Personal Responsibility - Part 2 \ stacker news ~bitcoin

172 sats \ 11 comments \ @Jayden 20 Oct 2023 bitcoin

Personal Responsibility

Personal responsibility and Bitcoin are often associated with one's custody and management of one's own capital. However, the following text is intended to deal with the individual's responsibility within a society. Bitcoin teaches us to take responsibility for the future.

Personal responsibility is a concept that can help promote a people-oriented society and create a strong foundation for a sustainable future. It is about each individual taking responsibility to take care of their own existence and the community of life that depends on others.

Responsibility improves the way people live together, because each individual sees himself as part of a whole and cares for its well-being. However, such a change must come from the bottom up, that is, from within one's own ranks to take personal responsibility. Each individual plays his or her role in society and his or her responsibility to self and others. In order to create a functional society. Only in this way can personal responsibility actually contribute to the survival and well-being of mankind.

Ownership can help to foster future aspirations in people and enable a sustainable future. By each individual being responsible for their own survival and seeing themselves as part of an interdependent community, motivated behavior is promoted. This leads people to be less inclined to harm others and instead support the well-being of all society members. Through a sense of ownership, we can focus on long-term goals and thus bring about positive change for all.

A Lie Of Responsibility

I would like to give a crude example of how European citizens are being made to believe in their own responsibility in connection with "saving the world". In most European countries, there are laws regulating the separation of waste for private disposal. This means that it is a criminal offense not to separate household waste correctly before disposal. The whole thing under the premise of environmental protection. However, it is the case that the separated waste is subsequently reunited in the disposal plants, with a few exceptions.

As already described in Part 1, we move at any conceivable time in a construct of laws, regulations and norms. So how do we find our way back to responsibility? My answer: In recognizing the personal benefit of responsibility for each individual.

The Personal Benefit

Have you ever thought about how fire became so extremely successful? Worldwide, until today. No one had to force or legislate people to use fire. No social value system was necessary and no one had to be morally convinced. Man uses fire because it has a benefit for himself as an individual. It is the actual benefit to the individual that makes a discovery, invention or technology successful. No one has been forced to use the Internet.

No government, no company, and no army has forced people to realize that the Internet is useful. Some needed a little push, others two. But no one today denies the benefits of sending an e-mail of a letter instead of a letter. The Internet is successful because it is useful.

"Every great idea, as soon as it appears, has a tyrannical effect." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"Bitcoin is the first time in five thousand years, that we have something better than gold. And it's not a little bit better, it's significantly better. It's much rarer. More divisible, more durable. It's much more portable. It's just better." (Wences Casares)

If we associate the benefits of personal responsibility, with prosperity and wise consumption, we will bring about changes that no state, no government, no corporation, and no army could set in motion.

Maybe I'm too optimistic about what a deflationary sound money can change in people. Maybe I'm not. Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading.

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1 sat \ 10 replies \ @gabybaby 20 Oct 2023

Thanks for writing. Very interesting and thought-provoking read. It's helpful to hear about how personal vs. collective responsibility is viewed in the EU.

I've spent more time lately reading and pondering the dilemma of personal good (now looked on as selfish) vs. the public good (now regarded as the highest virtue in society). After a lot of thought, I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a public good, and by forcing that idea onto society, the elites create an environment that incentivizes the wholesale abdication of responsibility and offloading onto some ambiguous "other" force, whether it's offloading responsibility for rectifying undesirable situations onto racists or bigots or the rich, for example.

I struggled to reconcile the notion that personal responsibility and personal satisfaction of wants and needs first are bad, but abdication of responsibility and elevation of a public good are good. Because society is composed of individuals at the most basic level, in reality the common/public good is some amorphous, undefinable standard. Society is being forced to chase an ideal that literally doesn't and cannot exist. The best we can hope for is bureaucracy to get the hell out of the way and empower people to take personal responsibility, ownership, and take care of themselves first, then their families, then their communities, and onwards and upwards.

Just an armchair philosopher spitting into the wind, though. Let me know what you think.

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @Jayden OP 20 Oct 2023

Thanks for the detailed answer! Perhaps it sounds a bit arrogant to assume that the people who lived at times, which were formed without social structures, were more soulful. Social form in this sense as state, in the sense of an early city or today's globalization. The question I ask myself, were people who lived at the time of hunter-gatherers happier than people today? At a time when societies consisted of a few people, often even purely familial.

1 sat \ 8 replies \ @gabybaby 20 Oct 2023

I would flip that thought around and ask, "is it arrogant to assume that anyone has a clue as to what the public good in any area of life is or ought to be?" It's clear that in the pursuit of a common good, more and more are being left behind.

101 sats \ 4 replies \ @elvismercury 20 Oct 2023

I think there are many areas where it's super obvious what the public good ought to be, and the public is usually pretty clear about a lot of it -- e.g., don't poison the air or the groundwater, don't beat people to death or enslave them, don't harvest all the fish out of the lake, etc.

