throwawayacc2

Reading the comments, one argument I keep seeing in different form is essentially “corporations/the west are hollowing out/perverting/distorting/using only some parts of buddhist teachings, and this is bad”.

Why? Why is modifying an idea, even by twisting it to be the very opposite of it’s “original meaning” ( I don’t believe that exists, everything is a modified version of something else) an intrinsically bad thing?

If it’s not, what’s the problem with corporations twisting buddhism to suit their needs?

> If one population is able to profit off of communicating the cultural practices of others who are not able to access the same opportunities, would you agree that could be called "appropriation"?

No. Let me answer your second question first before formulating the answer.

> If not, what should it be called?

Getting lucky

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So, I don’t understand how “Buddhism isn't owned by any one people or place” can go together with “communicating the cultural practices of others”. Is buddhism “owned” by a people or not?

I am going to assume the answer is no. This transforms your statement into:

If one population is able to profit off of communicating an idea and another population is not able to access the same opportunity, would you agree that could be called "appropriation"

Certainly you can see now why no, it is not “appropriation”. Some people have an opportunity to do something, others do not. The conversation on access to opportunities is a separate topic.

Hence the answer to the second question. The first population got lucky.

Fair enough. But, something has cough my attention.

> we are almost certainly speaking from completely different ontological perspectives

Do you consider me ontologically evil? Am I, as some people on the internet often refer to those with my sense of mortality, “a demon wearing human flash”?

No, the point was to provide an example of a cultural artefact being stripped of meaning and most people not being particularly affected by it in a negative way.

In fact, in the example, I would think most people are in agreement destroying the cultural artefact of absolute monarchy and wearing it’s hollow trappings as marketing props to boost the tourism industry is a good thing.

I genuinely don’t understand this obsession with “preserving the original meaning”. As if it actually exists, it does not, everything is a perversion of everything else. Even assuming there was some “original meaning”, why would hollowing it out, or twisting it into the very opposite matter in any way? It’s just another mutated idea in the long line of mutated ideas that make up human thought.

Except we do have control over it, if we didn't people wouldn't be complaining so loudly about being shunned for the sinful and heretical crap that comes out of their mouths.

A puritan explaining the importance of enforcing moral cohesion - cca 1750

> Am I correct, then, in thinking your response to people currently harmed by social structures they have no choice in interacting with is, basically, "I agree that this sucks, but I don't support changing anything to fix it."?

I don’t know about the guy you’re asking but the way I would tackle this question is, first by point out in some cases the “harm” is only perceived.

To give you an example of this, a claim often made is “trans kids are being harmed due to lack of access to hormones/surgery”. I find this revolting. I would consider, for this example at least, the current system is doing good in protecting them, certainly it is not harming them.

For me and many people, changing this would mean creating a social structure that is harmful.

What will happen if the system is now changed to allow children to take hormones but in a few decades this will be broadly considered a harmful social structure?

Another point I would bring up is, there are various ways problems can be addressed. Asking for change begs the question what change precisely? It is very possible agreement on the existence of the problem can be reached while the solution remains contentious.

A more accurate description of reality would be I think “Some problems exist and some problems are nothing more than attempts at getting power, privilege or attention. And while the problems that are generally agreed upon to exist should be fixed, the solution is often unclear and the proposals open up their own set of problems”

What you describing doesn’t sound fundamentalist to me.

I was referring more to the sort of people who, for example, see homosexuals having gay pride and start worrying it’s the end times and they must cleanse the world through adherence to their religion or something like that.

Let me re-write the comment I was responding as a fundamentalist would write it.

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Only sinners and heathens are able to "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness."

Because that's what it takes to ignore abusive levels of homosexuality and systemic threats to the continued survival of the church.

The point is not about what happened in the past, it's about what is still happening now - and how the narratives from the past continue to be used to justify it.

Ignoring this is neither compassionate nor realistic - although it is heretical, pretty much by definition.

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I am 100% percent convinced that there are fundamentalist christians or islamists or whatever who would read that re-written comment as go “oh yeah, that makes complete sense”.

> It's destroying them by removing the meaning from them. And then repackaging the symbols - usually with a vague implication of profundity and exoticism - as a marketable commodity.

Sort of like the monarchies of Europe have been turned into republics in all but name, the culture of “divine right of kings” destroyed but the trappings of monarchy are still used but devoid of meaning. And often used as marketing material.

But, surely you don’t yearn for the return of absolute monarchies ruled by gods appointed ruler, do you?

