[RD] Do you care about other people and what they do?

[Lohrenswald]

I am not good at conveing these ideas.

Basically, conscider another human being. Do you care about his/her lifestyle? Or what they do? Or why they are or act that way?

Do you think a little about it, a lot about it, not at all?
do you wish you knew?

This can be about anything. Sexual orientation, political views, car obsession, clothing style, the way a person walks or whatever.

Does it vary from person to person (if you care about those people)? What are the criteria for caring or not?

And most important of all:
Why or why not do you care?

I ask you all to think a lot about that last point

I am making this RD first and foremost to keep this thread on topic, btw

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If they have a psychosis that leads them to commit violence against tall people, I am seriously concerned, but I don't give it a whole lot of thought unless directly confronted.

 

[Lohrenswald]

If they have a psychosis that leads them to commit violence against tall people, I am seriously concerned, but I don't give it a whole lot of thought unless directly confronted.

bad start me doing this already but

And most important of all:
Why or why not do you care?

I ask you all to think a lot about that last point

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I was illustrating that some minimum level of concern is required by self preservation. That would speak directly to why I am concerned about the short psychopath bearing a grudge. In thinking about other concerns and other people this self preservation link may be minimized, obscured, or even absent, but it is always worth taking a moment and considering that it may be the driving cause of the concern.

People who "care for" their children have more children reach child bearing age in every generation since the dawn of time. So why do I care so much about the well being of my offspring? I have no choice, I'm just wired that way. A form of "self preservation," as applied on a species level.

People who are kept in poverty can become dangerous to the system that keeps me in relative comfort. Concern for them on my part may just be self preservation, no more no less.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Is self preservation the only thing you care about?

 

[Kennigit]

Not really.

I was never taught how to.

 

[Narz]

I grew up not fitting in very well so I was forced to care for my own social well being.

As an adult I care much less about the masses but I do care to find cool friends & lovers.

Also, I'm a human being and, as special as I may think I am, I'm not much different from others & thus can learn from them, their ideas, their habits, their behavior to improve my own life.

Most peak experiences involve other humans so it pays to at least attempt to understand them.

Money can buy most things but it can't buy the love, respect or friendship of others. Often it muddles the issue even more.

 

[Dachs]

I am not good at conveing these ideas.

Basically, conscider another human being. Do you care about his/her lifestyle? Or what they do? Or why they are or act that way?

Do you think a little about it, a lot about it, not at all?
do you wish you knew?

This can be about anything. Sexual orientation, political views, car obsession, clothing style, the way a person walks or whatever.

Does it vary from person to person (if you care about those people)? What are the criteria for caring or not?

And most important of all:
Why or why not do you care?

I ask you all to think a lot about that last point

I am making this RD first and foremost to keep this thread on topic, btw

I do care about these things, yes. It's why I do history: the conviction that every human life has intrinsic value - who people are, what they care about, what they do, and why they do it - and that the primary purpose of history lies in "doing justice" to those things. This applies just as much to people who are alive as to people who are dead.

Obviously, it's impossible for me to be equally and totally interested in everything that everybody has ever done and will ever do, because that would probably drive someone insane. I have preferences. I can't explain why these preferences exist, any more than I could explain why I like the taste of ham better than that of turkey. But fundamentally, I believe that if somebody cares about something, it has value and meaning, even if I'm not interested in it the same way. So I do what I can to engage with them about it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Is self preservation the only thing you care about?

Hard to say. As I said, that link may be minimized, obscured, absent...but when it isn't found it might be hard to tell the difference between actually absent and just something that I don't see.

So I don't worry about it. I actively inform myself that the well being of every individual reflects back on every other individual, including myself. While I don't have evidence to support this I can't effectively refute it, which leaves me operating from a basis of your good being my good. Self preservation.

 

[Phrossack]

I do care, but am at a loss as to why. I can't think of any good reason to believe that people and what they do and think really matters in the grand scheme of things.

