Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Commerce

  • The High Cost of Woo

    The High Cost of Woo

    I find myself wondering just how much the historical Jesus billed Lazarus for his resurrection.

    And what about all that water he turned into wine. Must have made a fortune. As for the Gaderene swine – wonder if he flogged them off for a hog roast.

    You see, I have been considering Woo recently. Not that I’m suggesting JC was a fake – and anyway, how would we know after two thousand years.

    But modern Woo – that really is something that has me scratching my head. There is one particular American Woo salesman who really takes the biscuit. He wears designer shades with diamante adornment and suspect clothes. He jets all around the world spreading the Word and sells save your soul books by the million. He peddles what one could politely call nonsense and gets handsomely rewarded for leading people in search of the end of the rainbow.

    The only one who ever finds the pot of gold is the sly salesmen himself. Quite what the suckers who buy his produce end up with is something else. Disillusionment and despair perhaps. At worst, some of them are tipped over into madness and death, when the spiritual riches the wondrous healer promises turn out to be apocryphal.

    It does not escape me that I tend to talk in riddles and poetry myself these days. And metaphor and allegory and symbols.

    But at least I am not charging you for it. Nor do I wear diamante specs. And I don’t try and look like Gandhi or an Ashram Guru. Or JC for that matter – I never liked Jesus boots anyway. And the locals would think I was a right odd one if I took to wearing flowing desert robes down Deal at the supermarket.

    I do not promise to unleash your infinite potential for a fiver. I do not offer you aura therapy or undertake to massage your chakras (even supposing I could find them).

    I have not found “peace beyond understanding” (as one asinine salesman claims) and so I am afraid I can’t sell it to you. Nor do I have the resources to have my picture taken in every exotic location from Ulam Bator to Timbuktu, in each of which I peddle my gospel in return for money.

    But Old Diamente Specs is just one of thousands of purveyors of faery dust and snake oil – admittedly one of the most successful. Financially I mean – I don’t suppose his flock has benefited much from any miracles .

    What I like about my local priest is that he doesn’t always have his hand out, or if he does I feel every comfort that he will be giving it away to the poor. Once the greedy local Bishop has taken his cut. Robin Hood really should do something about the Church hierarchy.

    There are good people out there and you can always tell who they are. There is a wonderful old clergyman round here who gave immense comfort to my fearful father. He beams goodness and joy. He fills my day with light, when I chat to him out of one of my rambles. He makes me feel good about the world.

    He is not shoving some mumbo jumbo down my throat, and even if he did he would never dream of charging me for it.

    Woo salesmen on the other hand are false friends. All they want is my money.

    At one stage I followed serious and worthy clinical research from some of the world’s finest institutions on the possibility of a cure offered by psychedelics.

    And I believe such cures will come to pass. Shepherded into medical use by hospitals and doctors.

    And if you wish to jump the gun, perhaps with intelligent application, you may affect your own cure.

    What you should not do is to head to your local Woo salesman who has set up a Mother Mushroom healing church. Or a Sister Ayuhuasca’s Shamanic temple.

    Social media and the Internet are awash with videos of the hilarious ceremonies offered by such people. They are mostly crafty westerners who have donned Shamanic robes. They dance around blowing sacred smoke into people’s eyes and fanning them with hocus pocus. Mother Mushroom will heal. Sister Ayuhuasca will speak. Wooooooo! Many of said money grasping fake Messiahs are interviewed speaking in faux-hushed tones, wearing priestly white.

    There is nothing wrong with ritual and ceremony in the right hands. I’m all for smells and bells and Gregorian chanting. It lifts the soul and can heal the mind.

    What I do not want is “for profit” spirituality. I don’t believe in healing the world for money. I do not like “entreprenooooooooors” like Diamante Specs. Fake priests.

    Spirituality and good works belong to genuine priests. Whose motives are, well, godly shall we say. Health, healing, the spirit. Salvation, the Way.

    Would you expect to find healing at Mc Donald’s? If not, then why would you buy it from a fake guru whose main interest in you is to empty your wallet?

    Jesus never charged for resurrection. If someone seeks to sell it to you, hopefully you will be wise enough to turn away.

