Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made • Hacker News Board

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#21

Post by josephg » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 6:33 AM UTC

jongjong wrote: post #20

The sad part is that there are plenty of good people. The problem comes down to the system itself. The system selects for crookedness and propagates it. Evil always has the upper hand in controlling the system because evil people have access to a far broader range of tools and techniques to achieve their goals since they don't need to concern themselves with moral or even legal hurdles. Evil can pull the trigger with…

Life isn’t like children’s cartoons, where there’s “goodies” and “baddies” and we need to figure out who is who, then lock all the baddies up in jail forever. To quote Solzhenitsyn, “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart”.

Your philosophy is shared by all the people who committed the most evil acts of the last century. All of them have tried to stamp out the “evil people” in their societies. They only disagree about who the evil people are.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#22

Post by tuatoru » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 6:40 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #4

I've replaced the baity word "crookedness", which was likely to lead to uninteresting associations and arguments, with the phrase "crooked timber" (from Kant) that the article itself mostly uses. I know it's pretentious, but in a case like this, having the title be a bit of an obstacle is probably a good thing - and at least I didn't make it say "Embrace your crooked timber of humanity". Edit: never mind I've got a b…

OTOH, with that title I thought it was about the very long-running group blog[1].

1. https://crookedtimber.org/

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#23

Post by jongjong » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 6:41 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #21

jongjong wrote: post #20

The sad part is that there are plenty of good people. The problem comes down to the system itself. The system selects for crookedness and propagates it. Evil always has the upper hand in controlling the system because evil people have access to a far broader range of tools and techniques to achieve their goals since they don't need to concern themselves with moral or even legal hurdles. Evil can pull the trigger with…

Life isn’t like children’s cartoons, where there’s “goodies” and “baddies” and we need to figure out who is who, then lock all the baddies up in jail forever. To quote Solzhenitsyn, “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart”. Your philosophy is shared by all the people who committed the most evil acts of the last century. All of them have tried to stamp out the “evil people” in their societi…

I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power.

I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were not happy people... There was a process that had been occurring for centuries prior which made them unhappy enough to carry out a revolution. It is known that Russia's feudal system had been particularly harsh on peasants for centuries.

The French royals were so detached from the misery which they caused that it seems somewhat unsurprising that they couldn't even keep their heads physically attached to their bodies in the end. Their metaphorical heads were already quite detached from reality before the guillotine made the separation literal.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#24

Post by josephg » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:00 AM UTC

jongjong wrote: post #23

josephg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life isn’t like children’s cartoons, where there’s “goodies” and “baddies” and we need to figure out who is who, then lock all the baddies up in jail forever. To quote Solzhenitsyn, “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart”. Your philosophy is shared by all the people who committed the most evil acts of the last century. All of them have tried to stamp out the “evil people” in their societi…

I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were n…

> some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power.

I’d similarly argue that some people are much more good (in the sense that their work actively makes society better). Their concentration is also higher near the centers of power. An awful lot of people go into government out of a genuine love of their country.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#25

Post by vianneychevalie » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:29 AM UTC

jongjong wrote: post #23

josephg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life isn’t like children’s cartoons, where there’s “goodies” and “baddies” and we need to figure out who is who, then lock all the baddies up in jail forever. To quote Solzhenitsyn, “The line separating good and evil passes through every human heart”. Your philosophy is shared by all the people who committed the most evil acts of the last century. All of them have tried to stamp out the “evil people” in their societi…

I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were n…

I think you’re mistaken, at least about the French revolution. It was carried out by rich people, looking for more power, making use of a common and regular occurence of popular uprising (Jacqueries, in political science, is the name of those quite common « revolutions »).

Royalty does not necessarily cause misery, Sweden, Spain, the UK are all monarchies. Colbert and Louis XIV built a lot of foundations that you know France for today; even later non-democratic regimes such as the Second Empire (Napoleon III and Haussman) structured the Paris that brings tourists the world over…

The French revolution - that I know of - led to the invention of restaurants because rich people from remote cities came to Paris and wanted to live the fastuous life they envied from nobles. Social cleansing? Nothing of the sort, social exploitation as always, from where money and power came as always.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#26

Post by southerntofu » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:36 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #24

jongjong wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were n…

> some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I’d similarly argue that some people are much more good (in the sense that their work actively makes society better). Their concentration is also higher near the centers of power. An awful lot of people go into government out of a genuine love of their country.

