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Comment by markk | Hacker News Reader

We know that money is not a great thing to measure to ascertain happiness, so I feel her bank account is irrelevant. And compassion is not a finite resource.

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On the one hand, I completely agree with you about having some degree of compassion towards everybody regardless of what they've done, but on the other hand, I'm not exactly sure what it would change, or if I could remotely justify telling people that their feelings are "wrong" despite them being deceived.

It's perfectly reasonable for people to feel anger/resentment/distrust towards somebody that has done them wrong, just as much as it is perfectly reasonable for a person to feel horrible once they start being the center of attention for having done something wrong. The key difference between these two emotional states, is that one side knew what was happening (i.e. the one committing the act of deception), and the other one didn't. That gives the person committing the deception the upper hand in predicting the outcome of the whole situation, because they must know to some extent that getting caught is one of the possible outcomes of their actions; willfully ignoring this reality isn't equivalent to never even knowing it could exist (as would be the case for victims).

Now typically, anger isn't very productive, but neither exactly is total compassion. Pure indifference is the closest thing to a neutral state in such a situation, and from such a vantage point, people getting angry at being deceived and people getting depressed at being caught is completely logical, and admissible as long as there isn't any real destruction or bodily harm going on. I mean, we could feel sad for a shady person feeling sad in addition to all that, but what will that accomplish?

It is really hard to feel happy when you are poor (first hand experience), Money can buy happiness[1][2]. Conversely we do feel much joy when we see someone we envy fail, more so if we feel (rightly or not) that their success was ill deserved[3].

[1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WE-AA766B_HAPPY_1... - from page 12 of [2]

[2] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/...

[3] https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/tag/schadenfreude/

I like Alain de Botton's take: money and status are essentially a proxies for love, in that people feel worthwhile if others "pay" attention/respect/cash to them. (Heavily paraphrased)

Now consider that Buddhist monks are forbidden from handling money, preparing their own food, and are willingly entirely dependent on the charity of others. It is a kind of self-imposed poverty that demonstrates how much a person can achieve without much more than the shirt on his back.

I'm having trouble following the jump from proxies for love to the practices of Buddhist monks. Monks don't own anything (except for their robes and alms bowl) and don't prepare their own food (and don't do many other things) in order to avoid attachments, which as we know is one of the fundamental causes of suffering and an obstacle to achieving enlightenment.

In bringing up the monks, I was trying (maybe unsuccessfully) to challenge the idea that "poverty" is, ipso facto, a miserable, unhappy existence. De Botton makes the point that soldiers often endure conditions that are far worse than abject poverty, but are not unhappy due to the sense of a noble status given to them by their countrymen. Likewise, I think, for the monks who have nothing to their name, but are respected and honored for their discipline, etc.

It's a bit off-topic, but in a way being a Buddhist monk is a very selfish lifestyle. You don't have to take care of yourself, society will take care of you. You don't contribute much to society apart from perhaps some religious services. In my opinion it's not a good way of life.

"Monks" are not one, monolithic community, so it's hard to argue one way or another whether they contribute anything meaningful back to a community. Here in Japan, many Buddhist orders are downright wealthy (from donations), and use their considerable resources to preserve traditions and history. I doubt that you can put a dollar value on the benefits of keeping cultural history alive. In a sense, it's not too much different from the function of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Of course, Buddhism is a many-facted religion that manifests differently in different places.

I've always understood the relationship between societies and monks (priests, ministers, nuns, etc.) to be one of "offset". Monks are taken care of so they can pursue the esoteric studies that the common person has no time for. In exchange, the common person's spiritual/religious/etc. enrichment is guided with assistance from the monk, similar to how patronage happens in the arts.

I'm sure this could be explained in an even more conduct way, but I'm having a hard time putting down in words how I see the relationship works in my mind.

Someone should build a Patreon for Monks.

Wrt money - I'm just pointing out that assuming someone is happy because they are rich is flawed.

3 is interesting, and backed up by what's happening in this thread. My question is really: is that the world we want to live in? Throughout human history we have gradually been curtailing our violence as a species, and I hope everyone here thinks that's been a good thing, and hopes it will continue. Wishing suffering on anyone for any reason is a form of violence.

Talk is cheap. Most people won't actually do all that much to back up their big feels. I have a good sob story. I doubt you would do more for me than pat me on the head.

Mind you, I don't actually want pity. What I really want is respect for my competence and assistance in becoming successful in my own right. But I run into a lot of people who spend a lot of time on their high horse about wanting the world to be a better place. In most cases, these are the people who have treated me the worst -- who neither will give me genuine respect as a competent human being and a hand up nor so called compassion and a hand out.

I think if you really think that bad thoughts are a form of violence and you want this to be a nicer world, then arguing with people here and criticising them is a kind of violence as well, plus a form of hypocrisy. What are you doing to actually make the world a better place?

Yes, maybe I am being hypocritical.

Just my 2c but I really dont think wishing suffering on somebody is a form of violence. How can it be when they arent even aware of it. Wishing is something that just occurs in your own head and I think portraying this as violence would be insulting to people who have been the victim of real violence.

It's not suffering in some abstract sense, it's accountability - in no small part for causing suffering and loss to others.

Huh, under your logic, is there any amount of misconduct that Holmes could commit (which might harm others, including harm through being misled) that would make you feel more compassion for those harmed or potentially harmed?

If you want to apply Buddhist ethics to influential people misusing their power, uh, I guess I follow what you're trying to do, but it seems cray-cray to me.

Just for the sake of discussion, is it possible to have compassion for the victimizer and the victim? Is there a way to quantify compassion such that you are able to assure yourself that you have given a proper amount to the person who has been wronged?

But she is not different from any Ponzi schemer. Talk up your amazing investment expertise or chemistry genius and get people to trust you with money. The people who invested with her are VCs and wealthy accredited investors. As were Madoff clients.

all your emotion is finite. We are ignoring the battle against malaria in Africa, to chat and feel about theranos.

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