The Stigma of Money

[Politico]

I guess his grandma turned off the power in the basement.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

>> In the autumn of 2000, Daniel Suelo deposited his life savings—all thirty dollars of it – in a phone booth. He has lived without money ever since. And he has never felt so free, or so much at peace. “My wealth never leaves me,” he says. “Worrying about what could or should happen is a worse illness than what could or should happen.”

In The Man Who Quit Money, author Mark Sundeen tells the amazing story of how one man learned to live, sanely and happily, without earning, receiving, or spending a single cent. Suelo doesn&#8217;t pay taxes, or accept food stamps or welfare. He lives in caves in the Utah canyonlands, forages wild foods and gourmet discards, and accepts what is freely given him. He no longer even carries an I.D. Yet he manages to fulfill amply not only the basic human needs &#8211; for shelter, food, and warmth &#8211; but, to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. <<

Explored here: Idolatry for Beginners

Great program.

If one guy was happy with that program, good for him. On a grand scale, though, living in caves and playing hunter-gatherer. . . not nearly as efficient as how most societies live these days.

Come on now, cashless nomad living in caves? This is hardly a novel idea. I wanna say the nomads tried that at one point, along with many other early and prehistoric peoples. People generally stopped doing all that when they learned how to build houses and farm. This wasn't a mistake, this was in response to the sort of food shortages and hardships that are associated with living in caves and eating what you can get ahold of.

If this is actually anybody's idea of a superior way to live than the current, widely accepted cash-based economic system, I got four words for you. Famine. Disease. Mortality rate.

Nuff said.

" Efficient"? "Build houses"

Well there goes another point sailing over another head. Maybe you should have actually listened to it rather than skim a blurb and make assumptions. You've embarrassed yourself.

I give you this, , though: At no point in my response did I address that the guy was able to find companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. I'd have to guess that, if these even need to be addressed, there's some unspoken implication there that people living "the modern grind" aren't able to find these things that fulfill you emotionally and (for the sake of argument I'll pretend that this isn't dogmatic) spiritually?

The reason I didn't bother to address any of that is because all of these things are easily achievable in either setting, cashless or modern. As someone who not only lives in the latter but is a proud proponent of it, I'd have to say that I'm not hurting for any of these emotional things. Despite my existence in a materialistic society of which I actually approve, my relationships with loved ones and friends aren't shallow or based on ulterior motives. Those connections are as deep and real as they would be if I decided to live on charity and gathered goods.

Purpose is another silly assumption. Granted, you've got plenty of people out there working a 9 to 5 dead end job without any real plan other than turning that bi-weekly paycheck into rent, car, phone, and internet payments, but to assume that this would be any different if they could just be freed of their need for money? That's retarded. Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world. What it boils down to is that some people can complete the menial shit they need to complete to ensure their survival and still have the motivation to pursue greater goals, and some people simply aren't wired that way. Maybe it's not as deep as wiring, call it what you will, but some people are simply way more motivated than other people. You simply can't tell me that a guy living in a cave eating hand-outs is just naturally gonna be more goal oriented than the guy mopping your neighborhood high-school for 40 hours a week.

Or, perhaps with purpose, the implication is some dogmatic assumption that the sort of purpose that someone concerned with making money has is less emotionally and spiritually fulfilling than the sort of purpose someone has who isn't shackled by the bonds of the universal trading good? Again, I'd have to call bullshit. Guys in the money making world with a lot of purpose are the guys creating companies that employ shitloads of people and allow them, via this evil cash-based system we've got, to trade their labor for the things they need to survive physically, if not spiritually. However, I would also argue that, in my experience, the achievement of anything that is both difficult and meaningful to the achiever is as spiritually fulfilling as anything else, even if that achievement is in the realm of the financial.

All the spiritual talk brings me to the last part, spiritual engagement. Let me start by pointing out that the existence of a human spirit is highly arguable, and that I've found, as an agnostic, that a life wherein I've looked into a fair number of spiritual philosophies and religions and felt nothing, and been convinced of nothing, is still a fulfilling life. I don't feel like there's a missing part of me that I must repair by connecting to some higher power or logic defying consciousness, and I can't help being skeptical of people claiming to have found spiritual enlightenment or a higher consciousness. Always sounds potentially psychosomatic to me. At any rate, the modern grind still leaves me time to read and discuss philosophy which, by its very nature, is in large part the contemplation of concepts like spirituality, and is as close to a spiritual search as is necessary for me to assume that those inclined to that sort of thing would easily be able to chant and meditate even if they had 9 to 5's and bills to pay.

Sorry to get so long winded on such seemingly obvious shit here, but I figured it went without saying from the get-go when, judging by your harsh reprimand of the part of your point that I chose to argue with, it clearly did not. So I figured I'd be thorough if I was gonna point out the obvious at all.

Now, if I've managed to miss your point between these two posts, then you did a good job hiding it. I'd have thought that the part of the article that you posted was the portion necessary to make your point, but if that's not the case, I apologize for not wanting to read on any further into the article itself. To be perfectly frank, it sounds like some hippy shit to me.

 

[Pogo]

If one guy was happy with that program, good for him. On a grand scale, though, living in caves and playing hunter-gatherer. . . not nearly as efficient as how most societies live these days.

Come on now, cashless nomad living in caves? This is hardly a novel idea. I wanna say the nomads tried that at one point, along with many other early and prehistoric peoples. People generally stopped doing all that when they learned how to build houses and farm. This wasn't a mistake, this was in response to the sort of food shortages and hardships that are associated with living in caves and eating what you can get ahold of.

If this is actually anybody's idea of a superior way to live than the current, widely accepted cash-based economic system, I got four words for you. Famine. Disease. Mortality rate.

Nuff said.

" Efficient"? "Build houses"

Well there goes another point sailing over another head. Maybe you should have actually listened to it rather than skim a blurb and make assumptions. You've embarrassed yourself.

I read the entire blurb you offered up and responded to the point that you appeared, based on the content therein, to be making.

Funny. . . I don't feel embarrassed

That's the beauty of it-- it's painless. Pretty neat huh?

You missed the whole point. The blurb was just a quick intro to who the guy is. That's it. What it means to do what he did was explored in the radio program that the link went to. Had you done that you might have seen that the point had nothing to do with how this guy gets along, but with what money means and what it doesn't mean -- within the scope of the program's theme,which is the concept of idolatry.. It's not about this guy; he's just a vehicle for the subject. The actual point is in the radio program, not the blurb.

You seem to have touched on some of this in your subsequent post, but the blurb was only a teaser. Wasn't designed to be a story in itself..

 

[Pogo]

If one guy was happy with that program, good for him. On a grand scale, though, living in caves and playing hunter-gatherer. . . not nearly as efficient as how most societies live these days.

