Parasitism. Part I

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Some readers disagree with my position on parasitism in rental housing and advertising on the site. They are interested in how I distinguish parasitism from non-parasitism, especially when I argue that it is often (and maybe always) impossible to distinguish one from the other by external signs. Well, let's figure it out.

To begin with, I will explain my position to those who are not in the know. The position on renting real estate of the type “you pay me to let you live in an apartment” is expressed in the video. The position regarding static advertising on the site and the so-called passive income is briefly indicated in the news in the paragraph "Third, …". In fact, this is the same lease of space, but virtual. Renting money (you rent - loans in a bank, you rent - deposits in a bank), renting a tool, a car, and generally paying a permit for something - it's all the same. The readers' questions are quite logical and fair: how to distinguish in which cases a person is a parasite, and in which cases he works and receives an income equivalent to this work? I warn you that many will not like the answer. This is exactly the case when understanding the answer requires the SAME efforts on oneself, which are enough to formulate this answer on your own. Nevertheless, I will try to outline the position that I adhere to in relation to the topic of parasitism in rent (housing, money or advertising space).

Parasitism in the broadest sense is when a person receives more than he gives … From the point of view of the parasite, this definition will never be clear, because he will immediately start asking: “how do you determine how much I take and how much I give, because it almost never can be counted”, and the most violent parasites will make assumptions that “you give more than you get, because then, in principle, I will have nothing left. Yes, from the point of view of everyday logic, such reproach questions seem quite logical.

But let me give as an example a plot from the traffic rules, which for some reason does NOT cause similar questions for the same people. So, p. 14.1. SDA. The driver of a vehicle approaching an unregulated pedestrian crossing is obliged to give way to pedestrians crossing the road or entering the carriageway (tramway tracks) to make the crossing.

Why few people have such a question: “how can I, being in the car, be able to determine that this person entered the carriageway to make the transition, but this one just entered for other purposes. Especially often such situations occur at the most idiotic pedestrian crossings in the world, made right at the stop of route vehicles, when a whole crowd of people stands next to a sign and it seems that they all want to cross the road, especially those who stomp on the roadway, peering: "Is there a bus going?" There are a lot of similar situations, when the pedestrian was not really going to cross, but made ALL the same gestures as the crossing one. But does anyone really strongly resent paragraph 14.1 of the SDA? No, after all, everyone knows perfectly well that no one cares what the pedestrian wanted to do, but if YOU, the driver, did not recognize his intentions, then it is his own fault, and how you will do it - everyone does not care.

It is the same here: no one cares deeply about how you will determine whether you give more to this world than you receive or whether you are a parasite. It doesn't matter if you can determine it correctly or not, the fact is that if you take more, then you are a parasite. So a question like "how to determine …" does not make sense … moreover, I noticed that parasites ALWAYS ask this question, because they KNOW that there is no answer to it that is reliably verified by everyone and UNDERSTAND that with this question they reliably protect his parasitic position from external criticism, while maintaining his emotional comfort.

If someone is not convinced by the example of traffic rules, then take the trouble to find situations in your life when there is NOT something clear, but even a satisfactory criterion for determining the situation, but people still define it correctly in many cases in many cases (hint: hints to each other, especially between a man and a woman, the hidden meaning of a book or film, the work of a forensic scientist and an investigator, etc.).

Fortunately, the Rules for the Development of our world are much more just than the pathetic attempts to profane them, expressed in the formal rules and laws of civil society. If the legal system is full of jambs and nonsense, then everything in the world is perfect. If in the legal system of relations you can make a mistake out of ignorance and be punished for this, then in our world this is impossible, because you ALWAYS have the opportunity to get the necessary information BEFORE committing a serious mistake, and only the one who will make it, who will ONLY avoid the one who knocks. to him information. But I will not talk about this in this article. If the readers want, I will write a separate article … And now let's move on.

As for the second question about the impossibility of giving more than you receive, this is true only in the material world. Indeed, it is impossible to give a closed system some energy and take more than the sum of what was given and available in this closed system earlier. That is, in order to give more, you need to have something from the beginning, and then there can be no question of increasing our own benefits, we should all remain naked as at birth.

This approach is typical for people with a predominantly materialistic mindset … that is, for almost any people. Nevertheless, many of them later guess that we can talk about intangible things, such as information, a service (for example, the transfer of knowledge and experience), a donation, measured not so much by the amount of funds, but by timeliness and sacrifice (how difficult it was for a person to give these funds, because maybe he gave something very valuable for himself, not measurable by money), etc.

Don't you know that timely information submitted can prevent or, on the contrary, contribute to some very significant changes, and this information is absolutely useless a second later? The value of any action cannot be measured objectively and expressed in some numerical equivalent, because you will never be able to outline the ENTIRE chain of consequences of this action, each element of which, in turn, also generates certain processes.

In other words, in our culture there are no ways of assessing the amount of what has been given and received that are unambiguously understood by all people. The fact is that our entire culture is SHARPENED for the materialistic perception of the world, therefore, mechanisms have not been developed in it that make it possible to evaluate something intangible, although dubious attempts to do this come across everywhere (for example, compensation for moral damage, death of loved ones, etc. in money, measuring the cost of a service, a work of art … and indeed money itself). Our entire culture is such that any attempts to assess subtle things are made from the standpoint of solid things.

One of my favorite examples: very funny and funny attempts to present the criteria of a spiritual or moral person. As soon as one person formulates such criteria in the form of a list, applicants immediately begin to purely formally perform actions that would indicate compliance with these criteria, while they can shout at each other to the shit, finding out who better meets the proposed criteria, offend each other and humiliate. Spiritual people … what to take from them.

Any attempt to determine who made the greatest contribution to this or that business, whose work gave the best result, what exactly became decisive in such and such a matter, etc., looks just as funny and amusing. All such attempts to grind the surface to a mirror finish with the help of a rough rusty file end in the same way - the surface becomes even worse.

But what is to be done? People cannot decide who is a parasite and who is not, because they cannot agree on a way to assess the contribution of each to this world. No one can say whether he gives more or less than he receives.

The answer is simple. Simple as everything in this ideal world. However, this extreme simplicity is so subtle that a person with a gross materialistic mind is NOT ABLE to see it in principle. Just as a blind person cannot see and distinguish between red and blue, the materialist cannot see his place in this world and how harmoniously or inharmoniously he occupies it.

So am I, the same materialist-consumer who tries to file around the mirror and look at the reflection of the result of this work. However, I will share my findings on this topic in the next part. I have a method that suits me personally, maybe it will help you, but only if you really want it. No, he will not help EVERYONE, because most do not want this, he can help you personally. Just like with the concept of "Zero Waste": I personally do not care that my approach to waste is a drop in the ocean and does not improve the ecological situation, it is important for me that I myself do not take part in a total pigsty. It's the same with parasitism: it doesn't matter to me that my approach to this issue will not be understood by the parasites themselves, it is important for me that I personally do EVERYTHING I can to try not to be among them.

Continuation.