How has money become so powerful in our society?

[mikelus]

Is it wrong out there in the world today? Is it a battle for food?
what is the cause of all our problems? and why? Is it a problem? Is it a lie,
Is truth written on paper? Don't you need two too have two sides? but what
if two were on each others side fighting for the same overall meaning but had a different title,
and who ever they were trying to fight would loose since he was fooled and the dark
shadow had locked him in. But truthfully the two were only one side since the two were fighting for the same
side. Money if this was perspected into our courtrooms. So basically you have to fight for yourself
with yourself to be won one.
I see this problem in our law, in our countries, and even in our ego, but is it to win or is it to be. People
have hungar driven so far up their money that it's hard to see what's valuable and what not.
Is it the money or is it not? Is it our heart or our minds is it right or is it wrong it's this dualling paradox that been forshadowing our lifes since we were born, it's time to stand back and say is it? Is it reality or is it a show, is reality a show or is show a reality. Do you believe in your tv or do you believe in you? Do you believe in each other or just you.
I believe in it all cause it's all so real

 

[scott_sieger]

hi Mike,

I can empathise with your dellema. I think all thinking persons go through the need to find reality, find what is real and what isn't.

I also know that most come away from this introspection disappointed. When they realize that in part reality is really an illusion as such.

However if it is an illusion, a fraud so to speak then they tend to think "well hey , it's the only illusion I have" and make the most of it. "If the stars are an illusion then they are the most beautiful of illusions"

One can think of reality as being a shared illusion and also as a labyrinth of concepts and impressions if one let's one self focuss on it. The only answer I feel for you is to try to find your place in this illusion where you can be comfortable. Get over the disappointment and move forward.

By the way I thought your writings sounded a bit like lyrics to a song. Maybe you should have a look at the possibility of writing lyrics.

Scott

 

[Gale]

yeah, i thought it was some sort of poem at first too. It is very poetic.

I like questions, especially one's like those. I sort of believe in everything myself. I'm really contradictory though, and worst part is, i don't think the contradictions are a problem.

In direct response to your questions though...
I don't know. I don't really even know what believing something is, or what existince is...

...ok i just typed out three different responses that were all trying to say the same thing, but i can't say it right. Everything is the same, i don't know how to elaborate that yet...

 

[scott_sieger]

You know Belief is a weid thing.

I used to believe that truth is not a question of belief. Truth doesnot rely on belief. Belief it self is an illusion of knowing.

Knowing is the truth and belief only supports what you know.

A while ago I was in a state of despair and I sat down and asked my self two questions.
1. what do I believe in?
2. what do I know?

I was amazed that I knew so little but believed so much.

So i formed a policy with the way I thought and approached the truth.

"It's not a question of belief for the truth is self evident."

I stopped believing except in what I knew was the truth and you know it made a hell of a difference to my life. The paradox you talk of just disappeared and all of a sudden I had very little but what I had was very real and of high value to me.

I hope this makes sense to you and others

I am 44 by the way and it took 34 years of my life to come to these realisations.

 

[Gale]

heh, well I'm a young'un not even half your age. I used to think about this stuff a lot though. At first i tried deciding what was true and what was real, and maybe cause i was young, or maybe because of the sort of person i am.. but either way, neither question got me anywhere. I couldn't believe anything but myself, and i didn't really trust that either. I couldn't decide what i was or why i mattered, so i couldn't figure how i'd be any more real or believable. eventually i figured, it doesn't matter. Real or no, what mattered was that on some level, i was doing what i wanted, because i wanted to. Things weren't really real or true, just that they were fun and i enjoyed them.

I'm thinking it's a hope thing, hope about life and its meaning. I think that for me, i used to think the only hope that life had meaning was that it was real, and that i could decipher what was true, now i suppose my assurance is in that I'm content with life. i dunno.

 

[sascha]

Concerning hope about life, to my sense Mike's concerns are reassuring. Wherever people stop wondering and prefer jumping to conclusions, things go awry -- even if that sometimes takes a long time.

In what worries Mike, I am especially disgusted by the work of contemporary economists getting lost in details instead of seeking the overall law of the socio-economic process (which is not just the equilibrium of neoclassics!). These economists say they describe and calculate "what is", and that "this is science". Not only do they forget all the secret assumptions behind their game, but also they forget that describing "what is" amounts to believing that "what is" is the right thing to do. They say they do not want to introduce valuations of people's motives but remain "objective" by looking from outside at their guinea pigs -- and they do not notice the enormous valuation that this introduces, namely that human acts are a mere mechanism.

Concerning the methodology in economics, maybe somebody is interested in a short article on the Post-Autistic Economics Forum (www.paecon.net) under "student essays", carrying the title "Focusing on methodology".

The mental style of reducing everything to mere mechanisms, wanting to see everything from outside (i.e. disregarding its own inside reality -- which is not only subjective, but needs to be acknowledged in its own potential of autonomy), is what has led to the coercions which Mike is worried about. The reason is that thinking only in terms of mechanism misleads to the belief that everything can be manipulated and does not really need to be fully understood. You can see this very clearly in the way politicians handle the world these days. Money is the supreme instance for anyone fantasizing that manipulation is the answer to everything.

 

[scott_sieger]

It may be worth adding to this discussion by ptting forward the notion that as with science, medicine, and mathematics, money has also become incredibly sophisticated.

These days i would suggest that corporate profits are more determined by ultra smart computor programs than poeple. The art of making money has become "mechanistic" as Sacha has so aptly put.

It is no longer acceptable for a company to just make a profit every year but it wants to make a bigger profit every year.

This brings us back to the concept of ecconomic Growth for growths sake, A mere video game that a managing director or government leader plays. People are becoming more and more just binary bits of information sitting in a computer program somewhere.

Here in australia they say for our eccomony to succeed we have to keep growing. I find this approach mistaken. For there are limitations on how far we can grow and it all has an ability to come crashing down.

Sustainable growth should read sustainable society. And this is where we seem to miss the point.

To achieve "happy" sustainablity and not growth.