<p>there are two types of people who care: people who mostly care about the things they are emotionally connected to (their feelings, their friends, their neighbors), and people who mostly care about the world. </p>
<p>right? like the ones who are always talking in vague, hand-wavy terms about the world, and then the other people who are just trying to connect with you and talk about the abandoned dog they're taking care of - and asking you if, oh, do you want to see it. </p>
<p>you know? well i think that's kind of how is on some level.</p>
<p>anyway, the big problem with caring about the world i think is it's easy to mess up and not help it, or actually hurt it. because the world is not something that's easy for humans to understand correctly generally.</p>
<p>where as it's comparatively easy to care about the things next to you correctly - because you get feedback if you're doing it right or not, if you're making someone feel better, or a dog safer. </p>
<p>Jimbo made the thread asking what we care about, or what our terminal values are, or whatever, which made me think this. really it's a scary question and not suitable for this audience i think. i never want any of you to be exposed to something like that again. ever, ever.</p>
<p>Is there not an actual question here? Or can I just not read…
I agree with you about the two types of beliefs though, and how it’s easier to see when you’re doing something right when you care about smaller things. It’s hard for us humans to get the big picture.</p>
<p>I agree, but I was curious if someone was going to swoop in with a philosophical reason why not.</p>
<p>I feel like a part of caring about the planet is caring about things that are attached to you. Like, I care about the world because I care about the people on it, not just the people I know. I care that every person in the world should be entitled to basic rights, as well as necessities that many in the world are deprived of, like clean water and quality health care.</p>
<p>I disagree, enfield. people who mostly care about things they’re personally connected to seem to be the same people who care about the world. the things that people are personally connected to are things in the world. the people who care about the world are personally connected to those things they care about.</p>
<p>The world matters only in the connection it has to my life and to the lives of those I love. A tree has no inherent value, but it matters none-the-less because I like how trees look, and how they feel, and how they make the air cleaner, and how, if you get a bunch of them together, you have a forest. </p>
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<p>Yes. This manifests in different ways:</p>
<p>DDT saved millions of human lives in a very short time, but it killed eagles. So, we banned it. And malaria and typhoid are back, just like one species of eagles. I feel that this is a case of caring to much about “the world” and not enough about people, who actually really matter by comparison. </p>
<p>On the other side of the coin: we’re turning the planet into a hothouse, and one of the suggestions for how to fix this involves the release of tons of “stable” particulates in the atmosphere. You know, “stable” like CFCs were stable. This would reduce the temperature, but it’s almost certain that such a program would bring about effects that would outweigh the reduction — and we have no idea what they’ll be. And then we apply another patch to the wound. Sucks. </p>
<p>There’s no such thing as a perfect solution.</p>
<p>The world is so big, and we are so small. How can a person care about the world if he can’t even care about the things around him? The things around him are a part of the world.</p>
<p>on the contrary, I think humans find that things matter to them, because they intrinsically already mattered, but human emotions can pick up on that value. like radios picking up a signal</p>
<p>hang on you guys have different ideas of what matters to people i think.</p>
<p>it’s like the answer to the question if a tree falls does it make a sound if no one is around. the answer could be - it makes a sound that people don’t hear (call that a blub), not a sound that people hear (call that a blab). calling those different things by different names eases the confusion. </p>
<p>stress is saying something matters even if people don’t appreciate it (hence why we end up appreciating what we do), while jimbo is saying something matters only if people appreciate it.</p>
<p>the criteria of one definition is something low-entropy (like a tree) existing, while for the other it is that low-entropy thing being perceived by lovely human eyes.</p>