Enjoy Philosophy Lisboa

THE ACT TANK or BUYING IS VOTING

Sun, Nov 29 · 11:30 AM WEST

Eduardo VII Park, Parque Eduardo VII, Lisboa, PT

ENJOY PHILOSOPHY MEETS WEEKLY EVERY SUNDAY BETWEEN 11.30 AND 14.30 AT EDUARDO VII PARK, HERE:** https://goo.gl/maps/5e3jKFEweXkNvDdK6

ITS THE GARDEN BETWEEN THE “CARLOS LOPES PAVILLION” AND THE “PRAIA NO PARQUE” RESTAURANT AT EDUARDO VII PARK.

THIS IS A GROUP FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN ENJOYING PHILOSOPHY.

NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE IS REQUIRED.

ONLY ETERNAL CURIOSITY AND THE PLEASURE OF KNOWLEDGE.

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We will learn, debate, enjoy and investigate philosophers and diverse themes from the philosophical perspective. Each reunion is structured as a conversation among all attendees about that day s philosopher softly moderated by the organizer. The conversation will kick-off from the very brief suggested reading providing easy access to all attendees both to the philosopher and the conversation.

Let´s be greek and dive today on…

The Act Tank - Philosophy as Action.

Our conversation on the grass occasionally becomes The Act Tank, a philosophical inquiry into power that is already available to ordinary people in ordinary life.

The Act Tank explores philosophical questions where civilian choices can produce meaningful impact.

Perhaps nowhere is that hidden power more latent than in one of our most automatic daily routines. As many of the best thinkers taught us, it is the most evident which is the harder to grasp.

Buying may be the most frequent political act of our everyday lives—precisely because we don't experience it as political.

But... whats s going on when we buy ?
What are we exactly... buying?

Companies produce much of what we eat, wear, watch, drive and use. They influence and define how we communicate, entertain ourselves, travel, obtain information and even relate to one another.

Therefore, and this is fundamental to understand what is really at stake here, they do not only produce "products" (objects, merchandises) but also produce "habits", beliefs systems, ways of life..., in other words... Ideology.

A successful product defines a whole universe of Habits, beliefs, priorities, etc... around it. And, more importantly, engages all kinds of resources in the production process. Both ends of the chain are socially very meaningful: the resources engaged in the production and the universe of social factors associated to it.

Companies are therefore, probably the most fundamental actor on shaping our societies nowadays.

So, whether we want it or not, whether we agree to it or not, when we buy a product we also finance a specific enterprise of utilization of resources. The word "enterprise" is particularly expressive in this context since it clearly refers to something that goes beyond a product: it is a certain way people organize themselves to get something done... Well, when you buy a product, you also finance the enterprise. A specific way of engaging resources to a specific end... an enterprise.
And that s not hidden. Those are the rules.

So, buying a product is not just getting the trousers you want but financing the enterprise or their production... whatever that might be.
Whether you want it or not, thats how it is.
Its important to remember it because its very often very intentionally forgotten.

And yet this powerful corporate world has a surprisingly simple basic rule: It needs to sell.

Whatever its size, a company ultimately needs people to keep choosing what it produces.
Buying and selling is the language of the system.
And that is simultaneously its greatest strength and its fundamental vulnerability.
That means buying is not simply the final act of consumption.
It is political information. Every purchase says:
Continue this. Continue producing this product, advancing this enterprise, creating these habits, fabricating the Human beings that consume this....

And not buying communicates the opposite:
Stop.

It is, at its core, a Socio Political action of the first degree.

Of course, one person refusing to buy something normally changes almost nothing. But neither 1 vote does. With 1 big difference: you vote once every 4 years and you buy 10 times a-day. Its a substantial difference... among many, many others...

Millions of apparently insignificant decisions become revenues, market shares, investment decisions, factories, jobs, technologies, products—and eventually entire industries.

Things grow because enough resources continue flowing towards them.
And disappear when those resources stop.

BUY. DON'T BUY.

If economic viability is one of the principal mechanisms through which our society decides what expands and what disappears, in other words, IT SHAPES SOCIETY, then directing or withdrawing consumption becomes fundamentally a political action.

It shapes society at the most fundamental level.
Independently of the shape or form you want it to it be, you are shaping it 10 times a day.

You give aways a note... and forget about it,
But the note continues its journey, continues to exhale its power.
It becomes somebody's revenue. Salaries. Materials. Energy. Advertising. Technology. Investment. Profit. Taxes. Dividends. Expansion.

Eventually, it helps determine what gets produced again tomorrow.
You stopped controlling that money when you gave it away.
But the money did not stop exercising power.

We might possess considerably more power than we normally account for—but in such a dispersed form that we rarely identify it as power. And, ultimately, it´s in nobobdy´s interest to connect the dots... except in yours. In ours

Its your power, our power we are talking about here.
It´s your interest... or nobody´s interest.

We are literally buying out the world we want to live in.

And we are buying it because economic viability defines, more than anything else, what prevails and what dies, and therefore is a primal social shaping force...

Let’s think about buying… as voting.

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Our philosophy meetup has been, is and will always be Genuinely, Joyfully and Radically free, in every sense of those words.

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