do i need to have a responsibility in society?

Yes, according to society's rules.

so today, i can only exist in a society.
i either contribute to what it stands for or become a deviant.

so today, i can only exist in a society.
i either contribute to what it stands for or become a deviant.

Why yes.. if you think otherwise, please enlighten me.

well, this sucks.

do i need to have a responsibility in society?

If you live in US, not really. You have negative responsibilities -- you are responsible NOT to kill, not to steal, not to injure other people or property, not to use illegal drugs (looks like you are failing on that one :)), etc. You do have a responsibility to pay taxes, but it is conditional on working and having income. You do have a responsibility to obey traffic laws, but again it is conditional on being in traffic. Neither working nor leaving the house is a "responsibility to society". If you just want to lay about and do nothing, you can. You won't get much that way, but you are not "responsible to society" to actually do anything.

so today, i can only exist in a society.
i either contribute to what it stands for or become a deviant.

Contributes to what it stands for
sounds
very limiting somehow. My gut reaction.
Can you mention some specifics about your concern here.
I also found the word deviant rather strong and surprising. What do you think you should or should not be doing?

I too wondered about the phrase "contribute to what it stands for". First, what society "stands for" is very subjective. Many people, even members of the same society, have very different ideas about "what it stands for." And second, many people do not contribute anything toward what they themselves think "it stands for". They just happily go on with their lives not overly concerned about society as a whole. Which does not make them deviants, except in the eyes of very few.

Come to think of it, every person in the world is a "deviant" in somebody's eyes. It's an even more subjective term.

do i need to have a responsibility in society?


No you don't. You just have to avoid getting caught while avoiding any responsibility, or find a position (like President) where the rules and laws don't apply and you can delegate all responsibility.

Its called "playing the system"

When someone is drowning you have to responsibility to call 911 (well 112 over here..) or help in another way.
If you have children you have a responsibility to give them appropriate care.

Etc, etc, etc.. everyone has responsibilities in a society.

well society, the most "productive" people to the system are favored. those that graduate high school, get a college education for a set career, or a trade school, then continue to work until they can, doing the same thing to contribute to the economy everyday, but where is self discovery and knowledge of ones self. "playing the system" is probably the easiest way to get past rules and laws but your still kept in a tub, and only allowed a certain amount of freedom and theres only so much water that can fit. gahhhhh hmm im gonna go think about this more.

well society, the most "productive" people to the system are favored.

You sound very young.

well society, the most "productive" people to the system are favored

:roflmao::xctd:

Actually the most productive get used up and spit out really fast!

do i need to have a responsibility in society?If by "society" you mean "civilization," which is the kind of society we've had since the end of the Stone Age ten thousand years ago (not uniformly, it happened more recently in some places), then the only responsibility you "need" is to acknowledge that civilization is good. If you accept that, then you will easily realize the responsibilities you have in order to ensure that civilization is maintained. I say the most important of these are, in priority order:1. No one has the right to initiate deadly force or extreme violence of any type against another human being. If this were not true, we'd all have to spend too much of our time, effort and other resources protecting ourselves from each other, and there wouldn't be enough resources left to keep civilization running. 2. Everyone has a duty to at least try, in good faith, to contribute to the maintenance of civilization in some way. In general this means, at an absolute minimum, trying to give back to it no less than what we take out. If this were not true, the surplus wealth or "capital" upon which civilization is built could be dissipated by people who take but don't give back, and civilization itself could collapse.so today, i can only exist in a society. i either contribute to what it stands for or become a deviant.To rephrase that in the terminology I established above, you must either:Contribute to the maintenance of civilization,or Confess that you do not acknowledge that civilization is good.In the past, people who did not believe that civilization was a good thing--at least for themselves anyway--had the ability to opt out. There was always a frontier they could cross and revert to a Stone Age life. Either a geographical one like Alaska where they could live the life of a hermit, killing their own food and protecting themselves from the elements, or a sociological one like the pre-European occupation Wild West, where they could join the Indians in their Mesolithic/Neolithic society and forswear civilization without forswearing human companionship. The problem today is that the frontier has practically vanished. The Indians wear blue jeans and drive trucks, and it's not easy find a place in Alaska where you can hide from the IRS, the EPA, the Forestry Service, university researchers, and the petroleum companies.well, this sucks.I understand. We have indeed spread civilization so widely that it's almost impossible to opt out of it. The frontier was always a powerful decision-making tool. Very few people actually made the decision to go there, but having the option of making that decision forced them to come to terms with their own discontent. People who decided to stay within the boundaries of civilization had to admit to themselves that they consciously preferred it to the alternative, and this probably helped them make peace with their responsibilities. Today a young person who claims he doesn't want to be part of civilization never has to prove it. He can spend his whole life bitching about it. In a country like the U.S. he can spend his whole life sponging off of it, pretending he's beaten "the system" when all he is really doing is hiding out at the bottom of it. Those who spend their entire lives taking more from civilization than they give back are the disabled. They are disabled by low intelligence, physical ailment, or other problems they were born with -- or by injury, bad parenting, lack of schooling, being born in a dysfunctional country, being put out of work by an economic or technological shift, or other problems that are simply bad luck -- or in the case of the person who rejects civilization consciously, he is disabled by his attitude.

