Do you honestly think that this friend lives a worse life than a medieval peasant?
The question at issue didn’t seem to be better vs. worse, but rather “motivated by what”. My friend is spending money on oil which she would prefer to spend on groceries or shelter, neither of which she has quite enough of, and spending it to keep a job which is currently paying her a salary of zero.
It’s not clear to me that this decision is a matter of being “motivated by” this or that category of primary social goods (“things it is rational to want whatever else one wants”), even once you drop (as you have) the idea of a linear ranking of these goods. She doesn’t feel like she is making a decision.
The title of your post suggests that its major point is (still, after your revisions) the italicized phrase “irrationalists free-ride on the [...] achievements of rationalists”. It’s not clear that rationality is a “commons” in the original sense of a scare resource that could be depleted by over-exploitation. It’s not clear what you suggest someone in my friend’s position could be doing to contribute closer to her fair share to the maintenance of “the analytic-rational paradigm”.
Despite a lower than minimum-wage revenue she is actually paying taxes this year, the apparent consequence of the latest tax reform. Would you argue taxes don’t count as contributing back to the commons? These taxes pay in part for universities and research institutions. Why does your post fail to mention taxes altogether?
Your final points I can agree with, in line with Gregory Bateson’s observations that sometimes going crazy can be a sane response to an insane situation. It’s a tragedy all right, but I’m not sure it can be called a tragedy of the commons.
My description of the situation would be more along the following lines. Particular epistemologies (practiced by few individuals) have had huge effect on human societies, transforming them in ways that resulted in much greater numbers of people, interacting in very different ways than in the past, and in particular having greater environmental effects.
One consequence of these changes has been to amplify the impacts of both kinds of epistemologies: whereas it didn’t particularly matter what the medieval peasant believed, in terms of impact on the medieval peasan’ts comfort, how the 21st century citizen in a developed country thinks does matter to his or her medium-term comfort (e.g. through party politics), and epistemological failures of 21st century elites may have a drastic impact on the citizen’s medium-term comfort.
We all need to learn how to think better, and soon, or we are all shouldering more risk than we’d be comfortable with if we did know better; but the consequences of our predecessors’ own improved thinking are playing a large part in distracting us from that objective. Our past successes at thinking better have made the world a more intellectually challenging place, which is hindering further success at thinking better.
The question at issue didn’t seem to be better vs. worse, but rather “motivated by what”. My friend is spending money on oil which she would prefer to spend on groceries or shelter, neither of which she has quite enough of, and spending it to keep a job which is currently paying her a salary of zero.
It’s not clear to me that this decision is a matter of being “motivated by” this or that category of primary social goods (“things it is rational to want whatever else one wants”), even once you drop (as you have) the idea of a linear ranking of these goods. She doesn’t feel like she is making a decision.
The title of your post suggests that its major point is (still, after your revisions) the italicized phrase “irrationalists free-ride on the [...] achievements of rationalists”. It’s not clear that rationality is a “commons” in the original sense of a scare resource that could be depleted by over-exploitation. It’s not clear what you suggest someone in my friend’s position could be doing to contribute closer to her fair share to the maintenance of “the analytic-rational paradigm”.
Despite a lower than minimum-wage revenue she is actually paying taxes this year, the apparent consequence of the latest tax reform. Would you argue taxes don’t count as contributing back to the commons? These taxes pay in part for universities and research institutions. Why does your post fail to mention taxes altogether?
Your final points I can agree with, in line with Gregory Bateson’s observations that sometimes going crazy can be a sane response to an insane situation. It’s a tragedy all right, but I’m not sure it can be called a tragedy of the commons.
My description of the situation would be more along the following lines. Particular epistemologies (practiced by few individuals) have had huge effect on human societies, transforming them in ways that resulted in much greater numbers of people, interacting in very different ways than in the past, and in particular having greater environmental effects.
One consequence of these changes has been to amplify the impacts of both kinds of epistemologies: whereas it didn’t particularly matter what the medieval peasant believed, in terms of impact on the medieval peasan’ts comfort, how the 21st century citizen in a developed country thinks does matter to his or her medium-term comfort (e.g. through party politics), and epistemological failures of 21st century elites may have a drastic impact on the citizen’s medium-term comfort.
We all need to learn how to think better, and soon, or we are all shouldering more risk than we’d be comfortable with if we did know better; but the consequences of our predecessors’ own improved thinking are playing a large part in distracting us from that objective. Our past successes at thinking better have made the world a more intellectually challenging place, which is hindering further success at thinking better.