We Are All One Worldwide Family?

by Skip

And that we are obligated to act in ways to protect everyone else – even those that we don’t know.

There are times when I wonder why I don’t quit earlier but then I remember why I sally forth to confront some of these WAY Leftist folks. Sure, I like the debate, and the more I do it, the better I get at it (mostly because they rarely ever think their talking points or ideas through). The other reason is to bring what they are saying back here so that when you run into someone stating the same things, perhaps, maybe, sorta, you’ll have an idea how to confusticate them.

Sort of like here where the proprietor of “Carbon Upfront!“, Lloyd Alter, had a difficult time defending his views on certain kinds of particulate air pollution and the best way to mitigate it. He also seemed to be rather offended that it ISN’T up to Govt to solve all of his problems but that people might have the agency to decide for themselves what is best for themselves based on all kinds of criteria (yes, he wants to ban gas stoves because they pollute your home and you should have no say it it, so there’s that about him).

At the same point, I ran into “Arthur” (from my last Carbon Upfront! post) – who is adamant that regardless of any cultural or ideological difference, we ARE the same people and a single community. Ponder that as you look around. Heck, I don’t think of (Mr. Babcock, the democrat who stole Grokster Norm’s sign in the last election) as being in my “community.”

And yes, I am SO tired and SO over the use of “community” in almost any context you can think of. At this point, to me, it is just the lamest attempt to persuade me that I to adopt THEIR mores. Yet, the more the Left uses it, the more it pushes me to the opposite side from that stealth push towards Collectivism (by other means).

So, because he was so adamant, the debate went long – very long (Sorry, Steve!), but I have to get this out of my system and move onto other things. So here are a lot of the comments I participated in (yes, Lloyd did shut them off).

Reformatted, snipped, and emphasis mine. I would suggest that you go to see them in toto and context.

——————————————————————————

Arthur

You raise a good point about the importance of context. I am constantly having to remind myself to step back and ask whether my obviously brilliant solutions to problems are truly practical. We live in a world of finite resources and therefore must as a community necessarily make tough choices about where we allocate what we have. This will inevitably bring to the surface conflicts between local, regional, national, international, and global interests. There is no perfect solution but I would argue that our current system overvalues short-term political expediency at a local/tribal level way too highly over long-term human/life survival. It is admittedly often harder work and more expensive to create better solutions but on a planetary basis, we direct an awful lot of resources toward things of questionable value and obvious danger to our future survival (war and cars for example). Directing more of those resources towards teaching humanity to embrace the idea that the persons across the street and in the next town and across the border and on the other side of the planet are all members of your tribe would be a good start.

Skip – And that is THE premise of Arthur – one that has NEVER worked, doesn’t work, and will never work in the future. This kumbaya idiocy is what allows truly evil people to take advantage of naive folks like Arthur.

P.S. : Cities are not the problem. Designing them for the benefit of the car instead of the people living in them might be.

GraniteGrok

In reverse order, then:

– How much to redo cities to fit the outlooks of both you and Lloyd given your recognition that Practicality is not always a concern?

– Yes, there are various levels of “community” (an overused and abused word, IMHO) but remember that thousands of history of mankind used to being/working in/protecting small tribes is not easily erased if it is even possible. Sorry, I’m not buying into the notion of a “global citizen” as it has never worked in the past and certainly isn’t going to happen any time soon (do you think that I, a senior white Christian male, would last long in Gaza, as a trite example that’s in the news lately)?

and who or what will “direct” those resources? And do you believe that they will truly be altruistic?

– Remember, as one climbs up the political tiers, the less influence a single ordinary person has on outcomes – or even what is being considered. Can you trust that YOUR best interests will always be taken care of? Or even one?

I can have a large effect on my family. A pretty big one in my hamlet. And in my small state of NH here in the US, I do have some “pull” on stuff as a well-known political activist. Nationally – not a chance. Globally, I don’t even exist.

So no, your words about “the other side of the planet are all members of your tribe would be a good start” are a non-starter because IT ISN’T A PRACTICAL OUTLOOK and never has. Altruistic, sure, I will give you that but not even close to Venn diagram intersection of realm of reality and possibility and practicality.

