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| Thread: The Hierarchy of Preferences |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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mvassilev
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posted December 03, 2012 12:29 AM |
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master_learn:
Sure, minor, very surface-level preferences can be changed as you describe, but the desire/impulse to change such a preference itself comes for a more fundamental preference/value, whether it's an instrumental value or more general preference. In your examples, he can only change from drinking coffee to drinking tea if he likes tea as much as coffee - and that's not a preference he can control.
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Eccentric Opinion
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted December 03, 2012 11:50 AM |
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Mvass,I believe you have read the story how the wind and the sun made a bet who would take the coat from the human they saw.
The wind blew hard and harder,but the man's grip over thhe coat became also harder.
And then the sun came and began to shine and the man took off the coat from his shoulders.
The coat in the story are the preferences.
When you read a great book or see a great movie,which gives great impulse to your heart,then you may change you whole world view point!
I see that nothing of this calibre has happened to you,maybe you only heard stories about.
The core change of everything in your life can be described also by the so called "wind of change".
I have experienced this whole change and I believe I will change again when I see/read something that touches me in all levels.
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 03, 2012 04:28 PM |
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Err... are we sure that its always a positive thing to change your entire world view based on a single book or film?
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted December 03, 2012 04:52 PM |
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Thank you,xerox,for asking the queston!
About the "always" part-I quess there are cases,when it would be negative(I guess when the book is mostly understood in certain negative aspects and not understood in positive ones).
About the "positive thing" part-would you tell me if you give more weight on "thing" or more weight on "positive"?
About the "single" part-its more often that the book or the movie are not single,but trilogy.More trilogy in movies,and more single in books(or more books about a theme).
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 04, 2012 09:33 AM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 09:38, 04 Dec 2012.
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Zenofex, I think it's wrong to compare weapons with drugs. The only person a drug addict physically hurts is him- or herself.
It's actually that simple - drugs make the human behaviour... unrealiable shall we say? There are so many examples of junkies doing not-so-nice stuff, whether during an attempt to steal money for their next dose or just drugs (go check the threat about the guns, there's at least one example even there), that it doesn't take much of a thought to figure out that the problem doesn't end with the "they are hurting only themselves" nonsense.
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Do you think the government knows people's preferences better than they themselves do? If so, how? If not, why should it tell them how to act if their actions don't harm others?
You say it harms productivity - but the end goal of all production is consumption. If people work enough to be satisfied to the point at which they don't want to work more - what's wrong with that? If they're happier with less stuff, why should they work harder? If their behavior gets them sick, that's their personal responsibility, and they should pay for treatment themselves (or have health insurance). In any case, if you believe people have a duty to work, would you stand over them with a whip? Other people are not your property, and if they want to work less and have less stuff, that's no one's business but their own.
It might be surprising for you but people are terrible at long-term planning, especially when this planning concerns not only themselves but also other people (who they usually don't care about - I know that I normally don't). I'll say it again - the state does not care about you personally, no matter what you do with yourself or with the others - you are important only as a part of a group, a process or a single action that can have an impact on the whole society to some visible extent. If you're happy with all kinds of health issues just to indulge yourself with food, drugs, drinks, tabacco, etc., that's perfectly fine - as long as your lack of self-restraint does not affect the others. When it turns out that in the long term you have a large number of fat-ass chain-smokers with drinking problems who occasionally take drugs, etc., then obviously you have a problem that affects not only you. Try to think of it that way - why the public healthcare system which is ultimately funded by everybody in a given country should take an extra load of patients who have destroyed their health for some short-term pleasures? Or why should you work overtime just because you have a colleague who's getting a sick leave every second month because of issues which are nobody's fault but his? And what if the number of the "colleagues" like him become bigger and bigger and spread in all branches of the economy? Shortly put - people are inherently irresponsible outside their immediate surroundings (and quite often are irresponsible even inside that area) and each individual can not be relied on when it comes to taking decisions affecting other people, the vast majority of who are strangers - so a degree of discipline needs to be enforced to maintain some large-scale order.
