Why do so many people view others as tools/obstacles? Is it wrong to do so?

[DaVinci]

For example, Man A is lonely, so he gets together with Woman A as a tool to remove his loneliness. Or Woman B is lonely but Man A is interested in Woman A, so Woman B finds a way to push Woman A out of the picture as she is an obstacle. 

 

Are these the only two possible ways that a person could view another person? Is it just a biological drive to think this way? 

 

A man lying sick in the hospital views the people helping him as tools/obstacles to getting better. A doctor views patients as tools/obstacles to money. 

 

Is human society built solely on people using each other? Is this "wrong"? 

 

Where does free will play into this? Yes, Man A is using free will to choose to go after Woman A, but If you know that interacting with others is you using them as a tool or is you removing them as an obstacle, then aren't you aware of your own biological drive, and thus responsible for that behavior? Shouldn't someone who understands that attempt to not engage in that way? What other way is there? 

 

Are "free market" win-win interactions basically just two people using each other as tools?

[neeeel]

It sounds like you believe in interaction for interactions sake, or some sort of selfless action. Every interaction is in order to get a need met. Theres nothing wrong with that. It doesnt necessarily mean you are using people. 

[DaVinci]

It sounds like you believe in interaction for interactions sake, or some sort of selfless action. Every interaction is in order to get a need met. Theres nothing wrong with that. It doesnt necessarily mean you are using people. 

 

Why does it not mean you are using people? Why is it not wrong?  

[Boss]

In the free market, you can freely decide the obstacles and tools you want. And in the free market, you can freely decide to become the obstacle and tool you want

Its truly amazing.

[neeeel]

Why does it not mean you are using people? Why is it not wrong?  

 

because there is no such thing as a selfless action. Everything is done in order to get a need met. So, if its wrong, then we should not do anything..

[M.2]

Hi, Da Vinci! Love your topics!

 

What you speak of is called Utilitarianism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

 

Despite how using people appears to be the default way people interact with each other, there is a case to be made that it is not how people instinctively look at each other. The argument is that yes, there were societies in history like the Spartans, who viewed each other only as soldiers (tools of war), but it is notable that they were never the norm. The majority of societies instinctively know that man is not merely a tool, rather something greater, even divine.

 

So although utilitarianism passes as a legitimate theory in the intellectual realm, in the real World, it does not. All you have to do to know how garbage of a theory it really is, is to visit a home for children with down-syndrome. Those children will never be of any "use" to Society, but we still instinctively take care of them, regarding them not as tools, but as fellow divine creatures. Supposing you are healthy that is.

 

In short, yes, it is evil, since it is against our nature. Chinese and Japanese cultures (as two extremes), despite how differently they fare, are both plagued by Utilitarianism, and they are not nice places to be individuals in.

[DaVinci]

because there is no such thing as a selfless action. Everything is done in order to get a need met. So, if its wrong, then we should not do anything..

So does the word selfless have no meaning then? Is it not accurate? 

[aviet]

For example, Man A is lonely, so he gets together with Woman A as a tool to remove his loneliness. Or Woman B is lonely but Man A is interested in Woman A, so Woman B finds a way to push Woman A out of the picture as she is an obstacle. 

 

 

There are people who are ultra-submissive on one end and ultra-demanding on the other. I like my relationships to be in the equilibrium of reciprocity and respect.

 

I've experienced both relationships where a submissive attaches and a demander imposes themselves. In the case of a submissive, themes of attachment can be bathing in your status, safety... and with a demander: propping up their status and also safety. Thus there is reciprocity, but the respect is one way. Both are using each other as tools to achieve subconscious goals. But this is not the strongest basis of a relationship as it is based on primordial rather than philosophical motives.

 

I think even in the case of a woman who suffers from extreme domestic violence from her husband that both have a use for each other. They are just based on unhealthy drives that many people do not have. Self-destruction is a common expression of humans and animals. Staying in an abusive relationship if a form of self-destruction, where the abuser meets the needs of the self deprecating victim.