Come on now, cashless nomad living in caves? This is hardly a novel idea. I wanna say the nomads tried that at one point, along with many other early and prehistoric peoples. People generally stopped doing all that when they learned how to build houses and farm. This wasn't a mistake, this was in response to the sort of food shortages and hardships that are associated with living in caves and eating what you can get ahold of.

If this is actually anybody's idea of a superior way to live than the current, widely accepted cash-based economic system, I got four words for you. Famine. Disease. Mortality rate.

Nuff said.

" Efficient"? "Build houses"

Well there goes another point sailing over another head. Maybe you should have actually listened to it rather than skim a blurb and make assumptions. You've embarrassed yourself.

I give you this, , though: At no point in my response did I address that the guy was able to find companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. I'd have to guess that, if these even need to be addressed, there's some unspoken implication there that people living "the modern grind" aren't able to find these things that fulfill you emotionally and (for the sake of argument I'll pretend that this isn't dogmatic) spiritually?

The reason I didn't bother to address any of that is because all of these things are easily achievable in either setting, cashless or modern. As someone who not only lives in the latter but is a proud proponent of it, I'd have to say that I'm not hurting for any of these emotional things. Despite my existence in a materialistic society of which I actually approve, my relationships with loved ones and friends aren't shallow or based on ulterior motives. Those connections are as deep and real as they would be if I decided to live on charity and gathered goods.

Purpose is another silly assumption. Granted, you've got plenty of people out there working a 9 to 5 dead end job without any real plan other than turning that bi-weekly paycheck into rent, car, phone, and internet payments, but to assume that this would be any different if they could just be freed of their need for money? That's retarded. Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world. What it boils down to is that some people can complete the menial shit they need to complete to ensure their survival and still have the motivation to pursue greater goals, and some people simply aren't wired that way. Maybe it's not as deep as wiring, call it what you will, but some people are simply way more motivated than other people. You simply can't tell me that a guy living in a cave eating hand-outs is just naturally gonna be more goal oriented than the guy mopping your neighborhood high-school for 40 hours a week.

Or, perhaps with purpose, the implication is some dogmatic assumption that the sort of purpose that someone concerned with making money has is less emotionally and spiritually fulfilling than the sort of purpose someone has who isn't shackled by the bonds of the universal trading good? Again, I'd have to call bullshit. Guys in the money making world with a lot of purpose are the guys creating companies that employ shitloads of people and allow them, via this evil cash-based system we've got, to trade their labor for the things they need to survive physically, if not spiritually. However, I would also argue that, in my experience, the achievement of anything that is both difficult and meaningful to the achiever is as spiritually fulfilling as anything else, even if that achievement is in the realm of the financial.

All the spiritual talk brings me to the last part, spiritual engagement. Let me start by pointing out that the existence of a human spirit is highly arguable, and that I've found, as an agnostic, that a life wherein I've looked into a fair number of spiritual philosophies and religions and felt nothing, and been convinced of nothing, is still a fulfilling life. I don't feel like there's a missing part of me that I must repair by connecting to some higher power or logic defying consciousness, and I can't help being skeptical of people claiming to have found spiritual enlightenment or a higher consciousness. Always sounds potentially psychosomatic to me. At any rate, the modern grind still leaves me time to read and discuss philosophy which, by its very nature, is in large part the contemplation of concepts like spirituality, and is as close to a spiritual search as is necessary for me to assume that those inclined to that sort of thing would easily be able to chant and meditate even if they had 9 to 5's and bills to pay.

Sorry to get so long winded on such seemingly obvious shit here, but I figured it went without saying from the get-go when, judging by your harsh reprimand of the part of your point that I chose to argue with, it clearly did not. So I figured I'd be thorough if I was gonna point out the obvious at all.

Now, if I've managed to miss your point between these two posts, then you did a good job hiding it. I'd have thought that the part of the article that you posted was the portion necessary to make your point, but if that's not the case, I apologize for not wanting to read on any further into the article itself. To be perfectly frank, it sounds like some hippy shit to me.

Hard to see how the point was "hidden" when there's a link right to it in the original post. I don't insert links for no reason.

In response to the above, as I said you've touched on some tangents, but the point really isn't about spirituality or interpersonal relationships, though these inevitably are affected. It's about this basis as you articulated it:

Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world.

Now, you can take the position that that's the way of the world, end of story, and anything that challenges your base beliefs is "retarded". Or you can consider with an open mind. Because whenever you make the statement "that's the way of the world" (regardless what way you speak of), there's always a chance that no it isn't. If you only dare to consider it.

The program's about that, and more broadly the psychology of objectification in general. So in that sense there is a sort of spiritual ingredient, but as I see it it's more about mass human psychology.


Ah, I remember foggily from my anthropology classes (we won't say how long ago but I believe we were using quills) that we who live in what we in our smug self satisfaction call "civilization" spend far far more of our time chasing after these machinations of way-of-the-world "survival" than do what we call "primitives" -- hunter-gatherers like this guy-- who end up with far far more time to create and recreate, since they have to spend far less time on that survival than we do.

How "retarded" is that?

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

" Efficient"? "Build houses"

Well there goes another point sailing over another head. Maybe you should have actually listened to it rather than skim a blurb and make assumptions. You've embarrassed yourself.

I give you this, , though: At no point in my response did I address that the guy was able to find companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. I'd have to guess that, if these even need to be addressed, there's some unspoken implication there that people living "the modern grind" aren't able to find these things that fulfill you emotionally and (for the sake of argument I'll pretend that this isn't dogmatic) spiritually?

The reason I didn't bother to address any of that is because all of these things are easily achievable in either setting, cashless or modern. As someone who not only lives in the latter but is a proud proponent of it, I'd have to say that I'm not hurting for any of these emotional things. Despite my existence in a materialistic society of which I actually approve, my relationships with loved ones and friends aren't shallow or based on ulterior motives. Those connections are as deep and real as they would be if I decided to live on charity and gathered goods.

Purpose is another silly assumption. Granted, you've got plenty of people out there working a 9 to 5 dead end job without any real plan other than turning that bi-weekly paycheck into rent, car, phone, and internet payments, but to assume that this would be any different if they could just be freed of their need for money? That's retarded. Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world. What it boils down to is that some people can complete the menial shit they need to complete to ensure their survival and still have the motivation to pursue greater goals, and some people simply aren't wired that way. Maybe it's not as deep as wiring, call it what you will, but some people are simply way more motivated than other people. You simply can't tell me that a guy living in a cave eating hand-outs is just naturally gonna be more goal oriented than the guy mopping your neighborhood high-school for 40 hours a week.

