You’re the guy who lives in California and the value of your property has increased so that you are effectively a millionaire. Correct?
People have hobbies and activities outside of working for a company. You seem to completely link the company, work and your value.
And you want more of that kind of relationship rather than less. 
I’ve worked for companies, so has my wife and so have my kids. My daughter signed a contract that says she can’t even say that she works for the company on Facebook. So what?
I once refused to sign a contract with a non-competition clause … I got hired anyways.
Don’t pretend that you have some secret knowledge about capitalism. :-"
My brother-in-law worked for 30 years for the same company. My father worked for about 25 years for a government agency.
So what?
My father also worked in a communist country. Yeah, that’s where they really control your life. 
K: The company does track what you do on your off time,
for example, people have been fired for writing up bad things about the company on social media…
and if you are arrested on your off time for DUI, the company can fire you… anything done
on off hours can and will damage your standing with the company…The company does care because those actions might, MIGHT, effect the only thing they care about which is profits and anything that might damage profits are investigated and personal actions done on personal time are
considered fireable offences…Which is why cases like this are always in the courts…
P: And you want more of that kind of relationship rather than less.
K: actually I want less…far less…
K: and if you worked for a company, you would know better…
P: I’ve worked for companies, so has my wife and so have my kids. My daughter signed a contract that says she can’t even say that she works for the company on Facebook. So what?
I once refused to sign a contract with a non-competition clause … I got hired anyways.
K: so companies do keep track of one outside of the company…You said a company
paid no attention to workers as long as they showed up for work…?
P:Don’t pretend that you have some secret knowledge about capitalism. :-"
[/quote]
K: secret, not so much but apparently more knowledge than you…
Kropotkin
I watch an interesting documentary the other day where the essential point
was, a scientist decided to try to understand what would happen if the speed of light
was not a constant…That has been the one absolute one could count on in the
universe, a constant, absolute speed of light… His thesis is that in the early days of
the universe, the speed of light was greater than it is now… it has slowed down since
the big bang…one of the problems that scientist have is the universe is going faster
now then it was after the big bang… In fact, for a long time the speed of the universe
expansion was stable and for some unknown reason, the universe speeded up…
How does one explain this? How do we have a stable universe with set speeds suddenly
speed up? And how does this slowing of the speed of light factor into this speeding up
of the universe? I am interested in the fact that we get a great deal of new information
if we simply not accept one given aspect of the universe… What if we do like the one
scientist did and not accept one facet of our given universe…
What if the purpose of the human existence is not, IS NOT, to find happiness…
what if we are wrong about that… That changes just about everything…
if our existence is not about finding happiness, then what is our existence about?
or to change the nature of the question… What should we focus our vision on?
What should we be focusing on? We have an intellect and what should that intellect
be focused on? If we no longer pursue happiness, then what should we pursue?
I believe the answer is where should we go next? what is next for us as humans and
as a society and civilization… What should the human goal be and what should the
society goal be?
Kropotkin
I have thought about this before but have you noticed that physics including
Einstein’s papers on relativity is about motion… The way the solar systems moves,
the way we track motion in the universe… the papers Einstein wrote about relativity
was all about motion and nothing else… the Special theory of relativity was about
the movement of two things whereas the regular paper was about the motion of
one thing relative to an unmoving thing… The whole theory of relativity was
about the motion of objects… and from this we have created our entire modern
age…from a theory of motion…think of what would happen if we actually created
a theory about something more than just motion and what the effects of that would be…
so why haven’t we?
Kropotkin
Actually I wrote this :
Let me explain it to you since you misinterpreted it.
If a company does NOT value you, then you are freer than if a company does value you. The ideal relationship is a sale of your labor to the company for an agreed monetary amount.
The company’s interest in you, beyond that, is intrusive.
You specifically said that you want a company to value you. What do you think that means?
You want a company that loves you and cares about you deeply. It must be involved in your life, otherwise how would it show that it values you?
As a wee young lad, I would ask my mother, why is the sky blue?
and why is there rain? where do babies come from? this is of course
asking, where do I come from? and all those children over the centuries
who have asked all those questions the parents don’t have answers to…
and in the footsteps of my younger self, I still ask questions…
Who are we and where are we going? What is the meaning of life?
Is there another way to do things, like work and politics and living?
