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What Do We Want, Really?

thefrailestthing.com

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Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#41

Post by richardw »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #25
rdtsc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> surely there's not an electric compressor out back? There is a diesel generator powering a compressor. I believe (anyone please correct me here), this has started as a need to keep the milk (one of the top products sold by the Amish) cool. It was one of the government requirements for them to be able to sell it legally. So they basically desided that running a diesel generator powering a compressor somehow worked o…

The Amish are not about low-tech; they're about self-sufficiency.

Unless they mined the ore and built the generator themselves, they're probably dependent on the rest of civilisation to some extent. They're probably about "minimising dependency" rather than full self-sufficiency.

Either way, very impressive way to live.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#42

Post by rwallace »

jostmey wrote: post #3

I like the article and and the point that it makes using the Amish people as an example. But the Amish did not make a conscious decision to refrain from watching TV. No, the Amish shied away from electricity because of a religious belief that was in place before Television even existed. It is also worth noting that the Amish do not believe in education past 8th grade, and yet everyone would raise their hands if they…

> everyone would raise their hands if they were asked if they would want their children to go to college.

I don't at all believe that college is an unalloyed good. For some individuals seeking some career paths, it can be, granted, but it has very large costs even if money is no object, and I doubt the benefits exceed the costs for most people.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#43

Post by rwallace »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #15

Claims like the one that "we" want what we cannot possibly have at the price "we" are willing to pay are tiresome. Who is this "we"? I'm perfectly willing to pay the price of living the way I do, and so are a great many people here. Most of us have given the technologies we use some thought and selected the ones we use to maximize benefit and minimize cost. There's no data presented in the article, just some guy's so…

Deontology is a good idea from a consequentialist viewpoint. An omniscient being with infinite computing power, capable of accurately calculating from first principles the consequences of every action, could operate as a pure consequentialist. We are not such beings, and therefore we necessarily adopt packages of deontological rules that have turned out on balance to lead to good consequences when other people have followed them.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#44

Post by noisy_boy »

I think we are living in times where people see your rightousness and appreciate it but when you take that to its logical extension i.e. upholding it at significant cost, you are labelled as a fanatic/nutjob/weirdo. As long as you pay lip-service and don't really take much real action, you are "normal"/one of us.

And I don't think it was always like this - freedom fighters who had strong beliefs and died to free my country, are hailed as heroes but when somebody actually lives those morals today, people shy away and call him/her as fundamentalist or whatever populist label is convenient.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#45

Post by blfr »

moultano wrote: post #31
shutupalready wrote: post #7

We need to be thankful that pockets of extreme nonconformity exist to show an alternative to groupthink. People are so eager to mock or crush any diversity. Average people can't stand the idea that there are places in the world with extreme differences like (a) much higher or lower tax (using the U.S. as reference point), (b) drug attitudes far softer or much worse, (c) political structures (even the "evil" ones, spe…

For me that's the most frustrating thing about the Westernization of the world. Your own culture is always invisible to you. You can only see it in contrast to something else. If everything becomes the same, then we lose the ability to even see those things, let alone think about them.

That's a great sentiment, the same that is behind conservation in general. Most people, however, don't enjoy being poor and western is the only culture with a proven track record of basic material prosperity.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#47

Post by getdavidhiggins »

If one chooses 100% serendipity all of the time, creativity ensues, and the vast panoply of `what we want` gets ever more diverse.

Being open to all possibilities is like being at a fork in the road choosing to travel them both.

Destiny is choosing one road, and shutting out any chance of ever tasting and experiencing other paths.

It's the old story of stoics vs epicureans; only not so extreme. There is a lot more room to wiggle in terms of choice these days, because the gatekeepers of old have vanished. If the world was your oyster 10 years ago - you can bet your ass it's 1000% that now.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#48

Post by krdln »

robbrown451 wrote: post #18

Does a horse and buggy go fast enough to notice the Doppler effect?

If a buggy is going 5m/s (18km/h) then pitch difference between approaching and receding buggy is about a half of a semitone. So I'm pretty sure you can hear it.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#49

Post by Zigurd »

blfr wrote: post #45
moultano wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that's the most frustrating thing about the Westernization of the world. Your own culture is always invisible to you. You can only see it in contrast to something else. If everything becomes the same, then we lose the ability to even see those things, let alone think about them.

That's a great sentiment, the same that is behind conservation in general. Most people, however, don't enjoy being poor and western is the only culture with a proven track record of basic material prosperity.

Alternatively, the Deep State in the US and the US-dominated parts of the planet means you're all going to live in America-lite with Disney's IP rules and Monsanto's food. You can keep the cookoo clocks and quaint costumes.

Re: What Do We Want, Really?

#50

Post by alextgordon »

blfr wrote: post #45
moultano wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me that's the most frustrating thing about the Westernization of the world. Your own culture is always invisible to you. You can only see it in contrast to something else. If everything becomes the same, then we lose the ability to even see those things, let alone think about them.

That's a great sentiment, the same that is behind conservation in general. Most people, however, don't enjoy being poor and western is the only culture with a proven track record of basic material prosperity.

Western culture has relative "material prosperity" because our ancestors invaded all the other places on earth and fucked them up. See: Africa, the Middle East.

In places we didn't invade such as Mongolia and Japan, they're actually doing quite well.

Before you look down on the rest of the planet, consider that Europe is one of the best places to survive on earth. It's temperate, it's fertile, it rains a lot, it's geologically stable. Is it surprising that life is easy in Europe?

Compare that to North Africa, which is one of the least hospitable places on the planet: a huge desert. Installing western culture in North Africa would not fix anything.

Many people do in fact enjoy being "poor", as you put it, as long as they have everything they need in life. The western alternative to "poor" for these people is to work crazy hours in a factory. What kind of prosperity is that?

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