I blame David X. Li

[Araelus]

Perhaps we should use a different word. I hear greed is good and i can't help but flinch.

I had the same reaction... "Greed" is a loaded term. I'm sure he means what I call "ambition" based on the other posts. Ambition is a neutral term - someone can strive towards things that are good or things that are bad. It avoids cognitive dissonance from "greed is OK unless it's unchecked" because the automatic response is "no, greed is bad."

[Kuya]

Yes, exactly. The very meaning of greed, whether explicit or not is negative. To hear greed is good is contradictory.

[Araelus]

Thank you, Kuya.

I often hear in different debates "the words we use don't matter" or "you're just arguing semantics" or "we both meant he same thing with different terms" but it turns out that people have automatic reactions to different words regardless of what the signs signify. There was some international pen company years back that handed out little guidebooks to their salesmen so when they traveled around they wouldn't fail a sale by accidentally implying that the local merchant's wife was kissing a horse behind his back, or get beheaded by the Grand High Lord of Kumquats for making a rude hand gesture, or something along those lines.

The problem is that I've been trained (not by a pen company but why not) to charitably read or hear what people say and try to aim at the meaning behind it. So when I read 0ni0n's post I could agree with what he meant and disagree with the way he phrased it. Some people reading it who actually agreed with the point would react in disagreement because of the words used. If I say "oh yes I agree" then I get lumped in with the "greed is bad, those guys are wrong" reading.

This is akin to the Pinocchio thing in another thread - if Pinocchio is mistaken, his nose doesn't grow. If he knows "A" is true and says "not A" his nose grows. But what if he knows "A" is true and says "not A" but he was mistaken about "A" being true? Uh-Oh SpaghettiOs.

It's straightforward from the external perspective. In that case Pinocchio was trying to be misleading and failed. We consider his intent, and his nose grows. Yet from an internal perspective, in the situation itself instead of constructing it, the person hearing Pinocchio only hears him say "not A". Since this is true... the person is surprised to see Pinocchio's nose grow!

In the real world we don't have noses that grow when we try to trick someone. (At least I don't...) Following the metaphorgotten back to word choice before Mister Geppetto notices what's happened, when someone says "greed" and they might mean what I mean by "ambition" but I can't see inside their thought process, the only thing I can do is ask them if "ambition" is what they meant.

If the person who said "greed" has different cultural/psycho-social/philo-theo-sophic/someotherword notion about "ambition" than I do, say they have switched the meanings I ascribe around so "greed" is neutral and "ambition" is negative, they'll say no, I didn't mean "ambition.

At this point it all falls apart like a duck stapled to the front of a 747. Although the two people are operating in the same general schema (or else they could not converse at all) they disagree about the meanings of the words, not necessarily whatever it is they're debating.

Maybe this post should be "Why most debates are never resolved but both sides walk away thinking they won." So I think I can agree with 0ni0n but disagree with his terminology. It's tough to figure this out, but we should make the effort. I mean the guy's got layers to what he says. Like an ogre, right?

[guartz]

Let me rephrase it then, greedy is ok as long as you're making a honest living, greedy and ruthless with no regard for the law and ethics to extent that it led to the economy's collapse? bad.

I wasn't aware that wallstreet was doing something illegal or ruthless. Just get off that horse man, pointing fingers and screaming outdated christian dogmatic morals isn't gonna do anything but make you look bad.

[Purrrfect]

I wasn't aware that wallstreet was doing something illegal or ruthless. Just get off that horse man, pointing fingers and screaming outdated christian dogmatic morals isn't gonna do anything but make you look bad.

Approving billions in loans and what not, knowing that those things are not up to value, only to profit while pushing the trash onto someone else and saying everything is ok couldn't possibly be ruthless? I don't think he said illegal.

[Kuya]

I heard that there was a company collecting defaulting mortgages to make profit. Anyone else hear this too?