the more entrenched injustices of the world...

[brokenhead]

[read];

You are spelling the name incorrectly. It it is supposed to be "|read|." You won't pronounce it right if the spelling is off.

[Sapius]

[read];

You are spelling the name incorrectly. It it is supposed to be "|read|." You won't pronounce it right if the spelling is off.

Oops! My mistake. I did not notice it. Thanks.

BTW, how is it supposed to sound?

[Sapius]

So my question is, do you invest in the stock market (or would you invest if you had the opportunity, in the case that you don't have the opportunity)?

It is possible to invest ethically.

Yes, but most would find it quite difficult to investigate each company in details, but of course, that is the best option to invest ethically.

[Shahrazad]

Sapius,

BTW, how is it supposed to sound?

I've always called him read, but the complete name would be "read between the lines".

[Sapius]

Sapius,

BTW, how is it supposed to sound?

I've always called him read, but the complete name would be "read between the lines".

Oh! I see… but to me they seem more like columns! No offence |read| :D

[Laird]

Laird: The more unethically a product is produced, the greater the rate of tax/duty on it would be, with the aim of making more ethically produced products more appealing price-wise to the consumer.

Sapius: So an unethical company/product may profit as much as they like, but they would have to pay a heavier price any ways; a good deterrent already, and automatically the ethical product incurs less cost.

Yes, and I'm thinking now that rather than using the taxes only to combat the specific unethical behaviour, they be funnelled into subsidies for ethical products. In other words, products would be judged on a scale from "ethically produced" to "neutral" to "unethically produced". Ethically produced products would be subsidised by the taxes on unethically produced products and neutral products would be neither taxed nor subsidised. The ultimate goal would be to have a revenue-neutral system, although at first I'm sure that taxation would outweigh subsidisation. What do you think of this idea?

Laird: The set of ethics would be part of the legislation and there would be a government-sponsored body that performed the research on each product to determine how ethical it is;

Sapius: Would unethical profiteering by any of the manufacturers (locally and overseas), and/or inter-mediators, and/or the importer/distributor, and/or a reseller, and/or a retailer, be included?

That's a tricky one and I've thought long and hard about it. My first take on it was that the primary concern should be that everyone involved in the production of the product is receiving at least a reasonable wage/remuneration, and that less attention should be given to the possibility that some people are profiting more than others. My reasoning was that big profits can be used for somewhat ethical purposes, such as re-investing in R&D in a third world country. In the end though, I rejected this thinking for two reasons. The first is the lesser of the two: that it would be overly complex to determine whether a profiteer was using his/her/their profits "ethically". The second though is the more significant of the two: that regardless of what they later do with the profits, they were unjustified in receiving them in the first place - who's to say that the people whom they profited over would not equally have used those profits for "ethical" purposes, or even just that those people didn't really need them to improve their standard of living to one commensurate with the global norm?

How and who will set the standards of ethical profits? The Buying or the Selling country? The buying country (BC) has more of a clout to dictate the terms, so I guess the SC can sign a trade agreement with the BC if they are interested in export/economic growth, which they surely are. So the SC should satisfy the BC by setting government imposed level of minimum wages for each sector of manufactured product, but not before setting similar standards in the raw-material sector, and the logistics/shipping sector.

Yes, it's up to the buying country (which determines the ethical tax/subsidy on the goods produced by the selling country) to decide which level of wages results in which ethical judgement. I guess as you say though that they could be influenced/convinced to accept any standards set by the selling country.

After the ethics body examines whether minimum wages are being satisfied, then it can concern itself with whether appropriate profits are being dispensed. So the ethics criteria for wages/profits would be at least a two-stage affair.

BTW, certain countries already have a minimum wages ceiling for certain low paid sectors, but not in the third-world countries, and even if they had, it would be quite difficult to implement or monitor, due to lack of concerned department and/or staff, or the mother all problems, corruption!

I guess the best suggestion that I have there is for us to adopt some sort of formula to convert between the minimum wage in our country and the minimum wage in the third-world country, and then for us to include in our diplomatic staff people whose job it is to verify wages, but this would be quite a difficult thing to achieve. I guess there might be some sort of rule that if a company refused to allow visitors to perform this monitoring (due to corruption) then it automatically got graded at the most unethical level.

Laird: the final judgment would be open to public scrutiny and appeal by the producing company.

Sapius: Fair enough, that also gives a chance for the unethical company to cleanup their act, before ending up in court battles.

Yes. I was also thinking that the entire process could be conducted on the web. So each product would have a web page where the general public could submit information and discuss the company/product, and where the current rating of the product would be displayed along with the justification of that rating.

The general public and/or non-profit organisations interested in ethical commerce could then be the primary researchers of each product, with minimal need for paid professional researchers - the professional's main job would be to verify provided facts and oversee the process.