  • Economic Growth Sucks

    Economic Growth Sucks

    I found myself ranting on LinkedOut about the absurd World Economic Conference at Davos.

    Do we need economic growth? I find myself answering “no”.

    What we need is a fairer distribution of what we have already got. We should achieve this not by taking away from the rich and giving to the poor but by cutting population radically so that we can make do with what we have rather than  consuming ever more.  Although there is no doubt that we have no need of fat cats and robber barons. The planet would be a far nicer pace without such psychopaths.

    Who needs 7 billion mostly greedy, nasty humans on this otherwise beautiful rock in the middle of nowhere?

    Not the rest of the rapidly diminishing flora and fauna, that’s for sure.  In days gone by a good plague would sort it out. War and ethnic cleansing also played its part. The Norman conquest wiped out much of the population in Northern Britain.  The Black Death reduced the world population from around 475m to 350m. And look what a well aimed meteor did to the dinosaurs.

    Why do we need “growth”? What is the purpose in economic growth? What we need instead is a rapid and massive population decrease instead and a return to nature and beauty.

    What we need is food, medicine and shelter. What we do not need  is an ever expanding population of motor cars. Or airplanes, oil tankers and tower blocks.

    Get rid of 90% of the world’s population and return 90% of the planet to nature. Plow up the roads and the airports.  Knock down the tower blocks and the petrol stations. Plant forests…everywhere. Plant flowers and encourage birds and beasts to roam where once they did.

    My waffle on cynicism proved a great step forward in firming up my worldview. Yes, Diogenes and his ancient mates got it right. The rest of us got it wrong.

    We don’t need Davos and the Kardashians. We certainly don’t need Trump Towers or the Trump Casino. What we do need is a return to nature, a move away from vanity and the pursuit of the material. Dust to dust is a phrase we should have on the tip of our tongues every day.

    I’m not wanting to become a Noble Savage. They never existed. Lives were and remain nasty brutish and short.  Well, nasty and brutish anyway.

    I’m all for science, all for medicine and improvements in our health, mental and physical. And don’t tell me economic growth is necessary for its continuance. It is not. Activity is necessary, yes. And work. But work should not be slavery, should not entail drudgery in the dark satanic mills we have become imprisoned in.

    We need a whole new paradigm. Work as fun, work as satisfaction. Work as beneficial rather than a rip off ponzi scheme. Work as trees and plants and flowers and beauty.

    Not work as desecration of beauty but as the creation of beauty. Create beautiful homes but fewer of them for a smaller population. Concentrate on what makes humans happy, not rich and bloated.

    My hero Vermin Supreme promises voters a pony for every family. I must find a suitable sized Wellington Boot, place it on my head, and run for high office.  I will campaign for Utopia and a forest for every family.

     

     

  • Cynicism and LinkedIn

    Cynicism and LinkedIn

    What makes a cynic? Reason and experience in life or the cold hand of genetic inheritance?

    Are cynics just born? Or do they become imbued with cynicism as they travel through life and become convinced by absurdity?

    According to Wikipedia, a contemporary cynic has an attitude characterized by a general distrust of others’ motives. “A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in the human species or people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, and opinions that a cynic perceives as vain, unobtainable, or ultimately meaningless and therefore deserving of ridicule or admonishment.”

    In ancient Greece, where the term originated, Diogenes lived in a barrel on the streets of ancient Athens.  Again as per Wikipedia, ancient cynics believed “people can gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions”.

    The cynic should be using LinkedOut, not LinkedIn.  I was browsing LinkedIn this morning and my immediate and strong emotion was one of cynicism.

    Behavior in life is truly fractal. We all spring from the same simple cells which first divided to form life millions of years ago; and so it is of little surprise perhaps that the behavior of life is fractal from the smallest microbe upwards.  Life fights to the death. Bacteria struggles to overcome and dominate. The fungi battle against competing species to achieve dominance so they can fruit and spread their spores. The fox kills and eats the chicken to survive and spread his selfish gene and so on up to the level of the human race.

