What IS the point?

[Moose423956]

What's the point...

...of posting on CUK. Does it make a difference?
...of going to work every day. Does anyone really benefit?
...of trying to do the right thing, when all around people are breaking the law or abusing the system and getting away with it.
...of Question Time. What a waste of electricity.
...of this thread. I might as well delete it.

[NickFitz]

What's the point...

...of posting on CUK. Does it make a difference?

A difference to what? It's not going to change the world, but it might allow you to change your world a little bit by venting some angst and finding out if other people feel the same way. You might even find that people offer useful advice - although that's more likely to happen anywhere but General, and if it's life issues you need to deal with, your best bet is TPD

...of going to work every day. Does anyone really benefit?

It depends on the work you do. A doctor can probably expect to make at least one person's life better each time they go to work, yet even the person who works at Asda putting up the "Reduced" notices may be making people's lives better in some small way - maybe the single mother on benefits (let's say she's a widow, to stop the trolls ranting) who sees the notice and finds she can afford to feed her children with fresh vegetables instead of frozen garbage benefits from their work. As do her children. And as do the rest of us, because then the children aren't full of E102, hyperactive, and pulling the windscreen wipers off our cars like baboons at a safari park.

...of trying to do the right thing, when all around people are breaking the law or abusing the system and getting away with it.

This is the deepest question in meta-ethics: why is it necessary to have a distinction between right and wrong in the first place?

The simplistic explanation (and none the worse for that) is that we have ethics (or moral codes, or whatever) for the purpose of ensuring the greatest good of the community, because that is ultimately something that is good for ourselves individually.

We see this in Chimpanzees, Orang-Utans, Gorillas, and Bonobos: whatever the tensions in the social dynamics of the group, there are still certain standards that are adhered to, because it is instinctively understood (or perhaps understood as a result of social conditioning) that without acceptance of certain social norms regarding standards of conduct (i.e. morals), the group itself would be in danger - united we stand, divided we fall, and all that.

The more complex explanation involves the fact that, as a species with the capacity for abstract thought and the understanding of idealised concepts, we are able to appreciate the difference between right and wrong to the extent that, far from adhering to such concepts for our own ultimate good, we are in fact capable of sacrificing our own lives for the good of others: history is replete with examples, but closest to our own lives (or at least those of our parents, or grandparents) are probably those Resistance members who willingly sacrificed their own lives after prolonged torture by the Gestapo as part of the long, drawn-out process of defeating the Nazis.

If you explore it deeply enough, you'll find that you can, in fact, discover why it's the right thing to do. It generally involves realising that if everybody broke the law and abused the system, there'd be no law and no system, just anarchy; and not only would that be bad for you personally, you also wouldn't want to be involved in doing it to everybody else, because you (perhaps subconsciously) understand that there is value in maintaining a coherent social structure that eschews the abuse of others.

You do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. Putting it like that sounds like an intellectual cop-out, but in fact we all know that this is the case. The real problems in society are caused by people who don't even know that there is a right thing to do, or who know that there is, but don't do it because of a misguided selfishness. You do the right thing because you're better than that.

...of Question Time. What a waste of electricity.

Point taken

...of this thread. I might as well delete it.

Please don't. The point of this thread is that you asked some important questions. If people stop doing that, we're all damned

[TimberWolf]

What's the point...

...of posting on CUK. Does it make a difference?

No.

...of going to work every day. Does anyone really benefit?

Yes, you.

...of trying to do the right thing, when all around people are breaking the law or abusing the system and getting away with it.

You only notice the bad things that stand out from a sea of good things. A bit like standing in the slowest queue at a supermarket.

...of Question Time. What a waste of electricity.

Entertainment

...of this thread. I might as well delete it.

I don't think you can.

Just bear in mind you are just a complex badly written deterministic computer program and there is no point in anything you do. It just happens.

[DS23]

fitzy, i take my hat off to you sir. superb reply.

[PAH]

The point of life is to occupy yourself until you die.

[NickFitz]

fitzy, i take my hat off to you sir. superb reply.

Cheers DS