why is every rich tech capitalist invariably into buddhism?

paging lagoon

There's this cranky looking book I saw on Amazon written to westerners that was like "if you're into meditation for relaxation, just get a massage instead, meditation is about truth and envisioning hell"

that one was written by lagoon

a hoos and lagoon should def be chiming in here with their diagnoses of this phenomenon

Sloterdijk is quite good on this in his way!

https://www.amazon.com/You-Must-Change-Your-Life/dp/074564922X/

― ryan, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 1:54 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This looks good! I like him.

"this is going to turn you into a hyper-productive problem-solver who doesn't get held back by normal human anxieties"

yeah i buy this, esp as it turns buddhism into something very similar to the sales pitch for scientology / "going clear" (which appeals to a slightly more new-agey type of california rich people). the version of buddhism being peddled is a self-help book: lower your stress and anxiety, feel no guilt, increase your productivity, feel superior to others, and no supernatural-type stuff that makes you feel goofy! it's catnip for these guys.

Surely the basic reason is if you are enormously rich and successful, it's incredibly rewarding to believe in karma and thus KNOW THAT YOU DESERVE IT

because once you reach the top of the mountain and there's nothing there you look for something higher, zen

xp: And if you *did* step on anyone on your way up, they probably deserved it for some cosmic reason beyond your understanding.

(OT, but I'm kind of interested in the reports that Jeff Bezos dwells on the idea of Amazon failing at some future date. I want to picture him having A Christmas Carol-type visitations by the ghosts of companies and industries that Amazon so thoroughly "disrupted.")

alvah roebuck, ghost of disrupters past

surely a non-nefarious reason is related to the cultural history of the bay area, which has been a home to american buddhism since what like the mid-1800s w/ the first wave of chinese and other asian immigrants? don't want to meddle w/ the dunking on these dudes itt but buddhism has been a cultural presence in the bay area for a long long time, beyond even what shakey mentions with the 60s counterculture overlap w/ tech

yeah people forget about the whole 90s cyberdelia thing

point well taken now let's get back to dunking

jack sucks so bad

surely buddhism leads to better dressing

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/58e7c4d477bb70b90c8b674d-750-562.jpg

i def have thoughts about this but

the lone cultural trait held over from Bay Area tech's hippie/counterculture phase in the 70s

easy to read Buddhism's pitch as having something to do with performance optimization: like, this is going to turn you into a hyper-productive problem-solver who doesn't get held back by normal human anxieties

both nail this phenomenon really well imo and

liberate yourself from fear, suffering, emotional baggage, etc. all while just focusing on yourself!

is so otm that other buddhists have been salty about this orientation in the theravada schools for a thousand plus years

jack wanted to "go to the source" in burma to really get the local flavor of these particular vipassana teachings, now available in free 10-day courses around the world, but he definitely was not given & did not seek an up front take on the peculiarly early 20th century burmese nationalist origins of this particular pedagogical format -- which makes his promotion of it alongside his glossing over of the ongoing genocide 10x a problem imo. "hey everybody check out this cool meditation retreat i did that was invented by a burmese nationalist trying to unite the country against imperialism, also don't pay attention to what current buddhist burmese nationalists are doing"

noticing that a lot of the old hippies where i live are basically just libertarians

Joe Carducci rightly pegs companies like Apple as the last evolution of "hippie shopkeep"

I think hippie's libertarian edge was always there, the Dead, communes, MC5's gun toting drunk revolution, esp after the original SF era died and everyone decamped to the country

tbh the flip side is that enterprising buddhist gurus were canny businessmen and knew who to pull into the fold

cf, ”Toxic Bob” Friedland. Kicked out Bowdoin in an acid bust, met Steve Jobs at Reed and then Jobs followed him when he set up a commune. Now he’s in mining, and when the mining industry dubs you “Toxic Bob,” you know you’re a bad guy.