Do you believe that some people have to suffer so that others can gain?

[sserafim]

.

 

[Guy Smiley]

In an ideal world where people placed human need above greed, no. But in the world we live in, yes.

 

[sserafim]

In an ideal world where people placed human need above greed, no. But in the world we live in, yes.

Why?

 

[dragonofenvy]

If there was no suffering, how would people know that they're happy and living a decent life?

 

[greebo6]

I suppose if life has to have its 'winners' it must also have to have its 'losers' . There's usually an opposite for everything.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Yes, because of nature, most people have to suffer so that the few people can gain. Such as how the 1% are who won whereas the rest have to suffer for them

 

[sserafim]

If there was no suffering, how would people know that they're happy and living a decent life?

Wdym? You don't need to suffer and know suffering in order to be happy. Happiness doesn't cancel out the suffering you endured or make it worth it

 

[dragonofenvy]

Wdym? You don't need to suffer in order to be happy. Happiness doesn't cancel out the suffering you endured or make it worth it

You're correct. You don't need to suffer to be happy. But if other people didn't suffer you wouldn't have anything to compare yourself to. How would you be able to know you're living a good life if there wasn't someone else living a bad one? How would you know you're suffering if you can't compare yourself to people living decently?

I personally wouldn't be able to know. I still have a hard time making the distinction since the idea of happiness is completely foreign. All I can do is compare myself to people worse off than I am and guess at what would make people happy.

Even then, people who are way better off than I am still can have it rough. But I still don't think that people can be happy suffering became non-existent. I don't know what we'd be if that were the case. Maybe it'd be an awesome utopia.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I suppose if life has to have its 'winners' it must also have to have its 'losers' . There's usually an opposite for everything.

There's an opposite for everything but it's sometimes asymmetrical. I think that there are more losers than winners or that suffering is far worse than joy

 

[greebo6]

There's an opposite for everything but it's sometimes asymmetrical. I think that there are more losers than winners or that suffering is far worse than joy

Yes, totally agree. Its sad it is that way.

 

[sserafim]

There's an opposite for everything but it's sometimes asymmetrical. I think that there are more losers than winners or that suffering is far worse than joy

That's like David Benatar's asymmetry argument. He says that there's an asymmetry between pain and pleasure

 

[Guy Smiley]

Why?

Because greed causes people to want to acquire as much wealth as they can. There is only so much wealth and resources to go around, so when people horde wealth it leaves others lacking.

That's like David Benatar's asymmetry argument. He says that there's an asymmetry between pain and pleasure

Pat Benetar's argument is that love is a battlefield.

 

[Ash’Girl]

Depends on your world view. By prolifer logic I should compare my existence / life experience to, for example, third world country inhabitants, people living in war zones, children being trafficked into child prostitution, etc, and realise how good I've got it.

These things above are all horrific, and I hate that we live in a world where suffering is rife, but I only have my own suffering as a point of lived experience reference. They don't negate that, whether right or wrong, existence for me feels like torture.

Then again what is considered "gain"? I do believe there are many people high up in the food chain that are greedy and corrupt. World leaders, politicians, big global company conglomerates profit driven with little care for the working classes etc, and I do believe many exploit the masses and don't care for anything beyond filling their already overinflated bank accounts.

However I don't think it's the case for all wealthy people. Look at Robin Williams, look at Chester Bennington. On paper they had financial freedom to do whatever they might ever want to, but they were haunted by inner demons and sought escape. I also think they gave the world way more with their talents than they ever took.

So, yes and no.

 

[tbroken]

With all this freedom of speech and stuff of modern days, how can you even define what is good and what is wrong?
Imo the best way someone should live is to glorify the place, the family and the friends he had been given. Especially with all the knowledge of nowadays, we can actually do everything we want everywhere. So, why hating? Why not following a legit common sense that don't hurt anyone and makes everyone comfortable?
It is because we are still animals in a certain way, and since we are afraid to loose, we will never let other ppl win and generally we will call the ppl we don't want to win and share joy with, enemies.

 

[Ironborn]

Unfortunately yes, I believe everything innately tries to balance itself.
Most people tend to be in the middle, have relatively normal lives.
Then you have the outliers, super successful people on one end of the scale with brains or good looks or both.
Then there's us misbegotten weirdos with our mental and physical issues.
But someone has to be the zero for all the other numbers to make sense.

 

[Anhedonico]

I'm sorry that I have to disagree. I don't think at all that life or economics is a zero-sum game or something related.

In my personal case, I'm totally sure that nobody earned anything from my decline of mental health during last year.

 

[Camper]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet that's literally how the cycle of life works. Imagine how many corpses you've eaten up until this point to sustain your life.

 

[sserafim]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet that's literally how the cycle of life works. Imagine how many corpses you've eaten up until this point to sustain your life.

Why do you think that the cycle of life/nature is set up like this? Why is there so much suffering on this planet? Living beings have to kill and eat each other to survive. What's the point of all this senseless, mindless suffering?

