Topic: Max Keiser Report on Bitcoins! 4/7/2012 - page 2. (Read 4696 times)

Since you don't see my logic, we're at an impass. As far as the "Greed is good" mentality, we'll just have to agree to disagree. At the risk of committing an argumentum ad populum, I'll just be on the side that believes that greed is immoral.

Didn't watch the movie sorry

Collaboration can (and quite often is) in one's own interest. There is no contradiction there. If you can't agree with that I don't really know what to do with you....

Secondly, I do not redefine the term greed. I never used another definition.

A statement is by definition an argument. Untrue statements are poor arguments. I'm not even sure where to begin with the errors in logic. First you say that greed is acting in our own interest (to take advantage of our position), then you say greed is collaborating, which is by definition working with others. I think you are going to great lengths to redefine the term cooperation to serve your hypothesis that "greed is good." That is another fallacy called moving the goalposts. You then use that to make your tautology that cooperation is good. The requirement for cooperation is mutual good, hence a tautology. Given the fact that you meorized Gordon Gekko's speech, it shows that quite possibly you committed another fallacy and missed the point of the movie. Did you also feel bad for the poor Cobra Kai?  

@cbeats: you are correct I made no arguments whatsoever. I just posed some statements. I don't believe that makes it a tautology since I didn't imply they were arguments to begin with. And why do you think my final statement is contradictionairy with the rest of the statements?

@Portnoy: I disagree with your initial statement. Actions be taken due to greed as the primary motivator are in the subjects own interest but do not necessarily hurt others. They can of course, but whether they do or don't just doesn't matter. So I believe our disagreements stems from a disagreement of the definition of the term greed. This is probably the cause of the "for lack of a better word"-part.

In common usage it usually means doing all things primarily in your own interest, at the expense of others.

More and more scientific evidence seems to show us that cooperation tends to get one a better life than cut-throat
competition.  Some may suggest that is what separates humans (potentially) from wild animals... but even modern
studies seem to show us that there is more cooperation in, wild and red in tooth and claw, nature then we had previously
thought.

This little ancient allegory below I feel illustrates it very well ( despite it appearing on the surface as some sappy sunday school story,
it was originally Taoist, I think, but often gets mangled into some Christian form for use in the modern West ):

There is a story about a man who left this earth and was taken on a tour of the inner realms.  He was shown a room where he saw a large group of hungry people trying to eat dinner from a single large pot in the center of the room, but because their spoons were longer than their arms, they were frustrated.  "This," his guide told him, "is hell."  "That's terrible," the man exclaimed.  "Please show me heaven."  "Very well," agreed the guide, and off they went.  When they opened the door to heaven, the man was perplexed to see what looked like exactly the same scene:  there was a group of people with spoons longer than their arms and the same pot of food in the center of the room.  But as he looked more closely, he saw happy faces and well-fed bodies, for there was one important difference:  the people in heaven had learned to feed each other. 

Tautologies are my favorite of all fallacies. Then deny the antecedent and mix ad nauseum. It makes a cocktail best served with double shot chasers.

Yes, but then the question becomes "over what time period?"  Because the most striking examples of modern 'greed' involve recklessly acting "in ones own interest" over the short term, typically a few quarters or even, in one high profile case, over a weekend.  Keynesians, for example, would argue that the upper limit for "acting in ones own interest" is the span of a single human life, and that we should be forced to act in our interest over longer timespans.  Civilizations, even, often fail to act in their own long term best interests, and eventually collapse from overreach and resource exhaustion.  So what makes you any different?  When you claim to act in your own best interest, how far into the future are you planning?

It is by definition.

I think you (and with you many others) are confusing greed and recklessness. Greed simply means doing all things primarily in your own interest (either directly or indirectly).

Lemmings are predictable as well.  Do you think perhaps greed should be tempered with a bit of risk-aversion?

Everything that evolves also goes extinct. That's why punctuated equilibrium is observed in long existing species. Humanity exists because we learned to cooperate instead of continuously compete for every resource. We learn to delay gratification for better rewards for ourselves and everyone else.

and grok!

that Michelle Bowans (?) guy from the p2p foundation is awesome:


awesome!

the one that has been funded via piratemyfilm "Screw Banks - Use Bitcoin"? Can't wait

Yessir, we are still working on the video for it.  It's coming along nicely!

Many Keiser viewers are heavy metal stackers. They will come around eventually.

I know some of the reactions of the "youtube silver community" to bitcoin. With one exception (davincij15), they seem either ignorant/reluctant or outright opposed... even the smart and thoughtful ones. They (rightly?) think a strong bitcoin means weak metal and boy, they don't like that.

He said he would use his media leverage to promote bitcoin. Go Max! and: thanks to bitpay for working with him. The 1 million goal still stands?

The first Bitcoin Episode, great!

Priceless  

did you just say something good not resulting in something bad is the problem?
binary logic fail 

Greed is good... Greed without bad consequences is the problem.