Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
But would you also say that a person desired whatever consequences developed out of their decision to bear children because they chose that course of action? Probably not
Actually, I would say yes. Maybe I wouldn't use the word desire, but to say they did not "want" those consequences I feel would be wrong. If by desire we mean consciously verbalized to themselves they they did not want "X" consequence of having a child, then of course they probably did not desire it. But to me, most people do not have the perspective to understand what they need, want, and feel, and I'd like to push them in a direction of better understanding that.

Nature doesn't 'care' about doing things right, it 'cares' about simply being better than the competition, and that's all
I think this is very hard to factually argue either way, but I'll agree to disagree on this point.


It's not that it's impossible, but that it's a social paradigm which seems unavoidable for our species. It doesn't HAVE to be this way, it just IS this way. We're kinda stuck within our limitations, and have to work with what we got. While it is hypothetically possible for the entire community to be on some order of enlightenment, that's just not how our society works at this point, and the data has shown that the better results in mitigating our limitations comes out of 'artificial' regulation

Well, the purpose of governance here would be to mitigate the effects to the best benefit of the society. This would take a very very good governing system made up of the people and for the people (not what the system in the US is evolving into). The point isn't about what should be done or what is right, but with how things work. And the way things work in human civilization is that there are numerous built in exploits based on actions that humans naturally gravitate towards which could be partially mitigated by a good regulatory structure.

Take a very powerful virus for example. We've all heard about how a virus can be so powerful that it kills itself off by killing its hosts at a quicker rate than its ability to transmit to another host. Now imagine if this virus was individually conscious and were able to artificially alter their consumption and transmission rates in a way that their entire civilization doesn't annihilate itself. They would have to do this via some form of regulatory system that made the virus act in a collective manner because without that regulation they will naturally gravitate towards consuming beyond capacity.

It's the same for humans. The purpose of governance is to counteract our indigenous flaws and enhance our indigenous strengths. This can, and is often, misused, and government is on the order of totalitarian. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I think this was a very well structured argument and I can't really say I disagree with it. My question would be is it the government that truly needs to do this? Can a private organization do many of the things that you believe the government should be doing?

It's no coincidence that the happiest societies on the planet are also the most socialist i.e. have the government made up of mostly its people and regulates to value the community as a whole
I think this is where I radically differ from a lot of people: I don't think the fact that people are happy is necessarily a good thing. If a child throws a tantrum every time he doesn't get fed chocolate, so his mother gives him chocolate any time he wants, the kid will probably be happy given most scales. To me, happiness is something that is earned, not given. I would'nt want someone to be happy if they were not the ones creating it through a high level of understanding. Fuck, I'm sure a homeless man would be happy if he won 7 million dollars, but I don't think anyone is arguing this is something that is fantastic and should be praised. If you do think this, again, I'll agree to disagree.