What values are most conducive to a prosperous society and why?

[Cognisant]

And perhaps more importantly by what metric is prosperity to be measured?

To start us off by society I mean humanity, so I think the one value we can all agree on is the human bias, we want a world with people in it, maybe less, maybe more, maybe only certain kinds or creeds or maybe we want to redefine what humanity is, regardless this a discussion about prosperity so we have to assume the existence of some kind of society.

Beyond that most foundational assumption everything is very circumstantial, what constitutes an acceptable population likely varies depending upon whether we're discussing a continent or an island and the technological sophistication of the society in question. Please consider these nuances and how they affect your chosen values as I'm sure we will be comparing each other's chosen values on the basis of how suitable they would be under different circumstances.

In abstract I think we all have different values, even if two people are say Christians their interpretation of the exact particulars of Christian values will differ, but despite our differences I think we all fundamentally want the same thing, we all want to live in a happy healthy prosperous society, we just have different perspectives on what that looks like or how it could be achieved and I hope this discussion helps us find, examine and reconcile those differences.

 

[Black Rose]

1. Truth

People need to trust each other so the truth matters. How do we find it and what do we do with it?

2. Non-violence

We all agree that to live together people need to value life. So life is good and should not be taken away. We must be protected against people who commit crimes. But we cannot take people's rights away.

3. Empathy

It is both 1 and 3. We want the truth and we want non-violence so we must get people to be humane and get along by understanding each other so we do not disagree. Disagreement leads to violence and lies lead to violence. But humans have instincts and needs so they must be met by understanding what makes humans function properly. like how doctors cure patients we need science, not voodoo.

https://www.intpforum.com/threads/mental-illness-and-neoliberalism.29308/

 

[Cognisant]

1. Truth

People need to trust each other so the truth matters. How do we find it and what do we do with it?

In the age of misinformation how do we know the truth, who is the authority on truth, what are the penalties (if any) for not telling the truth and how much truth are we entitled to (there is such a thing as a lie by omission) but then there's also privacy to consider.

I think the truth always comes out eventually and people caught intentionally misrepresenting the truth should be held accountable for it, people in the clergy, the media and academia in particular, as they occupy privileged positions as trustworthy sources of information.

To some extent this is already true, a doctor who gives false medical advice risks losing his license but people in the media seem to have a complete lack of integrity or consequences.

 

[Eben Yblod]

And perhaps more importantly by what metric is prosperity to be measured?

To start us off by society I mean humanity, so I think the one value we can all agree on is the human bias, we want a world with people in it, maybe less, maybe more, maybe only certain kinds or creeds or maybe we want to redefine what humanity is, regardless this a discussion about prosperity so we have to assume the existence of some kind of society.

Beyond that most foundational assumption everything is very circumstantial, what constitutes an acceptable population likely varies depending upon whether we're discussing a continent or an island and the technological sophistication of the society in question. Please consider these nuances and how they affect your chosen values as I'm sure we will be comparing each other's chosen values on the basis of how suitable they would be under different circumstances.

In abstract I think we all have different values, even if two people are say Christians their interpretation of the exact particulars of Christian values will differ, but despite our differences I think we all fundamentally want the same thing, we all want to live in a happy healthy prosperous society, we just have different perspectives on what that looks like or how it could be achieved and I hope this discussion helps us find, examine and reconcile those differences.

Integrity

 

[Cognisant]

I was hoping we could dig a little deeper.

How does a society value integrity?
How does a society valuing integrity lead to prosperity?

 

[Black Rose]

I was hoping we could dig a little deeper.

How does a society value integrity?
How does a society valuing integrity lead to prosperity?

I had to post this:



Moral of the story:

Genesis towelie​

MARCH 21, 2019
Randy: I ‘m a good person
robot: then why did you do that bad thing you said was bad
Randy: uh, when i do it I will not die, when others do it they will die and i don’t want that
robot: then why did you not just say that to them
Randy: they’d hurt themselves, I just told you, you’re a guy I can trust
robot: your right, you are a good person
Randy: here have some of my tegrity weed

little did Randy know about weed and robots, don’t fix what ain’t broken
robot eventually got better, found out what love is, gave some to everybody
message brought to you by Tegrity Farms, Always helping you to keep it together

 

[sushi]

Utopia is a pipe dream, that probably will never happen because humans are highly corruptable.

I would say trust and help, and less selfishness.

Less cheat conning, stealing.

 

[Old Things]

I'd say whatever gives the most freedom to the most people.

So, for example, having laws against murdering people is good because it means there will be more freedom for most people.

I'd say 40 or so years ago, I would have said the USA is the freest country. But in the last 10 years or so, there has been an influx of giving certain minority groups more freedom than the rest of the population. So, effectively, there is less freedom for everyone since less people have more freedom.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Theory Z Works great

Give people control of decisions they make
Give people plenty of responsability
Rewards for Innovations
A flatter heirarchy without different levels to oppress
Informal Control
Concern for Happiness in Others
Strong Culture so people have a common outlook

The metric of measure would be the length of stay, involvement, ethics, satisfaction.

The Theory Z Of Motivation

Theory Z is a combination of American and Japanese management styles. Read on to know more about Ouchi’s Theory Z from Harappa to learn how to build and maintain trust-rich relationships with employees.

harappa.education

 

[sushi]

I'd say whatever gives the most freedom to the most people.

So, for example, having laws against murdering people is good because it means there will be more freedom for most people.

I'd say 40 or so years ago, I would have said the USA is the freest country. But in the last 10 years or so, there has been an influx of giving certain minority groups more freedom than the rest of the population. So, effectively, there is less freedom for everyone since less people have more freedom.

this is true mostly but i think alot of people abuse their freedoms.

the alternative is probably worse though.