 

[Red Moon]

Yeah, I think that's how the world is right now.

 

[Z-A]

If you mean hard work as suffering then of course. It's the people who work hard out there, farmers, engineers, technicians, scientists, doctors/surgeons, police, builders, miners, etc.. that make life easier and safer for us. Look at the older times, there were constant battles everywhere just for one side to get what they wanted, many had to suffer and die to achieve their goals. Even today, soldiers and people are dying, but in this modern world, it's for unnecessary means in my opinion. But generally I believe it's just how life works. We can't all be winners, there is always opposite of something, be it our own will or not.

 

[Camper]

Why do you think that the cycle of life/nature is like this? Why is there so much suffering on this planet? Living beings have to kill and eat each other to survive. What's the point of all this senseless, mindless suffering?

This is a question I've been wondering myself for well over a decade now. Especially since the conventional wisdom of learning moral lessons from your pain makes zero sense when applied to non-human animals.

My best guess is that pain and death is just a natural byproduct of being in a universe that is constantly evolving. If destruction didn't exist, everything would be still and unchanging. Certain concepts, like time, would no longer have meaning.

That's arguably a more hellish existence than what we have to deal with now.

Also, without death, there is no birth. Both are necessary for the cycle to be sustainable.

 

[Throwawayacc3]

From growing up and learning from animals plus watching loads of documentaries / knowledge media, it's safe to say that humans are nowhere near the same as "wildlife". They don't have regulations, red tape, resource hoarders, etc. If a bird requires food it can seek it out wherever and go for it. Now imagine two birds have control of all the food resources within an area and refuse to allow any bird to have even a fraction. That's the 1% vs every other human. At what point past having a roof over your head, food everyday and not having to work do you have to resource hoard even more? What are you going to do with the extra money??? Completely broken.

Edit: the absolute irony is that some bird species even co-operate with each other and if not tolerate. They don't barricade a tree (a mansion) and corner off the area (gated community).

 

[Hotsackage]

I want no part of evolution, to see others discriminate or make fun of others, I won't say what I think of you XD

 

[MeltingBrain]

If you are talking about material suffering then by and large NO . Capitalism especially in the USA has produced incredible inventions which benefit the poorest of poor . Think about medicines, AI, google, social media , online retail , computers etc . If what you said were true communism would be the best economic model where they tried to make everybody equal but it failed miserably.

 

[Blurry_Buildings]

I believe economics is a zero sum game. There is a finite amount of resources that can be generated and these resources must be split among the population.

According to Ray Dalio (whose net worth is ~20 billion) the problem is that the socialists are bad at generating wealth and the capitalists are bad at dividing it, which a lot of people say but I thought was a cool take coming from him.

Why and How Capitalism Needs to Be Reformed (Parts 1 & 2)

Summary I was fortunate enough to be raised in a middle-class family by parents who took good care of me, to go to good public schools, and to come into a job market that offered me equal opportunity. I was raised with the belief that having equal opportunity to have basic care, good education, and

www.linkedin.com

Either way in every real life economic system that has ever existed there have been winners and losers. For every real estate tycoon there needs to be workers at the bottom. On an unrelated note theres an article somewhere about some guy who wrote a book about how there are also a lot of "fake" jobs that don't actually add any value to the system (at least in his opinion). Things like corporate lawyers, HR, middle management administrative paper pushers, many jobs dealing with stock trading or holding companies, the military (debatable), and most jobs that don't directly contribute towards producing a good or service.

 

[MeltingBrain]

There is only so much wealth and resources to go around, so when people horde wealth it leaves others lacking.

This is true for a given day . But if you take a 1+ year time frame this is not true . You can always scale up and scale down resources . It's not a zero sum game .

 

[sserafim]

Yeah, I think that's how the world is right now.

Why do you think that the world is like this? Why does it have to be like this?

 

[Blurry_Buildings]

This is true for a given day . But if you take a 1+ year time frame this is not true . You can always scale up and scale down resources . It's not a zero sum game .

If it is a zero sum game today and it is a zero sum game on a single day 1 year in the future is it not then a zero sum game overall? If everyday of my life (or anyone's) is spent controlling a certain amount of resources it seems like a constant zero sum game to me at least..

I have the potential to increase my share of the resource pie, which itself might also increase or decrease in size... but isn't that still a zero sum game?

 

[vitbar]

Possibly, but not as much as is the case. Our system of economics is fundamentally exploitative which imo is unecessary, but even in some idealistic utopia there will be examples. Mostly limited things: certain jobs, partners, acheivements. Only one person can be the first to reach the summit of a mountain. Only so many people are needed for the mission. Your love chooses another. You will also have situations where people choose to sacrifice for gains of others and suffer in the process. Parents seem to suffer some in raising children: missed sleep, stress etc. They could choose not to, but that doesn't stop the suffering from being necessary for the wanted gains of the other.

 

[karmaisabitch]

I do believe so! Some people feed on others tragedy and unhappiness. We call them evil people which they are so many now