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Comment by freemanon | Hacker News Reader

I've actually discussed the same idea with friends. My western friends find the idea very repulsive, where for me with my mixed east-west background find it worthy of exploration.

IMO the west's ideals reflects their history of loosely-confederated tribes, e.g. the Germanic and Frankish tribes. Centralised governments are the exception (the Roman empire, lasting only a few hundred years).

Compare this with the east with China being the center of eastern civilisation for more than 2000 years. Education, order and standardisation enabled society to progress beyond wars and civil wars into commerce and creativity.

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Western cultures, as originating from the Greeks, prioritise the individual in society and usually attempt to improve through the conflict and collaboration of such individuals. Eastern cultures, as originating from Confucianism, prioritise the group and attempt to improve through harmony of social structure and contribution to the greater good.

I wouldn't say one is better than the other, but they're very alien in comparison to each other and this makes preference extremely subjective. Both approaches have significant drawbacks in addition to all their successes, so it's natural that an Easterner would entertain this satirical idea (seeing the positives) while it'd be abhorrent to a Westerner (seeing only the negatives)

The individualized approach is more congruent with reality, as people experience the world as individuals. Collectivism is based on a conceptual error, in personifying society, instead of recognizing it as an abstract notion. The advancement of human civilization was driven by the recognition of individual rights and the emphasis on the individual.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-pol...

If you're into eastern philosophies/religions, there is an emphasis on understanding the Ego. Personally I would rather have less rights and be less rich than to see the less-fortunate continue to suffer.

A bigger house or a fancier cars doesn't persuade me more than doing something to empower the disenfranchised.

Edit: Also, civilisations arose because people were able to work together and trust each other. We stopped killing each other or relieving ourselves whenever we want so that we can all have a better quality of life.

A society that emphasizes the rights of the individual is a highly cooperative one, with a preponderance of altruism. A society of selfish people will never be able to maintain a social order that affords individual rights.

>>Personally I would rather have less rights and be less rich than to see the less-fortunate continue to suffer.

That's not inconsistent with believing in individual rights. If you have a right to self-autonomy, then you also have a right to give up your own rights to help the needy.

It's only if you deem your will as more worthy than that of others, and would like to use coercive means to compel others to make the same trade-off, that you no longer believe in individual rights.

I would say it's more congruent with evolution, which is to say it aligns with the idea that mutations or other advantages can put an organism far ahead of its competitors and improves the species through genetic preservation (or historical preservation, in the case of societies).

I don't buy that it's out-and-out better than a collectivist system at a society level (even though I consider myself very much an individualist). As usual with these sorts of polarising perspectives, the ideal is probably somewhere in the middle and a purely individualist society will never be able to persist long term.

It’s funny, I thought this comment was going to go the opposite way. The first examples I thought of in evolution were things like ant colonies, where individuals sacrifice themselves for the good of the collective gene pool, and are extremely successful as a species because of it.

But yeah, there are more individualistic species that are also successful. I guess it depends on the ecological niche, and both strategies can find success depending on the environment they are in?

Sums up my thoughts! Haven't met many people who can appreciate or at least listen to both point of views, unfortunately.

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