(Consults notes): I think we should check in on how you are doing with the Big Three: not sinning, what to do with found money, and murder.
Clear-ish conscience? Either way, let’s proceed.
Which rhymes with Greed. Greed is morally bad, but it works, as Gordon Gekko Insurance illustrates. But I’m here to speak against greed.
An example of greed is seen at a lot of barbecues. If there’s just one last tasty chicken thigh, or a rib, inevitably the the guy ahead of you in line who already has two on his plate AND two ears of corn takes it before you. That’s greed.
I’m not going to name names, because this is a moral post.
What do the philosophers say about greed? Some of them were greedy for attention, so take them with a huge grain of salt. A virtual impossibility, for a salt crystal; but that’s an example of verbal / metaphoric greed.
We may be getting too philosophical here. Philosophers are far too academic to use the word “greed,” and use the term “avarice” instead, so take their words with another grain of salt, of whatever size. They try to position themselves as the salt of the earth, when everyone knows that only apostles are.
The lust of avarice has so totally seized upon mankind that their wealth seems rather to possess them, than they possess their wealth.
— Pliny
I wish this dude specified when writing whether he was Pliny the Elder or Pliny the Younger. But he didn’t. Greed may have been involved.
The ancients knew all about greed, and apparently all about Hollywood and Hillary:
Avarice is so insatiable that it is not in the power of abundance to content it.
— Seneca
And about Hillary specifically.
Avarice increases with the increasing pile of gold.
— Juvenal
And Hillary and Nancy Pelosi (though this may have been because they met them).
Avarice, in old age, is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach our journey’s end?
— Cicero
Does anyone think it’s odd that the ancient Greeks and Romans recognized the problem of greed, yet here we are in 2021 with the same problem? And the same women?
For you kids out there who are now in your fifties, why do you think Star Wars named that character “Greedo”? Ah ha!
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Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s our nightly Open Thread, and you have the floor.







