NIETZSCHE; DEAD PHILOSOPHERS' INBOX

[explosivecombat]

[TEXT; LOCKED TO doitrockapella]

The offer for conversation is always open, should you desire to take me up on it; I can't guarantee that I'll respond immediately, nor will it necessarily be the response you want, but I'll always respond in some way.

In the name of enlightened discourse.

Comments

[explosivecombat]

Of course it's safer.

Just the same, no one changed the world by playing cautious.

[doitrockapella]

You're aiming to make me feel better.

[explosivecombat]

How astute of you.

[doitrockapella]

Для этого я могла любить вас.

[explosivecombat]

Нет, если ты знаешь, что хорошо для вас.

[doitrockapella]

Fortunately, I do. Most of the time.

So I take it you're not through with me?

[explosivecombat]

Of course not. I'd be incredibly bored, otherwise - why on earth would I willingly do that to myself?

[doitrockapella]

It might've been a sacrifice you were willing to make for the sake of teaching a student a much-needed lesson.

[explosivecombat]

That would negatively impact me, however, making it a less-than-ideal tradeoff.

[doitrockapella]

Explain something for me, then? I don't understand.

[explosivecombat]

Go on.

[doitrockapella]

Is there a tradeoff occurring when you give gifts?

[explosivecombat]

What sort of tradeoff are you referring to? Be more specific.

[doitrockapella]

I don't understand where the difference lies. Sometimes I suggest you've done something to make me happy, and you're quick to point out how you benefit from it. Other times I'm reading ulterior motives into well-intentioned actions, which...I would think suggests that I'm supposed to believe there aren't any. Or at least the motives I'm interpreting are wrong.

Maybe I'm conflating something I shouldn't be. Maybe I'm assuming something that isn't there. But I don't understand why sometimes you want me to believe that what you're doing is motivated by selfish intentions, but others you're offended at the very presumption.

[explosivecombat]

I'll put forth that my motives are always going to be self-serving in some way, simply because I refuse to put others before myself; I've never understood why I should do things solely for the benefit of others, simply because I'm not experiencing any pleasure myself if I do that - it violates my own sense of Equivalent Exchange to participate in such things. So yes, in that way, doing positive things for others always benefits me.

However, when I do things that you'll benefit from - even if they benefit me somehow - that doesn't mean that you don't factor into it at all; furthermore, because everything I do benefits me in some ways, then I never act through obligation, because that implies that I don't want to do it in the first place. It's not the implication that I act through selfish intentions that bothers me, because that's entirely true and I'm not going to insult us both by trying to pretend that it isn't; it's the implication that I'm acting purely through selfish intentions (which would mean that I wouldn't do it in the first place, as acting for anyone else's benefit at all is inconvenient - but that's really quite the asocial way to live life, if you ask me, and I'm personally rather fond of compromise), or that I'm acting purely through obligation (which, again, makes no sense, and being made to do anything through obligation just makes me contrary anyway).

So there's a distinction there, I just don't think it's where you're assuming it is.

[doitrockapella]

So making me happy benefits you because it keeps me interesting, which entertains you...but that's not the sole...

...Does it make you happy, seeing that something you've done has made me happy?

[explosivecombat]

If that were the case, I'd be one of those people doing spontaneous good deeds for no reason other than the idea passed through my otherwise empty head that day, rather than blowing things up.

So no, not really. Not in the way you're thinking, most likely.

[doitrockapella]

I didn't think so. But I had to ask, if only to eliminate an avenue of possibility.

What are you getting out of it, if you give me something?

[explosivecombat]

Given how I tend to react when you ask me similar things, I don't expect you to take me up on it at all and I fully deserve it if you don't, but surely I can't be faulted for the attempt:

Locke, can we please just drop this and move on with our lives?

[doitrockapella]

No, you can't be faulted, but you do have admirable nerve in asking me that after our previous conversation, and my own multiple similar attempts at the exact same thing.

Что это такое? Вы думаете, что я милый?

[explosivecombat]

Well, as long as it's admirable and not deplorable, I can't complain.

Ну, очевидно, но это к делу не относится.

[doitrockapella]

Прекрати. Иногда я не знаю, что это хорошо для меня.

[explosivecombat]

Вы думаете, что я мог бы быть? Я либо делаю что-то очень неправильно или очень правильно, это трудно сказать.

[doitrockapella]

Вы никогда не будет хорошо для меня. Это то, что делает вероятным.

[explosivecombat]

Well, now I'm just going to have to ask you to elaborate.