Of course he doesn't regard it as a disability. But Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian who tried to find a way for religion and civilization to coexist in harmony, did. His famous Serenity Prayer, in my own updated language (nobody quotes it exactly anymore), asks:Goddess, grant us the serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that can, and the wisdom to know the difference.According to Niebuhr, the person who rejects civilization, in an era where there's nowhere to go anymore in order to opt out of it, is unwise.I too wondered about the phrase "contribute to what it stands for". First, what society "stands for" is very subjective. Many people, even members of the same society, have very different ideas about "what it stands for."I try to dispel that confusion by tying this into the technology of citybuilding, or "civilization." This technology lifted Homo sapiens out of the Stone Age. As has been cited on other threads, anthropologists have had to face the overwhelming evidence that in the Mesolithic Era (nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers) sixty percent of adult humans died at the hands of another human. There was no way to accumulate a significant surplus of food, so during hard times people had to fight each other with deadly force because some of them had to die of starvation and nobody wanted it to be themselves.

Agriculture, and soon thereafter civilization, produced a significant surplus for the first time. People no longer had to kill each other for food. As a result, even during the darkest periods in civilized times, such as World War II or the depradations of Genghis Khan, the risk of being killed by another human being was enormously less than during the Stone Age, when it was the leading cause of death in adulthood.

This is why I posit the rule about not killing other people as the most important responsibility that civilization places on us: because this is arguably also the greatest benefit that civilization confers on us. We no longer have to live in fear of each other.

So again, all you have to do to "contribute to what society stands for" is:1. Don't kill anybody. 2. At least try to give as much as you take.That ain't really so hard now, is it? :)No you don't. You just have to avoid getting caught while avoiding any responsibility, or find a position (like President) where the rules and laws don't apply and you can delegate all responsibility. Its called "playing the system"The question was, "What are our responsibilities to society?" Not, "Does everyone try in good faith to fulfill those responsibilities?"

Fortunately civilization is incredibly robust, and for ten thousand years it has withstood the efforts of occasionally large minorities of people who don't live up to their responsibilities. This doesn't mean they're right. And it doesn't mean that people should give up on civilization and say, "If those guys (and isn't it almost always "guys"?) don't have to follow the rules, then I'm not going to either." As I noted, civilization has survived many violations of Rule #1 by warriors and murderers. It can certainly survive many violations of Rule #2 by lesser criminals.well society, the most "productive" people to the system are favored. those that graduate high school, get a college education for a set career, or a trade school, then continue to work until they can, doing the same thing to contribute to the economy everyday, but where is self discovery and knowledge of ones self.Life isn't quite that stark. People who get into a rut are generally people who aren't very imaginative. A lot of people are actually quite comfortable and secure with a routine and feel uneasy if they have to cope with a lot of creative decisions.

