Grrl Power #394 – Philosonomics
In fact it’s only due to people hoarding wealth that charity is even necessary, so you’re welcome, poor people.
I actually had a lot more written for Deus’s pitch about greed, but a few examples is really all you need to get his point. It’s actually pretty easy to spin almost any attribute as an aspect of greed. Rage, love, hope, they mostly have to do with either wanting something or having something taken away. Sloth is a bit harder as is Vanity and Humility, but Deus can get there. It just takes a little more twisting. You can play along at home!
I really wanted to make this page and the next one a double, but I have to be a little more disciplined about my time if there’s any chance of getting the book ready for A-kon, so the next page is the final part of the interview, then we’re back to Sydney and her usual antics.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
He’s right. Ego is up there, too.
And that guy is fated to know a lot about ego.He is “God” after all.
Really, his name translates as God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5UyREFZAIQ
Well then, who better to start a religion than God himself!
Good one!
Kkkkk
“…make it a religion for tax purposes.”
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Seriously though, Deus could do just that.
In the USA, it’s actually a lot easier to start a religion than you probably think. In a nutshell, all you have to do is get the proper paperwork to Register a Religion, available at your local courthouse or city hall, then fill it out, submit the paperwork with whatever fee they charge for the registration process, wait until they process it, then BOOM…You are now the Supreme Poobah of the Church of the Immaculate ’57 Chevy.
I met a guy when I was in the Navy, he was a Marine Vet who did exactly that (The name of his church was exactly what I mentioned, just above). He showed me the paperwork.
However to make it a tax free charitable organization is much harder, you have to submit accounting info proving all the funds are used appropriately.
It’s not actually very hard at all. John Oliver details exactly how easy it is to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg
He formed the church “Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption.” He characterizes the process as being “disturbingly easy.”
I was listening to a YouTube program about an atheist who defends his position while pointing out the ridiculous nature of most religions that purport to be about God’s word. (He has particular and pointed sayings against Christianity.) This same person noted that America has a depressing preponderance of religious temples–over 4,000 of them. It would be so much better for people to build parks, recreational centers, schools, universities or restaurants, etc. Instead, someone gets the bright idea of building a church and boom! There’s premium real estate gone. Religion has got to be the biggest and neatest tax dodge ever invented and with America’s separation of church and state anyone who can come up with a religion and get the suitable number of followers has got a sweet deal going.
America doesn’t actually have a separation of church and state, that’s nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, that’s an out-of-context quote by one of the founders being used to do the opposite of what it was actually being used for in the full statement.
It doesn’t use the phrase ‘separation of church and state’, but the founding father who coined the phrase was using it explicitly in the context of discussing the First Amendment. Given that he wrote the damned thing, he’s got more legitimacy in deciding its relevance than you do. He even explains it exactly in the quote in question.
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.” -Thomas Jefferson
This explains that not only does America have separation of church and state, but also the exact providence from which that principle is derived; the government does not have authority to tax religions, or make laws regarding their free exercise… unless that free exercise extends into the realm of politics, in which case said church can be reclassified as a political advocacy group. Further (and I know this as someone who works in this capacity) public institutions such as schools and post offices are forbidden not by law but by organizational policy from endorsing or seeming to endorse a particular religion. This is because the government is meant to serve all citizens equally, regardless of religion, and anything indicating an endorsement would be as out of place were it based on religion as on hair or eye color. To do otherwise would be to open the organization to legal reprisal for discrimination.
And yet I read this as saying the exact opposite: that government can’t NOT subject religious organizations to exactly the same tax laws as everyone else.
How can the government decide what is a religious organization (and thus tax-exempt) and what is not, without a law respecting an establishment of religion?
How you read it is in direct controversion of the intent stated by the author. He makes it clear that religion is a matter of opinion and personal beliefs. It is actions, not opinions, which one can tax.
You can tax the food a person purchases. You cannot tax a person for believing that he should eat.
This is why churches that stray into politics CAN be taxed. When they start engaging in political advocacy, that has a cost. We have legal definitions for political advocacy.
It’s because it doesn’t specifically use the phrase “separation of church & state” is why it can’t be interpreted as “separation of church & state.” Laws can only be upheld as written specifically, otherwise the Law can be “interpreted” right out of all context & meaning.
