[hekkle]

I would say that one has as much responsibility to society, as that society accepts for the individual.

As a previously homeless veteran, I'd say that is zero. Why should intellectuals, or in fact anyone have any duty to help a system that doesn't help them?

Now I know a lot of people will grandstand and say that if people just started taking on responsibility, then that would improve the system so that it would help more, but again, I did my part and was promised to be taken care of by society with its fingers crossed behind its back.

[godelski]

This only results in a race to the bottom. A self fulfilling prophecy. The unfortunate truth is that if you want the world to be better you need to be better to it than it is to you. It's the only way that can even work.

You can just do nothing and things will get better when others do more than they get, but by you doing nothing you've just shifted your burden to others. The burden of each individual is small. Almost insignificant even. It's not hard to be kinder to others than they are to you. But the burden accumulates and compounds. You don't have to pick up the slack, but you do need to do your part. The future is made by all of us

[rented_mule]

> you need to be better to it than it is to you

If the person you are responding to hasn't screwed society over, then it sounds like they have easily cleared that bar, even by doing nothing.

[godelski]

The bar to clear isn't the lowest one set. That mentality is exactly what a race to the bottom is

[wafflemaker]

Beautifully said.

I'd add a quote from the beginning of a famous sci-fi*:

You have to create Good out of Evil, because there is nothing else to create it from.

Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, famous Russian anti-system science-fiction brother duo. Their other notable book is Snail on a Slope.

[antman]

They are helping society not the system. They might fight the system. There is no ignoring, thats supporting the system. There is no silence, the system can produce fake intellectuals. There is no hiding, the system must pursue the individuals because its the ideas that need dying. The intellectuals are pursued even after death.

[droopyEyelids]

This makes sense if you are ok with your life making the world a worse place. Other people want to try and make it nicer.

[hekkle]

Of course, anyone always has the option to volunteer to make the world a better place; but the idea that anyone has a responsibility, or moral obligation to help a society that is actively hostile towards them is insanity.

[jeezfrk]

The important point is what a deserter would use as logic when asked "What if everyone gave up and only responded to selfish fear?"

Then, sir, it would be foolhardy to contribute any part to that service because soon it will all collapse.

That's, in a historically commonplace fashioned see today, is what the top 10% are doing when seeing the top 1% abdicate all responsibility.

Low or no taxes? Sounds good ... but it's going to burn down soon.

[Paracompact]

I feel people failed you in your situation. They had an obligation to help you, and they did not.

[godelski]

I'll add that this is the whole purpose of a society. The social contract is that of a coalition. Our combined utility is greater than the sum of our individual utility.

To not have an obligation to society is to be a drain on it. Even if you don't recognize it you still get a lot of benefit from society. It could be better. It should be better. But that will never happen if you never put in your part.

[glitchc]

Get off your high horse. This person bled for their country and once their service ended, was discarded without a second thought. They are entitled to feel the way they feel and have earned the privilege to voice their outrage. It is our duty to listen.

[godelski]

Their service is commendable and I'll even go so far to say that they were betrayed. But I still don't agree. We all have a duty. Being betrayed gives you every right to be angry, but it is what you do with that anger that matters. Do you use it as an excuse to be self centered or do you recognize that if you're betrayed so have others. That those that betrayed you can only do so because you do not band together. That you do not use your anger to band together and tell them to fuck off. To make them fuck off.

I'm personally very anti war. But I also am very dissatisfied with how we treat our veterans. To send them to, as Hawkeye says: "worse than hell", and then just abandon them?! That's a high moral sin. Outright unconscionable. But recognize they can only get away with this because we let them. I'm not okay with it, are you?

It isn't our duty to listen and do nothing. It is our duty to get mad and do something. Which is exactly what Droopy said

[hekkle]

> Being betrayed gives you every right to be angry, but it is what you do with that anger that matters.

I am not angry. What I was ultimately describing was referred to as a 'social contract'. Like a regular contract, once it is not fulfilled, you cannot rely upon it ever again.

To illustrate this concept better I will explain it by example:

If you hire someone to fix your roof, you pay them, and they don't fix it; then a few months later you re-hired them again to fix your roof, and again they take your money and refuse to fix it.

Who is ultimately responsible for you losing money the second time around?

I would argue, (and so would their lawyers if you sued them), that you had a legal duty to "mitigate losses", and as you didn't learn the first time, you are responsible for throwing good money over bad, not them. You knew they didn't honour their contracts, so it was on you that you re-engaged with them.

That is not anger, that is common sense, and a basic common law legal concept.

[droopyEyelids]

That analogy doesn't fit the situation of a social contract not being fulfilled, and your overall point is extremely antisocial.

You appear to be saying if one person or group fails to uphold their obligation to you at any time, you are thereafter released from your obligation to the rest of humanity.

[droopyEyelids]

Whats the high horse? Was there anything illogical or even exaggerated in what I've written?

[0928374082]

> I'd say that is zero.

That's your society, not all societies. People, veterans or not, aren't homeless in mine.

[hekkle]

I can only speak for the society I live in, Australia. I'm glad you perceive yours (wherever that is) to be doing much better. I hope you use that privilege to enrich your fellow man instead of just bragging online.

[0928374082]

Sorry, I had been attempting to strike a nagging tone more than a bragging one: to put it more baldly, homelessness is a (collective) choice.

[I voted with my feet for this society. That took me a couple of years to learn a language, and a few more to learn a culture, both of which seem to be much shorter timescales than I expect change, whether driven by pollys or by people, to happen upon in my old, or other anglophone, societies — even with nagging.

If you think I have more effective means than nagging, please let me know what they may be. I am generally a fan of mutual aid and direct action, but at this point believe that occasional nagging with an existence proof that there are functioning alternatives, however indirect and unmutual it may seem, is still as close as I can approach those ideals while remaining effective]