/lit/ - Literature

Hasty generalization.

>with blow and expensive hookers.

Seems like my kind of guy...

'Fraid so but capitalism works best and people have always desired wealth, capitalism allows greater social mobility than other systems and gives people the opportunity to achieve that wealth. And also, there are still millions of people worldwide pursuing careers and activities for the good of their fellow man.

I think unregulated capitalism is a bad thing but regulated it is good.

And all this is opposed to?What higher fucking purpose?you mean sitting around on /lit/ all day showing off how well you can quote Kierkgaard or Nietzsche.i call bullshit OP.If hes as great as you think he is he'll probably donate a large portion of his earnings to charity.Truth is though hes probably just a egotistical prick

Implying it's not the mind of the person within the system at fault, rather than the system itself.

>>1689796

>'Fraid so but capitalism works best and people have always desired wealth,

“The first man who had fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

tl;dr the natural state of man is a highly debatable topic, just because some are greed twats doesn't mean we all should be

>>1689787
I have seen similar people - you know where they went to? Law school and public office after that.

So a centralized states' bureaucracy brain drains private R&D

That wealth allows us to pursue the higher callings with greater success. Without the riches generated by capitalism, most of the sciences would be stuck at a really shitty level. Not to mention that "capitalism" doesn't force anyone to do anything. You seem to think that you know better what people should do than they themselves, which I simply find laughable.

So your saying that he should have become a poverty stricken genius that sits about doing nothing? Capitalism allows people the means to help others, as has been mentioned. Charity programs and such. I hate Capitalism just as much as you do, but I'm not so naive as to believe that it is an abomination. Nothing man does is that important. He's also one of thousands.

>>1689801

I'm not equating desiring wealth and greed as the same thing. Greed is the want of wealth without morality or any other desire. Most want wealth for security and stability and the luxury it can buy.

And although Rousseau is an attractive speaker he provides no evidence for his idea of human nature. All his arguments are inferences with no scientific, sociological or historical basis beyond: I visited Jamaica, they're dumber and seem happier.

I believe I speak for everyone when I say that any one of us would stab another man in the back if we were rewarded, or hell sometimes just for the fun of it.

Communism doesn't work because fucking HUMANITY. Take your shit to the angels, or the farm or whatever, but forget about PEOPLE adopting it and succeeding.

>>1689787
you are a fucking idiot, lemme explain why:
1. you generalize; generalization leads to nationalism, racism and every other bad -ism
2. there's no visible link between him going to work on wall street and capitalism as an ideology
3. you do not want him to live his life as he wants; no, you'd rather be a puppeteer who has to control every single aspect of friend's life because OMG I KNOW BETTER WHAT IS GOOD FOR HIM
You are probably a dirty commie, the best thing you can do is to emigrate to North Korea and watch carefully the effects a lack of proper capitalism puts onto a society. Have a good flight.

>>1689838

I don't believe that, I believe people rarely very immoral unless in dire straights. I believe the reason capitalism hasn't ended with complete disaster is due to the goodness in most people.

>>1689842
>>1689842

This is 2011, stop talking in terms of fucking morality. Jesus. What are you, 10 years old?

>>1689796
>I think unregulated capitalism is a bad thing but regulated it is good.

This, basically.

>>1689842
>never read The Jungle
>never read Lord of the Flies
>never read Animal Farm
To be fair in that last one things might have turned out very differently if Snowball hadn't been driven out by Napoleon, but still.
I cannot think of any better example of Laissez Faire capitalism in action than The Jungle.

Wall street isn't just big bucks, it's also highly competitive and prestigious. What drives you as a person doesn't have much to do with how intelligent you are or how high your SAT score is. Just because you are well-read doesn't mean you're a "good" or selfless person by default. Believe it or not but just as there are man in the financial world that are all "coke and whores" there are a lot who aren't.

OP is a butthurt, poor, comunist faggot

argument by anecdote

op is right and you guys are pretty much all dumb as a brick. moving on.

>>1689900
shit this board shoud be called /cccp/ not /lit/
lrn to fucking economy

>>1689905
lol i > u in economy shut up.

>>1689907
o rly?
u > 9000 in economy since you saw Zeitgeist?

>>1689862

They're all fictional novels, how am I supposed to take them as accurate portrayals of human nature?

>>1689917
lol

>>1689922
you Sir failed to move on.
your despise od capitalism just proves you know shit 'bout economy

>>1689936
shut up retard

>17
>Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger
yeah. right. try harder.

>>1689938
i assume thet you are a socialist = lazy faggot who expects capitalists to provide for him while he dwells on Nietzsche's bullshit

>>1689945
>lazy faggot who expects capitalists to provide for him while he dwells on Nietzsche's bullshit
>onionring
I live in hope

>You know why capitalism is such an evil system?
>Economic system
>Evil

This is how far you should have read before walking away.

>>1689787
There are no higher callings. Survival is not a right. Its a challenge.

Ethical prescriptives, ethical prescriptives everywhere!

