MeanMrMustard

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Posts by MeanMrMustard

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  16

  I got my first teaching job!

  by paradiseseeker in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  in case you haven't read me, i am a spanish pimo who is preparing himself to become an english teacher.

  well, i just wanted to share with you that i've been called to work in a high school and my first week of work has been amazing!

  this job is not permanent, it will end in july, but finally i got rid of many doubts about my adequacy for this job: i love it!

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  MeanMrMustard

  
  
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  25

  Can You Make Sense Of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as a child growing up, i would see different arguments to defend a certain belief.

  it may have required mental gymnastics in order to make a point but there was an actual attempt to explain, teach, and educate....even if the belief or teaching was bogus.. nowadays, it appears that jws couldn’t explain any belief.

  they are drones and do as “mother “ has directed..

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  MeanMrMustard

  Fred Franz was one of the masters, coming up with all sorts of strange and complicated rationalizations. But the GB were, at least, attempting some rationalization. Once he died, the art started to fade.
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  226

  Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

  by SecondRateMind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.

  apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.

  luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.

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  MeanMrMustard

  Wow. A few weeks. Well, looks like there is another “ridicule-trump-and-his-supporters” thread. So, there’s that...
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  226

  Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

  by SecondRateMind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.

  apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.

  luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.

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  MeanMrMustard

  @SRM. You wrote:

  Hmmm. MeanMrMustard, I presume you mean 'Thou shalt not steal' (the 8th) and 'Thou shalt not covet...' (the 10th)

  Yes. Lovely how they are numbered differently depending on where you look. Let me re-introduce the question in a different way: Do you feel the 10 commandments, especially the ones surrounding theft and covetousness are a good standard for morality? If one were to violate these commandments, would we have a good foundation for claiming the actions of such an individual are "immoral"?

  So, a) I am not proposing anyone steals anything. Only a massive charitable effort, on behalf of the rich, to succour the poor. I do not see how that might be construed as 'stealing'.

  These are incredible weasel-words. This is a "charitable effort" ... "on behalf of" the rich? On behalf of ... That sounds a lot like an explicit contradiction, SRM. You can't do this "on behalf of" the rich without taking it from them. And it can't be charitable unless it is voluntary. This is exactly the reason why taxes are theft. What moral difference is there between these two situations:

  1) Pull a gun, put it in your face, take your money, pocket your money, run away.

  2) Pull a gun, put it in your face, take your money, pocket your money, give it to the guy next to me, take a cut (for the service/theft I provide), run away.

  In both cases, it is theft. Your proposal is hovering around #2, and this brings us back whether you think the commandment against theft is morally binding.

  and b) I am not proposing that anyone covets anything. Only that those who have more wealth than they need, donate it, directly or indirectly, to those who have less wealth than they need.

  Right. Let's say I am worth $25 billion. And I say to your proposal: "No". What say you?
  

  Nevertheless, they are the theoretical underpinning of what economists call 'a free market'.

  No way. You are reading the wrong economists. I can tell by what you say next....

  So, I infer that you don't actually want a free market, at all. Just a whole load of oligopolies and monopolies, (which is what suppliers of non-identical commodities are) that will inevitably exploit their market leverage to extract wealth from the poor to deposit with the wealthy.

  Yes, some main stream economists do this. Some of them claim that they know its absurd, and just use for modeling. Other take it much further, as you are doing. "Look monopolies everywhere! The free market is flawed. Regulate!"

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g7vkb_f89s

  A free market, characterized by voluntary transactions, stable money, and private property rights works because of these things, not in spite of them.

  This is to misunderstand my position, as I hope the two posts above will help demonstrate. Nothing I propose will wipe out capital, just distribute it more equitably.

  Not capital. The investment of capital. If you move it around, you move the investment of such around. Upon doing so, you undermine the reason why it was placed in that investment position. You've wiped out the capital investment.
  

  Nothing I propose involves arbitrary calculations, just a whole load of people helping out a whole load of other people. Nothing I propose will destroy motivation, unless you are so crass as to suppose that the only motivation that matters is selfish, personal, financial gain.

  Ok, before we can go forward with talking about this, you need to clarify the above posts.
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  226

  Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

  by SecondRateMind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.

  apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.

  luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.

