Manifesto time
The world can be split into different kinds of people many different ways, but one of the most meaningful to me is selfish people and selfless people. There are people out there who help others, who make decisions not to benefit themselves, but to make things easier for everybody, who will try as hard as they can to make a difference, and then there are the people who take advantage of this and shit all over these people's work.
I'm getting really sick of dealing with selfish people. And it's not just specific people being selfish all the time. It's selfishness in various parts of people's lives, temporary selfishness. Rarely do you meet somebody who is consistently selfish all the time - such a person usually ends up being raped in prison. And frankly, it's all the better that they do end up that way. Nice and poetic.
But there are selfish people everywhere. I try to think that I minimize my own selfishness, that I organize my life in such a way that I'm not actively hurting people whenever I find that I am, and that I'm not passively hurting people as much as I can without making myself unhappy. It's getting to be really frustrating to do so.
Let's start with the first example that comes into my head: driving. I'm a good driver. Compared to most people, I'm a ridiculously good driver. I keep a safe speed, I signal my intentions, I don't tailgate, I don't pass illegally, I don't make sudden movements, I let people in when they want to, I don't run lights, I stop fully at stop signs.
I know that plenty of you reading this don't do all these things. Take a second and ask yourself why you aren't. They aren't that hard to do. And they're all good ideas. If you go faster than you should be, you put people in danger because you won't be able to react in time. If you don't signal, people won't be able to anticipate what you're doing, and will be forced to make guesses. If they guess wrongly, they might miss turns, end up in accidents, or worse. And you could have prevented that by reaching two inches to the left with one hand. That same logic applies to most of these: if you don't do what people are expecting, by stopping, turning the right way, signaling, or whatever, you are putting people in danger out of selfishness. And I hope that you learn your lesson in a situation so horrific that you will never shake off the knowledge that it was your needless selfishness that hurt people.
Just tonight, I was going about 35 on a 30 mile an hour road, at night, that curved through a residential neighborhood. The guy behind me was tailgating with his brights on for about a mile, after which he zoomed past me (illegally, of course) and ramped up to about 50 miles an hour. I really do hope that he hit and killed a small child tonight - not because I want to hurt this hypothetical child, but because I want that asshole to live the rest of his life with the knowledge that his selfish driving cost an innocent child his or her life. And I really do mean that.
Let's look at another part of life: bureaucracy. Why does bureaucracy happen? In theory, to make things better. But it's when people stop making choices that will help people, and start making decisions that will benefit themselves, that bureaucracy bloats of control and hurts people. Why is it that it takes so long to find and apply for so many useful government services? If we aren't supposed to get those services, they should be removed. If we are, it shouldn't be made impossible to get them. I believe that if there is a way to get people the things they need without requiring them to talk to fifteen different soulless people in business suits and fill out 20 forms in triplicate, it should be the way things are done. There is no justification for doing it any other way.
Now let's look at religion. Religion is just a hotbed of selfishness and self-delusion. Many religions got their starts for good reasons: teaching people the basic morality that for some reason they couldn't figure out themselves. But why is it that so many strongly religious people go out and do stupid, hurtful things? Selfishness. Why does Pat Robertson have such a strong agenda? He wants power and money. He is willing to lie to people constantly while keeping up a front of moral superiority in order to get himself money and power, and he doesn't care how many people he has to trod on.
Religion is used to keep people down. It's very easy to get people not to question why their circumstances are so miserable if you can convince them that Zeus or Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is going to come in their window and rip their torso open otherwise. Why did the Middle Ages happen? I'll tell you one reason: religion. Would your average peasant have accepted their miserable life quite as readily if they weren't told that there was a big payoff in the sky? I don't think so. Would these people have been kept subdued and ignorant without village priests hoarding all of the knowledge? I don't think so. And why did all of this happen? So that the fat could get fatter. While people were foundering in abject misery their entire lives, anybody from knights on up was living off of the peasants' efforts, and gladly so. Did you know that there were regular Papal orgies under some popes? I'll bet you didn't, and I'll bet that if you are willing to swallow religion, you won't, either.
Have you noticed that deeply religious people feel that it's their right to intrude into your life? to tell you what to do with your body? to tell you what sort of decisions you ought to be making? to tell you that it's okay that they harass and attack gays, because Jesus doesn't love them? And all the time, they're smugly convinced that they're on the moral high ground, so it's fine.
