Story A Story About Human Greed

[OneBigBlur]

I'd like to share a short story titled "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" narrated by Sam Harris. It's relevant to suicide and human suffering so I'm not entirely sure if this should be in off-topic. I cried the first time I listened to this even though I was already aware of humanity being a lost cause. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[WhyIsLife56]

I'm gonna have to look into this later

 

[OneBigBlur]

Bump

 

[a.n.kirillov]

The question is whether it is possible to affirm sentient life on a purely rational basis. He seems to think utilitarian minimization of suffering constitutes moral action and I agree with that; but he doesn't go far enough. In the end he still has to affirm life in spite of the one person who takes on the suffering of the world and this is an irrational act in my opinion. It's his will to live, his gut that makes the decision and not his intellect.

 

[OneBigBlur]

The question is whether it is possible to affirm sentient life on a purely rational basis. He seems to think utilitarian minimization of suffering constitutes moral action and I agree with that; but he doesn't go far enough. In the end he still has to affirm life in spite of the one person who takes on the suffering of the world and this is an irrational act in my opinion. It's his will to live, his gut that makes the decision and not his intellect.

I don't agree with him that donating money is the best way to mitigate human suffering at all. I feel as though this was the most convenient answer he could've come up with for his own psychological well being instead of tackling the problem on a more personal level. This would require treating the people that are right in front of him with kindness and compassion every single day. Simply throwing money at the problem to people halfway across the world isn't going to solve anything, it requires a systemic and collective effort on the part of everyone to help those right in front of them. I don't believe for a second that anything like that would happen because many of the people in our world care as little as the people of Omelas. They will continue feigning ignorance for their own sake as long as it isn't affecting them.

 

[OneBigBlur]

One more bump if anyone is interested.

 

[OneBigBlur]

One more bump if anyone is interested.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Maybe if you gave a brief synopsis as to its relevance for this audience, or wrote tags for why this would be of interest, such as political/philosophical stances (antinatalism, pro-suicide, etc.), sci-fi, etc.

You were profoundly impacted and offer to share that with others, but so far I'm not drawn to listen to it, hence the (hopefully helpful) suggestions.

 

[OneBigBlur]

Maybe if you gave a brief synopsis as to its relevance for this audience, or wrote tags for why this would be of interest, such as political/philosophical stances (antinatalism, pro-suicide, etc.), sci-fi, etc.

You were profoundly impacted and offer to share that with others, but so far I'm not drawn to listen to it, hence the (hopefully helpful) suggestions.

It'd spoil the impact of the story if I did. The story is about a near perfect society that finds suffering acceptable for the few if the rest of them are happy. What it really highlights is that our world is far worse than the one in the story and that people often willingly ignore the suffering around them because their own circumstances are positive. Many people on here have their personal reasons to commit suicide but I often see them also commit suicide because of how broken our world is and this story emphasizes that point well.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

Hey totally forgot about this post but haven't forgotten the story, so thank you!

Spoiler

@GoodPersonEffed it shows us a world we find utterly apalling and then on further reflection we find it is an analogy for our own world, but with way less cruelty and unfairness in it. That's the "trick" of the story