/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.11047218]

would you harm someone if it gave you a competitive advantage in life?

how severely would you be willing to harm someone for a competitive advantage?

I've created a word for the concept of harm minimization in our lives, I call it sema. Would you live by the sema philosophy and try to minimize harm in your every interaction?

Or do you prefer to harm people for advantages?

[Anonymous No.11047255]

I would not harm someone under any circumstances.

[Anonymous No.11047256]

>>11047218
>would you harm someone if it gave you a competitive advantage in life?
Game theory say yes

[Anonymous No.11047259]

Everything you consume, you deprive someone else of its use. Even plants fight each other for resources. It's impossible to live without harming something else in some way (which is not to say that a scenario in which harm is minimised isn't desirable).

[Anonymous No.11047263]

Impossible to answer this question is a satisfactory manner. There are too many variables to consider. For example

Would you be willing to kill another human? Sure, but only if...
1) I'll go free and won't be prosecured and there's no chance for me to go to jail
2) I can somehow justify it to myself, e.g. by the guy being a bad person
3) the advantage is generates is big enough
4) ...

[Anonymous No.11047268]

>>11047218
Look up utilitarianism

[Anonymous No.11047277]

>>11047268
you're willing to harm someone if its very useful to a large number of people? not sure what you're implying with this

[Anonymous No.11047298]

>>11047259
>Everything you consume, you deprive someone else of its use.
Adding to this, every time you interact with the world, you add to the entropy of the universe, and that's potential to do work that you're never getting back.

Since only differences in harm levels (rather than absolute harm) are meaningful, we may as well normalize the total utility of the universe to be a constant zero, which would entail a reinterpretation of utilitarianism as maximizing the total consumption of usable energy, i.e. maximizing the rate of interaction. This can stand in contrast to >>11047218's proposed harm-minimization philosophy, which essentially becomes one of interaction-minimization.

[Anonymous No.11047310]

>>11047255
You are unaware of how frequently you inconvenience and harm others indirectly throughout your daily life.

[Anonymous No.11047331]

>>11047310
I propose that we should all become aware of the ways we are harming other people in every interaction as much as possible. Do you have any examples?

[Anonymous No.11047339]

How autistic does one need to be to not understand OPs question? He doesn't consider buying an iPhone to be harmful, since it only harms some Chink sweatshop child nobody cares about. He talks about direct psychological and physiological harm applied to the people you share a city or country with. You armchair philosophers are goddamn cringe, especially when you attach gifs from terrible concocted anime to your posts.

[Anonymous No.11047366]

As was discussed, I would and do slightly harm other people / organisms to guarantee my own minimum level of well-being. I wouldn't, however, cause significant harm to any major organism to gain some extra luxury. As an example, I'm not sure if driving a car and killing tons of bugs goes against this philosophy.

[Anonymous No.11047369]

>>11047366
>I'm not sure if driving a car and killing tons of bugs goes against this philosophy.
But even that can be rationalized with the fact that I'm kind of a selfish asshole like everyone else and apparently willing to kill bugs without much thought if it gets me faster somewhere.

[Anonymous No.11047370]

>>11047339
>He doesn't consider buying an iPhone to be harmful, since it only harms some Chink sweatshop child nobody cares about.

OP here. I believe this is an indirectly harmful situation in that its enabling the exploitative people running the sweatshop. I would try to avoid this harm also.

[Anonymous No.11047379]

>>11047218
i call mine nihl and it wins against sema because it doesnt matter. in the end all you doing is expressing your will in the physical.
be ur authentic self, u gonna die u better enjoy while it lasts.

semen sounds like a shit philosophy

[Anonymous No.11047398]

>>11047331
When you are walking outside, you probably step on couple of insects.

[Anonymous No.11047421]

>>11047398
insects have no consciousness

[Anonymous No.11047423]

>>11047421
Prove it

[Anonymous No.11047442]

>>11047421
Wrong. It doesn't matter though, since the life of an insect is so horrible that putting them out of their misery is a good thing.

[Anonymous No.11047456]

>>11047331
Sure, every job you’ve been offered and accepted came at the expense of at least one other person who was as qualified or more qualified, if not more deserving, than you. the same goes for every romantic partner and windfall of free financial resources. you continuously make others uncomfortable socially, disturb the sleep of others, cut them off in traffic, bump into others while walking, cause people to lose their mental equilibrium by doing some obnoxious small tic or habit in public spaces etc. You constantly annoy, prick, prod, violate the peace of mind of other people without noticing. This might seem incidental but there is unconscious machinery on a population level that determines who gets away with this based on fitness advantages and tolerable stressors. There is no means of avoiding stepping on other people even if its usually their toes and not their necks.

[Anonymous No.11047461]

>>11047331
with respect to taking advantage of others the structure of power relations necessitates stealing time from and humiliating others to function in an economy based on division of labor. this would hold true within a primitive subsistence pattern as well, hunter gatherers exploit one another constantly and compete for attention, lie and gossip about their neighbors impulsively, you do this constantly as well.

