What is a Materialist?

[Parodite]

There are some nice options, probably more:

1. Somebody who values material possessions like a house, a car, the latest TV set, expensive clothing, above almost everything else.

2. Somebody who sees the material world, as studied by the natural sciences, as the only real and relevant one. Everything subjective like feelings, thoughts and opinions should be taken with an immense chunck of salt and in general do not deserves to be trusted.

3. Somebody who really believes that the material world is identical to how s/he experiences it to be. As-if unaware of the fact that the material world as experienced is, in fact, a mental construct created by the human brain. ("naive realism")

4. Somebody who believes consciousness is not real, only the material world is real.

5. Somebody who likes good food and good sex, not much else.

6. Somebody who, when observing his/her own brain, believes that this is the thing that does the conscious observing of itself. (naive realism again)

7. A spiritual materialist: somebody who thinks along the same lines as the above materialist, but adds some magic non-material spiritual spice because that sort of material world he finds unacceptable.

8. An atheist full stop.

[noddy]

9. a woman who spends all the available money on fancy fabrics.

[Parodite]

10. All animals and plants. Especially microbes, cynical and abusive. Viruses are the worst. Not a thread of spiritual values there.

[Simple Minded]

11. Anyone who spends more money on themselves and their family, than they do on anyone else.

12. Anyone with a net worth greater than zero.

13. People who live in houses, eat food, and wear clothes.

[noddy]

ive become a breatharian nudist so im excluded from all this nonsense.

[Simple Minded]

ive become a breatharian nudist so im excluded from all this nonsense.

14. People who buy sunscreen or toilet paper or towels or sandals.

[noddy]

I have a sneeky suspicion the only definite definition is definitately that the materialist bugger has more toys than you.


my personal material belongings is just the right amount - one sandal, one sheet of multi use toilet paper/towel .

[Simple Minded]

I have a sneeky suspicion the only definite definition is definitately that the materialist bugger has more toys than you.


my personal material belongings is just the right amount - one sandal, one sheet of multi use toilet paper/towel .

What about that big hat and participation trophy I sent you?

How do you manage to keep your treasured one sandal, one sheet of multi use toilet paper/towel safe from multitudes of have-not, selfish, materialist bastards who covet your riches?

"I once complained that I had no shoes, until I met a man that had no feet."

[noddy]

I have a sneeky suspicion the only definite definition is definitately that the materialist bugger has more toys than you.


my personal material belongings is just the right amount - one sandal, one sheet of multi use toilet paper/towel .

What about that big hat and participation trophy I sent you?

the trophy got turned into a sandal - the hat got deconstructed into a fine tp/towel, i owe you everything.

How do you manage to keep your treasured one sandal, one sheet of multi use toilet paper/towel safe from multitudes of have-not, selfish, materialist bastards who covet your riches?

get the government to pick on them good n hard.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -contracts

Chinese authorities are capping the salaries of celebrities, blaming the entertainment industry for encouraging “money worship” and “distorting social values”.

The salaries of on-screen performers should be capped at 40% of the total production costs, according to a joint notice from five government agencies including China’s tax authority, the television and film regulator, and the propaganda department. Leading actors should receive no more than 70% of total wages for the cast, according to the announcement, published in Xinhua.

[Mr. Perfect]

I always like how those percentages are chosen out of thin air.

Also funny to see the Chinese government accuse people of money worship. Money for me and not for thee.

[noddy]

its absurd on all levels.

they are like sports stars in the sense that their is so many avenues to funnel and/or spend money that any attempt at a salary cap is laughably easy to bypass.

the upfront payment for the work is typically the smallest aspect of their income and the extent to which they have to pay for things or just have them magically provided is also rather flexable.

its quite a common educated class vanity to rant on how sports/movie stars are so rich whilst their professions are only boringly middle class.

[Simple Minded]

the trophy got turned into a sandal - the hat got deconstructed into a fine tp/towel, i owe you everything.

You are more than welcome. Like it says in the Bible "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Give a man a big hat and a participation trophy, and he is set for life."

Being generous with people like you, increases both my sense of selflessness and my self-esteem.

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

A pretty good one by Paul VanderKlay:

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[Parodite]

A pretty good one by Paul VanderKlay:

I liked some of his early comment videos on JBP but now he lost me. Only watched the first ten minutes which go nowhere, or maybe it just takes too long ;p

[Nonc Hilaire]

Materialism is a vice. Like an addiction, satisfaction from posessions is fleeting leaving only a deeper craving for MORE in an attempt to get that first ecstatic experience.

[noddy]

the problem being that taken at face value, we all end up in caves and eating the bare minimum like the super serious monks do.

the curly bit is deciding how much is too much and why is it people with more than me!


its a personal thing, like alcoholism perhaps - a vague answer that only the individual can decide for themselves.

[Parodite]

The addictive craving for more and more material bling... is real but the most innocent form/meaning of materialism IMO. It also has positive side effects because these addicts can be great consumers and money spenders which is good for the economy.

Usually people become sensitive to and aware of things that hurt them and at one point will recognize and acknowledge that they have a problem. When their addictive behavior starts to also hurt others, especially family and friends, they are even more motivated to battle the addiction. But when in fact it not hurts anyone.. who cares?

Some people are addicted to collecting post stamps, they keep craving for more and never have enough. Others collect Rolls Royce's, or real estate property and keep craving for the next successful financial deal. Or they enjoy the ups and down of competition, the tension between loosing and winning. All gold rush.