One of the Prime Maxims of the Law states, “That which is not specifically included, must be expressly excluded.” If you look at the 10th Amendment, you can see that this Prime Maxim is derived directly from there.
When it comes to “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” this specifies a Stance of Neutrality, not separation.
Well on the one hand you’re completely wrong about laws needing to be interpreted only as specifically written. Laws are interpreted all the time based on someone’s assertion that the written words mean something not included or apply to a situation not specifically codified.
And on the second hand the Constitution is not itself a law, and it is also interpreted constantly. The document itself is quite brief, and was deliberately left vague specifically in order to allow for flexibility of application.
Incorrect the Constitution of the United States is the SUPREME law for all the land controlled by said Unites States.
A stance of neutrality by the Federal Government IS separation. It’s a commitment by the Federal Government not to endorse one religion over another, not to allow one religion to hold legal authority over those of another religion (or no religion). Not to forbid or condemn a religion.
By the same token, it’s drawing a clear divide indicating that as the Federal Government must remain neutral, religions advocating to pass their tenets into law must be regarded as hostile to the freedom of religion. Allowing that would pull the Federal Government out of its neutral stance, and raise one religion above others in the land.
Hey Raging, if you check you will find that the majority of private colleges/university’s were founded by religious organizations.
So we’re a lot of hospitals, charitable organizations, and such.
And I have not heard about any such work done yet agnostics or atheists.
Just saying look before you leap.
Assuming most agnostics or atheists don’t belong to an organised-by-lack-of-belief group, and have no real need to add a label to their humanitarian work, wouldn’t most of them just show up as individual benefactors or founders, or as founding organisations with a topic-based or general humanitarian theme rather than a religious one?
Sign me up for his Religion :)
Cool flowchart
A flowchart that is thinking with Portals is definitely my kind of flowchart!
Calling out to get that flowchart as a full image!
#Flowchart for background!
Second that!
Third-ed!
Jealousy is being afraid someone is trying to take what you have. The word you’re looking for is envy.
Still rebranded greed.
I’m more interested in how he twists “selflessness” or “temperance” into “greed”
i already did. selflessness at least. you can look for the comment below.
Loving her face in panel three :D
It’s a well-drawn moue, to be sure.
He could always try to establish Yen Buddhism.
That is clever. I might have known HE thought of it….
“The founding principle of Buddhism is not ‘every man for himself'”
– Wanda
Didn’t Gordon Gekko already hold this speech?
Yes. Its the very correct “greed is good” speech :)
I shouhd post a link to it. Its really good
https://youtu.be/PF_iorX_MAw
Who does C.C. St. Croix look like? It keeps bugging me.
Just look a page or two back.
It’s been bugging me too but I haven’t found anything in the comments. Which comic specifically were you thinking of?
Not seeing it.
My serious take on the driving force? Species propagation. Almost all the human actions can be explained as something which should (in theory, sometimes stupidly ineffectively) lead to having children who would carry our genes.
Greed (wealth accumulation)? Show the wimmen that you are an alpha male and a potential good father.
Fitness? Ditto.
Quinoa? -> Fitness -> Ditto.
NASA? Alpha male.
Food snobbery? Show that you are a good provider for the family.
Beer? Two words: Beer googles. Also, less inhibitions -> higher chances of attracting wimmen (yeah, right…)
Hate? Get rid of the competition.
Love? DUH.
Also: I highly approve of “Single malt anything”.
This works a lot better than the “greed” spin for one reason: It’s even slightly true.
So we have someone saying Greed is the root of all (and he’d probably say “You want to propagate your genes instead of the other guy- that’s Greed!), and someone who’s spun Lust (essentially) as the Root of All.
Now for Sloth, Gluttony, etc. etc.
Food Snobbery needs to be linked closer to Quinoa, because a true food snob would be appalled and apoplectic to hear it pronounced any other way than ‘keen-wah’.
All are aspects of pride though. Greed is “Because I deserve it”, which is pride. Just my view on the sins.
Love how quinoa leads to greed in the chart.
Actually greed is more ‘I want it reason does not matter’ in that sense he is right :P
To quote one of my favorite authors, the late great Terry Pratchett.