I’m rather shocked – you REALLY believe that cars are the equivalent of wars

Arthur

Thanks for the detailed response. Clearly you have given this some thought.

From the top:

-A lot. But cities are “redone” to a large extent every generation already (unfortunately usually by sprawl requiring more cars so far). Plan ahead and it takes less time to make material change than we have all already taken by bickering about whether anything needs be done at all.

-I make no assertion that this one will be easy. I do believe that it is, in some form or other, essential. We have failed miserably to date but we have always done so where we had an option to run away to somewhere new when there was not enough food to go around or we just couldn’t get along. I think that time has passed. The world may not be flat but we have hit the end edge of it and I wouldn’t pin my hopes on Elon to save the day by finding us a new home.

It does not mean handing over everything to a, hopefully, altruistic dictator or cabal or retreating into ever smaller isolated tribes. It means doing things at your local level taking into account the impact on your neighbor and elsewhere and paying the true cost for what we enjoy. We (all) need to stop externalizing our costs to the “other”. Hard work indeed, and it takes a lot of courage to go first. It requires us to contain/manage/control the drives built into us through millions of years of evolution and thousands of years “civilization”. What greater purpose to put that bit of grey matter between or ears toward accomplishing? What better way to exercise our free will? (of course if I can’t convince that you we have something approaching free will my point will be lost).

-See above. With the help of tools, that already exist and work when well employed, to facilitate organization at scale. No need for pure altruism when we face a collective existential threat and failing to save your neighbor means failing to save yourself. The tricky part is to use the free will part of us to thoughtfully override the rather loud and pushy evolution/history part.

-1.) Many single, once-ordinary people have had extraordinary influence. 2.) Until you are the last person standing your best interests will in some circumstances come before those of the many (the community pays the cost with you) and in some cases they will fall behind those of the community (you bear the cost alone or with those similarly situated). Creating a civilization is about finding the right balance between those two. A fair discussion requires that we assess the costs on both sides fairly. Some level of trust will always be required.

-I agree entirely up to the word “activist”. As for the rest, your individual influence may become difficult to measure with precision as you move further beyond your immediate circle but most certainly, when combined with the work of others, is real. It’s not about anyone alone. It is about us. Sounds like you have the time, motivation, and thoughtfulness to be quite influential. Why not aim big and direct your energy toward helping everyone while you help you, family, friends, and neighbors. The two are not mutually exclusive. Perfection is not expected.

-See above. Seeing in a Chinese factory worker, or anyone outside your immediate world, a kinship with you, your brother, your sister, your son your daughter… does not obligate you to abandon those next to you in favor of those beyond but I would hope that you would allow it to instill in you a sense of moral duty to admit and attempt to lessen the costs you indirectly impose on them through caring for yourself and those close to you. I disagree regarding the Venn Diagram. We overlap on the truly important things almost completely.

-I don’t think I made any claim of a direct general equivalency between war and cars. That does not mean our continued use of them as we have in the past does not constitute an existential risk. War, might be capable of making that risk materialize in a sudden and dramatic way all on its own while the continued use of ICE’s is perhaps only a contributor ( a not immaterial one I would argue even if you might have to combine it with a more general risk of fossil fuel reliance to tuck into your Pareto Principle) to us inflicting on ourselves a death by a thousand cuts. We are, IMHO, capable of doing better. Looking ahead to what we can measure with some certainty will follow from continuing to use each of them and trying to find a better alternative is a step towards doing just that.

GraniteGrok

1) -A lot. But cities are “redone” to a large extent every generation already (unfortunately usually by sprawl requiring more cars so far). Plan ahead and it takes less time to make material change than we have all already taken by bickering about whether anything needs be done at all.

No, they are not redone extensively every 25 years (one generation) for any medium to large city – the infrastructure is too large to redo things. MAYBE a block or two in a specific locale of that city (with that replicated in a number of areas).

Plan? Sure but I found that few planners care about what “common folk” believe to be important. And I don’t think they can reliably “see” what will be important a couple generations into the future.

