One person with one million can do more than ten people sharing one million because you’d likely never get everyone pulling in the same direction. — I like sushi

To the individual or the economy as a whole?

Sometimes, but also it's being able to pursue an idea at the right time, and being willing to risk failing. — Marchesk

OK, but that sounds like luck to me.

Silicon Valley has a motto of failing fast and often, and real artists ship their product. It means get your stuff out there and be ready to pivot. — Marchesk

I read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, a long time ago; but, it was all there on paper, just like Warren Buffett tell most people that it's all about value and growth and maintaining a balance between the two on the stock market.

I suppose we ought to define what does "being rich" at all even mean?

‘worth’ — I like sushi

At the very least can we agree that it's human capital if we are to go down this intrinsic route?

Some would end poor or rich like they were before, because they have/don't have the habits, skills and connections to do so. It's not all luck or birthright. — Marchesk

So, being or becoming rich is a sort of inside thing? I mean, really, what differentiates some guy off the street scrounging from a dollar from a person in a Bentley driving around town and flaunting his or her wealth?

Consider that people with money tend to get money because they know how to use it. 10 million doesn’t make you a billionaire either. What is all this about distributing Ferraris? — I like sushi

So, rich people get richer or stay the same because they know more about money than Joe from Starbucks does?

You have an extremely narrow view of what is and isn’t a ‘resource’ then. — I like sushi

Elaborate, I feel we're talking about the same thing, just in different terms.

Then the task for you might be to show how it is relevant. — Banno

Psychology...Talk therapy? CBT? I think you get the point.

What I mean, is that people aren't inherently worth anything unless self-taught or venture capitalists, etc.

Usually, there's nobody around (not even your parents) to tell you to study XYZ, to become rich. We tend to arrive at these sorts of existential conclusions on our own if we aren't child prodigies.

Not necessarily. Depends who they are. — I like sushi

What do you mean? Are you referring to drug addicts or other types that squander their wealth?

I suppose this can be true; but, if you're a billionaire the point kind of becomes moot, unless your buying Ferrari's to every person you met in life.

I personally think that a certain type of person will tend to gather coins. — Eee

How-so? Teach me! I wanna be rich too!

Well, my point is that there's nothing unique about being rich or coming to that status.

Let's be honest, people get bullied to death on Facebook/4chan/Reddit/God knows where, on the internets. We seem to bat a blind eye to the distress of the young until it's too late (school shootings, something going on in our great USA).

I don't see how the Sapir-Whorf hypothesi isn't factually relevant to the discussion.

I don’t think any real socialists villainize the rich as people, rather they figure that everybody is doing what they can to get ahead, and criticize systemic or institutional factors that give further advantages to those who are already ahead. If it was just a few bad apples, the problem would be a lot easier; but it’s not, it’s a system that gives all the apples to a few, if I may confuse the metaphor. — Pfhorrest

You know what differentiates an Ivy League college from a "normal" one, right?

If those who 'hate the rich' could be 'magically' made billionaires, it would be fun to see what they would do or not do with those billions. — Eee

Right? I've heard that argument formalized into:

If we we're to level the playing field for all participants, then the formerly rich would once again end up being the rich, whilst the poor-poor. — God

Makes me wanna puke, if anyone actually believes that.

Davidson talks a lot about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis glancingly, can you elaborate on how he does away with the cognitivism of the hypothesis, seemingly?

So you want me to stop saying stop? Neither of us can just stop it seems.

Anyway, don't focus on the stop part. Focus on getting you that dog. — Hanover

Well, my sister just moved in and she brought her dog, Sol, with her. I'm quite happy with the dog, though he's been abused (most likely), but is getting over it with her tenderness and care towards him.

If you're bored, stop being boring. — Hanover

Not this again. "Stop" is such a magical word here. So purposeful, and effective that when applied to mental states, would seem to make the problem (almost as-if) vanish away. Bingo?

First, then, the purported cases of complete failure. It is tempting to take a very short line indeed: nothing, it may be said, could count as evidence that some form of activity could not be interpreted in our language that was not at the same time evidence that that form of activity was not speech behavior. If this were right, we probably ought to hold that a form of activity that cannot be interpreted as language in our language is not speech behavior. Putting matters this way is unsatisfactory, however, for it comes to little more than making translatability into a familiar tongue a criterion of languagehood. — Davidson, Conceptual Schema, pg.7

Languagehood, eh? So, he's the blacksmith here?

This is a thread about Davidson. I've enough to do with just that. — Banno

OK, I'll respect that.

I get a bit pissed off with folk - not you, of course - who think philosophy is easy. — Banno

Well, you can lead by example, or just interpret away. I figure you're somewhat more of the example and showing rather than telling type.

Did you read the article linked in the OP. — Banno

Bits and pieces; but, lemme redo that.

Intensionality. Not the same thing. — Banno

Relatable in the least one should suppose.

Anyway, how do you address that beetle? I have one, and so do you; but, we shouldn't be behaviorist about their relatability?

Edit: Talking lions, family resemblances, language games, etc.

Charity here is not compassion. It's a fucking hammer. — Banno

See, and you do have to resort to intentionality, don't you? And, that's where your or Davidson's analysis becomes flimsy.

