[ale] [OT] rant - decadence in society - DRM

[David Hillman]

Well said, Mike.  I agree religion has nothing to do with it.  I also think
that we are forgetting stimuli in our society has a big effect on how people
think, or whether they think at all.  In a recent article in Newsweek,
researchers showed how the decision center in our brain will shut down when
presented with too much information (i.e., stimuli).  It's especially bad
for people that aren't able to tune out or filter that stimuli (ADD?).
 Those people become nervous wrecks when asked to make a quick decision from
a number of choices.  Even the people that are very good at ignoring the
stimuli eventually become frustrated when the number of choices increase
beyond a certain point--irrational behavior sets in then.  I suppose it's
similar to how Dolphins will become depressed or commit suicide (stop
breathing) when they experience auditory sensory overload; the ones that are
especially sensitive tend to go first.  The documentary, The Cove, was
heartbreaking to watch because of that effect.

Lack of sleep also wrecks havoc with the decision centers of human beings.
 An article in Newsweek showed how losing just a few hours of sleep will
dramatically decrease memory efficiency over a period of time.  It can even
lead to depression.  Lack of sleep is far worse than lack of food.  Our
fast-paced society is to blame for this, leading to frayed nerves and quick
tempers.  We simply aren't built to process tremendous amounts of
information like computers, and we definitely aren't built to process that
information rapidly; we are only built to quickly notice patterns and
movement in the environment.  Our memory is the first to play tricks on us
when we are asked to perform a task for which we weren't designed to do.
 The book, Music and Memory, describes the interplay of short-term and
long-term memory as a feedback loop that needs time (and rest) to work
properly.  We are nothing but nervous, babbling wrecks without proper
functioning memory and decision centers.

On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 3:28 AM, Michael Trausch <mike at trausch.us> wrote:

