• schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    So with my Pessimist philosophy, I have distilled the idea that Comply or Die is a feature of the human condition. Basically, this means that we either comply with the conditions we are situated in (socioeconomic in particular) or we will die a slow death due to not playing the game correctly or simply outright suicide (outright rejection of the game).

    At the end of the day, things "have to get done" (lest death). Someone has to make the donuts. Someone has to update the spreadsheets, teach the class, assemble the product, design the system, plan the X, Y, Z, etc. etc. infinitum. Even in a stratified society as our own, where there are some who can sit on massive wealth, someone down the line has to "get things done" to move the economy around. Even wealth takes some steps to maintain it and grow, so I'll just consider that "something" even if it is basically investment management.

    Holding off on what other animals can do (because people get caught up in the red herrings of animal psychology rather than my essential point at hand), individuals of our species must continually self-impose the regiment to do work, over and over to "get things done". This is interesting to note because it puts us squarely in the existential situation of doing something we might not want to do otherwise, but for survival purposes. It is not simply "doing" the job, but self-imposing ways to motivate ourselves to do the job and understanding things like consequences if we don't do the job.

    With this said, what I am trying to get at is there's a callousness in having to produce at all. Even if we were a 10 person society, it would be the same. Someone not pulling their "weight" means the group will suffer. Our needs and wants (of survival and comfort and the like) ensure our enmeshed reliance on each other's work. It's intractable. The fact of it doesn't make it just, right, or moral. Just because it is a feature, doesn't mean it's a good feature.
  • baker
    5.6k
    What is the institution that has the jurisdiction over this issue, so that one can file a complaint to it properly?
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    What is the institution that has the jurisdiction over this issue, so that one can file a complaint to it properly?baker

    The institution of philosophical discourse.
  • javi2541997
    4.9k


    It is interesting how you classified the suicide as outright rejection of the game. Sorry, but I am disagree with you in this specific point. You express it as a failure, a defeat, an act of giving up by someone. It looks like a scape from the rules they are forced to play in the game. I think you are not appreciating suicide in his most beautiful aspect: freedom.

    In my humble opinion, I would describe suicide as an act of freedom where an individual decides to end his life. Inside this context is important to understand what has been occurring until the last the day. But... I don't see it could be for lack of production inside a community. A suicidal does not have the aim to live grouped. They prefer to live in loneliness because they understand that it is better to live off from society. We can be agree here and say they are not producers because they don't take part in this issue since the beginning.
    I personally see suicide as very personal ending, very respectful and even aesthetic depending on the context (I can put some Japanese writers as examples: Kawabata, Dazai, Mishima, Akutagawa...)

    Conclusion: I can't connect a suicidal/loneliness individual on your philosophy of production.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    If people just comply there would be no political shifts ever. Clearly people do not always comply, do not commit suicide either, and make a rebellious change (via some form of paradigm shift or political revolution).

    It doesn’t follow either that we must all suffer because of one person not ‘pulling their weight’ as you put it. Such individuals are often just cast out of the group.

    As for the use of the term ‘produce’ and ‘production’ here I am not quite sure what you getting at? Clearly we do not sit and wallow in our own filth whilst nature peels grapes and feeds them to us. Having to partake in activities (alone or within a group of people) seems to be how you are framing ‘production’ as if ‘doing something’ is some kind of horrendous torture.

    I don’t quite equate being mentally stimulated as some kind of horrific burden. The constant quest for more stimulation is actually a base instinct we have. We are born to explore and imagine the impossible, to dream up what does not currently exist. I do not see this as ‘compliance’ at all because we are not mindless drones fighting for some queen or delivering food to her doorstep. We are able to question the situation and reimagine how we attend to the world because that is what we do.

