Had an early xmas pav.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Thought for the day
What is your thought on the individuals obligation to society?
I have been listening to and reading a lot of philosophy lately; especially in the ancient school there was a feeling that the educated person should serve society by using their gained wisdom in the realm of politics. Some thought this was an obligation, the philosopher should lead the plois (city) in a way to improve the lives for the inhabitants of the inhabitants.
A lot of that was top-down, "for your own good" noblesse oblige, but I'm fairly sympathetic to it.
I think realistically, much of our obligations to society stem from what we owe each other ethically as humans. Society is just the humans you're more likely to be able to affect.
I've been thinking about this all day, and I still don't have a good answer. I was hoping to hear some answers from others to prompt more thoughts!
I guess I believe a few things. I believe you should vote, and if you are able to vote and don't then you have no right to complain about the government.
I'm not sure I believe in an obligation for educated people to enter politics - though I do wish there was a higher level of education in politicians.
I feel like the idea that a philosopher had an obligation to partake in politics sounds like the belief of someone wealthy enough to sit around in ancient times without having to work. I'm sure there were plenty of peasants philosophising about life, the universe, and everything with no hope of getting involved in politics.
I think the closest thing we have to this in NZ is that by law (Education Act) academics are obligated to act as "critic and conscience of society" in their area. Some of them, eg Siouxie Wiles, seem to take that really seriously, others keep their heads down.
I'm not sure that's what @absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz has in mind though.
I wasn't really getting at that; though there are a few academics that make a good go at it.
I was thinking more along the lines of, it would be nice to see a much more of meritocratic system of government. I feel that a lot of politicians are too easily led by the nose; ministers don't seem understand their portfolios.
I realize that there are issues around meritocracies around equality/equity.
Yeah, the problem you run into there is the conflicts between meritocracy and democracy. Philosopher kings can't be elected unless youre drawing them from a sort of elite pool of people trained up to be oligarchs, and that's not really democracy.
However, our chances of having a more knowledgeable set of politicians would be vastly improved by having a population that is knowledgeable to draw them from - and an important part of that would be to de-couple education from social class and pair it with aptitude and merit.
E.g free universities that are much harder to get into. Narrower wage disparity. Public service broadcasting. Information packs like the Swiss have before their referendums. Etc.
Half the people I talked to after the last ection had an incredibly hazy idea of which policies they had just voted for, and I still haven't gotten over the time the entire NZ government voted for a policy none of then understood and had to hastily repeal it before it effectively shut down half the nation's intermediate schools.
However, our chances of having a more knowledgeable set of politicians would be vastly improved by having a population that is knowledgeable to draw them from - and an important part of that would be to de-couple education from social class and pair it with aptitude and merit.
This is precisely what I mean by meritocracy and the issue with equality/equity. We need to identify, reliably, the best way for each student to fulfill their potential. I don't care if you are the kid of Johnny White Trash, Mongrel Mob Mary or Nimby Niel; you deserve the opportunity to be your best. If every student fulfills their potential, the standard of leader we get will improve markedly.
The standard of everything would probably improve markedly.
So true
Cooked a duck + duck fat potatoes for tea tonight. Messed up the duck though, trying to cook it as I jumped between meetings. It ended up overcooked. The potatoes should be pretty nice though, I'm hoping!
Depends what you consider over cooked. I like the concept of eating duck, but I can't handle the fact the "fancy" people cook it so it's still a bit pink inside. It puts me off, so I can't eat it. I worry about salmonella. I wish I could get over it. Smells delicious. So maybe overcooked is the way to go if I get another opportunity.
Then, somebody gave us duck eggs. Same thing. Cracked it open and it didn't look like a chicken egg. So it put me off those too and they went in the bin. My brain seems to only allow chicken meat and chicken eggs.
I was not aiming for pink. The meat was a bit dry, I think it probably could have been cooked 10 or 20 mins less and would have been better. By the time people in my meeting stopped their jibber jabber the internal temp was 70C and would have gone higher while resting. The recipe I was following said to aim for about 60 then check the temp as it rests to bring it about 65. They called this "well done", so it was definitely more cooked than it should have been.
If it helps, salmonella doesn't need a particularly high temperature. It's a temp+time equation but if you're above 59C for 5 mins then it will kill salmonella. You can pasteurise eggs by keeping them not much above that temp for 5 mins and the salmonella will be killed without cooking the eggs.