> On 03/25/2011 12:16 AM, David Ritchie wrote:
> > Another piece, IMO, is that there are more and more people who don't
> > believe in a God. As a result, they are not fearful of divine
> > punishment. I feel that such individuals may be just a little bit less
> > restrained in these areas than those people who do worry about such
> > things. They see more upside than downside - and since the moral
> > calculation is surpressed and only an economic one remains, there is
> > less restraint there.
>
> I must say that I disagree vehemently on this point.  Allow me to
> explain why I say that (ironically, I was just a few moments ago having
> a very similar conversation with someone else).
>
> Religion has *absolutely* nothing to do with any of this.  A belief in a
> diety (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with whether a person has the
> ability to critically think about whether their actions are right or
> wrong.  In fact, I can think of many situations where the ethical thing
> to do is directly opposed to the moral thing to do from a Christian
> standpoint.  Religious frameworks are something to never enter a
> discussion on "right" and "wrong", IMHO, because nearly every religious
> framework has something different to say on issue X for (almost) any
> value of X.  I therefore consider the questions of right and wrong to be
> something which cannot be suitably based on *any* religious framework
> (not just the Christian framework, but *any* framework).  Now I'll grant
> that for a Christian, all other diverging frameworks are typically
> considered to be "wrong", but that is a point that I will conveniently
> ignore since it's tangential at best to this particular thread (and for
> the rest of this message I will completely ignore all religious
> frameworks).
>
> Whether an action is right or wrong from the viewpoint of an individual
> depends on the set of rules that they are using to assess such a
> question.  The *real* problem, IMHO, is that most people are either
> unable or unwilling (more on that in a moment) to apply critical
> thinking and reasoning to the decisions that they make and fail to truly
> assess what they are doing before they do it.  Think about it this way:
> why does someone steal an item from a store?  It could be because:
>
>   * They do not know that it is wrong (maybe they are a child, or
>     they have never been taught that it is wrong and why that is the
>     case)
>
>   * They think that the "good" that will result from the theft is
>     something which outweighs the "badness" of the theft.
>
>   * They think that the other party will suffer no real loss and
>     therefore the action cannot be considered to be wrong.
>
>   * They think that they are entitled.
>
>   * They think that they are exempt from legal rules.
>
>   * They think that it's fun.
>
>   * They do not think at all.
>
> It could be for other reasons, too.
>
> Now, the way *I* gauge whether an action is "right" or "wrong" has
> nothing to do with what the Bible or the Torah or the Qur'an has to say
> about the issue.  Nothing at all.  For that matter, it has nothing to do
> with what our legal system has to say about it, as far as I am
> concerned:  our legal system is chock full of actions that are deemed to
> be illegal, but are not in any way wrong (unless you bring almost any
> religion into it).  For example, it is illegal to consume certain
> substances (the justification being that an individual will do harm to
> oneself by doing so).  It is similarly illegal in most jurisdictions to
> attempt to commit suicide (because someone in the government has decided
> that it is "wrong" to do so).
>
> In fact, using any religious framework as a template for law has the
> effect of imposing a limited set of values held by (one or more)
> religions upon all people in the jurisdiction, whether or not they
> subscribe to that set of one or more religions that agree on the issue.
>  There are *still* laws which are on the books in some states even
> though the Supreme Court has ruled them to be unconstitutional and which
> are derived from at least one individual's (though frequently more)
> perception of a "rule" from a religious framework---that is, the
> government has made certain actions illegal not because they cause
> anyone harm, but because somewhere, one or more individuals (most likely
> "more") believe that the action is "wrong" or "immoral" given their own
> personal framework.
>
> Teaching a person to fear punishment, jail, eternal damnation, or
> whatever else is no substitute for teaching someone logic, how to apply
> logic, and instilling a set of (truly!) universal axioms to go along
> with that logic.
>
> As an example:  Is it wrong to stop the beating of a human heart?  If we
> look to the Christian framework, the answer is quite clear: thou shall
> not kill.  It doesn't say why, nor does it define under what conditions
> it would be permissible to break that commandment.  And in the general,
> average, everyday world, the answer is almost always "yes, it is wrong
> to stop the beating of a human heart."  There is an assumption that the
> stopping of a human heart causes some sort of harm.
>
> However, what if the question is asked in the context of a person who is
> in the end stages of a fatal cancer?  Or, what about within the context
> of a person who has just suffered an injury so severe that it is a
> certainty that they will be dead in anywhere from a few minutes to a few
> hours?  What if, in either one of the previous contexts, that person
> asks for death to come sooner rather than later, knowing that they will
> die soon in either instance?  Is it then wrong to stop their heart?  Or
> does it, through the set of (admittedly exceedingly rare and
> corner-case) circumstances, become the right action to take because it
> is the action that will cause that person less harm?
>
> Personally, I could not believe that any diety (assuming the presence
> thereof) that is fair (again, assuming and conditional on validity of
> last assumption) and just (again, assuming, yada yada) would look at
> such an action as a violation.
>
> The more common example is that of self-defense:  is it wrong to defend
> yourself if the cost is the life of the person that you are defending
> yourself against?  I would say that it is not.  Of course, that depends
> on a lot of things, too.  Two more concrete examples on that.
>
> Let's say that we have an individual who spent decades as a locksmith.
> Let's assume that they think they are on their front porch, and let's
> further assume that they have forgotten their keys.  Let's say that they
> know how to defeat the locks on your front door with a minimum of fuss
> and therefore that person then does.  They then enter the home, but find
> it unrecognizable.  They are disoriented, they are confused.  What is
> the correct action, then?  I would say that unless they do something
> further to indicate that they are an immediate threat to your person or
> property that the correct action would be to invite them in, give them a
> cup of tea, coffee, water, something, and call the police non-emergency
> number to tell them what has happened and that you think that you have a
> disoriented and potentially (legally) incompetent individual.  It would
> be wrong to press charges in such an instance, and it would be wrong to
> turn them away if they are truly disoriented.  Of course, then it could
> be a ruse of sort, but one really cannot afford to make that assumption
> without any proof:  any human with a conscience would forever feel guilt
> that perhaps they made the wrong assumption.
>
> Now, let's say that we have an individual who forcefully busts your door
> down (property is thus already damaged, and this is obviously an
> aggressive move).  They are moving quickly and throughout, and you
> encounter them.  What do you do?  Do you defend yourself?
> Absofsckinglutely you do.  And legally speaking, if they have a gun (and
> thus pose an immediate perceived threat to your life, whether it has
> bullets or not) or if they come close enough to use a melee weapon then
> you absolutely have the right to defend yourself and your family through
> the use of deadly force if necessary.  I differ from the law's point of
> view slightly:  The moment that you aggressively cross my threshold, I
> assume nothing about whether or not the intent is to steal, to kill, or
> to do something else altogether.  I don't know about anyone else on this
> list, but if someone is in my house that is not supposed to be in my
> house and they've acquired that entry through an aggressive means, that
> seems enough to fully make me fearful and act to defend (or, of course,
> evade if defense is not possible).
>
> What about the example of the theft of a loaf of bread?  A staving
> individual who has not eaten in days steals a loaf of bread from a
> retailer.  Is that action wrong?  Again, I probably differ from most
> people here; I would say that *yes*, it is wrong.  A person who is weak
> from starvation would clearly look it, and could ask for a loaf of bread
> from the store, anyone working for the store, or anyone else in the
> store.  On the *flip* side of the coin, I would also consider it wrong
> to deny a request from someone obviously in need if one is able to
> fulfill the request.
>
> Another example would be those that stand out and about, loitering at
> things like the McDonald's drive-thru in the late hours of the night.
> Often they will ask for a dollar or a cigarette.  I will give a
> cigarette if asked, but I will never give the money.  I will offer to
> get them a meal, though.  Not surprisingly, most of those people refuse:
>  they aren't there because they're hungry.  They're there because they
> have found that they can convince people that they are hungry and to
> simply give them money, which they then use for other things.  If
> someone comes up to me and asks me for something that is a bare
> necessity, and I can afford to do so, I will simply purchase and give
> that to them.  I will never give up the money, even if I have cash in my
> wallet (a rare occurrence).  But I will not deprive another person of
> their need to eat or drink, either: I will help if I can.
>
> In any case, it's late and I cannot possibly continue.  But I felt that
> much at least needed to be said.  If an action by an individual can only
> harm that particular individual, it cannot be considered to be wrong
> (exception being if the individual does not possess the mental faculty
> to be aware of his or her own action).
>
> If an action by an individual causes harm to another individual, it is
> most likely wrong (of course there are multitudes of practical
> exceptions to that rule, such as performing CPR or abdominal thrusts on
> a person, which may injure that person [thus causing harm], but to the
> effect that the person may continue to live [thus vastly outweighing the
> harm done]).
>
> If an action by an individual restricts the freedom of another
> individual (outside of contexts where such restriction is appropriate),
> it is most likely wrong.
>
> If an action by an individual ends the life of another individual, it is
> most likely wrong (again with exceptions).
>
> And of course, there will likely be people who disagree with some or all
> of what I have said, but them's my 2¢.
>
> > A big part of the problem is that societies only
> > work well when the bulk of people are self-regulating in their
> > behavior - something that is becoming increasingly less common.
>
> I think that this is simply because people do not think or because they
> feel entitled; that is, Hanlon's Razor.
>
>        --- Mike
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