MeanMrMustard

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Posts by MeanMrMustard

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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...”

  
  
  
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  44

  Humans brought to Earth, not native to it.

  by Bad_Wolf in

  1. social
  2. current

  below i link the article.

  i thought some points on the claim were interesting.

  such as how prolonged direct exposure to sunlight hurts us vs other animals, sicknesses, etc.

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  MeanMrMustard

  This is the plot of at least two recent movies. Also, I think every Star Trek series that has ever been made has had an episode dedicated to this idea. Heck, I think ST the Next Generation had two!
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  105

  Another School Shooting: The Gun Violence/Mental Illness Debate Continues

  by jp1692 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  in the aftermath of the valentine's day school shooting in florida, i have read quite a number of articles, blogs and posts about the event.

  it is disturbing--and i think inexcusable--that many people take the opportunity to use horrible tragedies such as this to push their own particular agenda.. in particularly insensitive and tone-deaf tweet, conservative political commentator tomi lahren wrote: "can the left let the families grieve for even 24 hours before they push their anti-gun and anti-gunowner agenda?

  my goodness.

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  MeanMrMustard

  @Cold Steel:

  Yes, but how does one keep guns out of the wrong hands without taking them out of the right hands?

  Exactly. How do we even try to answer that without first being able to ask the question? We can’t. The other gun thread started off really well, and then someone (maybe it was Fink, maybe not) jumped in with a ban on certain types of weapons. Fine. But it can’t stop there. It can’t stop with ambiguous word salad. You have to go deeper and be exact. We have to be able to ask what is meant by “assault rifle?” What is meant by “mentally ill?” Who makes that call? What is the process? Are we mixing up correlation with causation? (which is what we have been trying to get Fink to respond to)

  Even something like how we define the “good” hands and “bad” hands.

  Whenever something like this happens, people scream GUN CONTROL without giving any workable solutions. The government needs to register guns before they confiscate them, so any proposals that would implement registration is a non-starter by gun owners.

  Yeah. Another thing to consider..

  If we take away AR-15s, bad guys will use Ruger Mini-14s. Take away those and they'll use something else. These things don't stop until the guns are gone.

  I agree.

  In the 1960s, guns were plentiful. Even Sears had them. And anyone could buy them if they were old enough. But school shootings were unheard of. Crime was low and violence was unheard of if one stayed out of the wrong areas.

  I was reading up on some gun stats. I don’t have them available right now, as I am on my phone. But even in the 70s the percentage of households with guns was a lot higher. There are more guns now, but also more people. The population was more “saturated”, for lack of a better term, with guns in the 70s. And there were a few shootings. But I mean that literally - like 5 to 10 for the entire decade.

  But things are different now. We've become angry, resentful and distrustful as a nation. Our leaders are dishonest, conniving worms and they perhaps they always were. As we've become polarized no one wants to give. Those in the U.S. who voted for Hillary felt they were entitled to victory, and they took to the streets when she lost.

  It's just the way things are now.

  I am not so sure. These shooters end up being people with troubled, abusive childhoods. You don’t find a lot of shooters from stable two-parent families. The breakdown in the family is likely another cause, which has gone up quite a bit since the 60s.

  A lot more use of the SSRI anti-depressants as well.