Hi John, and hi everyone,

John greeted me this morning with:

>Jim
>
>Only some people are evil. The ones that are the most evil are the ones
>that impute or ascribe motives of an unfair nature onto innocent others.
>That is what you are doing here. Imputing a sense on me that is false. I
>don't see humans as all evil, on a few of them are evil. The fat bastards
>that do not care for anything else but the satisfaction of their own
>selfish desires. These are the poorest people because they are always
>needy and hungry for more, and often much beyond their means.
>
>john foster, in quest of certainty


Since I can only conclude from John's valid syllogism that I am evil, I
feel like I should at least make the best of a bad situation <grin> and
take advantage of devilishly demonstrating the truth of John's accusation
while it lasts.  :-)

John has provided us with numerous and interesting details about his
private 140 acre "ecological footprint," his late model Nissan Pathfinder
sport utility vehicle (SUV), his six thousand dollar compass, his two
computers, his tips for personally reducing the cost of international
airline travel so as to maximize the number of trips one can personally and
economically afford to make, etc. etc. etc.  This is all now a matter of
public record and thus available for public review in the list's archives,
so I won't bother to go over the gory details.  Needless to say, John is
living testimony to the value of hard work, shrewd business acumen, and the
American Dream.  Perhaps we could bestow the honorific, "Ragged Dick" upon
him (see: http://www.letsfindout.com/subjects/america/horatio.html ).

I was struck, however, by John's conclusion to the little parable he told
about his two hundred thousand dollar windfall in the stock market, which
surely qualifies as a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches tale of positively epic
and Randian proportions!


>is next to arrive. I would not call myself poor. Just last winter I had a
>few thousand invested in micro cap. stocks and they exploded. Prior to
>selling off some that made 700 % returns in only three months I had on
>paper about $200 thousand, excluding my RRSPs. Not bad considering that I
>had only $21 originally invested. I won big time with Communication
>Systems International, Norsat Technologies, KCA, and several others. That
>was why I was not on the enviroethics discussion list. I was working.
>
>
>It only means that because of this extra lucre I will be spending more
>time as an environmentalist working on principled negotiations to protect
>habitat. jmf
>

I am relieved to learn that John's two hundred thousand dollars is going to
go to a good cause, and not toward John's buying a third computer or a . .
. gasp, second SUV.  But one thing troubles me, John.  How do we know that
your $200 thousand will be well spent during the "principled negotiations"
to which you devote yourself in your capacity as an environmentalist?  I
for one have my doubts, if I may be so bold as to admit them.  While I have
no doubt that you are in fact a very capable individual in certain
contexts--your resourcefulness in securing inexpensive airline arrangements
is undoubtedly unparallelled!--I wonder if "principled negotiations" may
not be, er, exactly one of your strong points . . . .  ?

Now of course, I don't have much evidence to go on, but the clues you have
provided in past postings to the list are tantalizing.   For example, in a
5/24/00 post to the list,
http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/enviroethics/2000-05/0152.html ,

John wrote:
>Once I had became friends with an older man who owned a woodlot. He and I
>agreed on some important environmental issues such as water, etc. Then one
>day when I went to speak to him about protecting a forest nearby for future
>generations, he said to me quite bluntly: "As far as I am concerned they
>should log the whole damn mountain. It is not anything but a pile of rock
>anyway. We need to keep the sawmills running." After that he was not very
>friendly with me after that...despite the reality that we each expressed and
>revealed a 'gradient of values respecting the environment'. It became
>apparent to me that keeping the timber supply at an all time high was a
>priority in his sense of 'instrumental values'. He and I were in agreement
>on many issues respecting the environment: organic farming, clean water,
>etc., but it was - in his view - timber was the most important since it kept
>food on the table so to speak and this was 'sacred' for him. What was sacred
>to him was 'scary' for me. I am not against all logging, but only the extent
>and the nature of the negative impact that it has on the 'natural endowment
>of natural capital' here.

You know John, to a mere outsider (me) to your principled negotiations with
the older man (your friend) in this particular case, this doesn't sound
like very skilled negotiation.  The principle that lay behind your
negotiating position--"protecting a forest nearby for future generations"
(including some of his woodlot, perhaps?)--sounds to me like an awfully
abstract principle to be pitching to someone concerned with keeping food on
the table as you say.  While my hat is off to you in admiration of your
undoubtedly Altruistic environmental motives in this case--getting the
selfish old man to give up and subordinate his personal, selfish interests
in the forest for the sake of the collective good of Future Generations--it
just doesn't sound like you were all that tactful (with all due respect).
I mean, if someone approached you and proposed turning your private 140
acre 'Hacienda y Ranchero Costa Notta Lota' into, let's say, a camp for
future generations of underprivileged city kids . . . no, better yet, let's
make that a camp for future generations of OVER-privileged suburban kids
(how else would they get to your remote little slice of heaven except by
being driven in mummy and daddy's second SUV?) . . . well, how would you
feel?