During breaks and the summer, I work as a freelance consultant. I help people with their computers. I fix them, I upgrade them, I teach people to use them better. I charge $30 an hour, and people are glad to pay it. Here's why: I don't cheat them. I'm candid about the problem, about how I'm going to fix it, about how long it will take, about how much money it will cost. I don't charge the full fee when I don't fix things. And customers are suspicious, because every computer service they've dealt with in the past has ripped them off. Charged them for time they didn't use to fix things, ordered parts and peripherals that nobody needed, and lied about the problem. Why? Why did this happen? How can somebody do this without feeling guilty about the fact that they are stealing from people who trust them with something crucial that they don't themselves understand? Same question for car repairment, telephone companies, loan companies, insurance companies, fast food companies, and everybody else who makes a business of stealing from people. Not to mention robbers.
Let me tell you a little story. This happened recently in my home town. A couple of the football heroes at the local high school held up a smoothie store. Why did they do it? To prove that they could. They did it with a toy gun because they thought that they were invincible. I live in one of the richest parts of one of the richest counties in America, one of the richest countries in the world. These kids are unimaginably wealthy compared to about 99% of the world, and they held up a store. They didn't need the money. They just thought they were better than other people. And here's the best part: they went and told a lot of people about it, and put photos up online of their daring robbery. When the police found them, they were shocked that there were going to be repercussions. They kept repeating that it was just a harmless prank. How much could $500 dollars mean to them? How much do you think it means to the Chinese laborers making their iPods and their cell phones and the seats in the Mercedes that their daddies bought them? And then, once they confessed in front of the police, their parents, and a lawyer (thus making it ironclad), the rest of the football team started putting up signs and sending around letters crying about how these kids were innocent of wrongdoing.
Why did this happen? Because they are selfish people, brought up by selfish people, surrounded their entire lives by a circle of fawning, selfish people. A couple of them had meathead football hero scholarships to good schools lined up for the next year, which were summarily yanked. Good. I hope they all end up on the street. And you know why? Because a good friend of mine told me that one of them tried to pick a fight with him when they were kids just for kicks. Because they have more money than God, and committed a robbery anyway just because they wanted to. Because they're selfish people.
I should take a moment here and explain my personal decision on crime and punishment: I think that any wrongdoing should be followed by an equal or larger punishment that will make the person regret his or her decision for as long as he or she can remember it. However, I don't trust any human body to be moral enough to make or enforce this decision. Thus, my rule, which you can find an equivalent of for other wrongdoings:
If you kill, you do not deserve to live.
Note that I said "do not deserve" - I don't think that you should be killed, just that you have forfeited any right you may have had to life. (Although I think that natural rights are bullshit anyway - was it Heinlein who asked how a drowning man can apply his rights to life and happiness?)
I'm tired of humanity. I have no faith in it any more. How can I when I know that any really good idea I might have will probably be stolen by somebody else out to make an easy buck? How can I when I know that a lot of people vote for a certain person because they always vote for that party, despite the fact that he thinks gays are evil and women are evil and non-whites are evil and the poor are evil? How can I when I know that many of those voters agree? How can I when I know that there are more starving artists than starving investment bankers? How can I when I know that my children, if I have any, will grow up in a world of filth and unbreathable air because a lot of spoiled rich Americans drive trucks for no reason other than the smallness or nonexistence of their penises? How can I know that when my classmates go to protests just to be part of them, not because they would have tried to change the problems in other ways? How can I when I know that my neighbors cheat on their taxes, beat their loved ones, run over small animals in their cars, have more than two children per couple, fail to tell their children that they believe in them, think that Islam is the religion with turbans and uncut hair among the five signs of faithfulness, vote for evil people, encourage Fascism in their daily lives, ignore the poor, ignore the hungry, imprison drug addicts instead of treating them, tell people that sex is evil, blame video games for the piss-poor job they do raising their children, litter, pollute, cheat on the people who love them, and drink to forget?
This may sound like a cry for help. It is. I'm not threatening to kill myself - it's not that sort of cry for help. But I want your help. We can fix the world, because the only problem with it is us. From now on, whenever you make a decision, ask yourself who it's helping, and who it's hurting, and whether you want to live in a world of people willing to make the decision the same way you do. It's the oldest maxim out there, the one that is behind every belief system before the bullshit, bathos, and evil set in.
