Comment by mk89
11 hours ago
> In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works
In this society? When and where was it ever different?
First lesson of life should be "you work to buy your bread" followed by "nobody will ever give you something for free".
First lesson of life should be to show empathy towards other living beings.
If the first lesson in life is "you work to buy your bread" and "nobody will ever give you something for free" you'll end up in a world filled with egoistical maniacs. Which unfortunately is where we are at the moment.
Your second lesson is not even true considering I'd have unconditional love for my children/wife. Altruistic love in the form of give for the sake of giving, not give for the sake of receiving.
People forget that we are strong together. Working together is actually the only way humanity got where its at until some maniacs invented slavery.
In a world full of (as noted) egotistical maniacs, is not what you are preaching surefire suicide?
Notably, neurotypicals generally fundamentally know this and even priests will throw abusive assholes out of church while still preaching peace, love and tolerance - without blinking at the apparent hypocrisy.
Or, as the case may be sometimes, initiating religious wars.
It seems like neurodivergents are the ones who get hung up on the literalness.
All life requires a degree of self defense/an immune system, or it dies.
And one could argue that the big reason we don’t have slavery anymore (by and large) is because of mechanization.
There were plenty of preachers in the US South (and plenty of religious figures everywhere in history) that preached the righteousness of slavery. While also preaching peace and love. And they put up quite a fight!
It was not an easy thing winning the Civil war, and plenty of wars were won on the back of slaves, at least in antiquity.
The Spartans weren’t feared because of their egalitarian and humanistic ethos, that’s for sure.
All life requires a degree of self defense, sure. But self defense does not mean running around the world screaming "me, me, me!". Bees only thrive because they work together. Their hive-self-defense even kills some of their own to protect the rest of the hive. They also only sting if absolutely necessary (in their view) as doing so most likely kills them. Ants work in a similar fashion. No ant thinks "I got so much food, I'll store it in my 1 ant colony all for myself".
Humans for some reason have these traits, being jealous, egoistical and whatnot is natural, the difficulty is in acknowledging that and to actively work against these feelings instead of giving into them. A lot of humans also have the wrong perception of strength. They see the rich as the strong and the poor as the weak, but I dont want to get too deep into that.
This conversation reached pretty philosophical levels and I can admit that its unrealistic to expect altruism from each and everyone, especially when their basic needs aren't met.
Would still be cool if rich people could share a little more though, as in my view it should be impossible to be rich while other people starve... Especially considering rich people make it hard for others getting wealthier because it means competition. A lot of people got rich in highly unethical ways. Everyone should have the chance to thrive and afford basic and cultural needs, nobody should have to work 70 hour weeks or two jobs just to survive.