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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2153 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: veen’s reviews #1: Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday

Interesting review. Thanks for writing it.

    But, more importantly, he ends the book by asking a question that I’ve been pondering about:

    What would the world look like if more people conspired to change things they thought were immoral?

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    "I’m inclined to answer the question with “better”.

I don't think I've ever heard the word "conspired" in regards to this question, but it's a question I think about a lot and always love to hear what other people have to say. If you're willing, I'd love to hear more of your thoughts in regards to this question.





veen  ·  2152 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What I like about that question is that it makes me think about the ways in which we might go about to change our world. Say you have a Big Goal; then the degree of secrecy by which you try to achieve that goal can run from 'none (e.g. by writing a book or through democratic processes)' to 'full-fledged secret conspiracy'. It's a spectrum, I think. Lobbying by big corporations for example is closer in my opinion to conspiracy than to an open democracy.

It also makes me wonder what kind of goals necessitate secrecy, if at all? Thiel considered buying and then smothering Gawker. But he also knew that wouldn't solve the long-term issue, that it wouldn't send the message of decency that he wanted all media to honor. Someone else would simply pick up the ashes.

user-inactivated  ·  2151 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah. It's a really interesting question, isn't it? On the one hand, I think conspire or not, secret or not, that if people strive for betterment, more often than not that'll be the end result. Provided they do it with care and conviction.

I think one of the interesting things to question is, is striving to do good in secret a good way about it? On the one hand, I think transparency is an important tool because if you're open about what you're doing and why, no one can claim anything bad about your efforts. On the other hand though, if you're open about what you're doing and why, maybe it makes it easier for others who disagree with you to interfere with your efforts.

Like I said, I don't think I've ever heard the word "conspired" in reference to this kind of question, usually because "conspiracy" tends to have a nefarious connotation.