[MD] Metaphysical issues: DQ

[Christoffer Ivarsson]

> [Chris]
>> Stable patterns is the only thing we can talk about in any meaningful
>> manner, since we are stable patterns.

craig
> This is a dubious inference.  Can machines only talk about machinery;
> animals about animals; Scandinavians about Scandinavia?
> Anyway, there are too many counter-examples.  E.g., Pirsig talks
> meaningfully about DQ in "Lila" & "SODV".

> [Chis]
>> Thus it follows that no thing, no system, nothing that we can talk about
>> or even clearly visualise can be, or have, DQ.

> Well, that claim didn't last long.
> Craig

I don't follow you here.
I was saying, like Hume and all those guys, that we can only talk about the
things that we can see and that makes up our world etc. We have indications
of DQ, and we assert that DQ is there, but we shouldn't talk about it more
then we have to, because what we say about it will be static and thus wrong.
You know what I'm talking about.

> [Chris]
>> we see today what a destructive force the hunger for profit
>
> The destructive force is greed, not profit.  The profit motive (getting
> more
> out of an endeavor than you put in) is ubiquitous.  We wouldn't eat if it
> didn't result in more calories than were used up.

Potato. Let's say greed then. That just means people want a lot of stuff.
And it is a very strong driving force, and so it keeps our economy going.
And it produces this:

"The houses were in many cases not worthy of human beings and gave rise to
many illnesses, among them tuberculosis. The salary of the workers were at
best at subsistence level, and could only provide the workers with poor
food, and thus the infant mortality was very high. In addition to this, the
factory workers could not depend on getting paid all the time, since they
could be fired at any time"


I'm not saying that this drive is the devil. It's basic human nature. But I
AM saying that if this drive has too much freedom it KILLS people.

And like gav said:

"anyway....it is pretty obvious to anyone with more than 3 brain cells that 
we need to become sustainable, as a species. the global economy runs on the 
illogic of growth for growth's sake which is simply a social analogy of 
cancer....the internal expression of external ills. cancer isn't 
sustainable - it grows till it kills the host."

And that's because there is no balance.