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Doing things that harm other people is already illegal. If a junkie kills someone, he will be punished, same as a non-junkie. If they're doing something that doesn't harm anyone else, why prevent it?
And how would you know that a junkie will not harm anyone? Now you might want to replace a "junkie" with, say, "mental disorder patient".
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Sending someone to prison for selling marijuana doesn't make anyone safer, and exposes the dealer to hardened criminals, making recidivism more likely - so if anything, drug criminalization makes people (both users and non-users) less safe.
Oh, come on, this is plain daft. The drug dealers are usually exactly those "hardened criminals" that you're talking about. The end-of-the-chain dealers are usually some idiots who haven't received a proper upbringing (I have the "pleasure" to know a few such examples) but the more you go towards the core, the more "serious" criminals you'll find. And as the direct dealers rise through the hierarchy, they become "serious" criminals themselves. I've no idea where you're getting this romantic bullcrap from.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 04, 2012 10:10 AM |
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Quote:
the public healthcare system which is ultimately funded by everybody in a given country
Here's the problem. If health care is publicly funded, people needing more health care is a burden on the taxpayer. But if health care is privately funded, people bear the costs of their health decisions (either because they pay more for their expenses out-of-pocket or because their insurance is more expensive if they have an unhealthy lifestyle).Quote:
Or why should you work overtime just because you have a colleague who's getting a sick leave every second month because of issues which are nobody's fault but his?
Your colleague is allocated a certain amount of sick leave. If they take more than that, they can get fired. If you're contracted to work for ~40 hours a week, you don't have to work more (unless you want to), so it's not your problem.Quote:
And how would you know that a junkie will not harm anyone?
I don't know that. I don't know that any given individual won't harm anyone. But as long as they're not harming anyone but themselves, it's not anybody's problem but their own. If they're harming someone else, there are already laws that cover that. A junkie murdering someone is no worse than a non-junkie doing the same. As far as other people are concerned, it's murder that's bad, not being a junkie.Quote:
The end-of-the-chain dealers
It's them I'm referring to. Often they haven't committed any major crimes other than drug-dealing, and sending them to prison will expose them to more hardened criminals. The reason crime and drugs are so closely associated is because drugs are illegal. When alcohol was illegal in the US in the 20s, it was linked with crime. When Prohibition ended, all the organized crime that was associated with alcohol decreased significantly.
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Eccentric Opinion
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted December 04, 2012 01:10 PM |
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Again, the problem is that it all turns into fallancies. Public healthcare means a normal tax payer pays for those overusing it? By the same logic, that means a A company insured person also pays for those who overuse A companies insurance.
And then Mvass quoted it out of context... 
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 04, 2012 01:31 PM |
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Public healthcare means the taxpayers are paying for people's health care treatments. Those who use more treatments require more money to be spent on them at taxpayer expense. Something similar is true of a company that offers health insurance, although at least that's a voluntary.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted December 04, 2012 01:43 PM |
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Because the world is random, you fail at life without any form of backup net, so guess what happens? So if the exact same thing happens with a state and a corp, is it suddenly okay because its a corp? I think that is another form of association fallancy.
Related to that: I think one of the most amusing ways of getting a healthcare system to work with a irresponsible population is by making the service so slow nobody can depends on it. Because it equally hurts everyone to the degree people don't want to depend on it, creating unequal hurt.
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 04, 2012 02:01 PM |
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If you work for a company, it is voluntary for it to offer health insurance. If the government pays for health care, it does so at the involuntary expense of taxpayers.
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Eccentric Opinion
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del_diablo
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posted December 04, 2012 02:18 PM |
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If the axiom is that "If the goverment does it, nobody wants it", sure.
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Zenofex
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Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 05, 2012 09:10 AM |
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Quote:
Here's the problem. If health care is publicly funded, people needing more health care is a burden on the taxpayer. But if health care is privately funded, people bear the costs of their health decisions (either because they pay more for their expenses out-of-pocket or because their insurance is more expensive if they have an unhealthy lifestyle).