Many things in life have an addictive element. Even the virtue of not behaving like an addicted materialist can become an addiction! Every time you are able to signal to yourself what wonderful non-materialistic moral person you are... you get a similar/same feel-good rush of happy hormones flowing through your veins. But that will also leave a craving for more when the rush is over; the hunt for the next fix is on again. I would think that this mechanism is what also drives a lot of religious traditions and explains why they tend to engage in repetitive behaviors. Or collect "happy memories" for a little fix now and then, like a snack.

[Nonc Hilaire]

Disagree Parodite. I think you are confounding vice with drive for mastery/completion/perfection. Your stamp collector is more like someone who wants to visit every country or ride every roller coaster.

[Parodite]

That's not the point. I argue that many things in life have an addictive element. In various combinations and degrees of course.

Your stamp collecter might in is drive for mastery/completion/perfection become compulsive and not paying enough attention to other things and people in his life. There always are details and differences that matter.

Your assertion that materialism is a vice is like saying that real atheists start killing people, or that religion brings nothing but tears. Usually things are not that binary.

My bigger beef is with "materialism" as mentioned in points 2,3,6 and 7 which taken together I consider the most harmful toxic fruitcake mix that exists.

[noddy]

some addictions are harmless, others extremely negative.

the stamp collector could be wasting all their resource on the super rare and expensive ones, letting the rest of their lives suffer.

the person doing good deeds in the wider community could also be neglecting their own families.

extreme examples perhaps, however the point of it was around the personal nature of material world addictions.

parodites 2,3,6 smell simmilar to my scientism ranting mumbles in the udder thread.

[Parodite]

Definately! I would park your scientism next to his twin sister, my no 7 the "spiritual materialist", on a branch that grows on a stem with a double helix (no2+no3) DNA. The roots of these outgrowths are the most interesting, but then we'd maybe have to uproot the entire tree to know

[Simple Minded]

its a personal thing, like alcoholism perhaps - a vague answer that only the individual can decide for themselves.

Yep. It's like what makes someone a good Christian or a bad Christian. Sometimes it's subjective, other times it's relative.....

on a side note, my email stamp collection is both awesome and priceless. it is virtually the best collection ever assembled anywhere.....

[Parodite]

I went to PG and have a shot at materialism with him. Also because it has been a while talking.

Me: "Hey Dad, whats up?"

PG: "Hi there son. How have you been doing. I'm fine, nothing big happening these days."

Me: "Fine too. Wanted to talk about materialism, morality and stuff with you. Talked with MN about it too."

PG: "What she said? I'm sure she tried to refer you to me first. She never tires to let me do the thinking![chuckles]. Saying I'm a mansplainer and like to play judge. But she is just a bit afraid of thinking as she is primarily a feeling person, I guess. "

Me: "Yea she showed she cares a lot, doesn't want me to get into trouble and warned against people who are very vocal about solutions because they tend to create problems."

PG: "She always says that. For ages! And when I bring in reason, which is quite able to distinguish between imaginary and real problems, she immediately stops listening. She doesn't trust reason because it never reveals the motives behind it, she claims. Motives can only be revealed in their truth as feelings. Reason, more often than not she says, is a trickster and cover-up to hide an emotional truth. When I explain that to build a bridge you don't need emotion, she just says "yea that's why that is your job, it makes the robot in you happy."

Me: "Does it hurt your feelings dad, when she talks like that?"

PG: "Not at all. I'm used to it and she means well. It's just not her thing. She doesn't want to use a hammer because it makes her feel clumsy and humiliated. Never force a woman to use a hammer when she doesn't want to! It always has blow back, she will make you pay one way or other. Sometimes years later.

MN has very long memories. They go even back to the beginning of time. You owe your life to her, so don't be too annoyed with it! The biggest dreams always grow from the longest memories. She always remembers... and always dreams. I fell in love with that. It made me see some of the future even though I'm by nature very shortsighted.

Did I tell you I was born wearing reading glasses? Probably because I was assigned to write timeless law where past and future don't matter."

Me: "Interesting! Didn't know that. So what about materialism, morality, ethics? Now that you mention Law..."

- to be continued

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Richard Fernandez looks at a practical implication of a quantum spacetime interaction. The ol' timey-wimey woo. It may turn out that the universe, being made of information and not so much of stuff, makes a much better model for organising our lives........

By assembling components into progressively bigger assemblies an entire universe can eventually be built. Mark Van Raamsdonk, a string theorist at the University of British Columbia "imagines entanglement creating space-time gradually ... individual particles ... become entangled with each other. These entangled pairs then become entangled with other pairs. As more particles become entangled, the three-dimensional structure of space-time emerges."

Perhaps the change in zeitgeist led David Brooks to see in bottom-up creation a revolutionary new sociological model. In his recent NYT article The Localist Revolution Brooks says "we’ve tried liberalism and conservatism and now we’re trying populism. Maybe the next era of public life will be defined by a resurgence of localism*."

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/ripping-it-all-up/

*From David Brooks:

Localism is the belief that power should be wielded as much as possible at the neighborhood, city and state levels. Localism is thriving — as a philosophy and a way of doing things — because the national government is dysfunctional while many towns are reviving. Politicians in Washington are miserable, hurling ideological abstractions at one another, but mayors and governors are fulfilled, producing tangible results.

[noddy]

id love for a resurgence in localism but i suspect we need a shooting war first to get back to that mentality.

right now, its all systems go on building the bigger groupings for the trade war we are escalating.

trade wars that escalate tend to turn into the other kind soon enough.