The Will to power, a core tennant of Nietzsche's philosophy

[SpookyZalost]

So I was reading through beyond good and evil again to go over it with what I know now vs when I originally read it. And I was intrigued by this idea that I'd seen pop up a few times in Nietzsche's works, the will to power.  Nietzsche was a firm believer that something other than pure Darwinist evolution was the driving force in life.  A hundred and fifty years ago there was an effort to refute or find an alternative to Darwin's evolution through adaptation, and what's interesting is Nietzsche figured out back then what I realized in the last few years.  Life doesn't just evolve to fill a niche adapting to survive in any situation, that's how it does things not why.

The meaning of life is to create more of itself, this is true on all scales from the microscopic to the very grand scales of the universe itself (In theory the end goal of life is to create a new universe to expand into and escape a dying one... in theory, that's when you get into type 5 and 6 civilizations.)  Beyond that is the search for purpose, a purpose beyond that which life already has, to create more and make everything in it's own image.  This is what separates consciousness from instincts and something Nietzsche called der Wille zur Macht  or the will to power.

What it boils down to is this.  All life wants control over it's environment, Gaining pleasure from that control and learning to expand and grow beyond your limitations is the purpose, be it in art, or science, or just living comfortably in a nice house.  The search for that is the real meaning beyond creating more life, at least according to Nietzsche.  Now granted this was in the late 1800's, and it shows in some of his other stuff with the sexist and sometimes authoritarian ideas on how to attain this.  However the basic idea isn't particularly wrong. 

Let's take a look at the recent struggles with the rich vs the poor. According to Nietzsche this is the master/slave dynamic and is what defines good and evil for a society based on good and bad consequences for those in charge, a topic I will have to go into in it's own thread.  The rich are constantly striving for power, they want to overcome their lot in life, to gain more control and feel the pleasure of that control.  Even at the expense of the lower classes.  Unfortunately they never overcome this and so society suffers.  This ends up causing pain for them from the fear of losing that control.  Ask any influential person what they fear most and I guarantee you it's the loss of their position in life.

You see the best people to put in charge are the people who don't want to be put in charge because they will only strive for more, to feed that will, that driving force with an unquenchable thirst.  Nietzsche describes this as Machtgelüst. the desire for more power.  It's what happens when you have the pleasure of power and control but a desire to overpower it, to have absolute control.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Overcoming this and sating that desire is how you move past it.  At least from what I've read from Nietzsche and tangentially related works as well as my own experiences.

Anyway that's just an interesting philosophical perspective.  It's not perfect, but it goes a long way to explaining the why of how things work these days.

[Kyng]

I almost hate to admit it, but the first person this made me think of was Lord Voldemort . "There is no good and evil: there is only power, and those too weak to seek it":



But I guess this does illustrate that, if we do accept the basic premise as valid, then it still needs to be tempered with a certain moral framework, to stop it from being abused. And I also have to ask: what kind of 'power' are we talking about here? There's power over oneself (which pretty much everybody would like to have), and there's power over others (which, in a hierarchical society like our own, some people will need to have - but we don't want it to be Lord Voldemort )

Still, whether or not it's morally 'right' (in the sense of describing how the world ought to be), I think it does a pretty good job of describing how the world is .

[SpookyZalost]

I almost hate to admit it, but the first person this made me think of was Lord Voldemort . "There is no good and evil: there is only power, and those too weak to seek it":

But I guess this does illustrate that, if we do accept the basic premise as valid, then it still needs to be tempered with a certain moral framework, to stop it from being abused. And I also have to ask: what kind of 'power' are we talking about here? There's power over oneself (which pretty much everybody would like to have), and there's power over others (which, in a hierarchical society like our own, some people will need to have - but we don't want it to be Lord Voldemort )

Still, whether or not it's morally 'right' (in the sense of describing how the world ought to be), I think it does a pretty good job of describing how the world is .

That's pretty much what it comes down to really.  in this case power is control over one's environment, all life seeks to grow and multiply, to control it's environment and make it more favorable for life.  Humans learned to make tools, to make fire for this very reason.

power over oneself is a big part because if you can't surpass yourself you kind of become stuck.

and then there's power over others.  Unfortunately groups get too hung up on this aspect of it which is kind of the big problem.

personally, I like the star trek approach.

"The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century.
The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

Now sidestepping the major issue with that given replicators and unlimited energy aren't a thing... we aren't a dyson swarm civ after all...

the biggest takeaway for me from this is that by removing the economic aspects of things, the acquisition of power and control through wealth.  They've solved a lot of problems simply caused by those with that power suffering from that Machtgelüst.  Let's give a real life example.  The main reason why there's still starvation, thirst, housing shortages etc.  Is not because we cannot solve these problems but that the problems exist to create a problem to solve, one that maintains the Power of those creating the problem to solve.

It's a paradox in a sense but what it comes down to is that instead of craving control over others we should instead attain control over our environment through ourselves.  I can tell you that my life certainly got a lot less frustrating and stressful when I learned to fix my problems rather than trying to find someone else to do them for me.  Morality, good, evil.  Are really just constructs to obscure what's good for the ones above by keeping the ones below in line... at least that's how beyond good and evil lays things out.

Rather than objective good vs objective evil.  Morality should instead be look at as what has the most positive and ideally benevolent outcome.  What is the most rational and logical choice to get there. 

Let's look at this from another stand point.  From our view, the Nazis were a terrible terrible group who committed terrible atrocities.  they killed thousands because they believed that they deserved the power.  this is that Machtgelüst. thing again which they wholeheartedly believed in a corrupted version of the idea.  To the Nazis what they were doing was morally good because it protected their power, their position in the world.  They deserved to make everything in their image.