 

[warpus]

People are interesting, they often do interesting things and go on interesting journeys. So I ask to see if the person I am talking to is one of those interesting people or just someone boring with nothing to share.

Mind you a lot of people just merely go through the motions, they might have an interesting tidbit about their life here and there, but overall there is just nothing there that can help you with your own self-improvement goals. I am not mean to those people, but they just interest me less, so I end up thinking about them and their life stories less as a result. Nothing personal. To be clear this includes people who don't dare step outside of their comfort zone, play it safe, and go through the motions the way society has instructed them to. There isn't much to learn there, so interest is low.

There are interesting people out there, there are a lot of them, though, don't get me wrong. You just have to find them and when you have, it's a treat to hear their stories and listen to their experiences.

One way to seek them out is to notice what people enjoy talking about. If the person you're talking to enjoys talking about other people for the most part, social drama, celebrities, gossip, etc. that person is likely at the bottom of the barrel in terms of what we're talking about here. If someone is talking about experiences, and a lot of what he/she talks about are experiences in life, then that's right up my alley, tell me more!

The most interesting people enjoy discussing ideas, though. There is a caveat here - there are people out there who enjoy discussing ideas to death. I am talking about the "Whooooa dude" type of person, who brings up stuff like "What if bananas came from outer space?". That's not the type of idea I'm talking about. You don't become an interesting person just because you fixate on ideas and "what ifs". I'm not exactly sure how to qualify or quantify this, but yeah, that's essentially it, if person A talks about Whitney Houston and what their neighbour wears all day long, I will not think about them at all. If they enjoy discussing their trip to Mali, how they tackled a particular problem, etc. then we're getting there. If they enjoy discussing the implication of some new scientific discovery as well, that's the sort of person I am bound to care about and think about and find interesting.

I forgot to mention the worst type of person - one who enjoys takling about him or herself first and foremost. Those people are the worst.

 

[Flying Pig]

I do care, but am at a loss as to why. I can't think of any good reason to believe that people and what they do and think really matters in the grand scheme of things.

I'd say that's the only thing that really matters, in the grand scheme of things.

 

[warpus]

If you can't figure out a way to self-improve yourself and see the universe in a different light based on the experiences of others, then I think you are doing something wrong. Or you're just looking at the experiences of people who haven't had any real interesting and worthwhile experiences.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I care that they are happy and are doing what matters to them.

Also people are endlessly fascinating. It's why film, music, painting, dance, theater - art in a word, the humanities, is such a persistently intriguing discipline.

 

[Phrossack]

I'd say that's the only thing that really matters, in the grand scheme of things.

I've found that a vanishingly small amount of people truly care about the well-being of people who are neither friends nor family. I have to admit I'd be far, far less concerned if some strangers on the other side of the world died than if my friends died. And as to family, people generally care only about family members who exist in roughly the same timeframe as themselves. Who cares about a nameless peasant ancestor from 2,000 years ago? Do you care about what happened to some person in Doggerland 15,000 years ago?

Eighty years from now, I'll be bones and memories. Eight hundred years from now, those bones and memories will be long gone as well. Unless you're truly famous, only a tiny amount of people will ever care about you and then only for a small frame of time. Why should I care about myself, or anyone else, if pretty much nobody else does?

Of course, I still do. I feel compelled to care. But I can't shake the feeling that caring about people makes no sense. It doesn't help that people who say that people are intrinsically valuable say that people are intrinsically valuable because they just are because they just are and can we please change the topic. It's so circular. There's no rationale behind it that I've discovered yet.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's really what 'valuable' means, though - things have value because we assign value to them, so it's circular by definition. It's not like being 'big' or 'common' or anything that carries on being true even when there's nobody to see it: once we're all gone, nothing in the universe will be valuable at all. In quite a deep sense, the universe only exists because we're here to see it.

 

[Phrossack]

That's really what 'valuable' means, though - things have value because we assign value to them, so it's circular by definition. It's not like being 'big' or 'common' or anything that carries on being true even when there's nobody to see it: once we're all gone, nothing in the universe will be valuable at all. In quite a deep sense, the universe only exists because we're here to see it.

