[FRIAM] What is Wealth for?

[Marcus Daniels]

Nuclear waste comes to mind:  There are these things that we don't want to talk about, and so if we just make them impossible to dispose of, maybe people will stop making them.   The same applies to Styrofoam or pressure-treated wood here in Berkeley.   If many cities start these mandates then eventually manufacturers will start to pay attention.   Is there some point at which people will stop making more people, if there is not directly or indirectly inherited wealth?   

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2021 8:20 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] What is Wealth for?

Well, first, I don't think "party" is a singular dimension. I think it's at least 2D. And 2D is ε-better than 1D as in money or distance, if the "breaking" is stable in the long-term. But I don't buy it, any more than I buy the 2D political compass. The ε is so small, here, compared to the effective number of dimensions that 2D = 1D, for practical purposes.

Dreyfus makes a Heideggerian case against the representationalism and the extended mind based on space, as well. So, it seems completely reasonable to accuse that of Heidegger's use of "distance". But all that filosifickle hooey is largely irrelevant to this discussion of the individual and societal purposes of wealth.

We use the word "wealth" sometimes synonymize with and sometimes to distinguish from "rich". But the distinction is, largely, one of accretion. There's a scaling difference between high income vs wealthy, exhibited well (I think) by *inheritance*. I found this article during my insomnia this morning:

https://evonomics.com/to-tackle-inequality-we-need-to-start-talking-about-where-wealth-comes-from/

And it fleshes out from the reduced measure of money enough to link in our delusion of meritocracy. And that, again, points back to private property and ownership. If by "operation warp-speed", you mean choosing corporate *ownership* over public domain, then we should not cancel those canaries but amplify their voices. Especially for those of us outside large institutions with subscriptions to Elsevier journals, we should argue *for*, not against, open access:

https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/uc-publisher-relationships/uc-and-elsevier/

But if that's not what you mean by "those who warn of the dangers of operation warp-speed", then I don't know what you mean and have no idea who you're suggesting we cancel.

On 3/16/21 12:37 PM, jon zingale wrote:
> "Focusing on that inappropriate reduction *is* the point"
> 
> Is exactly the point. One could begin to describe the world 
> synthetically by reaching for some tools like distance, or one can 
> analyze by factoring the world into a tool like distance. Both are available as interpretations.
> Heidegger is concerned with compactness and he is describing it in 
> terms of the end of distance, the end of near and far. I don't believe 
> he is simply saying that all is factored into distance. 
> Interpretation, though, is constrained by habit.
> 
> By contrast, from today's NYT:
> 
> """
> While there are degrees of opposition to vaccination for the 
> coronavirus among a number of groups, including African-Americans and 
> antivaccine activists, polling suggests that opinions, in this case, 
> are breaking substantially along partisan lines.
> """
> 
> The rhetoric expressed here is clearly quantity-centric. The article 
> makes claims about the *degrees* of opposition among a *number* of 
> groups. It is suggested that, via polling, that the degree of breaking 
> (substantially) is along the singular dimension of party. The 
> underlying assumption for this kind of rhetoric is that space is a 
> universal metaphor. This is very different, to my mind, than what one 
> must bring to reading Heidegger, the Frankfurt school, and (quite explicitly) to Bergson.
> 
> To make things a little more muddled, now that AZ is getting some much 
> blowback for the blood clots and brain hemorrhages, should we push 
> harder to cancel those that warn of the dangers of operation warp-speed?


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