Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation • Hacker News Board

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#291

Post by wavefunction » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #242

sg47 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have regressed by overturning abortion, enacting subversive election laws and in general destroying the fabric of democracy.

> overturning abortion More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongs…

Abortion has existed since before recorded history. Eugenics is 150 years old at most. I certainly wouldn't advance such a dishonest and immoral argument and it certainly illustrates why people like you should have little input into the definition of civil rights or society in general.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#292

Post by NoraCodes » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #283

NoraCodes wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To stop seeing the world as purely an evil constructed on the mass graves of the innocent. Even if it were true (and in some sense it is) this is still the world we have. [...] To be sure, some things can be done, within a generation or two. Maybe three. But after a while, what's done is done and you have to move on. Putting aside the rhetorical tools you're discussing, what would you say to people who currently fe…

>what would you say to people who currently feel the effects of these historical, and contemporary oppressions? I would have quoted me a bit more generously. This is what I would tell them (and myself, since we are all oppressed, and all of our ancestors were oppressed, at some point, by someone): >We cannot, in each successive generation, reform ourselves to undo the injustices of the past, not only because it's pra…

Fair enough - I didn't mean to imply that you hadn't said that, the quote was merely to delimit the area I was addressing.

Am I correct, then, in thinking your response to people currently harmed by social structures they have no choice in interacting with is, basically, "I agree that this sucks, but I don't support changing anything to fix it."?

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#293

Post by thisiscorrect » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #281

"Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify with." She writes from a race-essentialist framing to a degree and that drives me crazy. "white Americans" "white Westerners" x6 There's a sort of cultural appropriation shame being layered here---as if it's bad to have light skin and be interested in Buddhism, or adapt Buddhism to your existi…

Somehow these arguments about cultural appropriation only ever go one way. I've never heard anyone claim that it's cultural appropriation when non-Westerners adopt -- and benefit from -- various Western schools of thought. I've never felt the urge to gate-keep, say, the germ theory of disease from non-Westerners. What right do I have to do that? What right does the author have to gate-keep Buddhism? Why do people do this? Is it insecurity?

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#294

Post by lmm » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:01 PM UTC

yunohn wrote: post #16

omarfarooq wrote: post #4

How would these people react if they learned that the Buddha said his teachings were to last only 1000 years* if women were not included in the Sangha? And will only last 500 years after women were included?: > “But, Ānanda, if women had not obtained the Going-forth from the home life into homelessness in the Dhamma & Vinaya made known by the Tathāgata, the holy life would have lasted long, the true Dhamma would have…

Disclaimer: I’m an atheist. I don’t believe this is the gotcha that you think it is. Every single school of thought, religion or otherwise, has good and bad parts. Taking the overwhelmingly good aspects of Buddhism to understand how to lead a better life, is not invalidated because the Buddha said one thing you dislike. It’s naivety to desire 100% perfection from everyone/thing.

Many religions claim that their scriptures have some special merit or perfection that goes beyond ordinary schools of thought. (I don't disagree that this is naive; it's nevertheless often a central claim).

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#295

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:02 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #279

vkou wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember the times when people whose pastime was to get offended at stuff were ridiculed by most of the society. Which specific time period are you speaking about? The time period when the existence of gay people (not even speaking about married gay people) was offensive to the point of intolerance? Or perhaps the time period when interracial marriages offended the majority of the United States? Or maybe the time…

> Which specific time period are you speaking about? The time period when the existence of gay people (not even speaking about married gay people) was offensive to the point of intolerance? Or perhaps the time period when interracial marriages offended the majority of the United States? Or maybe the time period when half the country was offended by a black person sitting in the front of a bus? Or by a flag hanging up…

Yeah, maybe it fills a need we don't like to think we have...

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#296

Post by PebblesRox » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:06 PM UTC

bsedlm wrote: post #148

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #93

I stopped reading upon seeing at the very stop this “ Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism” I was very curious about the article. I am wondering if it treats ideas such as “hire fast fire fast” - In a way a concept related to the Buddhist ideas of detachment, or the opposite, “bing your whole self to work” which in a way seems contradictory - you have attachments, cont…

absolutely agree, but I take it further The language of appropiation implies a sort of 'property'-like dynamic for ideas. If I learn, get to know, understand an idea from somebody else, I have not appropiated them in any way. I merely have adopted their idea. This way of copying/adopting of other's ideas is what makes a cultural society thrive. On the other hand, a society where all idea transfers are in fact an exch…

You have me thinking about the recent “Every Complex Idea Has a Million Stupid Cousins” submission.