Or, perhaps with purpose, the implication is some dogmatic assumption that the sort of purpose that someone concerned with making money has is less emotionally and spiritually fulfilling than the sort of purpose someone has who isn't shackled by the bonds of the universal trading good? Again, I'd have to call bullshit. Guys in the money making world with a lot of purpose are the guys creating companies that employ shitloads of people and allow them, via this evil cash-based system we've got, to trade their labor for the things they need to survive physically, if not spiritually. However, I would also argue that, in my experience, the achievement of anything that is both difficult and meaningful to the achiever is as spiritually fulfilling as anything else, even if that achievement is in the realm of the financial.

All the spiritual talk brings me to the last part, spiritual engagement. Let me start by pointing out that the existence of a human spirit is highly arguable, and that I've found, as an agnostic, that a life wherein I've looked into a fair number of spiritual philosophies and religions and felt nothing, and been convinced of nothing, is still a fulfilling life. I don't feel like there's a missing part of me that I must repair by connecting to some higher power or logic defying consciousness, and I can't help being skeptical of people claiming to have found spiritual enlightenment or a higher consciousness. Always sounds potentially psychosomatic to me. At any rate, the modern grind still leaves me time to read and discuss philosophy which, by its very nature, is in large part the contemplation of concepts like spirituality, and is as close to a spiritual search as is necessary for me to assume that those inclined to that sort of thing would easily be able to chant and meditate even if they had 9 to 5's and bills to pay.

Sorry to get so long winded on such seemingly obvious shit here, but I figured it went without saying from the get-go when, judging by your harsh reprimand of the part of your point that I chose to argue with, it clearly did not. So I figured I'd be thorough if I was gonna point out the obvious at all.

Now, if I've managed to miss your point between these two posts, then you did a good job hiding it. I'd have thought that the part of the article that you posted was the portion necessary to make your point, but if that's not the case, I apologize for not wanting to read on any further into the article itself. To be perfectly frank, it sounds like some hippy shit to me.

Hard to see how the point was "hidden" when there's a link right to it in the original post. I don't insert links for no reason.

In response to the above, as I said you've touched on some tangents, but the point really isn't about spirituality or interpersonal relationships, though these inevitably are affected. It's about this basis as you articulated it:

Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world.

Now, you can take the position that that's the way of the world, end of story, and anything that challenges your base beliefs is "retarded". Or you can consider with an open mind. Because whenever you make the statement "that's the way of the world" (regardless what way you speak of), there's always a chance that no it isn't. If you only dare to consider it.

The program's about that, and more broadly the psychology of objectification in general. So in that sense there is a sort of spiritual ingredient, but as I see it it's more about mass human psychology.


Ah, I remember foggily from my anthropology classes (we won't say how long ago but I believe we were using quills) that we who live in what we in our smug self satisfaction call "civilization" spend far far more of our time chasing after these machinations of way-of-the-world "survival" than do what we call "primitives" -- hunter-gatherers like this guy-- who end up with far far more time to create and recreate, since they have to spend far less time on that survival than we do.

How "retarded" is that?

I'm pretty sure I explained what I meant by hidden, but I'll reiterate. If you were going to summarize any of your link right there in your post, I would have assumed that it would be the portion that made the point you were getting at. If I had to go into the post to find your point, why bother speaking? Just let the link speak for you if that's what you were going to do.

Next, I believe I explained this as well, but allow me to reiterate once more.

When I say survival I mean survival in the hunter gatherer sense. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Just that. Simply because people work 40 hours a week doesn't mean they spend 40 hours a week chasing down the things needed to survive. Do the math on how much money you make and how much of it actually goes to securing those things necessary to your survival. I'd guess that if you combined your entertainment fund, your car payments, your phone payments, your cable and internet payments, you probably drop close to as much of your money on non-essentials as you do on food, water, clothing, and shelter. Especially if you were to go bare minimum on that shelter, i.e. only what you need to avoid the ravages of nature. . . in most cities you can get a studio apartment for cheap as fuck.

People aren't working 40 hours a week because it takes that long to feed themselves. If you broke it down to a day by day average and included grocery shopping, most people probably spend less than 3 hours a day making the money that it takes to acquire the essentials. They've simply decided that the other two plus hours (if you averaged that workweek out to 7 days in stead of the five most people actually work) are better spent getting more money so they can have toys than spent creating stuff. Not everybody aspires to be an artist or a spiritualist, I don't know what else to tell you.

So yeah, living as a hunter gatherer, far less efficient. Anybody who makes the argument that archaic methods are actually a quicker way to meet your needs isn't taking everything into account. All you're really describing is a system that trades the chase of gadgets and fun times for the chase of art and spirituality. I can do that without quitting my job and moving into a cave.

Also, we smug societies have a point: If you tried to go large-scale hunter gatherer, we've hit the point population-wise where that shit simply wouldn't fly. There wouldn't be enough to go around without the sort of high-density food production that modern agriculture affords. Although, it would even itself out. Nomadic societies tend to have a lot of people wiped out by hunger and disease compared to modernized societies, plus the scarcity of the food supply would limit your population. Truly we would be living in a balance with nature lol!

As a side note, I find it funny that most of the people who are proponents of "getting rid of the money and just living, man!" tend to be hippy democrat types. The same people who believe that the government should be forcing the wealthy to help the less fortunate. The reason it's funny is because the morality behind it is the desire to create a society were -everybody- has enough. Funny that some of these same people can, from the other side of their mouth, tout a belief that returning to the hunter-gatherer system would be a more fulfilling existence. Yeah, except to the less fortunate, who in those systems aren't enduring the hardships of having to survive on top ramen and not being able to pay their mortgage and still make their car and phone payments. In hunter gatherer systems, the less fortunate are the weak, who are dying to hunger and diseases that would be a lot easier to combat with readily available, balanced nutrition.

 

[percysunshine]

If tailors had never invented pockets, money would never have been invented to put in the pockets. It is all their fault.

 

[hjmick]

Any of you who feel stigmatized by money, please PM me, I will give you my P.O. Box number and you can mail your money to me, no questions asked...

 

[Pogo]

Any of you who feel stigmatized by money, please PM me, I will give you my P.O. Box number and you can mail your money to me, no questions asked...

Doesn't it cost money to mail?

 

[Pogo]

I give you this, , though: At no point in my response did I address that the guy was able to find companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. I'd have to guess that, if these even need to be addressed, there's some unspoken implication there that people living "the modern grind" aren't able to find these things that fulfill you emotionally and (for the sake of argument I'll pretend that this isn't dogmatic) spiritually?