“And sin … is when you treat people as things”
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a short story on that same concept, but it’s written as being a “self-imposed detachment from the human species.” It’s the story of Ethan Brand in his search for the “Unpardonable Sin.”
https://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/eb.html
I thought the Unpardonable Sins were Avada Kedavra, Crucio, and Imperio.
I love how “Hey watch this” is linked to NASA
This page awefully reminds me Kamen Rider 000. Greeed :P
I don’t know about this. I feel that Deus’s aspirations are somehow much higher than just greed. I get the feeling he wants the world.
And tying everything down to greed seems like an exercise in solipsism. I almost suspect that this isn’t Deus’s real creed but one made for the audience.
Wanting the world kindoff is greed
He seems like a Pragmatic Benevolent Megalomaniac, Think Dr. Doom without the armor. He wants to take over the world, and the world would actually be better off for it, but in general, most people would hate it and a lot of people would die in the process. The super team is primarily to gather and identify people he needs to eliminate and separate them from the people that he can use.
That’s pretty much the plot behind X-Com 2: Aliens win, set up a “Pragmatic Benevolent Megalomaniacal Dictatorship” and yet the humans hate every bit of it. And you’re expected to lead a ragtag group of resistance freedom fighters towards global freedom.
To quote Gordon Gekko:
“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”
And very, very sad in it’s nature…..
I never did like that philosophy. Reminds me all too much of “Corporations are People, and deserve the same rights!”
Anyone who can say that without feeling a little sick inside? Check for a pulse. I can ALMOST guarantee that the speaker is a lizard. :)
I always thought Sloth (AKA Laziness) was the driving force in the universe.
No matter what goal you are reaching for, you always take the easiest path(i.e. the lazy way)
Also water, electricity, and other things, follow the path of least resistance.
That’s not really laziness; that’s efficiency. Efficiency is taking the path of least resistance. Laziness is deciding you didn’t want to move anyway.
Taoists believe that true skill comes without effort. They seek to go with the flow of events and their surroundings, rather than fight the current. They are hardly lazy, though their philosophy could easily be rebranded to prop up a sloth’s antics (or lack thereof).
sins webcomic would love todays discussion
Sloth isn’t the Path of Least Resistance, it’s the Path of Least Action.
If you’re sitting on the couch, and spill your soda, the least resistant action is to drop just about anything on it to soak it up. The most Slothful action is to wait for your wife to get home from work and deal with it.
Larry Wall categorised Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris as the three great virtues of a programmer, although his reasoning was not identical.
The laziness part was about writing labour-saving programs, and documenting them so you don’t have to answer questions.
And then there was Victor Tugelbend’s “active laziness”, he stayed fit so any activity required less effort.
Both identify the concept of future laziness as a driving force, and the same could be said about a lot of technological progress.
“In fact it’s only due to people hoarding wealth that charity is even necessary, so you’re welcome, poor people.”
Really?
So if we take that literally, if a person falls off a ladder and becomes a quadriplegic and is completely unable to provide for themselves, we should let them die because it was not caused by anyone hoarding anything.
Simple answers are often pretty dumb.
I think he’s more talking about the gigantic inbalance in how wealth is distributed.
But yes, in a non greedy world, that quadriplegic would get perfect government help to keep living and wouldn’t needing charity
And in an honest world, that government help would be Charity.
Semantic games are Bullshit.
I’d rather call it a basic right. But yes, semantics.
Deus is right when talking about personal charity though
A basic right to take what another has produced, without that other’s consent, and not in compensation for a wrong that other has done to you…
… is a basic right to own a slave.
Apparently that isn’t actually charity as it is defined.
char·i·ty
ˈCHerədē/
noun
1.
the voluntary giving of help, typically in the form of money, to those in need.
synonyms: financial assistance, aid, welfare, relief, financial relief; More
2.
an organization set up to provide help and raise money for those in need.
synonyms: nonprofit organization, voluntary organization, charitable institution;
If charity was indeed caused by greed, then why is it that those who have the least are the most charitable? It isn’t greed that leads to charity, but empathy, and it’s a lot easier to empathize with someone who is hungry when you’ve been hungry yourself.
It is true that greed is one of the causes of inequality, but it isn’t the only one.
