Meaningfulness and Meaninglessness

A translation of https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2025/08/mottekus-ja-mottetus.html from Estonian.

 

Meaningfulness and Meaninglessness 

Karmo Talts 

 

In this work, I examine the categories of meaningfulness and meaninglessness. To do this, I examine the relationship between meaningfulness and the experience that something is meaningful, draw conclusions about the category of meaninglessness, and examine whether a universal ethical system can be built on the results of my work. 

Let us look at the claim that life is meaningless, which claims to be objective. This claim does not claim anything about whether something seems meaningful to individuals. 

Let us now examine what the claim that life is meaningless could mean in a world where life seems meaningful to at least one individual. Unless we claim that a specific individual's experience that their life is meaningful does not give meaning to that individual's life, then the question of the meaning of life is relative. 

Let us now examine meaningfulness more broadly in light of this. Since the meaning of things is relative, it also follows that the meaninglessness of things is relative. It is not possible to discover that something is absolutely meaningless, something can be meaningless only for someone or for a group of beings. 

Let us see whether a universal ethical system can be built on the results of our research. Even in attempts to build such a system, the tension between individualists and collectivists remains. An individualist can claim that everyone has the right to choose a life that seems meaningful to him, and a collectivist can claim that as many conscious beings as possible should be guaranteed a life that seems meaningful to them. 

 In this work, I studied meaningfulness. I found that meaningfulness and meaninglessness are relative categories and it is not possible to discover whether something is absolutely meaningful or not. Consequently, a meaningful life simply means a life that seems meaningful to a conscious being living it. However, it is not possible to build a universal ethical system on this fact in itself, because one can argue both that everyone should be able to choose a life that seems meaningful to them, and that as many beings as possible should be guaranteed a life that seems meaningful to them.

The question of the way everyday reality is constructed

A translation of https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2025/08/igapaevase-tegelikkuse-konstrueerimise.html 

 

The question of the way everyday reality is constructed 

Karmo Talts 

 

Let us consider the possibility that everyday reality is a construction, but not a social construction or not merely a social construction. This would mean that what we pay attention to and what practices we use are not a matter of agreements or not merely a matter of agreements. 

Let us first consider the possibility that everyday reality is a political construction. This would mean that everyday reality is social only to the extent that our politics allow agreements and our politics do not have the principle of “winner takes all”. 

Let us now consider what hidden problems we might discover in the perception of reality and the use of practices if we assume that everyday reality is partly social and partly political construction. Our agreements may sometimes be concluded between groups that do not include other groups in their conclusions of agreements. 

Let us now consider the possibility that everyday reality is a cultural construction. This would mean that the space for political struggle and possible agreements between us is largely limited by slowly changing values and traditions.  

Let us now see what hidden problems we might discover in the perception of reality and the use of practices if we assume that everyday reality is partly social, partly political and partly cultural construction. The values ​​of the majority or of some groups in society whose values ​​have changed more slowly exclude some groups, as representatives of a way of life that is incompatible with these values, from the group that is included in the process of concluding agreements and whose interests are taken into account in the political struggle.

Freedom and Resources

A translation of https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2025/08/vabadus-ja-ressursid.html 

 

Freedom and Resources 

Karmo Talts 

 

Let's investigate whether a poor person has the freedom to buy things that he has too little money to buy. He does not have such freedom. Thus, the absence of external constraints may not be a sufficient condition for freedom, because the absence of resources is not included in what is usually considered an external constraint. 

Let's investigate now the freedom of a wealthy person to make purchases that he likes. In addition to the absence of external constraints, his freedom to make these purchases presupposes the economic resources with which to make these purchases. 

Let's generalize now the results of our investigation. Whatever conditions should also be met in order a individual to to be free, the fact that an individual has the resources to make choices and the fact that there are no external constraints that prevent the individual from using these resources are in any case among the necessary conditions for his freedom.

Satisfying Human Needs and Combating Suffering in a Market Economy

 

Dialoogi https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2025/08/inimeste-vajaduste-rahuldamine-ning.html tõlge.

 

Satisfying Human Needs and Combating Suffering in a Market Economy 

Karmo Talts 

 

In this work, I examine how the market orientation of the economy affects the satisfaction of human needs and the fight against suffering. To do this, I examine how demand is related to the satisfaction of human needs and the alleviation of suffering. I also examine where the initiative to address these problems comes from in a market economy where the market cannot ensure their solution. 

