[FRIAM] What is Wealth for?

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Well, going back to the topic SteveS tried to discuss, I reject the semantic pedantry around settling on a crisp definition of "wealth" before being able to have a discussion. The dictionary definition is fine. But 1 component of being affluent or having a hoard of valuable artifacts is, as Gillian makes clear, the breadth of one's repertoire. Being poor is very difficult and time consuming. The specious Puritan rhetoric that even if you're poor, all you need do is spend all your free time working, forgets that you tire out (in short-) and burn out (in long-term), physically, mentally, emotionally.

And the primary detriment to that exhaustion is that the curiosity and energy you pour into various parts of your repertoire is drastically limited. Nobody's going to, say, read Ulysses after the night shift of their third job, especially if they have a kid, or have to pay bills with money they don't have.

So all these ways of knowing infinity sound like toys for wealthy people to me. Getting psilocybin into the hands of *public health* psychiatry would be fantastic. But the core problems won't be solved as long as we're living under individualist neoliberal capitalism. A basic income, public health, and reliable infrastructure will do more to help your everyday yahoo know infinity better than a few one-off indulgences by a few already wealthy dudes.

As Nick and Robert suggest, having the time and energy to explore and expand one's repertoire. That's what wealth allows, even if it seems like most of the celebrities squander it.

On 3/15/21 9:15 PM, Prof David West wrote:
> Totally different item: I sure would like to take some of you (especially you glen)  the places I have been where I intellectually, viscerally, emotionally, somatically, and kinesthetically experienced and understood really cool things like infinity.

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