Now this is fundamentally flawed for a lot of reasons, the least of which is that slaughtering one group really doesn't benefit anybody.  But also because this idea was passed down from the people in charge to the masses to make the morally good something wasteful, malicious, and malevolent.

The Crusades were another such case where one group (the Christians) believed themselves to deserve the title of THE religion, targeting anything that wasn't them and wiping out anyone that wasn't willing to go along with forced conversion.  They believed this to be morally good because they were bringing good to the savage peoples that didn't believe in god.

Humanity has a lot of stains on it's past repeating the same mistakes over and over again.  Those who lust for power, and have power, want to keep that power, and thus corrupt the methods to keep it by convincing the ones they have power over to believe it to be good.

When you move past that and boil everything down to facts, logic, and rational thinking you get choices that can be objectively bad but be benevolent in the long term, and choices that are objectively good but end up doing more harm than good.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions after all.

It's better to instead try to look at all sides and gather as much information as possible to make an informed decision when it affects the world around you.

That was kinda Nietzsche's point really, that there is no good and evil, only choices that people make, to avoid pain, to feed power, to gain control over others, to overpower someone.  It's only when you gain control over yourself and learn to affect your environment in a rational and logical way knowing the outcome of that choice that you can move past those limitations.

hopefully that seems less... evil. lol.

[Kyng]

Yeah, it does sound less evil . Certainly, the "control over one's environment" definition does make sense - although, other people will sometimes be part of our environment, so we can't really attain "control over our environment" unless we have power over other people .

Though, I think this point merits further discussion:

Rather than objective good vs objective evil. Morality should instead be look at as what has the most positive and ideally benevolent outcome. What is the most rational and logical choice to get there.

Looking at "what has the most positive and ideally benevolent outcome" sounds to me like an 'ends justify the means' approach towards morality, which I'm not really on board with. For example, let's suppose somebody were to go up to a random person on the street, kill them, and use their organs to save 10 other people who needed organ transplants. The outcomes would be very positive (you're saving 10 people in exchange for killing one, so you're saving a net 9 lives) - but I'd still consider it to be totally morally wrong, as it requires the murder of an innocent human being (and, crucially, said murder is intended as the means to the good outcomes). Granted, you did say "positive and ideally benevolent outcome" (and I don't believe you'd be in favour of killing that person on the street either!), but I hope my example shows the limitations of looking exclusively at the outcomes.

But I would certainly be interested to learn more about the 'Star Trek' economy, and exactly how a money-driven society might shift towards that!

[SpookyZalost]

Yeah you're right, that's why it has to be benevolent, also it would be illogical and a waste to kill a person simply to harvest their body parts... that just seems like too big of a line to cross really.  Honestly it'd be better off to simply grow organs from stem cells or cloning.  but I do get what you are saying.  Still the ends would not justify the means in that case since it'd be a waste of potential and faulty reasoning when there are definite and proven alternatives up to and including artificial alternatives to extend time.

so Society and economics really comes down to need and want vs have right?  but the problem is when a small group controls the have which gives.  The fact is... with current technology hunger, thirst, and medical care could be provided for every single person on the planet simply by virtue of automation and dedicated facilities such as vertical farms, desalination plants, and renewable power generation.  This of course would put a lot of very wealthy people out of business...

Housing can be constructed rapidly now thanks to 3D printed housing techniques and prefabricated structures... we could build an entire neighborhood or apartment complex in a week or two, have it plumbed and electrically connected a week after, and all with minimal staff and adhered to safety standards.  Of course the building inspector would be run ragged in the process...

We also live in an age when more and more people are working and getting their education over the internet (I myself am such a person.)

frankly if these things were to be implemented combined with a societal shift towards taking all that extra free time people suddenly have and working towards bettering themselves, that will to power thing again, in this case power over yourself and mastering it, bettering yourself by gaining useful skills and relying less on power over others, be it economic or otherwise.  That would lead to a world pretty close using current technology and knowledge...

the only problem is, a lot of very powerful, very wealthy people would lose power, which means they would not allow these positive changes to occur unless they were at least in control over how quickly they happen.

With a sufficiently dedicated global effort... all this could be done in 6 months to a year with proper training of sufficient staff, the hard part is the societal adjustment that comes after.  I mean you could just do nothing all day.  But when most people are doing... something, it would get kinda boring wouldn't it?.

[Kyng]

Yeah, something like that would be a major societal adjustment . And it wouldn't just be the wealthy people who get put out of business: it'd be all the working-class people whose jobs get automated away. And I'm not anti-automation or anything (I don't want us to go back to doing tedious and repetitive jobs that can easily be done by machines, and have been for decades now) - but I don't want the change to happen so quickly that society struggles to adjust to it.

And I think one thing that we all need in life is a sense of purpose. For some people, that comes from their friends/family, or perhaps their hobbies - but for me, my strongest sense of purpose has always come from my job. I always used to struggle with questions of "What's my purpose in life?" - but that all stopped when I got my first (and current) job as a programmer. And if that job were to be automated away (which it could be sooner rather than later), then I'd have to find something else.

Doing nothing all day would be fun for the first month or two, but yes, it'd get boring afterwards .

[SpookyZalost]

Kyng I don't think programmers are going anywhere lol.  Algorithms may be good but we need people to make the new system work 😆 and well... You can make that change without complete automation... We're actually seeing the beginning of that societal shift right now with the post COVID refusal to work menial jobs that don't pay enough.

If there was ever a time to start laying the groundwork it's now.