:smile:

I think you’re right. The technological growth of human history and “progress” could be the evolving effects of our attempts to mitigate this burden.

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")? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Um, isn't this exactly what I am speaking against? Comply...or die.. Is that wrong to put someone into that bind? It is intractable, but is it wrong.

Why not accept the reality and then attempt to make things better? — Banno

Do you think because something is intractable that makes it impervious to moral judgement? If so, why?

I think you’re right. The technological growth of human history and “progress” could be the evolving effects of our attempts to mitigate this burden. — NOS4A2

Hey, we actually agree on this. What is it about this self-imposition? Can you elaborate your thoughts on the fact that we don't just "do", but we have to continually buy into doing?

I prefer to imagine Sisyphus happy... — Tom Storm

But did the punishment fit the crime? Was the punishment just?

The most insidious kind of thing is to make the person believe that it is their fault for not falling in line enough. Sisyphus was duped.

Comply...or die — schopenhauer1

Is that wrong to put someone into that bind? — schopenhauer1

Let's say: sure, it's wrong. I never wanted to bring children into this mess so I didn't. But you don't see me making a soapbox out of it. Because it's...

...a philosophical position effete in the face of instinct. A blowing of smoke. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I understand why you choose to ignore my question. But I'll try it a second time:

Have you taken responsibility for your unhappiness? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Since you haven't killed yourself, you yourself are also of the...

Comply... — schopenhauer1

...camp. So tell me: Is it cowardice? Is it a secret hope? That "life might be slightly less horrible a little further on..."?

Samuel Beckett

This is an example of being muddled.

If we cannot do otherwise then we cannot do otherwise. Yet you say we ‘choose to work’ … that is contrary. We literally must do something (work) to live … be this to gather food or hunt.

We can live or cease to live. We are most certainly compelled to live in almost every circumstance.

This is not a moral problem as all because it just is as it is. Like someone else jokingly mentioned we cannot rationally call ‘gravity’ immoral and think it will be accepted by others.

Humans judge other humans in some moral/ethical capacity. There is literally no judgement to be had beyond the realm of conscious beings.

I would still like to understand what difference you see between ‘life’ and ‘the game’ if any? I assume you must see a difference or your reasoning falls flat.

It is clearly a ruse to use the term ‘comply’ here if he then says in the next breath that there is no choice. We cannot comply if there is no choice. We either live or die whilst trying to live. There is no ‘choice’ in this matter.

To follow that. The OP is more or less framed at living in civilised society. We can choose to leave one way of life and live another. There are undoubtedly a variety of hurdles that basically boil down to ‘fear’. That is a problem we have to cope with in some manner or another. It is how we falter and learn to imagine a new way and open up new doors.

Sisyphus was duped. — schopenhauer1

I prefer my T-Shirt - "Sisyphus was a patsy!"

Hey, we actually agree on this. What is it about this self-imposition? Can you elaborate your thoughts on the fact that we don't just "do", but we have to continually buy into doing?

I wouldn't describe it as an imposition, myself, because no one is imposing this activity on me. I just think it is a burden and its fine to be pessimistic about it. It's tough. It's not easy. In such a life optimism leads to disappointment, pessimism to pleasant surprises.

Is that wrong to put someone into that bind? It is intractable, but is it wrong. — schopenhauer1

Okay, it's wrong. It (i.e. natura naturans —> conatus) will continue to be wrong, at least, until the next global extinction event. So given it's both "wrong and intractable", you can either adapt, maladapt, or die – choose bravely, schop1 (just stop fucking whining!) :brow:

Why not accept the reality and then attempt to make things better?
— Banno

Do you think because something is intractable that makes it impervious to moral judgement? If so, why? — schopenhauer1

What? That doesn't follow.

That is a moral problem — schopenhauer1

You can make anything a moral problem by having bizarre morals, its not interesting other than to a curator of the bizarre.

If I had a moral rule that it is immoral to wear hats on a Thursday then it would become a 'moral problem' that people did so, but I can't see why that would make it in the least bit interesting for anyone not of that view.

