All Actions have Consequences. As do all Inactions.

[sethoflagos]

I watched a Youtube video tonight that pulled together a few lines of thought that I'd been pondering over without linking them together.

What really grabbed me was the contrast between the fragility and improbability of complex civilisation with the indestructability of quantum information.

Why such a visceral reaction to this? Well I've not taken part in any democratic process for over 25 years on the grounds of too much hassle; I don't live in the country where I could vote; my vote probably wouldn't make much of a difference anyway. And yet those decisions not to act, via the indestructabilty of quantum information, must have measurable consequences stretching out to the end of time. That's one hell of a long time for the butterflies wingflap to perturb the evolution of the universe.

I'm seeing the epitaph on my tombstone.

Seth

1958 - 2028

Did f*** all to defend his personal values

Suddenly I'm drawn a lot closer to a POV often expressed by @Ken Fabian  

[Peterkin]

Butterflies may feel very important when they hear that. But they're really not. Thing is, while everything everyone does or doesn't do (You also didn't kill or rape or abuse anyone, right?)  (Right?) has a lasting effect on everything that happens thereafter, the effects of each individual are not equal: some acts are a lot more consequential than others; some people leave bigger tracks than others.

[Ken Fabian]

@sethoflagos - I'm not sure what I said that made such an impression; I am gratified that it appears to have been a good impression. But should I be more careful of what I say? Or more to the point, be more careful to live up to what I say?

[TheVat]

 

 

12 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

 Well I've not taken part in any democratic process for over 25 years on the grounds of too much hassle; I don't live in the country where I could vote; my vote probably wouldn't make much of a difference anyway.

I look at voting from the perspective of collective action.  Which works when people believe in it.  My individual vote doesn't probably make a difference but the votes of everyone like me do.   So it's something one could view as an expression of confidence in yourself as part of a larger whole that is a democracy.  It has a psychological value, overcoming stasis and apathy and cynicism, which ripples causally through the rest of your life.  And who knows it might encourage someone else you know to vote.  So there's a sort of chain reaction possibilty there, maybe.  I'd encourage all you butterflies to flap the wings a bit.

 

[sethoflagos]

5 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

@sethoflagos - I'm not sure what I said that made such an impression; I am gratified that it appears to have been a good impression. But should I be more careful of what I say? Or more to the point, be more careful to live up to what I say?

I see you contributing quite frequently on climate change issues. Maybe it's a generalisation, but the impression that I get from your posts is that every little bit that we can do to reverse the current trend counts. No matter how insignificant our personal efforts may seem at the time.  

57 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I look at voting from the perspective of collective action.  Which works when people believe in it.  My individual vote doesn't probably make a difference but the votes of everyone like me do.   So it's something one could view as an expression of confidence in yourself as part of a larger whole that is a democracy.  It has a psychological value, overcoming stasis and apathy and cynicism, which ripples causally through the rest of your life.  And who knows it might encourage someone else you know to vote.  So there's a sort of chain reaction possibilty there, maybe.  I'd encourage all you butterflies to flap the wings a bit.

I guess I've a tendency to vote with my feet. I may not have much impact at the ballot box, but transferring my economic activity to a different country is probably more significant overall.

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I may not have much impact at the ballot box, but transferring my economic activity to a different country is probably more significant overall.

Yes, it's as much significance as you can have without committing major acts of sedition or heroism. But it only works once. After you've become part of a new community or nation, you are expected to contribute to its welfare, help shape its future. You no longer matter to the old one, but you still can matter.  

[Genady]

All actions have consequences... do they? We don't know ahead if our vote will or will not have consequences, but we know afterwards. If our candidate won, our vote had consequences, otherwise it did not, I think. 

[Ken Fabian]

4 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Maybe it's a generalisation, but the impression that I get from your posts is that every little bit that we can do to reverse the current trend counts. No matter how insignificant our personal efforts may seem at the time.  

I do oscillate between pessimism and cautious optimism - that we will at least avoid the worst case outcomes but I don't let the pessimism sap my conviction and commitment. And I tend towards using my votes, small as they are, to influencing institutional, especially government policy and my voice to encouraging the same from concerned others; much as individual lifestyle choices help (a bit) global warming is far too big for that to be the principle solution. And until the low emissions options are widely available - and not a financial burden - I don't expect or require significant sacrifices, certainly not as proof of anyone's conviction. Just as I wouldn't expect my individual resistance to my nation being invaded to be an effective action when that would require our institutions to have planned and coordinated responses. To me the big things seems to be what they are for.

Not just governments - I have a small sum locked in Superannuation (pension fund) and these organisations have influence as major investors and shareholders in Australia's economy. These are coming to rival banks in Australia for the scale of their investment. Lots of people each have a small say in how that money is invested and a majority want that money invested ethically and in climate terms, responsibly. Even the superannuation funds for mining workers are increasingly avoiding fossil fuel investment and favoring support for clean energy. And doing so is not noticeably reducing the financial returns to members. It is an example of cause for some optimism.