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  MeanMrMustard

  Believe me, I am not ideologically opposed to the free-market. Indeed, I think when it's fundamental requirements are met (eg; commodities are identical and replacable; many suppliers, none large enough to fix the price; many consumers, all acting rationally with perfect knowledge of the market, mobility of capital, labour and consumers, etc) then I think it works reasonably well.

  Those requirements aren’t reasonable. In fact the reasons markets work well are exactly because products are never identitcal, it produces competition (unless it is stamped down by government favor or regulation or barriers to entry), prevents monopolies (because of the absence of government favor, regulation, and barriers to entry), and nobody has perfect knowledge - indeed the market *counts on* imperfect knowledge.

  Note your inconsistency: you complain about a market without perfect knowledge, and yet you assume you can reallocate resources yourself.
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  226

  Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

  by SecondRateMind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.

  apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.

  luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.

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  MeanMrMustard

  MeanMrMustard, Thank you for taking the trouble to catch up. But you will have to humour me. 1. Which commandments would they be? 2. How might that chaos, starvation and suffering arise out of what I propose?

  1. The seventh and tenth.

  2. By destroying resource allocation (not allocating through prices by rather some arbritrary calculation) thereby introducing the calculation problem almost overnight, wiping out the capital in all investment, as well as a massive motivational problem.

  Note: my first two questions focused on morality, because that is the topic of your thread. But you have not answered them yet (humoring you).
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  226

  Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

  by SecondRateMind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.

  apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.

  luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.

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  MeanMrMustard

  To the best of my knowledge, no one on this thread, or even this forum, has proposed an alternative to resolve the scandalous state of the poor, the marginal, the vulnerable and the dispossessed of the world.

  The free market. A real one. No minimum wage, no price fixing (setting interest rates), no massive money printing. And no theft. Minimum government to insure private property rights, and not much else.
  
  
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  226

  Wealth, Poverty, and Morality

  by SecondRateMind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am interested in the approach this forum takes to money.

  apart from sex, (which i am quite relaxed about) it seems to me that wealth is the surest divider between those who are moral, and those who are not.. it seems jesus thought so, also.

  luke 16:19-31 kjv describes well enough his dusty attitude to the rich who do not succour the poor.. and this world has many poor: so many, it might seem that we can do nothing about it, and twist his words; 'the poor ye shall have always with you, but me, ye shall not have always.

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  MeanMrMustard

  @SRM:

  I am late to this thread. Tough to catch up. Some questions:

  1. Do you think the 10 commandments are moral? If so, how do you feel about your proposal blatently violating two of them?

  2. If your dream redistribution can be shown to throw an economy into a state of chaos, resulting in horrible starvation and suffering, would you feel you still have the moral high ground?
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  60

  Nephew’s JW Fiancée Begins Conversion to Judaism Due to Passover Date

  by Rabbi Midge in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  it’s been a while since i posted, but for those who remember, i came on here to get some information about jehovah’s witnesses because i have a nephew who was getting engaged to a girl who was a jehovah’s witness and, along with some other sites, i was recommended this one.. since then we’ve been busy with passover and jehovah’s witnesses have had something they call the memorial of christ’s death (i believe i have that right).

  this clashing of the two observances apparently did more for this girl than anything else i ever saw in our months of conversations with her.. respectfully, jews do not proselytize.

  these are people who, of their own desire, “join the tribe” after some years of study and practice--something this girl has just begun to do.

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  MeanMrMustard

  We have a saying in Reconstructing Judaism: "Our religious tradition has a vote on the way we act today, but not a veto."
  There are no central beliefs to Judaism that anyone has to adhere to, and people can reject this or that teaching and remain a Jew.

  So I can screw three women, one of which is my sister, in front of a golden calf idol, on a Sabbath, while eating bacon... after which I will kill all three women?

  This is OK for a Jew?
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  35

  When You Die Would You Haunt The Governing Body? If It were Possible?

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've been reading a lot about reincarnation these days and i'm beginning to think that it quite possibly might be true, it seems to fit in nicely with the idea that we live in a computer simulation.. anyway according to the tibetan book of the dead when we die we seem to hang around on the earth waiting for rebirth.

  at which time we could be ghosts.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bardo_thodol.

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  MeanMrMustard

  ...suppose this whole universe is just a computer simulation and those that die or are without a material body in the simulation can access the computer code that is running the simulation and make some edits...

  “What is this? I must be dead. But, but I am still alive. I can see it all now. I understand. I can change things. I can make things better. All I have to do is edit this code here...”