This article, and it's sentiment, reminds me a lot of the very current "zero waste" movement.
Bear with me ...
When you are sufficiently detached from every mode of production and delivery and generation (like growing food, or building houses or working in the back of a kitchen) then it's very easy to look around your (modern, remodeled, beautifully appointed, first world) kitchen and ... stop buying plastic baggies or only use reusable containers, etc.[1]
But in reality, several levels below your level of life and consumption, an enormous amount of waste is being produced just to maintain the very modern life you lead. It's really not that interesting or impactful that you cut out most of the 1% that you actually touch inside the walls of your house.
This article sounds like the same kind of self-delusion ...
After violently conquering a continent, enslaving or killing or (otherwise subjugating) the indigenous population, and maintaining a political and economic lock on more than half the world (through direct and indirect warfare, economic colonization, and otherwise), the author, who holds an equal share with all of us on whose behalf this was done, opines (possibly from that same kind of kitchen) that he can't think of any use for power over others.
In reality, an enormous amount of power and violence has been, and continues to be, wielded on the author's behalf. It's really not that interesting or impactful that he doesn't want to "boss other people around".
[1] All very positive actions and not to be impeached.
I remember my friend arguing with my other friend that he is not responsible for what the US does as far as intervening in other countries' affairs. My friend clapped back and said are you not reaping the rewards of cheap oil and low-cost labor?
There's something that always tugs at the back of my mind about these arguments, and I think I've worked it out. It's the difference between responsibility and blame.
Say your parents went deeply into debt in an excessive and unnecessary way to raise you, but they genuinely thought they were doing the right thing, and you've found yourself needing to pay their debt off. You may or may not be responsible for the debt, but you're definitely not to blame for it. It's an imposed and somewhat unfair duty rather than the consequence of your own actions.
To me it intuitively feels like some responsibility is demanded by profiting from an outcome, while blame is only transferred by intent. A lot of arguments don't make it clear that there's a difference between the two. Your friend might be responsible for making US foreign policy less belligerent, but he's not to blame for it: his responsibility is a moral weight that's been unfairly foist upon him by other people, and it doesn't mean that he, personally, caused every death in the middle east since he was born.
I have always believed that in a democracy every citizen bears some responsibility for what the state does.
If you didn't vote then you basically supported the winner. Inaction is a kind of action when someone must win and a decision must be made.
And if you did vote and your "side" didn't win, then did you try to convince anyone?
Not getting involved is a decision of some kind.
The way I see it, if you fail in that basic of responsibility (voting and trying to convince people to support your view) then you share some blame for whatever the state does.
If you support what the state does or the outcome then you definitely own a share in the blame.
I find the concepts of responsibility and blame to be leaky beyond use in a lot of situations. Can you help the situation? Great, it would be wise to do so. If not, try and get yourself into a position where you can, if possible, otherwise don't worry about it. I often bring this up in the context of climate change. Are humans to blame/are they responsible? Maybe, maybe not, but if it's happening, and we can fix it, we should do the cost-benefit analysis anyways and take action if it's worth it.
Percentage of blame. When young, you should be blamed less than when old, assuming you don't help fix the system you are part of (eg. feed the needy, give home to the homeless, plant trees, etc.. fix)
I think any chain of moral responsibility breaks down when you go to a scale like this. Is homeless person who still eats because of someone else's brutal exploitation elsewhere "reaping rewards".
Whether one is guilty or not for mass scale evil in the world becomes extraordinarily hard to calculate - and moreover, pointless to calculate and serves only as empty accusation fodder on social media.
Basically, everyone, regardless of guilty, ought to be working to make the world a better place, probably a different place. How to do that is another post - or "an exercise left to the reader".
I don’t think reaping rewards equals guilt. It just means that regardless of you wanting the rewards, you will get them. I’m not trying to say that people who have problems can’t complain since someone will always have it worse.
This sounds like an issue with the limitations of the philosophical framework of cause and effect, which breaks down in complex systems. Also your comment on applying a process oriented solution, which is also the key difference between responsibility and blame that the op referred to. Responsibility is process, or action, oriented. Blame tries to invert that process.
There was an interesting discussion posted on HN the other day where rodney broke was suggesting the programming paradigm of cause and effect, of discrete input and output, was limiting.
Can't help but to see a link between these ideas, however disparate they might be.
Just because you benefit from something doesn't imply you are responsible for it. I benefit from some evolutionary advantages, but I am not responsible for entropy. There's a lot of noise in the world, and several layers of indirection is more than enough to mitigate some responsibility.
Yes it boils down to this. We are reaping the “ends” so we must be somewhat responsible for the “means” that got us there. That doesn’t mean each person is completely responsible, but we can’t pass the buck either.
I hope we understand that abdicating responsibility is not necessarily 'passing the buck', but potentially advocating for institutional change in a way that is congruent with your actual responsibilities in conducting the behavior of society.
Yeah, the author conflates power with ambition which is easy to do while in a peaceful, prosperous society where making just enough to live on doesn't necessarily come with serious downsides. It would be better titled "Ambition is Overrated". I think he's right that ambition is for the most part born from a desire for others' approval/admiration and fear of death. And that attitude/realization can be had in most any circumstance.
Regarding the kitchen comments, are those measures very positive and not to be impeached, or are they not that impactful? Or what do you mean by saying both? Also, your first line should read "and its sentiment".
"Regarding the kitchen comments, are those measures very positive and not to be impeached"
I don't want people to read this and think I am somehow against reducing waste or being overly critical of people striving to do so.
Reducing a single plastic bag or saving .01 kw/hours of electricity are, as I say, very positive and not to be impeached. I am not critisizing reducing waste - I am critisizing a failure to notice that the category of waste that one is reducing is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total that one is responsible for.
This was an incredibly well written anology. Every time I'be tried to explain this concept I struggled to share the 'many levels under you' kind of idea that we (developers) get when we talk about abstractions.
Bear with me ...
When you are sufficiently detached from every mode of production and delivery and generation (like growing food, or building houses or working in the back of a kitchen) then it's very easy to look around your (modern, remodeled, beautifully appointed, first world) kitchen and ... stop buying plastic baggies or only use reusable containers, etc.[1]
But in reality, several levels below your level of life and consumption, an enormous amount of waste is being produced just to maintain the very modern life you lead. It's really not that interesting or impactful that you cut out most of the 1% that you actually touch inside the walls of your house.
This article sounds like the same kind of self-delusion ...
After violently conquering a continent, enslaving or killing or (otherwise subjugating) the indigenous population, and maintaining a political and economic lock on more than half the world (through direct and indirect warfare, economic colonization, and otherwise), the author, who holds an equal share with all of us on whose behalf this was done, opines (possibly from that same kind of kitchen) that he can't think of any use for power over others.
In reality, an enormous amount of power and violence has been, and continues to be, wielded on the author's behalf. It's really not that interesting or impactful that he doesn't want to "boss other people around".
[1] All very positive actions and not to be impeached.