“I want to change the world”—a noble ambition?

[dragon]

One hears this sentiment so often, and I have never heard it treated as other than a noble ambition – except for when it is associated with one or other of the villains of history. So, today I heard it from Fuella(?) Benjamin, the politician who campaigns ‘tirelessly’ to improve the lives of children, amongst other things.

What does she mean by ‘improve the lives’ of children? One thing she made clear was that she thinks they should all be force-fed classical music, should be made to listen to it while doing their homework – for what reason I cannot now remember.

Actually, it hardly matters precisely how she wants to change the world. It’s more a case of what right has she to be taking control of other people’s lives and telling them how to live? Why can she not just mind her own business and get on with her own life and leave other people to get on with theirs?

In fact we live in a society in which it is thought perfectly acceptable, even laudable, for a young person to have as their ambition to want to change the world, to make a difference.

If an old lady pokes her nose into other people’s business she is called an interfering busy-body, but when the interference is on the grand scale then it seems it is all right, even praise-worthy.

Personally I value my freedom and independence far too much to allow other people to rob me of it, and especially when they do so merely because ‘they want to make a difference’.

I wonder what motivates most scientists. Do they want to ‘make the world a better place’, ‘save the environment’, or could it be a simple love of science, or even curiosity about the world. Or maybe, particularly nowadays, it’s something as mundane as, ‘it’s a good job’.

Personally I was motivated by two things: curiosity about the world (actually, it was more that I felt that I NEEDED to know—the consequences of ignorance, as far as I could see, were unhappiness and illness.), and the ideal of a world wide community that science seemed to offer – was represented as offering. I saw scientists as speaking the same language and having the one purpose that united them across national boundaries, and that seemed to be the best hope for the solution of the world’s problems.

[Stuart]

One often goes from sincerely saying they want to change things for the better to either lying about it to make them seem better than they are or stopping such nonsense altoghether. The world will get to everyone eventually if changing things really was there original goal.

Perhaps the people noted for always keeping there benifactory nature, are those who never wanted to change the world.

That’s statement above is what people love to spew when it comes to those who don’t seem to care, after all why wouldn’t someone who doesn’t care justify themselves through others. The problem is that those who never wanted to change anything for the better, never actually do, anymore than those who do want to, except I guess everyone messes up to the world advantage sometime.

[Mr_Reasonable]

Maybe it is dragon, but I’ll just change it right back. So its futile.

[dragon]

@Stuartp523

The problem is that those who never wanted to change anything for the better, never actually do, anymore than those who do want to, except

I suspect that a lot in the world happens rather through accident rather than design. Someone just getting on with their own life, fulfilling their private ambitions, then they happen to stumble upon something that is of value to the rest of the world. But also, I think the difficulty is in KNOWING what will be better for the world. It seems to me that the more people try and control things, the worse things get, and it is even the fact that they want to control things that makes for so much wrongness in the world. Nature is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. So if we see ourselves as natural beings, then we just have to behave naturally.

[SIATD_v2]

@dragon

One hears this sentiment so often, and I have never heard it treated as other than a noble ambition – except for when it is associated with one or other of the villains of history.

So you’ve never heard it treated as other than a noble ambition, except for all those times you heard it treated otherwise?

I mean, OK, but that’s tautological. I don’t see why you felt you had to start a whole thread for that.

So, today I heard it from Fuella(?) Benjamin, the politician who campaigns ‘tirelessly’ to improve the lives of children, amongst other things.

What does she mean by ‘improve the lives’ of children? One thing she made clear was that she thinks they should all be force-fed classical music, should be made to listen to it while doing their homework – for what reason I cannot now remember.

Some sense of cultural superiority, I’d imagine.

Actually, it hardly matters precisely how she wants to change the world. It’s more a case of what right has she to be taking control of other people’s lives and telling them how to live?

Is she taking control of other people’s lives? Or are you exaggerating here?

Why can she not just mind her own business and get on with her own life and leave other people to get on with theirs?

Why can’t you? You’re not just minding your own business and letting her get on with her life.

In fact we live in a society in which it is thought perfectly acceptable, even laudable, for a young person to have as their ambition to want to change the world, to make a difference.

Yes. What’s the problem? Everyone makes a difference to the world, wanting to make a difference that results in benefits for ordinary people is, y’know, the reason a lot of good stuff gets done.

If an old lady pokes her nose into other people’s business she is called an interfering busy-body, but when the interference is on the grand scale then it seems it is all right, even praise-worthy.

I think you’re trivialising and over-hyping the issue at the same time. It’s quite astounding you managed something so absurd in just the one sentence. I suppose it’s a talent, of sorts.