You have to pay. Everyone has to pay. There will never be a free lunch. Reality demands it.

>Rather than using his mind for his fellow man ...
>Reads Heidegger, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant (among others, I assume)
>OP expects him to give a damn about others

lol

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html

This is what has happened to the USA, once my favorite nation.

ITT Onionring starts an argument and still can't argue beyond "shut up"

>>1689980

That's the natural state of all post-industrial nations. In Europe this is already the case for most nations yet they have higher standards of living, lower crime and higher levels of happiness than the US.

Just because a nation isn't producing so much doesn't mean it is doing any worse.

it's just too complicated for you guys don't worry.

hierarchy of practical reason is a big project that will take a large chunk of time to sketch. it will make the world safe for both social idealism and hardhead econ, but make them work together. it's going to be so awesome i can hardly wait.

>>1689995

>it will make the world safe for both social idealism and hardhead econ, but make them work together

It had better.

>>1690006
i will not fail my duty to save the world.

anyways, a brief explanation of this thread for certain retards

op's post starts from a concrete empirical observation, and then leads to a commentary on grand systems social theory. the direction of information is from the concrete to the general.

THE curious thing in this thread is simply this, the defense of the grand system seems to entail also a need to ignore the concrete, albeit limited 'anecdote.' this is a loss of information pure and simple. it is a self inflicted empirical blindspot and one of the clearest demonstrations of how approaching politics solely from grand totalizing systems is methodologically flawed.

[positive theory of practical hierarchy here]

wait a few years for me to write this it will be great.

>mfw OP implicitly compares himself to Ginsberg
>mfw some asshole is going to reply with a greentext and something deprecating about Ginsberg
>mfw i haven't even read Ginsberg, I just felt like posting this

>>1690027
>then leads to a commentary on grand systems social theory

jumps would be more appropriate

>>1690027
How is OPs anecdote in any way concrete? it is assumptive and lacking in detailed information.

If you take the essence of OP's post it is:
"I know a guy who I thought was very clever, he went on to get a job on wall street, I disapprove of that"

Everything else is not concrete, it is first or second hand information, opinion, and assumptions.

>>1690027

>concrete
>empirical observation

Choose one

>>1689787
hey OP i agree with you
but with the population so large and globalization being inevitable we only have two choices to escape capitalism

move into the woods and become self sufficient
pray 2012 is for real

>>1690074

>grab SKS and drink piss, or pray for non-event to occur

I think I'll stick with my decadent ersatz-capitalism

>>1689787
>Rather than using his mind for his fellow man, or for the pursuit of some higher purpose,
Why? Why should he devote his time to his "fellow man?" You haven't argued why doing something for somebody else is greater than doing something for yourself. So you would rather him not worry about his own being, so you can have society exploit his knowledge while he dies poor? Why is it up to you? More importantly, why is it up to his fellow man to decide what he does with his life?

>>1690103
about 3 months ago i would have said the same thing
but something clicked in my head recently i just don't feel that way anymore

what is it with you people, OP, and your overuse of the word genius? based on the anecdote your friend sounds intelligent, perhaps highly intelligent (though you have given no evidence for this claim)

>>1690058
oh boy you have some new things to learn.

>>1690053
>missing the point that the critical issue for me is not op's post but anons responses

>>1690042
intermediate "insights" like dat cannot stay my hand

>>1690144

I'd say you do too.

>>1690161
yea you'd say that.

>>1690165
and that's perfectly explained by >>1690144

>>1690163

Which is why I did. Funny that.

>>1690145
Your criticism of anon's response hinges on your statement that the defense of the grand theory ignores the "concrete" anecdote and that this is a loss of information which can be a seen as a methodological cock-up.

I am trying to explain to you that the anecdote does not contain any information worth keeping for any kind of positive or negative evaluation of any theory one might have of society, because of its lack of concreteness. Is it a methodological blunder to not include empirical non-facts in your thesis?

If I'm really so thick and simply don't understand anything, please, explain it to me.

>>1690168

Such as? How (one) anecdote counts as substantial evidence?
I'm not much into antipositivism as a valid means of judgement.

>>1690171
when you look at a forest from afar you ignore the leaves. this is a fact about your eyes.

i am of course saying that in terms of the human capacity for 'seeing' politics the level of engagemnt matters.

>>1690175
it counts as a concrete EVENT in itself and is evidence for itself. i'm sorry if you don't understand granularity of normative judgment.

anyway have fun with this hurr capitalism vs socialism thing while the important politics is passing you by.

>>1690182

>Concrete
>Biased to shit, excludes definite reasoning of other party beyond assumption that he wants to get rich quick
>this is a decent estimation of an entire swathe of society and their ambitions

Cool story, sis.

Had OP started with a link such as >>1689980
then given his story I'd be less of a nit-picking asshole.

>>1690158
>>1690158
>>1690158
>>1690158
YALL A COCK SUCKING PIECE OF EGG

>>1690190
whether op's example is itself accurate is pretty irrelevant. i am interested in the reaction.

