[jimbobghost]

we have, today, an excellent opportunity to establish a new socialist community.

the migrants now stranded at the southern USA border came from socialist countries. they saw the failures of the system, and might establish rules that overcome it's weaknesses.

should the international community (perhaps as presently identifiable as the UN) deed a land area somewhere on the globe for the settlement of these migrants; there would be the opportunity for them to establish a new order of Socialism.

such a new order would be free of former corrupt leaders, and perhaps then be able to prove that socialism is a workable form of governance. perhaps Marx was right...what say people; should we give socialism just one more chance to prove it's viability?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The "golden rule" is subject to sampling error.

It is fairly obvious that a "family" group (could be a biological family or a temporary unit like a ship's crew) will function better if its members can trust each other. The military understand this: selection for specialist duties includes checks for honesty and recognition that you are fighting for your mates first, your country second. So the "greatest happiness for the greatest number" (GHGN) metric is fairly easy to determine where N < 50, say.

Brexit provides a fine example of the breakdown of GHGN for very large N. There is no doubt that a customs union is good for business: whether you are an importer or an exporter, N is small and fewer rules and tariffs means more profit . But if the nation as a whole (N is large) imports more than it exports, increased business flow overall means more loss, hence devaluation and reduced public budgets.  At its simplest, you could model a trading nation as consisting of just two businesses of roughly equal size and turnover N_imp ≈ N_exp. Good news for any sample of size ≤ 2N is bad news for the whole population if  N_imp > N_exp by even a small amount, hence the interesting conundrum "EU good for British business, bad for Britain".

I see nothing wrong with the Golden Rule. A business operates on profit making rather than morality, if it does not profit, it ceases to be a business over time. It is for everyone's best interest that a business can continue to serve its customers. Otherwise, where are the customers going to get their goods and services? Customers have to be willing to give profits to businesses as incentive to keep them operating.

Premise 1: As a seller I want to maximize profit.
Premise 2: As a buyer, I want to minimize the seller's profit (pay the lowest price).

Let's look at the Golden Rule when applied to business.

If we follow this rule to its full extent, the seller would want to give as much discount to the buyer as possible (because that would be what he would have wanted if he were the buyer). Conversely, the buyer would not ask for a single discount (because that would be what he would have wanted if he were the seller)

When the golden rule is applied, both of these actions cancel themselves out.

In the sampling error illustration, the nation exporting to Britain receives the surplus profits. Yes Britain incurs a trade deficit, but this trade deficit is exactly offset by the trade surplus of the other country. There is no change in the system, simply an aggregate flow of money from Britain to the exporting nation. The trade deficit is comparable to the profit that we as buyers are willing to give sellers so that they would continue to operate and provide us the goods and services that we need.

Golden rule relies on the assumption that both parties are rational agents with compatible preferences. It doesn't work when the assumption isn't fulfilled, such as one sided love.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I'd like to share this entertaining take on moral rules. I hope you enjoy this.

George Carlin - 10 Commandments

[alancalverd]

Going back a paragraph or two, the problem  with communist countries has been the introduction of a command economy, where production targets and product standards are set centrally. This leads to all sorts of problems including the failure to develop or embrace new technologies (because they aren't necessary to meet the current production standard), overworking of land (because reaching today's target is essential and the price is fixed, so you can't have a "bad harvest" or rotate the crops - just pour on the fertiliser or lie about the yield) and Really Big Cockups because the project can't be delayed or raise extra funding to cover unexpected problems (so the plane falls out of the sky in front of the Great Leader).

This is quite different from socialist states where essential public services and primary industries are tax-funded or part-owned by the government. It would be difficult to class any part of Scandinavia or indeed most of western Europe as non-viable: trains run cheaply, on time, and nobody is bankrupted by medical bills; but if you have an urge to make handbags or space rockets, or grow exotic mushrooms, you can sell shares in your dream and have a go at anything you like.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

We can put some milestones in the continuum of complexity of shortcut rules. The next step from instinct is emotion. Emotion includes anticipation of near future events. We can feel sad/happy/fear/angry before events which potentially cause pleasure/pain actually happens.