2) “It requires us to contain/manage/control the drives built into us through millions of years of evolution and thousands of years “of civilization”. What greater purpose to put that bit of grey matter between or ears toward accomplishing? What better way to exercise our free will? (of course if I can’t convince that you we having something approaching free will my point will be lost).”

I certainly DO believe that we, as individuals, have Free Will. And that’s a problem as most yelling that “we must solve XY as a Collective” will punish (and already have) attempts to exercise individual Free Will.

But if you think that you can rewire people in a few short years that took millions to develop, you’ve already failed. Look at just the old Soviet Union whose philosophy promised much to the proletarians if they only Collectively worked together – only to fail and the true nature of most returned. You can only “Genie bottle” basic human realities for just so long in Collectives before you get Revolutions against it (re: our American Revolution is a decent example of putting Individuals first).

“What better way to exercise our free will?”

Sorry, but when I read that, I first read “give up” instead of “exercise”.

Not happening.

3) “failing to save your neighbor means failing to save yourself”

Sorry, I disagree with that philosophy that turns me into someone without Free Will. After all, if I am forced to save everyone around me, hasn’t Free Will been stripped from me? That others now have a claim on me before my own?

Freedom, by definition, is being able to say “yes” AS WELL as being able to say “NO!”. Please do not conflate being friendly with a condition of demanded obligation. Sure, I have saved complete strangers’ lives from drowning and other scenarios at risk to myself, so don’t get me wrong and call me heartless when I say what I did.

4) “… Its not about anyone alone. It is about us.

I totally reject that philosophy just like I reject “the Collective” and “it takes a village” because when you look under the hood, it’s always about the forcing of belonging and that “belonging” leads to a Hobbesian dystopia where all Rights are demanded by the Collective and doled out on whims. After all, look at Great Britain whose newly elected “collectivists” are now threatening native Brits with jail for expressing wrongthink.

Instead, like De Tocqueville found in the mid-1800s and the Amish today, it’s all about voluntary teams – individuals recognizing a problem, making it irrelevant, and then going along their merry way INDIVIDUALLY. And no one was forced to join that team – Free Will.

“Why not aim big and direct your energy toward helping everyone” while you help you, family, friends and neighbors. The two are not mutually exclusive. Perfection is not expected.

5) “Seeing in a Chinese factory worker, or anyone outside your immediate world, a kinship with you,”

A kinship? Sorry, an altruism gone mad. My response?

My mom always chided me to finish all that was on my dinner plate: “you know, there are starving Chinese children!”. So I said “name two” and that was the end of the conversation and dinner.

Again, you’re trying to weld different tribes that have nothing in common.

GraniteGrok

And no, I have no moral duty to hue to your example as it would break what you said was important to you: Free Will. Again, the ability to say yes OR no,

Bob BAAL

Mine were always African – and I never had the nerve to talk back to her or I would have been beaten.

GraniteGrok

My Mom was shell-shocked the first time I said it (and I was, to be honest, quite surprised that I actually said it out loud). After the second time, as she had no good answer, she stopped saying it.

I was, of course, given more chores around the house for a while but we both knew it was a stupid argument to have been used to make me clean my plate.

At least Mom learned something about it. Arthur, seemingly, not so much.

Arthur

<snip>

-Your neighbor, in particular the one in the overseas factory producing all the crap you consume, does in fact indirectly help pay your taxes. Every nickel we squeeze out of his hourly wage translates into more money in your pocket leaving you more to pay your taxes. The problem is we don’t have anywhere left to externalize the actual costs of our insatiable appetites. We need to start getting along. Easy to dismiss doing our part. We are just a blip as individuals. Also easy to see that if we all do a bit it adds up fast. Be courageous and go first.

Arthur – response to VB

I hope you will agree that your disagreement with a particular approach to addressing climate change does not counter the argument that there is a need to address climate change.

Any incapacity of the developed world to meet their targets stems from a lack of political will more than any underlying inability.

Fear of change, stoked relentlessly by those with a vested interest in the status quo doesn’t help.

The idea of working together is to get over the issue of individual affordability. Progressive taxation is a pretty good tool for spreading the burden. If you are harboring the delusion that wealthy people (really wealthy) actually produce all that wealth through their own effort I hate to burst your bubble but that is first rate nonsense.

