/lit/ - Literature

>>10320232
making money is necessarily unethical

>>10320248
assuming you are correct, the idea of an honest living is nothing more than a facade

>>10320253
one may be honestly unethical
or simply selectively ethical

>>10320248
LOL

>>10320248
did you mean non-ethical?

Not really.
Late Stage Capitalism is cancer. Maybe it was fine in the past, but now it needs to adapt to modern life or it will be replaced. We need to get our collective shit together before /sci/ figures out this technological singularity thing.

Or maybe the world is purged in nuclear fire and nobody wins.

Born too late to explore the world, born too early to explore the stars, born just in time to live through entire socio-economic collapse.

>>10320279

Not that anon, but I want to take up this argument.

While important to identify the existence of a discontinuity between making money and Ethics, I think that the disconnect goes beyond - is wider, deeper, more fundamentally opposed than - the comparable examples of similar disconnects.

To illustrate my point, I am happy to concede here that, as a commonplace, 'technology is non-ethical (or amoral, rather than immoral)'. To state that the aptitude of a tool does not have a formal relationship to the uses of that tool by a moral actor seems fair enough to me. In the case of making money, however, I think we pass beyond the realm of the non-ethical (or amoral) and well and truly into the sphere of the full-on no-limits unethical (or immoral).

Firstly, for a definition, when we talk about 'money-making' I should clarify that I mean 'activity conducted with a view to producing ongoing profit' not just 'obtaining money'. Picking $10 up off the street, or being given money from my relatives at a Chinese wedding, or whatever, is a process where I get some money, but it's not the kind of thing that might be unethical. Likewise, waged labour isn't 'making money' in the sense that running a small business employing several employees, or owning a factory, or starting an internet startup is 'making money'.

Now, what do I mean by the claim that making money is unethical (rather than non-ethical)? Precisely, that the act of making money is, sooner or later, going to run up against an ethical obstacle to which the only logical answer (within the logic of any system which was already powerful enough to compel us, the actor in question, to begin the process of making money) is to discard the ethic and continue to make money. The beauty of this view is that (as far as I have thought it through) it works for just about any 'ethic' or system of ethics you choose. So when I say 'ethical' above, I don't mean 'according to the Catholic ethics of Pope Francis' or 'according to secular liberal humanist ethics of Hillary Clinton' or 'according to the environmentalist ethic of Naomi Klein'. What I mean is that for anyone sufficiently dedicated to moneymaking, any time they run up against any ethical limitations of these systems, the overwhelming logic - the demand that is required IF one is to continue to make money - is to ignore the ethic.

In the examples above, this might mean to not act as a Christian, or to happily run a private prison, or to chop down a forest for profit. The end result of the moneymaking process is that, if you refuse to do any of these things and your competitors continue to do them, you will not just make less money but ultimately you will be outcompeted by your competitors, have less revenue, be unable to reinvest in your business, and ultimately go bankrupt as not just the absolute income but also the rate of profit (and your ability to obtain finance, etc.) declines to zero.

>>10320232
It's most certainly not stupid in any way and hardly unethical. Present your case or fuck off.

>>10320366
so are you just bored or what

>>10320232
>. Am i the only one that thinks hiring personal assistants from developing countries for pennies on the dollar to do all your work for you is both stupid and unethical?
no, your liberal friends think like you too

>>10320232
The most successful strategy to make money has always been to be a total selfish psychopath with no morals.

>>10320452
tell that to gates

>>10320528
Gates was a fucking asshole when he made his fortune.

>>10320232
>he pays money to the author of a self-help feelgood book disguised as a tome of miracles, so that the author of said tome can within text instruct him how to get others to pay him money
okay, i give.
is this post intended to be ironic?

>>10320425

yeah p much idk

>>10320528
>be Gates
>get sued countless times for my unethical business practices
>donate a fraction of the money I exploited
>normies think I'm a saint now
mfw

>>10320232
>am i the only one who thinks slavery is unethical
you unironically pretty much are

>>10320547
I just started a new job and thought one of co-workers looked familiar.
Just realized he looks like you maymay picture.

Hm.

>>10320813
Guy is trying to eradicate malaria.
That makes any asshole a little bit of a saint.

>mrw real life humans are multifaceted

Oh I love Timothy Ferriss.

He is a prime example of how you can repackage the same thing again and again with multiple layers of marketing techniques and people will gobble it up.

Are there any good analysis on the self-help industry? I have read tons of self-help and they all seem to use the same talking points, cite the same studies and use the same jargon, and yet they become more and more lucrative. Self-help seems to be the ultimate case study for how marketing is more important than any single content.

>>10321417
This. everything he states in the book (to me) is either common sense or basic time management.
>>10320547
basically. This is the only self help book i've bothered reading and it already seems like a waste of time and money.

>>10320366
Good post