9 ms·

I'm a man and I really dislike competitive aspects of society. I mean if I'm playing a game and it's for fun, I'm okay with it, as long as everyone play to play

by jokoon 11y ago

I'm a man and I really dislike competitive aspects of society. I mean if I'm playing a game and it's for fun, I'm okay with it, as long as everyone play to play, not play to win. If I'm literally competing to earn a living, or if it ends up in praising winners and blaming losers, it won't be enjoyable, and I'd rather not play at all. Having humility also means that when you win, you also congratulate losers for playing. I agree that we need to compete on some aspects, like technology, science, construction methods, and business in general. But competing between individuals brings out the worst in people. And that's where exclusion starts: if you keep slapping people's self esteem by telling them that life and society is a game of winners and losers, you'll end up with less and less people ready to take part in it. Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do. Or maybe it's the political climate that does. I don't really know.

rfrey 11y ago
"Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do." That's interesting, and seems a bit contrarian. If you felt like elaborating, I'd feel like listening.
- jokoon 11y ago
  Actually I meant that when you have men relating to each other in a social context.
- andrewflnr 11y ago
  I don't know if it's a general trend, but men potentially have more to lose in a contest in terms of self- and other-esteem. As a man, I tend to either avoid competitions I don't have a decent chance of winning, or if there's some other compelling reason to join, consciously decouple my pride from the outcome. Otherwise I take it too personally.
cLeEOGPw 11y ago
You are right and you are probably left leaning politically and are pro immigration, also you are probably not physically strong. The reason for your avoidance of competition is both environmentally affected and genetic. Your parents, maybe even grandparents, were probably raised in an environment where they didn't have to struggle too much at life. This kind of life changes genetic expression in a way that adapts to this environment. It causes rabbit like behaviour - breed as much as possible, don't care to much about offspring, don't care to much about quality of mate, consume food without much competition for it and react only to the current and immediate threat to your life. If threat avoided, don't plan ahead to prevent it. Physically the affected gene expression reduces the size of amygdala which causes individual to be unable to perceive threats. Also it causes the brain to constantly seek novelty and reduces dopamine reward for things that normally would motivate you to seek competition and success. So your avoidance of competition is likely inherited.
- LynchDeez 11y ago
  Such a bizarre group of baseless assumptions.
- corndoge 11y ago
  I'm genuinely confused as to the satirical nature of this comment. If you're being serious, can you please substantiate your claims with a links to relevant research?
- jokoon 11y ago
  Sounds like a newer version of eugenics with a bit of social darwinism in it. Actually I come from a family of people who either hide during the war (jewish/polish origins), or suffered from it. Maybe you'd also label it as "didn't have to struggle too much at life". Eitherway, I don't think society was built to reflect the state of nature and competition. If you think struggle is good, I think you have some skewed belief of "life" in general. I don't have such belief. Also comparing people and rabbits is really ridiculous. Even behavior psychologist and sociologists don't go that far.
  - cLeEOGPw 11y ago
    Your response is not surprising. "Struggle" is not definitive marker of said expression. Specific protein is, which can be detected if you wanted it. Those with the adaptation, either it is liberal, like you, or conservative, like me, always seek to sustain that environment. Because changing genetic expression is a slow process and not preferred by the body. And your behavior, including this comment, is a result of changed in brain areas more than result of information you have received. So left vs right is a war between heritable different gene expression proteins on the most basic level. Different ideas and perceptions are only a byproduct of the effect these proteins cause. And there's nothing inherently wrong with this expression. I'm just acknowledging that we are fundamentally different on the cell level and nothing can make us agree. Doesn't mean my expression is better than yours. These are just different evolutionary adaptations in animals that humans are part of. I have example of rabbits because they have furthered your type of "lifestyle" to more discernable level. Also your eugenics argument is completely strawman, as is expected from you.
matwood 11y ago
