At any rate the basic premise of OP is flawed. There is no small % of the population that is magically different to everyone else. That's just drawing an arbitrary line somewhere on an IQ distribution.

The reality of course is we ARE living in a technocracy. It's called western civilization. Constantly changing and getting ever more sophisticated.

A 'utopia' is by definition an unattainable dream. It's a prissy idea of a world with nothing to offend. Well you can't have yin without yang. It's not possible and not desirable. The only thing that is important is that FIEDLER IS IN CHARGE. Thank you.

I agree with fiedler that the basic premise of the OP is flawed, although I differ on exactly how it is flawed.

It's absurd to think that we can separate people from politics, bureaucracy, and greed. Surely even all the "best" people (however nebulously defined) would have different views on how to organise society (i.e. political opinions), would need a method of implementing their change (i.e. a bureaucracy), and would be human (i.e. greedy).

pangloss: greed in the sense that it's used here is not a universal human trait. People have to balance "what's in it for me" with "what's in it for us," and those balance out in different ways. There are numerous examples of people who consciously chose to do things that cost them a lot of money because they felt it would be better for other people.

@pastoralan, you're right. Greed is not a universal trait.

But since we're discussing human traits, what pushes people to help others? Some "charity" trait? Nah. Vanity! That is the one universal trait.

^ what an edge lord.

So there's no such thing as charity zmag?

It's probably true there's no such thing as charity FROM YOU.

But most of us are better than you.

Fiedler, charity makes you feel better. That's why you perform acts of charity. If it made you feel worse, you wouldn't do it. It's as simple as that.

@Zmaj is using an approach that many economists use, to explain illogical decisions. we have a demand for things that are against optimization, simply as a taste or preference. in theory (and analytical practice) it actually works quite well

Hurr durr gee thanks for explaining that.

You feel better because you have done something good. That's how it's supposed to work. How the fuck else would it?

I'm zmaj and I've just done something that was very a very risky difficult thing for someone else because I thought it was the right thing to do. According to my thinking is should not be proud of what I have done because that's vanity. I should feel terrible and avoid doing such things again.
Or maybe I should stop sniffing glue.

i never said you should feel bad for it...

Wasn't talking to you James...

and also sometimes people do things that DO make them feel "bad" but have an addictive quality, or they have psychological problems. also there's deception, and simply failing at doing something causing negative repercussions.

@Yanik, you put it much better than I did. "A taste or preference" is a much more neutral expression than "vanity", and it shouldn't make Fiedler feel like his moral outlook is being attacked :)

Oh you 2 Lil boys are SO CLEVER!

Got it all figured out.

LeL.

"Fiedler, charity makes you feel better. That's why you perform acts of charity. If it made you feel worse, you wouldn't do it."

True.

"It's as simple as that."

False. That's just essentializing away the value systems that give rise to good feelings about performing charity. It's the classic bait-and-switch of first-time objectivists--trace all values back to feeling good about fulfilling a value system, and then conveniently forget to look at the way value systems differ, in order to justify a particular value system of their own.

To put it another way: one should not confuse selfishness, the meta-value of feeling good about fulfilling a value system, with selfishness, the description of certain value systems.

@Lethologica, thank you for the clarification, your first post had confused me. You're saying that pointing out selfishness as the meta-value is useless because it tells us nothing about the particular system. You're right. I just like to remind people now and then of the underlying mechanisms. My personal fight against complacency, if you will.

the reasons that these liberals are disdaining charity is they 1. don't want to share their 'dope' money, 2. are greedy and selfish thus returning to the thread topic, 3. are lazy and want an unknown government agency to inefficiently distribute taxpayer money for them, 4. hate people in general. 5. are just plain hypocrites that talk a game of dignity and self-worth of others but don't believe it, 6. hate themselves and translate that hatred out to others, 7. Are jealous of the kindness that others have that they themselves lack

so in future posts to save time, just indicate from 1 to 7, what kind of liberal we are dealing with.

@Zmaj charity makes you feel better.

Zmaj uses dope to feel better

Brad, not only are your attacks both lazy and unkind (and thus also hypocritical), but you're not even attacking the right target with your comments about 'liberals'.

Hahaha yes without government handouts these lizards would have to develop some actual character. Or at least try...

Letho gets a 7

Hmm.. is it ignorant to place oneself as a 4?

Also. I love the direction this post has gone in. Not because of the argumentation, but because I get to see the view others have on human nature. It's wonderful

Human nature? I thought we were discussing lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Of course you know that Hugo was a killer robot right?

My hero is Athena, the animatronic android.

So back to the comment of not being able to have a ying without a yang. This made me think of a society with a basic balance between individualism and equality.
If say, one of these were under fire, and this society as a whole was forced to pick between total equality and total individualism, it would be a very, very interesting clash of values.
However
My favorite argument for equality is this
You find yourself in heaven, standing in front of a giant roulette wheel. On this roulette wheel are more than 7.5billion slots, each of these slots being a person. You have the choice to take your chances, and hope you wind up a successful businessman, with a beautiful wife and kids, etc, yada, yada, yada.
Or..
you could distribute the wealth, which the top 1% hold, evenly amongst all 7.5 billion people, to increase your odds of not being one of the 35% plus in the US on welfare, and many worse things.

The clear choice, for me, would be to distribute this wealth, giving myself the exact same opportunities as everyone else, and allowing me to not take a risk of being one of the many people in the world that have it hard to make a living

Boreing

@Wyatt:
That's why I think the world would be much better if everyone would believe in reincarnation. 'Egoists' would still help future generations to improve their own odds at a good next life.