The reason I didn't bother to address any of that is because all of these things are easily achievable in either setting, cashless or modern. As someone who not only lives in the latter but is a proud proponent of it, I'd have to say that I'm not hurting for any of these emotional things. Despite my existence in a materialistic society of which I actually approve, my relationships with loved ones and friends aren't shallow or based on ulterior motives. Those connections are as deep and real as they would be if I decided to live on charity and gathered goods.

Purpose is another silly assumption. Granted, you've got plenty of people out there working a 9 to 5 dead end job without any real plan other than turning that bi-weekly paycheck into rent, car, phone, and internet payments, but to assume that this would be any different if they could just be freed of their need for money? That's retarded. Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world. What it boils down to is that some people can complete the menial shit they need to complete to ensure their survival and still have the motivation to pursue greater goals, and some people simply aren't wired that way. Maybe it's not as deep as wiring, call it what you will, but some people are simply way more motivated than other people. You simply can't tell me that a guy living in a cave eating hand-outs is just naturally gonna be more goal oriented than the guy mopping your neighborhood high-school for 40 hours a week.

Or, perhaps with purpose, the implication is some dogmatic assumption that the sort of purpose that someone concerned with making money has is less emotionally and spiritually fulfilling than the sort of purpose someone has who isn't shackled by the bonds of the universal trading good? Again, I'd have to call bullshit. Guys in the money making world with a lot of purpose are the guys creating companies that employ shitloads of people and allow them, via this evil cash-based system we've got, to trade their labor for the things they need to survive physically, if not spiritually. However, I would also argue that, in my experience, the achievement of anything that is both difficult and meaningful to the achiever is as spiritually fulfilling as anything else, even if that achievement is in the realm of the financial.

All the spiritual talk brings me to the last part, spiritual engagement. Let me start by pointing out that the existence of a human spirit is highly arguable, and that I've found, as an agnostic, that a life wherein I've looked into a fair number of spiritual philosophies and religions and felt nothing, and been convinced of nothing, is still a fulfilling life. I don't feel like there's a missing part of me that I must repair by connecting to some higher power or logic defying consciousness, and I can't help being skeptical of people claiming to have found spiritual enlightenment or a higher consciousness. Always sounds potentially psychosomatic to me. At any rate, the modern grind still leaves me time to read and discuss philosophy which, by its very nature, is in large part the contemplation of concepts like spirituality, and is as close to a spiritual search as is necessary for me to assume that those inclined to that sort of thing would easily be able to chant and meditate even if they had 9 to 5's and bills to pay.

Sorry to get so long winded on such seemingly obvious shit here, but I figured it went without saying from the get-go when, judging by your harsh reprimand of the part of your point that I chose to argue with, it clearly did not. So I figured I'd be thorough if I was gonna point out the obvious at all.

Now, if I've managed to miss your point between these two posts, then you did a good job hiding it. I'd have thought that the part of the article that you posted was the portion necessary to make your point, but if that's not the case, I apologize for not wanting to read on any further into the article itself. To be perfectly frank, it sounds like some hippy shit to me.

Hard to see how the point was "hidden" when there's a link right to it in the original post. I don't insert links for no reason.

In response to the above, as I said you've touched on some tangents, but the point really isn't about spirituality or interpersonal relationships, though these inevitably are affected. It's about this basis as you articulated it:

Ultimately, in this world, you -have- to work to survive. This isn't a byproduct of money or modern society. This is the way of the world.

Now, you can take the position that that's the way of the world, end of story, and anything that challenges your base beliefs is "retarded". Or you can consider with an open mind. Because whenever you make the statement "that's the way of the world" (regardless what way you speak of), there's always a chance that no it isn't. If you only dare to consider it.

The program's about that, and more broadly the psychology of objectification in general. So in that sense there is a sort of spiritual ingredient, but as I see it it's more about mass human psychology.


Ah, I remember foggily from my anthropology classes (we won't say how long ago but I believe we were using quills) that we who live in what we in our smug self satisfaction call "civilization" spend far far more of our time chasing after these machinations of way-of-the-world "survival" than do what we call "primitives" -- hunter-gatherers like this guy-- who end up with far far more time to create and recreate, since they have to spend far less time on that survival than we do.

How "retarded" is that?

...When I say survival I mean survival in the hunter gatherer sense. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Just that. Simply because people work 40 hours a week doesn't mean they spend 40 hours a week chasing down the things needed to survive. Do the math on how much money you make and how much of it actually goes to securing those things necessary to your survival. I'd guess that if you combined your entertainment fund, your car payments, your phone payments, your cable and internet payments, you probably drop close to as much of your money on non-essentials as you do on food, water, clothing, and shelter.

Especially if you were to go bare minimum on that shelter, i.e. only what you need to avoid the ravages of nature. . . in most cities you can get a studio apartment for cheap as fuck.

People aren't working 40 hours a week because it takes that long to feed themselves. If you broke it down to a day by day average and included grocery shopping, most people probably spend less than 3 hours a day making the money that it takes to acquire the essentials. They've simply decided that the other two plus hours (if you averaged that workweek out to 7 days in stead of the five most people actually work) are better spent getting more money so they can have toys than spent creating stuff. Not everybody aspires to be an artist or a spiritualist, I don't know what else to tell you.

No shit. That was the point.
Except for the cheap-as-fuck apartment (how cheap is 'fuck'?), the underlying point, since you refuse to hear the big picture story and need it spelled out a sentence at a time, is that these toys, these accouterments, these must-have iPhones and flat screens and SUVs, can be seen as balls-and-chains.

So yeah, living as a hunter gatherer, far less efficient. Anybody who makes the argument that archaic methods are actually a quicker way to meet your needs isn't taking everything into account. All you're really describing is a system that trades the chase of gadgets and fun times for the chase of art and spirituality. I can do that without quitting my job and moving into a cave.

You seem bent on introducing 'spirituality' into this. Spirituality is fine and inevitable, but it's not the point here. The point is rather cultural.

Also, we smug societies have a point: If you tried to go large-scale hunter gatherer, we've hit the point population-wise where that shit simply wouldn't fly. There wouldn't be enough to go around without the sort of high-density food production that modern agriculture affords. Although, it would even itself out. Nomadic societies tend to have a lot of people wiped out by hunger and disease compared to modernized societies, plus the scarcity of the food supply would limit your population. Truly we would be living in a balance with nature lol!

Who brought up "large scale"? Where did you hear that in the program? Oh wait, that's right, you don't need to hear the program -- you have your assumptions, and we know what they say about the word assume...

You're making this point way more complex than it is; the point was the meaning of money. That's it.

