Jul 29 2012: Went to an international convention that many non-english speakers attended. Not all, but many of the people who made a point to learn english told me, after I asked, that English is very precise, which i think was meant to mean "had less lexical gaps" than their own tongue. My Spanish speaking relatives tell me this when I bring them to english sermons they've already heard in Spanish. National and ethnic sympathies aside, English seems better for discussing abstracts and complex issues with, in the United States. But hey, Portugese is a better language to discuss love with. As long as a language fosters differentiation between similar concepts and avoids the Orwellian fusion of different ones into single words, then we should have bias in favor of those languages, Chinese, Swedish, Spanish-whichever is most efficient.
Jul 29 2012: Some of these comments are troubling. Altruism can be a good trait, but only if it stems from a logical self-interest that concludes that, for a particular reason, helping the other person also benefits you. Cesar Harada did not idealize a non-profit as a symbol of almighty altruism, but, instead, rearranged priorities because of his better understanding of reality. The people he collaborates with realize that they and everyone on Earth profit most from preserving the world they live in, as Jon and a few others have pointed out.
Profit does not mean larger amounts of a particular currency, it means a greater return of whatever it is they value. I profit from seeing my friends and colleagues smile. Smiling people don't murder. I share with them to make them smile. Smiling people share with me. Cesar and his team just don't value as highly the mechanism of exchange money allows. They profited without the proxy we call money.
But, people, please, don't go around saying this is a non-profit that teaches to value money less, because what you really mean to say, in words much vaguer than these, is that this should be an enterprise that gets nothing back to the people who've created it. That is a very cruel wish.
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A comment on Conversation: Should English be made the official language of the United States
A comment on Conversation: Will or Can "Open Hardware" replace Capitalism, or at least be the leading drive for people to continue living instead of making just money?
Profit does not mean larger amounts of a particular currency, it means a greater return of whatever it is they value. I profit from seeing my friends and colleagues smile. Smiling people don't murder. I share with them to make them smile. Smiling people share with me. Cesar and his team just don't value as highly the mechanism of exchange money allows. They profited without the proxy we call money.
But, people, please, don't go around saying this is a non-profit that teaches to value money less, because what you really mean to say, in words much vaguer than these, is that this should be an enterprise that gets nothing back to the people who've created it. That is a very cruel wish.