AI Zen Master

[u/ewk]

Since it's so easy to drop a Zen text or even multiple Zen texts into an llm and ask questions that the llm will answer from the standpoint of the text?

* www.reddit.com/r/Zen/wiki/getstarted

Doesn't it make sense that there would be a lot less confusion and a lot more interesting conversations??

Plus, if you have an llm answer questions about the texts then who better to explain why Zazen Shinto-Buddhism and Alan Epstein Watts are not part of the tradition?

Serious question.

Where are all my AI Zen Masters at?

[u/ewk]

Another good reason to consider committing a year to economics...

You trust what people do as an indicator way more then you trust your idea about what people should or could do.

Economics helps you to stop living in your imagination and start facing reality. People do really buy pet rocks.

Australia sues Post-it maker 3M over ‘forever chemicals’

Here's an example of costs that are not priced into the product, which arguably constitutes a government subsidy.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

I think trying to make the conversation about economics is a good way to pretend the lemon is just out of reach.

I think if we interviewed the people living next to the 3M plant, they'll tell you a different story than 3M or the Australian government.

I think you won't admit anything negative until you see for yourself, and you're mostly reasonable enough that seeing for yourself informs your thoughts, and you're arguing about it instead of just seeing for yourself. I also think you don't need to go tour the industrial butcher plant to understand that negative effects it has and this isn't all that different, but in this case, you just like eating meat and won't be talked out of it.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

I've listed a ton of things that are negatives.

People living next to a plant is a problem. But like a debate about property values in an economics forum pointed out, people thinking they don't have to move is bonkers. There's a ton of study data about how moving for jobs and housing is essential to healthy Democratic Capitalism. It's one of the main reasons that immigrants leap ahead economically when coming to the U.S.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

I still think debate falls short of the lived experience of such people who are marginalized by the framework of capitalism. It's a lot easier for you to sit in your own comfort and say they should just live differently then they have been. It's easy to say people should move away from the plant and a lot more difficult for the people to actually move away.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

You are 100% right that

lived experience of such people who are marginalized by the framework of capitalism.

My comfort has nothing to do with it. Your concern over my comfort is called "ad hominem".

But it's not just capitalism that's the problem. Because Adam Smith wrote about how people were suffering under centrally regulated markets. That suffering is massively more significant than the suffering under capitalism.

Neither of these should be conflated with the suffering under industrialization.

That suffering should not be conflated with the suffering of digitization.

When you conflate these problems, they lose all identity and they cannot be addressed successfully.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

I think if I was attacking you with it, maybe ad homs. I think it's a fair observation that debate is a luxury someone actively being poisoned doesn't have the benefit of. Maybe you took it personally, but it wasn't the intent. More of the royal use of "you" than particularly ewk being comfortable.

Capitalism is always going to fail. It requires suffering to sell anti suffering medicine. I don't have a solution, but capitalism isn't the solution, it's the never ending problem to be the never ending problem solver. These systems can't solve anything without causing more than they solve. These systems just streamline suffering and make it more efficient or less obvious.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

Ad hom is not attacking the person. It's when an argument is changed so that the person is included in it.

You have to be phenomenally illiterate to pretend that capitalism will fail. You have to not only be illiterate about history, but you have to be illiterate about capitalism itself and what we've learned about it over the last 150 years.

The fact that you are so incredibly illiterate about both history and capitalism and that you nevertheless feel privileged to assert your opinion suggests to me that we're back to mental health territory.

This is not a place for you to vent about the conspiracies that you believe you alone have identified.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

Yeah yeah, whatever you say dude. Pretend I'm illiterate to bolster the belief in your own literacy. Redefine ad hom if you want. Accuse me of venting about conspiracies.

It's rich to make accusations about my literacy while you justify your reliance on llmbuddhajesus to tell you what buddha says in dusty books you can't read.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

Standing up to the hysteria of internet bullies is one of my public services.

I encourage people to read, think, and formulate arguments.

Everybody can see what you're encouraging people to do and this exchange.

That's why I always win.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

There is no merit to any of that, you're just saying you have a high opinion of yourself and your noble efforts.

Winning is just how losers feel better about themselves. Winning is gold leafs for crying babies.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

People can figure it out for themselves by reading your comments, whether there's any merit to your hysteria.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

I plainly stated I wasn't offering solutions to anything. Any merit found is value added by the reader. You found enough merit to falsify claims of winners and losers, so it looks like I'm the rock you build your winning lifestyle upon, but I wouldn't call that winning.

Which zen master puts their stock in economic frameworks?