Reply personal responsibility is a crock: here is why

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cubedemon6073
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24 Nov 2020, 10:22 pm

kitesandtrainsandcats wrote:

cubedemon6073 wrote:

This is the issue with personal responsibility and why I see the whole thing as a bunch of poppycock. If I make the right choices and I still end up with negative circumstances then was my circumstances dependent upon the choices I made? Could I have made any other choices then the ones I made? Does personal responsibility make sense If one is guaranteed nothing in life? Does personal responsibility hold up logically? I don’t see how. And, that is why I think personal responsibility is a crock.

An individual person's personal responsibility is part of an intermeshed system of everyone's personal responsibilities in each of several scales of effect from small and narrow to large and wide.

Re: "If I make the right choices and I still end up with negative circumstances then was my circumstances dependent upon the choices I made?"
In some ways no and yes at the same time for the same thing.
Illustration:
Let's say you are driving somewhere and you take personal responsibility to follow the traffic rules and stop at a red light.
Someone else does not and they choose to run the light from the opposing direction, then hit a car crossing on the green for their direction and both cars crash in to your car where you had responsibly stopped at the red light.

Ultimate fault and consequences are on the driver who irresponsibly chose to run the red.
Their lack of personal responsibility negatively impact your life.

Your personal responsibility is that if you hadn't chosen to travel that route at that time then you would not have been in that wreck, which in no way makes the wreck any fault of yours nor gives you any responsibility for its cause, the sole cause was the person who rejected their personal responsibility and chose to run the red. And you are perfectly justified in choosing to travel by that route at that time with the totally reasonable expectation and understanding that doing so would be safe and normal.

(but what if their brakes had failed? But what if they had a medical emergency? But what if I'd gone a different route and had a wreck anyway? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? But what if ...? -- but what if there are infinite what ifs?)

Re: Could I have made any other choices then the ones I made?
Both yes and no. The choices you made were a result of the factors which led to making that choice.
Sometimes those factors can be willfully ignored or overcome and sometimes not.
Sometimes the range of available choices in some situations demands certain choices, sometimes not.
For instance, true or false questions on tests, you can chose T, F, or skip the question.

Here's a personal responsibility question from my life yesterday;
After an argument in the apartment manager's office the neighbor involved left for a time then returned to the office and threatened to shoot me. She is bipolar and on medication. Was she able to apply personal responsibility and chose to not threaten me or does the disease prevent her from exercising her will to control her actions?

Well, either she is not taking her meds as prescribed or her meds aren't working. If it is the former then I say she has a responsibility to take these meds and if she did then more then likely she would not have done what she did. If it was the latter then I say she is not responsible due to diminished capacity. Either way, she needs to be put in some kind of institution until they get her on meds and the meds work.

Tempus Fugit
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25 Nov 2020, 7:59 am

I think a person who takes greater personal responsibility is better equipped to deal with unforseen unavoidable situations.

Fnord
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25 Nov 2020, 9:08 am

Tempus Fugit wrote:

I think a person who takes greater personal responsibility is better equipped to deal with unforseen unavoidable situations.

People who take responsibility for themselves are also better equipped to take advantage of unexpected opportunities.

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XFilesGeek
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25 Nov 2020, 10:01 am

A person's circumstances are a mix of both personal choice and unavoidable misfortune.

I've long since lost the patience to discuss anything of importance with people who refuse to acknowledge that.

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Fnord
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25 Nov 2020, 10:06 am

XFilesGeek wrote:

A person's circumstances are a mix of both personal choice and unavoidable misfortune.

I've long since lost the patience to discuss anything of importance with people who refuse to acknowledge that.

Oh, I acknowledge it, alright; but along with "personal choice and unavoidable misfortune" comes "unexpected opportunities".

"Good Luck" favors those who take personal responsibility to prepare for unexpected opportunities.

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XFilesGeek
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25 Nov 2020, 10:32 am

My mother is currently dying in my living room. I'm going to have to leave my job to take care of her. I currently have twenty bucks in my savings account.

Guess I should have taken more personal responsibility and chosen to be born to a different mother.

Fnord
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25 Nov 2020, 10:46 am

XFilesGeek wrote:

My mother is currently dying in my living room. I'm going to have to leave my job to take care of her. I currently have twenty bucks in my savings account. Guess I should have taken more personal responsibility and chosen to be born to a different mother.

I feel much sadness that you are going through what I went through last year with my own mother.

My comments are not an indictment of anyone's actions, nor am I blaming anyone for their own misfortunes. Sometimes, unavoidable and unforeseen misfortune overwhelms even the most prepared and responsible of people.

Are there any social programs in your area that could help you out?

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TheRobotLives
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25 Nov 2020, 10:52 am

Fnord wrote:

XFilesGeek wrote:

A person's circumstances are a mix of both personal choice and unavoidable misfortune.

I've long since lost the patience to discuss anything of importance with people who refuse to acknowledge that.

Oh, I acknowledge it, alright; but along with "personal choice and unavoidable misfortune" comes "unexpected opportunities".

