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[Sern]

That's what anchors the way of life. Greed. You can't stop it. And if you did, you can't contain it. Greed is in even the simplist of life-forms. It would be nice to look back on this one day.

Edit: I love talking to people about things like this. It really opens your eyes.

Conversation and debate are the fires of progression and positive change.

Just to clarify, I don't want to confuse greed with the innate necessity of all life forms to maintain survival instincts. I don't believe non sentient beings can harbor such emotions as greed or take action to satisfy such desires. I'm not sure what you believe; evolution, religion, creationism, a combination. What I can say and I think even creationists could agree on is that animals survive to reproduce. All of their survival instincts are based on the need to reproduce, to carry on.

Humans are able to understand abstract concepts, to imagine and create works of art, to conceptualize and build with all manner of tools. I don't think most animals understand greed the way we perceive it because it's not only an emotion which must be taught through social interaction but also has to be a concept in which the brain can comprehend.

A real life example:
I have 3 dogs. Their pack mentality states that there must be a leader, a hierarchy. This provides for efficiency, sustainability, survivability. If one pack leader dies they are replaced by the next in line. The 'pack' is complex by its own right but not when compared to the societal structure of mankind. Humans lead and follow, but require neither as a guiding principal. Humans are able, though sometimes not willing, to coexist without a leader because while our primal nature calls for a leader we have advanced and developed to a stage where if we all work together we can achieve democracy. A point where we can accept that while the majority should rule, it should also not suppress free expression of minority groups or individuals, and it should not trample on the inherent human rights of others.

When you see one dog growl at another because they want the toy they're playing with or because another in the pack appears to be 'too interested' in the toy the other dog is playing with, the dog which growled is higher in the structure of hierarchy. Does this mean the one which growled is greedy? I don't believe so for the following:

• Packs constantly keep each other in check. If one dog tests another or attempts to ascend the structure of hierarchy the dog above them will either put them back in their place or relent and descend the structure of hierarchy. This is unusual because dogs often find their place and rarely test the water or attempt to leave their place. Extenuating circumstances can change this however, such as one whom is injured within the pack.
• There are dogs which exert their dominance and dogs who remain passive and accept the authority of others. The most dominant dogs (typically not domesticated) may vie for control of the pack. The rest are usually able to slowly settle into place. If two dogs display roughly the same amount of dominance, they will test each other until one gives in.
• All of this is necessary for the survival of the pack. Survival has no need for greed, living is enough.

I hope that made sense and wasn't too ambiguous.

Another example is between two siblings. I have no siblings so I never experienced this personally but I have observed. Usually your kids have more than one toy. Often times, within my extended family, I would see two siblings fight over who should be able to play with a certain toy, when many were present. I never had this issue growing up, my toys were my own. Through observation my only determination was that two or more siblings would go through this stage of social exploration. They were figuring out where they stood within the social structure, testing the water, like puppies in a pack would as they grew into adulthood. I haven't spoken to a psychologist in depth about this yet but have access to a few who could help me understand this issue, through my campus.

I also don't want to confuse greed with the simplistic and innocent emotion of want or desire. Greed is what you do with that desire which negatively impacts others.

In the case of money's corruption of U.S. gov't, it's not the greed of the politicians at play on the surface, but the greed of the corporations.  Politicians have developed a survival instinct that if they can't fund their next election then they are out of a job.  Because everyone else (your competition) is accepting corporate money to fund their own elections, if you don't do it then you are at a severe disadvantage.

Somewhere around half way through that video (or maybe it was further, it really is worth watching to the end if you can) the number one issue congress dealt with in 2012 was discussed.  It's not even a very important issue but there were plenty of lobbyists.  In this case, constantly switching sides on the issue earned the biggest payout because you'd get funds each time... so of course the issue was never really going to get resolved.  Which, by the way, is also fine with the corporations usually.  "Business as usual" is better than many alternatives.

This is a prime example of where it's actually in the best interest of congress to make sure nothing happens but talk.  So either they make decisions that are bad for us and good for corporations... or they try and make no decision at all.  Kind of disgusting, really.

I believe it is both the greed of the politicians and the greed of the corporations. If the corporations waved bills at politicians and the politicians shrugged their shoulders at the pile of money and walked away then the corporation would have failed in their attempt to sway the policies of our governmental institutions.

Do I think all politicians are corrupt? Absolutely not. I take into consideration all that I can in moderation. I say the same thing when people call all cops pigs and wish death upon them. Some cops are corrupt. Less today than in the past as new policies are put into place and it becomes easier for video and audio to be broadcast freely and quickly travel across the internet. But like I said, everything in moderation.