    How about this for ‘production’. Beethoven produced some amazing awe inspiring music. Did he toil and stress for this? Most likely. Did he imagine his music was the best or was he driven by the magnificence of another? I imagine he preferred other’s music to his own. The point being untold joy can be ‘produced’ by some person’s lack of self perspective. Their production is not something that anyone but themselves finds inadequate … so if everyone is inspired by others then everyone’s toil and production likely touches more than one person in some way. The net effect being ‘production’ produces something for many to admire rather than just one.

    We can feel sorry for those that produce what we consider the best in some ways because they are usually blind to their own talents. They can never hear the symphony in completion the first time or view the completed portrait the first time. All they see is imperfection, mistakes and think ‘I can do better’ whilst multiple others look on in wonder at what them deem near perfection.

    Behind the pessimistic toil of work are multiple enlivened and inspired people. Perhaps one day people will read something you write and it will inspire a revolution that leads to a world and society where ‘pessimism’ is realised as a great way forward … but you yourself will likely never really think much of your own thoughts and have more admiration for the ideas and thoughts of others.

    Life is not a game. All games are representations of life. They are our imagined dreams of what life can be in the face of the eternal failure to meet ‘perfection’ yet we can glimpse it through others (or in nature) and that guides our course if embraced with optimistic pessimism … they are the same thing after all.
  • T Clark
    13k
    So with my Pessimist philosophy, I have distilled the idea that Comply or Die is a feature of the human condition. Basically, this means that we either comply with the conditions we are situated in (socioeconomic in particular) or we will die a slow death due to not playing the game correctly or simply outright suicide (outright rejection of the game).schopenhauer1

    At bottom, it's not a social or economic issue. If you were alone on an island you would have to comply or die.

    Holding off on what other animals can do (because people get caught up in the red herrings of animal psychology rather than my essential point at hand), individuals of our species must continually self-impose the regiment to do work, over and over to "get things done".schopenhauer1

    But we are animals. The constraints you're talking about are the constraints all animals face. You're just making them seem more highfalutin by giving them an existential twist. Metaphorically, you're complaining about gravity. It's not fair that it hurts when we fall down.
  • Angelo Cannata
    330

    I see your point in terms of conflict between objectivity and subjectivity. Objectivity forces us to a lot of unwanted things. Subjectivity is when we are able to freely express ourselves, like artists do. We can use creativity to change some objectivity aspects into positive resources working in favour of subjectivity, like artists do.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    Sorry, but I am disagree with you in this specific point. You express it as a failure, a defeat, an act of giving up by someone. It looks like a scape from the rules they are forced to play in the game. I think you are not appreciating suicide in his most beautiful aspect: freedom.javi2541997

    Fair point. I didn't mean to imply that it is a failure, simply not wanting to play the game. Though, most times it is about being disappointed in or suffering from some aspect of the game rather than about not wanting to play the game as a whole.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    If people just comply there would be no political shifts ever. Clearly people do not always comply, do not commit suicide either, and make a rebellious change (via some form of paradigm shift or political revolution).I like sushi

    Paradigm shifts and revolutions don't really change the game.

    because as you state:
    Clearly we do not sit and wallow in our own filth whilst nature peels grapes and feeds them to us.I like sushi

    The constant quest for more stimulation is actually a base instinct we have.I like sushi

    Schopenhauer would say that this is equivalent to some dissatisfaction. It's not an instinct as much as a de facto of being born at all with a consciousness, and a self-reflective one at that.

    Life is not a game. All games are representations of life. They are our imagined dreams of what life can be in the face of the eternal failure to meet ‘perfection’ yet we can glimpse it through others (or in nature) and that guides our course if embraced with optimistic pessimism … they are the same thing after all.I like sushi

    So you are not grasping here the moral problem.. If I create for you a situation where you are forced into a game (lest suicide), that is callous at best. Whatever outcomes produced from it don't matter to the moral problem. We all have a proverbial gun to our head.. so yay Beethoven but all points related to magnificent productions are besides the point.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    At bottom, it's not a social or economic issue. If you were alone on an island you would have to comply or die.T Clark

    So I brought up the idea of other animals because truly at least some other animals really can be isolated and live in the present. We do neither. We have selves that are created through social interaction, and though there is the occasional "Robinson Crusoe" scenario that is always in relation to the normal mode of human production which is to work as some sort of social group (usually hunting and gathering before agriculture and pastoralism). Robinson Crusoe dude had to have a social group to even know how to live alone or have the cognitive processes to figure it out. So that would be a straw man you are presenting to say we don't have to live in such a manner.. We are indeed social animals.