    Business is a battleground. In some countries of the world, life is still largely physical and hence violence is too.  The rule of law is such in many of the world’s ghastly corners that humans can still behave like the fox or the jackal. Or indeed like bacteria or fungi. They club and fight and kill for land and possessions so that they too can pass on their unworthy genes. And so on into the next unworthy and unpleasant generation.

    In the more “civilized” West, fractal violence has had to adapt to a better enforced and more sophisticated rule of law.

    Social media has become the latest battleground where, instead of clubbing your fellow man to steal his food, shelter and wife you have to convince him to part with all three without violence.

    Commerce is the new violence. In the beginning was the mouth and the tooth and the claw. In the beginning was physical violence. And since behavior is fractal, for most species on earth outside of humanity, violence is still the means to survive and prosper.

    Think of cancer cells.

    But oh so clever man with his gift (or curse?) of consciousness now uses business to conquer and survive. Where he can, man will still use genuine violence in business. He seeks to ruin his competitor and drive him out of business. He seeks to convince the hapless and foolish consumer that his goods or services have value and more value than those of his competitors.

    Nowhere is Darwinism more evident than in the world of finance. The tooth and the claw have been replaced by marketing and sales.  The bookies and the forex dealers, the stock brokers and the sellers of investment systems must at one level know that they are selling poison and destruction but they don’t give a damn. If they did they would not survive.

    How can any man in good conscience sell bets or betting services when he knows that ruin is the outcome for the consumer? How can men sell endless seminars promising to teach fools to trade when they must know they are selling moonshine and bullshit?

    How can the forex broker and execution only stock broker fill his website with useless trading tips and promises when he knows (or ought to know) that he is selling snake-oil with the intention of transferring wealth (and hence Darwinian survival) from the punters’ pockets to his own?

    Someone quite rightly recently admonished me by pointing out that there are good things happening in the world.

    I must scour LinkedOut for good people doing good things. They must be there.

  • Billions -Faint Disgust?

    Billions -Faint Disgust?

    I watched an episode of Season 2 of Billions last night and was left with an unaccustomed feeling of repulsion.

    According to Wikipedia:

    The series is loosely based on the activities of Preet Bharara, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his legal battles with hedge fund manager Steve Cohen of S.A.C. Capital Advisors.

    I had watched the first series with much pleasure but perhaps since that time I have grown older and wiser. And not a little more philosophic.

    Every character in the show is repulsive from the vulgar checkbook waving wife of Bobby Axelrod, to the driven and unpleasant district attorney who seeks to make his mark by crucifying the hedge fund king.

    What particularly struck me last night was the the awfulness of the motivational speeches. If your work life is driven by these, then no wonder we live in the paradise we have created for ourselves.

    Everyone is the show is portrayed as ruthless and horrible, greedy and venal. Surely such characterization  has to be parody?

    The great glory of the show, in visual terms, has to be Maggie Siff as Wendy Rhoades. Wow! What a beautiful woman. She is the sexy in-house coach at Axe Capital, and rather unfortunately married to the vicious district attorney out to crucify her boss.

    She may be beautiful but what she has to say is brutal and tiresome. And vulgar. There is talk of Viagra and stiffness, both of which are needed, apparently, to succeed in the hedge fund world. Same with Bobby’s speeches – if ever there was an exposition of the sublimated violence in business and capital, you need look no further than Bobby.

    Its all savage, violent, sexy, drug fueled and (surprise!) materialistic.

    How must it be when your every waking thought is the urge to conquer? When money is all you seek? When culture, erudition, philosophy, if used at all, are used merely in the pursuit of the material.

    Its all show, showtime, vulgarity. Art is to hang on the wall, never mind its meaning. Beauty is to be pressed into service, used, not for any intrinsic quality, but in the pursuance of more.

    Of course this is all fiction – or so I assume. People are not that ghastly, tasteless and gross in the real world.  They do not, surely, talk like that, speak like that, think like that? Or do they?

    Perhaps it is because I lurch towards the end of my life that my thoughts turn to the intangible. Perhaps, way back, I had ambitions to be Bobby. Perhaps once upon a time, way back, when I found myself miscast (dramatically so) as an investment banker, I sought to emulate Bobby.

    If so, then age is not without its advantages. As drama, as entertainment its a good romp. I’m not at all sure I can stomach too many more episodes though.