Some people win the genetic lottery, blessed with above average strength, intelligence, willpower that would lead them to rise above their peers no matter where they started from, while others are cursed with disadvantages that would lead to failure after failure without a substantial helping hand.
Some people are blessed with a loving family, people who support them to push their abilities to their limits, and are there to catch them if they fail. Others are cursed with families that are negligent at best, and outright abusive at worst. It takes a rare person to rise above such an upbringing.
And it goes on and on, neighborhoods, cities, countries, continents… and times as well.
Greed is indeed one of the great motivators of humanity, but so is fear, love, empathy, and enlightened self interest.
Which is what makes Deus so scary a villain. He has something so many villains lack: enlightened self interest, which allows him to easily fake empathy.
WELL….if you look at it charity is a form of greed, but it is double edge sword you can never give enough away to really help the entire world,but in doing so your actually making your name more known to others and that carries some weight in the governments around the world that know that if they don’t cater to you wont “donate” to them.. so in away charity>>greed>>famous
> in doing so your actually making your name more known to others
Only then it’s twistable(?) into greed. If you donate anonymously and don’t tell anybody, I don’t see how one can make it an aspect of greed.
Do I smell a Bones reference?
Hmm, if you do, I’m sure it doesn’t come from my comment. Or if it does, it’s by accident.
And most forms of charity I’m familiar with are done more or less anonymously.
Also, IMO lack of charity is more often driven by fear, as opposed to greed. Fear that money given will go to support a drug addict, than someone truly down on their luck. Fear that voting for a progressive candidate will mean your taxes will go to welfare mothers who pop Bon Bons into their mouths faster than they can pop out babies. Fear giving too much today will mean you don’t have enough if you get layed off in the future.
Fear is by far the more destructive force in society than greed is. As the old saying goes, “All it takes for evil to win is if good people do nothing.”
The two make for an awfully efficient duo, though.
I meant, Lukkai above
Fully agreed, also with Lukkai below.
while donating anonymously is some what not true because you accountant and your banks will know who you gave it to so thats not really a way to become unknown to anyone
BTW : I’d go with Fear being the Great Motivator.
Fear of Hunger.
Fear of being alone.
Fear of being rejected.
Fear of failure.
The list goes on and on and I could argue that it is also the basis of morality.
Fear is just the microwavable version of respect. It’s easier, but it leaves a funny taste and is fairly unhealthy in the long run.
fear can be twisted to greed, way easier than most…
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path, and only I will remain.
Fear leads to Anger
Anger leads to Hate
Hate leads to Suffering
But I like the Litany Against Fear, too,
This works scarily well too…
Peace is a lie, there is only Greed
Through Greed, I gain Resources (or Money, Personnel, tanks, time )
Through Resources, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
My Greed shall set me free.
I am the bone of my bank account.
cash is my body, credit is my blood.
I have invested over 1000 stocks.
not known to taxes.
nor known to spending.
have withstood sales to gather many funds.
so as I compound.
unlimited fund works!
Fear is the Great Motivator?
Let me guess…You’ve seen this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqPtV-tOoMA
This doesn’t seem like his end goal. It would be incredibly clever to act as if he operates on a philosophy of massive resource acquisition, right up until the reveal. At which point he has a fairly massive amount of economic, political, geographic, and militaristic power at his disposal for the purpose of his goals. In all honesty this seems as if he is trying to be disarming and sympathetic, while giving a seemingly predictable motivation for his actions.
This,my friend, is called playing politics
I just gotta say I love how “Fast Cars” and “Gluten Intolerance” have the same color portal. How are they connected? I have no idea, but this amuses me.
You are not thinking with portals are you?
The same colours aren’t connected. A blue portal is connected to a orange one. They are 2 sides of the same coin.
All the blue portals go to an orange portal around the bottom-left.
shush it’s early x.x
Huh. I think I read somewhere, years ago, a story with a character that had the she ideology. Can’t remember if it was a manga or a game…. maybe suikoden? Heh either way this made me realize that greed can’t be as bad as some people lead it on to be. I can stand with what deus says thus far.
Fullmetal alchemist brotherhood?
Greed(the first incarnation) says something similar.
Found it.
(To Edward) “I disagree. You want to bring back someone that you’ve lost. You might want money. Maybe you want women. Or, you might want to protect the world. These are all common things people want. Things that their hearts desire. Greed may not be good, but it’s not so bad, either. You humans think greed is just for money and power! But everyone wants something they don’t have.”
