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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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People fear losing things they don't love. Mainly because they don't want to lose anything and/or they've grown accustomed to it. People can also envy stuff they don't love. Often times it's also because they envy anything others have that they don't, or they want the effects of it.
Also, the power imbalance is something that doesn't necessitate love of money.
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...More like, screw that phrase, I find this one more accurate. I'm not trying to parrot what the Bible says or look only at the meaning the phrase from the Bible has. I'm looking at a different, but similar, phrase to the one from the Bible which I find more accurate and talking about why I find it so and how I interpret said phrase.
...So desire causes the power imbalance between the rich and the poor from their buying power? Or desire causes the rich to have an easier time creating more wealth than the poor?
edited 7th Dec '12 8:28:23 PM by deathpigeon
I corrected you, deathpigeon, for the reason that Hilarity just stated, and also because eliminating that one word has stripped the phrase of its actual intended meaning. Greed is a thing that exists independently of whether or not you have money. Money itself is just a tool and a concept that we invented in order to pursue specific goals. Money itself is not a goddamn infection.
You cannot seriously claim that money inspires evil in us that we're not capable of without it, because that's just damned ignorant of human nature. Complete the phrase in its original context, and you can see that it's a lot more insightful about how people work. Also insightful about how we end up in problems like we've been discussing.
edited 7th Dec '12 8:28:24 PM by AceofSpades
@R Taco: From their perspective, which isn't precisely "invalid," it would; their bank accounts grow at a slower rate and they might have to put off buying that Gulfstream with complimentary Playboy bunnies.
The utilitarian argument for doing so, of course, is that causing minimal harm to a small number of people to improve (and in many cases save) the lives of millions is a massive net gain.
Deathpigeon, money is not a sentient, sapient thing that can make decisions. PEOPLE are what does that. So yes, "love of money" is far, far more accurate. Desire for things you want can blind you to things that other people need. It can also blind us to the larger picture that could benefit us far more.
So yes, an excess of desire can cause the imbalance of power, because those in power naturally reinforce themselves to maintain that power. Usually with the use of money.
The warning about "love of money is the root of all evil" basically is a warning about blinding yourself to the misfortune of others. Not about money actually corrupting you, because obviously money isn't the only thing informing your moral choices. Or you know, somehow hijacking your brain.
Seriously, taking money away from people doesn't fix their moral problems, it just takes money away from them. It doesn't magically make them more charitable than before.
Yeah. As I said earlier, it's not money, it's power. Power causes all the normal human flaws and pettiness to have effects on a massively larger scale. Of course, power differences are always going to exist. The best you can do it regulate, and hope the people who have power will use it responsibly.
And if you take money away, something else will pop up in order to replace money.
While slightly off-topic, the Fairly Oddparents episode which has Timmy wishing for people to be grey blobs, is a great example of our conversation.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."@Ace: I don't honestly care about the phrases intended meaning in the original usage. I could've talked about it without using that phrase, and I wouldn't have changed the meaning of what I was saying. I was speaking of the evils of money. The power imbalance it creates when the rich have the ability to get much more than the poor. The feedback loop where making more money causes a person to be able to make even more money. How more selfish people are powerful because money grants power and becoming rich is more likely among selfish people. Those are the evils of money, and many more.
@Joe: While it's true that a currency economy is more efficient than a barter economy, those aren't the only two forms of economies. A gift economy
, for example, which has been proven to work, such as in the Free Territories in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War which lasted for two years under this system before the Bolsheviks took the territory, or the Anarchist Territories in Spain during the Spanish Civil War which lasted for 10 months before Franco, with help from the pressure being put on them by the Republicans and the Marxists, took them over, or the Open Source community which functions like a gift economy. No money, but more efficient than the barter system.
One word different makes the phrase similar. Not necessarily in meaning, though, but, again, I was making my own point, rather than parroting the point someone else made, so I don't see why I should care about getting that phrase correct when I was using a different phrase entirely.
edited 7th Dec '12 8:41:46 PM by deathpigeon
It is the rich's desire to stay rich that has caused them to create a society in which the few have abundant resources and the many have increasingly less.