  • Quackery and Useless Twaddle

    Quackery and Useless Twaddle

    Why is so much of the internet “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”?

    OK, so I admit I got out of bed the wrong side this morning. My wife has the intensely irritating habit of leaving her smartphone on all night, with the volume turned up full in case our son or one of her numerous relatives calls in the middle of the night. Sound asleep, I will suddenly be shaken awake at ungodly hours expecting the worst, only to discover that one of her relatives from Australia has sent a picture of intense disinterest to me at 4 o clock in the morning.. And to make matters worse, having got a new phone, a simple “ping” does not suffice. Each message, however inconsequential, is accompanied by a different cacophony of sound.

    Having got that off my chest, I am sitting reading news and views from the blogosphere.  I am beset by problems and minor illnesses; grumpiness and angst being among the foremost of my ailments. The world is beset by problems, some more serious than mine.  What I need, what the world needs is solutions to those problems.

    My attention was drawn this morning to an interview on a website called Closer to Truth on the subject of “transcendence”.  There are some exceptionally able speakers featured on the website, including some eminent and interesting philosophers specializing in consciousness – perhaps the most important un-solved mystery we have.  But the article I was directed to was inconsequential and vague drivel.

    I have no problem with the concept of transcendence. My favorite author Ian Banks called it sublimation.  The escape to another realm from the dull and often dangerous physical reality in which we find ourselves trapped. Like flies in aspic or the Tar Baby of Uncle Remus. But what the world needs is a road-map of how to get there not some half baked diatribe on synchronicity, an insane dialogue with a non -existent deity or vapid, limp New Age bollux.

    I am not saying there is no room for imagination, poetic license, and metaphor.  These can and do soothe and pacify.  But such have existed for countless millennia and have never been known to bring world peace, freedom from anxiety or an escape from the dreadful condition we humans find ourselves in.

    What we need is hard science. If an alternate reality exists, if we are living on a plane just next door to some forbidden utopia our senses can’t quite grasp, well then lets go find it. Let’s not wallow in useless woo woo and crappy non existent chakras.  I can accept that there is “stuff” out there which our limited senses can not contact. Most frequencies along the light spectrum for instance.

    But if there is some “heaven” awaiting us we are not going to discover it by sitting on our collective rear ends talking piously about finding ourselves through faith healing, touch massage, poetry or  religion. We invented the wheel, penicillin, crop rotation and all manner of useful things. We may be on the cusp of trans-humanism – science fiction today, maybe science fact tomorrow.  So it if exists, lets go and find transcendence now so we can all enjoy it!

    We want cures and we want them now. If you think magic mushrooms will cure depression well, try it out. Don’t expect some Druid nutcase to wave his wand over you and make it better.  As I have so often repeated our twin saviors will be philosophy and science as they always have been. Philosophers to come up with the ideas, scientists to test them out and put it into practice.  Often they are one and the same person.

    There is “stuff” out there which actually works so let us concentrate on finding more of that and ditch the wishful thinking crap so many engage in.

  • Davos 2019

    Davos 2019


    I lived in Davos-Kosters for years and loved the WEF.

    For weeks before hand I savored that much loved ten days as I watched the well oiled preparations being made. Hundreds of riot police arrived, barbed wire gates and fences appeared. I was stopped every time I went near the entrance to the town by police asking me my business and demanding to see my papers, while waving a sub machine gun ominously in my direction.

    The locals love it! They make the very great majority of their income during the conference, as they gleefully raise their prices tenfold. And frankly, if you turn up at Samedan in a private jet what do you expect? A bargain break with breakfast thrown in?

    Audi used to convert a field near the lake on the outskirts of the town into an ice rink and people with more money than sense raced around the track in vast, powerful black limmos. Presumably it was worth Audi’s while?

    And did I attend all those fascinating “Key Note” addresses? Did I give one myself perhaps? Was I busy in conferences with the great and the good, the pompous and the windbags?

    Was I wringing my hands with beautiful actresses over the state of the world poor or the global ecosystem? Or whatever the latest cause espoused by the Luvvies happened to be?