You can't have that. Public healthcare covers not only self-inflicted health issues but also problems that you couldn't have prevented - viruses, genetically inherited diseases, injuries of all kinds, including work-related and so on. So you either draw the line and say "if this issue is not your fault, we'll take care of it, otherwise you're on your own or will have to pay (more than usual)" but where exactly are you going to draw this line and how are you going to distinguish the different cases? There for example are people who are forced to become junkies just to remain dependant on a particular person - that's often the case with the prostitutes but not only.
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Your colleague is allocated a certain amount of sick leave. If they take more than that, they can get fired. If you're contracted to work for ~40 hours a week, you don't have to work more (unless you want to), so it's not your problem.
I'm wondering if you're working yourself...
First, even with a limited amount of sick leave days per year, a person can still use them all and thus increase the workload on the people who remain on duty. A healthy person who doesn't take so many sick leaves will contribute more to the team and will save it the occasional extra load (provided that he/she's not lazier or at least he/she's decently supervised).
Second - so far I've never seen an employer offer a contract which says that you'll have to work only X hours per week and you'll never have to work overtime. It's unrealistic to expect that the process will stop just because the number of active employees is not enough to distribute the load decently so nobody gets overburdened, especially if there are deadlines to be met or the nature of the work reqires constant attention - that's just not happening in RL, maybe only in the books that you read. Even if you find such an employer somehow, the extra workload is still on you if you have a sick colleague even during your "normal" on-duty hours because a reduced number of people have to handle the same amount of work as before.
Third - you're not answering what will happen if the number of people with health issues increases so at any given moment some more "healthy" people have to work instead of at least one part of these "sickly" people. And what if the health of the "healthy" portion deteriorates in the long run as a result of the constant extra load?
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I don't know that. I don't know that any given individual won't harm anyone. But as long as they're not harming anyone but themselves, it's not anybody's problem but their own. If they're harming someone else, there are already laws that cover that. A junkie murdering someone is no worse than a non-junkie doing the same. As far as other people are concerned, it's murder that's bad, not being a junkie.
OK, let's make it simpler then - is a junky more likely, less likely or just as likely to harm another person (not necessarily physically) than your regular John Doe who doesn't take drugs and leads a casual life?
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It's them I'm referring to. Often they haven't committed any major crimes other than drug-dealing, and sending them to prison will expose them to more hardened criminals.
You really need to do some reality check. These end-of-the-chain dealers are normally an excellent criminal material, even if they start just as spoiled or badly supervised brats or just forced to sell drugs for money (the lst scenario however is hardly as common as Hollywood depicts it). If the police or somebody else doesn't knock some sense into their heads - usually forcefully - they normally climb the ladder and become "real" criminals. It's like with most other professions really - you gain experience, you get promoted, but with the difference that the higher you go, the deeper the ***** that you are in get and if you initially may just have to hide and sell small doses, occasionally giving a beating to a rival dealer or an indebted "client", with the promotions come other "responsibilities" which may involve harder stuff, including murder. And how do you think one leaves such an organisation - with one month notice, you and the local crime boss shake hands and part ways? Heh.
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The reason crime and drugs are so closely associated is because drugs are illegal.
I've no idea why do you think that making them legal will stop the crimes. Tabacco is legal, yet it gets smuggled all the time. And as I already said, you can't just make legal something that you can't deal with, especially if it's not safe in the first place.
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 05, 2012 10:09 AM |
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Enough is enough.
Is there any difference between alcohol and/or nicotine and/or prescription-free stuff like aspirin, ibuprofen and so on - all legal drugs - and other drugs in terms of "user endangers society"? (If you answer yes - how many people have been killed or severely injured due to alcohol? How are the medical costs of illnesses and health problems due to alcohol, nicotine or the side effects of legal drugs?)