The overwhelming majority of people are of the opinion that it's morally fine to impose on someone for the greater good, especially if you've done everything you can to minimise the burden of that imposition. We simply assume others are moral beings too and so would want to help.

I would still like to understand what difference you see between ‘life’ and ‘the game’ if any? I assume you must see a difference or your reasoning falls flat. — I like sushi

Life is the broader category. Human life represents a socioeconomic game. Not a particular kind but a game nonetheless (hunting-gathering, industrialized, etc.).

It is clearly a ruse to use the term ‘comply’ here if he then says in the next breath that there is no choice. We cannot comply if there is no choice. We either live or die whilst trying to live. There is no ‘choice’ in this matter. — I like sushi

So the problem is thus:
"You can paddle the boat to help yourself and society (to survive), or you can jump off the boat". That is the comply.. You can comply with the following the game (of rowing the boat) or you can kill yourself. Is putting someone in that position itself wrong? Of course I say yes.

To follow that. The OP is more or less framed at living in civilised society. We can choose to leave one way of life and live another. There are undoubtedly a variety of hurdles that basically boil down to ‘fear’. That is a problem we have to cope with in some manner or another. It is how we falter and learn to imagine a new way and open up new doors. — I like sushi

No, any way (civilized or not) would be a game we need to survive. Is putting someone in that situation wrong? Yes. Having choices on which game to play, doesn't negate having to play a game in the first place. Why "limited choices" somehow unjust but "forced to comply with playing some game (lest death) is not seen as unjust, I don't understand.

I prefer my T-Shirt - "Sisyphus was a patsy!" — Tom Storm

Either way works.

because no one is imposing this activity on me — NOS4A2

So my point in the OP is that each day, we impose it on ourselves, and that too is negative as we cannot just "be" existing, we have the self-reflection capacity to know we don't have to do anything and yet our fear of death and destruction of the body is a strong compulsion to overcome, if we choose death. So we do things we might otherwise not do.. That is not proof that thus life must be worthwhile, just on how hard it is to overcome our own fears of nonexistence or pain. There are a lot of de factos of life to live in a socioeconomic environment with surviving, getting comfortable, and entertainment. These de factos are in a sense a "force" if you don't want to overcome the fear of death. ALL of this imposition of following the de factos of socioeconomic realities or death, is wrong.

Okay, it's wrong. It (i.e. natura naturans —> conatus) will continue to be wrong, at least, until the next global extinction event. So given it's both "wrong and intractable", you can either adapt, maladapt, or die – choose bravely, schop1 (just stop fucking whining!) :brow: — 180 Proof

Nah, I'll continue thanks.

What? That doesn't follow. — Banno

Accepting the reality is not rebelling against it the fundamental problem. Forced to comply or die is a problem to deal with not ignore because its "too late".

Accepting the reality is not rebelling against it the fundamental problem. Forced to comply or die is a problem to deal with not ignore because its "too late". — schopenhauer1

Yawn. Accepting the things yo cannot change is not unreasonable.

Yawn. Accepting the things yo cannot change is not unreasonable. — Banno

So what I mean by rebelling here is more about a stance or a framework to see things. Humans always have to self-impose complying, even if tacitly. Not recognizing this is equivalent to a kind of bad faith.

But also, the element of having to pull one's weight is cruel to put onto someone in the first place as if it is just the course of things. There would surely be a point where if everyone opted out (free riding problem, let's say), that things would go to shit, if you will. So surely, not everyone can free ride (there really is no free riding if considering everyone in the the whole group, cause someone else will pay for it).

So this pyramid scheme of production where there is really a "no opt out" option, is not good. We can still recognize this, prevent it and perhaps be less aggressive of expectations knowing that there is no pausing the game, or removing oneself to a Platonic realm of non-production. There has to be something that comes from this self-imposition..

