I don’t necessarily disagree with this way of looking at things.
Serious question—how do you calibrate the standard by which you judge that something is good enough to warrant respect, or self-respect?
To illustrate what I mean, in one of your examples you judge your project teammates negatively for not having had the broad awareness to seriously learn ML ahead of time, in the absence of other obvious external stimuli to do so (like classes that would be hard enough to actually require that). The root of the negative judgment is that a better objective didn’t occur to them.
How can you ever be sure that there isn’t a better objective that isn’t occurring to you, at any given time? More broadly, how can you be sure that there isn’t just a generally better way of living, that you’re messing up for not currently doing?
If, hypothetically, you encountered a better version of yourself that presented you with a better objective and ways of living better, would you retroactively judge your life up to the present moment as worse and less worthy of respect? (Perhaps, based on the answer to the previous problem, the answer is “yes”, but you think this is an unlikely scenario.)
It’s not that conscious/reflective. Respect is an emotion; my standards for it are more on the instinctive level. Which is not to say that there aren’t consistent standards there, but they’re not something I have easy direct control over or ready introspective access to.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this way of looking at things.
Serious question—how do you calibrate the standard by which you judge that something is good enough to warrant respect, or self-respect?
To illustrate what I mean, in one of your examples you judge your project teammates negatively for not having had the broad awareness to seriously learn ML ahead of time, in the absence of other obvious external stimuli to do so (like classes that would be hard enough to actually require that). The root of the negative judgment is that a better objective didn’t occur to them.
How can you ever be sure that there isn’t a better objective that isn’t occurring to you, at any given time? More broadly, how can you be sure that there isn’t just a generally better way of living, that you’re messing up for not currently doing?
If, hypothetically, you encountered a better version of yourself that presented you with a better objective and ways of living better, would you retroactively judge your life up to the present moment as worse and less worthy of respect? (Perhaps, based on the answer to the previous problem, the answer is “yes”, but you think this is an unlikely scenario.)
It’s not that conscious/reflective. Respect is an emotion; my standards for it are more on the instinctive level. Which is not to say that there aren’t consistent standards there, but they’re not something I have easy direct control over or ready introspective access to.