 

I don't want to treat people as tools, or to be treated as a tool. If I enter into a relationship where there is not reciprocity and respect I get out.

 

Relationships are based on reciprocity. If both partners are not getting something it will likely break-down. I don't know if Stef has covered this specifically, but I remember in a video he asked questions to the affect of:

 

Would you marry a hideously ugly, manic, depressed woman out of empathy for her?

Would you sleep with any old pot-belly schmoe who rolls up because you feel sorry for them?

Would you give up your business you spent ten years to build to a leftist thug because you wanted them to have a chance?

 

Although there may be some circumstances in which those may be seen as reciprocal, they generally won't be seen as so by people in those positions.

 

Many people endeavoring into relationships don't really make there needs known. Does the trophy wife who dumps the businessman who loses it all tell her husband throughout the relationship that is what she would do in those circumstances? Or does the wealthy businessman who dumps his aging wife tell her he will do that all throughout the relationship?

 

The idea that you will enter into a relationship and give the other person a blank cheque (metaphor) to do whatever they want with is masochistic, but so is the idea that they are just a tool. If these are peoples' drives, we won't have a society.

[_LiveFree_]

Have you had a significant or familial relationship where you felt used like a tool?

[DaVinci]

Hi, Da Vinci! Love your topics!

 

What you speak of is called Utilitarianism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

 

Despite how using people appears to be the default way people interact with each other, there is a case to be made that it is not how people instinctively look at each other. The argument is that yes, there were societies in history like the Spartans, who viewed each other only as soldiers (tools of war), but it is notable that they were never the norm. The majority of societies instinctively know that man is not merely a tool, rather something greater, even divine.

 

So although utilitarianism passes as a legitimate theory in the intellectual realm, in the real World, it does not. All you have to do to know how garbage of a theory it really is, is to visit a home for children with down-syndrome. Those children will never be of any "use" to Society, but we still instinctively take care of them, regarding them not as tools, but as fellow divine creatures. Supposing you are healthy that is.

 

In short, yes, it is evil, since it is against our nature. Chinese and Japanese cultures (as two extremes), despite how differently they fare, are both plagued by Utilitarianism, and they are not nice places to be individuals in.

How do we know that those taking care of children with down syndrome aren't using them as tools? What is the difference between a doctor using a patient as a tool to gain money and a care-taker using a patient with down syndrome for some end. 

 

Neeeel is saying there is no such thing as a selfless action. If so, is that a universal? 

[M.2]

How do we know that those taking care of children with down syndrome aren't using them as tools? What is the difference between a doctor using a patient as a tool to gain money and a care-taker using a patient with down syndrome for some end. 

 

Neeeel is saying there is no such thing as a selfless action. If so, is that a universal? 

- Homes for the disabled are not businesses. They are supported by us, who are not necessarily disabled. And we support them financially willingly even when they are state sponsored.

- Sureley,with due respect, Neeeel is mistaken. I have done volunteer work, and I can assure him that often times getting up at 6 for someone else and for no profit for me is very much selflessness defined.

- Otherwise, there have been so many examples of selfless action in history that I do not believe I need to refer to a single one.

Yet I will: Now that I have already brought up the spartans as an example of Utilitarianists, let's talk about the 300 Spartans (yes, I know there were more like 700-1500 greeks there), who were aware that they would die holding off the Persians until the Greeks mobilise. If you don't call that selfless action, I'm happy to hear a good opposing argument.

- I'm not sure where, but Mr.Molyneux has talked about selflessness as well, as an evolutionary trait of humans and animals. It is necessary for the survival of the species.

[neeeel]

 

- Sureley,with due respect, Neeeel is mistaken. I have done volunteer work, and I can assure him that often times getting up at 6 for someone else and for no profit for me is very much selflessness defined.

