Morality for the Masses
The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race
I heard from God today, and she sounded just like me
What have I done and who have I become?
I saw the Devil today, and he looked a lot like me
I looked away, I turned away!
Arms wide open, I stand alone
I'm no hero, and I'm not made of stone
Right or wrong, I can hardly tell
I'm on the wrong side of Heaven, and the righteous side of Hell
The wrong side of heaven, and the righteous side, the righteous side of Hell
Utilitarianism is where practicality and morality collide. Kill one human being to save 20 and we can discuss moral relativism. Kill one human being to save the entire human race? Screw morality, we got a planet to save.
The thing about hypothetical moral red lines is that reality has a way of forcing one to confront those red lines. I know first-hand. Prior to prison, I had a ton of red-lines. Post-prison, just a ton of regrets.
Prior to prison, my moral certitude was certain. In prison, moral rectitude loses to practical survival. Take a trip in your mind to what you think surviving prison might look like. Then go worse.
Consequentialism is where morality stems from the “right” kinds of overall consequences. A “good result” comes from a “right action”. Think of the characterized Catholic nun wielding the “Ruler of Righteousness”. The “Good Consequences” were literally beaten out of you.
Attaching a label, in this case “right”, to the “ends” is a little dicey. “Right” intent doesn’t always produce “right” outcomes. Defined two ways, in an objective sense and in a moral sense, its ambiguity shrouds it in superiority. What is in reality a dilemma of practicality is subsumed by the “I’m moral because I hold the right views” stance. Outcomes be damned!
Deciding on the best overall consequences becomes a matter of what one considers “the objectively right thing to do.” Before prison, defecating in public was a morally repugnant act for me. Definitely not the right thing to do.
Pause and ponder the red-lines you’ve drawn in your sand. Like concepts of success, internal red-lines are personal and hidden. Not many notice when either happens in one’s life. And I’m not talking superficial success or lightly-drawn red-lines. I’m talking the principles you’ve established in your life.
Success on your very own terms is truly only known to yourself. Same for personal moral failings. Sure, some are public, but then the private reconciliation occurs. In your mind and in your soul. No-one can kick my ass any harder than me when I fail; nor can anyone truly congratulate me more on achieving a personal goal than I.
Athlete’s know this private moment as the light-switch-moment. Only in the fleeting seconds between the light going off and the head hitting the pillow does one reckon with the promises made to oneself. And the individual is the only judge in that moment. How do you judge yourself? Athletes cannot lie when they ask themselves “Did I do the reps?” Did you?
In prison, there’s nowhere to take a shit besides out in the open. Right in public. I held it in as long as I could. A weird and somewhat unsettling rite of passage occurred in the courthouse holding cell the day I was sentenced to 16 months in state prison.
The collection of misfits, losers, and felons, to which I now belonged, sensed my public-pooping-purity. After expelling the ceremonial stool, I reveled in their resplendent renown. The shot caller, who was using the one roll of TP as his pillow, even gave me a few squares to finish the paperwork and seal the deal. Practicality becomes the new morality.
The natural evolution of utilitarianism and consequentialism seems to be Effective Altruism. Which is cool because it is very much in the news right now. Thanks to super-freak SBF.
Will SBF Soon Be Wearing an Orange Jumpsuit?
The over-under on SBF’s criminal risk.
Villain to most but hero to some, this dude was the poster boy for the EA Movement. Or is it a religion? One little trip down the fabbit-hole will start to tie some of these loose strings together. From a purely prurient and puerile perspective, his office culture seems inappropriately alluring.
Amphetamine-Fueled ‘Polycule’ Or ‘Undersexed’ Group Of Nerds? Inside FTX’s Bahamas Culture
One of the strengths of my writing (warning: self-analysis forthcoming), I believe, is my ability to read a bunch of stuff, think about how weird all of it is, look to the Five Elements that Create Culture (click here), and then connect those abstracts to our reality. Using my life experiences, which seems to provide a vast landscape of self-induced misery, I tell stories about human nature, and our tendencies to fail.
Everything that happens in the world actually does happen to each of us. All in varying degrees, but it happens. How we make sense of those actions, and trust our own common sense and seasoned judgment to guide our choices, is what I strive to report on.
How I made choices in my life matters to you in as much as that the reasoning that I used (or chose to ignore) had practical consequences on and in my life, and on and in the lives of those closest to me. Some of you reading my words may be facing choices and dilemmas of your own, and of your own making.
Those moments become triumph or tragedy. Are we so aware of each and every consequence of each and every action of ours that we can say with any certainty that we are controlling those outcomes? Not every choice or decision turns out rationally or in a linear fashion.
I’ve never claimed to be right. I’ve only claimed to be real. Living a life that grows more comfortable the longer I live it, I’m learning to forget what I’ve learned. Or rather, I’m unlearning the conditioning that takes place to meet expectations of outside forces.
On being willing to behave unethically
Kelsey Piper of Vox put together a pretty good piece on this, with some DMs from the SBF trying to ‘splain himself and David Z. Morris in CoinDesk starts out with this
The ongoing collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire will have innumerable victims. One of the most important may be “effective altruism,” Bankman-Fried’s beloved philanthropic philosophy.
In very broad strokes, effective altruists believe that making a lot of money to influence the world is a noble goal as long as you’re very, very smart – and there is evidence that this mindset contributed to the decisions that have cost Bankman-Fried’s victims billions of dollars.
Writes Piper
One question on which I’ve seen widespread speculation is whether Bankman-Fried thought it was okay to do unethical things “for the greater good” — a position that a hardcore utilitarian, which Bankman-Fried has identified as in the past, might hold.
But that degree of personal freedom and individual liberty may well be a relic of the past. Looking past AE to SCS. I’m resisting the urge to fall down a side fabbit-hole on the use, or rather, abuse, of acronyms.
SCS simply means Social Credit Score. Sounds benign, right? It’s not.
China's 'social credit' system ranks citizens and punishes them with throttled internet speeds and flight bans if the Communist Party deems them untrustworthy
Untrustworthy. Yikes. That’s a totally loaded word. And the Communist Party is the one doing the deeming. Sounds a lot like disinformation or misinformation.
Wherever in the world individuals and groups embrace human rights over political rights, they invoke the name of Henry David Thoreau and the words of his essay. “Civil Disobedience“: “Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? . . . Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?”
Right and Wrong, like Good and Evil, flow not from intent, but from deed. The cliched subtitle of this post bears that out. Judging others by their intentions is a dangerous undertaking. Proceed at your risk.
The playlist today is a bunch of cover songs given an edge. Just another element of life creating culture. Taking something soft and making it hard. Fire, and life, do that to things.
Ric