Comment on The Belmont Club,"The price of safety"

There have been even more extreme forms of faith that sought to remove the suffering caused by violence and desire than Buddhism does. The reductios of Pacifism in a community are found among the Jains of India and were the Shakers of America. The Shakers identified the source of suffering in desires of the flesh and choose to forgo propagation except by adoption. You will not find any Shakers to discuss these matters with. The Shakers survived as craftsmen, modifying goods for merchandise. The Jains expend their energy in not killing even the smallest living creature. They prosper as a merchant group. Essentially for both their particular moral superiority is funded by their specialization in a wealthy subset of society. They live off the design margin of the surplus wealth generated by others. Neither could function as a universal creed. In that they resemble Stoicism, which was a fine philosophy for aristocrats.