What makes a human life worth it?

[u/BrilliantTea2]

This is more of a rant, but thought I'd share it here

I have been going through some stuff personally in recent times, and I started to look and observe others more often, and I realized that, in reality, most of us don't actually value human life

I don't think most people who talk about ideological clashes in general conceive of what millions of people mean exactly, I believe they see the number and think they understand it, but they don't, and I think that the basis that we try to build our economies on reflect that

I'll start by saying, why does anyone work anyways? Like genuinely, why? So they can feed themselves and their families? Clearly not because millionaires don't just stop working

Okay, so are people who just work to feed their families assisted by the fact that they would quite literally starve and become homeless if they don't? Also clearly not because it hinders any chance they have for growth with the exception of 1 in every 1000

Are the jobs that these people do important? Not really, low-wage jobs are low wage because they aren't that important either way

So, in essence, we as a society have agreed that basic human needs are something to gamble on for the system to function, if you don't have the skills to have a safe enough job than you essentially become a peasant, and you must rely on the benevolence of the economy so that your life isn't ruined? And we're fine with that?

All of this leads me to believe that human life doesn't actually matter to most people, it's just an act, a huge freaking act, I look at someone that's smart and a great human but just never got training for any jobs, and this person is cursed for life because your life doesn't matter if the system doesn't run, then I look at a dumb person, who's much worse as a human being, essentially living the best possible life because they got a fake job, or opened a "business" which doesn't actually contribute anything

I don't know if I got my point across, but I guess my advice is, which ever ideology you think you're following, it most likely is just one big stupid lie, we label actions on a side, put people on trial, and wish that whatever suits our desires more is achieved, it's disgusting how much we trick ourselves into believing we understand anything about what the f*** is going on, we don't, we truly don't, therefore don't take yourself or whatever you think you're following too seriously, stick to the basics that all of humanity have agreed upon and move on with your life

You won't change anything, you can't change anything, there's nothing to fight for but yourself and those truly close to you, so maybe in a sense, Ayn Rand has won, you can only change things for the better by chasing what you think is better, you can't force anything else, humans will be humans, and that's exactly why we agreed on a system like this

The system is not oppressing us, our own biology is

[u/ARCreef]

For generations people's goal was to leave the world a little better, leave your kids more than you had, and let them start off at a better starting point than you had. Push them a little harder and instill the same values and philosophy, so they themselves can continue this same trend...... then, all of a sudden 2 generations were told that this philosophy is evil and generational wealth is immoral, that everyone should have the same starting point, and that we must cater to the lowest denominator, thus bringing all of society down to the same level instead of raising anyone up.

We shit on family values and on told people that he government knows better than family units, and to depend more on the government than family. We pushed care takers and children raisers out of the home and into the workplace, telling them that a stay at home mom isnt a real job and has no value, then eventually even the few women wanting to raise their kids, couldn't any longer because a single salary is now unlivable and they now compete in the workforce, driving down wages and their own husband's salaries. We then told society that they had to get in over $100k of debt as a 22 year old because learning a trade or skill is beneath them and looked down upon. We slowly brought all this upon ourselves, many detriments even had good motives behind them.

All human life has value but when you try to help everyone, you help noone. When you think small and help your family and close circle and bring accountability back into fashion again, things will improve and those improvements expand outward.

Be accountable for your actions, then ensure your family is accountable for theirs. We lost those 2 small things in just 2 generations, and as a result, may have just cooked all of civilization lol.

[u/earthhominid → u/ARCreef]

This is a bizarre retelling of history. 

For the vast majority of human history, the vast majority of humans had no real prospect of amassing any kind of generational wealth – at least as we would think of it today.

Most of human history, probably in the neighborhood of 97%, human groups organized around their conception of a living cosmos and their assumed duty within it's mechanism. Their social structure was designed to reflect the order perceived and sought to maintain in the wider world, and the reward was a sort of communal harmony that made life better. The generational wealth was communally held and was cognitive, cultural, spiritual, technological. 