Furthermore, a cynical reading of your principled negotiations with the
older man sure makes it sound like he probably took offense at your
treating him as a mere means to an end.  In other words, it appears to
me--as it probably appeared to him at the time--that you were treating him
as if he fell into the category, "landowner with something John Foster
wants, namely an uncut forest," rather than treating him as if he were
simply your "friend."  Just a hunch.  But that's a cynical reading, and I
don't necessarily want to go TOO far in that direction, i.e. "impute or
ascribe motives of an unfair nature onto innocent others."  I mean, I may
be evil, but I'm not that "Evil."  <grin>

At any rate, your principled negotiations with the older man (your friend)
don't give me much cause for optimism that your "extra lucre" is going to
end up being fully utilized for the greater good of the environment.
Perhaps I could interest you in endowing a chair in environmental ethics
instead . . .  at Cornell, perhaps?  :-)

Satan's lesser minion,
Evil Jim

ps. you know, I now have a strange sense of the pride and exhilaration that
my apparent sibling spawn of Satan, Sadistic Steve, surely must feel when
he proudly displays his emblem of membership in the Ninth Circle of Hell:

=====
"In a nutshell, he [Steve] is 100% unadulterated evil. I do not believe in a
'Satan', but this man is as close to 'the real McCoy' as they come."
--Jamey Lee West

Life truly is a divine comedy.  :-)  jt




>
>Jim:
>
>For example, perhaps John isn't building 4000 square foot 'Haciendas Costa
>Lotas,' but it sounds to me like he does an awful lot of traveling. In
>recent months I've gotten the impression that John has been all around the
>world (forgive me John if I am mistaken)--well, how does someone like John
>get to these far-off distant places?
>
>I wait for seat sales. For instance, I got to go to Peru for just under
>$300 US return. The flights from and to Lima via Houston are essentially
>empty of passengers. I shop around, and when in South America I stay with
>friends. jmf
>
> 
>
>Jim:
>
>It certainly doesn't involve hitching up the Clydesdales, I'll bet, and
>the fuel that's used probably isn't oats. . . .
>
>I spend most of my free time hiking, mountaineering, kayaking, biking, and
>walking and horse riding especially in Costa Rica. I spent 11 days biking
>in Montanna, Alberta, Idaho and BC once. On the border between Afganistan
>and Chile somewhere I spent another 11 days hiking above the tree line
>near Spruce Lake. I never use ATVs except for work on occasion. jmf
>
>
>Jim:
>
>The point is not to pick on John, but to make the point that "one man's
>simple life is another man's life of quiet desperation." We can't all be
>like John (!) even though his life sounds enviable:
>
>So the people that must have 2 SUVs, 4000 square foot 'Haciendas Costa
>Lotas' are getting fed up with work until they reach the age of
>retirement, then they may be forced to sell, and chose to spend the
>remaining years in mobile homes, RVs, and so on, finally being able to be
>free.
>I chose to consume less so as to work less. I have got my seasonal work
>which lasts from April to October, and I still want more time off. Some
>years I get more time off. I only need to pay for a small mortgage payment
>each month, and can live on a students income if I chose. But the
>consumption habitat will make all of us into slaves, unfree, tethered
>animals suffering in the misery of tedium. The soul has wing primordia,
>and when it is ready can grow wings, fly to a banquet of being, and give
>great speeches before the gods on Mount Olympus.
>
>Jim:
>
>But just because people choose to live (or find themselves living) lives
>of quiet desperation does not necessarily make them bad or evil people.
>
>No that is true, and they may not be happy. That is the message. jmf
>
>Jim:
>
>I agree with John in at least one sense: *mindless* materialism probably
>is an indicator of something less than the "good life." But not everyone
>who fits the description of "a Vince Scott" is a mindless moneygrubber. I
>know too many good people who happen to be comfortably well off, live
>simply nonetheless, AND are *good* people, in every sense of that phrase,
>and so I hate to see the kind of stupid generalizations made about "rich
>folks" that we see all too often made on this list. And I hate to break it
>to you and to John, but again, people with money tend to spread it
>around--like John's horsesh. . . er, Clydesdale manure--only the material
>benefits in this case extend way beyond John's personal potato patch.
>
>Yes like me. I bought a $6000 Trimble GPS unit, and I own a 1995
>Pathfinder. I bought two computers recently: a pentium two notebook, and a
>desk top. I use this equipment for work. But I chose to not use my SUV in
>the winter. Instead when and if I can I leave the north, turn the
>thermostat down and go south and do a lot of kayaking, hiking and spend  a
>lot of time in the mountains and rainforests or deserts identifying plants
>and animals that I have never seen before, especially in Peru and Bolivia.
>I always take public transportation. jmf
>
>
>This is where "vision of the world" comes in again: if you can only see
>humans as evil, then you're unlikely to see the good that humans do--only
>the bad.
>
>
>Jim
>
>Only some people are evil. The ones that are the most evil are the ones
>that impute or ascribe motives of an unfair nature onto innocent others.
>That is what you are doing here. Imputing a sense on me that is false. I
>don't see humans as all evil, on a few of them are evil. The fat bastards
>that do not care for anything else but the satisfaction of their own
>selfish desires. These are the poorest people because they are always
>needy and hungry for more, and often much beyond their means.
>
>john foster, in quest of certainty
>
> 
>
>