    But we are animals. The constraints you're talking about are the constraints all animals face. You're just making them seem more highfalutin by giving them an existential twist. Metaphorically, you're complaining about gravity. It's not fair that it hurts when we fall down.T Clark

    I already saw this objection and even said here:
    Holding off on what other animals can do (because people get caught up in the red herrings of animal psychology rather than my essential point at hand), individuals of our species must continually self-impose the regiment to do work, over and over to "get things done". This is interesting to note because it puts us squarely in the existential situation of doing something we might not want to do otherwise, but for survival purposes. It is not simply "doing" the job, but self-imposing ways to motivate ourselves to do the job and understanding things like consequences if we don't do the job.schopenhauer1

    It isn't trying to be "high falutin" but rather, it is describing our situation in opposition to other animals who live more in the present and have inbuilt instinctual mechanisms.. Whatever the case with other animals, WE don't operate like that. Rather, we operate via self-imposed plans, goals, and expectations.. We choose to work. We don't "survive" in the manner animals just "survive".
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    I see your point in terms of conflict between objectivity and subjectivity. Objectivity forces us to a lot of unwanted things. Subjectivity is when we are able to freely express ourselves, like artists do. We can use creativity to change some objectivity aspects into positive resources working in favour of subjectivity, like artists do.Angelo Cannata

    Maybe... Rather if everyone didn't "pull their weight" with production, what would happen? Indeed there are strong social pressures and internal pressures to produce.
  • Angelo Cannata
    330

    It seems clear to me that we are considering here the bad side of the question. From a very radical philosophical point of view, we could even say that the tiniest evil, or suffering, in existence is enough to make existence philosophically problematic, let’s say unacceptable, just because it is not entirely positive. The passion of philosophy is trying to understand, to explain, and I think the hardest thing to understand and explain is the presence of evil, suffering, in life. I think we need to abandon the way of trying to understand and explain, because it doesn’t work. So, it seems to me the only philosophical alternative is the subjective perspective.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    We choose to work. We don't "survive" in the manner animals just "survive".schopenhauer1


    And this point above is key to understand Comply in our context. We choose to work, but we might not have wanted to otherwise.. We really can't do otherwise, but we also know this. It thus becomes a moral problem of whether it is okay to create this kind of compliance in others. If no one decided to pull their weight nothing would get done and you would be done.. If it was 10 people and several of them did nothing, not only are they jeopardizing themselves but the others.. To be "moral" you would pull your weight to not allow others to perish with you.. But then the meta-position from this is whether it was even good to put people in the position that they needed to pull their weight.

    Not pulling their weight equates to self-imposed death and group demise. This epiphenomenon is wrong to impose, period.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    So, it seems to me the only philosophical alternative is the subjective perspective.Angelo Cannata

    Not sure what this means. Philosophy is about trying to figure out what is the case. Is it the case that forcing people to produce (or die) is callous? If so, is it moral?
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    If you replace ‘game’ with ‘life’ then you are wrong.

    Calling ‘life’ ‘the game’ is where I disagree. I guess you think the term ‘life’ is different to ‘the game’. If so what is the difference?

    I do not see any moral problem or any gun to head? What situation is anyone creating? Are we actually ‘creating’ said ‘situation’ if there is some overseer with a ‘gun to our head’? I don’t believe this it what you are saying just showing it is rather nebulous.