Conversely, what good did the prohibition do - except fostering the rise of organized crime?
How much organized crime is based on legal drugs excluding smuggle which is a consequence of price differences due to different taxes depending on the countries in question (which means, those crimes are technically tax evasion crimes)?
How much money EARNS the government with taxes on drugs? How much mones earn the crime organizations by selling them illegally? How much does the war against illegal drugs cost the government (and the tax payer)? How many victims are the direct result of either that war or the fact that drugs are illegal (that includes the death toll due to quality differences or dangerous additives)?
Add in the other two pillars of organized crime, prostitution (sex is legal, selling is legal, so why is selling sex illegal, like GC asked) and gambling, and you have a pretty clear picture what is going wrong.
You could just as well introduce thought crimes and try to enforce the laws based upon that - certain way to desaster.
All data are there, nothing is hypothetical, it has all been done and tried, and the only way is to decriminalize the things and control distribution and regulate public usage.
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 05, 2012 11:39 PM |
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Zeno:
Quote:
where exactly are you going to draw this line and how are you going to distinguish the different cases?
It's not difficult to have a rule about this, something like "If you have a disease that other people can get from being around you, you can be treated at taxpayer expense. Otherwise, find a way to pay for it privately."Quote:
I'm wondering if you're working yourself...
Regardless, if you choose to work at any given place, you're accepting the terms of whatever contract you signed. If they can ask you to work overtime, that's what you agreed to, regardless of what's causing you to work overtime.Quote:
some more "healthy" people have to work instead of at least one part of these "sickly" people
I don't understand what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?Quote:
is a junky more likely, less likely or just as likely to harm another person (not necessarily physically) than your regular John Doe who doesn't take drugs and leads a casual life?
Depends on the drug. If it's marijuana, no more likely. If it's heroin, more likely. But that's irrelevant because it is the act of harming people that is wrong, but "being likely to harm people".
And, like I said, the reason there's so much non-drug crime surrounding drugs is because drugs are illegal. If you made chocolate illegal, you'd see something very similar happen.
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Zenofex
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Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 10, 2012 09:06 PM |
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Quote:
It's not difficult to have a rule about this, something like "If you have a disease that other people can get from being around you, you can be treated at taxpayer expense. Otherwise, find a way to pay for it privately."
Infection diseases are hardly the only problem that concerns the public health and like I already said - it's hardly as simple to draw the line somewhere as you seem to think. A seemingly individual problem could result in delivering harm to another person - if not directly, then indirectly, and that's even after we put all the moral matters aside.
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Regardless, if you choose to work at any given place, you're accepting the terms of whatever contract you signed. If they can ask you to work overtime, that's what you agreed to, regardless of what's causing you to work overtime.
Well, that's why the libertarian crap have as much application in real life as a random fairy-tale.  I guess it will take you several more years and a few employers to figure out the nonsenses that you are saying right now.
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I don't understand what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?
Simply put - a person with deteriorated health can't be expected to work as efficiently as a person with "normal" health and is likely to take more sick leaves. What happens if the number of these "sickly" people grows absolutely and relatively to the point of becoming a major factor in a given national economy just because they are allowed to damage their health as much as they want; and why should the more "healthy" ones deal with the extra workload that the "sickly" ones can't handle just because they've recklessly made themselves inefficient?
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Depends on the drug. If it's marijuana, no more likely. If it's heroin, more likely. But that's irrelevant because it is the act of harming people that is wrong, but "being likely to harm people".
Bullcrap. If you deliberately introduce a situation which increases the risk of someone being harmed, you are responsible (partially, at the very least) for that harm in a manner similar to harming that someone directly. That's even part of most of the current law systems. So you're basically saying that the state should abdicate from its safekeeping responsibilities. So, again, how is that different from giving a machine gun to everyone if "the act of harming" someone is the only thing that matters?
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And, like I said, the reason there's so much non-drug crime surrounding drugs is because drugs are illegal. If you made chocolate illegal, you'd see something very similar happen.