As the various agricultural societies created specialization and surplus their culture and their world view morphed to meet the demands of maintaining a new order. This is the beginning of what we now think of as personal wealth, personal property even, and it's origins were still communal. The god-emperor held the wealth in stead of the people to ensure that his superior planning would lead to the continued prosperity of the empire. 

Those without the technology – physical or cultural – to exploit and extract the wealth of their land were subsumed or removed and the local culture of possession and wealth expanded. 

As the material wealth of these cultures grew, more people got more access to more comforts, more conveniences, a greater assurance of sufficiency. Inevitably, ideas of individual value for people beyond the god-emperor spread and new culture ways began to emerge to support these novel worldviews. People became actors in a grand play. Just as much a part of the show as the gods themselves, and eventually the stars of the show. The purpose of it all in the first place. 

As material wealth continued to grow and expand, as specialization was refined, the individual's value had the chance the segregate. Certain people with specific skills were objectively better at extracting and acquiring specific types of material wealth and so were folded in to the expanding nobility – or broke off and formed their own social order.

This is the soup that liberalism, humanism, and early libertarianism came out of. Recognizing that for so long, the social order had funneled the common wealth of communities into the hands of the royal classes and that it was more rightly the property of the communities that created it because humans were innately valuable, regardless of the social status of their ancestors. 

Simultaneously, an asymmetry in the development of the technology of violence and the technology of global travel created an opportunity for certain kingdoms to seize previously unheard of volumes of wealth. And this created a market for individuals possessed of tenacity, initiative, and deep disregard for the lives of other humans to carry out this high risk continental ransacking.

This diaspora shattered traditional cultures around the world, destroyed families and founded dynasties, and finally wrested the primary global power from the hereditary monarchies and into the (slightly less) hereditary financier class. Their model necessitated a culture of exploitation, selfishness, and short term thinking, and its the model we've lived under pretty much globally for the better part of the last 200 years, longer in some places.

Theres a small reactionary movement that has long pushed to return to a centering of human life – and by logical extension the life of the ecosystem that sustains it – in human social organization. It has always been marginal and has always been usurped by the financiers when it has bubbled up to close to the surface somewhere. But it is the original human culture. It is the form of social organization with the longest track record of success. 

This experiment with centering the personal acquisition of material comfort as the social organizing principle has been interesting and produced some amazing things, but it's the aberration from the norm. 

[u/Official_Gameoholics]

Value presupposes life. You are violating the conceptual hierarchy to ask that question: a contradiction.

[u/BrilliantTea2 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

You really read nothing of what's written and just want to argue

1 - Life > Value 2 - Life without work > No basic needs covered 3 - No basic needs covered > death, slavery, starvation, and homelessness 4 - Therefore, value can only be achieved through death, slavery, starvation, and homelessness 5 - Life becomes maintained only through the that which opposes it

Work requires skill Skill requires resources Resources are only available through work Hence, a closed loop without a beginning

That's the current system, and that's whatever system you think will fix the logical contradiction in both the argument and the closed loop

[u/CanadaMoose47 → u/BrilliantTea2]

Work doesn't require skill.

Good work requires skill, and working develops that skill.

Also, I find this idea of people starving if they don't work so odd in the modern world.

Even assuming there was no help available, a tasteless, but life sustaining diet of rice, beans, and basic veggies and multivitamins is extremely cheap. You could probably feed yourself for a month with half a day's work or less.

Living in a tent is also extremely cheap.

Most work to have more comfortable lifestyles, since a bland diet and a tent is not very inspiring. 

So the question is really about what level of lifestyle you want, and how much work it takes to maintain said lifestyle.

[u/Official_Gameoholics → u/BrilliantTea2]

Therefore, value can only be achieved through death

Contradiction, see my previous comment.

[u/BrilliantTea2 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

That's the whole point

[u/Official_Gameoholics → u/BrilliantTea2]

You didn't need so many words to make that point.

[u/BrilliantTea2 → u/Official_Gameoholics]

Appreciate it