This is the path of humanity. Some things die off, some things survive and some are transformed beyond all recognition. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad in this. It simply is a phenomenon that happens.

> Only narcissists and not very aware people are able to "enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness."

I do not believe myself to be a narcissist and I think I am at least somewhat aware of the world and it’s problems.

Yet, despite this, I do “ enjoy the world as it is, in all its messiness”.

I think what is preventing you from doing the same is ideology and close mindedness. From the comment, you come across like a fundamentalist christian refusing to enjoy life because “the world is sinful”.

Enjoy life man. Since we’re on the article, take a page from the Buddhist philosophy and let go, for a moment at least :)

> Terms like "cultural appropriation" and "privilege" or "systematic racism" or "toxic masculinity", may have some technically useful meanings to anthropologists, but within the public sphere they function only as a combined virtue signal and rhetorical weapon.

This is so true. It’s a very beautifully expressed feeling I had trouble articulating before. Thank you for putting it into words like this.

It’s also ridiculous to me there is a push to “teach” these concepts to kids when it’s fairly obvious they’ll just abstract them away to something stupid like “man bad” or “white people bad”. I feel like it’s sort of like trying to explain to kids with no CS experience some nuanced tradeoff like, I don’t know, the CAP theorem for example. They’ll probably understand that if you go with AP instead of CP you risk losing data and that’s bad so now we always use CP. All they’ll be left of with is “AP bad, CP good”.

The exact same thing can be said about anything. Judaism appropriated pre existing ideas and disrespected them by insisting on a single god. Christianity appropriated judaism and disrespected it by removing covenant practices such as circumcision and adding new ideas such as the kingdom of heaven being available to anyone not just “the chosen people”. Islam appropriated christianity and disrespected it by demoting Jesus from the son of god to a mere prophet.

This is how ideas work. And it’s not just religion. Think of left wing thought. The original communist ideology was revolutionary. Social democrats appropriated ideas from them but believe working within the system. Many hard left people despise social democrats and believe they do more harm than good.

I stopped reading upon seeing at the very stop this “ Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism”

I was very curious about the article. I am wondering if it treats ideas such as “hire fast fire fast” - In a way a concept related to the Buddhist ideas of detachment, or the opposite, “bing your whole self to work” which in a way seems contradictory - you have attachments, continue to have them even at work.

But it is a genuinely off putting sensation to see someone referring to cultural exchanges and transformations as “appropriation”. Adopting and transforming ideas is the bedrock of humanity. Opposing or denigrating this seems like a fundamentally evil thing to do. It feels anti human.

Grug no read good but grug fink is good advice here

There is no such thing as overpaid, by definition. You are paid as much as you are paid.

The only time you are “overpaid” is when the payments department makes and error and wires more money to your account than your contract entails you too.

Baring that corner case you are paid whatever amount you negotiated. If the employer feels like they’re not getting a good deal, they’re welcome to seek recourse within in confines of the law.

It depends on what point in your life you are. I was at one point single and fully committed to work. I worked sometimes even 12 hours per day, every day, pulling in weekends too and I had a payoff for that. I’m single now too, but I’m not doing that. I’m focusing on dating. Different people, at different times have different priorities. It’s not any one individual thing that’s bad, it’s elevating one above the rest.

That’s some bleeding heart liberal commie bs. I make my employees bend the space time continuum to work more than 168 hours per week! <serveral bicep, rocket and fire emojis here>

I don’t think you realise how calories can sip in unnoticed and calorie burning as well.

So, I’m fat. All my life I’ve been yoyo-ing in terms of weight. Sometimes methodically sometimes by the ear.

A few years back, I went from 130kg to 85kg methodically. Calorie counting, watching macros, targeted exercises, all the good stuff.

What I found out was, if I didn’t diet and just logged my calories, I was consuming 4000 sometimes even 5000 calories per day easily. And it didn’t feel like I was eating much.

Full English for breakfast, that’s about 1k right there. One or two lates, another 300-400 calories. Maybe pair that with a little pastry, another 300 on top of that. Lunch, burger and fries, big coke to drink, toss in another k. After work a couple of pins with the lads, another 300-400. Get back, have dinner, maybe snack something while falling asleep to Netflix, another 1k easy. Don’t get me started on getting pissed with 7-8 pints and then devouring 3 big macs like it’s nothing.

I also found out I’m burning far more calories then I was expecting for my sedentary lifestyle. Just the walk to work, climbing some stairs, moving around the office, going to lunch, doing some house chores put me in close to 1k burned. Without feeling like I was making any effort.