Then value is arbitrarily assigned, not intrinsic. In my mind, things are valuable because they are particularly good at accomplishing a specific task. A tool may be valuable to a carpenter because his livelihood depends upon it, but that tool is not intrinsically valuable. Once it breaks, or a replacement becomes available, or the task for which it is used ceases to be relevant, the tool loses its value. And even then, there's a question of whether it ever had value at all--yes, it helps to perform work to provide money for the carpenter so he can make his short walk to death slightly longer and less unpleasant, but in a few centuries, it will be as if the tool and the carpenter never existed. It's like a prisoner playing a game of chess with his executioner to pass the time--it doesn't matter if he wins or loses, he still dies all the same.

If there's any logical argument for how people are different, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing it.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Are you suggesting "big" and "common" aren't themselves defined circularly in the same way?

And Phrossack I think you're view of humanity is negative and I don't think it's particularly warranted. People are a lot more compassionate and empathetic than you're giving them credit for. Some people are total ass[apertures] I'll give you that. But spend any time travelling or being forced to rely on the kindness of strangers and you'll soon find that people can be incredibly kind and charitable.

As to your definition of valuable: I don't really think that follows. What about things that have sentimental value? I have toys from my childhood that have ceased to serve a utilitarian purpose - they aren't really at all effective at what they were designed to do, but they're still deeply valuable to me. Baseball is valuable to me even though baseball is completely and utterly pointless from the perspective of not-dying. I think a concern about being remembered is misplaced and is just going to leave you forlorn and disappointed with life. Life is for living, enjoy the one you have for as long as you can. That's how I try to live anyway.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not good at conveing these ideas.

Basically, conscider another human being. Do you care about his/her lifestyle? Or what they do? Or why they are or act that way?

Do you think a little about it, a lot about it, not at all?
do you wish you knew?

This can be about anything. Sexual orientation, political views, car obsession, clothing style, the way a person walks or whatever.

Does it vary from person to person (if you care about those people)? What are the criteria for caring or not?

And most important of all:
Why or why not do you care?

I ask you all to think a lot about that last point

I am making this RD first and foremost to keep this thread on topic, btw

Hm.

Well:

I care, insofar as that translates to the fact that i'd rather others do well than bad, and i do not wish bad things for them (unless, obviously, i am directly threatened by them, in which case i will self-defend).

BUT:

Ultimately a person feeling something for another person... is just that one person dealing with own emotions/mental phenomena. The "other" is not real itself. Not because the other people don't exist (they do), but because you only pick up existence through your own self, so ultimately everything you occupy yourself with is your own emotional/mental objects and variations of those. So if you don't care about others, you will force a change in part of your own mental phenomena.

 

[Flying Pig]

Then value is arbitrarily assigned, not intrinsic. In my mind, things are valuable because they are particularly good at accomplishing a specific task. A tool may be valuable to a carpenter because his livelihood depends upon it, but that tool is not intrinsically valuable. Once it breaks, or a replacement becomes available, or the task for which it is used ceases to be relevant, the tool loses its value. And even then, there's a question of whether it ever had value at all--yes, it helps to perform work to provide money for the carpenter so he can make his short walk to death slightly longer and less unpleasant, but in a few centuries, it will be as if the tool and the carpenter never existed. It's like a prisoner playing a game of chess with his executioner to pass the time--it doesn't matter if he wins or loses, he still dies all the same.

If there's any logical argument for how people are different, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing it.

I don't accept the whole premise that nothing matters if we're all going to die anyway. Quite the opposite. Each of us is going to be here for a few dozen years at the most: leaving this place a bit better than we found it is about the best thing we can do with that time.

Are you suggesting "big" and "common" aren't themselves defined circularly in the same way?.

To an extent, you're right - or at least they're defined relatively. I'm now thinking quite hard about what's really different between these situations: may get back to you a bit later.