This is a topic where I’m very confident, so allow me to be bold: The belief is moral progress is naive. People like David Graber, though, are sick. This is a fair statement since he’s comparing himself (and us!) to cancer. And why does he hate humanity so? It’s because we’re egoistic and greedy. Well, all healthy life is! Wildness itself is life which lacks the social conditioning which causes people like Graber to hate themselves. Now, a small note here: people aren’t by default “needy”. Only those of weak character are needy. Consider animals, they’re wild and egoistic and do whatever they please, but they don’t necessarily harm others for their own sake. Human nature only looks bad to us because so few are healthy today. Our view on humanity is mostly a projection of ourselves and a product of what we hear (stop reading the news if you want to feel happy!). The Lutheran is sick as well, but he knows that is he, and he knows that many others are as well, that’s why he likes the church! It’s his self-medication.
You can’t really have a non-human standard, since you, being a human, are the one with the standard. And since we were created in gods image, and since the self-hatred is the hatred of our own human nature, it’s simply not true that we value god and nature above ourselves. In Nietzsche’s words: ”To the despisers of the body I want to say a word. That their disrespect is based on their respect. What is it that created respect and disrespect and value and will?”
Human well-being is not so tricky to figure out. Instead of Goodharting metrics which average people think will improve their lives “I will be happy when..” why not look at actual factors in human well-being? Loneliness seems to be on the raise even with a ridiculus explosion in connectedness.
As much as I agree with your conclusion (The rest of your post is not bad either), I don’t trust people to define what’s good. Those who are the most vocal about morality appear to be some of the worst our planet has to offer. I’ll even claim that morality is at odds with health when morality is defined by those with poor health, which is usually the case. The less competent you are, the less the idea of a meritocracy is going to appeal to you.
Two more axioms for you: 1: What helps me might hurt you and vice versa. 2: Nothing is absolute good or bad, everything has side-effects and a non-trivial connection to its own opposite, so you can’t separate pros and cons and increase or decrease just one of the two.
This is a topic where I’m very confident, so allow me to be bold:
The belief is moral progress is naive. People like David Graber, though, are sick. This is a fair statement since he’s comparing himself (and us!) to cancer. And why does he hate humanity so? It’s because we’re egoistic and greedy. Well, all healthy life is! Wildness itself is life which lacks the social conditioning which causes people like Graber to hate themselves. Now, a small note here: people aren’t by default “needy”. Only those of weak character are needy. Consider animals, they’re wild and egoistic and do whatever they please, but they don’t necessarily harm others for their own sake. Human nature only looks bad to us because so few are healthy today. Our view on humanity is mostly a projection of ourselves and a product of what we hear (stop reading the news if you want to feel happy!).
The Lutheran is sick as well, but he knows that is he, and he knows that many others are as well, that’s why he likes the church! It’s his self-medication.
You can’t really have a non-human standard, since you, being a human, are the one with the standard. And since we were created in gods image, and since the self-hatred is the hatred of our own human nature, it’s simply not true that we value god and nature above ourselves. In Nietzsche’s words:
”To the despisers of the body I want to say a word. That their disrespect is based on their respect. What is it that created respect and disrespect and value and will?”
Human well-being is not so tricky to figure out. Instead of Goodharting metrics which average people think will improve their lives “I will be happy when..” why not look at actual factors in human well-being? Loneliness seems to be on the raise even with a ridiculus explosion in connectedness.
As much as I agree with your conclusion (The rest of your post is not bad either), I don’t trust people to define what’s good. Those who are the most vocal about morality appear to be some of the worst our planet has to offer. I’ll even claim that morality is at odds with health when morality is defined by those with poor health, which is usually the case. The less competent you are, the less the idea of a meritocracy is going to appeal to you.
Two more axioms for you: 1: What helps me might hurt you and vice versa. 2: Nothing is absolute good or bad, everything has side-effects and a non-trivial connection to its own opposite, so you can’t separate pros and cons and increase or decrease just one of the two.