Stop Saying You Are Independent

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Steve3007
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Steve3007 »

I think there are various serious problems with the concept of a completely free market in labour, governed only by market forces. But the idea that employers are independent of their employees is not one of them.

The whole point of this model of a free market in labour is that both need each other and that they therefore come to a mutually beneficial contractual arrangement. The employee searches for the highest bidder for his/her skills. The employer pays as little as he/she can get away with. The market decides on the "fair value" that results from these two opposing forces. So the free market idea explicitly acknowledges this mutual relationship.

The problem is the limited extent to which the market in labour is genuinely free. Most employees do not have the luxury to be able to coolly and dispassionately search for the highest bidder for their skills - to treat their skills/labour as a commodity. They live from one pay-cheque to the next and often don't have a completely free choice. Their choice is free only to a limited extent. Taking the extreme case to make the point: choosing whether to take that job offer or see your children starve is not a genuine choice!

This is why I disagree with the people who make the extreme libertarian argument in favour of free markets, and those who see the free market concept as an ideology. These are the people who believe that nothing except policing and judiciary should be funded by taxation, that taxation is theft and that the overriding law of society is that individual people should be "left alone" so long as they don't directly harm others.

Obviously I disagree with this, but I think to throw away this concept altogether would be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The concept of markets is undoubtedly a powerful tool for generating innovation and wealth. But it isn't a panacea. If unfettered, it clearly leads to instabilities in society that ultimately cause harm. So it needs to be controlled by centrally enforced laws protecting both consumers and employees. And, for that matter, employers. If simply "leave people alone" so long as they don't directly and immediately harm others then much greater long term harm to all is the result.

-- Updated Tue Nov 14, 2017 8:54 am to add the following --

(That was a party political broadcast by the boring centre-left, middle-of-the-road, pragmatist, non-revolutionary, "let's all just calm down and think this through" party.)
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Burning ghost
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Burning ghost »

Steve -
(That was a party political broadcast by the boring centre-left, middle-of-the-road, pragmatist, non-revolutionary, "let's all just calm down and think this through" party.)
Fence sitter!! HAHA!! :mrgreen:
AKA badgerjelly
Steve3007
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Steve3007 »

Yeh, it's funny, that old "fence-sitting" criticism. If you decide that there are pros and cons to both sides of an argument you'll quite often be told that you're a fence-sitter, and then the metaphor is often extended to suggest that the pointy wooden upright parts of the fence will give you a sore bum. I'm never quite sure how that extension of the metaphor works.

As a rule, people are generally more comfortable when there are two clearly identifiable sides to an argument who can shout at each other across the fence. In this case the game is socialists vs capitalists. It's the old human tendency to tribalism again.

-- Updated Tue Nov 14, 2017 12:47 pm to add the following --

Getting back to the OP:

I think it's obvious that we are all inter-dependent in the way described. But there does seem to be a trend in "western" societies to tell each other (mostly via the medium of advertising and music) that we are all powerful, independent individuals. It's all about "you". "It's L'Oreal, and you're worth it". "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all".

It seems to me that the most obvious single cause of this is simply increasing material affluence. The affluence allows us to increasingly kid ourselves that we can live without the help of others. Materially poorer societies and communities (or those that can more readily remember the poverty of the past) tend to have tighter communal bonds.

As with so much in life, there are pros and cons to this new-found affluence, with the ability that it gives us to all sit by ourselves in our own little houses eating our microwaved meals.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by SimpleGuy »

It's then independence in terms of official outspoken common agreement partiallly liable to your job . Everything else would be in terms of law a harassment. Surely aristotle already claimed unseen existences in terms of the soul attached to the human body. But one should always distiguish between contacts of free agreement, contacts due to your profession, and pure harassment and psychological torture and warfare. There are subtle limits in behaviour for each of the cases. But one should be aware that unwanted contacts with others and this is your reference to independence, that not restricted to merely coincidental talks are a harassment or even a stalking activity and with it against the eu-charts of human rights. That nobody shall be submissed to humilliating treatment of ones own personality.
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HomoFaber
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by HomoFaber »

ZoneOfNonBeing wrote: Since we all use language, we are automatically involved in a chain of connection. Language implies the existence of other people to communicate with. To learn a language is to become involved in a relationship.
(...) We do not create the languages we speak, we are born into an ongoing conversation.
(...) Language refers to an alphabet, words, rules of grammar, and a system of numbers used to send a message. Humans are the only species that use language. However, language is not simply an instrument. Language is the ultimate expression of humanity. We require recognition from others to gain coherence at all – and language makes that possible. Humans are language and language is human.Humans use language because, unlike other animals, we have self-consciousness. This self-consciousness separates us from others (i.e. ‘I’ am not ‘you’) and the external world (i.e. ‘I’ am not ‘that’). Language is an attempt to fill these gaps. Thus, language is always deployed in the service of unity.
(...)
language is dependency. Language prohibits independence.
In the quest to understand humanness (philosophy) you have found the holy grail. language is IT, the entirety of what makes us human. Forget about self-consciousness. The octopus passes the mirror test and therefore possesses self-consciousness. Homosapien-ism is a bunny trail.

But having found the grail you try to use it to buttress a preexisting ideology: the virtue of unity. This is subjectivity or "the discourse of the other,” and, I think, is what Burning Ghost argued against. Take a more objective look at language.

