Don Walker, the next Keith Bontrager :D

Shell .... hmm.... do you think they'd like an essay that's against globalism?

ok.. why did i know that would be the first comment.. if you read deeper .. read the judges and that its the economists contest.. youd know that your comment is just a stupid off the cuff remark.. but.. i can tell you didnt.. great research.. now can we hear some conspirecy theories you cracked this month?

looks really interesting! I have worked with some of the ecomonmist journalists before and they are all pretty smart standup guys - very zany and for the most part pretty "liberal." And for what its worth - in the publishing world, companies advertise regardless of the content - and they have no say - its actually goes against publishing "rules" to allow the advertiser to influence the content - if they do that then it has to have the words "special advertising section."

PS thanks for finding the link!

ooops

thanks for getting my back on the integrity of the content.. and thanks to ostro for the smarter link.. that monkey makes anything you type funnier.. even if its an updated link..

by no means am i saying this is the end all be all on the subject.. i just like her examples and the idea that we need to start thinking different because the old way is gone forever

The global economy can exist without greedy corporations pushing the bottom line... I don't really see it as a global economy until it goes both ways; I think its sad that nobody but westerners can afford western products... Sure, they are 'better', they 'last longer', and they are 'non-exploitative', but to most people in the world they are just about as affordable as lear-jets. I can't help but feel kind of guilty when the cost of my bicycle would feed a village for 6 months, despite the fact that I'm supporting good old worker boys from the States.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, but its impossible to relieve the abject poverty of most of the world without giving them jobs. As it is we are just raping resources and giving cash to the head-men. At least the creation of jobs (despite poor wages) helps to level the scales a little. Its either all or nothing.

globalization is a byproduct of technological innovation. The environment has changed and now we must adapt to it; as with any evolution there will be winners and losers during the transition period.

It's similar to global warming (not in an alarmist or environmental sense, but based on facts here ), its already here, we cant turn it off and so we must live with consequences.

and dont forget to not learn anything from it for the future and take it as god given...

The world's organic population has probably been almost completely anihillated 6 times from massive catastrophic metor impacts. These impacts were strong enough to evaporate all the water on the planet and turn pretty much everything into super heated rock. The only reason life could continue was because of hardy bacteria living deep in the earths crust in a narrow band above the heat from the mantle and below the heat from the apocalyptic earth surface. I'd be really impressed if we could come even close to matching this kind of ultimate destruction. If we don't kill the earth, space is going to eventually, so why don't we all just relax and become SUV driving nihilists? Life will always survive, and maybe the next intelligent species won't be so freaking stupid.

Not learning from the past would be wasting energy and resources fighting inevitable change instead of learning to adapt and making the change properly .....

or treating other countries the way we abhor treating americans (in america we fight for robin hood ethics, but then in the global economy we say "buy american" aka support only the wealthiest nation)

We shouldn't take care of the earth's environment for mother nature's sake, she is very capable of taking care of herself. If we screw stuff up too much she will simply wipe us out and start over. This heart warming view of the world is touching, but ultimately useless and just another way to boost an ego..

instead a more honest and selfish view would be appropriate. We should take care of the earth's environment for OUR sake - we are depleting OUR resources, we are ruining the air WE breath. We are creating our own destruction. We should do it for our health and our ability to sustain life - as well as our children and their children.

The call to take care of the environment 'for OUR sake' is fine for marketing an idea to a selfish population.....it's all about us!!! talk about an ego boost. I think it's time we remember/relearn that taking care of others (including the environment) is a far better way to take care ourselves. Let's move beyond the 'what's in it for me/us' think and just do something because it's right. We'll still be better off for it.

Jim

I'm not in favor of the current globalization trend where people get cheap labor in other countries because the cheap labor isn't protected by worker safety laws, however, I have no problem with high quality things made in other countries. I'll always pay a little more for a high quality product put together by skilled people who care, regardless of the country. I won't buy Nike, because it is put together by marginalized people who don't care, and who are likely being abused. However, I've owned hi-fi speakers made in Thailand because they are made by a small company of crafts-people who own the company, and take pride in the products they make (and they are kick-booty products).

For me it isn't really what country something comes from, but how its made, and how the workers are treated, and whether or not they truly care about the final product. You find that a lot in the US, and that is something to be proud of, but it can be found in every country in the world if you look for it.

peace,
sam

who is god?

ahhh - see that is exactly how I define selfihness though. Different defitions of a word make conversations very difficult!

Many people refer to a toddler who is whining for "MY TOY" as being selfish - but i see that as a moment of lack of selfishness. See at that very moment she is alienating or pissing off the other child she is playing with and ultimately doing herself a disfavor. Thus she probably wont get to play with the other childs toy the next day.

However, if she had shared her toy, then when the other child gets a brand new toy, she is more likely to share back. Thus she is spreading her resources to get more in return. And thats what I call the beauty of being selfish. Same principle as helping others because it is the right thing to do, just a tad more honest, and more importantly a larger view of the actual transaction at hand.