The next steps from emotion are thoughtful actions, which require the systems to simulate their environments in their internal memory, and then choose the action based on the most preferred calculated result. More complex systems allow for more reliable results due to better precision and accuracy of the models in their memory, incorporating more factors, wider range in space and time. They can plan their actions to get best result further into the future.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

morality tests such as trolley problem is used to sort priorities of moral rules based on which action leads to the more preferable conditions.
Moral rules themselves are strategies to protect conscient beings from destructive actions by other conscient beings. It's part of multilayer protection strategy.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

We can put some milestones in the continuum of complexity of shortcut rules. The next step from instinct is emotion. Emotion includes anticipation of near future events. We can feel sad/happy/fear/angry before events which potentially cause pleasure/pain actually happens.

The next steps from emotion are thoughtful actions, which require the systems to simulate their environments in their internal memory, and then choose the action based on the most preferred calculated result. More complex systems allow for more reliable results due to better precision and accuracy of the models in their memory, incorporating more factors, wider range in space and time. They can plan their actions to get best result further into the future.

The progress of increasing complexity can be seen in development of human from fetus into an adult. Fetuses only have reflex. Babies have developed instincts. Toddlers may have shown emotions. Little kids can have planned actions for the results a few days ahead. Older kids can make longer term plans,  perhaps into the next few years. Adult humans can have plan for the next decades. Wise men may have plans for the next centuries or millennia.

[David Cooper]

the migrants now stranded at the southern USA border came from socialist countries. they saw the failures of the system, and might establish rules that overcome it's weaknesses.

They actually come from countries which were run for many decades by fascist dictatorships propped up by the US, and it's only in recent times that some of them have experimented with socialism, but the leaders of those experiments were seriously unhinged opponents of the old regimes who sought to take things to another extreme out of hatred for the previous rulers. Worse though, they've been up against more political interference in the form of a counter-productive war on drugs which has put so many guns in the hands of gangs that the police aren't in control of anything - all they do is spend their time avoiding being gunned down. That has led to the chaos from which refugees are fleeing, and none of them are experts in responsible socialism.

[jimbobghost]

...snip…"and none of them are experts in responsible socialism."
David,

perhaps they might avail themselves of the guidance of such notable socialists as George Soros, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi and the wide range of politically knowledgeable actors in Hollywood who have frequently voiced their views.

[ATMD]

I love George Carlin, he is considered as one of the best comedians of all time

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I love George Carlin, he is considered as one of the best comedians of all time

I agree.  Though some of his materials are considered too dark for pc culture people.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

morality tests such as trolley problem is used to sort priorities of moral rules based on which action leads to the more preferable conditions.
Moral rules themselves are strategies to protect conscient beings from destructive actions by other conscient beings. It's part of multilayer protection strategy.

Unfortunately though that most social experiments involving trolley  problem or its variants don't produce scientifically objective conclusion on which option is considered morally correct. They merely mention which one is chosen by most respondents, which may give different result when asked to different population samples at different time. It's also unclear which moral values are represented  by each option.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

We can put some milestones in the continuum of complexity of shortcut rules. The next step from instinct is emotion. Emotion includes anticipation of near future events. We can feel sad/happy/fear/angry before events which potentially cause pleasure/pain actually happens.

The next steps from emotion are thoughtful actions, which require the systems to simulate their environments in their internal memory, and then choose the action based on the most preferred calculated result. More complex systems allow for more reliable results due to better precision and accuracy of the models in their memory, incorporating more factors, wider range in space and time. They can plan their actions to get best result further into the future.

The progress of increasing complexity can be seen in development of human from fetus into an adult. Fetuses only have reflex. Babies have developed instincts. Toddlers may have shown emotions. Little kids can have planned actions for the results a few days ahead. Older kids can make longer term plans,  perhaps into the next few years. Adult humans can have plan for the next decades. Wise men may have plans for the next centuries or millennia.

Moral rules can't be applied to fetuses or babies, since they lack of thoughtful action capability. Any damages caused by their action/inaction are not their fault.
An extremely simplified moral rules might be applied to toddlers, although they are usually meant to protect themselves or perhaps their younger siblings. Damages due to their actions are not considered to be their fault. Instead they are under responsibility of their carer who created a situation that lead to those damages.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

a simple version of moral rules with short term rewards and punishment can  be applied to kids. They aren't considered to have required mental capacity to process long term objectives.
Some cultures even deviced make up stories to make them obey the make up rules, based on more primitive reward and punishment system related to emotion and instinct.
Some examples are ghost stories to prevent kids from going to dangerous places, fairy tales,  santa clause that give rewards to well behaved kids.
Reward and punishment system applied by parents to their kids are extension of internal rewards and punishment system already incorporated in kids' nervous system,  which is pain and pleasure. They can increase the chance for survival of the kids. The extension can increase the scope of calculation of cause and effects for the benefits of the kids beyond their current capabilities to process information.
This external system requires external agents to implement it by observing kids' behavior and actively giving rewards and punishment consistently according to some simple rules that have been setup and communicated to the kids. Since  parents can't observe kids behavior all the time, some fictional characters might be made up to make kids feel like in continuous surveillance and behave accordingly despite their parents' absence.
Some society leaders observed that those fictional characters still works even for adults, especially the less sophisticated ones. More intelligent people may play along just to avoid troubles. Religions and cults may arise from that.