    Did I ponder matters of deep finance with the Masters of the Universe, the hugely important bankers and finance ministers, the great economic gurus?

    Did I gasp with wonder and love at our National Treasures like David Attenborough?

    Wow! World leaders in my home town! The grandeur of it! The importance! The prestige!

    Did I marvel at “Strategic Oultlooks”? The prescience of these people! The Duke of Cambridge! Wo! That genius and media star.

    Did I attend Power Breakfasts and engage in Cocktail Networking?

    Odd to relate, no, I did none of these things. My sole interest was in the fact I had over 200 km of ski piste all to myself.

    The Great and the Good are, by and large, neither. I have no interest at all in what any of them have to say.

    But the skiing while they were busy pontificating (there was no room for ordinary tourists). Well that was pure heaven.

  • Consider the Lilies of the Field…

    Consider the Lilies of the Field…

    …how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin…Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns…

    I have often wanted to be a tree. Preferably an oak; preferably in some far flung province inaccessible to man.

    I have spent some weeks in meditation. Not on my knees or my backside. Not in some temple or man made edifice.

    But in simple existence, simple awareness of the passing days, the season, the comings and goings of the world.  To feel the summer breeze, the gentle waving of leaves and branches. The dawn chorus, the cooing of pigeon. Waves, sky, hot and cold. Rain and dry. Beauty in nature and in art.

    And then I spoiled it, I let the serpent into Eden, I picked the apple.  I stopped my flow, I ceased to let the world wind over and around me and I sought, once again, toil and the world of commerce.

    It was an error to open my computer, a grave mistake to enter the dark caverns of the world wide web, the dark satanic mills of finance.

    Would there have been any way of earning my daily bread which would have enabled the poetry to continue to flow? Or does “the world” always have to entail disillusion and anxiety, irritability and bad temper?

    I have been observing my moods carefully recently for a number of reasons, not the least my interest in experimenting with micro-dosing to expand the doors of my perception.

    For weeks I have been walking, wandering aimlessly, enjoying pure existence. A sparrow, if you like, or an oak tree or Ent.  I have observed as I have wandered.  And I have let go, let all things pass.  My mind has taken very different paths, my thoughts have expanded. The predominant feeling has been one of pure harmless joy; an innocence combined with a great enrichment of the imagination. An expansion of my mind without even the necessity of a hallucinogenic door opener.

    I then I blew it. I knocked on the dark doors of commerce; I spent some hours looking at financial arbitrage. I revisited the squalor of money and finance, of greed and business.

    I became less observant but before the glass darkened too thoroughly, before the mirror became too opaque, I was able to notice what it was doing to me.  Irritability was the main evil and a far decreased ability to take pleasure in what was around me.

    So I have switched it all off again; for a few weeks at least. Will I return to it when I am back in my study? Can it be done without irritation?  Can I learn to combine commerce with a joy in life?

    I will have to try. And if I can not, I must switch off commerce for good. Close down the mill and head for the hills. Live in a green and pleasant land.

  • Flogging Blogging

    Flogging Blogging

    Commerce is so utterly grubby and most practitioners of the art are second hand car salesmen, whatever they pretend they are selling or “doing”.

    The blogosphere is no exception; it is an area where people try to practice commerce but usually, it seems unsuccessfully.

    The blogosphere has its fair share of oily salesmen particularly in the world of stock market trading where I spent some years and at times made a lot of money. Until I decided to quit because it had all become too nerve-wracking for my ancient body and mind to put up with any longer.

    In the world of trading I believe that most people must know they are selling nonsense, particularly where they are pushing trading “systems”.

    But it is much the same in blogging generally.

    In particular I am most amused by those whose trade is to sell blogging advice.  Their business seems to be more than usually incestuous and tautologous.  Who knows whether these people make money or not, but it is more than a little ironic that in order to make money out of blogging they have to tell other people how to do so.

    What is that all about then?

    Enough of such scepticism and negativity. I argue elsewhere in favour of freedom of choice: in euthanasia for instance or the use of “recreational” drugs.  It is equally evident to me that those who do not like blogging salesmen should avoid them – they have a choice.

