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MindChamber
"If reality is dependent on what each person perceives it to be,Then reality as a collective does not exist."~MindChamber
"Do not be defined by your conditioning, Otherwise the rest of the world will define your path."~IntraFace

Vector Life Giver

School Of Visual Arts

Allentown PA

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Could Greed be considered a disease?

Posted by MindChamber - August 13th, 2007


Was Talking to an artist at the Con, and he has a chance to make it big with his Property.
A property he has loved and nurtured for years and years. I congratulated this Person and inquired about who would handle their property. When this person stated a certain individual that was also known for bastardizing properties,I gave this artist a warning. They might destroy your property.
The artist smiled and stated that the individual, knows how to "Bring in the money, so they can do pretty much what they want."

I found that pretty shocking as I consider characters I create as my kin, and would never release power over them to anyone else,but thats me. I'm not hot on money nor am I particularly greedy.

Which had me thinking about the subject of Greed in general........

Now that being overweight has been categorized as the disease, obesity. I started to wonder.
Why couldn't greed be categorized as a disease as well? A mental disorder that controls a person's conscience? We could call it. A.S.S. (Altruism Suppression Syndrome)
Haha, That dude has ASS!!
or maybe Pleonexia, which is a greek term for greed that already has a nice disease-y ring to it.

By now all of you know the conspiracy theories. Revolving around, well.. everything:
9-11, New World Order, Sex trade, Drug Trade. Human Trade,. Drug Companies, Oil Companies. Secret Governments. Green House effect. Secret Bank Institutions. I mean yeah.. The list goes on and on.

You see it works like Small Fish getting swallowed by the bigger one in a pond. Then getting swallowing another, till theres one fish.

One thing I never got, was the One World Order stuff, in association with the greenhouse effect.

Like. Why start Wars, take over countries, Destroy lands and people, for the Sake of Total Unified Dominance. Yet.. Throw it all away by screwing up the planet and its resources?

Does that Make ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER? Could these people really be this short sided and greedy?

I say to myself, noway. Makes no sense, if the planet implodes, then theres no money or land to reap from. So I was thinking, maybe theres something more?

Maybe... just maybe. they are trying to unify the planet because theres some unknown counsel of planets that we aren't allowed to be a part of because we still fight for dominance amongst ourselves. Maybe once we are part of this awesome council our new galactic partners will come down and fix everything once and for all? WHooo? SO maybe all this pain, and wars, and heat and horror is all for a better good?

Or maybe not.

I heard this story about this Old lady who used to borrow books from a local library and return them late. This Lady is a very famous widow of a Very famous general. Who also knew the president at the time. She lives in basically a Mansion, and her Husband's pension is enough to sustain her, and 40 families.
Yet, here she is, trying to duck a 25 cent late charge. She goes so far as to sneak the book back on the shelf, Claim she had returned it, and that it was the incompetence of the workers for not checking it in. She Does this knowing FULL well that, the worker she is accusing could lose her Job, and public libraries are already badly supported free establishments by the government. She KNOWS this, and yet easily risks, the welfare of an underpaid government employee, for the sake, of keeping her 25cents.

That, people is not simply a 'vice', thats a disease.

Could Greed be considered a disease?


Comments

mind chamber..i love the fact that you ran about crap. i like to rant about political crap like this too XD
you make a very good point, by the way.

thats whats blogs are for, to get crap out of your system

I can see where your coming from but, I disagree how greed should be a disease. Deep down all men and women are greedy. No matter how much they have already. It's just basic instincts that's all. Every person has a natural instinct to want more and more.

As for an alien council that has the power to save our planet but won't because they deem us unworthy as we do nothing but fight amoungst ourselfves and 'cause more and more destruction to our own homes. I agree. I'm a believer of aliens and U.F.O.s, I've always been a sucker for the documentaries and events about them. One event that still stricks me is that one when they had a large pole that was magnetised and when it snapped and fell back to earth hundreds of disked shaped objects were drawn to it. NASA claimed they were nothing but space debree. However why were they all the exact same shape and size then?

Anyway back to greed. Yeah basically, to claim something that exist in every mind as a disease it would be claiming that everyone in the world is mentally ill. Which itself is a possibility but, still hard to believe.

Well, everyone has fat cells in their body , but not everyone is Obese. and yet that is a disease.

Everyone has a right for self preservation, and there always should be a healthy level of self interest, otherwise you wouldn't better yourself.

But if you are a multibillionaire , and you stage a big battle that will kill 1000s of innocent people, all for the sake of reaping more money that you don't need. Wouldn't that be grounds for mental instability?

Nice essay... Good job.

So basically the artist said take my characters and shit all over them eh?
Got me f'ked up.

But yeah, I've been called greedy before. Have to manage family owned apartments. But lots of the f'kers don't wanna pay rent. They want to stay there for free and leech of us. Now it won't kill us if a few of them miss some payments sometimes.. but it's a business... business is business pay of gtfo.. right? We have bills to pay too. Why let this guy stay here when someone willing to pay wants to move in.

