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Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

nytimes.com

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Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#51

Post by ajkjk »

shp0ngle wrote: post #17
sjclemmy wrote: post #16

It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious). Uncertainty abo…

If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the middle class.

As far as I can tell, the qualify-of-life of the middle class is astoundingly high compared to almost-everyone in almost-all of history.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#52

Post by komali2 »

ChefDenominator wrote: post #42
ChefDenominator wrote: post #32

I have asked almost everyone I know if they have a subscription to: nytimes.com wsj.com forbes.com Guess what? I don't even have any minor acquaintances with subscriptions to these sites. So how come every single aggregator that I visit has articles from these sites commonly among the top and featured positions?

Well how about that: an instant down-vote!

It's not going to help if you bring up downvotes, check the site rules.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#53

Post by smacktoward »

paulddraper wrote: post #43
shp0ngle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the middle class.

How many middle-class people had instant access to 90% of the human knowledge and entertainment 30 years ago? How many have instant access right this second? Life is far easier and more convenient than it used to be. Most of the middle-class live as better than kings of past centuries.

> How many middle-class people had instant access to 90% of the human knowledge and entertainment 30 years ago?

But at the same time as they got that, they lost access to things their parents took for granted like job security and reliable health care and thriving, stable communities. Getting access to Wikipedia is great, but it does not automatically balance that scale.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#54

Post by tspike »

ChefDenominator wrote: post #32

I have asked almost everyone I know if they have a subscription to: nytimes.com wsj.com forbes.com Guess what? I don't even have any minor acquaintances with subscriptions to these sites. So how come every single aggregator that I visit has articles from these sites commonly among the top and featured positions?

Because, in the case of the first two, they are offering some of the only real journalism that remains. The latter is just fantastically adept at churning out gobs of clickbait.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#55

Post by petra »

burke wrote: post #21
shp0ngle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the middle class.

It may not be as good as it was 50 years ago, but there's a case to be made that it's nearly as good as it ever was prior to 1900.

I don't know. There was a study done recently among the Amish, who in many ways live like it's 1900. It found that they we're as happy as billionaires.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#56

Post by ChefDenominator »

tspike wrote: post #54
ChefDenominator wrote: post #32

I have asked almost everyone I know if they have a subscription to: nytimes.com wsj.com forbes.com Guess what? I don't even have any minor acquaintances with subscriptions to these sites. So how come every single aggregator that I visit has articles from these sites commonly among the top and featured positions?

Because, in the case of the first two, they are offering some of the only real journalism that remains. The latter is just fantastically adept at churning out gobs of clickbait.

The term "real" is subjective.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#57

Post by komali2 »

Kenji wrote: post #13

And although all the world’s major faiths teach love That's not what I see when I look into the holy books. Let's be frank here, faith and religion are still the tools to turn ordinary people into genocidal maniacs.

I know what you mean (turning someone into a pillar of salt, killing infidels, etc), but there's a stark difference between the "tenants" of a religion and the single books that drive them. Hence why there's a million different flavors of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc - they all take their given "book" and interpret it differently.

If you generalize Jesus' teachings, they're hard to argue as immoral - be good to your fellow man, abandon your earthly possessions, wash the feet of another because he is your fellow, stuff like that.

Anyway my point is, a tool is just a tool to be used as you will. Religious texts can be used to bring people together or start a war, obviously - just look at the current shitstorm surrounding "radical islamic terrorism." There are over a billion Muslims in the world, 99.99% of whom live peaceful lives - and a small percentage are convinced to turn their religion into an ugly justification for bloodshed. No religion is immune to this.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#58

Post by MikeHolman »

shp0ngle wrote: post #17
sjclemmy wrote: post #16

It's odd, the world is the safest and most stable that it has ever been. There has never been a better time to be a human being, and yet, the media and certain politicians would have you believe that there is disaster after disaster, terrorist plots afoot around every corner, feeding your fear day after day. If ever there was an example of the devil at work, then that's it(and I'm not even religious). Uncertainty abo…

If you are rich and already in the top class, then maybe. But it's not terribly good for the middle class.

Most people aren't living in abject poverty for the first time in the history of mankind. Sure, it's not all roses, but we're moving in the right direction.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#59

Post by dcosson »

ChefDenominator wrote: post #32

I have asked almost everyone I know if they have a subscription to: nytimes.com wsj.com forbes.com Guess what? I don't even have any minor acquaintances with subscriptions to these sites. So how come every single aggregator that I visit has articles from these sites commonly among the top and featured positions?

These sites in particular are not fully paywalled - search for the title and click through from google for wsj, and nytimes gives you 10 articles free per month (which resets if you use an incognito window).

Whether this is the "right" thing to do is another question. I do really wish there were more micro-payment enabled articles since I primarily get my news from twitter/fb links or aggregators like HN, and I can't reasonably subscribe to every news source that might ever have an interesting story posted to HN.

Re: Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded

#60

Post by jessaustin »

dschiptsov wrote: post #20

That's gross oversimplification for western amateur audiences. His Holiness is trying to speak the language of common western consumer. Behind our anxiety is ignorance. Period. Ignorance is described as a veil that obscures the view of what is from so-called primordial awareness or Atman, if you wish - the aspect of the whole (Brahman) in us. (The Buddha explicitly rejected the notion of Atman, but numerous later Ind…

It isn't surprising that comfortable pop psychology is more welcome on the NYT opinion pages than esoteric theology.
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