    I don’t see a clear thought expressed in what you have said. It is a mishmash and I think you could use more literal terms to help clarify whatever it is.
  • Angelo Cannata
    330
    Forcing people to anything is bad and immoral. We do it sometimes because we can’t escape doing it, like when parents force children to obey, to help them grow. The fact that forcing a child to study gives good results does not mean that forcing them is a good thing; rather, it is because we are unable to find better solutions. If we were able to obtain results without forcing anybody, there would be no reason to force anybody. We can choose to force ourselves and even find pleasure in it, like when we force ourselves in practicing sports. But in that case it is not a real forcing, because in that case you are 100% free not to do it and the experience of forcing yourself becomes 100% positive. So, in those cases like sport and games I think the word “forcing” is just instrumental, not really philosophically, existentially meaningful identify the radical problem of constraint in human existence.
  • L'éléphant
    1.4k
    To be "moral" you would pull your weight to not allow others to perish with you.. But then the meta-position from this is whether it was even good to put people in the position that they needed to pull their weight.schopenhauer1
    This is the gist of the OP. However we choose to call it -- division of labor, sharing, team-work, pitching-in -- your question is whether it is even moral to require everyone to pull their weight. And my answer to this is no. If people don't want to share with the work, they have every right not to. But the fruit of one's labor should commensurate with their contribution of time and effort.

    And I agree, often in capitalist society, one's time and effort do not commensurate with the prize they get. You can dig ditch 24/7 and still not able to enjoy life as others can. I mean when bonuses in hundreds of thousands dollars are easily given to some in the organization, even during the pandemic and lay-offs, there's absolutely something wrong with this society.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Suck it up, sunshine.

    You've recognised the nature of your existence. Welcome to adulthood. Get over it and keep buggering on.

    On the way, you might manage to make things a bit more comfortable for yourself and others. That'd be more worthwhile than what you do here, which is just incessant complaining.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    @schopenhauer1
    ↪schopenhauer1 Suck it up, sunshine.

    You've recognised the nature of your existence. Welcome to adulthood. Get over it and keep buggering on.
    Banno
    :rofl: :up:

    Metaphorically, you're complaining about gravity. It's not fair that it hurts when we fall down.T Clark
    :lol: :clap:
  • T Clark
    13k
    So that would be a straw man you are presenting to say we don't have to live in such a manner.. We are indeed social animals.schopenhauer1

    Not a straw man. People have lived as hunter gatherers or subsistence farmers for as long as there have been people. The need to eat is not a burden society placed on our shoulders, it is our existence as living organisms that does.

    It isn't trying to be "high falutin" but rather, it is describing our situation in opposition to other animals who live more in the present and have inbuilt instinctual mechanisms.. Whatever the case with other animals, WE don't operate like that. Rather, we operate via self-imposed plans, goals, and expectations.. We choose to work. We don't "survive" in the manner animals just "survive".schopenhauer1

    This is just what I was talking about when I said "highfalutin." You're trying to turn our simple, straightforward, fundamental biological nature into an existential crisis. It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair! (stomps feet)
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k


    So I'm going to follow the logic where it leads and not where I want it to go, unlike you all. The Pessimism lens finds the intractable negative/immoral conundrums about life. Because its intractable, does not redeem it in any way..

    It is intractable that by being born we are forced into complying into a situation lest death. That is a moral problem, not a "get out of jail free cause we can't help it". It is callous to make others choose between X, Y, Z activities or death by de facto the very fact that X, Y, Z leads to non-death.

    So Angelo inadvertently (or advertantly?) hit the nail on the head.. That is to say forcing people do anything is bad or immoral".

    Forcing people to anything is bad and immoral. We do it sometimes because we can’t escape doing it,Angelo Cannata

    Life de facto has forced productive events to live.

