Response to Tim Pool's video titled "Socialism Won't Work Part 3, Homeless Guy Blows Money on Drugs"

This document is a response to Tim Pool's video titled "Socialism Won't Work Part 3, Homeless Guy Blows Money on Drugs," found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6njpeistr6w

He starts off the video with a case study about why UBI won’t work, the case study being that of a homeless man being unable to access money raised by GoFundMe in the amount of $400,000, half of which he spent but still ended up being homeless, using drugs, and panhandling once again.  The other half is being withheld on the condition that he gets a job and stops using drugs.

The problem I see is that Tim is extrapolating this one instance, a homeless man using drugs and panhandling that gets a bunch of charity and doesn’t improve his situation, to demonstrate that paying a stipend to a country’s citizenry with no strings attached won’t work (and calls it Socialism, btw).  This argument is flawed for several reasons:

First, it’s reductionist on its face.  Not everyone who would benefit from a stipend is homeless and drug-addicted.  Not everyone who gets a stipend will spend it on short-term pleasure and end up back to where they are or worse. 

 

Second (and closely related to the first), there’s also no evidence that when a person gets a stipend, they will behave as an addict would and spend their stipend to feed their addiction.  I have had friends that have received a stipend from the military (the Montgomery G.I. Bill) of $1980 a month for 33-months with the condition that they go to school for at least two classes per semester (which are 100% paid for by the government, btw).  Yes, that makes the G.I. Bill a conditional stipend (both on prior military service of 24 months or more, a requirement to be enrolled for a minimum of two classes, AND a limit on 33 months’ worth of benefits), but all that serves is that one stipend is harder to qualify for than the other. 

 

I, myself, served in the U.S. Army for 22 months and couldn’t take advantage of the G.I. Bill, and I REALLY could’ve used those benefits to get back on my feet when returning to the civilian world.  I came to learn several years later from a friend and fellow veteran that I could’ve qualified for a 40% reduction in post-secondary education fees (but no stipend whatsoever), but by that time, I was already over $23,000 in student loan debt and in default.  I’ve always tried to apply the following rule of thumb when it came to income: while employed, if your bank account is higher than it was your last paycheck, you’re going in the right direction.  In other words, spend only a portion of what I make so that I steadily accumulate more money.  On periods where an unexpected expense occurs and I end up worse off than my last pay period, I tighten my belt.  When I foresee myself not getting paid during a certain period, I tighten my belt.  While this strategy does allow me to eke out a living, my income limits what I can buy and being default on my student loans drastically hinders my ability to pursue higher levels of education in career fields that I’m passionate about (mental health).  Yes, I made a mistake in career path when I pursued the path of wanting to be a game designer, but in simply being unable to repay my loans, loans that were ultimately created at the touch of some keyboard strokes, do I really deserve to be so hampered?

Third, the argument he presents about how he knows a bunch of people that would rather be aspiring professional skateboarders and guitar players instead of plumbers and carpenters and that, if they had UBI, there would be no useful professionals of this category.  If said handyman would REALLY quit his job to pursue his passion for an art or a sport that he would ultimately not achieve monetary gain in, then what happens next depends on how much the money they earned actually mattered to them.  If they end up hurting financially for pursuing their passions, they can always opt to go back to their handyman career, as society is always in need of handymen.  If they don’t go back to being a handyman and continue to pursue their art or sport (or not), then we know that their bar for homeostasis actually lies and they STILL get to participate in the market by circulating their UBI to basic necessities, which the provider of said necessities want (merchants want customers to buy their stuff).  The argument that no one would go back to their old jobs is preposterous; people like making more money (to varying extents) so that they can buy stuff they wouldn’t have access to without their jobs.  For those that are content with little, they still need to eat and participate in society with dignity.  Regardless of the matter, said “handyman aspiring to be an artist” doesn’t need to be forced to stay as a handyman just to survive and can actually find out whether or not they’ll be a professional artist, and if they don’t reach that goal but stay with their choice, they can still participate in the market and keep themselves alive and not living in abject desperation.  Yes, they’ll deprive their surrounding portion of society of their trade, but they may provide an experiential benefit to those they choose to provide for.  And if not, (and they’re law-abiding citizens), it’s their fucking life!  Seriously!