Objectivists like me get a bad wrap - but usually its because people are hesitant to understand a difference in language - which is very subjective. Frequently people get caught up in their own definition and fail to listen with an open ear....

I'm not sharing my GI-Joe dolls with my lame-ass friend with the care-bears. He can play with those happy little bastards all he wants, but they won't ever be posable action figures! :D

Well it would have been helpful if you had identified yourself as an Objectivist first. If you did, and I missed it, then I apologize. You are naturally entitled to your views but I personally reject objectivism and wouldn't have bothered you with a response had I known the situation. I have had too many protracted 'discussions' with objectivist to know that we would have a very difficult time finding any common ground.

Take care...

Jim

And the "open ear" problem strikes again.

Well to be fair, I wouldn't hole myself into an entirely objectivist label because I believe that there is an underlying theme to all philosophies and as I mentioned before, the problem is how we communicate these ideas to other people. Language creates roadblocks - and often specific terms force people to become defensive or shutdown because of what they naturally associate with those terms - which you just perfectly demonstrated. my use of the word objectivist made you turn off. Here I was agreeing with you and defining my words so you would see that, and you failed to see it because you were not able to move past the "language" barrier.

Then again I also believe that objectivism can also be reconciled with relativism since i dont live in the dualistic world that most people do around me. So I am a strange one... I think its important to explore all ways of looking at life - and be wary of living too inside your personal bubble of beliefs. How do you know that pecan pie is your favorite if you only judge the other types from the pictures on the box instead of taking time to do a taste test?

off-topic, but, from what/where/whom do you derive your objectivism?

also, how do you reconcile two opposing viewpoints such as objectivism and relativism?

an objectivist who doesn't live in a dualistic world -- you _are_ a strange one. ;)

I am a banana.

my eyes came down the page and read "I am a banana. And don't I just know it?"

i eat banana's like you for breakfast

That leads to such a long conversation !! And unfortunetly much of that thought process lives inside my head since people have a stigma of discussing things when two people disagree about something - and when you are like me and belive in "both" things (use term very loosely) you always find yourself disagreeing with someone - and thus noone wants to talk to you about it ;)

so in a nutshell - relativists tend to assert that reality is what we make of - it is a creation of our ideas - thus there are different realities. while an objectivist would counter that the world is static and not dynamic and things are the way they are. period. life will continue whether or not we are around to interpret it (basically the two different answers to what sound does a tree make when it falls alone in the woods) Does it make a sound because we percieve it - or does it make a sound regardless. So my non dualistic brain (similar to wilber and spectrum of consciousness) says sure there is a sound when it falls, even if there is not someone there to perceive it, but how we percieve it when we are there creates the different realities - i hear a big tree, you hear a small tree. So objectivist in that the sound happens no matter what - but relativist in that noone hears the sound the same way, thus everyone is perceiving different realities. So the reconciliation is simply that its not black and white - but instead a spectrum of greys. In other words i believe in a static world but the way we perceive it is dynamic.

Then again - what is it Robert A. Wilson always says: "believe everything, accept nothing" oh wait thats mine - he says: "I believe in nothing, but I have many suspicions." My old sig used to say: life is most interesting at the intersection of its contradictions.

When I replied, I was actually thinking of objectivism and relativism in the moral sense -- universal good and bad versus individual analysis and judgement of reality based on previous experience. So anyone prescribing to moral objectivism would seem to live in a dualistic world.

Anyway, I really enjoyed your explanation. I found some words from Wilber that should be included somewhere in the sign-up process for any internet forum:

Anyone want to get this thread back on track?

How so? Open ear? As in willing to listen to other's ideas? Maybe, if you were the first person to speak of objectivism to me that would be true, but I have already stated that I've had too many 'discussions' with objectivists in the past. Why would you make this assumption?

Differences in ideas/philosphies/opinions create roadblocks too. I think your placing to much emphasis on language here.

Defensive: no, shutdown: OK

If by agreeing with me you mean the part about protecting the environment then I think you're missing my point. While the 'ends' are the same, the means were not and that's a big deal for me because I am not an 'ends justifies the means' person. Unless I read you wrong, I believe you were attempting to explain that we were saying the same thing with your toy analogy and that it was a language issue because of your seemingly reversed selfish/selfless wordplay (and the true ramifications of the act). But in reality, it still says 'what's in it for me' as if that's a reasonable way to build future relationships and I reject that for the same reason. It might get you somewhere but it's the low road in my opinion.

Well the only time I've seen objectivism reconciled with relativism is when it's used as a device to achieve a particular objectivist goal, but then that's not being inconsistent. For the record I'm not a relativist.

Once again you assume that my views were formed in a vacuum. Isn't it just as possible that I had learned about objectivism and formed my opinions long before you were ever interested in it? I don't know enough about you to say ... that road runs 2 ways.

Take care...

Jim

Holy crap!!! I had to scroll up to see that this is the Don Walker thread!! I apologize for my part in this.

Ummm, I heard that DW bikes were cool .....uhhhh anyone heard of him?? Does that help alittle?

Jim