by AnnaLivia » Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:53 pm
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><br><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:maroon;font-family:helvetica;font-size:small;"><br><br><br>Robertdreed quoted:<br>It's only part of our twisted national religion that you'd expect more material to want to be a neurosurgeon over a midlevel IT tech.<br> <br>Robertdreed responded:<br>I don't agree. It costs more to be educated as a neurosurgeon than as an IT tech.<br>I respond: A just system will pay students. Therefore this argument of RD fails. <br>RD writes: And beyond the money of it, in terms of the amount of time spent studying, the stresses of exams, the energy required to acquire a level of competence, the sheer talent needed in the form of steady nerves and ability to function in a crisis. And that's all before one even hangs the shingle out.<br>I respond: time spent studying: see above; <br>stresses of exams: a very minor point - people who pass exams have the brains to pass exams; an exam is just a test of competence; there need be no stress involved: you learn enough, you pass; you dont, you dont - this is just bleeting and whining: poor me, poor me; <br>energy required: eating breakfast - more whining; <br>sheer talent, steady nerves, ability to function in crisis: gifts of nature, illogical to pay people for receiving gifts; paying people for gifts uses money of the ungifted and othergifted, which is theft, which produces a backlash: resentment of those paid-for-gifts, eg cultural revolution, nazi hatred of intellectuals, nazi-ism as revenge of the losers [hitler a failed artist] - 'losers' = those penalised for not having gifts of nature<br>In general, this argument of RD's amounts to: me, me, give me, give me, never mind about giving to those others, never mind what they get, give to me, I'm better, I'm more important, Make ME king of the castle - ie, visceral injustice - which generates the escalation of violence to extinction we all suffer from and hate.<br>RD writes:<br>Human behavior is purposive. I think it's natural to expect to be rewarded more for doing what is more difficult, or for what takes more effort, for seeing a personal vision through to completion, for accomplishing greater tasks than lesser ones, for assuming more responsibilities or risks.<br>I respond: the question here is: what is more difficult, what takes more effort? There is no measurement of difficulty or effort, therefore there IS no payment for difficulty or effort. We have only the assumption that neurosurgery is more difficult, which derives from neurosurgeon's self advertisement of difficulty and effort. It is neurosurgeons who are telling us their job is more difficult. And it is the people, the suckers, the fools who are soon parted from their money, who accept this argument from the ones with a vested interest in the argument. The argument is circular: Neurosurgeons are paid more because their work is more difficult; how do we know their work is more difficult?; because they are paid more. <br><br>And that leaves the question of HOW MUCH more they should be paid: it doesnt answer: how much more they should be paid, assuming for the moment they should be paid more. One would have to, not only determine their work is more difficult, and by how much it is more difficult, but also how much money they should be paid for every extra unit of difficulty above the average difficulty of jobs. <br>Adam Smith said that groups getting together, even for social occasions, are in conspiracy to defraud the people. And Shakespeare put it more briefly: there is always theft in limited professions. By limiting numbers, the professions create an element of scarcity, which translates to being able to ask or demand [like a highwayman] higher payment. A good example: when America was being flooded with European doctors, refugees before and during WW2, the AMA did not grow at all: the charlatans who had control kept out a great quantity of very highly qualified European doctors [see The naked empress, by Hans someone]. What do you say when eg doctors in different countries are paid different amounts [because of the scarcity/nonscarcity of eg doctors]? - Since the difference in pay is related to scarcity [often artificially generated by eg doctors], it is clearly not a difference of pay because of difficulty or effort of the job - But these logical sensible arguments will have no impact on the unrational - Even the people who pay these exorbitant fees would rather continue to suffer the injustice than cure the injustice by thinking the arguments through - And the ones with vested interests, for money or ego, will just ignore the rationality of the arguments. Eg, dentists in NZ are a quarter the cost of American dentists. [And the standard is as high or higher.] Part