
Do We Live in a Sick Society? - durmonski
https://academyofideas.com/2020/06/do-we-live-in-a-sick-society/
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fallingfrog
I’ve always considered maturity to be when a person develops the understanding
that there are other people in the world than themselves, and that those
people are also important, and that one must think ahead for yourself and
others. That’s pretty universal.

I’d say a society can only be considered sick to the extent that its members
are incentivized to be immature by my definition- in other words to the extent
that people within the society act in an anti-cooperative way and therefore
the society attacks itself. Most often this happens because certain elements
of society become parasitic on the rest. The parasitic portion will be the
wealthiest and most powerful layer- the poor cannot become that way since they
lack the power or influence to shape society to suit them.

In that situation the wealthy will seek to preserve their position by means of
a priesthood or value system that says that what one should value is whatever
the ruling class is doing, or that their position is divine, or whatever. So
that’s how you end up with a sick society.

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fallingfrog
And I guess the corollary would be that if you believe society to be sick,
then the way to fix it is not to proclaim oneself to be a rebel and separate
or look down on the “normal” people around you, that will not change anything
and just makes you look like a jerk. Instead you should first understand why
society is sick, figure out who is benefiting from it, and organize in
opposition to those forces. That takes a lot more work and maturity, of course
and is much less fun, but real change has always been the result of a lot of
dangerous, thankless work with no guarantee of success. Acting like a rebel
without a cause is lots of fun but is useless and immature.

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SQueeeeeL
[https://scoop.upworthy.com/viral-shopping-cart-theory-
determ...](https://scoop.upworthy.com/viral-shopping-cart-theory-determines-
moral-character)