Fourth (closely related to the third), not everything that people are good at is marketable or marketable enough to illicit sufficient exchange value (which is the be-all, end-all of someone who wants to dominate in a market environment).  The fetishization of exchange value, however, severely undervalues (or completely ignores) experiential value in and of itself, especially when said purveyor of experiential value cannot be commodified.  Why is the ineptitude of providing exchange value condemned with the promise of exile and death (as is the case with the homeless man presented or with an unskilled person who doesn’t want to cosign his waking hours to being a meat robot)?  This is a highly misanthropic view of the world.  There has to come a point in time when we have to remove the market society lenses and see what kind of lives we’re living.  For those that refuse to do so, people need to be able to buy your products and services, regardless of how they got the money they’re exchanging with you.

Fifth (and somewhat related to the forth), when someone exchanges money with you for your commodities, the fact that the exchange can be made on terms the two of you agreed to should be all that matters, not how they came about this money.  If you found out that someone was buying your stuff with charity money, are you going to cancel the exchange because they want to pay you with charity money as opposed to “hard-earned” money?  Money is money and works as money does, regardless of how the buyer came across it.

Sixth (and somewhat related to the fifth), and straight to the crux of one of his big beefs, do lazy people who just want to live in miserly leisure deserve to starve?  That’s really the crux of it all.  He’s concerned about being taxed to sustain lazy people who don’t want to change.  Let’s grant Tim that a certain portion of the population just want to sit at home and engage in leisurely activities and not get a job or help anyone out.  Do they deserve to starve?  Even lazy people need to eat.  There is a market for food (duh!)  Money gets circulated in the economy.  The lazy people spend money to eat AND to buy commodities related to their leisure to continue their lazy lives and the circulation of these exchanges are what are required for the continued health of a market economy.  If these people should instead starve because it induces indignation, then certain merchants, by consequence, should be deprived of a portion of their customer base.  But shouldn’t the free market decide who gets to buy what?  Why should these merchants have your “indignation tax” imposed on them?  What makes you the moral arbiter of who should participate in a free market and who should not?  And this is in regards to lazy-ass motherfuckers, if we’re being frank here.

I get where this indignation comes from; I often feel indignant with lazy people AT WORK.  Big emphasis on “at work,” because while they may have a job (which is what your big concern is), they don’t pull their weight.  But they’re employed, and that’s all that matters, right?  And despite the anger that arises when lazy-ass motherfuckers don’t pull their motherfucking weight and I have to pick up their slack, I still don’t think they deserve to starve.  Honestly, if they hate the work so much, I’d rather they quit and live off of benefits while the company I work for can hire and keep more industrious individuals.  I think that a satiated lazy person is preferable to a starving lazy person who is unable to find gainful employment and resorts to crime.  They can be someone’s customer more readily with something like UBI without robbing or hurting their fellow neighbor.  Trying to fix lazy is largely a failing proposition, IMO.

Seventh (closely related to the first), when he says “if everyone gets something no matter what, then I feel like too many people are going to be like, ‘Why bother working if I’m funding people who aren’t working either?’”  That issue addresses something more fundamental that what appears on the surface.  Why do you work?  To provide for yourself and your family.  Work requires time and effort.  Timewise, we are all capped at 168 hours a week, though our capacity for effort may vary as well as our ability to multiply our effort by employing others.  But how much time and effort would you truly devote if you had, say, an extra $1000 every month, just for being a citizen?  That ultimately depends on how you feel about the work you do.  If you hate your job and can manage to get by on less, then of course you’re going to work less and focus your time on enriching your life with more gratifying experiences.

But what of vital work that needs to be done?  Well, the strategy doesn’t really need to change: offer people more money for vital work!  UBI won’t make people like money less (I certainly won’t).  Even then, that might not motivate enough people to work 80-hour a week+ jobs.  Why not make training for those jobs more readily available?  People can take on apprenticeships with professionals without the need to be paid, since they’ll be getting a stipend, eventually becoming professionals themselves and lightening the workload of those who can perform vital work.  Have there never been poor geniuses or savants?

What if enough people leave jobs that it makes the product or service diminish or vanish altogether?  Perhaps that product or service was never needed in the first place.  In other words, perhaps it was a bullshit job that people didn’t want to do anymore.  What if, in this exodus of bullshit jobs, new products or services emerge that come in demand?  Or, God forbid, what if people start doing more humanitarian work that doesn’t have a demand in the market because that’s where their true calling lies and they don’t have to starve for pursing these activities?  Even if it’s just a couple of hours a week or a month?  What if people want to pursue the life of a Renaissance Man and dabble in a lot of things at a time?  Who’s to say there’s no value in that, regardless of what the market dictates?

