the most upsetting thought-seed that keeps germinating in my mind, that I can't seem to shake or remove, is the idea that almost ALL of human behavior (outside of pure subsistence) is about playing games of social control. That it's so typical that most people don't even see it.
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that the main guiding principle that most people use to drive their decision making, on a conscious or (more frequently) unconscious basis, is that they desire to control the thoughts and behaviors of other people.
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this isn't necessarily malignant in all cases (though a whole lot of cases are), just that everyone is a control freak. the baseline attitude of "just let it be" is almost entirely absent in our society.
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Replying to @danlistensto
Say more? I've been identifying this impulse with conservativism, but inter-Left group dynamics are also this, so hmm.
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Replying to @rhdaly
politics is a particularly obvious case of this, but I wasn't actually thinking about politics when I wrote this. it applies to almost everything people do. why did you assume I was talking about politics?
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Replying to @danlistensto
I guess because politics seems to be directly relevant and dependant on social control. Also because cruelty as both pastime and instrument of self advancement seems to infect group dynamics really easily.
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ideally, I think politics is a set of cultural norms for group decision making. that's adjacent to social control, but not quite the same thing because it (ideally) ought to be consensual/voluntary. of course politics is almost always much much worse than the ideal.
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