It's the least you can do.
I'm getting really sick of dealing with selfish people. And it's not just specific people being selfish all the time. It's selfishness in various parts of people's lives, temporary selfishness. Rarely do you meet somebody who is consistently selfish all the time - such a person usually ends up being raped in prison. And frankly, it's all the better that they do end up that way. Nice and poetic.
But there are selfish people everywhere. I try to think that I minimize my own selfishness, that I organize my life in such a way that I'm not actively hurting people whenever I find that I am, and that I'm not passively hurting people as much as I can without making myself unhappy. It's getting to be really frustrating to do so.
Let's start with the first example that comes into my head: driving. I'm a good driver. Compared to most people, I'm a ridiculously good driver. I keep a safe speed, I signal my intentions, I don't tailgate, I don't pass illegally, I don't make sudden movements, I let people in when they want to, I don't run lights, I stop fully at stop signs.
I know that plenty of you reading this don't do all these things. Take a second and ask yourself why you aren't. They aren't that hard to do. And they're all good ideas. If you go faster than you should be, you put people in danger because you won't be able to react in time. If you don't signal, people won't be able to anticipate what you're doing, and will be forced to make guesses. If they guess wrongly, they might miss turns, end up in accidents, or worse. And you could have prevented that by reaching two inches to the left with one hand. That same logic applies to most of these: if you don't do what people are expecting, by stopping, turning the right way, signaling, or whatever, you are putting people in danger out of selfishness. And I hope that you learn your lesson in a situation so horrific that you will never shake off the knowledge that it was your needless selfishness that hurt people.
Just tonight, I was going about 35 on a 30 mile an hour road, at night, that curved through a residential neighborhood. The guy behind me was tailgating with his brights on for about a mile, after which he zoomed past me (illegally, of course) and ramped up to about 50 miles an hour. I really do hope that he hit and killed a small child tonight - not because I want to hurt this hypothetical child, but because I want that asshole to live the rest of his life with the knowledge that his selfish driving cost an innocent child his or her life. And I really do mean that.
Let's look at another part of life: bureaucracy. Why does bureaucracy happen? In theory, to make things better. But it's when people stop making choices that will help people, and start making decisions that will benefit themselves, that bureaucracy bloats of control and hurts people. Why is it that it takes so long to find and apply for so many useful government services? If we aren't supposed to get those services, they should be removed. If we are, it shouldn't be made impossible to get them. I believe that if there is a way to get people the things they need without requiring them to talk to fifteen different soulless people in business suits and fill out 20 forms in triplicate, it should be the way things are done. There is no justification for doing it any other way.
Now let's look at religion. Religion is just a hotbed of selfishness and self-delusion. Many religions got their starts for good reasons: teaching people the basic morality that for some reason they couldn't figure out themselves. But why is it that so many strongly religious people go out and do stupid, hurtful things? Selfishness. Why does Pat Robertson have such a strong agenda? He wants power and money. He is willing to lie to people constantly while keeping up a front of moral superiority in order to get himself money and power, and he doesn't care how many people he has to trod on.
Religion is used to keep people down. It's very easy to get people not to question why their circumstances are so miserable if you can convince them that Zeus or Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is going to come in their window and rip their torso open otherwise. Why did the Middle Ages happen? I'll tell you one reason: religion. Would your average peasant have accepted their miserable life quite as readily if they weren't told that there was a big payoff in the sky? I don't think so. Would these people have been kept subdued and ignorant without village priests hoarding all of the knowledge? I don't think so. And why did all of this happen? So that the fat could get fatter. While people were foundering in abject misery their entire lives, anybody from knights on up was living off of the peasants' efforts, and gladly so. Did you know that there were regular Papal orgies under some popes? I'll bet you didn't, and I'll bet that if you are willing to swallow religion, you won't, either.
Have you noticed that deeply religious people feel that it's their right to intrude into your life? to tell you what to do with your body? to tell you what sort of decisions you ought to be making? to tell you that it's okay that they harass and attack gays, because Jesus doesn't love them? And all the time, they're smugly convinced that they're on the moral high ground, so it's fine.