In my case, 4k input with 1k output still yields 3k which is 1k over what I should have.

It is very possible in your case your input is 3k, your output 1k so your staying exactly as you are.

Count your calories, wear a apple watch and you’ll find out precisely.

Yes, I am aware. Why are you asking?

You don’t need to post articles, or, well, not to me at least. I didn’t go to the link. I won’t either. It doesn’t matter what it says.

What matters is it’s a vox article. Sending a vox article is like quoting a bible verse. I’m sure it is very meaningful to you. But to many other americans, it simply is not.

On the other side, if someone posted some right wing newspaper, it would be like them quoting the quoran at you. Surely it’s deeply meaningful to them, but, how can the quoran be true? The bible is true! They are stupid and their heads are filled with lies!

And they think exactly the same about you. You are the stupid one with the head filled with lies.

I’m sure you are convinced you are actually in fact right. You have “science” or “statistics” or “reputable journalists” on your side.

There are a million ways to convince one’s self of something. They are just as convinced as you.

As for your question

> What else would you have us do with them?

Work towards a peaceful breakup of the united states, based not on geography but on moral outlook.

It won’t happen though. So, I guess the tit for tat will continue and escalate until it gets to guns and worse.

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PS: When I wrote that I’m sure you are convinced you are right, the article spam was precisely the kind of thing I was trying to preempt. I’m sure all those articles support your point of view. I have no doubt. “The others” articles, they support their point of view.

Let me propose an experiment. For a whole week, do not consume your regular media diet and instead consume “the others”. Walk a mile in their mocassins as it were. Take it as an exercise in empathy.

For what is worth, I think you are making a correct observation.

Another correct observation would be this. Aimed at the people saying this is breaking with precedent and it’s settled law that shouldn’t be changed.

The prohibition, which was written into the constitution, was repealed.

Nothing is set in stone.

The tit for tat exists because there is nothing left binding your country together.

Do you not see there are now people with complete, diametrically opposed views on morality in your country?

The exact same thing, one person will look at it and see murder and another see nothing wrong. One will see transexuals in kindergarten and say “how brave” other will see a nightmare horror. One looks at your very government and sees either the far left or the far right.

Do you not see there is no such thing as the american people now?

Why do you keep pretending you are a country when you are clearly not. Why do you want to live with the other in the same country? Why do you want to force them to live with you?

I think this fundamental difference in morality is why your country will fall apart.

> It is strange to me that people perfectly aligned to the attack lines of corrupt politicians (in your case, the Republican flavour) bother pretending even to themselves that it is the corruption that really bothers them.

This is probably the most tribal thing I ever read here on hn.

So, I’m European, not American. I genuinely don’t care about your politics. My only interaction with it is news titles I inevitably run into. But I don’t have to be American, or Republican to notice your politicians ( and mine for that matter ) are deeply corrupt. From both sides. I think republicans are just as corrupt as democrats. I think Trump is just as corrupt as Biden as Clinton. I think they are all in it for themselves and will gladly sell their influence to the higher bidder, which is usually corporate interests.

And, yeah, I actually wish things were different. But they’re not. So all I’m left with is to point out how ridiculous people like themitigating are.

Some of it is from friends. I lost count of how many mates I signed up to gay porn sites, nazi news letters and furry forums. And they did the same to me. It’s fun messing with friends.

If the agent doesn’t sell that stock, can it be proven that he is actually an agent?

Is this scenario something that can happen, or am I missing something?

An agent of Elons buys 15% of the stock triggering the poison pill.

The agent declares publicly he is not an agent, has no intention of selling the stock to Elon, has no business with him, etc - Essentially avoiding being lumped with Elon in the same group.

Does Elon now get to buy 85% of Twitter at a discount?

> All my left-wing woke friends > All my alt/center-right/libertarian friends

The woke mob would destroy him if he said something as taboo as “my alt right friends”. The mental censorship is so strong he can’t say it even for the sake of the example. But trust us, there’s actually no institutional bias!

> In this case, the government denies you a platform to spread particular beliefs.

Is this something you believe to be a good thing?

> or to deny the Holocaust

Purely out of curiosity, what do you think about government mandated beliefs?

> The notion that all speech should be allowed actually seems stupid to me on its face, the more that I consider it.

The logical conclusion of this is speech should be regulated. And if speech is regulated, the next question is by whom? Good luck trying to get people to agree on this and even more good luck having this not be abused by those in charge.

What you will end up with is a dictatorship like China and Russia.