The market doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all of human civilization.  Some people excel in that environment, others don’t.  Stuff needs to get done, there’s no doubt about that, but trying to wedge every possible solution through a market lens is unfeasible and often very harmful, as those most successful in the market economy contribute to the greatest amount of destruction in the natural environment (stuff comes from our natural environment, after all).  Also, you only need so much money in order to achieve optimal satisfaction (where income is concerned): this ranges somewhere from $55,000 to around $80,000 a year, according to some study I have to site.  Making over this range does nothing to increase long-term happiness and having obscene incomes (multi-millionaires and billionaires) create catastrophic hemorrhages in society. 

Is the portrayal of Patriarchy realistic?

Hello, folks.  I've always been a strong proponent for equality between the sexes.  To that end, I've been doing what I can to keep myself educated in what I've always thought to be movement that pushes said equality forward, that movement being feminism.  As a male, I've always thought that it was my place to do my best to learn as much as I can about the issue of feminism before opening my mouth, since I am inherently on the outside by virtue of my sexual orientation and women know a hell of a lot more about the trials and tribulations that they go through than I ever will.   

Even with that being said, the learning process has been a sobering one, such as the concept of Schrodinger's Rapist, where a woman is always on the look-out for a potential rapist because she just doesn't know a man well enough to discount that possibility in a society where 1 in 6 women have been raped at least once in their lives.  I myself would never entertain the possibility of raping another human being, but simply knowing that a woman who doesn't know me may think of me as Schrodinger's Rapist in any case makes me feel, in some way, like a monster, because I have the physical capabilities of performing such a heinous act.

But that's besides the point.  I delved into feminism for my own educational benefit and I feel all the richer for it.  Recently, however, I ran into the Youtube channel of a user named "girlwriteswhat" who also has a blog called Owning Your Shit (owningyourshit.blogspot.com).  Her Youtube videos contain critiques about feminism and feminist concepts, which brings me to the topic of this blog post:  Patriarchy and whether or not its depiction of men as historically being the privileged class and women as historically being the subjugated class holds any merit in comparison with the narrative.  To illustrate whether or not the theory of patriarchy has any merit, I want to compare it to another social structure where the privileged class derive maximum advantage and minimal disadvantage and where the reverse is true for the subjugated class:  rich vs. poor.

Before I begin, I would like to insert a disclaimer.  These are just musings and my opinions.  This is not a complete dismissal of the idea of patriarchy, but it is a critical look at its veracity as a privilege-subjugation social structure.  I am open to and welcome critiques of this post as long as they amount to more than just an argumentum ad hominem.

As I said before, patriarchy is postulated by feminist theory as a social structure where men are the privileged class and women are the subjugated class.  In any society where there is a privileged class and a subjugated class, the privileged class derive maximum advantage and minimal disadvantage, while the subjugated class derive minimal advantage and maximum disadvantage.  Is this really the case in the patriarchy as depicted by mainstream feminist theory?  I don't think so.  To illustrate this point, I'm going to use another example of a social structure with privileged and subjugated classes:  rich people vs. poor people (more specifically, not-rich people).

Societies that utilize slavery, feudalism, and/or capitalism divide people into two economic categories:  those who are wealthy (masters, lords, capitalists, chair folk of the board of directors, etc.) and those who are not (slaves, serfs, wage earners, etc.).  The wealthy enjoy an immense amount of privilege that workers do not, due to the vast amounts of resources that wealthy people have that are unavailable to the working class (due to lack of resources).  Wealthy people simply have more options in just about every aspect of life because they can afford it.  Furthermore, wealthy people have the resources to minimize any opposition they may encounter in society, such as paying off expensive lawyers to reduce the taxes that they pay or to get the best possible defense in a court hearing, or lobbying or flat-out buying off politicians so that they can change laws to their favor, frequently at the expense of the average working class.  The average worker must make due with what they are paid or with what product they can make for themselves with their own brains and muscles, and must make a considerable effort to make any changes to laws that impact their lives, usually by gathering and organizing a group of like-minded workers.

When such a society gets involved in a war, invariably it will be those among the working class who are on the front lines fighting and dying for their society.  On the other hand, it is those among the wealthy that are able to profit from war by coming up with an enterprise that is involved with a particular product or service related to the war effort (uniforms, weapons, ammunition, rations, etc.).  When such a society suffers an economic crisis (due to the poor economic decisions of particular wealthy people), the wealthy tangled with the mechanisms that spell "doom and gloom" for society should their institutions fall will receive massive bailouts from the government, while the working class will pay the price either through increased taxes, a reduction in public services, or a combination of the two.  When a wealthy person lays off thousands of working class people in order to cut costs, it's business as usual.  When a working class person steals some office equipment, they risk jail time.  And so on and so on.