FMA Greed was the first think I thought of when I read this page.
It definitely sounds more his philosophy and, again, makes me wonder about his earlier statement about having lovers. If he feels no love, only greed, and that is all they feel for him, then his love-making is mainly a kind of commerce.
Well, it is known as an exchange of affection.
Huh…
and here I thought that survival is what drives people.
survival what drives living things in general humans already moved from bothering with survival and plain got into ‘mine’ field :P
Too much self sacrifice in the world for that. Survival drives every species except the god damned useless pandas, but what drives an individual is not the same as what drives a species. A human can commit suicide as a conscious, intentional decision; Humanity cannot. I can’t remember where, but there was some novel, show or movie or some such that I watched once that had that concept as a plot point. An swarm of bees will kill themselves with their suicidal stings, but that actually just furthers the survival of their hive, and thus their genes.
You had me laughing at the mention of pandas….
I definitely agree with you on the part about the Pandas.
Don’t you think the pandas are taking China’s One Child Policy a bit too seriously?
They’re dead weight, let’s lose them.
Besides which, they don’t even take one child, they just refuse to mate. Because apparently all the ones that carried the “Don’t Let The Species Die Out” genes got eaten by tigers, sharks, or the Greater Bamboo Tigershark, notorious for its phenomenal camouflage abilities; given that everyone expects it to hide in stands of bamboo, due to the name, it instead totally avoids such terrain and is thus a ghostly, untraceable hunter. So we get the one damn species in the entire history of the planet that just sits and refuses to reproduce. What the hell, pandas. What the hell.
You are aware that a thumbnail is not the full picture, aren’t you?
I’ve been saying that for years; just using a synonym, “desire.” Truly believing it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, by the way. Nor does truly rejecting it. Like, supposedly, religion, it’s all about the direction you take it in. For example, one of my major desires is to help people; especially helping my friends. When I can do it, it makes me happy. (An aside: I’m not happy often…)
Is Deus evil? The direction definitely appears to be headed that way, but I’m not convinced. Even when he inevitably become a Big Bad that Archon has to take down, I’m probably still not going to be convinced. Like with Lex Luthor in DC post-CCA. Definitely not evil, but also definitely a villain. Bit of personal greed (see his organized crime syndicates), but also greed of receiving adoration and the feeling of benevolence through honest action. (He does make some good points about supers, which Batman also believed with a different conclusion.) He’s flawed. Luthor is like the two famous Bernies combined: Madoff and Sanders.
Problem with Deus type characters you can’t punch them in the face. You got something against him? He would probably let you arrest him than his lawyer army (some even with süper Powers) will get him out before the hour i done in confinement
Super lawyers? I wonder what their power is
Brainwashing oh wait normal lawyers can do that too :P
I also like to call it Desire. I very much fell into a similar way of thinking as Deus after having watched Kamen Rider OOO, which deals with greed, hopes, wishes, development, progress, kindness, as all being aspects of desire. Greed, in particular, true greed, is merely desire without goal, desire without end, desire without direction. It is accumulation for the sake of accumulation.
Desire in itself is not evil. It can come in good and bad flavours, and when it becomes an all consuming force in your life without reason and without end, that is when it becomes greed.
I absolutely adore the very last line. Getting a greed based philosophy turned into a religion, so you can save money on taxes. It’s so deliciously, delightfully perfect.
It’s sort of been done before. Two words. A name, actually: Creflo Dollar. (I don’t know if that’s actually his real name, or if he had it changed, but his legal name actually is Creflo Augustus Dollar, Jr.)
Leader of the non-denominational World Changers Church International, centered around “prosperity theology”, or the gospel of wealth, if you will. He owns two Rolls-Royces, a jet, a $1 million home in Atlanta, a $2.5 million home in Demarest, NJ, and he used to have a third $2.5 million home in Manhattan (which he sold).
Regarding the jet, after it ran off the runway at Biggin Hill Airport, he immediately began trying to convince his followers to donate money to help him buy a new Gulfstream G625 (to the tune of $65 million)…
I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that Creflo Dollar believes God spoke to him and told him to buy this jet, or the fact that people are so gullible and delusional and are actually supporting this guy. Of course, as Dollar puts it, it’s simply part of “prosperity theology,” in other words, giving of your own money to the church because by doing so your level of personal wealth is blessed and will grow significantly.
