[ExI] Is this who we are?

[Tara Maya]

Just to take the devil’s advocate position, isn’t “easily swayed, constantly infected by the opinions of others” just a denigrating way of saying that we outsource most of our civilization to specialists in fields we don’t have time to master ourselves? Anybody who masters a field himself will not at all be easily swayed to the opinion of others IN THAT FIELD, which he considers rightly his area of expertise, but will bow to majority or expert opinion in other fields.

How could the human race have achieved any level of complexity if every individual tried to master every single field of knowledge?

Tara



> On Sep 7, 2017, at 9:44 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I think only a small minority of people simply want the freedom to act as they will without being responsible for others. This behavior is less instinctually satisfying but more intellectually so. But it does make itso you don't see too many libertarian chimps.
> Stuart LaForg-------------
> 
> BTW;, monkeys are really bad at imitation learning.
> 
> Our answers to the above implied questions determines to an extent what we think about the role of gov. in people's lives.  How many people actually need a nanny state to tell them what to do, how to handle their money (or handle it for them, such as forcing retirement plants on workers), save them when they fail, and so on?
> 
> We libertarians disdain such things, esp. we smart ones.  But we are a small percentage of the population.
> 
> bill w
> 
> On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 12:36 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com <mailto:avant at sollegro.com>> wrote:
> BillW wrote:
> 
> > We are creatures easily swayed, constantly infected by the opinions of
> > others, lacking critical self-understanding, easily gripped by fantastical
> > hopes and ambitions.  Our capacity for self-government is spasmodic, and
> > even while we preen ourselves on our critical and independent, free and
> > rational decisions, we are the slaves of fashion and opinion and social and
> > cultural forces of which we are ignorant. It would often be good, and no
> > signal of disrespect to ourselves, if those who know better could rescue us
> > from our worst follies.
> 
> > from Ethics by Simon Blackburn
> 
> > - opinions please?
> 
> He sounds like a shill for the ruling class. . . but he also sounds like
> he is speaking from experience.
> 
> Many people genuinely do want to be led by those who they believe know
> better than them. Some fewer people genuinely believe that they know
> better than others and want to lead them. That is the primate norm after
> all. Monkey see, monkey do.
> 
> I think only a small minority of people simply want the freedom to act as
> they will without being responsible for others. This behavior is less
> instinctually satisfying but more intellectually so. But it does make it
> so you don't see too many libertarian chimps.
> 
> 
> Stuart LaForge
> 

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