Personally I value my freedom and independence far too much to allow other people to rob me of it, and especially when they do so merely because ‘they want to make a difference’.

Bully for you. Why don’t you just let everyone else get on with their lives then?

I wonder what motivates most scientists. Do they want to ‘make the world a better place’, ‘save the environment’, or could it be a simple love of science, or even curiosity about the world. Or maybe, particularly nowadays, it’s something as mundane as, ‘it’s a good job’.

Prestige+money seems to be a good enough reason for most of them. Most scientists are morally disgusting people.

Personally I was motivated by two things: curiosity about the world (actually, it was more that I felt that I NEEDED to know—the consequences of ignorance, as far as I could see, were unhappiness and illness.), and the ideal of a world wide community that science seemed to offer – was represented as offering. I saw scientists as speaking the same language and having the one purpose that united them across national boundaries, and that seemed to be the best hope for the solution of the world’s problems.

That’s the rhetoric, but that’s the same rhetoric that politicians use and I don’t trust them either.

[Stuart]

I didn’t appreciate your whole responce, for each time you accused dragon of exaggerating, you did so twice over. I thought the OP was a valid topic for the subforum in which it’s in. To save time, let me just address the following.

@SIATD v2

Why can’t you? You’re not just minding your own business and letting her get on with her life.

Of course he’s minding his own business, at least for all we know. This is a forum for discussing things, Benjamin is doing things that affect people’s lives, dragon is expressing his opinion. I assume such ill used debate tactics are something you commonly use to annoy, but if not then you fell for one of the most common logical fallicies, confusing a casual discussion with action.

[Uccisore]

Wanting to change the world is almost always noble. Actually making the attempt is almost always evil.

[SIATD_v2]

@Stuartp523

I didn’t appreciate your whole responce,

Yet I’m sure if I challenge you over this you’ll say that you don’t care.

for each time you accused dragon of exaggerating, you did so twice over.

I didn’t accuse dragon of exaggerating once, so twice times never is… never. I mean, OK, but like dragon’s opening sentences this is a tautology.

I thought the OP was a valid topic for the subforum in which it’s in.

I think it’s a valid topic. I think the OP explored it poorly.

To save time, let me just address the following.

@SIATD v2

Why can’t you? You’re not just minding your own business and letting her get on with her life.

Of course he’s minding his own business, at least for all we know. This is a forum for discussing things, Benjamin is doing things that affect people’s lives, dragon is expressing his opinion. I assume such ill used debate tactics are something you commonly use to annoy, but if not then you fell for one of the most common logical fallicies, confusing a casual discussion with action.

A discussion is action, particularly when that discussion seeks to criticise another’s action. It most certainly isn’t just leaving them alone to their own business.

I’m looking forward to your effort to justify my alleged confusion being ‘one of the most common logical fallacies’. However, I expect you to wimp out with more passive-aggressive ‘I don’t care’ crap. Feel free to prove me wrong.

[James_S_Saint]

@Uccisore

Wanting to change the world is almost always noble. Actually making the attempt is almost always evil.

–^^^

…and then, what better thing do you have to do?

[Selrid]

A noble ambition, I doubt it?

[Stuart]

I suspect your right SIATD. Benjamin, please feel free to make an account here and prove SIATD right. Tell us how this discussion is affecting your life and work. And SIATD, be careful not to breath to hard when you’re outside, we wouldn’t want your breath to butterfly effect itself into someone else’s business.

[Mr_Reasonable]

@Selrid

A noble ambition, I doubt it?

Is this a question?

[SIATD_v2]

@Stuartp523

I suspect your right SIATD. Benjamin, please feel free to make an account here and prove SIATD right. Tell us how this discussion is affecting your life and work. And SIATD, be careful not to breath to hard when you’re outside, we wouldn’t want your breath to butterfly effect itself into someone else’s business.

Ah well, at least this is a departure from ‘wah wah wah wah wah wah I don’t care!’

[Stuart]

Two “wahs” would have been enough, if a butterfly can beat it’s wings and start a storm, a storm that gets into people’s business in a way that even a critical post could never do, then all that unnessesary typing could be devastating.

Also, in those other threads, I said I don’t care (nevermind that my apathy was conditional not all encompassing), then proceeded to sob until my face was red and my throat horse. If you can’t get the sentiment or even the semantics straight, could you at least let your descriptions reflect the order that they happened in?

[SIATD_v2]

@Stuartp523

Two “wahs” would have been enough, if a butterfly can beat it’s wings and start a storm, a storm that gets into people’s business in a way that even a critical post could never do, then all that unnessesary typing could be devastating.

