Well, if it matters, I'm a Buddhist and coincidentally worked for about ten years in medical research. I suppose if our biologist friend were to ask my opinion (which of course he hasn't) my first thought be to suggest that he stay in his field but try to eliminate the part of his job that involves causing harm. The problem with sacrificing animals is both the effect that it has on them and on the person's own mind, and the mere fact that he feels this is a dilemma indicates to me that it might be good for him to back away from the harmful aspects.

Undeniably there are questions of balance, and you could get yourself all twisted up trying to untangle the web of interdependencies, but by focusing on just this one person seeking the best course of action for his own mind (which in Buddhism implies what would be best for all), it seems pretty simple. Still, it would be best if he could discuss this "live" with a teacher. There are always details that don't come out until someone asks questions, and in that back-and-forth he could learn a lot.

Tim

I'm not sure how this area of Salon works... if it's really "Letters to the Editor" or if we're supposed to be talking to each other, but since it seems to be going in the direction of the latter...

No, the idea of a permanent self or soul is not compatible with Buddhism, and you're right, the illusory nature of such a self is one of the key tenets. You might say it's THE key tenet, though it has to be understood in the right way.

"Why not kill yourself?" is not the right way. Buddhism is neither nihilistic nor fatalistic. The reason not to kill yourself is that you can use the chance you have right now as an intelligent human being to free yourself from all suffering forever. And if you're a Mahayana Buddhist you can extend that to the opportunity to free everyone else. Or even if you don't manage to do that in this life, you can develop your mind so that you can continue to work toward that aim in the next life. This last, of course, is the canonical view and one that would not fit very well into materialist views of consciousness. But that's their problem.

Meanwhile, as an experiment, I started a discussion thread in Table Talk's "Mind and Spirit" area. I don't know if everyone has access to that or interest in using it, but I assume that as soon as the Wallace interview stops being displayed on Salon's main page it will be hard to continue talking through this letters forum, so welcome to anyone who cares to talk there.

This article was helpful. It seems to point to the same type of unpredictable tangle that we are seeing now in the real economy as capital seeks cheap labor and production facilities. Because none of that is transparent, unforseen dependencies arise, and when something breaks, things can unravel in spectacular ways.

Some things I don't quite understand, though. If a CDO is a seen as a package, how is it that people invest in different tranches? That is, if you can pick which tranche you buy, how is that any different from treating each tranche as an independent investment?

Or is the idea that, because the tranches are presented to the ratings companies as "a package" they only issue one rating for the whole, so an equal-weighted combination of AAA and CCC ends up looking like BBB (or something like that)?

I'm wondering what responsibility the ratings companies really bear? Did they somehow conceal the risk, or is this one of those wink-and-nod corporate things where they blindly accepted ("in good faith") absurd projections about default rates from whoever packaged the CDO?

Another thing I don't understand is all these billions of dollars that the (surprisingly panicky) central banks are said to be pouring into the world's economies. How do they do that? I mean... surely they're not just giving the money away. Either they're loaning cash to banks or... they're actually buying these junk loans so the banks can get them off their balance sheets while becoming flush with cash and able to... uh... make more loans (after the bonuses to management, of course). Is that it? Even if it works, the chickens must come home to roost at some point, right? Or is it just that they won't roost on the banks... it'll fall on us instead?

But I guess the really scary thing is that nobody knows who holds these increasingly risky assets or how much they may have leveraged them. The web of who-owns-what is too complicated and private, so we just won't know until more companies, perhaps even very large ones, start reporting unexpected losses. So what started out as a risk management exercise ends up creating a situation where risk is unknowable?

Oddly enough in the letters to the editor forum, as a subscriber I'd actually like to address the editor(s) at Salon:

What is this piece doing here? Although it's in the book section, it's not a book review, yet it's not journalism, either. It's a hodgepodge of error, innuendo, name calling, logical fallacy, and uninformed opinion. Sure, it mentions Iyer's book a few times, but only as a launchpad for the author's superficial spew. What possessed you to publish this?

The issues confronting the Tibetan people are deadly serious. Didn't you notice? Yet the first feature article Salon puts up after two weeks of violence is this? This story deserve serious attention from someone who is up to the task, knows what they are talking about, or has the ability to interview those who do. Why is Salon wasting its time and our money with this kind of sophomoric drivel? You should be ashamed.

Please give us something better. Soon.