I agree that we need to think more carefully about if and how we can use nuclear power safely to get us at least part of the way to net zero. It comes with its own baggage but it might (emphasis on might) be the lesser evil. Everyone freaked out after the Japanese meltdown and through the baby out with the bath water on that one. A mistake me thinks.

I agree that, based on the current state of knowledge, carbon capture technology will not save us. Not sure that supports your next line of thought. There is no magic fix. There is just a shitload of hard work to be done and a new understanding of the concept of sufficiency to be embraced.

GraniteGrok

“The idea of working together is to get over the issue of individual affordability. Progressive taxation is a pretty good tool for spreading the burden. If you are harboring the delusion that wealthy people (really wealthy) actually produce all that wealth through their own effort I hate to burst your bubble but that is first rate nonsense.”

And that is why I will never let you into my tribe. What you have said is that you have no problem obviating their Right to Private Property, which is one of the 4 pillars of the American philosophy of Government, in order to redistribute it for YOUR ideals.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”

Again, not my tribe.

GraniteGrok

“Your neighbor, in particular the one in the overseas factory”

No, he’s not. Never will be. Your analogy is a false one.

GraniteGrok

” be our base line”

Your use of “our base line” is logically the same as “Collectivist outlook“.

Already said that Collectivism is anathema to Freedom so there’s no “ours” for me. Consider me out of anything that is forced.

A quick side conversation with Bob who was responding to Arthur:

Bob BAAL

“Directing more…are all members of your tribe would be a good start.”

No that’s a rubbish idea. I don’t want to be in their tribe, they don’t want to be in my Tribe and neither of us want to be in your tribe.

That’s not going to change as it’s built into us and at the most fundamental levels. We can recognise this and move forward for the common good. But we need to recognise that we are not all the same.

Some of the greatest blunders in policy in the last couple of decades have happened because decision makers have failed to understand this: Russians are not Europeans and do not think like Europeans and don’t want to either be or think like us.

GraniteGrok

“I don’t want to be in their tribe, they don’t want to be in my Tribe and neither of us want to be in your tribe.”

And I dryly point out that too few don’t understand that because of different tribes, there CANNOT BE a common good as everyone’s is different.

Change my mind.

Bob BAAL

OK, how about this.

Because we do have some things in common there can indeed be a common good but that does not mean that’s its impact or cost, or implementation is common to every tribe.

Change A will have a different cost to Tribe X from Tribe Y but the impact to Tribe X may also be different from Tribe Y. Thats does not stop it being a common good.

You can have a common good without it being the same common good to every tribe. This is why the argument that we should all use only 7.5 Tons of Carbon emissions every year is so flawed. It’s a common good to reduce carbon emissions but by how much and how, is different for every Tribe. Actually, I prefer herd to tribe in this context!

GraniteGrok

OK, riddle me this – what might I have in common, ideologically, with Putin or Xi?

I hazard to guess (smirk) that the intersection on a Venn diagram is a nullity.

The phrase “common good” has been thrown around so often that the only more worse abused word is “community”.

Bob BAAL

You all want to be dictators?

“community” has indeed been misused – people assume it’s a good thing – it can be it can also be a trap.

Arthur

LOL. We all know benevolent dictatorship is the easiest solution and we all thing we are the one who can impose it without letting the power go to our heads.

GraniteGrok

Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.

That is why the best sociological document ever created was the US Constitution in that its purpose, knowing that a limited govt was most conducive to personal Liberty, was the design to divvy up actions and responsibilities such that Power would be quite diluted rather than concentrated.

And, Arthur, no you can’t impose such Powers and contain yourself. That’s not practical nor realistic.

Look at the current US Government that has decide to disregard much of the limiting fencing in of govt by our Constitution for OUR individual benefit of keeping our Liberties. Those that swear an oath to protect it simply say the words to gain their seat at the Power Tables and then promptly have forgotten the spirit of those words.

Which is why the US is now $35 Trillion in debt, among other ills.

Arthur

How working towards ensuring there is a liveable planet for the next generations is not a common good we should be all be on board with escapes me unless you think our existence is pointless.