 

 

If you were really getting nothing out of it, you wouldnt be doing it. 

 

Im not saying its bad or anything.

[DaVinci]

If you were really getting nothing out of it, you wouldnt be doing it. 

 

Im not saying its bad or anything.

 

 

He describes that behavior as selfless. If it isn't, then what is it? 

[RichardY]

For example, Man A is lonely, so he gets together with Woman A as a tool to remove his loneliness. Or Woman B is lonely but Man A is interested in Woman A, so Woman B finds a way to push Woman A out of the picture as she is an obstacle. 

Woman B hasn't, unless she has found a way to erase Man A's memory, making him no longer Man A. I suppose if Women B were superwoman she could reverse time. Making Woman A, no longer Woman A. Loneliness or carnal desires, if loneliness how so.

 

Superman is flying over the justice league and sees wonder women lying naked on the roof, so superman decides to go pump wonder women. Invisible man says ow my ass.

 

Where does free will play into this? Yes, Man A is using free will to choose to go after Woman A, but If you know that interacting with others is you using them as a tool or is you removing them as an obstacle, then aren't you aware of your own biological drive, and thus responsible for that behavior? Shouldn't someone who understands that attempt to not engage in that way? What other way is there? 

 

Are "free market" win-win interactions basically just two people using each other as tools?

Where doesn't freewill apply to human interactions? Yeah I understand your point that a person can often predict what other another person is going to do and if you know what they are going to do, kind of boring to be around and pretty stagnant.

 

The free market is an exercise in creativity, maybe some of the participants view each other as tools, but the outcome is creation.

 

A man lying sick in the hospital views the people helping him as tools/obstacles to getting better. A doctor views patients as tools/obstacles to money. 

 

Is human society built solely on people using each other? Is this "wrong"? 

Don't know really how a doctor views patients, but my guess would be to improve and maintain health and do no harm, the money is an effect of creativity not an obstacle.

 

Society can't function if people only try and use each other. When do ever uses match up.

 

----------------

 

Selflessness. Personally I think there are huge benefits/abilities to being selfless. Just thinking of practical skills, touch typing, riding a bike, playing sports etc.  A few other thoughts came to mind, The Shadow 1994, The Hunt for Red October, Hindu diety Kali and the endings of a PC game Deus Ex.

[neeeel]

He describes that behavior as selfless. If it isn't, then what is it? 

 

Of course, I cant say exactly what, but I would guess, feeling good about himself, or "wanting to make a change" or any sort of psychological benefit

[M.2]

If you were really getting nothing out of it, you wouldnt be doing it. 

 

Im not saying its bad or anything.

 

 

Of course, I cant say exactly what, but I would guess, feeling good about himself, or "wanting to make a change" or any sort of psychological benefit

 

Very well, neeeel. For sake of argument, I shall concede on the volunteering example. Even though I take offence to your words.

 

What would you do with the example of kamikaze pilots?

- Remember, the japanese had no notion of eternal life, which means they did not have the satisfaction that jihadis have after death.

- They themselves would clearly not enjoy the fruit of their actions, since they would die.

- They were very young men with no wives or children, which means their family would not enjoy the fruit of their actions.

- When they crashed into the American ships, they yelled loud and clear: "Long live the Emperor.". Do you doubt their claim?

So what did they do it for? The rush?

[Mister Mister]

  I think the issue is really to do with honesty, and confusion around the word love.  The beauty of free market negotiation is that both parties can be honest about their perfectly natural selfish interests without guilt or shame or manipulation, ideally.  But when economic transactions are disguised as intimate relationships (friends, family, romantic partners), I think this is the problem.  Most people's idea of love is more like co-dependency and mutual utility.  There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this except for the lies people tell themselves and each other to mask this reality.  That's my thoughts anyway.