As a side note, I find it funny that most of the people who are proponents of "getting rid of the money and just living, man!" tend to be hippy democrat types. The same people who believe that the government should be forcing the wealthy to help the less fortunate. The reason it's funny is because the morality behind it is the desire to create a society were -everybody- has enough. Funny that some of these same people can, from the other side of their mouth, tout a belief that returning to the hunter-gatherer system would be a more fulfilling existence. Yeah, except to the less fortunate, who in those systems aren't enduring the hardships of having to survive on top ramen and not being able to pay their mortgage and still make their car and phone payments. In hunter gatherer systems, the less fortunate are the weak, who are dying to hunger and diseases that would be a lot easier to combat with readily available, balanced nutrition.

And there we are in assumption-land again. Must be convenient to have no need to hear any voice but one's own.

I'm pretty sure I explained what I meant by hidden, but I'll reiterate. If you were going to summarize any of your link right there in your post, I would have assumed that it would be the portion that made the point you were getting at. If I had to go into the post to find your point, why bother speaking? Just let the link speak for you if that's what you were going to do.

I bother speaking for those intelligent enough to listen. But I get it that your attitude toward my link is and you'd rather debate your own strawmen.

Yeah, that's always the easy way out, innit?

Dismissed.

 

[hjmick]

Any of you who feel stigmatized by money, please PM me, I will give you my P.O. Box number and you can mail your money to me, no questions asked...

Doesn't it cost money to mail?

Just means there's less for them to worry about...

 

[lizzie]

America has changed the world forever. No longer is there the free-spirited human nature, there once was, as was beset by the Native Americans. Money truly is the root of all evil, and it violates liberty. The concept alone is worse than living a life of fear of violent death.

As a consumer society, we are constantly subjected to relinquishing time and efforts in exchange for money, to earn a living. This is a major deception. The quote on quote, daily routine of “earning a living” is pointless, because acquiring money is inevitably superseded by meaningless expenditures, as we are all corrupted by avaricious sentiments to sustain life, an avarice of which there is no end.

Ummm, the idea that one must pay his own way, in order to survive was not originated in America. Money isn't the root of all evil. Those who value it above all else are misguided imo, but it's not evil. If you don't want to live within the parameters of normal society, you can do that, but it will be difficult. Killing and growing your own food is hard work. Maintaining shelter is hard work. The lifestyle of pioneers, and the generations which lived before them is very difficult to maintain. You can do it if you want to, but having a job in order to support your lifestyle, is generally easier over the long term.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Hard to see how the point was "hidden" when there's a link right to it in the original post. I don't insert links for no reason.

In response to the above, as I said you've touched on some tangents, but the point really isn't about spirituality or interpersonal relationships, though these inevitably are affected. It's about this basis as you articulated it:



Now, you can take the position that that's the way of the world, end of story, and anything that challenges your base beliefs is "retarded". Or you can consider with an open mind. Because whenever you make the statement "that's the way of the world" (regardless what way you speak of), there's always a chance that no it isn't. If you only dare to consider it.

The program's about that, and more broadly the psychology of objectification in general. So in that sense there is a sort of spiritual ingredient, but as I see it it's more about mass human psychology.


Ah, I remember foggily from my anthropology classes (we won't say how long ago but I believe we were using quills) that we who live in what we in our smug self satisfaction call "civilization" spend far far more of our time chasing after these machinations of way-of-the-world "survival" than do what we call "primitives" -- hunter-gatherers like this guy-- who end up with far far more time to create and recreate, since they have to spend far less time on that survival than we do.

How "retarded" is that?

...When I say survival I mean survival in the hunter gatherer sense. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Just that. Simply because people work 40 hours a week doesn't mean they spend 40 hours a week chasing down the things needed to survive. Do the math on how much money you make and how much of it actually goes to securing those things necessary to your survival. I'd guess that if you combined your entertainment fund, your car payments, your phone payments, your cable and internet payments, you probably drop close to as much of your money on non-essentials as you do on food, water, clothing, and shelter.

Especially if you were to go bare minimum on that shelter, i.e. only what you need to avoid the ravages of nature. . . in most cities you can get a studio apartment for cheap as fuck.

People aren't working 40 hours a week because it takes that long to feed themselves. If you broke it down to a day by day average and included grocery shopping, most people probably spend less than 3 hours a day making the money that it takes to acquire the essentials. They've simply decided that the other two plus hours (if you averaged that workweek out to 7 days in stead of the five most people actually work) are better spent getting more money so they can have toys than spent creating stuff. Not everybody aspires to be an artist or a spiritualist, I don't know what else to tell you.

1. No shit. That was the point.
Except for the cheap-as-fuck apartment (how cheap is 'fuck'?), the underlying point, since you refuse to hear the big picture story and need it spelled out a sentence at a time, is that these toys, these accouterments, these must-have iPhones and flat screens and SUVs, can be seen as balls-and-chains.



2. You seem bent on introducing 'spirituality' into this. Spirituality is fine and inevitable, but it's not the point here. The point is rather cultural.



3. Who brought up "large scale"? Where did you hear that in the program? Oh wait, that's right, you don't need to hear the program -- you have your assumptions, and we know what they say about the word assume...

You're making this point way more complex than it is; the point was the meaning of money. That's it.

As a side note, I find it funny that most of the people who are proponents of "getting rid of the money and just living, man!" tend to be hippy democrat types. The same people who believe that the government should be forcing the wealthy to help the less fortunate. The reason it's funny is because the morality behind it is the desire to create a society were -everybody- has enough. Funny that some of these same people can, from the other side of their mouth, tout a belief that returning to the hunter-gatherer system would be a more fulfilling existence. Yeah, except to the less fortunate, who in those systems aren't enduring the hardships of having to survive on top ramen and not being able to pay their mortgage and still make their car and phone payments. In hunter gatherer systems, the less fortunate are the weak, who are dying to hunger and diseases that would be a lot easier to combat with readily available, balanced nutrition.

4. And there we are in assumption-land again. Must be convenient to have no need to hear any voice but one's own.

I'm pretty sure I explained what I meant by hidden, but I'll reiterate. If you were going to summarize any of your link right there in your post, I would have assumed that it would be the portion that made the point you were getting at. If I had to go into the post to find your point, why bother speaking? Just let the link speak for you if that's what you were going to do.

5. I bother speaking for those intelligent enough to listen. But I get it that your attitude toward my link is and you'd rather debate your own strawmen.

Yeah, that's always the easy way out, innit?

Dismissed.

1. Never thought that those gadgets and extras were what you were talking about, considering that what you said was that its possible, via a hunter gatherer style system, to spend less time ensuring your survival than one must spend in a modern, cash based society. That point is incorrect.

