SovereignIndividuals

Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

huh? you mean just plain Self Centred?

I don't know exactly, I believe it means that the individual is his own controller, he chooses his own paths. What he does is his responsibility, no one elses.

It is the ultimate decentralization of power. True freedom means we are king of our own realm. It is good to be king. Our SocialContract must support our sole soverency of ourselves and our personal world if we are to be really free.

At least it would be nice if adults could be treated like adults.

What do you mean by that LorraineLee? Saying that "adults could be treated like adults" is a very broad statement. For an adult to a child you 'are' and adult, to a mother you are a child, and to fellow adults your just another person, a fellow sentient being on this earth. --KenSchry

Well, I don't know about that KenSchry. A lot of the problems between people, even on the adult-adult level, is because people do not really see other people as truly sentient, feeling beings. We consider this lack of seeing others as real beings to be a sign of immaturity, but frankly, even mature people occasionally forget that other people are real, feeling beings, and look at them as simply walking meat to be used for their purposes (blowing off steam, scamming money, personal toy, whatever). ---StarPilot

All your saying StarPilot is that it's a balance of power. If you boss is obnoxious and cruel, he/she doesn't treat you like an adult, he/she treats you like scum because you are less powerful then him/her. But, oddly it brings you back to power. In a community ruled by a dictator or leader, for the most part they stick together. But rival kings or leaders despise each other because they each want more power, and wants to be greater then the guy next to him/her. Power is money is greed. --KenSchry

Not just boss/employee relationships. Go out clubbing with a group of your friends. If you hit a singles meat market, you will see plenty of people treating others as pure meat.

Or go shopping. You'll hit places where you aren't anything but a task to the cashier that rings you up. And see people that treat the cashier as just an extension of the register.

All sorts of nastiness, and lack of respect. Why? Because people are not thinking about others; they are not treating others like they would want to be treated ; they are not thinking of the other people in terms of them being living, feeling, emotive beings. Just something that can do something for them. Self centered thinking.

On the larger scale of clans/tribes/communities dealing with each other, this kind of behavior is the norm. It's a lot easier for a feeling, sensitive person to feel its alright to treat a community as if they did not matter. Why? Because the community isn't seen as being 'a real person'. So the sensitive people will not protest their community acting that way to other communities. The community that treats others in the fashion it wants to be treated is an anomaly, and one that doesn't survive for long.

Yes, in the framework that power mongers want more power, they compete with each other in their power layer for more. However, they tend to also take more power from those subordinate to them, whenever they can. People who want more power will take it however they can. And keep it until forced to relinquish it, by others or by death.

---StarPilot

Your example is pretty good SP, you do it yourself;-)? But no matter what, It's still literally the same. No matter what the exaample, it's still a delegation of power. Take your singles bar example. A male goes into a singles bar, and in his mind the women in there are meat. They are thing to use, and throw away like a tissue. Why? Again, my answer is money. The people who usually do that are rich, or actors/actresses, or in 'a position of power'. They attract the women by money, even as subtle as buying a drink for them. And being in a position of power, they can afford to treat the person like dirt. --KenSchry

I've got a great partner right now, so I'm not hunting for play mates. Just going out and having fun with friends. A few of my friends are professional night lighters and entertainers (DJs, musicians, sound techs, etc), so I still get to watch all the fun and games of humans at play when I go hang out at their work-places. And as for the male/female thing out hunting for sex, all my good male friends are seriously involved at the moment. It's my gal pals that are currently the ones going hunting for a one or two night experience. And interesting reversal of social norms, I think.

Second, even when I was "on the market", I always respected those I spoke with, as I was looking for a partner to share more then just a simple night's encounter. This lead to a lot more opportunities to get to know partners then just playing 'El silly studdo with fat wallet'.

Third, you are not talking about money. You are talking about power. However, their power is merely their emotional enabler for displaying that behavior openly. They are treating other people as objects, instead of people, because they are not relating to those individuals as real people. They are relating to them as objects. They are being completely self-centered/self-absorded and viewing the other people as objects to be manipulated to gain whatever they want. The exact same behavior we see in infants and toddlers. That is why we consider it to be 'immature'. Having some form of personal power merely allows these immature individuals to act in that fashion, because they do not feel that they need to act differently.

You seem to be mistaking their behavior as its own cause. It isn't. People with lots of power (whether financial or of other forms) that see others as equally valid beings still treat others with respect and consideration, unless forced to otherwise (a leader over others currently in combat or some other life and death situation).

If you are making a bit of cash working as a waiter at a country club (and doing research on the effluent and rich), and one of your customers treats you purely as someone to fetch things, that is because they are not treating you as a person as well as a waiter. If however, the customer goes along the custom norms (saying hello back, smiling at you, saying thanking you), they are treating you with respect, which is a social show of accepting you as a person. They might not mean it, as they may simply be polite people, but that is why such social customs evolve... people showing other people that they acknowledge them as equally feeling beings.

Keep in mind that the most dangerous people in our society are classified as not having any understanding that other people are real, feeling, living beings. If you never outgrow your beginning world view, that all other people are merely objects to be manipulated to do what you want, you are clinically classified as a sociopath. That's a form of mental illness that cannot be treated, one in which they'll just commit you to an institution somewhere, and keep medicated so that you can never become a threat to anyone.

Some points for you to consider.

---StarPilot

Your forgetting what is said before. Money/greed is a lead to power.

Second, tank you for correcting me. I should have used the terms some or most, instead of grouping them all.

Your still looking at the scenario, not the position. In the Waiter/Custimer theory, there is nothing different from your other ideas. The waiter holds the position of power over the waitress (no matter how slight). And as you pointed out, there is a choice which some choose to take. --KenSchry

You are mistaking the enabler. Power is nothing more then their personal crutch for when they feel safe behaving in that particular way. Just like when people get tipsy and start treating others badly (or hitting on them, or whatever). It is their personal enabler. But it is not the cause of the behavior.

Pick any scenario you want. Some people will only treat others as objects when they feel enabled. Others don't need that enabler, as they only see a small select group of homo sapiens as being human (while others see most of humanity as being human). That's where I am making the distinct between what you are saying, and what I am saying. Does that make my point any clearer to you? I don't see the money/power as being the key factor. It is merely a variable. If that belief and behavior wasn't already present in the person, then that behaviour would not manifest because they suddenly came into a billion dollar lottery winning.

---StarPilot

The Self-Sovereign Individual Project http://selfsip.org

Mission:

To provide the foundational ideas and the ordering framework for a new society that will challenge responsible individuals to reach a higher level of maturity in their interactions with each other.

It includes a [[|http://selfsip.org/solutions/socialcontract.html Declaration of Individual Independence||http://selfsip.org/solutions/DOII.html]] and Natural Social Contract

While the focus is different, I like a lot of what I see there.

Contrast with SocialContract and DeclarationOfInterdependence.

This may fit with AnewGo.

--JimScarver