Actually having said that, when you think about it some of the greedy people help make the world more convenient but it's true that others others f'k it up. Depends on how extreme it goes before branding it as a disease I guess..

I'd rather go to Walmart to get food, gas, all kinds of shit all in one place than go to individual places everywhere XD.

About the planets resources.. it's eventually going to run out anyways, esp, at this rate -_-; Unified Earth. doubtful... hate to say it.. unless genocide is involved. If there are some other life watching us from above the're probably like "fuck that shit I'm going down there.."

The old lady does have some issues though she really is sick. 25 cents? It makes me sick even.

Well, not to suck up, but I completely agree with everything you just said, people who treat shiny lifeless stones and thin pieces of lifeless paper as if they were a sibling sicken me >:(
Why is gold even valuable in the first place, and also, why did anyone EVER start the money system? It only caused trouble, we should've just stayed with trading at will, you didn't see people getting in gunfights because one person said that they didn't want to trade their crap with someone elses.

Never thought of greed as a disease. I do, however, disagree. I feel that America puts the label of disease on a lot of behaviors that are influenced by our national psychie to justify them. Obesity being a good one. Any disease you give yourself isn't a disease in my opinion. I'm fat and I don't think I'm diseased, I think i eat too much.

Well thought out and interesting though

But if being fat could be labeled a disease, why not something like greed, thats actually is harmful to others?

I can see your point.

Well, think of it this way. Greed is considered a "deadly" sin or something, along with wrath, lust, pride, sloth, envy, and gluttony.

Now, there are of course diseases that CAUSE a person to act on those temptations, such as Tourette Syndrome causing anger/wrath in an individual, or Sexual Compulsion (addiction) causing lust.

On the other side, there are just specific habits in individuals causing them to act on such temptations as well, an example being sloth and gluttony. There are people who just eat because they're bored, miserable, or nervous. Although I don't think this is actually a disease, it's still a negative tendency. In addition, sloth can be acted out by people who are just generally lazy and like to sleep all day (me for example.)

The point of that being those deadly sins aren't diseases, however can be caused by diseases as well as being able to cause diseases.

That being said, let's go back to greed.

Deep down, I believe everyone has a little bit of greed stuck somewhere or has been greedy in their life. It is impossible, unless you're some kind of holy man to have never been greedy at one point. It all stems from the laws of property and ownership.

Although saying someone has A.S.S. would be pretty fucking hilarious.

its a weird subject, i think its got a lot to do with motivation, a lot of people who have gone from rags to riches often don't want to go back to rags again, and they will do everything they can to stop that. obesity i think is different, people start eating for different reasons, but they cant stop eating because they have the wrong state of mind.
as for the one world order thing, i think humans have too many petty things to squabble over, so if you're hoping for alien visitors....its gonna take a while.

wow

I've never understood the thirst for power. Greed for money is all about the power it gives. If you can afford what you want, I would think that would be fine. I don't understand people like the ENRON crooks who are already rich and just want more. Politicians I think are the same way. So few are strong with their beliefs. They just fit what they think will get them elected.

I like the spirit behind your idea, but I don't think it's practical.

Body fat is a concrete thing; we have objective, accurate ways to measure it. Greed is a purely abstract concept. You can point to certain acts and attribute them to greed, but that's always going to be a subjective assessment. How do you objectively measure someone's greed?

Once you can measure someone's greed, how do you determine how much is too much? Then, what do you do about it? Monetary penalties for the morbidly greedy, for instance, will simply encourage them to accumulate even more stuff to make up for the penalty (and maybe even more on top, since they've "paid their debt to society" for being greedy!).

Anorexia is not a concrete thing, how can you measure a fear? How much fear of food do you have to be before its considered Anorexia, I tend to shy away from really greasy foods, does that make me Anorexic? Anorexia isnt concrete, and yet it is a disease. I think someone could be diagnosed with A.S.S. iit would not only be based on the amount of money or power they already have but on the willingness to allow harm to others in the pursuit of obtaining more!

lazyitis is

Interesting point MC ...

Some people may think that greed just affects the person itself but it comes to actions of that greedy bastard when bad stuff happens.

for example ....

Some guy in the fancy expensive wood business gives money to the right ppl so he can go and chop down half the amazonian forest .. affecting everyone living there just to get more RIECH.

btw... i would totally buy ur airplane idea.
Although my dad's a pilot i have that "turbulence+rain+airplane=mayday we are dead" thoughts when i board a plane.

tl;dr.
but seriously... it's just people doing what people do. Which why I have a failing hope in humanity in general.

w3rd... nice picture

it'd be wonderful if the world no longer ran on money

yes, the barter system would rock.

now do u know who i am? and no it cannot unless you want people to make it a disease cause some people can

no i dont know.

ah well

ehh i dunno this sort of reminds me of McBeans spoof on the sharks and not sharks situation. I think part of it is human nature to be very cutthroat and agressive survival of the fittest attitude. On the otherhand its obviously very easily to go from being driven to being overzelous.

Point taken, though if I do actually start hearing you say "that dude has ass", I will be more worried for you than empathetic :(

That told lady sounds like a bitch.

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