If what you meant was that these gadgets and pointless things that people chase down along with the labor they put into their survival are a ball and chain in and of themselves, what you should have said was that these extras are a ball and chain in and of themselves, not that hunter-gathering is -actually- a less timely means of -survival-

I'm sorry I didn't listen to your radio program. I'm apparently silly for assuming that I could take what you were saying as what you were meaning. I realize that I could get a better idea of what your program is getting at by listening to the program, but I figured I could at least have faith in you to articulate your own argument. Didn't realize that by arguing with what you've said, I wasn't arguing with what you meant.


2. Sorry, I wasn't trying to steer the argument by using the term spiritual. Replace the term spirituality with the term culture and my statement would still stand. Whether you say art and culture or art and spirituality, ultimately you're dealing with dogmatic values. Unless your art is good enough to make you some money (and most people's isn't, I'm afraid) or your idea of cultured interests relate to something you can market, then they're just as non-essential as spirituality arguably is, and just as non-essential as the pursuit of meaningless gadgets and club nights. Where art and culture don't function to make one more efficient at acquiring the means for survival, their value is objective. Sorry.

3. I brought up large scale. If this lifestyle you're describing is only feasible on a tiny scale with the aid of modern amenities, then I'm afraid I have to call bullshit. Without the ease of self-sustenance that this modern system has afforded us, the hunter-gatherer has a real hard time supplementing his sustenance with hand-outs and dumpster scores.

If everyone had to play hunter-gatherer, you think people'd be tossing half a McMuffin in the garbage? You're fuckin dreaming.

4. Not assuming shit, here. I wasn't saying that any of that paragraph applied to you. In fact, I preceded it with, "as a side note", specifically to distinguish that it had nothing to do with our particular back and forth. If you still thought that was directed at you, my apologies.

5. You've got a point, to truly argue it out with the philosophy as presented in your radio program, I should listen to the program and argue with it. I was, however, under the mistaken impression that I could argue with what you said as though your own words contained your point, or even expressed what you meant. If you're really unable to articulate your own argument without the aid of a talk show host, I'll be more understanding in the future.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Hard to see how the point was "hidden" when there's a link right to it in the original post. I don't insert links for no reason.

In response to the above, as I said you've touched on some tangents, but the point really isn't about spirituality or interpersonal relationships, though these inevitably are affected. It's about this basis as you articulated it:



Now, you can take the position that that's the way of the world, end of story, and anything that challenges your base beliefs is "retarded". Or you can consider with an open mind. Because whenever you make the statement "that's the way of the world" (regardless what way you speak of), there's always a chance that no it isn't. If you only dare to consider it.

The program's about that, and more broadly the psychology of objectification in general. So in that sense there is a sort of spiritual ingredient, but as I see it it's more about mass human psychology.


Ah, I remember foggily from my anthropology classes (we won't say how long ago but I believe we were using quills) that we who live in what we in our smug self satisfaction call "civilization" spend far far more of our time chasing after these machinations of way-of-the-world "survival" than do what we call "primitives" -- hunter-gatherers like this guy-- who end up with far far more time to create and recreate, since they have to spend far less time on that survival than we do.

How "retarded" is that?

...When I say survival I mean survival in the hunter gatherer sense. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Just that. Simply because people work 40 hours a week doesn't mean they spend 40 hours a week chasing down the things needed to survive. Do the math on how much money you make and how much of it actually goes to securing those things necessary to your survival. I'd guess that if you combined your entertainment fund, your car payments, your phone payments, your cable and internet payments, you probably drop close to as much of your money on non-essentials as you do on food, water, clothing, and shelter.

Especially if you were to go bare minimum on that shelter, i.e. only what you need to avoid the ravages of nature. . . in most cities you can get a studio apartment for cheap as fuck.

People aren't working 40 hours a week because it takes that long to feed themselves. If you broke it down to a day by day average and included grocery shopping, most people probably spend less than 3 hours a day making the money that it takes to acquire the essentials. They've simply decided that the other two plus hours (if you averaged that workweek out to 7 days in stead of the five most people actually work) are better spent getting more money so they can have toys than spent creating stuff. Not everybody aspires to be an artist or a spiritualist, I don't know what else to tell you.

1. No shit. That was the point.
Except for the cheap-as-fuck apartment (how cheap is 'fuck'?), the underlying point, since you refuse to hear the big picture story and need it spelled out a sentence at a time, is that these toys, these accouterments, these must-have iPhones and flat screens and SUVs, can be seen as balls-and-chains.



2. You seem bent on introducing 'spirituality' into this. Spirituality is fine and inevitable, but it's not the point here. The point is rather cultural.



3. Who brought up "large scale"? Where did you hear that in the program? Oh wait, that's right, you don't need to hear the program -- you have your assumptions, and we know what they say about the word assume...

You're making this point way more complex than it is; the point was the meaning of money. That's it.

As a side note, I find it funny that most of the people who are proponents of "getting rid of the money and just living, man!" tend to be hippy democrat types. The same people who believe that the government should be forcing the wealthy to help the less fortunate. The reason it's funny is because the morality behind it is the desire to create a society were -everybody- has enough. Funny that some of these same people can, from the other side of their mouth, tout a belief that returning to the hunter-gatherer system would be a more fulfilling existence. Yeah, except to the less fortunate, who in those systems aren't enduring the hardships of having to survive on top ramen and not being able to pay their mortgage and still make their car and phone payments. In hunter gatherer systems, the less fortunate are the weak, who are dying to hunger and diseases that would be a lot easier to combat with readily available, balanced nutrition.

4. And there we are in assumption-land again. Must be convenient to have no need to hear any voice but one's own.

I'm pretty sure I explained what I meant by hidden, but I'll reiterate. If you were going to summarize any of your link right there in your post, I would have assumed that it would be the portion that made the point you were getting at. If I had to go into the post to find your point, why bother speaking? Just let the link speak for you if that's what you were going to do.

5. I bother speaking for those intelligent enough to listen. But I get it that your attitude toward my link is and you'd rather debate your own strawmen.

Yeah, that's always the easy way out, innit?

Dismissed.

1. Never thought that those gadgets and extras were what you were talking about, considering that what you said was that its possible, via a hunter gatherer style system, to spend less time ensuring your survival than one must spend in a modern, cash based society. That point is incorrect.

If what you meant was that these gadgets and pointless things that people chase down along with the labor they put into their survival are a ball and chain in and of themselves, what you should have said was that these extras are a ball and chain in and of themselves, not that hunter-gathering is -actually- a less timely means of -survival-

I'm sorry I didn't listen to your radio program. I'm apparently silly for assuming that I could take what you were saying as what you were meaning. I realize that I could get a better idea of what your program is getting at by listening to the program, but I figured I could at least have faith in you to articulate your own argument. Didn't realize that by arguing with what you've said, I wasn't arguing with what you meant.