We often thinks that things like work and a political system are
just human constructs…they are not fixed, concrete, absolute
entities…What we see in such things as ideologies like capitalism,
is they are just a patchwork of human inventions which are cobbled
together into a creaky system…ideologies function as systems
like the solar system…what we see as a system like the solar system
is a cobbled together system over billions of years…the system we see
today exists because it was on some level stable and that allowed it existence.
without this stability, system don’t last long… everything we see today is
a system, our bodies, our planet, the animals existing on, in and over the earth
all exist because they contribute, are a part of the stability of the system in
which they inhabit…If you fail to understand that system must be
stable or they don’t last very long, you don’t understand systems…
Capitalism as a system isn’t very stable and thus won’t last long…
any system that is unstable won’t last long…for example, compare two
systems, the Greeks and the Egyptians… the Egyptians system lasted for
3000 years, the Greeks as in ancient Greece lasted for roughly 200 years.
the Greek system was inherently unstable and failed, the Egyptian system
was stable and lasted longer than almost any system we have ever seen…
One of the reasons the Greek system failed was the class warfare that
existed in Greece… this class warfare was driven in part by the income
inequality that existed in Greece…Rome suffered also under this class
warfare issue also driven in part by income inequality… So we can compare
these two systems with our own system and see we are going down the path
of class warfare driven in part by income equality…So we can compare,
contrast, connect different aspect of our lives and see how we stand
in comparison to other systems, political and otherwise…So
we have a couple of different techniques to understand our
current situation…asking questions and comparing and contrasting
different situations…
What other methods exist for us to understand our current situation?
Kropotkin
Went in my annual physical exam and wow, I didn’t know
you could flunk these things… The Dr. wants me to change everything
including my name because my blood work was really bad in just
about every way…
complete and total changes in my lifestyle in every aspect, she says…
so here I am, 57 and having to completely change every aspect of my life including
eating… Now I like to eat crap…which is why I am in this mess…
but a complete overhaul of my life?
This presents another aspect of life which is we here at ILP don’t put
any emphasis on, which is to say we have the philosophical side and we
have the spiritual side and then we have the physical side…
I am talking about the physical side here that we at ILP don’t
put any emphasis on…
different people put different emphasis on different things…
and they don’t always list things as I have the philosophical, the spiritual
and the physical… there are other ways to address this and people can
certainly disagree with my list and create their own list…
As I have made clear in past post, I disagree with those who put the
spiritual first… I am greater than just a soul waiting to enter heaven…
Even though I was an athlete for many years, I still put philosophical
ahead of the physical but now, today, I must actually think about the
physical side. As I was always in relatively good health,
(yes, I’ve had several major surgeries, but still considered myself in good health)
but today, I must put emphasis on my physical health whereas I have taken
my health for granted for all these years because of my athletic background.
So in addition to me having to change my life, I must change my
thinking as in regards to my priorities, be it philosophical or spiritual
or physical… I must take into account the physical now whereas I never
really had to do that before…can I eat this or when can I eat has
never really crossed my mind before, I simply ate when and what I wanted
to whenever I wanted to and now that must change… I must take
into account the physical with every decision… I have never done that
before…I have already begun making dietary decisions and changes
but I don’t want them to become, the end all be all…
I want to keep the philosophical as my main priority but
given these new circumstances, I must now take into account the
physical and it is dam inconvenient…
And once again, I am making changes to who I am and what I believe in based
on new evidence… and this I believe to be of paramount importance…
we must adapt to any changes in our selves or our environment.
my situation has change and I must adapt or die… pretty simple…
but we need to be mindful of the fact that we as humans must also
learn to adapt or we will die… We must become aware of
who we are and what the environment is demanding us to do…
I am the human race writ small and I am an example of
what we humans must do, which is change and adapt to
changing conditions be it outside of ourselves or insides of us…
We must be aware of changes that come from our environment
such as changes in our systems such as capitalism and political and
economic changes that have occurred or will occur. We must note
and pay attention to what happens to the world in order to
begin any changes we must make to adapt to the changing conditions
in the world…we cannot become zombies in a movie of our own
making and not be aware of the world at large… I for one am guilty of this,
being so involved in myself, I forget the world and how I must pay attention
to the world in order to change and adapt to the any changes in the world…
in the end, in is not who we are but who we can change into that will
make all the difference in the world…
Kropotkin
Are you afraid of the process leading up to our eventual death?
K: not at all… Its not like we have a choice in the matter and so I bow to the process
and know I cannot change or defeat the process, but the matter at hand is what
happens during the process… I cannot in any way, shape or form change what will happen,
I must accept what will happen and that is fine, it is the details getting to the end
that matter… or said another way, I will die and I cannot change that, but I can
control what I think about death and its coming for me in a couple of… decades,
I can control what I think about life and death and that is what is at stake here,
not death but what I think of and about death…I can mourn and wail and say,
woe unto me, but I can also just be matter of fact about it and I can also take it
as a learning experience. Nietzsche once said, everything experience is a learning
experience and so I take this as a learning experience, but as I said, my death
though a certainty, will also not come for many, many years and if it comes sooner,
I have no control over that, so I don’t worry about it…
Kropotkin
Of course you have control over it. You can continue eating junk food and, if your doctor is correct, that will bring a sooner death than if you stop eating junk food.
