Agree with most of what he says. Fundamentally, we are relational and moral beings.
In Africa there is the concept of Ubuntu "I am because we are". Identity and personhood arises within community, rather than being constructed indivudually.
I think we need to differentiate between self-help in the modern sense, and viewing the self as a continuous process of engaging in meaningful activities, within community, with purpose that helps cultivate virtue. i.e "Becoming"
When self-help is treated as only individual optimisation, without any ultimate end it risk becoming self-referential.
Philosopher Charles Taylor describes a similar shift with modernity that he calls "Disengaged reason" [0]. Where reason is disconnected from moral frameworks, that once helped orient us.
The deeper issue may be Self-help/Improvement that is often not contained within these larger frameworks of meaning, that answer:
Thanks for sharing. I was trying to build something similar , mostly for myself to get an overview of papers. think I was being too specific which gave inconsistent results. Will check for the detailed prompt but it was basically: extract key concepts, arguments and theories and then build visualisations and simulations. Sometimes it seems being too directive can be detrimental
Here is my insight: VALUATION is not the same as VALUE CREATION.
Put another way, the ability to accumulate resources, is not a reliable indicator of the "good" being created in the world.
When the quantitative metric of "Money" is used a a proxy for value creation, it creates serious and dangerous side effects.
This is a fundamental failure mode of modern capitalism.
Capitalism requires ethical discipline. Without it, we get runaway resource accumulation, that rationalises actions and strategies (externalisation, extraction, optimisation-at-all-costs) which cause more harm than good.
The techno-optimists (See e/acc/Marc Andreessen)[0], frame progress as intrinsically good.
I believe a more prudent approach is needed, one that is wise and looks at business from the perspective of:
STEWARDSHIP & BALANCE,
rather than
RESOURCE ACCUMULATION & PROGRESS.
While I do not disagree with all he says, and do not think technological progress is bad, you will notice there is no mention of ethics in the entire manifesto other than as an "enemy".
Philosopher Charles Taylor argues that a defining feature of modernity is the rise of what he calls “disengaged reason” [1]:
> Contrary to a Platonic understanding of reason where a meaningful order exists in the cosmos and in the soul that serves as a source for the highest good for reason to discover and conform to, disengaged reason "is no longer defined in terms of a vision of order in the cosmos" (Taylor 1989, 20). This disengagement allows reason to look at the world from an 'autonomous' viewpoint, leading to the abandonment of all 'horizons' > or frameworks "within which we know where we stand, and what meanings things have for us" (Taylor 1989, 29), thus rendering any inquiry to be independent of an overarching telos.
This idea is captured bluntly in this video (paraphrasing)[2]:
> The great innovation with modernity was to convince people that money is *GOD*. With the enlightenment *MONEY* replaced *GOD* for a lot of people
In a sense, a lot of people in the modern world treat money itself as "The Sacred"
This is not to say I am arguing that money, profit and competition are morally wrong, but rather the way it is packaged. It is often elevated to the ultimate end (telos), rather than the means.
The fundamental category error is making the assumption that:
VALUATION (or Money in the bank) = Value Creation (For The Greater Good)
As you have rightly pointed out, the "It started here, now it's worth $xB" is an indication of this worldview, where the telos itself is "MONEY"
Nah , most people are by default looking for something more meaningful than increasing profits. It’s modernity that’s created a society of profit at all cost, which has to be unlearned.
The challenge with AI, it will give you “good enough” output, without feedback loops you never move to 2,3,4 and assume you are doing ok. Hence it stunts learning. So juniors or inexperienced stay inexperienced, without knowing what they don’t know.
You have to Use it as an expert thinking partner. Tell it to ask you questions & not give you the answer.
Apartheid South Africa’s real enemy—the ANC, the liberation movements, the “terrorists”—wouldn’t stop and wouldn’t surrender until white minority rule and its entire system didn’t exist. They had taken the innocent Black civilians of South Africa hostage. They were also so ingrained into the townships that resources were literally siphoned from humanitarian sites like churches and schools into hidden safehouses and underground networks; as just one example of reporting that many at the time were inclined to believe was credible, even with the mutual atrocities both sides were carrying out.
What would “winning” look like from a moral and ethical standpoint? Liberating the people of that region from the violence and suffering. Returning them to a “functioning society” with social and civic infrastructure. Fully denying major resistance and insurgency in the region for lifetimes—to the point that the hate and anger finally cooled off enough for people to “move on.”
Winning would require a multi-generational investment in humanity by humanity. It would require the buy-in of the people on the ground. It would require a United Nations coalition and boots on the ground from “responsible” countries who wanted to raise everyone above the hate. And of course, South Africa would need to be an absolute DMZ for that entire time—no armed liberation movements allowed, only peacekeeping forces sanctioned by the “international community.”
Getting from here to there? Even less popular than the hugely unpopular interventions elsewhere in the world. Don’t ask me how anyone could do it—those skilled in the art of diplomacy had tried for longer than my lifetime and probably longer than yours, and NOTHING had stuck.
———
wait; that’s not what it took.
It took the abolishment of apartheid; colonisation and oppression, peace was achieved. Your framing is flawed , it is framed as equal sides. Not the reality a colonial apartheid state.
south africa is not a good analogue since it's fate is different from that of palestine, and you are making this obtuse analogue to stir up feelings of decolonisation as a sort of nationalism
Think you are missing the point. This wasn’t an analogy about the actors , but rather the framing.
During apartheid , and towards the end plenty were making arguments for gradual control ; gradual processes which just would have further perpetuated oppression. I was highlighting the similarities to that. We also had people saying the ‘blacks’ just want to ‘kill the whites’ and it would result in violence.
Your mapping of roles is completely incorrect, Indians cannot be the Zionist since they were an oppressed minority and did not have power. Equating Afrikaners to ottomans / British is incoherent.
You, and the original comment completely ignores the power imbalance as was the case in apartheid South Africa. This framing further perpetuates oppression and is a way to prop up the apartheid state.
I won’t post all of the evidence here confirming that Israel functions as an apartheid state. Numerous reports exist that describe and draw the comparison.
> During apartheid , and towards the end plenty were making arguments for gradual control ; gradual processes which just would have further perpetuated oppression. I was highlighting the similarities to that. We also had people saying the ‘blacks’ just want to ‘kill the whites’ and it would result in violence.
If you are then making comparison to modern times instead of colonialism, then still not really applicable to gaza since gaza was not occupied Oct 7th. Therefore, Israel (colonization conspiracies aside) had no interest in gaza except for security.
I do believe the apartheid example / comparison makes sense when thinking of the west bank, and I do believe myself the west bank is experiencing settler colonization and apartheid conditions along that settler boundary.
If you do not believe that zionists in palestine were an oppressed minority until the mass immigration in the 1930s and the failed arab revolts, I suggest you restudy the history. Palestine would have easily ended up like Uganda if the Palestinians hadn't made strategic errors / failed their invasion of the newly declared state of Israel.
The Orwell link is a great read, and part of it suggests that both decolonization and underdog-centered pacifism are forms of nationalism. Here is a quote that I love, heavily relates to the troubles in ireland and some reactions to the current gazan war:
"But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough."
This is a very interesting take, and I am going to largely agree with you here. It really looks like this may be what is going on. This is really a symptom of a much larger phenomenon, in that a society that values material wealth , and only acknowledges a material reality without realising or recognising the metaphysical reality.
reply