Laird: The collected taxes would be used to specifically combat the relevant unethical behaviour - so for example for a company cutting down native forests to produce cheap paper, the taxes might go towards replanting trees.

Sapius: Right... it could also be used for subsidizing food products and/or necessary home appliances within third-world countries, with substantial or reasonable contributions from the BC.

Sure, that works. I've suggested that taxes be used to subsidise ethical products but at the start I imagine that there would be far more unethical than ethical products, and so there would be a surplus of funds that could still be directed in the ways that we've discussed.

It's a start... Your turn.

I've thought of a drawback to the scheme, and that is that it imposes a fair bit of extra effort on shops in keeping up with which level of taxation/subsidy should be applied to which product. This would especially affect small shops - large supermarkets have plenty of staff to deal with it.

Laird: Perhaps you would be a better candidate - you seem to have a fairly generous travel budget.

Sapius: Nah… not a candidate, I prefer anonymity, but I could always finance your trip if it comes to that.

Awesome Sap. Thanks for the offer - I might take you up on it.

[sue hindmarsh]

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Okay, you've got the Caesar thing happening, how about you guys now turn your attention to God.

[Laird]

Can you elaborate please Sue? I don't understand what you're specifically asking us to do. I'm pretty sure that you don't mean for me to start praying, but if you do then I'll be sure to include you in my prayers. :-)

[sue hindmarsh]

Here are the writings of some men that have their attention on God:

Diogenes was asked why he always begged. "To teach people," replied Diogenes. "Oh yes, and what do you teach?" people would ask him scornfully. "Generosity", he replied.

Diogenes was once asked why he took money from people. "To show them how they ought to spend their money," he replied.

Diogenes was asked, "Tell me, to what do you attribute your great poverty?"
"Hard work," he replied.
"And what advice can you offer the rich?"
"Avoid all the good things in life."
"Why?"
"Because money costs too much. A rich man is far poorer than a poor man."
"How can that be?"
"Because poverty is the only thing money can't buy."

Kierkegaard:

In eternity you will not be asked how large a fortune you are leaving behind – the survivors ask about that. Nor will you be asked about how many battles you won, about how sagacious you were, how powerful your influence – that, after all, becomes your reputation for posterity. No, eternity will not ask about what worldly goods remain behind you, but about what riches you have gathered in heaven. It will ask you about how often you have conquered your own thought, about what control you have exercised over yourself or whether you have been a slave, about how often you have mastered yourself in self-denial or whether you have never done so .......

No matter how much all the earth’s gold hidden in covetousness may amount to, it is infinitely less than the smallest mite hidden in the contentment of the poor!

Chuang Tzu:

Who can join with others without joining with others? Who can do with others without doing with others? Who can climb up to heaven and wander in the mists, roam the infinite, and forget life forever and forever?

The man of Virtue rests without thought, moves without plan. He has no use for right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. To share profit with all things within the four seas is his happiness, to look after their needs is his peace. Sad faced, he's like a little child who has lost his mother. Bewildered, he's like a traveler who has lost his way. He has more than enough wealth and goods, but he doesn't know where they come from. He gets all he needs to eat and drink, but he doesn't know how he gets it. This is called the manner of the man of Virtue.

[sue hindmarsh]

Laird wrote:

I'm pretty sure that you don't mean for me to start praying

Praying is thinking - so yes, pray as much, and as deeply as you can.

If you don't know how to pray, use the above works of Kierkegaard, Diogenes and Chuang Tzu to help you learn.

[brokenhead]

Laird wrote:

I'm pretty sure that you don't mean for me to start praying

Praying is thinking - so yes, pray as much, and as deeply as you can.

If you don't know how to pray, use the above works of Kierkegaard, Diogenes and Chuang Tzu to help you learn.

To whom do you pray, Sue?

[sue hindmarsh]

To "whom"? You can't possibly have mistaken me for a Christian, or any of those other feeble minded fools that are slaves to their own foolishness believing in the Grandfather in the Sky, Santa Claus, Buddha's belly, the Tooth-Fairy, a madcap prophet, Baby Jesus, Angels, unconditional love, Nostradamus' notions, or any other insane notion. If you did, it would surely be a huge stretch of the imagination knowing my thoughts on such matters.

-
Praying is thinking about what things really are.
-

[Unidian]

Another example of what Sue was getting at might be my response to a question on a Facebook quiz yesterday:

The key to success is _________?

My answer was "bad character."

This refers to financial and status-based "success," of course - the only kind known to most people.

I'm generally critical of QRS views, but they do have some of their ducks in a row when it comes to turning the tables on those things people generally define as good.

[Unidian]

And, for the record, before anybody paints me as a cynical, bitter, and/or envious nut, let me add that is possible for people of good character to be financially successful. But the catch-22 is that financial success must not be their motivation. It is possible to do well by creating value and serving others in certain ways. However, it won't do to think "okay, I'll create value and serve others, because that's the way to cash in." Anybody with half a brain can see the true motivation behind that sort of thinking (which is all the rage in business circles these days).