 

16 hours ago, Peterkin said:

the effects of each individual are not equal: some acts are a lot more consequential than others; some people leave bigger tracks than others.

This can make it more important to use the (historically exceptional) freedom to speak up and participate in the small ways available to us.

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

All actions have consequences... do they? We don't know ahead if our vote will or will not have consequences, but we know afterwards. If our candidate won, our vote had consequences, otherwise it did not, I think. 

I was thinking more generally than that. More 'every breath we take, every move we make' adds to the quantum information of the universe, albeit in a highly garbled form, but it's there for eternity.

[Peterkin]

5 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

This can make it more important to use the (historically exceptional) freedom to speak up and participate in the small ways available to us.

For sure! It takes lots of little actions to balance a big one. But we who are capable of only small actions and cause only small consequences, need not waste energy blaming ourselves for major ones going wrong; it's more useful to pick up whatever pieces you can carry and keep truckin'. 

[Genady]

31 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

I was thinking more generally than that. More 'every breath we take, every move we make' adds to the quantum information of the universe, albeit in a highly garbled form, but it's there for eternity.

I don't think it is strictly so. There is always a (theoretical) observer for whom a specific piece of quantum information is still there, but for any given observer the quantum information disappears as soon as they interact with it. This is my understanding of it. 

[sethoflagos]

5 minutes ago, Genady said:

I don't think it is strictly so. There is always a (theoretical) observer for whom a specific piece of quantum information is still there, but for any given observer the quantum information disappears as soon as they interact with it. This is my understanding of it. 

It's hardly my field, but I'd been led to understand that quantum information behaved rather like entropy. ie that if it is erased from one part of the universe (requiring some form of work) at least as much must be released elsewhere.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. 

[Genady]

3 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

It's hardly my field, but I'd been led to understand that quantum information behaved rather like entropy. ie that if it is erased from one part of the universe (requiring some form of work) at least as much must be released elsewhere.

idk. I've never heard of such a parallel.

AFAIK, conservation of quantum information is a consequence of unitarity of quantum system evolution. But this unitarity gets broken by an act of measurement.

[Genady]

4 hours ago, Peterkin said:

6 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I may not have much impact at the ballot box, but transferring my economic activity to a different country is probably more significant overall.

Yes, it's as much significance as you can have without committing major acts of sedition or heroism. But it only works once. After you've become part of a new community or nation, you are expected to contribute to its welfare, help shape its future. You no longer matter to the old one, but you still can matter.  

Only once? I think it works every day. I keep taking my money from a country A and spend it in the country B (B for Bonaire) for many years. Every time I do it, I transfer my economic activity, don't I?

(Of course, I do other things also in the country where I live, for example, volunteer for the Animal Shelter, recycle, etc.)

[Peterkin]

3 hours ago, Genady said:

I keep taking my money from a country A and spend it in the country B (B for Bonaire) for many years.

I didn't know that. Most people just do business where they live and earn - even if they're buying from companies that have their headquarters in another country, these companies are usually international, with financial interest in both the one where the buyer lives and the one where the buyer gets paid. Money is cosmopolitan. Considerable - even decisive - sums can be transferred from one nation to another. Also business operations, employment, investment, development, tax-exemption, licensing, waste removal and land-ceding can make a large impact. If an airline or manufacturer moved from one country to another, that might matter to both countries. It would take an awful lot of individuals' well-informed and directed cross-border shopping to counteract that effect. 

But that's not what I was referring to. I took this:  

10 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I guess I've a tendency to vote with my feet.

to mean emigration, rather than overseas banking or habitual border-crossing.

[EmDriver]

Choosing not to vote can have a large chain reaction. We are now at -1 vote. Someone else thinks, they didn't vote because it won't make a difference, so why should I? We are now at -2 votes.

There are ways we can make the process better though which has been discussed by a couple of famous philosophers, Socrates and Plato. "Democracy is only as good as the education that surrounds it". Plato also discuses the ego by saying people will make poor choices due to our selfish natures. A selfish nature will gravitate towards a candy salesman.

Pre college in my country at least is still largely based around the factory school model. It is designed to help people who are getting minimum wage jobs straight out of high school. Perhaps the best chain reaction we can do, is try to create a new school model.

How we could improve our selfish natures is much more complex. A politician's main priority is money. To improve this we would need a system that did not revolve around economics.

[Sensei]

On 2/22/2023 at 9:40 PM, Genady said:

If our candidate won, our vote had consequences, otherwise it did not, I think. 

..unless you are in Florida, US..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida

Edited March 15, 2023 by Sensei