of the truth is that American dentists have higher costs, because they pay more for their equipment: but they pay more for their equipment because they can charge higher fees, because of artificial, dentist-generated scarcity. So 'the poor man pays for all', again. [And then, naturally, justifiably gets p****d off, and the country slides deeper into violence and faster towards revolution, and the world slides faster towards extinction. Justice is worth it. Justice is a bargain, a superbargain. The costs of war are very high - not just in bullets and deaths, but also in lives spent [wasted] in the militaries, defense budgets, lost infrastructures, hospital costs, legal costs.] The poor man and woman pays for the dentist's equipment, pays for the dentist's income.<br>As for 'human behaviour is purposive': Why state the obvious? Because you are subtly implying that higherpaid job people are more purposive. This is another example of self-aggrandisement, of selfinflation to fool the poor out of their earnings. I congratulate all you limited profession people on your great success! [Except that your theft makes you more a target for thieves. A Roman saying: X servants, X enemies. That is, the wealthier: the more enemies, the greater the danger. Which is obvious enough. Plunderers are the prime targets for plunder. Plunder nations are plundered. 'Beggars fear no thieves'.<br>'For seeing a personal vision through to completion' - A personal vision of a way to get rich - 'Do the work that you love doing and you'll never have to do a day's work in your life' - Do the work that you love doing and you will never want to be overcompensated for doing it. - We see here how the failure to find one's love-work feeds into injustice and therefore into violence, war and extinction. And the more skewed pay is to overpay and underpay, the more people are tempted out of their love-work and into their hate-work, for which they want compensation in the form of overpay [= theft, the making of the underpaid]. If all jobs are paid the same hourly rate, then people will have no reason to depart from their lovework, and their jobsatisfaction [ie jobhappiness] will be highest. By lovework, I mean the socially in-demand work [the work that others will pay to have the products of] that the person loves most doing. So we see that by tunnel vision, mental myopia, failure to see the full string of consequences of our decisions and actions, we hurt ourselves - terribly. We are racing towards extinction without a clue, without one correct idea, how we are doing it to ourselves. And for some, our only weapon we have to save ourselves is a smug complacency that we are allknowing, that we are right, that we are well aware, that we are seeing clearly and fully. An aversion against and unfriendliness towards anyone who tries to warn us. A mere exploitation of the discussion to reinforce our ideas [even if we have to ignore the force of the arguments to do it], pat ourselves on the back for being so right. Which is like taking a rubber spoon to a fight with a dragon. Happiness lives in realityville. When you find yourself one day surrounded by nuclear winter, ask yourself: did I seek happiness in reality or in the unreality of my egovisions?<br>'Greater tasks than lesser ones': see above. Try going and telling someone that your tasks are greater ones and their tasks are lesser ones. You won't want to do that: you know it will be resented. And from this you should know that higher pay per unit of work generates resentment - righteous resentment.<br>'Assuming more responsibilities'. Again, a lot of us unthinkingly buy into this notion. But let's look at it hard and close. Again, there is no measurement of responsibility, so there IS no payment for responsibilities [I've already said this and RD has not opened himself to really HEAR this. And don't read me as saying, merely: I want to be paid more, I want you to be paid less so I can be paid more. Give me credit for more dispassion and impartiality than that. Actually, it isn't necessary to give me such credit: just figure it out dispassionately and impartially for yourselves.] Again, there is circularity in the argument: They are paid more, so the jobs they do must be more responsible, therefore they are being paid more for responsibility. What is there in responsibility that deserves to be paid more? Does doing a more responsible job [assuming for the moment there are such things] use up more energy? Does the more responsible job need more body fuelling? With questions like these you can pull away the cobwebs of the 'mystical', ie unthinking, unexamined belief that responsibility ought to be paid for. The responsible job uses up the person about the same as a less responsible job. Of course, if the responsibility means longer hours, justice pays for those. If the resp. means