Language is vocabulary and syntax. My dog has a vocabulary but no syntax. Only humans have vocabulary and syntax. Only humans have language. Repeat this herescy often enough and you will become embroiled in the argument that language, like your independence, is merely relative, that humans have just a slightly more advanced language than the animals do. At that point, especially if you really are enamored with unity, you might throw the grail away and forget about all this.

Here is where you have taken a wrong turn: Because we learn language from the collective doesn't mean that we can't take our language skill into our own private worlds and using our inner-voice have discourse with ourselves - i.e. thinking. (understand that in this private world "the discourse of others" always tries to invade but with discipline they can be repelled, subjectivity [the discourse of others] is relative to the strength of the individual thinker) When I have a conversation with myself I am no more relating to the collective which gave it to me than I am relating to Prometheus when I light a fire.

Here is a test for you to do as a pure individual entirely independent of the collective. In the still of the night try to think about some idea while gagging your inner-voice.

You might find that the incredible power of language is not about enhancing our social connectivity (many animal species are socially connected), but language is the power of abstract thinking and the freedom it gives the creative individual to transcend reality - to think outside the box. ("box" = the real world and the subjectivity of the collective)

.
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LuckyR
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by LuckyR »

Since we agree that no one is absolutely independent, independence exists in the mind (and words) of folks who are seeking to take complete credit for their successes, without acknowledging the contributions to that success from others or society as a group. The fact that an ego would seek to present such an idea surprises no savvy observer.
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Wayne92587
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Wayne92587 »

The only way to be independent is to be irrelevant, to have no relative, numerical value, to have a numerical value of Zero-0; in that way you can be an Individual, a Singularity, having a dual quality.
Wayne92587
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Wayne92587 »

You will then be Free to do as you will.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Sy Borg »

Wayne92587 wrote: December 9th, 2017, 7:35 pmThe only way to be independent is to be irrelevant, to have no relative, numerical value, to have a numerical value of Zero-0; in that way you can be an Individual, a Singularity, having a dual quality.

You will then be Free to do as you will.
Certainly people will bother you much less. However, if you have territory or possessions, then you will probably be interfered with.

However, how can one be truly independent as they type on this object designed and built by societies? I do appreciate Atreyu's perspective about being relatively independent in trying to support oneself and others rather than being dependent on someone paying for you. That's about as far as independence goes, though, because every self-made man climbed to the top by using the avenues created and maintained by others.
Steve3007
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Steve3007 »

If one wanted to manufacture a single laptop computer capable of connecting to the internet without any dependence on any other people, made from raw materials taken directly from the environment, I wonder how much of the entire history of human technological development would have to be repeated. I suppose the first thing to do would be to re-discover fire. Then dig up some rocks containing metal ores and create a furnace to smelt them. And so on. All kinds of supporting technologies would have to be developed too. Off the top of my head, I don't think I can think of any part of human development that would not have to be repeated in order to claim that the computer was created completely independently of other people.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Sy Borg »

It's mind blowing when you put it like that - the weight of so much history, all that work done by so many over long periods of time. Further, the code, materials, manufacturing and distribution comes together from various parts of the globe - from minerals and oil in the ground to a computer in your home. Many online, quite understandably, air various grievances about the human race but what we humans achieve is extraordinary. Even some ancient plumbing and other structures are marvels of inspiration and ingenuity. The pyramids. Indigenous medicine and invention.

In truth, we are lucky to not be truly independent, to enjoy the benefits of collective achievement, even if the price is at times being driven to distraction by interfering hominids. There is always a price. For many, the price of true independence is too high; there is a reason why animals (and humans) tend to live longer in captivity than in the wild, with all its dangers, privations and vulnerability.
Wayne92587
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Wayne92587 »

I am going to use Freedom as an example.
Freedom is relative only as it exists in a system of Chaos.
Individuality is relative only if the individual is part of a greater Whole.

A Free Spirit must be able to maintain freedom within a system of chaos, which means that at Times one must be free from the need to be free, boundless, sometime one must be free to not do as thy will.

In order to be free one must be able to maintin his or her freedom, to no butt heads with the enemy.

Being Free, independent, being able to do as thy will at the moment could end up being counter productive for the Individual.
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Albert Tatlock
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Albert Tatlock »

Wayne92587 wrote: December 11th, 2017, 12:38 pm In order to be free one must be able to maintin his or her freedom
Wow, you're right, I never really thought of it like that.
Steve3007
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Steve3007 »

Greta wrote:Further, the code, materials, manufacturing and distribution comes together from various parts of the globe - from minerals and oil in the ground to a computer in your home.
Yes, so I suppose one of things I'm probably going to have to do before I can start making my independent laptop is make a boat and sail it around the world to collect various minerals that aren't available at home.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Stop Saying You Are Independent

Post by Sy Borg »

Steve3007 wrote: December 15th, 2017, 5:01 am
Greta wrote:Further, the code, materials, manufacturing and distribution comes together from various parts of the globe - from minerals and oil in the ground to a computer in your home.
Yes, so I suppose one of things I'm probably going to have to do before I can start making my independent laptop is make a boat and sail it around the world to collect various minerals that aren't available at home.
Refinement, design, manufacture ... we are so very, very stitched up :) We are not as captive as the cells of our bodies, but arguably not miles off. Fortunately we can still fly under the radar somewhat while society has bigger fish to fry and enjoy a few freedoms. These opportunities will inevitably shrink in the future due to population and resource pressure, and concomitant increased governmental authoritarianism. It's easy to imagine that personal freedom will eventually be reduced purely to the realm of virtual reality where one can't do any damage.
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