[jimbobghost]

"Religions and cults may arise from that."

I have long held that religions and cults are synonymous. religious beliefs start out as "cults", and if they survive condemnation and persecution, eventually are accepted as "religions".

belief that a man could rise from the dead, getting "clear" by paying large sums, or receiving knowledge from scrolls  readable only with magic spectacles, were at the beginning of their creation, considered cults.

now, many accept them as true religions.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

"Religions and cults may arise from that."

I have long held that religions and cults are synonymous. religious beliefs start out as "cults", and if they survive condemnation and persecution, eventually are accepted as "religions".

belief that a man could rise from the dead, getting "clear" by paying large sums, or receiving knowledge from scrolls  readable only with magic spectacles, were at the beginning of their creation, considered cults.

now, many accept them as true religions.

This video shows the difference between cult and religion with some examples.

Spoiler: show

religions are cults that survive the death of their founder

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I'd like to share this entertaining take on moral rules. I hope you enjoy this.

George Carlin - 10 Commandments

Carlin's first commandment about honesty works most of the time, but it has limiting conditions. We should not be honest when communicating with someone doing immoral things, such as a mass shooter asking about people's hiding places, or how to fix a jamming gun. This means that there are moral rules with higher priority than honesty.
Apart from the exception above, there must be some positive value of honesty to make it widely accepted as a moral guidance.
Similar limit also applies to the second commandment about not to kill someone. Most people agree that there are exceptions to this rule, but disagreements still arise on what moral rules with higher priority are followed to make those exceptions. Frequently debated exceptions to killing someone are death penalty, euthanasia, abortion, war, self defense, public safety. Trolley problems as discussed in previous posts are also related to this rule.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Apart from the exception above, there must be some positive value of honesty to make it widely accepted as a moral guidance.

In normal situations, being honest is the simplest way of communication. Dishonesty requires additional steps of information process.
Basically, dishonesty is an active effort to make someone to acquire false information, hence making false assumptions, which in turn making them to get different result than their expectation, in favor of the dishonest people. Honest communication can make useful information to be shared among society members, hence helping them to make plans and carry out actions to achieve their goals. Dishonesty can cancel out that advantage, may even turn the communication into a disadvantage compared to no communication at all.
Dishonesty can be revealed through investigations, but they require resources in the form of time and efforts. Hence at least, honesty can save resource to be used in other means to achieve collective goals.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Some thinkers like Sam Harris and Matt Dillahunty try to find objective morality based on well being, which is discussed in this video. Matt tries to define well being starting with three foundations : life is preferred to death, health is preferred to sickness, and happiness is preferred to suffering. He also acknowledges that there are exceptions to those foundations, although he doesn't continue to follow up his argument to identify higher priority rules as the justified basis to make those exceptions.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

life is preferred to death, health is preferred to sickness, and happiness is preferred to suffering

Some questions naturally raises from those foundations of well being. Is there a priority among them? Which one has the highest priority? which is the lowest? how to determine that (what is the rule/criteria)? Is there any exception to that rule?
What if those foundations are compared against other moral rules currently applied in societies, such as golden rule, honesty, life preservation, justice, equality, fairness, kindness, love, altruism, utilitarianism, humanitarianism, loyalty, obedience, patriotism, nationalism, purity, etc. in dilemmatic situation like the trolley problem? How to determine that a rule can be justifiably violated in order to follow higher priority rules (again, what is the rule/criteria)? Is the preference constant, or it depends on other factors?
Can that criteria be used to evaluate other preferable behaviors which are more rarely related to moral values, such as discipline, diligence, carefulness, consistency, simplicity, courage, curiosity, creativity, cleverness, rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, enthusiasm, open mindedness, civility, politeness, empathy, sensitivity, tolerance, diversity, democracy, etc.?