This, folks, is what it is to have a social structure of a privileged class and a subjugated class, with the privileged min-maxing (to utilize a role-playing game term) societal rewards almost invariably at a direct proportion to the subjugated class being screwed over.  Is this the case with patriarchy?  Have men enjoyed privilege in the same proportions that wealthy people have in societies with exploitative economic systems?  Have women suffered subjugation in the same proportions that working class people have in societies with exploitative economic systems?

In terms of war, it has historically been the men who go off to fight and die in the battlefield, while women and children were to be protected at all costs.  Historically, a woman's inherent worth is seen in her being a woman, whereas a man's worth is seen in his capabilities and is earned.  If a man is not capable enough or if he serves his purpose and dies in battle, he is seen by society as a disposable commodity.  Women, however, possess inherent value and are physically weaker than men and must be protected from the horrors of war at all costs, even if it's at the cost of many more of the lives of men.  Are men as obviously privileged in times of war as wealthy people are?  Are women as obviously subjugated in times of war as working class people are?  Not by a long shot.

In secular societies, women are afforded many of the same rights as men and, in a number of cases, more rights.  Conversely, in terms of imprisonment, men typically serve 40% more time in prison than women and, in cases of domestic violence, is more likely to go to jail if he strikes her than if she strikes him.  In terms of planned pregnancy and post-pregnancy, the woman has all of the agency as to whether or not she wants to be a parent, whereas the man who impregnated the woman without the intention or inclination of wanting to be a father must pay child support regardless and will be imprisoned if he fails to make sufficient amounts of payments (in other words, is thrown in a debtors' prison, which has been outlawed since 1833).  I don't know about you, but this doesn't look like the case where men are the unanimous privileged class and women are the unanimous subjugated class in the social structure called patriarchy, not in the same ways as the dichotomy between the wealthy and the working class in societies with exploitative economic systems.

One place where I will give credence to the concept of patriarchy are in the Abrahamic religions and societies with a strong prevalence in said religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).  In each of these religions, the gender roles are clearly spelled out:  man is primary and woman is made to serve man, and woman is at fault for man's shortcomings.  Women are clearly placed in subordinate roles and their testimony is worth less than an equal quantity of men.  The explicit goals in regards to women is to ultimately deny her consent and autonomy, lest she face God's wrath (directly or through proxy).  A direct correlation exists between the religiosity of a society and the violation of women's rights (as religiosity increases, so do the violations).  It is men who hold the most important positions within each respective Abrahamic religion.  It's just blatantly obvious to anyone with enough intellectual honesty to investigate that men are the big dogs in the Abrahamic religions and women better know their place.

In conclusion, I don't think that the portrayal of patriarchy as given my mainstream feminist theory reflects the reality of the matter when it comes to the privilege of men and the subjugation of women.  That's not to say that it isn't there; in many cases, it is, as I've demonstrated with the Abrahamic religions, for example.  However, I've also seen in blogs dedicated to feminism that there is a general mockery whenever the issue of men involved in a similar situation of suffering is presented as "what about the menz?!"  To present women's issues and completely disregard when men are similarly affected and are instead brought up as the monolithic villain is really looking at it with one eye shut in many cases.  With that being said, I am not, in any way, disregarding feminist issues, but I'm also going to start being more wary when I see men as solely the antagonist.  Furthermore, to more accurately represent my position on gender equality, I shall drop the feminist label and utilize a more accurate label:  egalitarian.

The Illusive Perfect Being

The Illusive Perfect Being

Disclaimer

I am an atheist and I take the philosophical position of physicalism. This means that when I speak about philosophical topics such as the one I’m about to talk about, I won’t ascribe to any supernatural, paranormal, occult, or pseudoscientific explanations. I will only speak in terms that deal with physical reality (to the best of my knowledge), including conceptual, sociological, and psychological phenomenon (because these issues emerge from social animals, which exist in the physical universe).

The Fundamental Misunderstanding of the term “Man”

A large portion of the world’s population (I dare even say, the majority) possesses a belief that states that man (human beings) are imperfect, and that’s putting it nicely. Usually, more descriptive terms have been used, such as “fallen”, “sinner”, “lesser”, or even “retarded”. For the sake of this topic, let’s call these folk “perfection idealists.” When I hear perfection idealists speak of human beings using such sweeping generalizations, my instinctual response is to cringe, and I cringe because such assertions demonstrate not only an abysmal view of the species one belongs to, but of a basic lack of understanding as to the nature of the human animal.

