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Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

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Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#21

Post by bachback »

jnbiche wrote: post #3

"We must recognize then that money is a pure abstraction." Yes, this is a fact that people in the Bitcoin, and recently, Dogecoin communities have come to realize. I think this realization is a gift that cryptocurrencies could bring to the general population. There's nothing magical about a US Dollar. It's a unit of account, nothing more. If you really want to fall down the rabbit hole, then learn about the (original…

wrong. bitcoin has a smart contract system in it. its not just a unit of account. ripple is about as good as eGold. actually Watts had tremendous foresight when he says here: " And one of the reasons that our technology is impeded and prevented from feeding the world properly is the failure of one of our networks. It's an information network and it's called money" here we are, and now money is a network.

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#22

Post by yequalsx »

camperman wrote: post #4

Two serious problems with this essay. 1 Tim 6 doesn't say that the love of money is the root of all evil. The Greek says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, as in the sense of "all sorts of different kinds." Secondly, guilt as Watts defines it simply does not exist in honour-shame cultures. It's a very Western thing and a very recent thing in human history too.

I believe it has been translated as the root of all evil for a long time. It is only recently that it has been changed to 'all kinds of evil'. I have been under the impression that this change occurred in English translations due to the fusion of religion and economic beliefs and due to any new historical or textual evidence.

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#23

Post by camperman »

forkandwait wrote: post #19
camperman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In honour-shame societies, there is simply no concept of internal remorse or guilt. The correctional vectors are external rather than internal. A member of such a society - and they're almost always collectivist rather then individual - will strive to be honourable while avoiding shame. Here's a Chinese person talking about the difference: "...A majority of the world is Chinese. So am I. We emphasize the extended fam…

Awesome comment. I think of this as the difference between Jesus and Buddha, which I have riffed about in other HN comments. Jesus says: You stand alone judged before God. Buddha says: Your supposed self is an illusion, the collectivity is all. EDIT: I had an Alan Watts phase growing up, started by cool Episcopalian seminary students who lent me his books; Watts got ordained, then (I think) subsequently defrocked for…

Careful - the new testament is _extremely_ collectivist and honor-shame based :) Individual judgement happens to be sure but is far from being the only one. Paul threatens the Corinthian church with a sort of collective judgement that would have brought them to their knees, the idea being that everyone's faults would have been paraded in front of everyone else publicly.

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#26

Post by diydsp »

wfn wrote: post #2

For anyone who hasn't listened to Alan Watts (to his words and to his voice), I recommend a rather related talk of his (with video and everything!), 'Work as Play' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiEzxNqw6_0

Yes, I, too, can recommend listening to any of Alan Watts' many recordings available on youtube.

I don't agree 100% with everything he says, including his view of money, but I have spent many long evenings laying quietly listening and considering his perspectives.

In particular, he teaches the concept of Atman, which is the idea that the Self doesn't end at our body, but extends beyond our bodies and eventually includes the entire universe. Battles, interactions and encounters of person against person are really one organism (not Gaia...) getting to know another part of itself.

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#27

Post by howeyc »

That was a lot of rambling and tangents that don't relate to what I assume was the central point:

If we keep automating and laying off people, eventually there wont be enough people with money (jobs to get money) in order to purchase goods made by machines.

The proposed solution seems to be:

Alter the structure of the system such that the government creates debt and distributes money as income to the people, this way even the jobless can buy products made by automation.

Some other things in there:

* Comparison of Catholics and Protestants (particularly related to guilt)

* Prices of goods should not rise.

* Making mistakes is okay.

* Money and credit is bookkeeping.

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#28

Post by dominotw »

marincounty wrote: post #16

I have never understood the 'love of money". You need money to live comfortably, but I don't understand Trump, or Facebook money. I find it interesting a lot of men make their "bundle" in their mating years. I have further noticed a more than a fair amount of obtuse, fugly, mean men have a need to make too much money. I sometimes think it has evolutionary roots? As to Allen Watts; he was a success for what he valued.…

>if he was so happy and enlightened

I don't remember him claiming this. Infact, one of the common themes in his lecutures is that you can't beat the game( yin-yang)

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#29

Post by jacobparker »

fexl wrote: post #18

In the South Pacific island story, when the gold was lost, the money was lost. That was a loss of a physical substance with a unique combination of specific physical characteristics. If it had been silver, copper, platinum, rhodium, or iron, I doubt they would have said "Oh well, we didn't really lose anything." The loss was real. Some say that gold is useless, but I find it hard to imagine that any substance which i…

I'm not sure if you intend to directly reply to TFA. Mr. Watts does dedicate a sentence to that fact (Ctrl-F "It has some value for industry [...]" - the weakness of his assertion can probably be excused based on his profession and thesis) but the point he was trying to make was that losing the gold is not something that should gum up the rest of the economy.

Re: Alan Watts: Money, Guilt, and the Machine

#30

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

forkandwait wrote: post #19
camperman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In honour-shame societies, there is simply no concept of internal remorse or guilt. The correctional vectors are external rather than internal. A member of such a society - and they're almost always collectivist rather then individual - will strive to be honourable while avoiding shame. Here's a Chinese person talking about the difference: "...A majority of the world is Chinese. So am I. We emphasize the extended fam…

Awesome comment. I think of this as the difference between Jesus and Buddha, which I have riffed about in other HN comments. Jesus says: You stand alone judged before God. Buddha says: Your supposed self is an illusion, the collectivity is all. EDIT: I had an Alan Watts phase growing up, started by cool Episcopalian seminary students who lent me his books; Watts got ordained, then (I think) subsequently defrocked for…

It's been a while since I've studied Buddhism, could you clarify what you mean by 'the collectivity'?
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