Self-actualization is the top level of Maslow's Hierarchy (although I think that's just because we can't see beyond Step Five because nobody's gotten there yet :)) and with every passing era it becomes easier for more people to achieve it. High school and college give people an enormous advantage over their ancestors and they can use that knowledge and training as they wish. Not everybody succeeds in becoming a great artist, philosopher, or inventor, but at least they can try. Many of us at least succeed in being competent in something outside of our "day job." I play in a band on weekends with two guys who write their own songs. I help gift the world with some of the most wonderful music I've ever heard. In addition, I spend a lot of time on SciForums helping young people understand how civilization works, so they can find their own path to self-actualization."playing the system" is probably the easiest way to get past rules and laws but your still kept in a tub, and only allowed a certain amount of freedom and theres only so much water that can fit.That's a fallacy. The whole point of civilization is that it's a technology allowing us to produce more than we consume: a "surplus." More water, in other words! That surplus productivity can be directed wherever we choose. Sure, government and corporations control a huge chunk of it. (But see my other threads on the impending demise of the corporation in the Post-Industrial Era, and if you all grow up to vote for the Libertarian Party there will be a hell of a lot less government getting in your face.) But there's still plenty left for all of us to direct as we see fit. Every hour you spend NOT at your day job and NOT otherwise taking care of your own basic needs (the lower steps on Maslow's hierarchy like survival, security and comfort), is an hour you can devote to creating your own little chunk of civilization's surplus wealth.

Use it wisely.

So again, all you have to do to "contribute to what society stands for" is:1. Don't kill anybody. 2. At least try to give as much as you take.

1) in terms of physically carrying out a killing, it is fairly easy to keep oneself from doing it. in terms of not tacitly agreeing to killing and not contributing toward killing, that is much harder.

2) if you make your living off investments are you giving as much as you take? Does it depend on your investments? And say, you are a loner?

1) in terms of physically carrying out a killing, it is fairly easy to keep oneself from doing it. in terms of not tacitly agreeing to killing and not contributing toward killing, that is much harder.Okay, so how about concentrating on the individuals who actually perform the killing? Or their leader? We overthrew Saddam because (among other reasons) he was murdering Kurds. Now we just need somebody to overthrow the overthrower.2) if you make your living off investments are you giving as much as you take? Yes. Your investment capital is surplus wealth that you earned from the labor you performed earlier in life. You've already overpaid your dues so now you can sit in a chair and concentrate on deploying that surplus to advance civilization. That's what capitalism is all about. Capital is surplus production capacity and in a capitalist economy the goal is to devolve ownership and control of capital to its producers. Admittedly it isn't working too well because of the artifact of the corporation, but we're going to see that fade away in the Post-Industrial Era.Does it depend on your investments?As long as you're truly investing the money, then no. The capital markets are unpredictable so not everyone's investment will multiply his capital, but in aggregate the market as a whole will. As long as you participate in good faith, you're a good citizen. I do have a problem with people who manipulate markets and cause a net loss in aggregate capital in order to enhance their own holdings. You're probably not at a point in your career yet where you could do that, but when you get there let me know and I'll keep an eye on you. :)And say, you are a loner?I don't understand the question. Is this in the context of investment strategy? If you're just talking about the problems an anti-social person encounters in functioning as a member of a society, he has only the same basic obligation as all the rest of us. Don't kill anybody and try to carry your weight. Become a writer or one of the increasingly common occupations working at home, so you don't have to "go to work" and deal with others.

A lot of us find "socializing" more enjoyable on the internet than in person, for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that we have a million times more people to choose from.

IThe question was, "What are our responsibilities to society?" Not, "Does everyone try in good faith to fulfill those responsibilities?"


I answered the question in the OP: do I need to have a responsibility in society?. I thought it best not to provide any false illusions of idealism.:p

I answered the question in the OP: do I need to have a responsibility in society?. I thought it best not to provide any false illusions of idealism.I don't think taking a sincere interest in the survival of civilization can be dismissed as "idealism." People who think their own selfish interests are more important than keeping the entire human race from sinking back into the Stone Age are not merely naughty; they are our enemies. At least the communists believed they were advancing civilization.

I don't think taking a sincere interest in the survival of civilization can be dismissed as "idealism." People who think their own selfish interests are more important than keeping the entire human race from sinking back into the Stone Age are not merely naughty; they are our enemies. At least the communists believed they were advancing civilization.

Well when your own mentor tells you that you don't need to worry about the quality of your work (stop thinking so much!) but learn to kiss ass instead (I have never known anyone so resistant to playing the system!), it sorta makes you realise you better learn to play nice or get out of the game. :shrug:

do i need to have a responsibility in society?