I specifically emphasized the words “human animal” to make a point: when it comes down to it, we are social animals, specifically apes. To put human beings at the impossibly high standards that the perfection idealists do is absurd. As gene machines, we are built to survive and reproduce as human beings; everything else we have done for the vast majority of our existence as a species has been to serve those functions. Gorillas are built in a specific way so that they can survive and reproduce as gorillas. Rabbits are built in a specific way so that they can survive and reproduce as rabbits, and so on and so forth. And when I say we are “built”, I mean that our genes made us in a particular way to facilitate survival and reproduction in a specific manner. (For a more in-depth look at the topic of genes and how we are machines for the genes, read “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins).

The Idea of the Perfect Being

When perfection idealists say that we are imperfect beings, I feel compelled to ask myself, “What are the beliefs behind such assertions and what are the origins of these beliefs?” While to some this may seem like an exercise in futility, I have to respectfully disagree. Finding out the belief systems that influence way people think, speak, and act is of paramount importance to understanding the thoughts and actions of my fellow human beings. I personally believe that this can be accomplished without worldviews that incorporate extraneous elements outside of physical reality and the constituents thereof (conceptual, sociological, and psychological), and adding extraneous elements will not only unnecessarily complicate such explanations, but will actually cause us to reach erroneous conclusions.

What is meant when a perfection idealist refers to “perfection” and our inability to achieve this state? When a perfection idealist talks about “perfection”, I think they’re referring to a sort of moral and cognitive perfection, as opposed to a physical perfection. In the context of this topic, the dictionary describes the term “perfect” (the state that is perfection) as “excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement.” So, when a perfection idealist speaks of the imperfection of human beings, I think they are referring to the lack of achieving moral and/or cognitive excellence or completion beyond practical or theoretical improvement.

As an evolving species, the idea that we are “imperfect” according to such a standard is obvious. Of course we’re not perfect! Evolution doesn’t stop. As the environmental conditions of a particular species change, the animal must change and adapt accordingly or risk extinction. To imply that we need to be perfect would imply unchanging environmental conditions, which is not and has never been the case in the universe. To impose perfection on a particular animal is an absurdity derived from an attachment to artificial, abstract ideas that have no basis on physical reality.

Not only do physical environmental conditions differ and change throughout the world, social conditions differ and change throughout the world as well. Human beings are social animals and, as animals, our prime directives are survival and reproduction. In order for us to continue as a species, everything we do must serve those two functions, including how we conduct ourselves in a community of human beings. Social constructs that serve to help a particular group of human beings to get by in the most beneficial manner possible - i.e., culture - are a product of human minds that come about through evolution much in the same way that a bird’s beak will adapt and change into a particular fashion to feed from a particular tree. If the culture doesn’t adapt to social and environmental changes of a particular human group (such as a tribe), the chances of extinction increase and continue to increase in proportion to the group’s inability to socially adapt.

Tribe X – An Example of Social Adaptation

As a theoretical example, say we have a tribe called Tribe X. As part of Tribe X’s culture, each couple is to have a minimum of one son and one daughter and must continue to procreate until both one son and one daughter are produced. The tribe’s reasoning behind this is that both males and females are needed to make more human beings. As a method of population control, however, the tribe limits who can reproduce and when and provides natural contraceptives to the other members of the tribe, through various herbs and whatnot. Let’s say that, through this method, Tribe X has been able to retain a consistent population of about 200 members, give or take 10% at any given time, and has been successfully able to feed that population due to their environmental conditions for thousands of years.

Let’s say that Tribe X encounters a drastic environmental condition that threatens the tribe tremendously: a really harsh winter that has driven out all game for much longer than expected and in a much wider geographical area than ever encountered by the tribe in its history. Tribe X has to make some tough choices now. In order for animals to continue living, they must consume living cells, with no exception. Pickings are so slim that the tribe will not be able to maintain their population of 200 members, but may be able to maintain a population of roughly 150 members. Rather than watch his people starve to death, the chief makes a decree and reduces the frequency of impregnation to slowly and safely bring down the population to a more manageable level, as well as cutting back on roughly 20% of the tribe’s caloric intake. Some members of the tribe (usually the younger, less worldly members) may object to this reduction of food intake (because they had it much better before the harsh winter), but the wiser members know that in order to survive as a tribe, such measures must be taken. It’s tough times for Tribe X, but if they don’t make these changes, they could risk extinction as a people. The better they are at assimilating these changes, the easier time they’ll have of adjusting to the new conditions imposed upon them by the environment.