There are people of good character who have achieved financial success. But they never cared about doing so. Their motivation was to create value and serve others for its own sake. If money comes, fine. If it doesn't, fine.

It's important to note that I'm not romanticizing poverty or financial failure, as religious people do. Poverty is a bitch which causes all sorts of problems and is capable of distracting one from higher pursuits just as effectively as money or work can. Only religious hermits can be poor in peace. For those of us involved in the complexities of human relationships, being poor creates endless uphill battles. But even so, for a person of conscience, poverty sucks less than waking up every morning and realizing one is a sellout who is enabling and propagating a host of destructive lies.

Right livelihood or no livelihood. That's the path of principle. If money comes, it comes.

[daybrown]

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Okay, you've got the Caesar thing happening, how about you guys now turn your attention to God.

Epictetus, the Stoic, argued that Caesar was a theif who stole power, and you have no duty to him whatever. To put him in the same class as god, was politic on the part of Jesus, but the Stoics thot it blasphemous.

[daybrown]

And, for the record, before anybody paints me as a cynical, bitter, and/or envious nut, let me add that is possible for people of good character to be financially successful. But the catch-22 is that financial success must not be their motivation. It is possible to do well by creating value and serving others in certain ways. However, it won't do to think "okay, I'll create value and serve others, because that's the way to cash in." Anybody with half a brain can see the true motivation behind that sort of thinking (which is all the rage in business circles these days).

There are people of good character who have achieved financial success. But they never cared about doing so. Their motivation was to create value and serve others for its own sake. If money comes, fine. If it doesn't, fine.

It's important to note that I'm not romanticizing poverty or financial failure, as religious people do. Poverty is a bitch which causes all sorts of problems and is capable of distracting one from higher pursuits just as effectively as money or work can. Only religious hermits can be poor in peace. For those of us involved in the complexities of human relationships, being poor creates endless uphill battles. But even so, for a person of conscience, poverty sucks less than waking up every morning and realizing one is a sellout who is enabling and propagating a host of destructive lies.

Right livelihood or no livelihood. That's the path of principle. If money comes, it comes.

Thats the position of Stoicism; that we have a duty to respond to the needs of others, but to try to avoid getting sucked into the power struggles as well as stay engaged rather than being a hermit.

Epictetus expects a man to keep his hair and beard trimmed, his clothes clean, and demeanor modest to demonstrate that a Stoic can be presentable and comfortable. But at the same time, to avoid the cost of trendy fashion.

[Unidian]

Interesting. I'm not very familiar with Stoic social views. I may research them in light of your remarks.

[daybrown]

Interesting. I'm not very familiar with Stoic social views. I may research them in light of your remarks.

I can see that Stoicism failed to create a power structure for ambitious personalities. I read that they never built monumental sacred structures, but only schools. http://www.daybrown.org/epictus/epictus.html is a copy of "the Golden Sayings of Epictetus", which frankly is not that good a book. It is simply a collection of his teachings put together by a student, so its somewhat redundant.

He keeps saying the same thing to different people. Be rational. Like the I Ching or the Tao, you can pick a page at random, and generally benefit from the insight. He's not an atheist, but they would agree that if Stoicism replaced Levantine religions, the world would be the better for it.

[Unidian]

Be rational.

Excellent advice, as long as it is thoroughly followed. The endpoint of rationality is the realization that existence is trans-rational. The biggest abdication of rationality is to fail to recognize its limits and elevate it to the status of an absolute. I know of people who have died from the effort of maintaining that illusion.

[daybrown]

Be rational.

Excellent advice, as long as it is thoroughly followed. The endpoint of rationality is the realization that existence is trans-rational. The biggest abdication of rationality is to fail to recognize its limits and elevate it to the status of an absolute. I know of people who have died from the effort of maintaining that illusion.

Kinda depends on who getsta define the term. Atheists claim to be uttery rational while holding the position that they have the proof of a negative.

The Stoics never tried to prove there was no god, but they never tried to define what the divine was either. By today's standards, Epictetus is sexist, but given how mysogenistic Roman culture was, understandable. He commonly used the plural term, "the gods", out of respect for the common opinion, but when speaking of what he himself thinks, uses the singular, often "Zeus". But were he confronted with Lucretius, who believed in a prime Goddess, aka Venus, I'm sure they could discuss it amicably. There's no reason to be disagreeable over disagreement.

Part of being rational is the acceptance of a great deal of ambiguity. Christianity and the other Levantine religions are all about conviction and faith. http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/zeno.htm for instance, mentions how little has survived of what Zeno, the accepted founder of Stoicism thot, and everyone since seems to accept that whatever they have it aint gospel.