I understand your point, but strong disagree from experience.

What do you think happens to people who want to do good by approaching positions of power? In my experience, friends who became teachers or cops, they either became evil/abusive themselves, or they were pushed into depression by social exclusion and either left or killed themselves. These are some of the jobs with the highest suicide levels, precisely because some people came to do good while realizing the systems in place made it entirely impossible.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#27

Post by jongjong » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:40 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #24

jongjong wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were n…

> some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I’d similarly argue that some people are much more good (in the sense that their work actively makes society better). Their concentration is also higher near the centers of power. An awful lot of people go into government out of a genuine love of their country.

Sure but in my experience, these people rarely get promoted to positions of power. A lot of the well-meaning people end up as low-level political puppets because they don't see the evil that's happening right before their eyes; the reason is because good people fail to comprehend the motivations behind evil and that makes them blind to it.

There is a lot of denial like "No, that's not possible, such and such would never do such an evil thing, what would they gain out of it?" The fact that you're a good person may be the reason why you do not see the motive or do not understand its significance. Some people really want total control, they want it really really badly. They could be a billionaire, a president and yet their first for more power is stronger than a person lost in the desert thirsts for water.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#28

Post by s-lambert » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 7:49 AM UTC

gochi wrote: post #16

s1artibartfast wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find that this relates to the article? Do you really think that hard work as a concept is a delusion? Buy your own metaphor, a different seed planted and nurtured the same has a chance of success or failure. The fact that chances at all implies that the seed matters and not just the environment, otherwise any seed would be expected to have an identical outcome. To speak plainly, children from the same pare…

>To speak plainly, children from the same parents with the same opportunities can and do have drastically different lives. But children do not have the same parents. Not unless they are twins. Parents treat each child differently. This is common knowledge, expected even. This is why outcomes are so drastically different, not because of the "seed" but because everything else has changed alongside the seed. Ask the old…

Twins have different parents too, being a twin doesn't mean you're treated the same in every instance, there are actually difference between twins even if we do look similar.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#29

Post by toyg » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 8:40 AM UTC

vianneychevalie wrote: post #25

jongjong wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There is a spectrum and some people are much more evil (in the sense; more harmful to society) than others and the concentration of evil is higher near the centers of power. I suspect that many of the attempts at social cleansing are natural (though not necessarily just) reactions to other less visible evils carried out over longer periods of time by those in power. Clearly the Bolsheviks in Russia were n…

I think you’re mistaken, at least about the French revolution. It was carried out by rich people, looking for more power, making use of a common and regular occurence of popular uprising (Jacqueries, in political science, is the name of those quite common « revolutions »). Royalty does not necessarily cause misery, Sweden, Spain, the UK are all monarchies. Colbert and Louis XIV built a lot of foundations that you kno…

Spain effectively lost its monarchy status by popular will, and it took a violent and very bloody coup to reinstate it - but even then, as a ceremonial puppet. Similarly the UK. I am not familiar with Sweden but from what I occasionally read, the Swedish crown lost pretty much all its power too. Monarchy as an institution is fundamentally bad in the long run, because belonging to a certain family is no guarantee of competence in government - something that the Romans had already discovered.

Re: Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made

#30

Post by anttiharju » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 8:57 AM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #8

Sympathize with view in article. But straight things can be made from crookedness. Classic example: Single cake. Two crooked children. Greedy. But rule is one cuts; other chooses. Perhaps argue that humanity stripped. I think not. Of course, meta-problem: how to ensure that is technique? How to ensure exploitation of technique: "you cut" (because I know you can't cut straight). Still, meaningless for technocrat to fe…

This reminds me of some game design video/article/talk (don't remember) where a MOBA (League of Legends?) was at least attempted to design in a way that there would be the balance of the imbalance.

It boils down to sure, some playable characters are too strong, but given enough characters to select from, the "meta" will shift around because there'll always be something else to counter whatever the other team chose. There might be a lack of balance in a single match, but across multiple matches, there's no one stable winning formula.

Really wish I had a link to the resource I'm trying to reference here.