GraniteGrok

A Glittering Generality word salad followed by a nagging.

You present a scenario you believe is a goodness and possible to achieve. However, you have fallen into the trap, as VB, me, and Bob keep pointing out, that your perceived soaring rhetoric is worthless without concrete Ground Zero solutions that contain pricing, timelines, unknowns, and political pathways that are achievable.

You refuse to do any of that hard work.

Arthur

Agreed that the costs of life can never practically be allocated precisely evenly to each individual or even each herd (I like that term. It acknowledges our underlying similarities). They don’t need to be. I would argue that one of our noble goals as a species should be to work towards them being allocated fairly. I don’t think the current set up does that particularly well.

I would suggest you not take the 7.5 tons of carbon per person concept too literally. Think of it as a tool that helps clarify the current inequity and as a guide to help get us to a better place.

Arthur

Do you reject the idea of there being basic human rights?

GraniteGrok

There are basic Rights and our US Bill of Rights enumerates the most basic ones. However, expecting others to be my “Keeper” is not one of them. Nor me to be someone, or a whole flock of people, else’s Keeper.

I already have my hands full being my family’s Keeper – continuing to insist that I am also other peoples’ Keeper is both wrong and evil of you to place that unwanted obligation upon me and others.

Arthur

I think perhaps my use of the word “tribe” is a bit loose for your liking. What I want to get at is that as humans I think war-mongering. How those manifest at the smaller individual group level can vary quite a bit. We can find different solutions to the similar problems. What I think we need to avoid continuing to do is to focus on the details of those difference in unproductive ways and start acting in a way that supports the things we share.

Every war-mongering person/tribe/nation since there were war mongering people/tribes/nations has attempted to characterize their enemy, perceived or real, as less than human. A certain American political party that shall go nameless routinely dehumanizes desperate people seeking a better life for themselves and their families in the US for political gain. Like warmongers, they do this because they know that if they can get people to make a divide between us and them they can convince many of them to do almost anything against that other, no matter how inhumane. It is fundamentally necessary to dehumanize the other in order for people to bear/block the psychological pain of asking them to do the inhumane things that war demands. Even after brainwashing people for a lifetime through religion or ideology and bullying/beating/ them to comply with orders without questioning those orders against their base human moral framework it still takes a deep psychological toll on most people who truly experience war. This simple reality demonstrates, imho incontrovertibly, that we innately share an understanding as humans that we are of one “tribe” and owe a duty to each other on that basis alone.

We are one “tribe”. We always will be.

GraniteGrok

“I think we all share the same basic needs and desires.”

Nope

Arthur

Care to elaborate on how your basic needs and desires differ from the rest of humanity?

GraniteGrok

My basic needs and desires differ greatly from Putin’s and Xi’s. The root cause is that they wish to impose themselves and their ideas of obligations onto millions of people via forced Collectivism.

I simply wish to be left alone by others unless I voluntarily choose otherwise.

Those two desires are in direct conflict with each other and in no way are you able to rationalize them to NOT be in conflict.

<snip>

GraniteGrok

“Every war mongering person/tribe/nation since there were war mongering people/tribes/nations has attempted to characterize their enemy, perceived or real, as less than human.”

And that is part and parcel of human nature – there will always be those that have no problem in plundering sheeple for their own benefit. There will ALWAYS be those among us that believe they can Rule others with impunity and history is full of such people.

And you, with your grandiose Glittering Generalities, refuse to acknowledge that fact head on; your quote even says it and then you tritely go on to try to cover that in saying:

“that we innately share an understanding as humans that we are of one “tribe” and owe a duty to each other on that basis alone. We are one “tribe”. We always will be.”

I’ll be honest and blunt – sheer stupidity nonsense. You summed up History’s truth and then tried to gloss right over it.

Arthur, you may mean well but you have just told us that you have no solution; merely saying “one tribe” doesn’t make it so and you’ve offered no practical ways to achieve it. Until you do, I’m now finished with your kumbaya outlook because it has never worked in the real world.

Otherwise, not a single jail would exist in any country. Try solving that problem first.


Author

  • Skip

    Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

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