    I said earlier:
    With this said, what I am trying to get at is there's a callousness in having to produce at all. Even if we were a 10 person society, it would be the same. Someone not pulling their "weight" means the group will suffer. Our needs and wants (of survival and comfort and the like) ensure our enmeshed reliance on each other's work. It's intractable. The fact of it doesn't make it just, right, or moral. Just because it is a feature, doesn't mean it's a good feature.schopenhauer1

    You put someone in the boat and tell them to paddle or things will drag.. So you paddle.

    The morality of paddling to help pull weight doesn't negate the meta-situation of putting people in the boat to paddle being callous to do to someone.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Get over it and keep buggering on.Banno

    I prefer to imagine Sisyphus happy...
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    This is just what I was talking about when I said "highfalutin." You're trying to turn our simple, straightforward, fundamental biological nature into an existential crisis. It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair! (stomps feet)T Clark

    What I stated was a fact:
    This is interesting to note because it puts us squarely in the existential situation of doing something we might not want to do otherwise, but for survival purposes. It is not simply "doing" the job, but self-imposing ways to motivate ourselves to do the job and understanding things like consequences if we don't do the job.

    We don't just "do" we must buy into doing. That is an existential thing. That is not just biology (if you mean by this purely instinctual mechanisms of survival).
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    On the way, you might manage to make things a bit more comfortable for yourself and others. That'd be more worthwhile than what you do here, which is just incessant complaining.Banno

    So you are camp Comply or Die is a-ok, what a surprise. And more worthwhile is surely about something in the Complying department. The loving options Wonka has set out to give us ways to "pull our weight" :roll:.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    I prefer to imagine Sisyphus happy...Tom Storm
    ... "buggering on" with that old philosopher's stone. :smirk:

    So I'm going to follow the logic where it leads and not where I want it to go, unlike you all. The Pessimism lens finds the intractable negative/immoral conundrums about life. Because its intractable, does not redeem it in any way..schopenhauer1
    Mainländer didn't "find life" so "intractable" ... For fuck's sake, man, stop whinging and get on with it! :point:
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Why not accept the reality and then attempt to make things better?
    For fuck's sake, man, stop whinging and get on with it! :meh: :point:180 Proof

    Yep.
  • Deletedmemberzc
    2.5k
    callousschopenhauer1

    Yes, the world is callous. Sentienceless matter is callous. No surprise.

    So I'm going to follow the logic where it leadsschopenhauer1

    Logic says: either kill yourself or try to make yourself less unhappy. Have you followed this logic where it leads or where you want it to go ("instead of killing myself, I should incessantly complain")?

    In other words, have you seen a therapist? Have you read a self-help book? What steps have you taken to make yourself less unhappy?* It is, after all, possible to be less unhappy than you are. It seems it should have happened by now considering it's a fiat of logic.

    Consider the possibility that your weltanschauung is precisely - following the logic where you want it to go. You clearly want to complain incessantly.

    *In short: have you taken responsibility for your unhappiness? Or are you going to continue to blame sentienceless matter? Is it logical to blame sentienceless matter for - anything?


    Edit: Nevermind. I see you're just on about antinatalism again: a philosophical position effete in the face of instinct. A blowing of smoke.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    I’ve never met a callous rock :D
  • Deletedmemberzc
    2.5k
    Really? I never met a rock that wasn't callous. Bunch of heartless dicks, rocks. They don't give a fuck about anything. :smile:
  • T Clark
    13k
    It is intractable that by being born we are forced into complying into a situation lest death. That is a moral problem, not a "get out of jail free cause we can't help it". It is callous to make others choose between X, Y, Z activities or death by de facto the very fact that X, Y, Z leads to non-death.schopenhauer1

    Although it is a common theme for you, I had not entered this discussion from the point of view of anti-natalism. Certainly I knew it was in the background. We've been through that before. No, I don't think it is a moral problem.
  • I like sushi
    4.3k
    They are useful for removing a callus.
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