1. The Mind of the Market

Comment #111309 by rideforever on January 14, 2008 at 9:25 am

"Markets are moral and modern economies are founded on our virtuous nature"

This seems to me to be the opposite of the truth. People can be very virtuous if they can see what the result of their actions are. If you are in front of a producer and buy his goods there is eye contact and our morality is triggered. But if you buy something (or sell something) in this black box market we now have, your morality will not be triggered.

In fact you could argue that the main point of this kind of market is to remove morality and feelings from economy so that even more money can be concentrated in the hands of just a few. And this indeed has occurred.

Personally I don't look out onto our world and think great, the people in charge have done a great job. I think : could it get any worse ? The answer as time goes on is inevitably yes it can get worse.

2. Hinduism and Buddhism offer much more sophisticated worldviews (or philosophies) and I see nothing wrong with these religions.

Comment #100051 by rideforever on December 18, 2007 at 6:31 am

Buddhism offers guidance with how to understand our experience of life and consciouness. Somewhere between psychotherapy and philosophy - but practical.

When RD argues against religions - well I agree with him and I can follow his arguments because I am able to reason - it is part of my mind. But it is not the only part, if it were I would be a computer.

I am not a computer, I experience life directly I don't process everything I see or hear and run it through a reason machine. I just experience it and buddhism seems to offer insight here.


I think the current atheist movement is of great benefit - anything to get rid of organised religions. But after that I think we need more than just reason - we are not computers.

I am not a computer.