this world to suffer the mockery and intolerance of others better endowed.

There is one thing and one thing only I like about Christianity, and that is, when understood properly, it makes the least endowed a deep concern in life of those born to advantage. It is called compassion, empathy, caring. These have no utility, and can even be seen as disutility (no doubt: conservatives are right to say their way leads to greater efficiency in governance. It's easy: just throw the poor under the bus and billions in cost vanishes). Conservatives who pray regularly in church think like this (so much for the meek inheriting the earth), but frankly, self aggrandizement, unqualified indulgence in one's "usefulness" in the face of others' misery is a sin, if there is such a thing.

Not to be too offensive, but I think people who look to the resources wasted on the disadvantaged as such, should be evaluated to see if they are sufficiently human to be allowed to continue on in society. What "use" are they?
Fair play. I have no significant use as of now, although the majority of the population is useless as a single unit. I am part of a community, which combines to make a larger community, which means that as a collective, I am part of a well oiled machine that is much more use than me or another. Its the people who can't or won't contribute to this collective at all that I am talking about. Despite this, if everyone took more than they provided, society would collapse, so clearly society is doing something right at the moment. I would also like to take a moment to say that the care for other beings is only a product of conditioning. We, naturally, only care about our families, our mate, our friends (allies in gaining food, water and other resources) and our children. All evolutionary advantages, however conditioning from a society that heavily falls on Judea- Christian moral values results in yours beliefs of compassion and the like which is the sole reason you think that they should be evaluated to see if they are sufficiently human. We are solely doing the natural human instinct to look out for myself and anyone else that carries my genes.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
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TigerNinja
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by TigerNinja »

TigerNinja wrote: February 14th, 2018, 12:26 pm I understand I will offend a few people here. My apologies beforehand, but have an open mind when reading this. Let's look at physically incapable people with low IQs. They are unable to carry out manual labour and are also unable to make significant contributions. What they learn from the highly intelligent people that carry society is not applied and they are unable to make things for people to learn. They cannot aid society, and are simply limiting society by using resources yet being unable to return the favour. Be it working at McDonald's to running Apple to discovering the origin of the universe, all people are useful in some way, but at what point does the use that they give to a community, as small as a village or as big as a galaxy, become less than the resources they use?
I believe some clarification is necessary. Although I have given modern examples, this question is primarily aimed at a naturally competitive society whereby if your society doesn't have enough resources, it will collapse in on itself and fall apart, quite like Rome did, although without some of the separate political reasons. The terms are that this society does not have to be exclusive to itself and only its natural residents. It can trade, communicate, have complex social,economic and political systems, but resources are limited. This is not set in the world that we have whereby there is a seemingly endless amount of resources (not anymore!) where anyone can live and we have the resources to provide. The point is that, the resources and limitations thereof, matter and are significant to determine what society prospers, what society is consumed by another, and what society collapses into chaos and anarchy, for all its resources to fall apart to nothing.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
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TigerNinja
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by TigerNinja »

Hereandnow wrote: February 14th, 2018, 10:56 pm JamesofSeattle, you're probably right about that, given that it makes a compelling position to hold that those with the emotional ability to will the elimination of the "unable to contribute" are likely too competitive, or hostile, or idealistic (Christians building a new Jerusalem on a Hill),or cutthroat and coldblooded to survive. It could be argued that self interest could follow through to success, but the only ones I can think of with the capacity to think truly like this are, frankly, thoughtless, one dimensional deplorables.
I never said that self interest is the only way to success. I simply believe it can, and it is natural to think that. Would I be right is thinking that you are limited to not seeing beyond your own limitations placed into you by a society founded upon Judea-Christian morals? I refer to my previous clarification. In all honesty, I think that by Judea- Christian morals I am the embodiment of some Satanic being for my sacrilege and manipulation and similar things. I exaggerated but I am still probably quite a bad person. I simply look at how things would be naturally. I in no way shape or form think things were better when we walked 7 miles for water and 10s of miles for meat during a hunt(as some people still do), but simply think that some natural laws still do apply. Where would you be if all (truly all) your money went to charity, without accepting it yourself? If you are going to keep money to yourself, you may grow up to be a despicable person by most of society, hated and rejected (or simply seen as a bit a [insert ambiguous curse used for self centred people]) but nevertheless, you will most likely have money. You gain power through manipulation, but in the (paraphrased) words of Machiavelli "It is better to be feared than loved."
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
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TigerNinja
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Re: What Use Are Those To Society That Cannot Aid It?

Post by TigerNinja »

Steve3007 wrote: February 15th, 2018, 3:37 am
JamesOfSeattle wrote:I I disagree with this way of dealing with TigerNinja's questions. If an idea is good, then it is often strengthened by being challenged and being seen to meet that challenge. TigerNinja has challenged an idea.
I seem to have a habit of challenging ideas in the eyes of my peers.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
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