hours of training, justice pays for those. <br>There is another good reason for non-higher pay: Higher pay attracts insincere people, people in it for the money, and their aggression forces out the genuine - You end up with expensive AND inferior work - the worst of both worlds. Eg doctors going for the expensive cancer cures and neglecting, or downright suppressing, the cheaper cancer cures. Politicians being not genuine leaders of the community, but moneygrubbers. Every empire has been strong, and grown, though small, with undistinguished pay for the leaders. And fallen, though large, with extreme overpay of 'leaders'. Genuine leaders like Lincoln don't need the money. Their headache is all the people grubbing for jobs in the government just for the money. [Googlesearch 'global happiness lincoln' for the quotes.]<br>'Risk'. I dealt with this too, but no one thinks they are in any kind of danger that deserves hard, clear, non-ego, non-customary, rational, sensible thinking. People's attitude is: Well, we have problems, but I hope things are not so desperate that we have to really THINK, and think logically, sanely, sensibly. You are confident that the Palestinians can't conquer you. But consider: the Sicilians conquered you. They stole enough in America [the numbers game, prohibition, etc] to be able to buy protection from the law. Obviously, the FBI, the CIA, the police forces of 52 states are not powerful enough to clear America of the Mafia. The Mafia, bigger than the five biggest corporations together. And GM is bigger than Turkey. And then there is the Irish Mafia, the Texas Mafia, the Russian Mafia, etc, etc.<br>Risk: People ARE not paid for risk: there is no one measuring risk and going around paying for it. There is no one going to the people who have been overpaid for risk and taking something off them. Moreover, business people do their best to REDUCE risk. A way of measuring worker risk would be to determine how many workers are killed in the various jobs. Few employers risk death. But the worker is invisible, he is treated as nothing, as not human: the continuing popularity of slavery as a happiness technique. If you look at the WHOLE string of consequences, slavery is clearly NOT a method of happiness. We just need to look. Every slavemaster culture has been torn down. [Economists have shown that slaveholding is economically less efficient.] No one is suggesting paying the goldprospector for risk, or the hotdog stand owner. No, it is just businessmen bleating: I'm a hero, others are not; what I do is noble far, gimme, take off others and gimme. <br>People CANNOT be paid for risk: risk is risk of losing your sprat when you try to catch a mackerel in the business world: if you were paid for risk, the pay for risk would reduce the risk, reducing the payment for risk, etc. Risk is risk of losing your investment: if one were paid for it, it would reduce the risk. Payment for risk is therefore selfcontradictory. <br>People OUGHT not be paid for risk: Paying for risk would increase risktaking. Risktaking would increase dramatically until all the money in the country was paying for risk. These are good arguments. Will anyone absorb them, or will everyone resent the arguments for dragging people out from their 'comfort' zone. [Not comfortable at all, with extinction silos in your backyard.] <br>RD wrote: <br><br>See, I think Ayn Rand made some valid points within the context of her Objectivist philosophy (although I don't buy the whole package.) I think authentic meritocracy ought to be respected. It's disastrous all around for the most talented, industrious, creative, inventive, enterprising, intellectually gifted, physically proficient, and/or ethical risk-taking mentalities to have their motivations, ambitions, and dreams knee-capped by second-guessers, armchair political theorists, critics and onlookers who have never entered the arena themselves.<br>I reply: <br>I remind you [again, RD refused to absorb it] of my VERY STRONG argument, that if you are going to talk about 'kneecapping' [a violent, emotive and therefore undispassionate ex-pression], then your argument works on my side, since 99% are higher paid under fairpay capitalism, 90% are 10 to a 1000 times better paid. Under unfairpay capitalism [under which we live, suffer unnecessarily in millions of ways, and await extinction], 1% have average hourly pay. Under fairpay capitalism, 100% have average hourly pay. Which is going to be better for entrepreneurship, invention, science, art, etc? Clearly, fairpay capitalism will produce 100 times as many entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, etc as unfairpay capitalism. Can you counter that argument? [It isn't about you versus me, reader, it is about you versus reality. I am nothing to you, you will never meet me, probably, but you will meet reality - and