Greed

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

How come it is inevitable that the irrational man will accuse the rationl man of being greedy? Does the irrational man equate ratonality with greed? Why?

Yes, I believe that man always acts in his best interest, but exactly who's self interest should he act in, and why would that make him greedy?

As long as a man produces more than he uses, nobody has the right to call him greedy. The man that invents a process that adds 1% production to the workforce could not spend the money he has saved everyone in two lifetimes, so why is he considered greedy if he gets rich off of it? This is not rationality, it is being irrationaly angry that he did what you did not. What i it you want when you treat the man like a criminal? A handout maybe?

The socialists here likely believe a man shoud be paid by effort, not result. If that is true, it should be the idiot that makes the processharder that would be rewarded, since he would increase the effort required for all work...

[RebelWithanAK]

Greatwyrm, a man is not an island. I can be the most brilliant man on Earth and I'm not going to be able to so much as go to work without the system working to my benefit. Hence, it is to my benefit to make sure the system works.

I live in an apartment and take the train to work. I have farmers and their government agents, truckers and their managers, retail clerks and their hired help, city planners and civil engineers, architects, construction workers and their bosses, supervisors and union representatives, superintendants, transit officials, train operators and track workers to thank for my continued existence. I have doctors, nurses, aides, insurance agents and their administrators, environmental agents and parks officials, parks police, parks attendants, janitors, garbage men and their agents, EMS experts and yet more truck drivers to thank for my life expectancy. I have entire cities of people very much like myself to thank for the success of my place of work, and its administrators, managers, technical workers, and all those in related industries - down to couriers, lunch counter attendants, livery drivers and all related business support personnel (hence the entire reason for the crowdedness of the city) for my continued employment, and I have no desire to see any of this destroyed anytime soon because it ultimately hurts me.

Is this irrational? Methinks you've got it backwards.

[Geoff332]

If you really want to pursue this, let's try and get things a little more organised -- so we can actually debate things.

1. Define rationality.
2. Define self interest (who's self-interest is a fairly null term: unless you are proposing that one has multiple selves, there is only one self-interest).
3. "What i it you want when you treat the man like a criminal?" Who treats who like a criminal?
4. Which socialists where? A general accusation is rather meaningless. Where was this claim made, by whom and in what context?

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

You assume you know where I am coming from but you show absolutely no evidence that you have any idea. You also assume that I am the one not getting it even though it is you that are missing the point. What makes you so arrogant to assume that I am thinking what you think I am thinking? Your mind must be awful great to encompass both our worlds with complete understanding!

I have no wish to destroy society, nor do I believe my veiwpoint endangers it. You are simply fearing the concept because it is different. Therefore casting great doubt on the assumption that your mind is broad enough to encompass us both.

All I am doing is calling the motivations by their true names...

[RebelWithanAK]

The means of production is dreary, monotonous and backbreaking, not to mention that its inception is merely a new form of wage slavery; housing is expensive, in poor supply and poorly maintained. The physical character of our civilization has been torn up by the way we've been doing things for the last century and a half, as shown by our almost abject lack of cultural institutions in most of the country, and capitalism itself is most certainly not anywhere near a real meritocracy. The extravagant wealth of the extremely rich is frightening in its power; in its ability to shape the character for most of society and its complete lack of accountability in doing so. Robert Moses, for example, just about single-handedly evicted a quarter of a million people from their homes, and all but destroyed the character of an entire city borough. Walmart employs .3% of the country and can effectively dictate the power of labor unions nationwide.

Greed is a powerful tool, and incredibly destructive.

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

Geoff
Rationalty: following a methodology that manipulate hard data rather than undefinable terms.

Self-interest: I am not the one that keeps insisting that another concept is possible, I do not understand what the hel they mean, ask them.

??Who said I was treated like a criminal, maybe you should read it again???

It is not a general accusation, we ave at least one self-proclaimed socialist here. His name is G Adams, maybe you have heard of him?

[Geoff332]

1. But rationality, as you've defined it, isn't hard data. I've asked before, I'll ask again: doesn't this make rationality irrational?

2. You used the term ("I believe that man always acts in his best interest"), what does it mean to you?

3. Your statement was: "What i it you want when you treat the man like a criminal?" My question was, "Who treats who like a criminal?" I've read what you wrote, and the question stands.