We will examine how demand and needs are related. If someone has money to satisfy their needs, then they can use their money to satisfy these needs. At the same time, the needs of people who do not have money to satisfy their needs are not reflected in demand. Thus, the relationship between needs and demands is coincidental - sometimes people's needs are reflected in demand, but this is not inevitable.

Let's now look at a similar relationship between demands and suffering. Again, some people have money to alleviate their suffering. The suffering of those who do not have the money to do so is not reflected in demand. So it is not also inevitable that suffering will be reflected in demand. 

Let us now examine what this implies about satisfying human needs and combating suffering in an economy in which market relations are central. Satisfying needs and combating suffering is not a priority for the market, so the initiative to satisfy the needs of poor people or alleviate their suffering must come from somewhere else. 

Let us now look at who this initiative comes from. On the one hand, it comes from the state, which intervenes in economic relations to help the poor, collecting tax money to deal with social problems. On the other hand, private individuals engage in helping the poor as a charity. 

Let us now examine in more detail what opportunities these two parties have for this in a society in which the economic system is market-oriented. The state cannot go so far in alleviating poverty as to create a large number of state-owned enterprises to provide jobs for the unemployed and to produce basic necessities and create housing for the poor, because this would be a massive intervention in the functioning of the market. Same time, private individuals must organize their own charitable activities and decide for whom and in what form they should do it on their own. This means that charity cannot be more systematic and professional than private individuals can organize based on their free time, their own resources, and their own level of understanding of social problems. 

In this work, I examined how the market orientation of the economy affects the satisfaction of people's needs and the fight against suffering. I found that the relationship between demand and the solution of these problems is coincidental - the market solves these problems to the extent that people with unmet needs and those suffering have the money to solve their problems. Regarding solving the problems of poor people, I found that it falls on the shoulders of the state, which cannot take measures beyond the use of tax money, so as not to interfere extensively in the functioning of the market, and of private benefactors who lack the free time, resources, and expertise to deal with social problems in the best possible way. 

Value Creation

Translation of https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2025/08/vaartuste-loomine.html

Value Creation 

Karmo Talts 

 

In this paper, I examine the creation of values. To do this, I examine how values ​​are created according to capitalist understandings and what are the alternatives to the capitalist and Marxist understandings of value creation. 

Lets examine the capitalist understanding of value creation. Values ​​are created by entrepreneurship and the company's profit belongs to the entrepreneur. 

Let us now examine whether the only alternative view of values ​​is that values ​​are created by employees with their work. It is possible that employees and the entrepreneur, taken separately, create a share of values ​​that is smaller than the total value created. 

Let us now look at the middle ground between capitalism and communism. On a scale with our current capitalist understanding of value creation at one end and the Marxist understanding of value creation at the other, in the middle is the understanding that half of the values ​​are created by the entrepreneur and the other half of the values ​​are created by the employees, and thus half of the profit belongs to the entrepreneur and the other half to the employees. 

Let us now consider what view the middle of our scale represents. This is a centrist view of value creation. If this is the case, then any view according to which the entrepreneur has right to own more than half of the company's profits is, at least from the point of view of value creation, right wing view. Consequently, social democrats are also right-wing on this issue, because instead distributing the company's profits differently among the members of the company's collective, they tax large incomes at a different rate than small incomes. 

Let us now examine left-wing view on the issue of value creation. On this issue, an individual is more left-wing, id he believes that more of the company's profits belong to the employees. Views according to which the entrepreneur owns a share of the profits that does not reach half of the total amount of profits are left-wing alternatives to Marxism on this issue.* Any state property does not belong to private individuals at all, and economic systems centered on state ownership do not want to fit into the right-left scale on this issue. 

In this work, I studied the creation of value. I found that, according to capitalist understandings, value is created by the entrepreneur. I also found that an alternative to this view and the Marxist view is the view that part of the value is created by both the entrepreneur and the employees. Bigger the part of the value created by the employees in the individual's opinion, more left-wing her views on this issue are, and bigger the part of the value created by the entrepreneur in the individual's opinion, the more right-wing the individual's views on this issue are. * 

 

*Of course, an entrepreneur loses all motivation to engage in business if he does not own any share of the profits at all.