You would know that if there was at least one country where the drugs are freely marketed - and there's no such country as far as I know. And as most of your other quotes, you're conveniently ignoring some of my points.
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Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
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posted December 11, 2012 02:20 AM |
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Enough is enough.
Is there any difference between alcohol and/or nicotine and/or prescription-free stuff like aspirin, ibuprofen and so on - all legal drugs - and other drugs in terms of "user endangers society"?
Yeah, nicotine and alcohol and aspirin do not cause halucinations, deep euphoria and of course extasy.
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(If you answer yes - how many people have been killed or severely injured due to alcohol? How are the medical costs of illnesses and health problems due to alcohol, nicotine or the side effects of legal drugs?)
Nobody gives a damn about how many side effects legal drugs have or not or how many people die. Go meet a drug addict and then go talk to a smoker. Unless you are blind, you would spot the difference immediately.
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Conversely, what good did the prohibition do - except fostering the rise of organized crime?
Organized crime will always exist as long as humans do. Criminalizing halucinogenic drugs is the first step to tell rational thinking people that using drugs is not a good idea and it helps these things be kept away from public eyes.
It is certainly confortable not to see drug junkies sniffing narcotic substances in populated areas during the day.
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How much organized crime is based on legal drugs excluding smuggle which is a consequence of price differences due to different taxes depending on the countries in question (which means, those crimes are technically tax evasion crimes)?
They are more than "Tax evasion drugs".
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...so why is selling sex illegal?
It might have to do something with deterring the spread of disease and discouraging people in participating in that.
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All data are there, nothing is hypothetical, it has all been done and tried, and the only way is to decriminalize the things and control distribution and regulate public usage.
That would not work. You really think that people take drugs from their dealers because it is not found legally?
Lets assume that all drugs were easily available. No need for identification.
Now you think there is no need for crime and the drug mafia dissipates into hot air?
Lets assume the drug mafia dissipates in hot air because there is no need for it, ok and the entire planet legalizes drugs and the prices of the drugs remain at the lowest possible price, even now there would still be crime.
You know why? Because somewhere, someplace, some nutcracked idiot will not be satisfied and, with his/her criminal energy, try to do something illegal.
Sure, you cant think of what could that be. Well, he/she might try to sell "Exotic" drugs,which are nothing but dirty versions of the originals or spread lies or X other reasons.
Look at tobacco. Minor cost differences between somecountries and you will have droves of junk-drones trying to smuggle the cheap versions in a country.
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gnomes2169
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Duke of the Glade
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posted December 11, 2012 06:35 AM |
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Quote:
Simply put - a person with deteriorated health can't be expected to work as efficiently as a person with "normal" health and is likely to take more sick leaves. What happens if the number of these "sickly" people grows absolutely and relatively to the point of becoming a major factor in a given national economy just because they are allowed to damage their health as much as they want; and why should the more "healthy" ones deal with the extra workload that the "sickly" ones can't handle just because they've recklessly made themselves inefficient?
Riddle me this then, if smoking and the consumption of alcohol are also directly linked to poorer health and a heightened health risk to those around you, why are people allowed to drink? How about smoke? Shouldn't those be banned on sight in your model?
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 11, 2012 07:15 AM |
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Don't know how it is in the US, but the EU is pretty persistent in its attempts to get rid of the tabacco - at this point smoking is banned from all public places closed between walls and the price is getting artificially increased by excise stamps and such. As for the drinking - if it becomes a major problem, it will probably follow the same road. It certainly is in Russia.
By the way I'm not really advocating fighting some symptoms and the drug usage, etc. fall into that category. But the arguments in this topic about how everyone should be allowed to damage himself as much as he wants are just downright ridiculous.
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mvassilev
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posted December 11, 2012 07:22 AM |
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The totalitarianism in this topic is simply astounding.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted December 11, 2012 08:29 AM |
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You might want to research a term before using it. Don't be Elodin. 
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