(Untitled)

[pock_marked]

Because Jody doesn't like un-updated journals, so, like jemma before me, here is some good old journal bashing.

First of all, we have a totally awesome excerpt from the book i'm reading. This is what you've all been waiting for, i can tell. And Yes, it features Peter Singer tearing the shit out of Adam Smith and his 200-year-old-piece-of-shit

Comments

[the_van_dyck]

Hold a tic, Singer was agreeing with Smith's assertion- but his attack on the conclusion doesn't really follow on logically. Adam Smith believed that the free market was a necessity for societal progress which was stunted by Mercantilism.
Smith was a philosopher as well as an Economist, and like a lot of philosophers his work has been wildly misinterpreted.Without The Theory of Moral Sentiments he can seem like a heartless bastard.Still, Peter Singer is a clever man with many important things to say.

[februaryone]

yeah, important things to say about KILLING BABIES!!

[pock_marked]

you can't talk tait - i've seen you down at the discothèque laughing it up with your chums at dead baby jokes. For shame.

[the_van_dyck]

I'm fine with baby killing.Death is a superior condition to unending suffering.

[pock_marked]

i agree with you 100% on that one, though, i've often wondered, since none of us actually have actually died, can we really assume death is a superior condition to unending suffering? what if death is actually like that pit of needles from saw II?

[the_van_dyck]

Well it's a good question, but it doesn't really count for anything. Assuming the after-life is a realm of perpetual suffering, then one would obviously want to avoid this place for as long as possible.However, since there is no way of determining the conditions of entry of such a place, it's condition or even if it exists then it is reasonable to assume that a life of suffering could then lead to an afterlife of suffering. In this instance, death is marginally preferrable.

It's a morbid twist on Pascal's wager, and as Einstein said 'the man upstairs doesn't play dice', so it's best just to bash their head on a rock and hope for the best.

[pock_marked]

hmm... now can you give the marxist analysis on how much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?