2. Sorry, I wasn't trying to steer the argument by using the term spiritual. Replace the term spirituality with the term culture and my statement would still stand. Whether you say art and culture or art and spirituality, ultimately you're dealing with dogmatic values. Unless your art is good enough to make you some money (and most people's isn't, I'm afraid) or your idea of cultured interests relate to something you can market, then they're just as non-essential as spirituality arguably is, and just as non-essential as the pursuit of meaningless gadgets and club nights. Where art and culture don't function to make one more efficient at acquiring the means for survival, their value is objective. Sorry.

3. I brought up large scale. If this lifestyle you're describing is only feasible on a tiny scale with the aid of modern amenities, then I'm afraid I have to call bullshit. Without the ease of self-sustenance that this modern system has afforded us, the hunter-gatherer has a real hard time supplementing his sustenance with hand-outs and dumpster scores.

If everyone had to play hunter-gatherer, you think people'd be tossing half a McMuffin in the garbage? You're fuckin dreaming.

Also, what I was getting at is -exactly- the meaning of money. High density agriculture is only feasibly profitable if you can easily trade your product for anything you might need. You ever see a corn field? That's a good example of what I'm talking about. One product grown in copious amounts packed in tight as shit. You can't survive just eating corn, however, so in order for that system to work, you have to be able to turn that corn into all sorts of varied shit. That's where the money comes in. Turn the corn into cash and you don't have to trade your corn to people who specifically need corn -AND- happen to have the product that you need. Just anyone who needs corn. Then you trade the cash to whoever has what you want. Much simpler that way. Otherwise farmers would have to grow a little bit of this and a little bit of that and agriculture space in general wouldn't be nearly as efficient.

This very real impact money has on how we live, in my opinion, is a much greater measurement of its meaning than random dogmatic views on how desire and access motivates people to do stupid or evil things. Fuck what they're doing with their free time, just be glad we've all got the free time with which to decide to be stupid, evil, or cultured.

4. Not assuming shit, here. I wasn't saying that any of that paragraph applied to you. In fact, I preceded it with, "as a side note", specifically to distinguish that it had nothing to do with our particular back and forth. If you still thought that was directed at you, my apologies.

5. You've got a point, to truly argue it out with the philosophy as presented in your radio program, I should listen to the program and argue with it. I was, however, under the mistaken impression that I could argue with what you said as though your own words contained your point, or even expressed what you meant. If you're really unable to articulate your own argument without the aid of a talk show host, I'll be more understanding in the future.

 

[Pogo]

...When I say survival I mean survival in the hunter gatherer sense. Food, water, clothing, shelter. Just that. Simply because people work 40 hours a week doesn't mean they spend 40 hours a week chasing down the things needed to survive. Do the math on how much money you make and how much of it actually goes to securing those things necessary to your survival. I'd guess that if you combined your entertainment fund, your car payments, your phone payments, your cable and internet payments, you probably drop close to as much of your money on non-essentials as you do on food, water, clothing, and shelter.

Especially if you were to go bare minimum on that shelter, i.e. only what you need to avoid the ravages of nature. . . in most cities you can get a studio apartment for cheap as fuck.

People aren't working 40 hours a week because it takes that long to feed themselves. If you broke it down to a day by day average and included grocery shopping, most people probably spend less than 3 hours a day making the money that it takes to acquire the essentials. They've simply decided that the other two plus hours (if you averaged that workweek out to 7 days in stead of the five most people actually work) are better spent getting more money so they can have toys than spent creating stuff. Not everybody aspires to be an artist or a spiritualist, I don't know what else to tell you.

1. No shit. That was the point.
Except for the cheap-as-fuck apartment (how cheap is 'fuck'?), the underlying point, since you refuse to hear the big picture story and need it spelled out a sentence at a time, is that these toys, these accouterments, these must-have iPhones and flat screens and SUVs, can be seen as balls-and-chains.



2. You seem bent on introducing 'spirituality' into this. Spirituality is fine and inevitable, but it's not the point here. The point is rather cultural.



3. Who brought up "large scale"? Where did you hear that in the program? Oh wait, that's right, you don't need to hear the program -- you have your assumptions, and we know what they say about the word assume...

You're making this point way more complex than it is; the point was the meaning of money. That's it.



4. And there we are in assumption-land again. Must be convenient to have no need to hear any voice but one's own.

I'm pretty sure I explained what I meant by hidden, but I'll reiterate. If you were going to summarize any of your link right there in your post, I would have assumed that it would be the portion that made the point you were getting at. If I had to go into the post to find your point, why bother speaking? Just let the link speak for you if that's what you were going to do.

5. I bother speaking for those intelligent enough to listen. But I get it that your attitude toward my link is and you'd rather debate your own strawmen.

Yeah, that's always the easy way out, innit?

Dismissed.

1. Never thought that those gadgets and extras were what you were talking about, considering that what you said was that its possible, via a hunter gatherer style system, to spend less time ensuring your survival than one must spend in a modern, cash based society. That point is incorrect.

If what you meant was that these gadgets and pointless things that people chase down along with the labor they put into their survival are a ball and chain in and of themselves, what you should have said was that these extras are a ball and chain in and of themselves, not that hunter-gathering is -actually- a less timely means of -survival-

I'm sorry I didn't listen to your radio program. I'm apparently silly for assuming that I could take what you were saying as what you were meaning. I realize that I could get a better idea of what your program is getting at by listening to the program, but I figured I could at least have faith in you to articulate your own argument. Didn't realize that by arguing with what you've said, I wasn't arguing with what you meant.


2. Sorry, I wasn't trying to steer the argument by using the term spiritual. Replace the term spirituality with the term culture and my statement would still stand. Whether you say art and culture or art and spirituality, ultimately you're dealing with dogmatic values. Unless your art is good enough to make you some money (and most people's isn't, I'm afraid) or your idea of cultured interests relate to something you can market, then they're just as non-essential as spirituality arguably is, and just as non-essential as the pursuit of meaningless gadgets and club nights. Where art and culture don't function to make one more efficient at acquiring the means for survival, their value is objective. Sorry.

3. I brought up large scale. If this lifestyle you're describing is only feasible on a tiny scale with the aid of modern amenities, then I'm afraid I have to call bullshit. Without the ease of self-sustenance that this modern system has afforded us, the hunter-gatherer has a real hard time supplementing his sustenance with hand-outs and dumpster scores.

If everyone had to play hunter-gatherer, you think people'd be tossing half a McMuffin in the garbage? You're fuckin dreaming.