It's strange that many continental philosophers like Habermas or Derrida might chime in here and say, if everyone we're so full of compassion and understanding, why all the wars in the world?

Care to take a shot at that one, @Banno?

T-sentences present a bare minimum It's pretty much undeniable that: "p" is true if and only if p. — Banno

Deflated truth? One has to assume that epistemically, I might be an uneducated pleb that can't understand academic rigour, and that may as well be true too...

You know, meditating over the last few posts, I think the thread should be renamed as worker's disenfranchisement.

This is only because, as an American, I view myself as a commodity for other people or corporations. Think like the service-information based economy we are experiencing.

The demands of the economy have shifted, in a reflexive manner towards this info/service-based economy.

And, not many people have realized it, or rather it is left unsaid that my preferences are becoming commodified.

First, sorry to hear of your loss. It seems that if this were the best of all possible worlds, there'd be no reason to entertain philosophy from an existential standpoint.

With that said, I think factually, you'd be OK'd to euthanasia in countries like Switzerland or similarly, other countries that aren't hostile towards the concept.

What prompted you to ask these questions, @Ken, if I may as in more detail?

It doesn't have to always be acceptable to you. You may be nearing the end of that level of depression. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

:grin:

But, wallowing is healthy. Pigs have much to teach us.

I think we’re really consumed by ‘rarity’ and the conflicting drives to feel/appear ‘uniquely individual’ whilst also craving to be ‘part of the crowd’. I don’t see there being any other major force behind what drive economics that doesn’t fall into one of these two broad categories. The question is then how best to satisfy both in a stable economic system. On an interpersonal basis I would like to put forward the idea of artistic/aesthetic qualities being a force to drive a healthier social interaction between what is made, who is making it and the buyer. — I like sushi

Well, yes, what is of value isn't the amount produced, but the worth of a product to one's way of life. And, Marx couldn't have fathomed what Keynes came up with in terms of what you highlight. At the end of Keynes' General Theory, he talks about preferences and tastes dictating the market at some point in time.

Ask any economist, we're at the end of Keynes' proposed economic development at least in most affluent countries. Well, maybe not the very end; but, we're getting there with a saturation of productivity increases.

The current problem, as far as I can see, is that we have access to resources yet don’t know how to use these resources effectively or efficiently. — I like sushi

This is actually a really well thought out post, and sorry I can't address it all. The issue that Marx saw it as, was that through perceiving other people as resources, the blatant exploitation of the bourgeoisie would become justified in the mind of the proles. An extreme form of alienation...

And... this is what happens to this very day. People like Ayn Rand took this to something extreme as to produce such fictional entities that are industrialists that bear the weight of the world on their shoulders, whereas anyone with an IQ higher than 100, would know it's the workers that do the work.

Every human is a ‘resource’ to the each other. — I like sushi

Economically, there is no other way of stating the (potential) utility of a human being with (respect?) to another.

But, we all know that's this just isn't true, and I hope we can agree! that it just ain't so.

I was hoping someone here would get what I'm saying, kind of agree (or accept it for the sake of argument), and develop it. — Chris Hughes

You could use the property of Quantum Mechanical systems to evolve through time through the simple act of observation. Hope that's not too New Age for your sensibilities. A lot of physicists hate people doing this, and I don't really get why...

Wallows...

Looking forward to it. At any rate, the end is always pretty nigh. — ZzzoneiroCosm

:fear:

How's the coffee?

See, your smothering your spirit. — Brett

By wallowing? I think wallowing is just a harmless coping mechanism. Though, it is getting somewhat boring.

*Just wallows*

I've seen it. I follow a couple of Trump pages on Facebook. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Pray! The end is nigh!

Yes. Groupthink: The orgiastic thrill of binding one's narcissism to a roaring crowd. That quashing of an essential anxiety in the synchronicity of a coliseum frenzy. Trump qua God qua missing-Christ a la Freud's "ego ideal." (See Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego) — ZzzoneiroCosm

You should see what's happening to the religious right in the US. They honest to God, think this guy is a prophet or something sent by God to fix a falling empire. Truth and all that jazz.

To my view, American jingoism flows from profound anxiety stemming from a visceral fear of social ostracism - compounded by Pascal's "inability to sit quietly alone in a room" - to anxiety-tempering narcissism to the lusty thrill and anxiety-obliteration of collective narcissism fueled by ignorance, decrepit critical thinking skills and an unreasoning, unmanageable desire to substitute civil religion for the loss of Christ.

These notions flow from Freud to Fromm to sociologist Robert Bellah, with many sane and serious voices also crying in the wilderness in-between. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Right, and instills a groupthink mentality of sorts, that is conflated with patriotism to a large degree. Yes?

Post it; does everything have a purpose? — Brett

If you subscribe to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, then yes, everything has a cause and reason for it.

That’s an interesting point. Does everything have a purpose? — Brett

I don't really know, man. I wish there were a simple answer to all this wallowing. But, I suppose I have to learn to cope with it.

I hope I'm not making you reconsider abandoning this forum, again.

My feeling is that depression doesn’t work. — Brett

It doesn't mean it has no purpose. Still trying to figure where it's fitting in the grand scheme of things, hereabouts.