Compromise Creates Values

> You could look at this as spoiled, or you could see it as someone who has an eye for detail. I don't know the tone they used, but I can imagine this was more like a Seinfeldesque observation of life thana legitimate gripe.

I tend to look at it like this: humans have a certain base capacity for worrying - for noticing and suffering problems - that's independent of their situations and the nature of problems themselves. Solving problems and improving our lives doesn't reduce worrying, as much as changes the nature of it.

The poor person sees the rich person complaining, and thinks to themselves those are all "first world problems", really nothing to be worked up about. But should said poor person work their way up and become wealthy, they may discover they're suddenly preoccupied by those same problems they used to dismiss as irrelevant.

There's also something to be said for being in vs. out of a certain situations. As a young adult, there ware many weird things I saw older adults worry about - or perhaps make choices based on (what I thought were) weird ethical priorities. Couple years later, with a spouse and two small kids, I find myself worrying about those same weird things, and making similar ethical choices, which suddenly feel entirely justified once you're responsible for and worrying about the physical and mental well-being of a small human under your care.

But yes, on top of that, there's also "having an eye for detail", varying degree of tolerance for minor annoyances, etc. - whole range, up to and including OCD.

Humans may have some minimum preoccupation with things that could be better. What makes it harder for those at the bottom is they have so few options or ways to resolve those things, and the challenges they face of often objectively much more serious. So a rich person can consider poorer perspectives and be thankful or even motivated to help others. A poor person looking up often cannot help even if they could sympathize.

Just a tangential note, but I find this use of "Seinfeldesque" fascinating. The characters in Seinfeld are based on an old stereotype, the kvetcher.

At this point, do people even know what tropes Seinfeld is based on?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...

> Arnold Schwarzenegger famously said that he works out in part because a tremendous physique cannot be bought, you must work for it every day, so it's a sign of character.

It is kind of a half-truth.

A physique can definitely be bought with steroid therapy, free time to exercise as much as you want, great nutrition and being born to parents with good genetics who are loving and caring (height and good body proportions are a proxy for strength)

But compared to say, buying a fancy car or house (other status items), a physique will require comparatively more effort.

Totally, but the bad compromise that I think many people find themselves in is regretting having pets because they can't travel, and regretting not traveling because they have pets. Whereas good compromise could be deciding not to have pets but volunteering at the local animal shelter (for example).

That's very well put and I fully agree with what you describe on the majority of the situations (i.e birth of a child, loss of a pet, other important thing in life...), but I'm a bit confused on how this nicely written "boredom of abundance" can create problems on people.

Oh well, that's probably because I don't have enough money (and time) to do all the things I want to do :-)

A silly example: when I was young I loved the game civ. In some games I would occasionally actually succeed at defeating all competition. But the game wouldn’t end cause you could try to go to another solar system or something still. But it was much less fun once the competition was over.

You're seriously comparing a cancer diagnosis with being bored while reveling in nigh-infinite opportunity?

There is a simple and obvious solution to this "abundance boredom": remove the abundance. There. Done. Put all your money in charity or, if that's too altruistic of you, lock it away in investments where you can't get at it easily and force yourself to live off of the national median income (~$38k individual, $70k household in the us).

The thing about being poorer is that you can't do the opposite, so it is quite understandable that no one in a poorer position has any sympathy.

Pretty weird "just so" assertion. conservative-progressive axis is devoid of insight

As a progressive, I don't disagree that the will to use opportunity may not be universal; or at least that it may be scaled down a lot in some people in absence of compulsion. I think it's obvious that if you remove the necessity 'stick' of eviction, starvation, loss of a vehicle/internet access/autonomy/independence, etc that forces people to pursue 'opportunity' in the form of an otherwise unfulfilling and uncomfortable career, they won't show up to that hateful job anymore. I know some of my fellow progressives believe that we can offer UBI sufficient for basic necessities and people will still choose to show up and stock shelves, scrub plates, plunge toilets, or trowel concrete for $10/hr of 'fun money' opportunity, I think those people have probably never worked those fields in their life and have an insufficient imagination to predict how the people who currently do those things relate to their jobs.

