Re: _The Windup Girl_

Shawn Wilson <ikonoqlast@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 22, 4:06 am, "noRm d. plumBeR" <s...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Greed is good. It makes the work what it is and us what we are. You
are free to be a caveman if you want, but I will note that you have
not done so.

Greed is having more than you need and demanding more yet, if you
consider that "good" then you and me have nothing much to talk about
because you're so afraid you'll be left lacking that you'd kill me to
prevent it.

More nonsense.  'More than you need'?  

So your answer is that no matter how much you have you always need
more.



Again with this word 'need'. I don't know what that means. I know
what 'want' means, but not 'need'. I think you just use 'need' as a
very strong 'want'.

Need means necessary, required for survival.


How much do you 'need'?

Very nearly exactly as much as I have, though it varies slightly from
time to time; a little more here, a little less there, the world is a
dynamic place.



That isn't need, that's want. You have the option of being a caveman,
but you don't choose to. You *want* more.

Even "camping as a residence" is forbidden by law so in practical
terms being a caveman is not an option.


 If you have less than you need for too long then you
die,


As opposed to living forever if you have all you 'need'? I don't
think so. You die. No matter what.

I think that is unproven but I can accept as a postulate that I will
eventually die, especially since the alternative seems less than
appealing for some values of "live".


if you have more than you need then you have to figure out what
to do with the excess.  I'm not dead yet, maybe soon, maybe not; I do
need to build a few places to store things, but there's no rush at the
moment.



Since you will die you obviously don't even meet your 'needs'.

That statement conflicts with your earlier statement that you do not
understand the word 'need'. It also presumes that one has a need, or
even a desire, to live forever, which would be completely irrational
for some values of "live".


You have no excess. No one does.

Do you think more money is going to keep you alive for one second
longer? I have what is, at the moment, excess. Enough of everything
I need (or for that matter desire) to remove any motivation to collect
more stuff, even if said stuff was free.


I am coming from the position of someone who has studied and
understands how and why the world works, communicating with an
ignorant, wangsty adolescent.

I see you as having attempted to figure it out and maybe having found
something that sort of works partway sometimes, but trying to brazen
it out instead of admitting that a full and complete solution is
beyond your abilities; I think your abilities are probably not lacking
but you're trying to solve the wrong problem and unable to fail and
maybe not as honest with yourself as might benefit you.



"Full and complete solution"? No one has a "full and complete
solution" in any field whatsoever. We have partial solutions that we
build on. We don't live in caves in the mean time. We use what we
know and keep seeking more. I note that you aren't seeking more, and
thus you have deluded yourself into thinking you have a 'full and
complete soltution". You don't.

I consider something that works under all known conditions to be close
enough for engineering purposes.


Yes, and we created the economy you live in and the technology you use
to sneer at your betters.

You didn't create the economy, you only nurtured the greed and
stupidity that forced it into existence.

Greed and stupidity create wealth and technology.  OK...

Greed and stupidity create nothing, they simply drive the fearful and
demand a profit; some of the driven fearful create because that is
their nature, unfortunately their full creative abilities are usually
restricted by their fear.



Greed created the computer you are using to criticize greed. Greed
created the Internet. Greeed created the clothes you wear and the
food you eat. No one made those things because they like you. They
got paid.

If I didn't have strong suspicions to the contrary, I would conclude
from your previous paragraph that you are a total whore without a
creative bone in your body.

Greed did not create the computer that I'm using, COOL create it,
people stumbled across something they thought was cool and they spent
time PLAYING with it because it was cool. The people who did the real
creating didn't link getting paid to playing with cool stuff any more
than they had to, in fact they tried to keep the two separate. What
greed did was restrict the coolness level to what was profitable.
Greed created Microsoft which actually set the software industry back
by at least a decade, more likely two decades or more.


I still note that you do not choose to be a caveman.

I don't have a problem with being a caveman really,



Obviously you do. You are greedy for more than that.

Don't play games Shawn, unless you wish to play them by yourself in
your masturbatorium.


but I've worked
with the local building department and they seem fairly narrow-minded,
the result being that overall it is more convenient to live
above-ground in a dwelling that conforms to their building codes.


You are greedy for more than a cave...

Don't let your fear of the unknown restrict the level of coolness to
which you are allowed to aspire.


You didn't create the
technology I use, all you did was find a way to market it.

Without a market there is no profit motive to create it in the first
place.  

Apparently you are under the impression that without profit to
motivate oneself through greed, or others through fear, there would be
no creativity in the world.  That is an unfortunate and blighted point
of view.


If if only for a warm fuzzy feeling inside, everyone is greedy for
something. Your problem is in your assumption that greed is bad and
destructive, rather than good and constructive.

"Your problem"? I have no problem here, Shawn. I know what works and
what does not, without some cockamamie theory of economics that works
for a few out of all possible situations, situations specially
manufactured to show that the theory is not useless.


The market harnesses individual greed to serve the common
good.

Oh, are we supposed to care about "the common good"?



Funny how you were saying so in your previosu paragraph...

Oddly enough I don't see myself as having used that phrase, care to
point out where that was?


 That sounds like
pretty standard communist philosophy, do things "for the common good".


Nio, people do things for themselves, it just serves the common good
as well.

Why, that's utter geenyus!

--
"Snot logical!" --Mr Spork
.