From various references Epictetus makes, it seems he was an Epoptes, that is, had been to the Eleusinian mysteries, which we now know involved the use of a psychoactive potion. The altered state of consciousness has not, to my knowlege, produced any point that contradicts Stoicism. There is an acceptance of it as a valuable source of knowledge. YMMV, and they dont argue with the insights you may receive.

[Unidian]

Kinda depends on who getsta define the term. Atheists claim to be uttery rational while holding the position that they have the proof of a negative.

They do? I've talked to a lot of atheists, and I haven't run into one who makes that claim yet.

Part of being rational is the acceptance of a great deal of ambiguity.

Yes. Ambiguity is at the bottom of everything.

[daybrown]

Kinda depends on who getsta define the term. Atheists claim to be uttery rational while holding the position that they have the proof of a negative.

They do? I've talked to a lot of atheists, and I haven't run into one who makes that claim yet..

They claim to know there is no god. The absence of proof is not proof.
When, however, I agree, becuase there is a prime goddess instead, they go away befuddled.

[DHodges]

They claim to know there is no god.

That's kind of tricky, because of the various meanings of "god," which can easily lead to miscommunication.

Most people (usually) mean God, aka Jehovah or Yahweh, or a similar concept like Jah or Allah, creator of the universe etc., that has a deep interest in the sex lives of primates. Specific gods like that are obviously mythological.

But more generally, "god" is a tricky, slippery concept, and tends to hang around the edge of what "is" means. I think it would be clear to even most religious people that a god does not exist in the same way a rock does - as a physical, measurable object with mass in a particular location. There is something very unusual about the way a god "is" - transcendental, divine, supernatural - it is outside the world in some way, yet can manifest within it.

I can say "there is no god" in the sense that I do not have a diety or object of religious worship. I have no god; there is no god I believe in. However, other people do seem to have such an object - for them there is a god. There is something they worship, some entity that they believe in.

When, however, I agree, becuase there is a prime goddess instead, they go away befuddled.

Eris?

[brokenhead]

Kierkegaard:

In eternity you will not be asked how large a fortune you are leaving behind – the survivors ask about that. Nor will you be asked about how many battles you won, about how sagacious you were, how powerful your influence – that, after all, becomes your reputation for posterity. No, eternity will not ask about what worldly goods remain behind you, but about what riches you have gathered in heaven. It will ask you about how often you have conquered your own thought, about what control you have exercised over yourself or whether you have been a slave, about how often you have mastered yourself in self-denial or whether you have never done so .......

No matter how much all the earth’s gold hidden in covetousness may amount to, it is infinitely less than the smallest mite hidden in the contentment of the poor!

Sue, could you please use quotation marks or the "Quote" BBCode so we can tell when the quote ends and when you are commenting?

I take it the part in blue is your thought? Please don't answer me by telling me how I am obviously incapable of rational thought, but why is the "contentment of the poor" suddenly so valuable as to be priceless? Weren't you the one in another thread that condemned Christainity for causing the poor to be poor, the helpless to be helpless? You blamed Mother Teresa for the squalor she tried in her own way to do something about. Is it that Kierkegaard is a philosopher and therefore inerrant, while MT was a mere woman and a slave to sentimental rot about feeding the hungry? I'd rather not get into a discussion about MT, I'm talking about you here. You seem to say that if one decides to be poor or is content with it, it is wonderful. And I'm not arguing against that. But as soon as someone feels compassion for people who are worse than poor, who are actually starving, and are clearly not that way by choice, right away it is anathema, or at best distracting from this abstract quest for "truth"?

[brokenhead]

To "whom"? You can't possibly have mistaken me for a Christian, or any of those other feeble minded fools that are slaves to their own foolishness believing in the Grandfather in the Sky, Santa Claus, Buddha's belly, the Tooth-Fairy, a madcap prophet, Baby Jesus, Angels, unconditional love, Nostradamus' notions, or any other insane notion. If you did, it would surely be a huge stretch of the imagination knowing my thoughts on such matters.

-
Praying is thinking about what things really are.
-

Wait a minute while I shove my finger down my throat and puke into the wastebasket...aaaaack!!!... ah. There. That's better. How old are you? Seven? "The Grandfather in the Sky?" You consider yourself a thinker - a philosopher, no less! - and that's the best you can do? If any of my suggestions about evidence for the existence of God (as opposed to a neat, tidy little proof, with some Powerpoint thrown in for effect) sounds naive and childish and moronic, how do you think this stuff sounds? It is so easy to reject things, and horribly more difficult to ponder them, don't you agree?

Notice how you equate the things in blue above. The list of the things you reject goes on and on, I'm quite certain. Let me try to put it this way. Over here, we have the bathwater. And over here, we have the baby. Look where I'm pointing. Bathwater. Baby. Bathwater. Baby.