It’s a big scam, of course, but it seems to be working for him.
Pastor Dollar is hardly alone or even new in committing such un-Christlike deception. The trope of the “money-hungry televangelist” exists for a reason, after all.
There’s even a song about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ohvqwsNkk
Believe me, I know he’s hardly alone. I used him as an example for two specific reasons: (1) his theory of “prosperity theology” seems specifically set up, or at least is very conducive to, running such scams; and (2) it’s recent enough news… the whole jet thing happened less than two years ago… that most people who read the comments would remember hearing about it, at least in passing.
Deus fell into his own trap. Greed is the ‘love’ of money and possession to the extreme or an unhealthy amount. Actually, when you think about it, all vices are a form of ‘love’ that’s been perverted via some means or method.
Tsk tsk Deus, for a guy whose name is god, your theology and logic is sorely lacking.
Except greed has nothing to do with money.
You can be greedy for anything, money, power, love, fame, sex, food, comfort, travel…
Yet all the things you mention could be traced back to the “love of” something as well.
You definitely could make the whole argument Deus does for greed for love as well. You wouldn’t even have to change much of what he’s saying.
Precisely put Lukkai (I’d begun to write on ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’, got distracted and forgot where I was).
Greed, going off the seven deadly sins (which Deus brought up himself) refers specifically to finance, possession, and power. Greedy for love or sex is better termed as lust. Fame is Pride. Food, Gluttony. Comfort and Travel wall under the header of possession.
All are perversions of Love, of which Greed falls under. Hence, why I say, for a guy that likes to utilize Biblical and Christian references, he doesn’t actually know what he’s talking about.
Greed would take that position, that all auctions are driven by greed. It is a supremely greedy assumption, suborning all things to be under its header.
Well obviously an auction would be greedy.
Its all about wanting more than the other guy.
I hate for my first comment on this site to be a rant, but “…it’s only due to people hoarding wealth that charity is even necessary…” this statement is so false that it demands a rebuttal. I won’t go into detail, but there is NOT a certain amount of money in the world that greedily hoarding some of it can cause shortages. Money is made by entrepreneurs that see a need for something and then cause that product to be created, thus employing and paying potentially millions of your poor in the process of making themselves rich. If you couldn’t become rich from this process, who would bother to create new things, to fill newly discovered needs. Socialism/Communism is stagnation and death.
To give more counter examples to the statement “”In fact it’s only due to people hoarding wealth that charity is even necessary…”:
When someone’s house burns down, destroying all their possessions, charity can step in to assist them. No hoarding of wealth necessary to create this situation of need.
When there is a famine, those whose crops did not fail can share their output with the famine stricken area – hoarding had no bearing on the creation of the famine.
Other natural disasters
Accidents
Illness
Birth defects
Old age infirmity
True charity occurs when someone works hard to produce something with the idea in mind that they will use the results to aid others with no expectation of reward other than personal joy in seeing the other person’s needs met. There really are some primarily altruistic folks out their who produce far more than they need for that very purpose. They don’t get a lot of press because they aren’t doing it for recognition. Sadly that is not very common in this world of ours.
I would suggest that greed is trying to get more of something without caring what it deprives others of. True charity is the converse – focused on helping those who are deprived through no fault of their own and non-judgmentally helping them gain the ability to get what they need when they are capable but have deprived themselves through their own choices (kind of along the lines of “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.) Helping the needy who are need through no fault of their own is comparatively easy. Helping the needy who have screwed themselves up seems to require a great deal more compassion, patience, and wisdom because the most charitable thing to do is to provide for only their most basic needs while helping them lift themselves out of their situation – which can take a lot more time and effort than just throwing money at them and forgetting them.
To build on what Gahdinn said:
Capitalism tends to be driven by greed but can benefit society by increasing supply.
Socialism and communism tend to depress production and abdicate individual responsibility for charity. Under Socialism and Communism, charity becomes SEP (somebody else’s problem).
To paraphrase Winston Churchill “Capitalism is the worst form of economics except for all the others.”