Religious Mandate

A major factor in the idea of our moral and cognitive imperfection comes from religious mandate, specifically through religions brought about by revelation. The subject of revelation is a different one from the current topic at hand, so I won’t say anything more on it for now other than I think that it is pure nonsense and that I regard it either as a case of apophenia, pareidolia, a scam, or as a result of some sort of brain damage.

These religions teach, in some form or another, that human beings are born flawed and that we must seek some manner to make up for this fundamental error due to the mistakes of our ancient predecessors. Engaging in such flaws is referred to as “sinning.” The way I interpret the term “sin” is: “to engage in some activity that is considered illegal to one’s own religious law.” To support this interpretation of sin, I point to you 1 John 3:4, which says "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness." For example, in many religions, it is considered a sin to murder another human being because there is a mandate against murder; for Judaism and Christianity, it is the sixth of the Ten Commandments. In Judaism and Islam, it is also a sin to eat pork, and each has their own reasons for the mandate (something about swine being “unclean”). Even folk that are not particularly religious or who are irreligious may still carry this belief due to the miasmic effect of a previously held religious belief now rationalized in a non-religious manner or because they’ve been infected by this particular meme from their social environment.

These mandates are supposed to come from some divine source, such as God, and because God dictates these mandates, going against them is sinful, regardless of how harmful or immoral (or lack thereof) the actual act is. To this, I present Euthyphro’s dilemma: “Is it good because God commands it, or does God command it because it’s good?” If it’s the first, then it’s simply a blatant command, and calling the command “good” irrespective of the actual benefit or harm of following the command simply because it comes from God is a moot point. If it’s the second, then making the beneficial activity a command from God is redundant. This following of religious mandates essentially dictates religious morality, which I feel that, while simpler to do (just do as you’re told), leaves one woefully lacking in psychological development and in understanding humans in a more grounded manner without serious reinterpretation of religious dogma and/or by not assimilating it literally.

The Highest Form of “Perfection”

For perfection idealists who seek to implement moral and/or cognitive perfection religiously, it would go something like this: the less you err from sinning, the closer you are to achieving perfection. The caveat is as follows: since you are born a flawed sinner, you will never actually achieve perfection, no matter how hard you try. This, to me, is a tremendous source of needless guilt and frustration, as well as an insidious excuse to be a self-righteous prick to others. This concept of perfection seems more like an adherence to robotic behavior, the perfect little soldier. It espouses obedience as the highest virtue one can hope to achieve, and we all know how obedient the Nazis were when Hitler ordered them to commit their heinous atrocities. We also know how disobedient and “sinful” the founding fathers of the United States were when they risked their lives to defy the British Empire and claim independence. I’m not saying “disobey for the sake of disobeying.” What I’m saying is to think about why you obey what you do and why you disobey what you do. That, unfortunately, requires something more complex than doing what you’re told; it requires thinking for yourself.

Conclusion

This idea of being morally and/or cognitively perfect is one that should be discarded. Striving to be a more helpful member of society is a noble goal indeed, but moral or cognitive perfection is not required, just good intentions coupled with the proper skill set. Heck, even selfish intentions with the proper skill set work, because you’ll not only help yourself, you’ll help others who benefit from your work as well. We didn’t get our morals from religion, religion got their most universal morals from us, with additional baggage imposed by special interest groups (such as the clergy or the priesthood). Just because you “sin” doesn’t make you inherently flawed, fallen, lesser, or even retarded; it simply makes you human. In the end, we are all accountable to each other.

Just the concept of “perfection” is a nebulous concept used by self-righteous folk to serve their own ends. Rather, I postulate the following: Do turtles work as turtles? Yes. Do turtles work as eagles? Why should they?! Do eagles work as eagles? Yes. Do dogs work as dogs? Yes. Do humans work as humans? A resounding “yes”! Do humans work as robots or angels or gods? No. Why should they, if they are not those things?

If you have found yourself to be a perfection idealist, it does no good for anyone, least of all yourself. Embrace the fact that you’re a human being with this grand intellectual capacity and embrace the fact that you won the lottery of being alive whereas the rest of the sperm you competed against while your father ejaculated inside of your mother was not.