Scenario 2
OK, the long previous post was mostly preamble to what I really wanted to talk about. Which is what happens if the fish stock don't recover and Thog's fishing is, in fact, irrevocably doomed?
One point of view is that Thog did his part, learning to fish, doing a hard and often pleasant job with pride from an early age, and there was an implicit contract with society that he would be able to go on doing so.
Another is that it's Thog's own stupid fault for not inheriting a more luxurious and/or reliable profession from his father like everyone else, and because their assumption that [white collar job X] or [intensive agribusiness] or [the financial industry] was going to continue unchanged has yet to be challenged, that demonstrates their own acumen and/or luck, for which they deserve to be rewarded. And because the assumption Thog that was taught, that fishing [or coal mining] would be eternal turned out to be tragically flawed is his own mistake, and you can't afford to reward it or everyone will be rushing into doomed professions without thought to get sympathy and being a drain on people who foresee the future correctly.
This is not an easy question to answer. You definitely feel aggrieved if you DO do the responsible thing and someone else doesn't, if you don't get any benefit from it. But OTOH, many people fail to do a responsible thing not from any particular fault of their own.
( Read more... )
OK, the long previous post was mostly preamble to what I really wanted to talk about. Which is what happens if the fish stock don't recover and Thog's fishing is, in fact, irrevocably doomed?
One point of view is that Thog did his part, learning to fish, doing a hard and often pleasant job with pride from an early age, and there was an implicit contract with society that he would be able to go on doing so.
Another is that it's Thog's own stupid fault for not inheriting a more luxurious and/or reliable profession from his father like everyone else, and because their assumption that [white collar job X] or [intensive agribusiness] or [the financial industry] was going to continue unchanged has yet to be challenged, that demonstrates their own acumen and/or luck, for which they deserve to be rewarded. And because the assumption Thog that was taught, that fishing [or coal mining] would be eternal turned out to be tragically flawed is his own mistake, and you can't afford to reward it or everyone will be rushing into doomed professions without thought to get sympathy and being a drain on people who foresee the future correctly.
This is not an easy question to answer. You definitely feel aggrieved if you DO do the responsible thing and someone else doesn't, if you don't get any benefit from it. But OTOH, many people fail to do a responsible thing not from any particular fault of their own.
( Read more... )