[MD] Flying Spaghetti Monsters

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Platt]
First, that people have no choice but to accept their lot in life, and 2) they
are not responsible for the consequences of their choices. Examples: Arlo's
grandfather may have come from a family of miners, but he could choose some
other occupation.

[Arlo]
Such as? Factory worker? Fruit picker? Quarry worker? You think these
occupations paid better, or did not treat employees the same way? And, let's
not forget that there was little education available at the time, and he came
from a family that could not afford prep schools available to the wealthy. You
oversimplification is inline with ideology that places the "value of the
person" on their wealth. Poor people deserve to be poor because they are lazy
and stupid. Miners deserved the treatment they got because they were too stupid
to choose otherwise.

[Platt]
The idea that people are victims is the basis of left-wing, socialistic thinking
whereby the government must step in to rescue the victims from the clutches of
their "capistocracy" victimizers.

[Arlo]
Under the current SOMist system, yes, there must be protections. The right-wing
"purists" who lambast the "left" for "regulating the market" are hypocrits at
best, for (as we went through this before), the right does not really want "no
regulations". What they want is regulations that protect wealth. Copyright
regulations for example. No one, it needs to be pointed out, is really arguing
for a completely unregulated market. The question appears to be in finding the
balance that allows the greatest freedoms while protecting the greatest number.


[Platt]
Finally, the notion that people are brain-washed into buying things they don't
want or need not only fits the victim paradigm that characterizes socialist
thinking but is a reflection of an intellectual elite who believe the masses
are too dumb to know what's good for them, whether it's choosing goods and
services or their government representatives.

[Arlo]
I simply side with Pirsig who, correctly, diagnosed the problems of an SOMist
system. While his solution is more far-reaching, in the meantime I think
showing people some of the more disastrous effects of SOM in production and
consumption, brought on because mercantilist dialogue is inherently SOMist, is
a good way to slide people into thinking about Quality.

[Platt]
By contrast, Arlo has repeatedly said it is up to each individual to decide what
is moral, i.e. has value.

[Arlo]
Absolutely. But, again, as Pirsig points out, people value through the
metaphysical underpinnings of their culture. In this case, SOMist,
mercantilistic underpinnings. He argued for change on this level, all I am
doing is following this lead.

[Platt]
You can choose to look at people as victims as Arlo does, or you can choose to
look at people as masters of their fate as I do.

[Arlo]
Decades of articles published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, other trade
magazines, and a historical glance at the working conditions found everywhere
across the land following the advent of mercantilist thining in the latter 19
century, prove that we are only "masters of our fate" within the mediating
circumstances of our culture.