icycalm wrote:I wrote:"Fairness", in the way humans use the concept, is fundamentally unfair. Similarly, what humans mean by "unfairness" is the only way that fairness can be defined.
http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=8203#8203
If anyone reading this thinks they can explain what the above means, start a new thread and do so. To make things interesting I promise to send a couple hundred euros to anyone who can nail it.
http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?p=9603#9603
I don't think I can explain this for a couple hundred euros at this time, but my intention is that Icy won't mind parting with at least tenner because of this post.
But first, let's see what "fair" actually means. In Dutch we use the word "eerlijk", but it's not completely the same (it also stands for honesty and such, which isn't exactly the same from what I know). As far as I know, fair is mostly used in the sense that someone gets what he or she deserves: if you are the best in a competition, then you deserve to win.
When people scream "that's unfair!", it's mostly because they have a disadvantage that they cannot help. For example a deaf man that is caught by surprise in a fight, because he couldn't hear the other one approaching. Or in a fighting game, someone that uses one attack very effectively to defeat the other. Governments spend a lot of money on people that can't work or don't have the resources to learn, because they can't help being in that situation.
But that's not how nature/life works. It has no morals, it doesn't save somebody just because it's cute and without the necessary resources for survival. Flame burns wood, just like someone that's 1m80 that trains everyday beats someone that's 1m60 that only plays videogames. People have a certain body (and thus mind) that grants them certain possibilities. Sometimes they are in (for them) the right place, sometimes not. Life doesn't judge, it's blind, it's fair. The strongest in any given situation prevail, no exceptions of any kind. Humans use it the other way around, where people are given advantages all the time in the name of fairness.