In the industrialized/Western socioeconomic game, a boss-man still exists to manage and coordinate. The owner is going to invest and boss the bossman. The worker is going follow the expectations of the bossman managers and owner(s)/investors. Someone's gotta make the donuts and the spreadsheets, and move the minutia around to "make things work".. But recognizing the fact of self-imposition of motivating ourselves using whatever reasoning possible makes us not just animals that just "do unwanted things".. but knowing it is something we may otherwise not do. This adds that extra layer.

So I ask you, what might a society look like with a rebellious stance towards production? Answer wisely, and not flippantly as you seem to usually do. I'll just ignore any predictable flippant answer.

There are a lot of de factos of life to live in a socioeconomic environment with surviving, getting comfortable, and entertainment. These de factos are in a sense a "force" if you don't want to overcome the fear of death. ALL of this imposition of following the de factos of socioeconomic realities or death, is wrong. — schopenhauer1

So I ask you, what might a society look like with a rebellious stance towards production? — schopenhauer1

I'd like to know at which non-production point would it be sustainable/livable to be. Because I don't think there is in human history a period when all productions halted. This is equivalent to committing mass suicide. So, my question is, do we want to continue to live? If so, do we want to change the socio-economic power structure so that we're not compelled to work in order to produce? I'll tell you that if all workers stopped producing, that would hurt everybody.

You have gone to your usual position of mangling several distinct issues together.

So I'll go back to my original reply to you on this thread:

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. — Banno

Accepting the reality is not rebelling against it the fundamental problem. — schopenhauer1

Imagine Sisyphus happy. Amor fuckin' fati. :strong:

... you can either adapt, maladapt, or die.
—180 Proof

Nah, I'll continue thanks.

Maladapt it is. :pray:

Maladapt it is. :pray: — 180 Proof

If everyone stops responding, then he might stop whinging. Or if he continues, then stop paying any attention, and the problem disappears except for him who keeps stoking it.

I agree that work is difficult and is always related to an acceptance of conditions of what is possible or demanded.

The discipline required to make some things is not only a matter of doing enough for other people. The art demands its own harsh necessity.

Good performance requires a lightness of hand and spirit combined with a resolve to deliver the best result.

This isn't to say that such a personal perspective overrules others. But the reverse is also not true. There is a relationship to the cosmos established when one can actually do stuff that is not there when one cannot.

Accepting the things yo cannot change is not unreasonable. — Banno

And this is how might makes right. And how people end up shooting people.

Imagine Sisyphus happy. Amor fuckin' fati. — 180 Proof

Camus didn't live long enough for time to show whether he'd be able to live out his life philosophy to the natural end of his life, so we don't know how viable it actually would be even for its creator.
The other main existentialist, the squinter, ditched his existentialist philosophy, so no credit can be given to him.

You are kindly requested to provide a set of instructions for how to learn to love fate.

And secondly,

There is no god. We make our own purpose.
— Banno

Which is what? To help your fellow man and woman, love and educate your kids, be a force of happiness to all? Why? Seems meaningless to simply make someone's stay as comfortable as possible if you admit there was no reason for them to come and stay in the first place.

It's like being Sisyphus' water boy, tending kindly to him, convincing yourself your altruism and goodness matters, ignoring the fact that you're all involved in a meaningless struggle that will eventually end with your death and then eventually the destruction of the world. — Hanover

said love of fate has to overcome this hurdle.

There has to be something that comes from this self-imposition.. — schopenhauer1

You're committing another self-imposition: You take for granted that you're certain that there is no way out. (And that the materialistic outlook is the one and only right one).

Arguably, this is the core of your problem (and not the comply or die, or the futility of pursuing sensual pleasures).

:roll:

Camus didn't live long enough ... — baker

Non sequitur.

The other main existentialist, the squinter ...

Put down the "Existentialism For Dummies", baker, and go read "the squinter's" work.

But why should we get things done for others. For a possessing class? Who have their alibi to tyranny by feeding us with artificial corporate food, housing us in sick building, providing us with occasional entertainment, a chance in the lottery to go to the island, a health insurance corporation to provide us with torture as the cure for our artificially induced sickness and misery, while constantly being bombarded with fake smiles and ideality. So, free yourself and make life happen yourself!