I want to mention the following quote by Edmund Burke:

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

- Unknown; commonly attributed to E. Burke despite lack of evidence.

Just as we, the people, have done little to hinder the progress of corruption within our institutions, so have our good representatives. They stood idly by. Had they spoken aloud and brought this to the public spectacle, as a group and not individually, who could have failed to heed but those who simply closed their eyes and ears?

Eisenhower spoke of the military industrial complex and now it is ever present in our daily lives. In fact if you lack faith in the U.S. military or in the orders they are given you are deemed socially awkward, a traitor to some, a coward, a fool, an isolationist.

Yet Eisenhower warns of this from decades past.

I finished watching that video a few hours ago, great insights indeed. I've shared it with with some of my friends in education, one who is nearing the final stages of their PHD.

I disagree actually, about greed being a word that can sum it up. Greed is often a motivation, but I think the real cause is a lack of self-control; acting without thinking. Greed is a perfectly normal, natural and sometimes even healthy emotion; greed is just an extreme form of self-preservation. I think that everyone feels greed at times, and that it's even ok sometimes to indulge in that greed. I feel however, that it is a lack of sympathy that turns greed, hate or anger into a greedy, hateful, or violent action. The desire for more - or in this case, too much - is simply too shallow an explanation for negative human actions, the true cause of people hurting each other is a lack of self-control. Everyone hates, feels jealousy and greed, but alot of people never act on it because they have self-control, and are able to realise the effects of their actions. So yeah, to sum up, I think that a lack of self control is what causes most problems. Greed itself isn't a bad emotion, as long as you think before acting.

Greed - Intense and selfish desire for something, esp. wealth, power, or food

I put that there as a reference, not to insinuate you didn't know what it meant.

I don't like to confuse or even correlate greed with self preservation. Nor do I believe that self preservation plays a role in most of our lives these days on a regular basis. The last time I faced danger to a severity in which my life could imminently end, that I recall, was when I was pulling an injured man off of a busy roadway (about 4 years ago). I specifically am talking about imminent danger because just walking outside you could be in more danger than remaining inside. Just getting into your car and going for a drive increases your risk to be in a fatal accident regardless of how careful you are.

(wanting to eat or drink more than one can reasonably consume)

To be greedy is to want more than is necessary for your survival. Therefore, in effect, it has little to do with self preservation. Societies definition of what substantiates greed may vary for many reasons such as resource availability and cultural bias. But many words like greed can be left open to interpretation in a world where few definitions mean the same thing in two different places.

I agree that for greed to truly have a negative impact on society someone must act on it but this was implied, I thought. While I think a lack of self control describes a wide variety of situations and does maintain a place in the top tier of negative impacts on society I don't think it tops the list. This is my opinion however.

Here is some personal life experience which may show my reasoning for this and I will try to keep that part brief. Also I will say the following in a hypothetical sense.

1. For 7 years a conman was able to deceive not only my mom but my grandmother, his two kids, his mom, his ex-wife, the rest of his entire family, and his church.
2. This conman was able to steal not thousands, but hundreds of thousands, from not just us but other victims as well; through misleading and false investments for his own benefit.
3. He was well read and incredibly smart, was able to compartmentalize his life to the extreme, and outsmarted more than average citizens but those of law enforcement and the Russian mafia.
4. The latter caught up with him in his own home in the form of a manufactured brain aneurysm, not natural.

5. This man had an exceptional talent for self control in order to compartmentalize to a degree in which he could avoid detection for almost a decade before a nasty [group] caught up with him. But what he maintained in self control he lacked in morals and values. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he did it anyway.

He acted on his greed. Not out of impulse, but careful calculation.

I know, I remember those years well. I remember...

[Tsuku]

Sern, that's a very well thought out response.

Firstly, I understand your point that dogs or wolves will want a specific thing as a way of keeping their place in the hierarchy, but I would argue that ( based on the belief that we are animals who evolved a specific way) that desire to keep a certain hierarchical position is the reason behind greed for power. Similarly, the drive for food as a form of self-preservation is the reason behind greed for wealth.

