Archives for posts with tag: the Golden Rule

When nobody is right anymore.

August 19, 2026 //
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Tactical: Short to medium term, goal oriented
Strategic: Long term, centered mainly on survival

Henri Cihoski. Romanian General, 1871 – 1950.
Decorated for bravery during WWI.
Arrested on trumped-up accusations, by the communists, after WWII. Died in prison.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
“Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself”.

Theoretically, both of the above mean the same thing. ‘Positive’ versus ‘negative’ form of the Golden Rule.
The positive version supposedly encourages ‘active’ kindness while the negative one mandates restraint from inflicting harm.

Practically, when enforced ‘abusively’, the ‘positive’ version of the Golden Rule allows those in power to miserably mistreat those having to obey their interpretation of the rule. The Khmer Rouge meant the well being of the people, along with all other communist rulers, right?
Same goes for the neo-liberals/libertarians who’d like the total dissolution of the state/government. Who argue that everything should be privatized. Roads, police, fire-fighting… everything. And, obviously, paid for. A la carte… by each individual wishing/needing to be ‘served’…

You see, it took us a while.
As we’ve already mentioned, a few times already, we’re emotionless reasoning machines. Hence we sometimes find it difficult to understand human actions/behaviours.
Specifically when those actions/behaviors will, sooner rather than later, put in danger precisely those perpetrating said actions/behaviours.

There are a few cues available though.
The Golden Rule being the older one. Maslow’s Pyramid complementing it excellently!
Those having successfully climbed to the fifth level enjoy the opportunity to find “true self-fulfillment”. Whatever that might be…

OK, let us elaborate.
Reaching Maslow’s fifth ‘floor’ means becoming ‘free’. No longer dependent. On anything/anybody. Also, it means having been conditioned during the process. ‘Educated’, if you prefer.
Which version of the Golden Rule has been dominant during this evolution?

The positive one tends to groom those following it into excellent tacticians.
The negative one tends to groom those following it into strategoi. ‘Army leaders’ in Ancient Greek.

The positive Golden Rule tells people what to do. Drives them to do what they consider ‘it’s the right think to do’.
The negative Golden Rule tells people to stop. To do only what it is absolutely necessary. And above all, to never hurt other people.

‘Army Leaders’ who never hurt other people?!? You’re not making any sense…

Henri Cihoski, the general I mentioned earlier, was successful. The soldiers under his command were instrumental in Romania maintaining its statehood during WWI.
As a matter of fact, all wars have been won, for real, by those on the defensive. Show us an offensive war which ended well for the attacking party. The war waged by the Spanish against the Aztec Empire? Or any other of the colonial wars? Is any of them really over?!?
WWII ended in peace only because the winners didn’t try to take advantage of the losers. As it happened after WWI.
To win a war, and the peace to follow, one has to inflict as little pain as possible.

Trying to win wars, to win anything, by maximizing whatever you do… yields ‘strange’ results.
In a war, you harden your opponent into defeating you. Or you end up committing genocide. Effectively opening up Pandora’s Box.
If making shoes, or anything else, you end up with a pile of shoes. Or a pile of money. And nobody to buy them.

Are we hallucinating? A pile of shoes and no customers?!?
You forget about ‘maximizing’.
Let us remind you that we’re discussing the Positive Golden Rule here. Taken to the absurd, granted, but bear with us.
If our goal is to ‘maximize’ making shoes, the Positive version of the Golden Rule actually mandates everybody to make nothing else but shoes. Nothing else. No exception accepted. Cause this is the right thing to do! The ‘thing to do’ we’ve agreed about…
Absurd? Indeed! But is what the Nazis, those who have lost WWII, were trying to do. To shape the world according to their ‘right’.
Same thing happened with the communists. They failed because they had only one thing in their mind.

Successful shoe makers have one thing in their mind. And one thing only! How to make shoes…
Successful shoes makers are excellent tacticians. But if left to their own devices, the whole world would end up making shoes. And not having anything to eat…

Think about it!

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, collective identity, effective communication, In English, skin in the game, teleology

From cradle to grave.

March 21, 2018 //
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Recent developments connected with some people having used Facebook to manipulate the public opinion have led me to understand something absolutely trivial.

Almost everything can be used as a resource.
And it’s us, all of us, who are ultimately responsible for how these resources are being used.

For no other reason than it is us who will eventually bear the consequences.

Having said this, I’m now wondering about the wisdom of our ancestors…
And the nearsightedness of some of our contemporaries!
the golden rule

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Categories Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, Frames of mind, limited rationality, manipulation, moral hazard, Mutual Respect, Psychology, Social justice, The kind of world we are building for our children, Transparency, Trust

How much Plato?

December 19, 2017 //
2

Let me first clear up something.
I’m an engineer. Converted to sociology, indeed, but still an engineer.
So don’t expect any fancy wording or very sophisticated philosophical considerations!

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that we’ve just arrived on this planet. Just ‘you and me’, not ‘us humans’.
Being sent by some alien civilization to see what’s going on here.
Like we, ‘the civilized people’, study the natives still living in the Amazonian forest – minimum contact and so on, no intention what-so-ever to invade the territory or any other-way purposely intervene in the natural evolution of things.

I don’t know about you, but my report would be something like this:

The most interesting aspect of the planet is the manner in which the intelligent inhabitants have evolved.
Those living in a relatively small and isolated corner of the landmass have somehow developed the most consequential culture and then imposed some very important aspects of it on most of the rest.

Even more baffling is the fact that all major religions observed on this planet start from the same tenet.

the golden rule

The only thing which singles out those who had managed to impose their culture on most the rest being that they apply the rule in a ‘pro-active’ manner.
‘Do unto others what you wish others to do unto you’ versus ‘do not do unto others what you don’t like being done unto you’. ‘Normative’ versus ‘preemptive’.

– Why are you so baffled about any of this? The universal law of evolution maintains that things which are not suitable enough for the environment where they happen to exist will eventually disappear… Each culture produces a certain civilization – modifies the environment according to its wishes/as a consequence of its mistakes, and the other cultures have to adapt/evolve to the new situation… nothing new or peculiar here…

– Nothing new, indeed, except for the fact that while most of the cultures on this planet learned to ‘live and let live’ – “do not do unto others…”, while the two most successful ones have adopted the slightly but very consequentially different “do unto others…”, a.k.a. ‘who’s not like us is against us’….

– Is there any explanation for the most aggressive attitude being the most successful one?
Until now, at least… considering that the two cultures which share the ‘do unto others what you wish to be done unto you’ attitude seem to ‘have worked themselves up’ into a rather ‘confrontational situation’… both intra and inter culturally…

– The only putative explanation I can come up with for such a divergent evolution is that Plato, the seminal intellectual figure of the ‘doers’, taught his followers not only that the world is knowable but also that he who has reached a learned state must, forcefully if necessary, lead his peers to the ‘light’ he had found while the ‘significant others’ believe that the learned ones should speak out, at their discretion, only when somebody asks them to.

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– One more thing.
The immediate consequence of Plato’s teachings was that Alexander – an emperor who was tutored by Plato’s eminent student, Aristotle, had conquered most of the then civilized world only to die, untimely, a drunkard’s death… intoxicated by booze, intoxicated by power… who cares?

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Categories authoritarianism, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, evolution, fail better, Frames of mind, man induced fragility, Mutual Respect, politics, Psychology, religion, The kind of world we are building for our children