    I tend to avoid “infomercials” and many blogs fall into this category.  Shopping on the internet is different – and very convenient. If I want to find a canoe or a book by Sartre I can do so with ease end enjoyment.

    Infomercials and blogs selling stuff (information or otherwise) under the guise of being interesting and informative are a tedious switch off; so switch them off.

    There is some acceptable crossover. Interesting authors may talk about their life as well as offer books. Newspapers these days are simply money making blogs – and I guess most of them carry advertising to make it pay.

    There is no harm in people being paid for what they do, provided the sales pitch is inoffensive and the goods or services offered are genuine.

    I suppose I have come across too many offensive sales pitches and too many crappy blogs. Perhaps including my own.  Who knows; as in every other area of life, I find myself mired in uncertainty, a certain amount of hypocrisy and much ennui.

     

     

     

  • We are Slaves to the FANGs

    We are Slaves to the FANGs

    Ireland can agree on this: The Abortion Decision is not up to Mark Zuckerberg

    Gavin Sheridan is right to fear the unregulated power of two such massive privately owned companies as Google and Facebook.

    I have worked a great deal in recent years with machine learning and artificial intelligence and I believe that science, if anything, will provide the redemption from our ills which neither religion nor politics can give.  But AI is useless without data and these companies control all our data.

    My work has made one thing abundantly clear to me: the dangers of monopoly and in this specific context, the monopoly over data and communication.

    Google and Facebook are the future. Or at least the technical innovations which those two companies are spearheading is the future. But none of us deserve to be ruled by FANGS and that, increasingly, is what is happening whether we like it or not.

    Much research in machine learning is open source – and bravo, good news indeed. But the software is useless without the data.  And the FANGs own the data.

    Scientists have always been libertarians and indeed I was very heartened at first by the supposed “blockchain revolution”.

    Here was technology developed by geeks in their bedrooms which was going to give the man in the Congo equal rights to his counterpart on the Clapham Omnibus.  It was going to be the 3rd Wave, Internet 3, the beginnings of all things equal and fair and marvellous.

    But even there the titans are taking over; the JP Morgan’s and the big banks are realising the potential of the technology.  Cryptocurrency and the blockchain is now swamped by “entrepreneurs”, “influencers” and “thought leaders” interested in one thing only: lining their own pockets.

    The internet, the machine age, technology was supposed to be about empowering and enriching us all. As ever, it looks set to enrich the few and to enslave the rest.

    The mighty kings at the FANGs are the modern robber barons.  If we do not restrict their power, split up and abolish their monopoly and put the benefits of technology into the hands of the ordinary man we will be left with a society as unequal, unjust and repressive as any we have ever seen. Perhaps more so.

  • Self-Help Gurus

    Self-Help Gurus

    Self help gurus are guaranteed fakes.  So are all other self anointed gurus.  Avoid them – run for your life and keep your purse locked.

    I have parked this article under the category “health”,  since I find self help gurus the most insidious but you will find this species of pariah in every walk of life and every area of commerce.

    I first noticed them in finance:  such people are a huge danger to your wealth. They promise you will make millions in up and down markets by buying their absurd courses. It is likely they have never traded in the financial markets and that if they have the exercise was a failure.

    It is all about money: getting yours.

    The Dalai Lama doesn’t need to peddle books, nor does the Archbishop of Canterbury.  They may be worth listening to, they may not. But at least they are not looking for you to finance their expensive lifestyles.  Much the same can be said for qualified doctors or therapists.  At least they have (usually!) had a rigorous training in a recognised discipline.

    The real con artists are those who sell books, courses and seminars telling YOU how to achieve happiness and contentment when THEY have singularly failed to achieve any measure of well being and are as far removed from nirvana as it is possible to be.

    I used to buy the occasional self help book or at least books on what one might loosely define as “spirituality”.  But I have this obsessive compulsion to dig deeper into anything I take on.

    That apparently delightful and wise author on the beauty of Sufi poetry turned out to be someone to avoid.  And pseudo religious nutcases promising revelation, synchronicity, union with the divine – take your pick – always turn out to be cynical fakes out to get your money.

    If you need god (I don’t) then read the canon of your chosen faith. If you need advice on happiness or the avoidance of misery read philosophy and medicine.