(Churchill actually spoke of democracy and government)
Of course the statement that “In fact it’s only due to people hoarding wealth that charity is even necessary, so you’re welcome, poor people.” is not entirely false either. Greed has caused a lot of poverty and suffering that creates more need for charity – it’s just that even without greed there would still be a need for charity.
You are essentially right except that money only has value because you can trade it for things, it’s those things you want/need which have value and it is the production of those things that creates wealth. money only exists to facilitate trade, which is important because trade increases efficiency and thus wealth as more things are able to be created.
so it’s actually exactly the opposite of what is stated in the comic: the only reason that an excess of things exist to be given out as charity is because of greed. if each person desires only to make enough to meet their own personal needs then no one would have extra to give to others.
I’m driven out of spite. When someone tells me I can’t do something, I want to prove them wrong out of spite.
You can do anything! Sky is the limit! :D
I know you’re trying to play me, but… damn straight! Y’all gonna see me on America’s Got Talent!
What does the second “C” in C.C.’s name stand for?
Cerci.
Cici Cerci St. Croix.
All in favor of the new tongue-twisting name say “Ow”.
I can’t say anything, let alone an “ow,” because my tongue is tied into a knot…
That’s… not actually hard to say at all. Nearly every syllable begins with an ‘s’ sound. The are no ‘sh’ sounds that would even trigger a tongue twister. The only hiccup that could possibly arise would be in regards to Croix and not knowing how it’s pronounced from a written perspective if you’re not familiar with French, Haitian, or a similar language (the x is silent).
Cecilia.
Cerci, Cici Cerci St. Croix
while i agree with the general message, i must say, me is a bit inaccurate here.
yes, we do what we do because we want to, or don’t want the consequences of not doing so.
everything in one way or another, comes down to “want”.
help someone “selflessly”? well, but don’t you get that funny feeling afterwards?
so you do get something out of it. you do it, because it feels right.
hmmm… i was going to somehow explain the inaccuracy but now words don’t want to come. someone help here?
since you asked for help.
I don’t think Deus’s message is to be agreed with. It is obviously cartoonish and wrong. The world is more complex than being able to be reduced to “THIS 1 THING”. Also, greed is more than just “desire”. That is why there is a separate word for it. Greed is more like wanting much more than you need or have use for. So being hungry and wanting to eat a meal is not greed. Being in love is not greed. Buying 2000 restaurants for yourself might be greed, having 100 lovers can be greed.
This page is a good demonstration of how evil twists truth. It sounds reasonable but it isn’t when you dig into it.
Also, I don’t agree that alturism is greed/selfish. Mutual benefit is not selfish. Also when you directly strive for mutual benefit when you could easily just do it your way, that’s not selfish either. etc etc etc
Where Deus goes wrong is that he specifically refers to the Seven Sins and Virtues. Greed is specifically described as the want of superfluous wealth and possession. To use your example, 100 lovers would be Lust rather than Greed.
i don’t think just having them makes it lust.
its what you do with them and why that would make it lust.
He misses a few things in his semantic justification. Among other things there is an assumption that a charitable person has a desire to find places to be charitable which is not the case in someone who actually is charitable and he quickly moves off virtues. In essence, the charity he is describing is charity in behavior rather than charity in nature. From an outside perspective you’d be hard pressed to tell the two situations apart, the difference is all internal.
Very similarly, an act of free will might often get overlooked since anytime when someone follows the crowd it is generally assumed that they are acting on herd-instinct/mob mentality when they really might have thought through the matter and decided that that is the way they wanted to behave.
On the other hand, an act that is blatantly against the social norm is often considered to be an act of free will or defiance when it is still just a thoughtless reaction to external or internal pressures. This part of why villains or anti-heroes are often considered “cooler” because they have the sort of behavior we expect of someone expressing free-will when in reality they might be more of a sheep than some guy who gets up in the morning and goes to work in an office as a file clerk each day.
Well, he is obviously not to be taken seriously.
Indeed. It is a shallow sort of philosophizing that gets close to some pet peeves of mine, namely various flavors of “not my fault” including “power corrupts”, “I had no choice”, or “money is the root of all evil” things meant to either blame behavior on something we’re unable to control or else justify the behavior we know is wrong.