You are making a decision about your death and the nature of your life leading up to death.
After thinking of something to say,
I know no matter what I say,
its all been said before and I suspect
its been said better
I recall in my youth
people would tell me things that they
said I wouldn’t understand until I got to their age
and now I understand what they said and why…
We hear things all our lives and sometimes
those things don’t matter until we reach the right age.
words of wisdom aren’t often appreciated until we reach
the age to understand those words.
wisdom is really nothing more than being able
to see the consequences of actions taken…
I am wise only because I can see the consequences…
the reason we each have to fail on our own
is to learn the consequences on our own…
and what is the truth?
the measure of our consequences during actions taken…
Kropotkin
Athens vs Jerusalem:
We, all of us, is searching for the truth and how do we search?
We have two methods, they have been shorthanded to be
called Athens and the other method is Jerusalem…
Athens is rational thought, logic
Jerusalem is via revelation by some source outside of ourselves…
If the “Truth” is discovered by science or philosophy, it is Athens
if the “Truth” is brought to our attention by god or a holy book, it is Jerusalem…
Now some great minds have thought about this problem, between
thought and revelation…One of those great minds was
Leo Strauss… He believed that Christianity was a synthesis between
Athens and Jerusalem…Having the best of both worlds,
the revelations of god and the rational thought of Christianity as
shown by Augustine and Aquinas…
This whole argument can be about one thing if you wish,
The law (which is Jerusalem’s contribution) and who creates the
law, man or god? This is the great difference between Islam and
the west… Islam believes the law we must obey is gods and the
west believes in laws by man…(so even the great conflict
of our age, follows this script of Athens vs Jerusalem)
Now I have argued my case which is for Athens and against
Jerusalem…The case revolves around which laws we are going
to obey… I have argued that we should obey Man’s law because
it is flexible and adaptable, so when we have environmental changes
we can adapt to the new changes via laws…I also have argued
against obey God’s law for a simple reason, which god’s law do we obey?
There is another argument for Man’s law and it is once again simple,
We have had many, many religions which no longer have any
impact upon us, such as the Greek Religions and the Roman religions
and the Egyptian Religions… At one time, these religions dominated
the world and had millions of followers and today? They are museum
curiosities. How can we follow the laws of revelation when
those very revelations can ceased to have any effect on us, like
the Egyptian religion.
Now there are those who claim that those who
followers of Athens have no morality, no sense of what is
moral and immoral. I say we have a morality, it is based
on what is best for a majority of people and not on revelation…
and that is the attraction of religions, they offer us clear and
precise morality… Thou shall not kill… Pretty clear and concise
morality but thou shall not kill is really situational ethics, because
we do allow killing done in our name… Police and the military do it
all the time and we reward them with medals and glory… Thou shall not
kill is really, thou shall not kill unless it is convenient for us…
It is situational ethics which is exactly what I have…
So the great divide between Athens and Jerusalem, morality, is
really not the great divide…
I have often brought up the argument of income inequality,
in which very few own the vast majority of wealth in the country
and the world… Billions are in conditions of starvation and lack
of resources and a lucky few have all the resources available to them…
How is this fair or decent or show equality?
It isn’t, which is a moral argument, we argue against
income inequality on a moral stance and those who argue
against income inequality argue on some pretend moral values,
which really negates revelation as they practice it in other
instances…This switch is common because morality must
be based on something, be it Athens or Jerusalem!!!
Strauss is correct in thinking there is a synthesis between
Athens and Jerusalem but it is not Christianity because in the
end Christianity is faith based and that is Jerusalem…
WE must create a synthesis between Athens and Jerusalem
and that is the question of our time…
Kropotkin
Yesterday I began the discussion about Athens and Jerusalem.