 

[scorpiomover]

1. Different humans are different. So to be prosperous, different humans need to live by different values. So you want a society's values to be those that are most conducive to prosperity for the humans in your society.

This will of course depend on the types of humans in your society.

2. Any objective values that would be conducive to prosperity, i.e. any values that would be conducive to prosperity for ANY humans in your society, no matter who they are.

 

[Cognisant]

1. Different humans are different. So to be prosperous, different humans need to live by different values. So you want a society's values to be those that are most conducive to prosperity for the humans in your society.

This will of course depend on the types of humans in your society.

Can you give an example of this? There are certainly regional lifestyle differences but is it that the people themselves are different or that the circumstances they're in are different.

I suppose people with different values behave differently so there's going to be emergent phenomena, if everyone has the same values there's a lack of counter-argument and things a likely to be taken to ridiculous extremes.

 

[scorpiomover]

1. Different humans are different. So to be prosperous, different humans need to live by different values. So you want a society's values to be those that are most conducive to prosperity for the humans in your society.

This will of course depend on the types of humans in your society.

Can you give an example of this? There are certainly regional lifestyle differences but is it that the people themselves are different or that the circumstances they're in are different.

Mediterraneans tend to be hot-blooded. They take life more leisurely, but when aroused, are prone to violence. Middle-class Western Pinkskins tend to argue a lot, but not that likely to get violent. Asians are big on face culture and preserving their public image.

Some of that is probably due to the place they were from. E.G. Americans who emigrated to the UK, initially were like Americans. After several years of living in the UK, they tend to hold opinions and generally behave like people who grew up in the UK, and are indistinguishable from Brits except for the accent.

However, many people who go to different countries, continue to behave the same, e.g. Westerners in Asia, Asians in the West. So some of that is due to the person, and comes either from their nature (genetics) or nurture (the way they were raised and intend to raise their children).

I suppose people with different values behave differently so there's going to be emergent phenomena, if everyone has the same values there's a lack of counter-argument and things a likely to be taken to ridiculous extremes.

People are under evolutionary pressures all the time, just like most species, that drive them to become optimal for those pressures.

If all humans operated best under the same values, then when the first humans appeared 200,000 years ago, those first humans would have been under the same evolutionary pressures that all humans are under, and then probably after the 1st 50,000 years, humans would have reached an optimal society and then stuck with that, which would imply that the changes we have seen in human society in the past 500 years, would have been automatically rejected by our ancestors and us because they would be being seriously deleterious to all humans.

 

[Black Rose]

America and the Taliban: Part Three (full documentary) | FRONTLINE​

 

[Cognisant]

Asians are big on face culture and preserving their public image.

Yeah I've noticed that.

 

[Cognisant]

 

[onesteptwostep]

I think there isn't really a forumlatic way of creating a prosperous society. This is because every society is different- its size, its history, it's culture and its language. Geography plays an important part too, in creating such societies. An open city out in the fields is more condusive to different ideas because a variety of people venture through it. People up in the mountains would tend to be more conservative doesn't ideas don't freely flow in such places. Seafaring people might be more open to merchantilism while someone from the steppe might be more pragmatic. The case with the Roman Empire and the Mongols come to mind.

From what I noticed with intellectuals trying to 'better society' through their writing, I feel that at most they safeguard the status quo- that they tend to be more socially conservative. You don't find empirical evidence to show how certain pieces of writing helped progress mankind- this betterment usually came from a standardized form of education, but beyond that, without the economic conditions, this type of enlightenment is nothing.

I think one of the most fundemental task of society building is allowing people to build a family. It's in the family where people learn to be compassionate, and to love and understand each other. Tautologically speaking, it's in the family where people learn to be human. When the goal for many people becomes financial prosperity, instead of household security- is when we start to stress cracks into the fabric of society. While we have the freedom to choose what we want to do in life, we should also be mindful that freedom is not the only virtue within the fabirc of the human experience. I think in the cultural zeitgeist in the western world, we tend to place the individual zeitgeist above all else. But I think before independence, notions such as responsbility, nuture, compassion, and servantship and leadership are much more important categories. I think these are things which are first encountered as one partakes in a household.

There's a lot more I could add, but I think I'll leave it at that.

 

[BurnedOut]

If you examine societies objectively, there are only 3 problems that causes a million other problems and the pattern replicates across any living being capable of coexisting in a society - 1. Collective action problem
2. Distribution of public goods including justice
3. Freerider problem

The first one enables abusers and others who beguile others. The second gives rise to hierarchical organization depending on the access to that good. The third one compounds the second problem and causes even worse symmetry.

Metrics I am excluding -
1. Violence - violence not arising out of the above 3 problems can be attributed to simply criminality which is normal across socities

2. Posterity
Every new generation leads to a different society therefore the analysis should be restricted to the generation who is dominant

 

[Black Rose]

1. Collective action problem
2. Distribution of public goods including justice

situational awareness

Situational awareness is knowing where you are and what is going on around you, allowing individuals and organizations to be more alert and informed and to make better decisions. For organizations, this includes awareness about personnel location and assigned duties, the environment, and any potential risks.

Situation awareness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[scorpiomover]

If you examine societies objectively, there are only 3 problems that causes a million other problems and the pattern replicates across any living being capable of coexisting in a society - 1. Collective action problem
2. Distribution of public goods including justice
3. Freerider problem

Good point.
I allow for the possibility that there might be others.
But these 3 seem to deal with most societal issues.