Re: Not to be smug or anything, but...


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Alex W. wrote:

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Alex W. wrote:


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as a matter of personal conscience i find it none of my business what a
person does with that which is his. it bothers me that some feel it
incumbent on themselves to demand that others do according to their
conscience rather than leave it to the conscience of the person to whom
an item belongs (be it wealth of any other property).


Why does it bother you? We all do this, all the time. We judge people.
We hold them to certain standards of thought and behaviour. If a guy
beats his wife or employs illegals, we do not dismiss it as "it's his
own business" either, do we? If I post a message claiming that I
regularly beat my dog with the business end of my belt, half the group
will be ready to come over to my place and express their deep moral
disapproval in no uncertain terms and possibly a fist or two. We
certainly judge people and their money by the way they came to acquire
it: an inherited fortune is less respectable than self-made money
(unless hallowed by age), and the Kennedy family is regularly disparaged
because Joseph made his pile running booze.

er... no... i can't speak for anyone but myself. unless it directly
affects me, i see it as media hype to stir up the masses. if i am
selected as a member of a jury on certain of those issues, then i will
give them due consideration.


No media hype without willing consumers. A media outlet is a commercial
enterprise: they produce what they think will induce as much of their
target audience as possible to become consumers. IOW, people generally
*want* to read about murder most foul and extravagant social behaviour.
Any hype only works because we respond to it.

going off on tangents doesn't change my response to your questions about
(paraphrased) "what do i think about..." and my response above as "i can't
speak for anyone but myself..."

perhaps you have a screwed perspective of "we"? could it be that you are
using the "royal we" when it would be more appropriate to use "me"?


Nope, I meant "we" as in the general "we the public".

then i disagree. your "we" includes "me" and we've already established
that i'm not part of your effort to speak for the collective.

Where do such people find the inspiration and encouragement to change
a lifelong paradigm, a cardinal virtue of today's society? Chances
are their local churches have no problem overlooking relevant Biblical
passages (often in exchange for suitable donations). The media adore
and adulate wealth and all its representatives, the more excessive and
conspicuous the consumption the better. Personal modesty and
frugality in a wealthy person is ignored or viewed as charming
eccentricity rather than behaviour to be emulated. Value and social
standing are determined and ranked by their dollar value. Given this
pressure, where does a man turn who has made his pile if he wants to
find a yardstick by which to measure whether he really does have
enough?

i find it none of my business what they do with their wealth. if they
buy 12 super cars then all the people who work at the dealership, the
shipping companies, the manufacturing companies and other such
businesses all benefit by having jobs and earning a living. if they
choose to save their wealth then the people who work at banks, and the
people who work at the companies providing services to those banks, all
have jobs and earn livings. if they invest their wealth then the people
who work at the investment company, and all the companies with those
those investments are trusted, all have jobs and earn livings. many
families benefit from the creation and maintenance of wealth. if the
person of wealth stuffs it all in a mattress and does nothing with it,
then it's still none of my business simply because it is not mine on
which to make demands. to claim a stake in someone else's property is
arrogant and addle pated.


Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.
I know that wealth largely remains in circulation.
I was not even concerned about making claims.

I want to know how and where a man is supposed to develop the conscience
to recognise and decide such a question on a moral level;

from his family and his spiritual beliefs.


I was born into the largest Christian sect, the one and only holy and
Apostolic Catholic Church. Their attitude to the morality of wealth
largely consisted of heavy hints regarding camels and eyes of needles
whenever the church roof needed re-doing. Not that they could really say
much, considering they are the largest private landowner in the world and
run a business empire that would make the Dow Jones the moment it is
listed on the NYSE. Is this the sort of source of spiritual beliefs you
were thinking of?

irrelevant. his sources are his and both his sources, their positions, and
his end-choices of what to do with his property are still none of my
business.

beyond that, how he is supposed to grow the backbone to go against one
of the strongest social imperatives we have.

yet you leave this imperative undefined. at least you left me wondering
about what it might be.


The imperative to consume, consume, consume. Last season's jeans are no
good, have to have the new model. Mustn't drive last year's model, it
shows you are a professional failure. If you have to have a puny 34-inch
plasma, you had better buy three of them (kitchen and kids). Buy this,
buy that. Get it NOW. What, you don't have an iPhone yet? You must be a
misfit. Being maxed out on your plastic is not a cause for worry but a
dinner-table topic, even a source of pride. We buy *** because the
neighbour has it, because we are told we MUST HAVE IT RIGHT NOW, because
we are told this is the ONE THING which guarantees eternal happiness and
makes our lives complete. Our children compare parental earnings and
possessions in the playground to determine bragging rights. That's when
they are not being bullied or mugged for wearing this rather than that
brand of expensive sneaker.

That imperative.

you seem very hung up on how people choose to use their personal property.
let it go and relax. not only will you be a better person for keeping your
nose out of other people's business, you'll be a better contributor in
your own place in the universe.

One would imagine that such vastly successful people have the insight
and the strength to do just that, but all too often, they don't. Do you
know the biggest concentration of Lamborghinis in the world? It's
Southern Florida -- even when they decide to shop until they drop, they
still go with the herd and buy the same supercar as everybody else.

and your point? i still don't see how any of this is anyone's business
except for the person who chooses to spend his/her money as they see fit.


Money in and of itself is pointless.

Money is the measure of what you produce. You know, produce something of
value, based on the skills you acquire and how you implement them?


to you. what about to someone else?


In and of itself? To everyone. In themselves, a few quarters are just a
bunch of mixed-metal discs, not even as useful as a washer or a nail; to
the derelict, they are a cup of coffee. A $10 bill is only a dirty piece
of paper; to you, it may be a small tip, to the waitress it's halfway to
a pair of shoes for her kid.

once again you are confusing personal beliefs with universal Truth. your
personal boundaries are not automatically those of the other people
throughout the world. chill out and seek that calm place within yourself.
follow your personal guide while resisting the urge to force those
personal ideal on others.

It acquires value only with the purpose to which we set it. So when we
have enough to satisfy our needs and then our desires, what then? Is
there a purpose to simply use it as a way of keeping score, of measuring
success? Is the man with two billion more successful than the man with
one?

again, who cares? if they accumulate a million lifetimes more than basic
needs require, it's there's to acquire and use as they see fit. i find
the it most inappropriate for people to exert their energy and
frustration toward what others do with their property than anything the
actual owners might do (or not do) with what is theirs.


I care, not least because it's helping to *** up our society. When
money is all that everything boils down to, when all that counts is who
has how much (or not),
Economically speaking...

we lose our collective soul.

What the f&$k is a "collective soul". Geez...right out the the "Primitive
Handbook".

What price civic and social virtues? How will kids grow up if all their
parents can think about is making more money? What is left if we reduce
everything down to a balance ***? Hell, most of the kids dealing drugs
on the streets do so because they have been taught that the money it
brings is the only thing that counts. Do you want everybody to think
that way?

it would appear to me that your perception is of "your soul" extrapolated
out to a "collective soul". such attempts are fruitless and frustrating.
your conclusion about drugs and such is also misinterpreted through your
bias filters. i can speak first hand about such experiences. can you? look
after your own "soul". others mind their's to greater or lesser successes.
Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven.

Alex evidently believes that non-sense about personal success being mainly
(solely?) caused but blind luck. Every low performer was merely in the wrong
place when the $100K jobs were being passed out to passersby on the street.
IOW, when their ship came in, they were at the airport.



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