4. Where did G. Adams make the claim that "a man shoud be paid by effort"? Or from what did you infer that such a claim was implied?

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

Originally posted by RebelWithanAK@09-22-2003 12:35 AM
The means of production is dreary, monotonous and backbreaking, not to mention that its inception is merely a new form of wage slavery; housing is expensive, in poor supply and poorly maintained. The physical character of our civilization has been torn up by the way we've been doing things for the last century and a half, as shown by our almost abject lack of cultural institutions in most of the country, and capitalism itself is most certainly not anywhere near a real meritocracy. The extravagant wealth of the extremely rich is frightening in its power; in its ability to shape the character for most of society and its complete lack of accountability in doing so. Robert Moses, for example, just about single-handedly evicted a quarter of a million people from their homes, and all but destroyed the character of an entire city borough. Walmart employs .3% of the country and can effectively dictate the power of labor unions nationwide.

Greed is a powerful tool, and incredibly destructive.

The means of production are deary and monotonous, but hardly backbreaking, I think you are thinking of pre-industrail times when a man would die young plowing a field full of rocks.

Housing is expensive because we have to pay a panel of 'experts' to decide if it is safe enough to live in, and other stupid items forced on us by government to keep lawyers employied, not industrialists.

That power you speak of is because it has become a habit to pay state officials to get relief, so why do you blame the bribe givers but not the takers? The takers are the ones that build that part of the system.


Please define greed and what it has to do with your statement rather than your opinion...

[GreatWyrm of Babylon]

Geoff
Both of us are intelligent enough to prove there is no such thing as hard data, so what is your point.

What I want to know is, why is it mandatory for me to explain a philosophy that has taken me my whole life to get this far, and why you consider it proof that I am wrong when I cannot.

Of course, you do not have to lay any groundwork for yours because you were raised in it and do not even see the flimsy structures that support it. But I am expected to pretend it is solid?

You are standing in a sinking rowboat, while attacking my foundation, what about yours?

Damn my lab partner that knocked my PC off the net, typing on this laptop is driving me nuts...

[RebelWithanAK]

Excuse me? Have you worked in a factory lately? Where owners with their dark, reinforced-concrete shells cut every corner imaginable in safety and wage laws because they know cheap labor is always plentiful and equally dispoable? Have you tried to live on minimum wage in a railroad flat or a dumbell tenement or government project that's being squeezed by absentee landlords who are living in some countryside whose water table is used up and whose tree cover from landslides are gone because quick-money tract housing developers on government subsidies showed how to extend beyond zoning laws; houses that, while under a code of safety (one that allows federal backing on mortgage payments, which doesn't happen in most city neighborhoods - it's called redlining), have down payments and "slow-growth" movements to ensure themselves unreachable by the working poor - not to mention the added costs of maintaining a car? Have you noticed how at risk you are from economic forces beyond your control - how the "international" bottom-rate architecture and the federally-subsidized highway system allow businesses to leave your locale as easily as the tax-paying rich? How companies like Walmart and Verizon can flout labor laws because an oil-backed government's tax-break recession leaves hordes of scab workers to ensure a complete and abject lack of job security and livable wages? Do you know that the hourly-wage labor pool can be referred to 'independent contractors' and thus be exempt from minimum wage laws and health insurance, itself a racket from unregulated drug firms charging "what the market will bear"? Greed is self-evident. Why can't you see it?

[RebelWithanAK]

Originally posted by GreatWyrm of Babylon@09-22-2003 01:00 AM
What I want to know is, why is it mandatory for me to explain a philosophy that has taken me my whole life to get this far, and why you consider it proof that I am wrong when I cannot.

...

You are standing in a sinking rowboat, while attacking my foundation, what about yours?

"I don't have to back up my arguments; you do."

[Geoff332]

Both of us are intelligent enough to prove there is no such thing as hard data

Then, once again, by your own definition, there is no such thing as rationality -- since it is "a methodology that manipulate hard data".

What I want is to get past the rhetoric and get to what these words that people throw around so blithely actually mean. First of all to them, secondly to the broader audience.

My position is not relevant here -- you're the one who took a stand and made some claims. I'm trying to work out what you actually mean by those claims and if they make sense. This is an issue for internal consistency, not for comparative evaluation. If you say 2+2=13, the accuracy of your claim doesn't depend on whether I think "2+2=4" or "2+2=-5".