Post #42,463
6/16/02 12:08:58 PM
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It comes down to greed.
All you really need is a nice living, decent house, reliable transportation, some extra money to enjoy your time off.
What I'd like is to have nice business that afforded me that. I don't need to be rich.
Come to think of it, nobody really needs to be rich. You just need enough. How much is enough? Hard to say as the machine we've created to fulfill our needs has run out of control now manufacturing "needs" so it can manufacture "goods" to fill the manufactured needs. We fulfilled our needs a long time ago.
Now we glorify wealth to excess. It makes us crazy and puts the world on a treadmill. The idea of competition makes us suspicious and uncooperative. Nobody is content to have a piece of pie - we have to be gluttons and hoard it all to ourselves. Its gotten to the point that money has become the end rather than the means to a nice life.
I read the most amazing book called "The Twilight of American Culture" by Morris Berman. His thesis is that American Culture is nothing but commercialism.
Stop the economy I want to get off.
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week. The average farmer works 40 hours a week. The average programmer works 60 hours a week. What the hell are we thinking?
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Post #42,476
6/16/02 1:40:55 PM
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Re: It comes down to greed.
What is your definition of "nice living, decent house, reliable transportation"? (I won't even go into "some extra money"). I am pretty sure that 5/6 of the world population consider them as exorbitant, pampered, running-hog-wild wealth. Are they right?
There is only one judge: market. Unfortunately.
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Post #42,513
6/16/02 6:55:19 PM
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'Discretion' manages to put an upper-limit on 'wants'.
Unfortunately - discretion is a characteristic of adulthood, the wise assimilation of experience. I believe this is how we got where 'we' are.
A nation of run-amok juveniles would craft: this one. And make consuming / $$-as-means, into its raison d'etre. As we have.
Ashton
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Post #42,540
6/17/02 12:13:12 AM
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Re: It comes down to greed.
What is your definition of "nice living, decent house, reliable transportation"?
Well its definitlely not the super-sized trophy home being provided by the instant community planners, nor does it require a shiny new urban assault vehicle.
Extra money is enough to take the family on a two week trip out of the country twice a year.
Doesn't seem so excessive does it?
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week. The average farmer works 40 hours a week. The average programmer works 60 hours a week. What the hell are we thinking?
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Post #42,588
6/17/02 10:39:01 AM
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Yes it does.
The Vietnamese folks who I've seen working in Russia during my childhood... A watch was an equivalent of dimond bracelet for them. Having one's own appartment (2 rooms for 15 people extended family) was like having that trophy home - impossible, except in the dreamland of Soviet Union. A bycicle was an equivalent of UAV: too expensive to buy and not really necessary.
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Post #42,676
6/17/02 5:57:41 PM
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I don't get your point.
I don't want what I can't reasonably use.
This is quantitatively different from, say, Larry Ellison's multiple yachts that sit dormant most of the time or Bill Gates's 100 car underground garage. For one person, that's insane. Yet he's still grasping for more more more.
Thats greed.
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week. The average farmer works 40 hours a week. The average programmer works 60 hours a week. What the hell are we thinking?
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Post #42,681
6/17/02 6:41:51 PM
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But 'quantizing' greed may be the Red Herring
100 cars? an excess which needs no painful examination of the word, excess. (nor of the idea, 'unimaginitively banal.. in equating mere ostentatious Excess with.. Good')
Of course assessing "one's own 'greed content'" isn't an exact science either. I'd guess that the idea of greed suffers from a problem similar to that of honesty.
Defending one's own relative greed-lessness? is akin to saying, Look.. I'm Honest. [we see why that fails - recursively] There's always a yabut since.. most any Murican possesses orders of magnitude more wealth (via any formula) than a humongous percentage of all homo-saps (present, or who ever lived).
By that criterion (and our rapacity, now hegemony to date) one might determine that we are Tribbles: born pregnant Greedy beyond measure...
Ashton Murican ergo Greedier than most bipeds extant.
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Post #42,694
6/17/02 8:54:21 PM
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My point is...
From that Vietnamese point of view, your private car is just as much greed as Larry Ellison yahts. (Private people should use public transportation or walk, ride bycicle at best. What does that car do while you sleep? What a waste!) You are sure he is wrong. Are you sure you are right?
(Personally, I do not car how many private yahts Ellison has. As long as he does not have private Senators and Congressmen. Ah, yes, he does. Now, that's where I draw the line. I am actually with you on bashing Bill and Larry, just for different reason).
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Post #42,701
6/17/02 10:34:18 PM
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Well I'm in a rare position this week
...as I've just sold my car and nearly everything else I can't take as carry-on luggage to make the hop across the pond to the new job. Plus I prefer public transportation and take it whenever possible.
Modern bicycles hurt my butt. Bring back the banana seat and maybe I'll ride again.
So you can't mean me. :-P
But we were discussing whats wrong with AmBiz and I reiterate that the root of it is our culture of business (to the exclusion of all else).
The average hunter gatherer works 20 hours a week. The average farmer works 40 hours a week. The average programmer works 60 hours a week. What the hell are we thinking?
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