So I ask you, what might a society look like with a rebellious stance towards production? Answer wisely, and not flippantly as you seem to usually do. I'll just ignore any predictable flippant answer. — schopenhauer1

For real world examples, look at the labor movement in the United States under Hoffa, say. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a socialist and even communist approach related to worker's collectivism and revolutionary attitudes toward labor relations.

However, when people like Hoffa got involved in unionizing, they didn't take a socialist approach. They essentially treated labor as a commodity that they could control and that every industrialist needed. They used capitalist principles and gained more for workers than any other labor movement since.

In a real sense, that was a "rebellious stance" towards production that changed its society.

Nevertheless, I think you mean something like how would society look like if work wasn't necessary to possess or rely on a comfortable life. Additionally, address some views on the ethics of our work and production philosophy against the supposition of a "free" society.

Toward the first part, it seems unlikely that there is only one way society could go or present itself if the imposition or requirement to "produce, grow or die" Work was technically "optional" in the communist USSR, East Germany and Red China but the necessities of life still required a major workforce to maintain production (in Eurasia) or agriculture (in China). However, there are democratic, capitalist societies throughout the West that instituted social programs in response to the communist ideals being spread at the time. Some social programs were created in response to the threat of communism and others led by leftists influenced by socialism. This emerged in welfare programs and policies that allowed more people to choose not to work in capitalist societies even more effectively than in nominal communist ones.

On top of that, the real revolutions in work were better conditions and easier jobs that paid more... at least until the "neo-liberal" revolution of people like Reagan and Thatcher. Just as the "New Deal" under FDR had made every president (and congress) from Truman to Nixon a "New Deal" president, Reagan dismantled it and no President since has ever considered undoing the Reagan ideal of America.

This is a bit of a ramble, but it's Saturday night.

Nevertheless, even though it seems like worker rights have eroded, we also have some of the most prosperous living and working conditions in part due to the gradual invisible revolution of these labor policies. However, ironically or paradoxically, much of that is the result of the fact that the United States is not a producing nation in the way that we were before Reagan or even Nixon. Other than extremely destructive and increasingly complicated military equipment and agricultural products, America doesn't produce much in a global industrial sense even though we still have the minds for it.

So, we may be a nation of people living paycheck to paycheck, we are not really workers. We're all consumers. Production is hard work, but people need to work to consume - the essential behavior of the society - so there are any number of unnecessary jobs out there to put money in people's pockets.

Which comes down to my basic controversial thesis - work is a compulsion by the worker in the same way that alcohol or drugs or the television and movies and internet encourage compulsive behavior. Work for an increasing number of people is a distraction they need to avoid severe emotional distress. People work so they feel good about buying crap they don't need.

Jerry Seinfeld does a hilarious acceptance speech for the Clio advertiser's award, but at its kernal is the idea that wanting something provides much greater pleasure than having that thing. The distraction of shopping is the purpose of production. The product provides the fetish or ideal objective for the consumer to want and that is the end - the sublimated objective - not the actual satisfaction of that desire. Desire projects the wanting person into an imagined future state of happiness that is dashed by the actual arrival of the product that leads inevitably to either disappointment or disinterest. Desire is the essence of all distraction.

It is possibly this potentially revolutionary principle that guides the expression of work and production in a modern society far more than rational theories or mathematical and logical concepts emerging from economics.

So, a radical production philosophy that could overturn that would first need to assert those things that cannot be bought - that must be earned and experience - should be available to everyone and not something that can be monetized. However, in our society, what exactly has not been monetized or quantified or used to sell something to fire our desire?

So, my question is, do we want to continue to live? If so, do we want to change the socio-economic power structure so that we're not compelled to work in order to produce? I'll tell you that if all workers stopped producing, that would hurt everybody. — L'éléphant

But this is exactly the negative condition and moral problem I'm talking about.. No production suicide.. So we must be producers... Bringing in existentialist ideas of bad faith, we must sublimate this fact as if it is just the way things must be, but our "soul" (metaphorically used here) rebels against it.