[Anonymous No.11047471]

>>11047218
Advantage through harm is always an option that's on the table for me, but it isn't always the most effective course of action. Antisocial personality disorder makes these dilemmas a lot simpler.

[Anonymous No.11047478]

>>11047442
Not really. How do you know they aren't constantly euphoric and enjoying every moment?

[Anonymous No.11047479]

>>11047471
so you're fine with harming people?

[Anonymous No.11047481]

>>11047218
What you're describing sounds reminiscent of Jainist religious philosophy. Perhaps you may want to look into that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa_in_Jainism

[Anonymous No.11047492]

Depends on the amount of harm and the size of the advantage. Is the advantage for me of others? You could probably write down as a formula or program where the only thing that changes are the coefficients depending on the person being asked.

[Anonymous No.11047497]

>>11047479
The part of my brain that would make me feel bad for doing it doesn't work normally, so yes

[Anonymous No.11047502]

>>11047218
Harming others usually ends up harming yourself in the future. It’s best to stick with the general moral principles since we are not omniscient. It’s possible that harming others can be good for you, but it’s not wise to risk it.

[Anonymous No.11047505]

>>11047218
It’s impossible to live by sema unless you were simulataneously a genius who was able to lessen the suffering of all of those around. Simply by living passively, you’re harming others since you could have helped them become greater. What’s unseen is generally what’s most destructive.

[Anonymous No.11047582]

>>11047478
Anything that lives like that wouldn't be motivated by food sources, since they're happy any way. Insects rapaciously head for food, so they must have motivations to avoid hunger, i.e: pain and misery.

[Anonymous No.11047591]

>>11047582
Or they also get very euphoric when they eat

[Anonymous No.11047596]

>>11047218
I eat the whole fucking cake just so you can't have any. It's a very effective evolutionary strategy. Have fun being a genetic dead end if you don't fight like hell to do the same.

[Anonymous No.11047599]

It depends on how much harm is being done, and what the advantage is. I wouldn't murder someone for access to a top tier position, but if I had to punch someone in the face for it then I probably would.

[Anonymous No.11047600]

>>11047596
eg. re: bulimia nervosa

[Anonymous No.11047607]

I would harm people even if it didn't give my any advantage.

[Anonymous No.11047615]

>>11047471
I've very rarely been in a situation where harming someone is the clear best option for myself. I'm not saying it never happens, but it isn't the norm.

[Anonymous No.11047617]

>>11047218
Why limit yourself to only harm beneficial to you?
It didn’t really give us a competitive advantage to execute all those evil Nazis but we did it anyway.

[Anonymous No.11047629]

I wouldnt harm anyone its a life choice of mine.

[Anonymous No.11048017]

>>11047218
I would not intentionally harm anyone for a "competitive advantage", rather not compete at all if those are the stakes.
But then again i'm a somewhat mild person.

[Anonymous No.11048458]

>>11047505
fairly easy to look at your life and see all the ways you are harming people. I dont think you need to be a genius to do it

[Anonymous No.11048837]

>>11048017
I approve

[Anonymous No.11049195]

>>11047607
agree with this

[Anonymous No.11049209]

>>11047369
>>11047366
But you see this is stupid not caring about killing bugs if you think about it. What if Giants exist and they can crush you ? I guess you would support Giants crushing human beings because youre a dick, you dont care what happens to the human race should it ever face the threat of another species, what if the insectoids placed bugs here on purpose to see what humans would do, and if humans crush bugs, the bug-aliens will crush humans ? Youre insectoids that just dont like humans, arnt you ???

[Anonymous No.11049218]

>>11047582
ok no more weed then, not like you need it as you say.

[Anonymous No.11049222]

>>11047218
your word is gay, it doesn't even look like you tried to make it latin. also similar concepts already exist, your thoughts aren't original and you're not special nor is what im saying to you about you.
harming people is just fucking fun, it's euphoric.
>>11047607
incredibly based

[Anonymous No.11049225]

>>11047218
>would you harm someone if it gave you a competitive advantage in life?
I'm not a sociopath. I want to contribute to the world and make people's lives better. I don't want to destroy people in an attempt to make my life better.

[Anonymous No.11049238]

>>11049225
suck my dick or i'll kill myself, you not sucking my cock right now is damaging me what the fuck anon you're a bad goy.
ANON MY DICK IS STILL UNSUCKED BY YOUR PRECIOUS LIPS, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME? DO YOU ENJOY PUTTING ME INTO AN UNENDING MENTAL HOLOCAUST?
anon...time is getting slow.. all I feel is pain. I just feel suffering without your sweet lips wrapped around my little cock. :( what the fuck bro you're so immoral. I was planing on going into the medical field to help sick people and develop treatments but no...with my now dry and depressed cock I must just off myself because you're worse than fuckign satan.

[Anonymous No.11049284]

>>11047268
The worst ethical framework every invented, only used by brainlets

[Anonymous No.11049314]

>>11047607
Times you were the joker?