To extrapolate, I do not mean that they are the same thing, I believe that greed is a learned behaviour that is built upon the base of self-preservation. As you probably know, the instinct of self-preservation is only a single facet of the larger drive to pass on ones genes. Referring to your example of wolves again, in a pack the alpha has first pick of meat and has breeding rights with all the females of the pack. The alpha male is chosen through a number of factors, such as size, ability to hunt, fight and intimidate the other members of the pack. The alpha male is therefore the most successful: most likely to eat, most likely to mate etc. Greed is the human equivalent of wanting to be the alpha male; except for us it is much more complicated. Human society is drawn to excess. The man with more money and power than he knows what to do with is considered "successful."  So when the state that is seen as succesful requires you to reach excesses, reaching excesses IS based on the drives of self-preservation and mating. Greed at it's highest level is the all-consuming drive to become the absolute Alpha male. A wolf feels no greed because once it achieves the goal of being alpha male it has maxed it's genetic drive, something which is damn near impossible in human society.

I believe that greed IS fundamentally connected to the drive for the continuation of one's genes, and that it is the state wherein no matter how far we strive, we never quite reach what our genes tell us is the ultimate goal. Perhaps that is due to the afore-mentioned inability to reach Alpha male status, or perhaps greed itself IS an abnormal mental condition, and only exists because humankind evolved without an inhibitor button for their drives haha.

"Eisenhower spoke of the military industrial complex and now it is ever present in our daily lives. In fact if you lack faith in the U.S. military or in the orders they are given you are deemed socially awkward, a traitor to some, a coward, a fool, an isolationist. Yet Eisenhower warns of this from decades past."
-Sern

Referring to this phenomenon actually, have you read "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville? It was written in the 1800's, yet it makes a prediction on the dangers of democracy. Alexis refers to what he calls a "tyranny of the majority," wherein the many can drown out the voice of the one. In my opinion, this is especially dangerous if the majority allow themselves to be mislead by propaganda. Even worse, these minority views can then experience something called a "spiral of silence," where those who ARE in the minority, recognise that they are in the minority, and do not speak up for fear of being ostracized.

I'd just like to say lastly, that I am not discrediting your ideas, only putting forward my own. I quite enjoy a healthy argument haha.

[Sern]

I would absolutely agree that a hierarchic structure is important to some people and sociology explained this a number of ways. I don't see myself as someone who requires some sort of hierarchy to be a part of.

If we were back in the stone age I'd probably the the b*tch cutting stone and hand it to the next guy to fashion into a weapon. Although, while I seek peace, I would viciously protect my family, friends, and what I perceive to be my innate human rights of existence. Maybe this is just a piece of an explanation to my career choice. I am constantly wondering why I chose to go into the field in which I see myself, despite its down sides which grow more prevalent by the day.

I don't understand your correlation between a "drive for food as a form of self-preservation" as "the reason behind greed for wealth." I can see how we've, for the most part, surpassed the survivability instincts pertaining to food. Actually that's not true. We'll never surpass that but what I'm saying is that the major powers have done an excellent job at providing the industry and ability to provide food on a mass scale. Corn for example, we have so much we don't know what to do with all of it. Scientists are trying to figure out additional uses for corn and we are already shoving it down animals throats which normally don't consume corn as a natural part of their diet.

Who desires wealth to unhealthy degrees and what does wealth provide for? Well it definitely gives access to a top tier comfort of living but also provides access to a, potentially, unhealthy form of social interaction. I don't think any of the middle class fall into the wealthy arena, probably not even the upper middle class. But first we would have to agree on what the upper middle class makes. I'm thinking around 100k/yr or less per person? Wikipedia agrees with that assessment I think.

Well 100k a year per person is getting up there, but that's the top 5 percent right? About 77 percent of the middle class make up the middle to low income spectrum. So would you say we've classified anything over that as excess? I would. The only thing beyond the upper middle class would be the rich. But honestly, to me, 100k sounds REALLY good. That is something I don't ever see myself obtaining and honestly don't care to. I want to live comfortably and that is something that would make me happy. I want to be financially stable.

Anyway, I agree with a lot of what you're saying but the sun is rising, I haven't slept yet, and I have class in a few hours. I feel almost blind right now staring at this screen. So it's time I squeeze in what sleep I can and as soon as I can I will revisit this topic and attempt to provide a better response. I have a feeling I made some grammatical mistakes given my current state of mind. I don't want to think how many times I hit the backspace key writing this...

I don't call it an argument, despite that it might technically fit the definition. I have a sad background in my life when it comes to "arguments" so I try to avoid the word altogether. I prefer to think of things as a debate since it allows me to forget any negative connotations.

[FutureB]

tl;dr



couldnt help my self. but i love your enthusiasm in posting walls of text

[Moonkey]

What I meant by greedy animals is that you can see them doing something that seems selfish to yourself, but to them It's really just what any animal would do anyway.