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Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#31

Post by redorb »

sp332 wrote: post #29
thalur wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that "fair"?, or is that what those who worked all their lives want everyone to believe in order to justify themselves having worked all their lives? Just a thought, not an opinion.

I don't think that makes sense. Maybe "If you don't work you get to eat anyway" is what those who sat on their fat asses all day want everyone to believe to justify sitting on their asses all day.

I know many skiny lazy people; We can debate without slandering... I think "Working your whole life" and "not working and taking it easy your whole life" are both choices with consequences.. not choices necessarily between right and wrong in the big picture. Perhaps right and wrong in your head but not universally.

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#32

Post by adin »

rick888 wrote: post #17
Tichy wrote: post #11

I think it is just wrong to assume that social security exists because people are so good in their hearts and like being taken advantage of. Probably many (the majority) thinks so, but in reality, it is simply a form of insurance. Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street. That is a purely selfish reason - I think solid political systems should be based on selfishness.

" Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street." More social programs just create a lower class that has a lifetime dependence on the government for money. It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. Detroit is a good example of this. There were more social programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US.

It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. [...] There were more social programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US.

This should be pretty obvious to most HN readers, but I'm reminding people anyway. "Correlation does not imply causation".

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#33

Post by klenwell »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #2

I remember the first time I worked out that life's not fair. There's no over-arching justice to ensure that just because someone beats be at one thing they won't beat me at another. Nature as a whole has no sense of fair play. The best you can do is get on with life. Having said that, if you treat people well you often find that their sense of fair play gives you a safety net. But always remember: "Life is pain, high…

I've always found consolation in a line from one of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales:

"Injustice has parcelled out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow."

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#34

Post by cema »

gaius wrote: post #9
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #2

I remember the first time I worked out that life's not fair. There's no over-arching justice to ensure that just because someone beats be at one thing they won't beat me at another. Nature as a whole has no sense of fair play. The best you can do is get on with life. Having said that, if you treat people well you often find that their sense of fair play gives you a safety net. But always remember: "Life is pain, high…

"Fair" is "if you don't work you don't eat" but that isn't what people actually want...

Fair is more complicated. Mercy is part of fair. And, of course, treating our young and old in a different way than healthy adults is fair.

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#35

Post by cema »

gyardley wrote: post #25
splat wrote: post #21

Also related: Experimental Economist Bart Wilson on the Meaning of "Fair" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFpB7z5y3Y

Fascinating - the researcher in the video mentioned that 'fair' is an English-language concept without a precise one-to-one translation in other languages. Briefly messing about with Google Translate seems to bear this out - for many of the other languages I checked, Google suggested one word meaning 'just' and another meaning 'equitable'.

Deep down these are philosophical concepts, so it should not be surprising that different natural languages developed words with slightly different shades of meaning.

Language may be misleading too. For example, I think that the fair in "fair game" is different from the fair as in "fair society".

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#36

Post by gaius »

cema wrote: post #34
gaius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fair" is "if you don't work you don't eat" but that isn't what people actually want...

Fair is more complicated. Mercy is part of fair. And, of course, treating our young and old in a different way than healthy adults is fair.

Mercy is an exemption from fair. Sometimes mercy is right, true. But as often, mercy to one is "unfair" to another.

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#37

Post by StuffMaster »

gaius wrote: post #6

The past three years have seen the economies in both countries contract violently because of shenanigans by financial speculators hiding behind the legitimacy of our banking institutions Typical BBC revisionism - you would think that the deficit didn't exist prior to 2008. A deficit created by people who believed "fair" meant "some people work and the rest live off them".

Bush created the deficit because he believed that? I don't think you understand the cause of the deficit or the crisis.

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#38

Post by adin »

gyardley wrote: post #26
forinti wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the article states at the bottom that "the USA fairs very poorly when compared to European countries". And the Guardian showed the USA does worse than most OECD economies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst...

Isn't it interesting that 'worse' and 'very poorly' imply a negative value judgement? We seem to (well, at least I seem to) instinctively dislike the child of privilege, but at the same time I'm very interested in passing on whatever success I manage to have in life to my descendants, and systems and societies that make it more difficult for me to do so strike me as completely unfair. There's a bit of a contradiction…

I personally draw the line where ones success becomes dependent on the misfortune of others. From that viewpoint I don't really know of any systems or societies that does this, except maybe estate/inheritance taxes.

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#39

Post by gaius »

StuffMaster wrote: post #37
gaius wrote: post #6

The past three years have seen the economies in both countries contract violently because of shenanigans by financial speculators hiding behind the legitimacy of our banking institutions Typical BBC revisionism - you would think that the deficit didn't exist prior to 2008. A deficit created by people who believed "fair" meant "some people work and the rest live off them".

Bush created the deficit because he believed that? I don't think you understand the cause of the deficit or the crisis.

I don't think you understand what country I'm in ;-)

Re: Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

#40

Post by valkyrja »

rdtsc wrote: post #23

Life is not fair objectively but there is the belief that it _ought_ to be fair. That makes a big difference. It is part of the common sense protocol of interacting with people. _Most_ people will assume that life ought to be fair, they also assume that others assume the same thing. This belief in fairness can be exploited by sociopaths and those who end up in power. Of course, one can argue they ended up in a positi…

It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the criminals be punished in the afterlife.

It's not really that surprising. If I'm not wrong, the range of offenses in America included "sins" like idolatry, blasphemy and witchcraft. Society reflects on what gets a man into prison. Religious judgment has had something to say and it's not always "turn the other cheek"

Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal system is naive at its best.

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