Where I disagree with you is that I don't think this maintenance of a will to use opportunity and social obligation is worth more than the suffering of the people who are coerced by our maintenance of this necessity, or who fail to meet the demands placed on them and experience the consequences of that failure.

Yes, were we stranded together from Shackleton's Endurance hauling sledges, or adrift at sea rowing a lifeboat, or subsistence farming to eke out survival on a desert island, and everyone had to pull their weight or we'd all die, I'd pull my fair weight and I'd advocate for the expulsion of anyone who didn't pull theirs and in so doing imperil the entire group.

No, we are not stranded together in this way on Spaceship Earth. We have enormously greater wealth and resources than we require to sustain our existence. No longer does 90% of society need to devote themselves to farming wheat at 7 bushels per acre to provide bread for a himself and a small fraction in excess that with 40 of his neighbors' farms can support handful of non-farmers for his community like a blacksmith, a miller, a tailor, and a feudal lord. A single tractor can seed, fertilize, or harvest dozens of acres per hour, and achieve yields exceeding 70 bushels per acre. We merely have to distribute the value more equitably, even if the amount of that value is halved, quartered, or decimated by people opting out of the will to work.

> As a social conservative, I disagree with this. Opportunity and will to make use of opportunity are two separate things and usually originate separately. But this will is NOT innate.

I'd go further and say that the reason any aristocracy has ever survived for more than a generation is because at the core of all its elaborate culture is a machine built to aggressively indoctrinate its next generation to be extremely moderate and conscious of its use of privileges.

There is a progressive ideological strain that banks its legitimacy on the belief that poverty can be one day eliminated, while traditional varieties of aristocrats believe that concentrated privileged is an inherent part of nature that needs to be managed. A "pure" progressive ideology would rise or fall with its apparent success -- it's also possible to imagine also an impure progressive ideology is a barbershop pole of which the real aristocrats are the ones working to maintain the illusion, stringing everyone else along.

That's how I see it anyway, not that I know what's really going on.

> I believe this reality is one reason that diminishing social obligation, to both learn and to teach, to apprentice then master, is important to maintain. I believe this reality is why many progressive policies fall flat.

I'm not sure why you believe progressives think otherwise.

The thing is, progressives believe that the people at the bottom of the society have circumstances so restricting that they are shoved to harmful choices, while people at the top of the society have, essentially, no constraint.

If you believe in challenges that nudge everyone to participate in a healthy way in the society, then, certainly, you also must want these issues to be fixed?

> So for those of us who learned that life is a grind from a young age, life loses some of the luster when the grind becomes unnecessary. Time to look elsewhere for fulfillment.

Fascinating. That may explain why my privileged-from-birth coworkers feel so differently about things than I do.

I also find life without the grind to be dull. It's like an MMO with a finished economy, no leveling up process, everyone just sitting around chatting? LOL. Take me to the new server, plz

I'll ask ChatGPT 4

Q: 'Does the idea that "given that all decisions are a form of action, and that votes, when made conscientiously, represent our values, then every choice is a reaffirmation of our values" sound nothing like existentialism?'

A: 'The idea that you proposed does indeed align with some aspects of existentialist philosophy, which emphasizes the individual, the subjective, and the importance of personal freedom and choice.

Existentialism posits that life has no inherent meaning, and it's up to each individual to create their own purpose or essence. This philosophy emphasizes the act of decision-making and the consequences that come with it. In this light, your statement that "all decisions are a form of action" and that these choices reflect our values is consistent with the existentialist view that we create meaning through our actions and choices.

Moreover, the existentialist emphasis on authenticity—living in accordance with one's true self and values—also resonates with the idea that conscientious voting is a reaffirmation of our values.'