Strauss put the blame for the decline of western civilization
on philosophy and on Nietzsche in particular…
Strauss blamed N. for what he called, relativism, godlessness,
nihilism and the breakdown of family values…
Strauss also blame our woes on the lack of connection to the
classics of Greece and Rome…
(I like to think of Strauss as an angry white guy)Anyway,
I have also tried to understand those idea’s of relativism and nihilism
and godlessness and the breakdown of family values…
Nihilism for example, I have pointed to corporate America as
being the main conveyer of nihilism in America and the world…
Relativism comes from the loss of belief in ideologies and ism’s
that used to hold our souls…
So I believe that Strauss has chosen one reason for our many woes
and in reality, there are several reasons for this rise of these issues…
For example, family values… Feel free to describe family values
and which family values are exclusive to say, America? The idea of family
values sounds nice until you actually begin to look into what family values
are and it makes less and less sense…
So the Strauss argument actually makes less sense then it seems
because of his failure to describe and understand those forces which
he claims is being destroyed…Nihilism, the death of family values,
relativism, godlessness and the other problem Strauss runs into is this…
are these values actually values we want? what is the problem with being
a society of relativism or being godless or this so called loss of family values?
He doesn’t make an argument that these are values we should have or not have…
it is assumed as most angry white guys just assumed the values they are either attacking
or defending are values they even understand…Strauss in fact makes several assumptions
about N. and values and what society has or doesn’t have in regards to values…
what values are we talking about when we talk about society values?
Kropotkin
while on Wiki, found out today is the anniversary of the death of
Nietzsche… Interesting…
Kropotkin
we have another idea which has also been around
philosophy for centuries and that is finite and infinite.
The Greeks played with this idea.
and we have Athens vs Jerusalem…
So to connect the finite and infinite with Athens
and Jerusalem…
I see the finite going with Athens and the infinite going
with Jerusalem…
Athens is about rational thought leading to the “truth”
and thus the finite is what Athens is about…
We don’t have metaphysical thinking in Athens but we
have finite thinking about the material world.
We have Jerusalem where we have belief in a revelation
which is metaphysics and thus about the infinite…
Metaphysics is “beyond the physical” thinking.
In looking at history…the Enlightenment is all about Athens
and the Medieval period is all about Jerusalem…
Rome began as Athens and ended as Jerusalem…
The scientific method is all about Athens…
The question becomes what kind of truths are you searching for?
If you are searching for hope, you have no needs of Athens for
it doesn’t offer values like hope… Rational, logical thinking
is not about those values… If you’re searching for meaning,
what is the meaning of life? Jerusalem is the placed for an
answer…
If you are searching for the smaller, finite answers,
Athens is the place for you…
Kropotkin
in reading a biography of Augustine, I came across this
passage:
…"So much of him (Augustine)plainly did not belong to this
oasis of purity: the tension of his own passions, his rage, his sexuality,
his corrupt body, the vast, pullulating world of “nature red in tooth and claw
outside of him”
this is talking about the how humans are sinful and what is the cost
of sin. This type of thinking is Jerusalem… The corrupt body is a direct
point to sin and yet, and yet the idea that we are sinful leaves us
with the thought that we humans are about this “sin” and guilty of
something because of some alleged disobedience to god centuries ago…
why do we do this to ourselves? We are not guilty of anything unless its
of our making and we are not about the sin but about discovering
the truth of who we are and that ain’t about sin or guilt…
Kropotkin
and a couple of pages later comes this…
…“I very much preferred to excuse myself (in sinning)and
accuse some other that was in me, but was not I. But in truth,
I was a complete whole: it was my impiety that divided me against
myself”…
The mistake Augustine makes is the “sinning” is what makes him
whole and human… this pursuit of some alleged perfection is
what takes us wrong… We should accept who we are in all aspects
including that which is “bad” about us… We sometimes are mean,
nasty, sexual, violent, gross human beings but that is what makes us
human…to deny that which offends us is to deny our human nature.
we are the best and worst of what is possible for a human being
and the path to becoming who we are is to accept both the best
and worst of who we are… with that said, we should act
with the best of who we are instead of the worst we are for
the simple reason, that we are just custodians of planet earth
and with that, we must leave earth in better shape for our descendants
and the path for that is to make ourselves better for them…
It is not about us (it rarely is about us) but about those who come
after us…and being better people leave the earth in better shape…
Kropotkin
This idea of a spiritual battle, a war between the good side of us and
the evil, bad side of us, is old, as old as the human race and yet it is
based on a spiritual idea of something beyond us, something metaphysical,
which isn’t proven… If it can be shown that there is a god or some higher
power, this spiritual battle may be shown to be correct, but it is only us…
and we must make our stand on us and who we are, not some metaphysical
stance. if we rise above this dualism and accept the idea that there is
only us and we are good and evil, actions that may be called good and evil.
if we are mean and violent and silly and loving and hopeful and it is all the
same side of us, not good and evil, just human and so we rise above good and evil.
By accepting who we are, good and evil, we begin remove some of our so called
moral issues and pretend battles of our modern age…It is not longer
about being good or evil, it is about being human and accepting that
and moving along to the next step of our evolution to be human…
Kropotkin