[DaVinci]

  I think the issue is really to do with honesty, and confusion around the word love.  The beauty of free market negotiation is that both parties can be honest about their perfectly natural selfish interests without guilt or shame or manipulation, ideally.  But when economic transactions are disguised as intimate relationships (friends, family, romantic partners), I think this is the problem.  Most people's idea of love is more like co-dependency and mutual utility.  There's nothing fundamentally wrong with this except for the lies people tell themselves and each other to mask this reality.  That's my thoughts anyway.

 

I think those are some interesting thoughts. I'd like to explore them more. 

 

When you say that in free market negotiation that both parties can be honest about perfectly natural selfish interests without guilt or shame, what does this mean? In a free market where you would buy things with money if someone is buying a can of corn from the store and handing a cashier money that must mean the customer wants the can of corn and the store wants the money, right? In this case what the customer wants to buy is clear as the product has to be scanned and logged into a system in order to be purchased, and what the store wants is also clear as they have registers at the front for a reason. The man probably doesn't feel shame over buying corn, (but I suppose that depends on what he is going to do with it,) and the store doesn't feel guilty for taking money for their advertised products 

 

So how does this same idea apply to a "free market" between friends or romantic partners in relation to being honest? For example, if a man tells a woman, "You're just a sex doll" or a woman tells a man "You're just a baby batter provider" and this is them being honest about what they want, how is that fundamentally different from them just thinking those things without revealing them? You might say that a man who says "You're just a sex doll" to a woman would drive away women he otherwise wouldn't if he kept that information hidden, so there is a difference for the women who might be looking for something more than that, but for the man in both scenarios his goal is the same. Find a sex doll. To the topic, does it fundamentally change the idea that people views others as obstacles/tools if they are honest about it? If I'm honest about using a hammer to drive nails into a board, it doesn't change that I'm using it for my needs. Can being honest change mutual utility into something more than just that? 

 

You also brought up the idea of economic transactions disguised as intimate relationships. Isn't this the way many businesses operate? "At XYZ business we care about your needs" Aren't they doing exactly what you are describing? Dressing up economics as caring? Because if they just went "Yeah, we're a store. Come in if you feel like it" would that really grab people? Isn't the reason they have found that this works to drive business is because there is a biological basis for dressing up economics as relationships? 

[mbalrog6]

I think the categorization you are using has the problem built into it. It is not that Man A uses Woman A. It is that Man B or Woman B thinks and expresses the opinion that Man A is using Woman A. 

 

Society's strongest tool to force respectful and meaningful interactions between each other is ostracism. Man A did nothing wrong if Woman A is willing to accept Man A. The intention behind Man A could be an issue. If Man A hid or misrepresented intentionally his desire to be with Woman A then Man A would share culpability. However, Man A could just be doing what he thinks is right, it is how we heal anyways. The real problem is how others view it. If their perception causes undo stress on Man A or Woman A by assaulting their reputation in the society. Just like today a Man can have his life almost ended by an allegation of rape even if rape was not committed. 

 

We project this idea of tools and obstacles onto others actions. Most of the time because we have the fortune of seeing it in hindsight, not as it happens. Much easier to see that he only used Woman A as a tool once he has healed and realized he no longer wants or needs Woman A, even if that was not his original intention. Woman A could have ended it too, maybe she was also hurting and need Man A to get to Man B. All in all nothing would come of that interaction if some else had not applied a representational hit to their persona within the society. 

 

Intention and Reputation seem to me to be the culprits. 

[Michael Talpas]

Are you certain that people view others as tools/obstacles? What does it mean to view someone as a tool/obstacle?

 

From what I can tell, all human interaction is an attempt to gain something; otherwise, you wouldn't be doing it. You gain something, whether that is knowledge, money, goods and services, or just a pleasant sensation, among other things. Does it mean you view them as a tool/obstacle, when you interact with them, with the intention to gain something? Is it possible to not view someone as a tool/obstacle when interacting with them, knowing that all interaction is inherently designed to gain something?