💾 Archived View for tilde.club › ~oldernow › 2023-11-26-16-30-04.gmi captured on 2023-12-28 at 17:17:59. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

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RE: Dos amig[ao]s

=> gemini://tilde.club/~oldernow/2023-11-26-07-44-43.gmi Dos amig[ao]s

> To me capitalism is the result/consequence/reflection of
> most people *not* trying, i.e. not trying to be more than
> self-centric/self-ish, necessarily increasing the odds of
> others - including the environment - being so-called left
> in the lurch.
...
> Blaming capitalism is akin blaming a shadow. The problem
> is in the mirror, not the window.

To be honest I think the above is extremely misanthropic

You know, I never thought of it that way, but see what you mean.

Of course, I wrote that much that you quoted in a context of decades of pursuing understanding the nature of reality, which of course managed to result in settling on a few "winners" of explanation(s), with earlier findings and conclusions - some (many?) no doubt hasty/flawed/etc. - likely influencing/filtering subsequent investigations/conclusions.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit I've seen the word 'misanthropic' for at least as many decades without ever having to know what it meant (that, or I'd simply forgotten it).. but the first definition that popped up for for me so I could respond to that much goes like this:

- marked by a hatred or contempt for humankind

I assure you I've no hatred of humanity. It's more that I look at what seems like "a real mess" (aka "the world"), have noted points of view and/or ways of modeling reality within "my own" (the double quotes are a nod to the aforementioned influencing/filtering) thought/emotional bioprocessing realm that reasonably account for "my piece of it" (for having made a mess of my life at times in diverse and sundry ways), have assumed that others aren't too different from me, and that the integral of billions of realtime behaviors driven by such seems an explanation whose predictive powers gives me a sense of being at least on the right track.

Do I hate myself?

No.

Do I despise seemingly being a self/person/individual.

Pretty much.

BUT*, do note the wording. I don't despise *myself*. I'm not even convinced there really "is" such a thing (which of course sounds ridiculous given this sentence begn with 'I'...): I despise reality being so heavily driven by the assumption of there being so limiting a thing. (I wouldn't be surprised to learn Robert Smith so frequently singing "it's always the same" is rooted in some sense of that.)

Now, I don't map that despising to others. I no longer believe in "free will", so it would be silly for me to be finding culpability in selves/persons/individuals.

It's more that I believe the notion/model/representation of a self/person/individual drives the behavior of our biological engine in far less than optimal ways. And I want to see that situation improved for all.

But an interesting conundrum in said notion/model/representation is its tendency to drive the machine toward protecting said notion/model/representation at all costs, as though containing a significant element of positive feedback that responds to anything that would question - let along undermine - that notion/model/representation.

Does that make sense?

I enjoyed and agree with most - possibly all (I've already forgotten enough of it due to this little writing/response detour, but vague memories of enjoyment/agreement linger...) - of your response/analysis.

I don't doubt the role of nurture. However, I believe the role of the aforementioned reality-coloring (reality-generating?) by the fundamental underlying notion of being a self/person/individual is what I'd like to call "deviously powerful". So, yeah, I believe there's nurture, but it's constrained to what the fundamental self/person/individual notion allows, as it were.

Unfortunately, it's not - well, not for my limited mental capacity, at any rate - a topic where a little explanation each way can be followed by tidy "Oh, okay... I get it now!"'s. I've seen many of the main and adjacent aspects of it varieties of ways over the years, and definitely reserve the right to believe differently about it all tomorrow. That said, some of what I'm calling my "findings" have been/felt particularly powerful in the last year or so - so much so that I'd feel like a cretin to not share the likes with others. But then I also realize we've all private versions of the meanings of words. Sure, they overlap much of the time. But that's primarily in fairly simple/straightforward areas, e.g. the meaning of a red traffic light. Word-mediated mutual understanding of even slightly more nuanced topics seems to goes to hell pretty quickly, which I believe the Internet demonstrates in all four playing card suits.

Anyway, I really appreciate your response and thoughtfulness!