>>1690190
also my view would absolutely criticize 3, but that is a lesser priority than examining the responses.

>>1690198

Then I can't argue (!) with you.
I'm not sure why I am/was.
Forget it.

>>1690198
and restate to us, why is this particular reaction to OP's particular anecdote interesting, what does it tell us if worked into your framework?

>>1690209
the reactions were directed mostly at op's normative attitude, which was in itself generated by a reflection on a concrete example in her life. (assuming authenticity of course, but even if not you can find numerous authentic examples and large studies to the same effect)

now, this reaction proceeds from an attachment to the success of the grand theory to a 'conquest' of the particular example. in a way, people are telling op to suck it up and give up a rather genuine moment of reflection on life. and needlessly to say, these people are doing the same to themselves everyday.

such situations are rather common place in both everyday life and academic theory. i am taking a rather circumspect route of criticism to make radical critique always possible by changing the level of granularity in the world (http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11051)) for moral reflections.

>>1690229
*op's normative attitude here means op's _way of thought_
op is expected to not draw wide conclusions from his particular encounter, but anons do not MERELY say this, they think op should not draw ANY conclusions whatsoever, not make a critique in other words.

I would argue that the concrete example was reflected in OP's normative attitude to produce a self-enforcing anecdote which was then generalized to further reinforce OP's normative attitude.

I am not saying OP should not reflect upon experiences, but rather that OP's reflection is assumptive, lacks nuance, and depth. That I disagree with the generalization he makes, but also that that the grounds he makes it on are flawed. Not a discouragement of reflection but advice to not draw conclusions from reflections on anecdotes that are severely lacking in their main arguments.

capitalism without discretion is an ugly religion

>>1690229
>i am taking a rather circumspect route of criticism to make radical critique always possible

but onion radical critique is never possible because if it were truly radical it wouldn't be intelligible by the academic community and thus there would would be no academic, or most contextually legitimate, means of evaluating such a critique. But the fact that such radical critiques are intelligible by the academic communities means that they are not in fact radical.

>>1690267
you would say that but with what ground.

>>1690283
that's overly cynical. academy has many valuable roles to play. radical critique needs not be actionable to be valuable.

anywayyyy taking my beauty nap you guys have fun.

Capitalism is voluntaryism; the alternative is coercion.

I think the important part of OP's story is not that this "genius" will be making money, but rather that the system in America is stacked in such a way that if the best and brightest do not go to Wall Street they are seen as being altruistic. Why does it make sense that those who are not creating any wealth should be able to become fantastically wealthy? Why is this even remotely socially acceptable? Why is it that people that start a company with actual ideas beyond a more innovative shell game are seen as having foregone the greedier option? The greedier option should not exist as such.

>Rather than using his mind for his fellow man, or for the pursuit of some higher purpose, he's going to destroy it with blow and expensive hookers

FUCK
YEAH

>>1690694

I'm in a similar situation to OP's friend, except I made a different choice.

I did all the AP's, Kick ass SAT and grades, and I was accepted into one of the world's best Finance programs, basically a guarantee to wall street.

In the end I decided I wasn't going to be a soulless prick who robbed old ladies' pension funds.

Now pursuing medicine.

So not all high achieving people are assholes. Just most (similar to the general population).

What right does the OP have to expect anyone to "using his mind for his fellow man, or for the pursuit of some higher purpose." I think the idea that just because someone has a gift or a talent that they should be expected to devote their life to bettering man is more selfish than blowing said life on hookers.

>>1690718
How is that idea selfish? How is it "more selfish" than blowing your money on hookers..anyway I don't think that people who do well in school, etc. are necessarily "gifted" in any other way than being highly adapted to institutional learning..but yeah even if someone is actually gifted, their choices are their own and I don't think capitalism is to blame. I dislike capitalism, don't get me wrong, but you can't just blame every negative human behavior on it.

>>1690722
>blowing money on hookers and blow
>negative human behavior

wat

>>1689838
I disagree, you are simply violent.

>>1690722
I'm not saying its selfish to devote your life to a higher cause. I'm saying its selfish to expect someone who has the capacity to better the world to do so for no other reason than they where born with the ability.

>>1690731
yet another case of the mysterious disappearance of education and self education.

>>1690731
I still don't see why it's selfish..it's more utilitarian I think (and you know, i imagine some might argue that working in finance is creating progress in the world, i don't see how) But I can see where you are coming from--I am not a genius, but because I showed a lot of promise in school, I had a lot of expectations put on me--in the end, I just ended up becoming a druggy so I'm not much better than the wall street guy.

i view the "wall street" job more akin to the evils of gambling than of capitalism. t

rue capitalism died once america vilified the industrialist and created the ceo

>>1690753
In my opinion it's selfish because your pushing your beliefs and expectations on someone without regard to their own.

>>1690750
How does wanting to live your life free of others forcing their own expectations and beliefs on you contribute to a lack of education?

>>1690779
your life is your own, including your sense of duty and love toward others. education can cultivate this love, by offering occasions of reflection and experience in which you can discover love.