reality will not compromise.] <br>'Second-guessers, armchair political theorists, critics and onlookers who have never entered the arena themselves' This is RD's only argument in response to the arguments I have presented, and it is fallacious. That is, no argument at all. Obviously, it is no rational response to the arguments that the presenter of the arguments is this or that. And RD has no evidence that I am any of those things, secondguessser, armchair theorist, onlooker who has never entered the arena. What does it tell us, that a replyer has no arguments against the arguments presented except a fallacious argument based on no evidence? It is a false conclusion that the arguments are wrong because the replier can throw mud at the presenter. The presenter's disappearance does not affect the existence of the arguments. If the arguments are true, then reality is such-and-such. A libel, a smearing of the character of the presenter, the fact that the replier throws mud at the presenter, does not alter that. <br>What does it mean that a replier has no arguments in reply, and resorts to throwing mud? It shows a total lack of interest in reality, and therefore a total lack of commitment to pursuit of happiness. What could make a person totally divorced from pursuit of reality and happiness? In other words, what could make a person totally selfdestructive? What could make a person sweep aside strong clear arguments, not check them out, not taste them, not chew them over, to extract any good that might be in them, and instead turn to expressing contempt, based on things he has no way of knowing the truth of? No interest in arguments. Not even arguments clearly offered in good faith to save everyone from the vast unnecessary pain we are in. It is not easy for any of us to face the idea we are wrong and have been wrong, but it sure beats misery. The truth will set you free but first it'll piss you off. the truth will piss you off but it will set you free from bumping into the furniture. Pride [holding on to opinions for ego-'reasons', not reality-reasons, not real reasons] is 100% selfdestructive. <br>In that sentence [It's disastrous...], there is an effort to paint me as an enemy of the most talented, industrious, inventive, enterprising, intellectually gifted, physically proficient and ethical risktaking mentalities. A very definite attempt at a great slander, based on zero evidence. The animosity, aroused to such a great slander [which is a crime, which makes him a criminal], can only have been caused by the threat felt by an ego to invasion of 'his' opinions, in short, by a bigot, by someone not interested in truth [on which happiness depends] but only interested in magnifying his ego and to hell with reality. That is, a suicidally reckless person. Throwing himself about the room and refusing to heed where the furniture is. Someone who doesn't care how powerful the arguments are. If they aren't his opinions, then to hell with them, and to hell with reality. A selfdestructive and other-destructive person. A continuous danger to himself and others. <br>God = reality, existence, life, everything that exists, truth, reality, sanity, humility, facing reality. God is I AM. That is, the essence or nature of god is existence. Existence is god. Anything that exists is god. What is more to be paid attention to, to be feared and respected, than reality? Satan/devil/Belial is unreality, nonexistence, ego-generated pseudo-'reality', selfdestruction, insanity, psychosis, hallucination, selfdeception, pride, denial of reality, head-in-sand-ism. The worship of a notion of god as something different from life/everything/existence is idolatry, is worshipping something other than life/existence. Only existence, energy plus matter, potential plus actual, creative universe and created universe, is god. Most Christians have a notion of god that is different from existence/life/reality/universe/everything, and are worshipping something other than, less than everything. The god they believe in has things outside him; therefore their god is limited, finite: Finite means ending. Anything that has anything outside it, is ending/finite, and therefore an idol. Most christians are, from ignorance and confused selfcontradictory ideas, breaking the first commandment. God is infinite, unlimited. God = everything. The infinite cannot be comprehended, because it is infinite, unlimited. Most Christians have an idea/notion/image of god, which they comprehend, and is therefore finite, therefore an idol. One way to realise god is to go around saying: this is god, this is god, of everything you see. That helps destroy having an idea of god, which is to have an idol god. True god is as rich as life itself. God is life itself. What else is there? <br>Happiness lives in Realityville. The greatest general is the one who faces facts, and energetically seeks realities to face. Humility is facing facts, facing reality, seeking out truth, in order to be happy. Happiness is all of duty. 