I really don’t see what your usefulness/uselessness to powerful people has to do with you being bad. I can’t even imagine what premises you are relying on for such a statement.
I can’t even imagine what premises you are relying on for such a statement.
It’s a modification of Hypercalvinism / Dispensationalism / Dominionism / Divine Command Theory that I was taught as a child.
Essentially, power defines morality, because “fuck you, what are you going to do about it?”. And (to quote the actual book Catch-22), “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing”.
Basically, the strong are morally justified—in a sense, morally compelled—to dominate and torment the weak, because they can. And the weak deserve every minute of it, because fuck them.
I’ve spent… roughly four to five hours a day, every day, for 35+ years, trying to update out of that belief system, and yet I fundamentally still operate under it.
[the might is right position I grew up under states:] the strong are morally justified—in a sense, morally compelled—to dominate and torment the weak, because they can. And the weak deserve every minute of it, because fuck them.
… it’s hard for me to imagine what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.
When you say that you operate under this belief system, I don’t quite believe you. You don’t seem to identify with it. Maybe you’ve updated out of it in some regards but not others? Maybe you apply it to the way you would let others treat you / how you treat yourself, but not to the way you treat others?
Also, I’m going to guess that you’re still punishing yourself for your mistakes of the day. I hope you can let them go. You’re obviously working through something painful. Have you given yourself credit for taking the bold step of making this post to try to find a way out?
As for your original question, the only approach I know of for failure, generally, is to try again the next day, possibly trying something different/smaller, possibly with help. Failure to act according to your “system 2”-intention happens to everyone, so I’d say the most important things are (1) not being to hard on yourself (2) setting things up for a new trial with a high success probability (3) recognizing small successes. E.g. set things up so you can avoid most of what your averse to, without completely avoiding all of it, and/or find ways to be less averse to it.
I hope this post isn’t too off-base. I wish you well.
you should want to be powerful yourself—so certainly go and exploit the society:)
the powerful are really not paying for it, and if they are it’s completely peanuts to them. If you are screwing up anyone by so-called leeching, it’s the middle class:) You are not bad to “them”, they don’t care about you one way or another.
I am rich and powerful (compared to you, at least), and I hereby command you to do it:)
Heh. I’m coming back to this, now that I’m in a different mindset.
you should want to be powerful yourself—so certainly go and exploit the society:)
Unfortunately, that leads to a “thrashing” unstable loop, because this:
Basically, the strong are morally justified—in a sense, morally compelled—to dominate and torment the weak, because they can. And the weak deserve every minute of it, because fuck them.
is cached shorthand for the actual system, which is “the powerful dictate morality”.
In general, “the powerful dictate morality” can be easily cached into “the strong deserve to dominate and torment the weak”, because most ways of gaining power over the weak involve dominating and tormenting them, so the people who have that mentality tend to get and keep power—hence a stable loop.
The problem is, when I find my own power rising, my external moral compass (“the powerful define morality”) notices that I’m entering that “powerful” reference class, and thus my internal moral compass (“don’t dominate others, and seek to distribute power fairly”) gains more moral weight.
As I said before, this leads to an unstable loop: while I’m powerless, my own internal moral compass doesn’t enter into the moral calculus, and therefore it is moral for me to dominate and torment others in order to gain power. But as that becomes successful, I become more powerful, and therefore my internal moral compass enters into the moral calculus—and suddenly, the actions I have taken to gain power are no longer morally justified.
Not quite. Power defines what happens in reality, aka the descriptive part. Morality, on the other hand, defines the normative part. Power often trumps morality but it does not define it.
I really don’t see what your usefulness/uselessness to powerful people has to do with you being bad. I can’t even imagine what premises you are relying on for such a statement.
It’s a modification of Hypercalvinism / Dispensationalism / Dominionism / Divine Command Theory that I was taught as a child.
Essentially, power defines morality, because “fuck you, what are you going to do about it?”. And (to quote the actual book Catch-22), “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing”.
Basically, the strong are morally justified—in a sense, morally compelled—to dominate and torment the weak, because they can. And the weak deserve every minute of it, because fuck them.
I’ve spent… roughly four to five hours a day, every day, for 35+ years, trying to update out of that belief system, and yet I fundamentally still operate under it.
… it’s hard for me to imagine what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.
When you say that you operate under this belief system, I don’t quite believe you. You don’t seem to identify with it. Maybe you’ve updated out of it in some regards but not others? Maybe you apply it to the way you would let others treat you / how you treat yourself, but not to the way you treat others?
Also, I’m going to guess that you’re still punishing yourself for your mistakes of the day. I hope you can let them go. You’re obviously working through something painful. Have you given yourself credit for taking the bold step of making this post to try to find a way out?
As for your original question, the only approach I know of for failure, generally, is to try again the next day, possibly trying something different/smaller, possibly with help. Failure to act according to your “system 2”-intention happens to everyone, so I’d say the most important things are (1) not being to hard on yourself (2) setting things up for a new trial with a high success probability (3) recognizing small successes. E.g. set things up so you can avoid most of what your averse to, without completely avoiding all of it, and/or find ways to be less averse to it.
I hope this post isn’t too off-base. I wish you well.
Well then,
you should want to be powerful yourself—so certainly go and exploit the society:)
the powerful are really not paying for it, and if they are it’s completely peanuts to them. If you are screwing up anyone by so-called leeching, it’s the middle class:) You are not bad to “them”, they don’t care about you one way or another.
I am rich and powerful (compared to you, at least), and I hereby command you to do it:)
Heh. I’m coming back to this, now that I’m in a different mindset.
Unfortunately, that leads to a “thrashing” unstable loop, because this:
is cached shorthand for the actual system, which is “the powerful dictate morality”.
In general, “the powerful dictate morality” can be easily cached into “the strong deserve to dominate and torment the weak”, because most ways of gaining power over the weak involve dominating and tormenting them, so the people who have that mentality tend to get and keep power—hence a stable loop.
The problem is, when I find my own power rising, my external moral compass (“the powerful define morality”) notices that I’m entering that “powerful” reference class, and thus my internal moral compass (“don’t dominate others, and seek to distribute power fairly”) gains more moral weight.
As I said before, this leads to an unstable loop: while I’m powerless, my own internal moral compass doesn’t enter into the moral calculus, and therefore it is moral for me to dominate and torment others in order to gain power. But as that becomes successful, I become more powerful, and therefore my internal moral compass enters into the moral calculus—and suddenly, the actions I have taken to gain power are no longer morally justified.
Have you looked into the possibility that you’re letting morality be too important?
Not quite. Power defines what happens in reality, aka the descriptive part. Morality, on the other hand, defines the normative part. Power often trumps morality but it does not define it.
Certain people here sometimes seem to measure someone’s value by their income, i.e. by how much people with money are willing to pay them to do stuff.