Talk:Theory Design Lab/Karma Lab

Karma: Pseudo-causal etymology

Karma -> Car Ma : If the size of the car you borrowed from your mother is an indicator for your social status then you are

• a pupil
• your social environment doesn't appear to have received the best education and
• your reputation system is defective

How to ruin karma

One could offer a proposal how to ruin one's karma.

At possibly the highest level (so to speak as an entrance qualification) this could be:

• Fail to be an ethicist and mentor

Then, yet without any ordering and, of course, any guarantee:

• Avoid charitability and volunteering.
• Do not educate others.
• Ignore problems that are not your problems.
• Be aggressive.
• Cause problems for others, preferably without need.
• Act irresponsibly.
• Be efficient.
• Join a cabal. (To explain the karma problems of a cabal:
  • One presents others with a problem that may be almost unresolvable and that does remain.
  • One withholds potentially critical information for an indetermined amount of time.
  • One potentially promotes segregation and acceptance of (undue) advantages.
  • One creates a potentially critical barrier for universal mentoring.
  • One creates more criteria, motivation and potential for social hierarchy/social status, but not in a desirable way.
  • One excludes others by default.
  • One fails to provide motivation to qualify for something one apparently considers important.

One could conclude that a cabal "conveniently" emphasizes the moral obligation of mentoring with ethical education as one of the foremost obligations; predestination can be interpreted as another increased motivation for mentoring.)

• Have unrealistic expectations.
• Be demanding and assertive.
• Restrict your interests to a small set (e.g. business)
• Maximize profit.
• Be intolerant.
• Ignore the perspective of others.
• Plan to be nasty.
• Do not mentor, tutor, teach personally.
• Use other people as means, not as ends.
• Do what you want and wait at least until others tell you you are out of policy.
• Ignore moral obligations.
• Avoid sensible educational offers (e.g. lifelong learning offers)

Relationship between karma and categorical imperative

Obviously a group of people (e.g. country, region, city or other community) can have a certain culture and/or code of conduct that could be seen to bring about a certain karma. For instance the inhabitants of a car-free city (e.g. Masdar City) will experience fewer road casualties and obviously a lower risk of being hit by a car for the individual living in the city. People who make use of 23andme.com should in future experience fewer problems with genetic disorders. (It may take some generations for the fact to sink in that genetic risks considered common today should actually be considered avoidable problems.) The categorical imperative, of course, motivates not to contribute to risks one would not like to experience oneself. A belief in karma can add a certain pseudo-causality to the categorical imperative, which would imply that one cannot focus on specific problems one would like to exclude for oneself but also should aim to prevent problems for others one is personally not very concerned about. Karma could therefore be seen to imply that a "failure to prevent a problem" may affect/migrate to other problem categories in unexpected ways (e.g. problems sharing a common result or risk). Therefore karma would motivate understanding for the categorical imperative but without the counter-argument ("this problem type does not or no longer apply to me, therefore I can ignore it"). A society that is strongly motivated to avoid many different types of problems is, of course, likely to spend more money on sensible goals (including sensible education and research) and may consequently experience much fewer problems.