'Satan', the 'devil', means: trying to get by without facing facts, facing reality, seeking out truth with all sincerity and powers. 'Belial', another name for the devil, means 'destructiveness, uselessness'. I don't have to claim to be right. I present the arguments, the ideas, and people chew out the good, if any. A friend is one who takes the wheat of our words and with a breath of kindness blows the chaff away. To be friendly to others is to do yourself a favour. Is to create a nicer world for yourself. If we were sane, we would be polite, friendly, fair, for our own happiness, just so that our world was less polluted with enemies and impolitieness, unfriendliness and unfairness. <br> RD wrote:<br> <br>That's a different matter than being rewarded for incompetence, chicanery, or criminality. But this idea that anyone who makes more than $75,000 per year must therefore be thieving from the less fortunate is nonsense.<br>I reply: <br>I have presented some of the arguments that it is not non-sense; all RD has done is say, still, that it is nonsense. Ie, zero thinking. I guess RD and others are very confident that we are in no danger that deserves cool thinking to get us out of. I argue again: If there was a 1% chance of a bomb going off in your house and killing you, you would do something intelligent to save you and yours. Most people would agree that there is at least a 1% chance of nuclear winter. Therefore there is at least a 1% chance of a bomb going off and destroying your house and body. I argue that the only thing historically that has always been more powerful than the superrich supertyrants is the people. So our only hope is arousing the people to seeing the way to go. So our only hope is hard thinking, chewing the points over, digesting them, holding on to the things that seem after deep thought to be right, and spreading the word. This is [appears to me to be] the superbargain of all time. We can ALL ALL ALL ALL survive and be much happier. Since it is VERY beneficial to ALL humans, we can get unanimity. Assuming the arguments are sound, and people think them through. <br><br>Otherwise we all die. <br>99% benefit financially, so getting 99% agreement is very possible. Even some of those 1% who will have less money under fairpay [but will have all they have earned] will be capable of grasping the arguments that they will be much happier. The hardcore of unconvincables will be in such a great minority, they will have insufficient power to control the great majority. When the great majority clarifies its thinking sufficiently to SEE and KNOW that the wealthy are wealthy with others' earnings, and that overpay/underpay is the cause of violence escalative to extinction, then overpay will not be tolerated. There are reasons for hope that it will be done. There are reasons for fearing it will not be done. The reasons for fearing it will not be done, are all fears that people will not or cannot think purely from rational sensible foundations: that people will continue to put faith in the various forms of not-thinking: appeal to custom and other fallacious 'arguments', like RD's fallacious ad hominem 'argument', above; his selfdestructive refusal to consider, to take to heart, to test, soberly and seriously and selflovingly, the arguments I have given.<br>Appeal to custom is a species of the fallacious argument to authority: most people believe it, so it must be true.<br>An ad hominem attack, a personal attack, is the reverse of the fallacious argument to authority: the person who believes it is a nobody, so it must be wrong.<br><br>Fallacious arguments are the refuge of those who would rather die than face the possibility of being wrong. Truthseekers are always willing to be wrong. Truthseekers [happiness-seekers, the sane] are always happy to give up an idea that seems wrong. Ego-inflaters will stick to their opinions, right or wrong. Like the pseudo-patriots who say, my country, right or wrong. They forget that being wrong is blindness, which is dangerous and fatal. Falling into ditches. Humanity has been in a ditch for 1000s of years, digging their way deeper to extinction. Ego/pride/vanity/denial/blindness is selfcrucifixion. Have we had enough of being crucified by our attachment to selfcontradictory opinions? The price is facing the [obvious] fact that we can be wrong. The price is an open mind, a thinking mind. The price is death to false pride. Attachment to ego is attachment to what we have become. Attachment to truth is attachment to what we can become, which is unlimited growth, endless growth and endlessly greater happiness. </span><!--EZCODE FONT END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <p></p><i></i>