Also, what I was getting at is -exactly- the meaning of money. High density agriculture is only feasibly profitable if you can easily trade your product for anything you might need. You ever see a corn field? That's a good example of what I'm talking about. One product grown in copious amounts packed in tight as shit. You can't survive just eating corn, however, so in order for that system to work, you have to be able to turn that corn into all sorts of varied shit. That's where the money comes in. Turn the corn into cash and you don't have to trade your corn to people who specifically need corn -AND- happen to have the product that you need. Just anyone who needs corn. Then you trade the cash to whoever has what you want. Much simpler that way. Otherwise farmers would have to grow a little bit of this and a little bit of that and agriculture space in general wouldn't be nearly as efficient.

This very real impact money has on how we live, in my opinion, is a much greater measurement of its meaning than random dogmatic views on how desire and access motivates people to do stupid or evil things. Fuck what they're doing with their free time, just be glad we've all got the free time with which to decide to be stupid, evil, or cultured.

4. Not assuming shit, here. I wasn't saying that any of that paragraph applied to you. In fact, I preceded it with, "as a side note", specifically to distinguish that it had nothing to do with our particular back and forth. If you still thought that was directed at you, my apologies.

5. You've got a point, to truly argue it out with the philosophy as presented in your radio program, I should listen to the program and argue with it. I was, however, under the mistaken impression that I could argue with what you said as though your own words contained your point, or even expressed what you meant. If you're really unable to articulate your own argument without the aid of a talk show host, I'll be more understanding in the future.

Thanks, two posts for the price of one. Not going to bother ferreting out the differences.

What I did was present a link to some deeper thoughts than would have been practical to sit and write out. I don't get paid for this shit. The program is already done and ready. All you have to do is invest the time, if you're interested. But you'd rather play games with the messenger. I don't have time for these games, so if you're not interested, just pass the post, fuck off and quit wasting my time.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

1. No shit. That was the point.
Except for the cheap-as-fuck apartment (how cheap is 'fuck'?), the underlying point, since you refuse to hear the big picture story and need it spelled out a sentence at a time, is that these toys, these accouterments, these must-have iPhones and flat screens and SUVs, can be seen as balls-and-chains.



2. You seem bent on introducing 'spirituality' into this. Spirituality is fine and inevitable, but it's not the point here. The point is rather cultural.



3. Who brought up "large scale"? Where did you hear that in the program? Oh wait, that's right, you don't need to hear the program -- you have your assumptions, and we know what they say about the word assume...

You're making this point way more complex than it is; the point was the meaning of money. That's it.



4. And there we are in assumption-land again. Must be convenient to have no need to hear any voice but one's own.




5. I bother speaking for those intelligent enough to listen. But I get it that your attitude toward my link is and you'd rather debate your own strawmen.

Yeah, that's always the easy way out, innit?

Dismissed.

1. Never thought that those gadgets and extras were what you were talking about, considering that what you said was that its possible, via a hunter gatherer style system, to spend less time ensuring your survival than one must spend in a modern, cash based society. That point is incorrect.

If what you meant was that these gadgets and pointless things that people chase down along with the labor they put into their survival are a ball and chain in and of themselves, what you should have said was that these extras are a ball and chain in and of themselves, not that hunter-gathering is -actually- a less timely means of -survival-

I'm sorry I didn't listen to your radio program. I'm apparently silly for assuming that I could take what you were saying as what you were meaning. I realize that I could get a better idea of what your program is getting at by listening to the program, but I figured I could at least have faith in you to articulate your own argument. Didn't realize that by arguing with what you've said, I wasn't arguing with what you meant.


2. Sorry, I wasn't trying to steer the argument by using the term spiritual. Replace the term spirituality with the term culture and my statement would still stand. Whether you say art and culture or art and spirituality, ultimately you're dealing with dogmatic values. Unless your art is good enough to make you some money (and most people's isn't, I'm afraid) or your idea of cultured interests relate to something you can market, then they're just as non-essential as spirituality arguably is, and just as non-essential as the pursuit of meaningless gadgets and club nights. Where art and culture don't function to make one more efficient at acquiring the means for survival, their value is objective. Sorry.

3. I brought up large scale. If this lifestyle you're describing is only feasible on a tiny scale with the aid of modern amenities, then I'm afraid I have to call bullshit. Without the ease of self-sustenance that this modern system has afforded us, the hunter-gatherer has a real hard time supplementing his sustenance with hand-outs and dumpster scores.

If everyone had to play hunter-gatherer, you think people'd be tossing half a McMuffin in the garbage? You're fuckin dreaming.

Also, what I was getting at is -exactly- the meaning of money. High density agriculture is only feasibly profitable if you can easily trade your product for anything you might need. You ever see a corn field? That's a good example of what I'm talking about. One product grown in copious amounts packed in tight as shit. You can't survive just eating corn, however, so in order for that system to work, you have to be able to turn that corn into all sorts of varied shit. That's where the money comes in. Turn the corn into cash and you don't have to trade your corn to people who specifically need corn -AND- happen to have the product that you need. Just anyone who needs corn. Then you trade the cash to whoever has what you want. Much simpler that way. Otherwise farmers would have to grow a little bit of this and a little bit of that and agriculture space in general wouldn't be nearly as efficient.

This very real impact money has on how we live, in my opinion, is a much greater measurement of its meaning than random dogmatic views on how desire and access motivates people to do stupid or evil things. Fuck what they're doing with their free time, just be glad we've all got the free time with which to decide to be stupid, evil, or cultured.

4. Not assuming shit, here. I wasn't saying that any of that paragraph applied to you. In fact, I preceded it with, "as a side note", specifically to distinguish that it had nothing to do with our particular back and forth. If you still thought that was directed at you, my apologies.

5. You've got a point, to truly argue it out with the philosophy as presented in your radio program, I should listen to the program and argue with it. I was, however, under the mistaken impression that I could argue with what you said as though your own words contained your point, or even expressed what you meant. If you're really unable to articulate your own argument without the aid of a talk show host, I'll be more understanding in the future.

Thanks, two posts for the price of one. Not going to bother ferreting out the differences.

What I did was present a link to some deeper thoughts than would have been practical to sit and write out. I don't get paid for this shit. The program is already done and ready. All you have to do is invest the time, if you're interested. But you'd rather play games with the messenger. I don't have time for these games, so if you're not interested, just pass the post, fuck off and quit wasting my time.

Not really trying to play games, man, and I also don't get paid for this. I just enjoy philosophical debate, so from time to time I find myself assuming that's what other people are here to do. Figured if you were going to take the time to argue, I might be able to get you to make the point yourself, right here in text and in a format that doesn't require me to dedicate an hour to listening to your point in story form from a guy who speaks at the pace of a heroin addict.

Since that's obviously not the case, I'll stop arguing with you now.