You Can't Fix People

Imagine you're fixing a car. There's a (relatively) clear spec on when it's considered fixed, and you strive to get there. You can get there by following instructions, or you can get there by experimentation.

Without knowledge of what is considered fixed, you're making shots in the dark. A lot of people are, and you have a chaotic system.

Comming up with a framework for what a person should strive to be is technically a job for philosophy, but that's not working, is it? We seem to be naturally change averse, and a lot of philosophical works boil down to rationalizing what you are doing is right. Kant reads like the bible of irresponsibility (What is the "Kathegorischer Imperativ" exept absolving responsibility to a higher mandate?), and Nietsche reads like he's trying to give you a free pass for everything provided you're the Supermensch (and who doesn't class themselves that way?).

No, creating frameworks is a dangerous game, and I've stopped trusting anyone to do a proper job at it. All religions I know of failed at it to various degrees (look at that track record for gods sake! They're still being used to justify murder). Most philosophers had their ideas tried out (as far as that was viable), and those approaches again didn't work out perfectly.

And here we're sitting, no idea how to do things, but hellbent on doing something. It's amazing we figured out science, which is why we can figure out those problems easily. But philosophy? We don't seem to have progressed there.

So yeah, fixing people is about as futile (right now) as physics has been before the scientific method.

I think it's a shame that more people don't try to get to know others better; everyone has a life and a history, and it's quite fascinating to hear the stories of how another has come to intersect your path in life.

The trend that distresses me most, though, is that we've forsaken modeling people (which is bad) to instead simply bowing to statistics to do our reasoning for us (which is worse). Treating people as knowable agents using a flawed model is still more respectful of the human condition than saying "Well, they tend to do this given that, so, um, yeah."

People are not robots, but they also sure as hell aren't dice.

If certain people bother you, then the best you can do is try to change your own outlook and circumstances to deal better with the negativity you feel towards their behaviour.

Or to put it another way, the only person you're responsible for fixing is yourself.