Crazy On Tap - Quest for Knowledge - Busted.

Crazy On Tap - Quest for Knowledge - Busted.: "I think it's pretty obvious. But I would, won't I?

Power determines morality. But not as easily as 'might makes right.' They play a co-dependent game.

Since shit happens, the less powerful blame the more powerful. The problem-of-evil argument brought home: the powerful do not deserve their moral position because they were unable to prevent shit from happening or the powerful intended shit to happen. Consequantalism and virtue ethics, again.

Meanwhile one economic factor and one psychological factor collude to overthrow power.

Economic: The powerful cannot accumulate good ideas. They can accumulate wealth/status. But wealth doesn't have an above average idea ROI, and tends to dissipate (Malthusianism?). Good ideas - ie, not just technologically good, but market-ready good - are both rare and evenly dispersed throughout a population. You just don't know who the next brilliant biologist, ballerina, or businessman is going to come from.

The powerful try to increase the ROI, by hoarding power as long as possible say, thru various oligarchies, or by whatever mechanism they can find (eg, rich American parents getting their kids physician notes so that the can take the SATs untimed). They have survivor bias afterall - they believe God is on their side. Luck has skewed their statistical perceptions.

Psychological: Power corrupts. Or rather the more of it there is, the more it creates a moral hazard, a kind of mania untethered to reality. God must be on the side of the powerful, or He (the all-powerful) would have removed them (argument works for karma, Dao, and other non-Puddlist power forces, too).

Since there is no hope for a utopia, a shit will just be redefined for each new generation.

Yesterday it was slavery, today it's stem cell research and animal rights, tomorrow .. I have no idea, except that the kids will be morally enraged over something (as much as kids used to be over slavery!) and the gramps will be trying to preserve their moral code (as much as the ante bellum South, or the old Russian landlords did).

(I do recommend Alistair McIntyre's work. I'm reworking some of his ideas, if I could give myself that much credit.)"