My point is that unless you’re a hermit, your business affects other people’s business. It might be attractively simple to think ‘if everyone just minds their own business then everything’s fine’ but that doesn’t make it true. Do you honestly think that if it were possible for human to live in such a way that they would choose to live otherwise? We don’t have a choice: we cannot just all mind our own business. We live mutually interdependent lives.

I can’t even sit still doing nothing but breathing without being somewhat dependent on others. We all breathe the same air, and saying ‘let’s all just mind our own business’ is like saying the air in your lungs right now is your private property. You can’t even hold that air in your lungs for more than a minute or so without it starting to poison you. That’s how interconnected we are.

Hence, when someone wants to make the world a better place by stopping someone else from cutting down all the trees that actually make the air we all breathe breathable, I don’t find the argument that the guy chopping down all the trees is ‘just minding his own business’ and that the person stopping them should ‘just mind their own business’ even in the slightest bit convincing. It’s suicidal, and indeed this isn’t a hypothetical example, it’s actually one of the fundamental struggles humans are having in the here and now.

Also, in those other threads, I said I don’t care (nevermind that my apathy was conditional not all encompassing), then proceeded to sob until my face was red and my throat horse. If you can’t get the sentiment or even the semantics straight, could you at least let your descriptions reflect the order that they happened in?

Sorry, ‘wah wah wah wah wah, I don’t care, wah wah wah wah wah’. Is that more accurate, to your mind?

Seriously, think about what I’m saying here.

[Stuart]

SIATD, I realize what you wrote, I understand interdependence, people are interdependent of one another, and all forms of life innature including humans are interdependent. We should stop the people who are cutting down all the trees, and I appreciate some people’s actions to stop them. But, I’m entirely apathetic of the people themselves, the life of a person who tries to protect trees can be as pleasant as any life, one doesn’t have to have a sense of misson to have that life. People can make the declaration to work towards a cause, and even make an effort, but still do nothing for it, or they may have been insincere and never even made the effort. Even those who’s actions are effective may only be so effective because of hurting, directly or indirectly, other causes, such as fighting for funding that was originally meant for a hospital.

So don’t go into preservation with a sense of purpose, that shows little admirability, go into it because you like spending long hours outdoors with close knit groups, or because you like writing letters and making phone calls and other such nessesary efforts of preservation orginazations.

I’ve been speaking to the question in the thread’s title, the answer is no, it’s not a noble ambition, but people incidentally do good for the world all the time, but their sentiment hardly makes a difference.

[Selrid]

@Smears

@Selrid

A noble ambition, I doubt it?

Is this a question?

No it’s a bungalow in South Wales, I always put question marks in front of loud bicycles.

[SIATD_v2]

@Stuartp523

SIATD, I realize what you wrote, I understand interdependence, people are interdependent of one another, and all forms of life innature including humans are interdependent. We should stop the people who are cutting down all the trees, and I appreciate some people’s actions to stop them. But, I’m entirely apathetic of the people themselves, the life of a person who tries to protect trees can be as pleasant as any life, one doesn’t have to have a sense of misson to have that life. People can make the declaration to work towards a cause, and even make an effort, but still do nothing for it, or they may have been insincere and never even made the effort. Even those who’s actions are effective may only be so effective because of hurting, directly or indirectly, other causes, such as fighting for funding that was originally meant for a hospital.

You’re confusing motive with consequence.

So don’t go into preservation with a sense of purpose, that shows little admirability, go into it because you like spending long hours outdoors with close knit groups, or because you like writing letters and making phone calls and other such nessesary efforts of preservation orginazations.

In other words, everyone should be like you and just not care and somehow this makes it more likely that the nutter cutting down all the trees will be stopped?

You are just talking gibberish here.

I’ve been speaking to the question in the thread’s title, the answer is no, it’s not a noble ambition, but people incidentally do good for the world all the time, but their sentiment hardly makes a difference.

Sentiment alone doesn’t make a difference. Sentiment+effort+talent makes a difference, it has done many times before, it is doing so now and will do so in the future. Your position here is that of just another depressed existentialist, and it’s getting quite boring. Now, if you tell me once more that you don’t care about something then you’re going on my ignore list and I’ll likely never respond to another of your posts.

[Stuart]

That a little extreme, but I do recall I’ve made some quick assumptions about you before, so let me just say that I do care to speak to you again and I’ll attempt to do so with as much concern for mundane matters as I can. But, for now I’ve grown tired of discussing the issue of morality, etc., so perhaps later.

[SIATD_v2]

@Uccisore

Wanting to change the world is almost always noble. Actually making the attempt is almost always evil.

This is cynical crap from a depressed mind. We change the world for the better all the time - humans change their environment, build houses, organise secure provision of food and so on. That’s most of what humans have spent their time doing.

It is the attempt to improve humanity itself, not the world, that is almost always evil.