Money is really just a scapegoat in this scenario, though. Yes, people will do horrible things for it, but they will also do horrible things for food/land/a number of other things they may need. That doesn't mean that anything that can be used as a resource is evil. It just means that people want things - which is normal - but if they want them to the point where they are willing to make gains at the expense of everyone else, that is where have a problem. That's what's happening with this economy.
edited 7th Dec '12 8:47:06 PM by HilarityEnsues
Except that the point you're saying you're trying to make is far, far more accurately described by the correct wording. Money itself isn't evil. It can't be, or everyone in existence would be a complete dickwad to everyone else. It's that "love", that greed, that motivates the rich to do that sort of thing, and blinds them to the fact that other people don't have those same advantages or capabilities. And look at this, "more likely to happen among selfish people" equates to those more likely to have a love of money to begin with. That is the EVIL OF GREED, not of money. A barter economy could cause you to be just as greedy about having cows, but that wouldn't make the "evil of cows" any more of a sensible thing to say.
You may say you're not parroting anything, but you really are parroting a malaproper that's been said by billions of people and doesn't actually mean what they think it means. Or anything at all. So yeah, I'm in the odd position of not parroting something because I'm not the one taking a misquote and spouting it everywhere. You, however, are parroting.
Wow, the VAWA thing is still being discussed, with Republicans still blocking it. (Watching msNNC right now.) Apparently Cantor wants to strip the protections for Native American women specifically, the part which gives tribes expanded jurisdiction over such cases. And FOX is apparently blaming women for not having guns. Wow.
To be fair, this probably wouldn't be happening right now if a woman with a gun approached Cantor.
edited 7th Dec '12 8:55:59 PM by HilarityEnsues
@Hilarity: Money compounds many problems and creates others. It compounds greed by making hoarding of wealth more efficient and easy. It creates a feedback loop to multiply on imbalances. It makes selfishness a trait that is more prevalent among those with power by giving those who can get money more power, which is easier done by selfish people than selfless people.
@Ace: I'm not saying that money is, in itself, evil, per se. I'm saying it creates and compounds evil, and the love of it is only one avenue it does so. Also, I'm not saying it makes people completely evil, nor that people becoming evil because of it is how it creates evil, per se. It might, on occasion.
@Joe: Except, it has and does work. The open source community functions as a gift economy, with people voluntarily letting others use their code without direct compensation. It also functioned in the Anarchist Territories in Spain and the Free Territories in Ukraine before both were taken over by outside forces, the first lasting over 10 months and the second lasting about two years.
Also, it's not like communism, it is communism.
They'll find someplace where they can get it, and they will be given it. Similarly to how, in currency economies, they will find some place to get it, and they'll buy it.
Free code for programs is not an economic system, it's people sharing stuff. no one's putting food on the table from free code!
and a gift economy would be so easy to abuse it wouldnt even be funny. not to mention, wheres the encouragement for technological advancement? whats to stop people from just being lazy bums?
edited 7th Dec '12 9:02:22 PM by Joesolo
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It functions in the same way.
It has fail-safes built in. For example, if someone starts, say, hoarding things, people can just stop giving the person as much. It's not like it's a give and take economy. People give others things for free, not people taking whatever they want. Which is the same way people can stop people from doing nothing. Give them less or nothing if they don't buy into the system.
Also, in the Anarchist Territories in Spain, Industrial and Scientific output increased after the anacho-communism was implemented.
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It's hardly our fault that there was outside military invention that destroyed the societies shortly after they formed. :/
No, but it's a damn good show of why an Anarchist society can't work long term. They never organized themselves enough to defend what they had built. Being able to do that is kind of important to building a society.
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I've never heard of the Democrats being against the VAWA. It's one of those things that come up for renewal every few years, so maybe it was some time back. But as of present time it's the Republicans blocking it for really stupid reasons. After hordes of women came out to vote against them.
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Actually, there was a military of sorts for the Free Territories in Ukraine. They just didn't control anything in the civilian sphere. Unfortunately there were just more Bolsheviks than anarcho-communists. They put up a good fight against the White Army and the Red Army, but they were outnumbered, and, once the White Army was defeated, the Bolsheviks could concentrate on crushing the Black Army.
I can't since they were crushed by Franco. :/
They would be getting a lot more stuff than they need. If someone is getting, for example, ten pieces of jewelrey from the jeweler every week, the jeweler doesn't have to keep giving him jewelry, for example.

thats nice.
but really, money isn't the problem. the top 3 richest people prove than. Bill gates, Buffet, and Carlos slim all are multi-BILLIONAIRES, and have a reputation of not being assholes.
edited 7th Dec '12 8:21:24 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaack