Maximizing utility and how true power is gained.

In liberal-democracy we are afforded the benefit of security for the surrender of some of our freedom. The more freedom we give up the more security we have, and the more security we give up the more freedom we have. In liberal-democracy in the West, rights are emphasized on the individual’s freedom to maximize their self-interest, where in the East there is a focus more on collective or state interest. It could be said that the West has more focus on the deontology of life, where the ability for the individual to have the right to make choices regardless of the outcome is the right thing to have exist. In the East there is a focus on utility, where some people may get hurt in the process, but overall the community is better off.

Since I live in the West and the state has allowed me enough security to exercise certain amounts of my will, the question then becomes, what is the maximized utility of the individual who has the right to act as they please? Going back to the last couple writings, I would argue the best way to maximize the self is to know the self the best possible. We can never fully know the self or we would be gods of the self. We can never know all other intentions of other individuals or this too would make us similarly godlike. We can obviously know the self better than we know anyone else. Who then, should we take the time to get to understand if we cannot possibly understand the intentions of everyone? Should it not only matter that as long as people are giving me the thing I want from them, that this is all I need to know? I would say yes for most people. We do not have time to understand why the man who sells us ice cream is driven to sell it beyond the benefit we get from it. We may only care to inquire further if we thought the ice cream may harm us, or the man selling it could offer us more in life than just ice cream. This all comes down to caring. If we care, then there is enough incentive to dig deeper into something. The thing we care about however may be a compensation for what we truly desire. This is obviously our problem and not someone else’s unless helping us dig deeper in ourselves is of some benefit to them. This means those who are willing to benefit us on a level where they will be regularly integrated in our lives are worth getting to know more deeply than those we have basic trades with, and these same people we gain a lot from are the ones we want to understand the most, because helping them understand themselves more, will lead to them maximizing their utility, and if they are integrated into our lives, that means it will help us maximize our utility better in the process of helping them toward knowing ourselves.

Going a step further into this game of utility we may come to a situation where we are playing a game of maximizing ourselves, and in the process of doing so, someone else steps on our game without meaning it and we make them conscious of the fact. Who is wrong? I would argue it depends who we are in society. If I was the president of an authoritarian country who was stepped on then they are wrong. If I as an authoritarian dictator step on them, then they are wrong for being in the way of where I was playing. What it really comes down to is whoever has the power to do harm or damage to another is right. Does this mean if we have this power we should always do as we please without taking others feelings into account? I would argue no to an extent. No, because if you keep stepping on people smaller than you, it is only a matter of time before they come together and revolt against you. If you cannot crush them as an entire community, then it is in a greater interest to our utility to seek cooperation with them wherever we can find it. Besides, it is very difficult to crush entire communities, because some will always escape and rebuild new communities that are similar and more extreme. This then goes back to the prior paragraph of seeking to benefit ourselves and any others who seem to have similar interests. It is not wise to benefit others without getting benefited, or benefit ourselves without benefiting others most of the time. To truly maximize a utility of self is to benefit ourselves in as many ways possible as well benefit others in the process. The problem with going out of our way to benefit others is they may not get the benefit we seek to give them, or we may help them hoping to get a reward and then do not. If I were a professor and taught things I thought would help improve students lives, the fact is only a small portion of those students may take what I said and apply it the way I intended or even in a way that benefits their desires. Why then should I go out of my way to teach? I would say it benefits the teacher in seeing how well they are at their skill and improving themselves more than the student, but because students can benefit in the process we should continue teaching. At the same time we never went out of our way to teach these particular people. They chose to come into our classroom. The people who are going to get the lessons and use it in a way that is beneficial to them are the ones who get it, and not everyone will get what we try to teach them. At the same time, many people in a class may not know why they are even in a class, or took the class because it was the only thing available for an elective. The point being made is we should not go out of our way help people become conscious of the things they will not become conscious of in life with or without our help. People who are going to get certain things in life will get them, and certain people will not. It is not our job to teach them lessons unless they seek them, and even in seeking them, they may still only learn through their own experience. We should not try to pull people up to our level of consciousness on an issue unless we can benefit from doing so in the process.


This goes back again to playing a game to maximize utility and who is right or wrong in a situation. In a liberal-democracy where the emphasis is on the individual freedom, people for the most part are equals under the law. We know that even though this may be true under the law, we still have hierarchies and power structures within such a liberal-democracy. Lets say I am a prominent figure within a subculture and someone starts dating a girl I used to have a good time with. When I was playing with the girl, I was playing game X. The new man is playing game Y. Game X and Y are similar in certain respects, but regardless are different games. Since there are some similarities in the games there is an area where similar partials overlap, and my toes are stepped on, because I am uncomfortable, but the player of game Y is not conscious till I notify them. Game Y had no intention in making me uncomfortable. They were simply going after happiness and my toes happen to be standing beneath where they are stepping. Who is wrong? It should not be game Y’s concern if my feelings are hurt or I am uncomfortable. In what situation should they care then? It should only be their concern if I had been integrated in their life long enough and deep enough that I brought more utility to their life than this new person. If I am more prominent than he is however within our subculture, I have the power to make his life hard on him by making others dislike him till he leaves and my zone of comfort has returned. Morals are decided by whom we care about and who benefits us. Therefore, right and wrong are only relative to those we have emotional empathy built toward. We have no obligation to make other people’s lives better for them unless they have the power to harm us. Even as a prominent figure however, we may perform an action that is seen as disgraceful to the community and this may lower our prominence within the community or even cause us to have to leave. The example is that, even though I have the prominence to make the player of game Y’s life harder on them by trying to make others dislike them forcing them to leave the community, I may be seen as dishonorable for doing so in my self interest to the community and fail in my plot to harm others intentionally that meant me no harm in the pursuit of happiness.

If we look at the life of Jesus, we would not see a peaceful man according to an account like the book of John, but when looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls, the account of a man who wanted to change power structure of the status quo. Jesus preached of the coming of a kingdom that would liberate the Jews and replace the Roman kingdom. He not only wanted to abolish the Roman Empire, which he believed it would take place in the form of a holy war from forces above, but he also was likely an Essene, which was an extreme sect of Judaism that wanted to radicalize and take precedent over the other Jewish beliefs at the time. Jesus drove everyone from the temple, and was then put to death. His followers afterward sought to spread his message, and this message of a holy war against the Empire was seen as a threat. Eventually, the Jews all assembled at Jerusalem for what they thought would be the final apocalyptic battle to be crushed by the Roman army and had their city burned down. What is to be learned from this is that even though we believe having our own beliefs are important, if they come in conflict with those more powerful than us we should compromise our beliefs in the areas that are in conflict. If we seek to do harm on them for being more powerful and are treating us well, we are actually practicing weakness due to our insecurity. What you find later is that Christianity fuses with pagan beliefs due to its persistence not to die in opposition to the Empire, and then is eventually fused with the Caesar as the new monotheistic being that rules over everyone. Nothing really changed in the structure. The only thing that changed was the titles of the existence of the same things. Strength is something gained through the building of the self. It is not a building of the self in opposition to others, but should only be to define ourselves relative to others. To seek infliction of damage unto others is a sign of weakness for fear of them overshadowing us. To run from things that make us insecure or fearful of being in their shadows is also a sign a weakness. Strength is having the power to treat people well. It is not the giving kind in the Christian sense where we give for the sake of giving, because people who give just to be liked really do not have anymore to give than this, and this too is a sign of weakness. It is not giving to those less benefited than us just because we have the power too, because this then makes them reliant on us. It is having the power to make people’s lives better, because we see something in them that can help make our lives better too. If they have nothing that can make our lives better, or are making us unhappy, we should only exist relative to the weaker as the stronger, and in the shadow of those stronger than us as their weaker. To overcome those who are stronger than us, we must not fear them or seek to harm them, but seek to build ourselves up to their level from within through cooperation with them or others at our level till we reach them. This is justice created through peace, and peace created through justice by exercising power properly.

What this really comes down to is no matter how much power we have, the only real power is the kind we gain through cooperation with those who benefit us emotionally and tangibly the way we desire. Going out of our way to harm others for our own benefit will eventually make our lives worse, the same as going out of our way to help people who do not benefit us. This means we should do what ever is in our benefit where others can benefit too, but if people step on out toes on accident, it seems to be wiser to know ourselves better, so in the future we do not stand where our toes can get stepped on again instead of seeking to stop people from playing in a way that is maximizing themselves and might accidentally harm us. If we consciously seek to harm these people back for accidentally causing us pain or damage, they may not understand why we are harming them for trying to be happy, because once again, some people will get it and some people will not. If we try to educate them, they may still not get it. They will only learn pain by experiencing it in the same way they dealt it, and that is not for us to teach them. If we just learn to understand ourselves, we can know how to avoid being in the way of others and still find ways to better ourselves that are not beneath their feet when playing. Nobody likes a weak person. A weak person is one who seeks to harm others on purpose to advance themselves, the same as a weak person is always giving with their heart on their sleeve, because they have nothing to offer but just that. A strong person builds themselves up so they have things people want, and when they find discomfort, loss, or pain, they do not seek to change or harm others to benefit themselves. They seek to change themselves to benefit themselves and others in the process. This person will do what is best for themselves and the community.