In that metaphor, maybe appropriation is when people go around selling dumbed-down or distorted copies that ignore the complexity and fullness of the original ideas. The original ideas are still out there, but for the people who only see the stupid copies, the majesty of the original idea is masked/overshadowed.

And my understanding is that part of the complaint around appropriation involves outsiders profiting from their use/misuse while the originators of the culture see none of the spoils.

https://apxhard.substack.com/p/every-complex-idea-has-a-mill...

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#297

Post by merlincorey » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

terr-dav wrote: post #285

merlincorey wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history is that it did start that way and one of the current discussion points is whether or not to allow people to abort children that are found to have genetic abnormalities such as pre-natal screening for Down Syndrome. Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable." Of cours…

>Oxford Languages defines eugenics as "the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable." So, for abortion to be a eugenics project, they should be arranged by some central governing body - a "board of eugenics" or "baby optimization committee" if you will - and not simply done by the choice of each pregnant person. Maybe…

There is no requirement for Government to be involved in eugenics given the definition I quoted -- you put that forward as assumed, but you recognize that it can happen beyond government entirely.

I would suggest that eugenics could also happen at a local level. Specifically for the only argument I am making here, a mother deciding not to have a child that is likely to have Down Syndrome.

This is an example of non-government enforced hyper local eugenics that is currently seen as okay but maybe in 50 to 100 years may be seen as barbaric the way that we currently see the idea of aborting babies based on the color of their skin.

As another commenter noted, the reasons that some people choose to abort their children would likely be cheered as a good example of eugenics in practice from the perspective of a historical eugenics loving evil caricature of your choice. If we're being charitable, we might term this "accidental eugenics".

Given what you have written, I believe I may presume that we are both on the same page that you would potentially be upset if the government forced people to get abortions for eugenics purposes as well, but perhaps I am wrong on that.

Regardless, I am not making any arguments for or against abortion here; rather, I am arguing first that there is some necessary overlap between abortion and eugenics and second that our current view of which kinds of eugenics are acceptable may be found to be distasteful to people in the future who are even more progressive than ourselves.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#298

Post by standardUser » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

thisiscorrect wrote: post #293

pc2g4d wrote: post #281

"Chen: What we see is the erasure of Buddhism as a religion or tradition that Asians or Asian Americans can claim or identify with." She writes from a race-essentialist framing to a degree and that drives me crazy. "white Americans" "white Westerners" x6 There's a sort of cultural appropriation shame being layered here---as if it's bad to have light skin and be interested in Buddhism, or adapt Buddhism to your existi…

Somehow these arguments about cultural appropriation only ever go one way. I've never heard anyone claim that it's cultural appropriation when non-Westerners adopt -- and benefit from -- various Western schools of thought. I've never felt the urge to gate-keep, say, the germ theory of disease from non-Westerners. What right do I have to do that? What right does the author have to gate-keep Buddhism? Why do people do…

There's about 500 years of history that thoroughly explain why it is not considered appropriation when non-Western people adopt Western practices. Lots of things only "go one way" when we are dealing with massive power imbalances.

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#299

Post by samatman » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #252

rayiner wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overturning abortion More accurately, the US Supreme Court returned the situation in the US to the status quo in most advanced countries: regulating abortion as a legislative matter, not a “right.” It did what the EU Court of Human Rights has repeatedly done in declining to recognize a “right” to elective abortions,[1] that can override legislation. A putative right that, 100 years from now, may well be seen alongs…

Did you just liken abortion to eugenics?

It's not not eugenic https://www.cbsnews.com/news/down-syndrome-iceland/

Re: Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation

#300

Post by thisiscorrect » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #298

thisiscorrect wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow these arguments about cultural appropriation only ever go one way. I've never heard anyone claim that it's cultural appropriation when non-Westerners adopt -- and benefit from -- various Western schools of thought. I've never felt the urge to gate-keep, say, the germ theory of disease from non-Westerners. What right do I have to do that? What right does the author have to gate-keep Buddhism? Why do people do…

There's about 500 years of history that thoroughly explain why it is not considered appropriation when non-Western people adopt Western practices. Lots of things only "go one way" when we are dealing with massive power imbalances.

This is a really vague answer. Can you elaborate? What happened 500 years ago that explains why the authors are right in their attempt to ban certain ethnic groups from certain ideas?