"Good Luck" favors those who take personal responsibility to prepare for unexpected opportunities.

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Then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on, and you cast your fears aside, and you know you can survive.

Be the hero of your life.

Tempus Fugit
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25 Nov 2020, 11:32 am

XFilesGeek wrote:

I wouldn't say that. But I would say she is benefiting from the personal responsibility you've taken to care for her.

cubedemon6073
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25 Nov 2020, 7:22 pm

Fnord wrote:

XFilesGeek wrote:

A person's circumstances are a mix of both personal choice and unavoidable misfortune.

I've long since lost the patience to discuss anything of importance with people who refuse to acknowledge that.

You know what you said is true my friend. Why do you think I'm in China taking advantage of this teaching opportunity?

cubedemon6073
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25 Nov 2020, 7:35 pm

Fnord wrote:

XFilesGeek wrote:

My mother is currently dying in my living room. I'm going to have to leave my job to take care of her. I currently have twenty bucks in my savings account. Guess I should have taken more personal responsibility and chosen to be born to a different mother.

I feel much saddness as well. My mother died 5 years ago. I can't believe 5 years passed so quickly. I am still sad about that. XFilesGeek, I understand what you're going through.

Fnord, for me sometimes it is difficult to understand the spirit (I don't know a better term) of the comment that they say it in. Without clarification like you gave I would've felt like you were attacking XFilesGeek even though you weren't. This is because of my own version of aspergers/autism. That's not your fault. I have difficulty telling what someone's intent is sometimes. So, it's all good.

cubedemon6073
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25 Nov 2020, 7:42 pm

TheRobotLives wrote:

Fnord wrote:

XFilesGeek wrote:

A person's circumstances are a mix of both personal choice and unavoidable misfortune.

I've long since lost the patience to discuss anything of importance with people who refuse to acknowledge that.

I actually agree with your picture Robot. But, you know what's funny though. I would not have understood the message without having to program a pivot calculator for someone a long time ago. I had to come up with a new random number generator because the one that was built in (because he was Swedish and he had his settings set for his language and keyboard) didn't work well.

Here was the issue. Let's say I have numbers 1 - 10. What the built in random number generator did was it chose numbers 1 through 4 most of the time instead of choosing 1 - 10 equally.

So, using this as an analogy of the random number generator, particular outcomes of choices that one makes are more likely then other outcomes. I don't know if this makes sense to any of you or not but it makes sense to me. This is how I naturally think. I don't know if you all think this way or not and if you don't understand I can try to explain this better.

TheRobotLives
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25 Nov 2020, 9:50 pm

Some conservatives argue:

1. You made a series of sub-optimal decisions in your life.
2. Those decisions are a factor in your present dilemma(s).
3. So, you're personally responsible.
4. So, you're to blame.
5. Lesson: get good, get smart, get better, don't screw up , stop doing stupid.

How do you respond?

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Then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on, and you cast your fears aside, and you know you can survive.

Be the hero of your life.

cubedemon6073
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26 Nov 2020, 7:28 pm

TheRobotLives wrote:

But, when I ask these conservatives in my past to explain the series of sub-optimal decisions, what I did wrong and why they won't do it. They'll do a complete song and dance instead of sitting down and explaining things outright to me.

And, they never explain what other decisions I could've made and how could I have known the sub-optimal decisions in my life were really sub-optimal.

And, they never ever want to explain how to go forward.

In essence, I can't make good decisions in my life if I don't always know what the good decisions are and they aren't explained to me. Yes, there are obvious ones like don't do drugs but then there are non-obvious ones.

Conservative's perfectionist demands of people are impossible.

TheRobotLives
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27 Nov 2020, 12:01 pm

Conservatives want you to be self-sufficient, so they think decisions that likely increase self-sufficiency are considered better than decisions that likely decrease self-sufficiency.

Positive self-sufficiency decisions:
-attending college/learning a trade
-finding a job
-stop bad habits of drugs, alcohol, gambling
-saving your money for the future (not blowing it in the present)

As you pointed out earlier, "bad luck" means there is no guarantee of success.

However, as also pointed our earlier, attempting to become self-sufficient likely results in more favorable outcomes of success.

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Then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on, and you cast your fears aside, and you know you can survive.

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27 Nov 2020, 12:23 pm

Seriously, how do you take personal reasonability when you had no control over it? s**t happens. People like to pretend bad things only happen because you made it happen but what if your house burns down because some idiot threw a lit cigarette in your yard? Should you have not lived in that house?

I would like to think that personality responsibility is something you learn from that is avoidable or do things that is preventable like don't plug anything in near the stove or make sure the cord is not on the stove and don't expect anyone else to check and be paying attention when they use that stove. Assume everyone around you is an idiot.

So people are too stupid to read your description when you are selling something, put it in the title then. Use your own photos on what you are selling, not stock photos from online. Even put "read description" in your title. That way you pay less for peoples stupidity and I mean literally less because stupid people can cost you money. Learn from your mistakes.

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