Just because I disagree with your point of view, doesn't mean that I'm choosing to be deaf to your point or that I didn't read your post. You assume that your point or argument is so perfect that anybody who takes the time to read it or think about it would have to agree (which I think is a rule about internet debating someplace). I thought about it, and I don't agree with it due to what I think are logical consistancy factors. Saying I'm choosing to be deaf or not reading is a very slight passive-agressive ad-hominem sort of response, and unworthy of this place. Feeble - I thought we were all just discussing what we read? Wow, someone's defensive! But, just in case it wasn't, you can rest assured I both read it and carefully thought about (the way I did about the original blog entry) and still came to my conclusions.
Anyway: your definition of service seems narrowly defined enough that yeah, if you believe it exactly as you wrote it, it works out well with the whole x-worker conceit. Service is very specific to the needs and wants of the other; service is only doing what you resonate with.
Of course needs is subjective, not objective - someone may really want to die, and may give some very tangible arguments why they NEED to die. Maybe they are terminally ill and in pain; maybe they want to spare loved ones a long and costly hospital stay for no good reason. And of course you may not agree with the needs or wants, but that doesn't make them any less real to the other person.
As for abstaining from service isn't selfish - that all depends on the reason for abstention, doesn't it? You've defined service as something that resonates with you, so you've side stepped the issue of whether or not people should be called to do those things they don't want to. If service A resonates with you and service B doesn't, but both are things people want and need, and you choose to not do B, that is a selfish act. You are not doing something because of a concern of SELF. How else can you possibly define a selfish act? It's an act someone does out of self-based reasons.
As for the x-worker angle, I fail to see what's the difference if two x-workers engage in actions that benefit the collective in some fashion, but x-worker #1 does it for selfish reason "I want to benefit myself" and x-worker #2 does it for "I want to benefit others". Just because someone didn't ask #1 for it nor #1 did it to intend to serve people, the fact remains that the benefits have happened; sometimes the exact same benefits as x-worker #2. In fact, that's what (bear with me now) I think Steve was talking about when he said that both paths ultimately lead to the same place. Maybe?
Anyway, I can't beat this horse any more so I'll let you others get the last word in. Hopefuly a new blog post will clear up my muddled thinking. I still can't reconcile the post and the previous ones about "love of evil" and so forth. Well, I can, if I assume that the darkworker in the new post got an evil-redesign and isn't the one from the older posts.
I hope Steve takes my questions in the proper light - I love the blog and think it's very useful and recommend it to folks - hell I even donated once. I just don't understand this last bit, yet, Sensei. I suppose it's because I loved the concept of darkworker 1.0 and was actually polarizing towards that to address some self-issues, and now I find that darkworker 2.0 says I'm an evil hitlerean vampire. Ouch.  |