[FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure

[Marcus Daniels]

As far as I can tell, people that complain about the decay of morality are mostly complaining about how the world isn't how they prefer.  But they either don't do anything to make the world they way they want, or do crazy irresponsible things that don't even achieve their aims.. to the extent they even understand them.   I worry that the "left" has started to believe their own Rachel-just-so stories about what is fair and unfair, good and bad, etc. when in the end all there is power.  Take it or have it taken from you. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2021 1:09 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure

OK. So cooperation is the foundation. As ContraPoints goes through her essay, she makes the point that morality is an envy/resentment construct where those without power express their inability to change the structure - can't take down the big dog and maybe even don't WANT to take down the big dog. That latter part would be a part of, at least, anarcho-syndicalism. Weak groups may not want to take down powerful groups, rather model the dynamic further into the future and nudge the powerful group.

In either case, there's no need for morality as ContraPoints describes because morality only comes from complete inability and resentment. As long as you can nudge, you can replace morality with practical action. But, of course, some of us want larger/faster nudges than others of us. So, there'd still be a valid type of *frustrated* or somesuch ... maybe not morality but "stance" or "operating principle".


On 8/10/21 12:15 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Glen writes:
> 
> < So, "seeming to seek power" might be a good indicator of someone who 
> shouldn't have it. But "not seeming to seek power" isn't at all 
> sufficient for identifying those who should have it. >
> 
> Thus anarchists view that power should not be allowed, period -- all organization should be slowed.
> Enforcing that view is essentially impossible without creating the conditions for cooperation.   There's always a big dog to take down.  So in the end one can opt for Realpolitik or some bible thumping.  There was never any morality.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2021 11:26 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
> <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure
> 
> Sure.   I'm just trying to get the "pathological" aspect of personality defined away.  You talk to your billionaire friend with the initials PT and he explains why it is necessary to drain the blood of random victims.  It all holds together from his integrated world view.  How can it be called immoral except by using another integrated world view?
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2021 11:17 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure
> 
> The problem is that, in the case of editing Wikipedia articles or a Jared Kushner operating some kind of "data science" scheme in the background, you can't tell whether a person who *seems* to not seek power actually doesn't seek power. Many of those wikipedia contributors are seeking power and aren't working for "the" common good (maybe some local in-group good, but not a global one). So, "seeming to seek power" might be a good indicator of someone who shouldn't have it. But "not seeming to seek power" isn't at all sufficient for identifying those who should have it.
> 
> And it's more difficult to simulate the moral code of someone who seems to NOT seek power.
> 
> On 8/10/21 10:54 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> What if they are integrated high-functioning sociopaths?   By a common-sense evaluation, Trump is high-functioning.  He became president, after all.   People that seek power tend to be the sort of people that probably shouldn’t have it, in my experience.
>>
>>  
>>
>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Frank 
>> Wimberly
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 10, 2021 10:33 AM
>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group 
>> <friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Moral collapse and state failure
>>
>>  
>>
>> Psychologists I know would call a person whose behavior is consistent with his self description is integrated rather than moral.  "Integrated" is usually a good quality but not if someone happily describes himself in sociopathic terms.  Trump is, in my non-professional opinion, an amoral, narcissistic sociopath.
>>
>> ---
>> Frank C. Wimberly
>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>
>> 505 670-9918
>> Santa Fe, NM
>>
>>  
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 11:24 AM uǝlƃ ☤>$ <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Yeah, it was long. I only got through half of it during my workout this morning.
>>
>>     I suppose it's right to say that the normative definition of 
>> moral would exclude Trump (or people like him). But if we stuck to 
>> your idea that a particular morality be *expressible*. (FWIW, I think 
>> the extra qualifier "independently of oneself" is redundant, at least a little.
>> Any expression has to be at least somewhat objective ... spoken word 
>> causes air vibrations, video recordings of someone talking, written 
>> documents, etc.)
>>
>>     So, there's a hot debate at the moment in machine learning about the different usage patterns for interpretable ML vs explainable ML, whereas "explainable" is weaker in that it doesn't give any direct access to the mechanism, only describes it somewhat ... "simulates" it. Interpretable ML is supposedly a kind of transparency so that you can see inside, have access to the actual mechanism that executes when the algorithm makes a prediction.
>>
>>     Targeting your idea that a moral code must be expressible, do you mean a perfect, transparent expression of the mechanism a moral actor uses? Or do you mean simulable ... such that we can build relatively high fidelity *models* of the mechanism inside the actor?
>>
>>     On 8/10/21 10:11 AM, Russ Abbott wrote:
>>     > The Envy video looked like a lot of fun, but it was too long for me to sit through it.
>>     >
>>     > Regarding morality, my guess is that it's not predictability that leads people to consider someone moral, it's acting according to a framework that can be expressed independently of oneself. Society-wide utilitarianism would be fine; "someone much like Trump [who] says they're an exploitative, gaming, solipsist" and then behaves in a way consistent with that description, would not be considered moral no matter how consistently their behavior simply optimized short-term personal benefits. After all, to take your own Trump example, I doubt that many people would characterize Trump as moral.
>>
>>     -- 
>>     ☤>$ uǝlƃ


--
☤>$ uǝlƃ

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