There is a structural difference between the morality of a single decision and life with its thousands of consecutive decisions. With a single decision the choices are limited and the relative cost of errors is high. So it’s important for each individual decision to try to do no harm. The number of total possible choices along the big timeline is close to infinity. In such a complex system it’s impossible to be perfect.
From the point of view of Utilitarianism we have to maximize happiness for everyone. Making people happy makes us happy too, a win-win. Maximizing happiness is all about quality multiplied by scale. And here comes the real conflict. Scale is impossible without small pockets of harm done, without feelings getting hurt. In some cases you have to actively destroy a structure to maximize happiness.
The more freedom in life you have, the more of your choices will be about what to create and how to help. Freedom is priceless. It gives us time, space, energy and creativity. There is no morality without freedom, because you lose your choices. Freedom + Resources is what you need to change the world. Freedom + Resources + Morality + Luck and you will certainly change it for the better. You can just base everything on Freedom valuations. Did your actions improve someone’s freedom? You helped long term, in fact you changed a life.
The main obstacle of Freedom in The Game of Self is the artificial concept of Purity (being always moral). There is one huge group that needlessly suffers from one of the world’s most hidden and pervasive fears with zero advocacy because they value morality above freedom and believe their only freedom is within the framework of moral purity. This group is made of all truly moral, honest people that always do the right thing. It’s a paradox, but it’s true. The hunter-sheep dynamic is so powerful in the long term, that the fear of being immoral can seamlessly get integrated into your life. Like all fears it leads to doubts, slow speed, small scale and inertia that slows every ambitious project, involving other people, to a grind. Moral people are born with the empathy and honesty to lead nations, only to end up as bystanders most of the time.
If we define ourselves as being above all a decent, moral, honest person, what is the biggest fear? To lose this beautiful, pure story, to lose moral purity. The more strictly moral we are, the more the danger that this fear will start controlling all decisions in our life, leading to lack of resources and in the end, even immorality. All of this is a completely internal process. It can not only be invisible to your friends and family but also invisible from you.
The end result is stagnation, Inertia and Sheep mode. The more you let any fear control you, it just grows. There are no good fears. You may leave some people unhappy with your choices but you are also responsible for yourself and everything you can give and create for this world. Don’t sacrifice all that potential for the imaginable concept of purity. Nothing and no one is perfect. Immoral people, they just take advantage of all this. They form a majority in many positions of leadership. Just because the beautiful people of this world are busy staying small for the sake of purity.
The largest unused resource for world change are the quiet, well-meaning, moral people afraid of their own power and the change it might bring in their lives.
