Luring Us into Simplicity

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Systematic
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Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by Systematic »

Failing the option to outright tell people what to do and to think, which they do anyway somewhat, those with options have taken an alternative route. All of the most enticing options to modern man limit our options. They make everything so simple that it limits what is actually possible to accomplish. For example, take artificially intelligent algorithms. If people are foolish enough to not know how to type in what they want to find on google, then it is the people that need reform—not google's algorithms. We need more options—not fewer. The simplest place to live is in jail. You don't have to figure out where you'll go, how you'll pay the bills, or how to pick up the ladies. But who would be foolish enough to live in such vast simplicity at the loss of liberty? And on the computer is not the only place that simplicity is being urged. The benefits that people receive from the government also limit options. If you receive them, your option to earn just went away. The same goes for the simplicity that the government itself offers: You give up some of your liberty so that you can simply let the police handle it. When you go to school, there aren't any complex options bogging you down like thinking through the course material. All you have to do is memorize and recall. The world needs to be weaned off of simplicity—not into it.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Systematic wrote:All of the most enticing options to modern man limit our options.
Is it not built into the very idea of choosing between two things that the choice you didn't take then becomes impossible?
The less enticing choices also limit options, otherwise a choice was not made, no?
Systematic wrote:For example, take artificially intelligent algorithms. If people are foolish enough to not know how to type in what they want to find on google, then it is the people that need reform—not google's algorithms. We need more options—not fewer. The simplest place to live is in jail. You don't have to figure out where you'll go, how you'll pay the bills, or how to pick up the ladies.
I would suggest that choosing jail as a lifestyle still entails a future of difficult choices to be made - many of them life and death decisions about whose hand to hold and what not to drop in the shower.
Google autocomplete is often very useful, but I'm not sure anyone would describe it as artificial intelligence.
Systematic wrote:But who would be foolish enough to live in such vast simplicity at the loss of liberty? And on the computer is not the only place that simplicity is being urged. The benefits that people receive from the government also limit options. If you receive them, your option to earn just went away.
Or other, wider, options become available. The availability of state unemployment protection sets a floor price on labour. Nobody would clean toilets with a toothbrush for $0.05 /hour if the alternative were unemployment benefits paying better than that. So people are more able to search for better opportunities because they have that safety net.
Systematic wrote:The same goes for the simplicity that the government itself offers: You give up some of your liberty so that you can simply let the police handle it. When you go to school, there aren't any complex options bogging you down like thinking through the course material. All you have to do is memorize and recall. The world needs to be weaned off of simplicity—not into it.
You went to a terrible school. In the UK we expect our schools to teach children skills useful to a complex and changing world.
Systematic
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by Systematic »

In the U.S. we train soldiers. They don't need to think much.
Walker
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by Walker »

Systematic wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:10 am In the U.S. we train soldiers. They don't need to think much.
The primary training for soldiers is mind training, namely, how to distinguish the real from the unreal for the purposes of both survival, and achieving an objective.

All the particular trainings are subordinate to this, and designed to enhance this.

Thinking necessarily plays a role in establishing this as a habit.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Systematic wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:10 am In the U.S. we train soldiers. They don't need to think much.
Totally worth the 6 month wait. And so thoroughly thought through in all its complexity.

I award you 7 FlashDangerPoints for that effort.
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-1-
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by -1- »

systematic, you lured us into simplicity by convincing us that we're being lured into simplicity.

Well done.
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-1-
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by -1- »

Walker wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:18 am
Systematic wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:10 am In the U.S. we train soldiers. They don't need to think much.
The primary training for soldiers is mind training, namely, how to distinguish the real from the unreal for the purposes of both survival, and achieving an objective.

Methinks what you wrote is a primary training for delusional schizophrenics. A soldier is not to make decisions; he or she is to carry out decisions made by others unquestioningly. The primary objective of a soldier is to carry out orders. Nothing else. Both by definition and by actual practice.

All the particular trainings are subordinate to this, and designed to enhance this.

Thinking necessarily plays a role in establishing this as a habit.
Walker
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by Walker »

That is an aspect of reality that the soldier learns to identify.

So as you can see, Methinks doesn't know squat.
Systematic
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Re: Luring Us into Simplicity

Post by Systematic »

-1- wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:05 am
Walker wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:18 am
Systematic wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 8:10 am In the U.S. we train soldiers. They don't need to think much.
The primary training for soldiers is mind training, namely, how to distinguish the real from the unreal for the purposes of both survival, and achieving an objective.

Methinks what you wrote is a primary training for delusional schizophrenics. A soldier is not to make decisions; he or she is to carry out decisions made by others unquestioningly. The primary objective of a soldier is to carry out orders. Nothing else. Both by definition and by actual practice.

All the particular trainings are subordinate to this, and designed to enhance this.

Thinking necessarily plays a role in establishing this as a habit.
So Nietzschean philosophy is ironic in practice? Out of the frying pan of Christianity and into the fire of the military.
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