The utopian fantasy where all this shit just sort of takes care of itself with everyone worrying only about their own affairs -- or, just as good, trying to formulate every kind of interaction as a derivative of property rights -- is the main reason Libertarians have been a fringe political philosophy since forever.

153 sats \ 3 replies \ @gabybaby 20 Oct 2023

That's an interesting point, thanks for sharing. I agree that it seems pretty obvious in certain areas that the "common good" is also to everyone's individual benefit as well. But in today's day and age, there are areas where it's less clear. Take for example climate change and differences in exposure/risk between regions, and also different needs from an energy perspective.

It's all well and good that established, advanced economies should try to find ways to transition to more renewable forms of energy. But is it fair to ask still-developing countries to do the same, for the common good of reduced emissions?

Or in the case of affordable housing or a livable wage in the USA. On the face of it, both those ideas sound amazing and commendable. No doubt about that. But what is livable? What's affordable? Does it depend on the region of the country you live in? What if your definition of affordable is different? What if the mainstream concept of a livable wage isn't livable for your family situation? What happens then? Who is in charge of adjudicating those differences?

Would be curious to hear your thoughts, thanks!

Edit: also, I don't believe that libertarianism is a fringe political philosophy because it's utopian or lacks merit. It's clear that the two-party system in the US actively works to suppress other options for people to consider. And I don't believe that it's an all-or-nothing proposition either; I'm confident that a lot of people on both sides (American left and right) would agree with libertarian principles like strong property rights, minimized government interference in their personal lives and affairs, and strong skepticism of the USA's penchant for military interventionism around the world.

141 sats \ 2 replies \ @elvismercury 21 Oct 2023

I don't disagree with much of anything that you said. I suppose I was speaking to the ambient Libertarians who act like everything is simple, that if we just shitcanned the current government, which has been oppressing us, then utopia would ensue.

It would not. We'd find ourselves in a new system, with new affordances, and new pathologies. And a great many of the same old ones.

While you may be right that the two-party system resists other parties cropping up, I think you're wrong that this is to blame for L's marginalization. The L tenets have been there in plain sight for anyone throughout the world. Bastiat was writing about it 200 years ago. Is the American two-party system to blame that it has never taken hold anywhere, ever?

I propose a different explanation: when push comes to shove, people don't want it. And even if they do want it, it is out-competed by other systems. It is not viable in the real world, with actual humans as we find them. In the absence of a state, what arises is something like cartels and warlords, or some plucky troupe that is either annihilated or assimilated upon contact with an actual state. What does not arise is the paradise that has been predicted for all these years.

A political philosophy that cannot exist due to the exigencies of actual life is a fairy tale. It is not serious.

153 sats \ 1 reply \ @gabybaby 21 Oct 2023

It may very well be true that it's unviable. I struggle with that balance between theory and pragmatism myself. It's hard to know whether it'd be unviable because it's a bad idea or because the rest of the world is either a form of democracy or authoritarianism already. Status quo is a powerful thing when it comes to entrenched forms of government and mindshare among the populace. Certainly it's not an idea that could succeed if surrounded by countries of the current paradigm.

I think what would be more optimal is the introduction of some of these libertarian elements back into society. The ideas of personal accountability and responsibility are important no matter the system of governance, I believe.

There's a lot of nuance to be had in a discussion like this. A follow-up question along the same lines of your comment would be, would leading countries even allow this sort of experiment to take place? If the answer is no, then that puts a premature halt to any of this utopian babble from me.

Thanks for engaging with me on this, it was very thought-provoking.

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 21 Oct 2023

It's hard to know whether it'd be unviable because it's a bad idea or because the rest of the world is either a form of democracy or authoritarianism already.

Agreed. I would be less testy about the topic, I think, except the argument is that not only is L morally superior (according to its advocates) it's literally better. Except, apparently, it is not better for a pretty important definition of better: ecological fitness. Viability.

The ideas of personal accountability and responsibility are important no matter the system of governance, I believe.

100%. The question is, what could give rise to such a thing? I find the:

hard times > strong men > good times > weak men

thing pretty compelling. Maybe the personal responsibility comes invariably in the next part of the cycle?

would leading countries even allow this sort of experiment to take place?

A thing I understand now, after seeing how the sausage is made at a really big and successful company, is that systems resist change. Non-trivial reformation happens when something dies, or is killed. What that implies for our current governmental situation is not optimistic.

Thanks for engaging with me on this, it was very thought-provoking.

Back at you. A pleasure. Keep posting.

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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Jayden OP 20 Oct 2023

And this is where it gets really interesting, does it really have to be that some fall by the wayside? What is the argument for that? I understand that the past provides endless examples. But I return to my optimism at this point: the situation and opportunity that is presented to us never existed before in this form.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @gabybaby 20 Oct 2023

I believe that society as a whole has a better chance of leaving fewer people behind if we start from the bottom, emphasize personal responsibility and ownership, and work our way up. Rather than the current system of top-down enforcement. What do you think?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jayden OP 20 Oct 2023

Exactly my idea. Hence the comparison with the fire and the Internet.