That latter phrase is actually “The love of money is the root of all evil” which I think pretty much nails Deus’s philosophy right on the head.
“Let me to ask you” ?? I think maybe you rewrote this at one point, and it ended up halfway between both versions? I think you meant “Let me ask you” or “I just want to ask you” or something like that?
In any case, luvin’ the comic! :)
Basically, Deus fell into the very same trap he mentioned in the flashback. :D
Wa-ha-ha-ha-ha… oh man… when someone tells the most plainly obvious things as the new revelation, it’s always incredibly funny, to me at least.
Yes, greed, a.k.a. “desire to maximise your utility function” is what drives all. But that’s a vacuous truth, because you can put any motivation in it, absolutely any. Just like “People want the world to match their ideal of how the world is ought to be, the closer the better” — sure, they do. But what exactly are their ideal visions of the world? How they measure the closeness to the ideal, in other words, what’s more or less important?
That is what is interesting, and saying “everyone is driven by greed” is just introducing a language to describe things. Now please, start actually describing things.
You’ll notice that Deus is specifically NOT telling his actual plan.
Or in other words: Using a lot of words to say very little
This is an interesting evil cynicism. There probably was a lot of thought put into this character. I like how his world view has that classical faux-ness: sounds surprisingly revelatory and rational at first, but give some thought it is obviously false. It also has the typical “it all comes down to this 1 thing” approach of over-simplifying everything that false thinking usually has.
I like the little map too. Pretty funny :)
charity and chivalry is something you do because it feels right, it is how you want the world to be.
or
because you want to have a good image. that might help you politically, or with ladies.
or
simply on a whim.
no matter how i look at it, everything is because of “want”.
this was supposed to be a reply to the comment just below my previous one…
Actually, if we over simplyfi everything it comes down to TWO major points.
Want.
Don’t want.
Just imagine: you get really mad at someone. You want to punch him. You decide not to punch him. You won’t feel good about this afterwards (chances are you’re still mad at him) but you refrain from doing so because of what you don’t want: he migh punch you back, he might sue you, you will look bad in front of onlookers, it will permanently damage your relationship with this person, etc etc.
What we don’t want control our everyday actions just as much as the things we do want.
we don’t want losing what we want to have.
we want not to lose what we want to have.
rephrase it, and it still the same one thing.
Well it makes sense; ‘Greed’ is what drives us, it gave birth to human ingenuity as much as it did human cruelty.
Side note: the D&D alignment scale has always weighed heavily on greed: Evil is basically just greed for your own sake (“me me me!”) whereas Good is greed for the sake of your allies (“us us us!”). Plus Lawful is being greedy in the normal ways (ie hard work) and Chaotic is being greedy in new and exciting ways (ie crime)!
I’d say more “selfishness” than greed. Although I find the “charity is only necessary because people hoard wealth” thing to be flat-out wrong. Someone can be charitable even if they aren’t very wealthy and as a matter of fact some of the most charitable people I’ve met are those with the least to spare.
Either way, will be glad to get back to Sydney. This is one of the challenges of webcomics. In a regular comic this would be a few pages giving you insight into Deus and they’d be interesting. In a bi-weekly webcomic it’s a multiple week break from the fun stuff and it’s annoying, still interesting, but annoying.
I think you’re misinterpreting the initial quote. “charity is only necessary because people hoard wealth” is actually arguably true; hoards of wealth drive artificial shortages of wealth, and without those shortages far more people would be able to sustain their lives unassisted.
You seem to be arguing against the notion that charity is only POSSIBLE because people hoard wealth; that a hoard is needed before meaningful charity can be accomplished… and you’re absolutely right, because the point of charity is that all donations are meaningful no matter how small; because they aggregate with other donations, just adding to the pile is worth doing.
It’s just not what the quote was saying, is all.
Actually pride would have been my answer cause its the sneakest of sins yea greed drives you to steal but pride is why you think you can get away with it
I’m 100% sure several people have beat him to that maxim, religion and all.
By Jove, Deus is a Ferengi!
Rule of Acquisition #10: Greed is Eternal.
And what the (Dead) dictator knew:
Rule of Acquisition #47: Never trust a man wearing a better suit than your own.
Since no one has posted the full list yet, here it is:
https://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Rules_of_Acquisition