You can choose to do whatever you like in society because whatever you do will only determine where you end up in life. Will you be a alcoholic lying in some gutter begging for money or a leader of a nation trying to help solve the problems of society? The answer is up to you to determine as it always will be.

Okay, so how about concentrating on the individuals who actually perform the killing? Or their leader? We overthrew Saddam because (among other reasons) he was murdering Kurds. I truly doubt that was one of the reasons those with the power to start the war started that war. The idea makers around Bush Sr. are also floating around Bush Jr. And those idea makers knew damn well Saddaam was killing Kurds and not only did nothing, they continued to supply him AND tried to quash the bad PR his chemical warfare against the kurds was giving him. Some of 'us' may have backed or not so heartily opposed the war, post hoc, because of PR by the same cynical string pullers, but that is something else entirely.

Now we just need somebody to overthrow the overthrower.Yes. Your investment capital is surplus wealth that you earned from the labor you performed earlier in life. Not necessarily. And since its amount probably does not reflect the amount of labor, at least when compared with, say, a carpenter, what formula do I use to figure out how much I have given, even if I did work earlier for that surplus wealth?


You've already overpaid your dues so now you can sit in a chair and concentrate on deploying that surplus to advance civilization. That's what capitalism is all about. In a sense. Capitalism offers the opportunity to earn without labor.

I don't understand the question. I was raising the issue of giving as only those acts that generate money or capital. A loner is less likely to participate in those kinds of giving. I was restricting, in the example, the possibility that this person was giving, to only investment.

People can take all the time and not do anything illegal. We can benefit from killing in our name. We can benefit from unfair and unjust practices in our names.

My general point was that it is very hard to track these things. I mean, I know you were giving a simple and hopefully reassuring forumula to someone who might in fact benefit from such a thing and relax. But as a general formula I think it lets most of us off too easy.

"I have nothing to do with that," they can say, while, nevertheless getting the benefits of it.

Well when your own mentor tells you that you don't need to worry about the quality of your work (stop thinking so much!). . . .These throwbacks to the Stone Age have actually coined a word for this: "overthinking"! The first time I heard it I broke out in laughter in a meeting and nobody understood why. If there is one thing that we positively do not have an excess of in the United States, it is THINKING! :). . . . but learn to kiss ass instead (I have never known anyone so resistant to playing the system!), it sorta makes you realise you better learn to play nice or get out of the game.Yes, it is sad when the people who have leadership authority over us are uncivilized. I could point to our president as the absolute worst-case example, but then this would have to be moved to Politics. :)

In government, the solution to uncivilized leadership is democracy. In extreme cases it may take a generation or more, but the people will eventually wake up to the damage done by such a leader and replace him. That's why our Constitutional limit of ten years per President, despite being a recent amendment that was added during my lifetime, is one of the wisest things in it. I was sad that we couldn't have four more years of Eisenhower, and perhaps even Truman although I was too young to judge him in real time, but it was worth the loss to ensure that there's absolutely no way we could have four more years of Bush.

But in the micro world, uncivilized leaders are not so easily dealt with. Some companies, and even civil service departments, are led by one person who takes the path of least resistance for twenty or thirty years. All you can do is take solace in the fact that at least it's not the whole damn country, just one little piece of it, and you can leave without having to learn another language.

"Get out of the game," as you say. There are plenty of other games. Not all companies run that way... Although currently I'm working in the Washington region and it's frightening how the Capitol style of organization permeates everything for a hundred miles in every direction. Nothing works and nobody cares, as long as they get paid. Even the people who run McDonalds and Costco here wouldn't last five minutes in a job in California.

We do have the phrase, "voting with your feet," after all. People vote with their feet every day, leaving countries where civilization has broken down, to come to America. They may have to endure unspeakable hardships along the way and sneak in by walking across the desert, and once they get here they're harassed by nativists and live in the margins, under constant threat of discovery. If they can do that, then maybe we should be have the strength to vote with our feet. Walk out of an office being supervised by a caveman, and endure a little hardship while finding another job. :)

is the question 'in society' or 'to society'? In society, I don't think so. To society, yes.

"Get out of the game," as you say. There are plenty of other games.

Walk out of an office being supervised by a caveman, and endure a little hardship while finding another job. :)

My sentiments exactly.;)