During breaks and the summer, I work as a freelance consultant. I help people with their computers. I fix them, I upgrade them, I teach people to use them better. I charge $30 an hour, and people are glad to pay it. Here's why: I don't cheat them. I'm candid about the problem, about how I'm going to fix it, about how long it will take, about how much money it will cost. I don't charge the full fee when I don't fix things. And customers are suspicious, because every computer service they've dealt with in the past has ripped them off. Charged them for time they didn't use to fix things, ordered parts and peripherals that nobody needed, and lied about the problem. Why? Why did this happen? How can somebody do this without feeling guilty about the fact that they are stealing from people who trust them with something crucial that they don't themselves understand? Same question for car repairment, telephone companies, loan companies, insurance companies, fast food companies, and everybody else who makes a business of stealing from people. Not to mention robbers.
Let me tell you a little story. This happened recently in my home town. A couple of the football heroes at the local high school held up a smoothie store. Why did they do it? To prove that they could. They did it with a toy gun because they thought that they were invincible. I live in one of the richest parts of one of the richest counties in America, one of the richest countries in the world. These kids are unimaginably wealthy compared to about 99% of the world, and they held up a store. They didn't need the money. They just thought they were better than other people. And here's the best part: they went and told a lot of people about it, and put photos up online of their daring robbery. When the police found them, they were shocked that there were going to be repercussions. They kept repeating that it was just a harmless prank. How much could $500 dollars mean to them? How much do you think it means to the Chinese laborers making their iPods and their cell phones and the seats in the Mercedes that their daddies bought them? And then, once they confessed in front of the police, their parents, and a lawyer (thus making it ironclad), the rest of the football team started putting up signs and sending around letters crying about how these kids were innocent of wrongdoing.
Why did this happen? Because they are selfish people, brought up by selfish people, surrounded their entire lives by a circle of fawning, selfish people. A couple of them had meathead football hero scholarships to good schools lined up for the next year, which were summarily yanked. Good. I hope they all end up on the street. And you know why? Because a good friend of mine told me that one of them tried to pick a fight with him when they were kids just for kicks. Because they have more money than God, and committed a robbery anyway just because they wanted to. Because they're selfish people.
I should take a moment here and explain my personal decision on crime and punishment: I think that any wrongdoing should be followed by an equal or larger punishment that will make the person regret his or her decision for as long as he or she can remember it. However, I don't trust any human body to be moral enough to make or enforce this decision. Thus, my rule, which you can find an equivalent of for other wrongdoings:
If you kill, you do not deserve to live.
Note that I said "do not deserve" - I don't think that you should be killed, just that you have forfeited any right you may have had to life. (Although I think that natural rights are bullshit anyway - was it Heinlein who asked how a drowning man can apply his rights to life and happiness?)
I'm tired of humanity. I have no faith in it any more. How can I when I know that any really good idea I might have will probably be stolen by somebody else out to make an easy buck? How can I when I know that a lot of people vote for a certain person because they always vote for that party, despite the fact that he thinks gays are evil and women are evil and non-whites are evil and the poor are evil? How can I when I know that many of those voters agree? How can I when I know that there are more starving artists than starving investment bankers? How can I when I know that my children, if I have any, will grow up in a world of filth and unbreathable air because a lot of spoiled rich Americans drive trucks for no reason other than the smallness or nonexistence of their penises? How can I know that when my classmates go to protests just to be part of them, not because they would have tried to change the problems in other ways? How can I when I know that my neighbors cheat on their taxes, beat their loved ones, run over small animals in their cars, have more than two children per couple, fail to tell their children that they believe in them, think that Islam is the religion with turbans and uncut hair among the five signs of faithfulness, vote for evil people, encourage Fascism in their daily lives, ignore the poor, ignore the hungry, imprison drug addicts instead of treating them, tell people that sex is evil, blame video games for the piss-poor job they do raising their children, litter, pollute, cheat on the people who love them, and drink to forget?
This may sound like a cry for help. It is. I'm not threatening to kill myself - it's not that sort of cry for help. But I want your help. We can fix the world, because the only problem with it is us. From now on, whenever you make a decision, ask yourself who it's helping, and who it's hurting, and whether you want to live in a world of people willing to make the decision the same way you do. It's the oldest maxim out there, the one that is behind every belief system before the bullshit, bathos, and evil set in.
It's the least you can do.