But we are a society based on competition and winners and losers (loser in the sense you lost this particular competition) from birth on. Ignoring that is putting yourself at a disadvantage. I think it is important to have competition early and often in life because learning how to win and lose is an important life lesson. Getting lazy because of a win or quitting because of a loss will severely impact someone for their entire life.
- tremon 11y ago
  learning how to win and lose is an important life lesson The life lesson I got from it was that winning leads to social exclusion, from both peers and teachers. So yes, I learned to not (openly) compete any more.
- jokoon 11y ago
  I don't think society is (or should) based solely on competition. Society is also built on mutually beneficial cooperation. Most modern countries give money to the poor so that they can spend it, which benefits society as a whole. The idea of winners and losers comes from social darwinism, which is just another justification for people to keep wealth to themselves and not pay taxes "because it helps the weak". The reality is that we truly don't know what motivates people to work or to innovate. That's why equality (not egalitarianism) is important. > Getting lazy because of a win or quitting because of a loss will severely impact someone for their entire life. Well if you look into society, that happens all the time. And even when it doesn't happen, people still put social filters on each others because of that belief. It's becoming a club of people which believe in "strong motivation". > I think it is important to have competition early and often in life because learning how to win and lose is an important life lesson. What kind of life lesson is that ? On what sort philosophy does it stand on? That sounds like a motivational religion.
iopq 11y ago
> Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do. See: any competitive activity. Which gender generally dominates a competition?
- jokoon 11y ago
  Actually I meant that when you have men relating to each other in a social context.
- pasquinelli 11y ago
  well, dominating the competition can be the result of avoiding it.
  - iopq 11y ago
    You don't dominate chess by avoiding playing chess, that's for sure.
    - jokoon 11y ago
      Life and society aren't always like chess.
    - qbrass 11y ago
      You do if you avoid playing IBM.
    - Natanael_L 11y ago
      "The only winning move is not to play." Recognize the quote?
spectrum1234 11y ago
Like or dislike, you would be the first to die in 99% of societies, human or otherwise. This may get downvoted but don't shoot the messenger. You can't "hate" something that just "is".
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > You can't "hate" something that just "is". You can, and you should. Civilization itself is based on the idea that what "just is" can be utterly fucked up and should be fixed.
- pasquinelli 11y ago
  seems the fact he's alive puts that into question.
- barrkel 11y ago
  You're way off base. It's people who challenge the current leaders that get beaten back the hardest. That is, it's people in second place who suffer, because they're a threat; people way back in the mass are invisible.
- jokoon 11y ago
  So does that mean I'm part of the 1%? Because I'm an unemployed man on welfare.
  - sremani 11y ago
    His point was there should be a threshold level of competitiveness to survive in the world, and you based on your posts probably fall below that (made-up) threshold. I agree partially here. People who show greatest reluctance also sometimes compete crazy for the right kind of reward or circumstance. Humans or for that part, animals that are social, have a very interesting compete-cooperate dynamic. The compete part also is how we choose our leaders, in cooperate team/group.
  - Camillo 11y ago
    Which is why you dislike competition.
atom-morgan 11y ago
> Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do. Seriously? The inherent drive in men to compete/take risks is why people advocate for "leveling the playing field" when it comes to pay, promotions, etc.
- jokoon 11y ago
  Actually I meant that when you have men relating to each other in a social context.
WalterSear 11y ago
That is, quite literally, what this experiment showed. Boys did well when it was a non-competitive 'game'. Girls didn't do so well when it was an inconsequential 'game'.
- tremon 11y ago
  Not entirely: boys did better in a non-competitive setting, but girls performed equally in both settings.
  - WalterSear 11y ago
    >In classes given reading evaluations, boys made an average of 33.3 correct answers compared with 43.3 by the girls. But when the tests were framed as animal games, boys’ average scores were significantly higher: 44.7 compared with 38.3 for the girls. Girls performed worse in the non-competitive setting.
    - tremon 11y ago
      Ah, I stand corrected. I had understood the differences with the girls were insignificant, but it doesn't appear to be.
candu 11y ago
IMHO, a lot of the ideas about competition in society come from a deep (and sometimes purposeful) misunderstanding of natural selection. [1] is an decent taste of this line of inquiry, and America's early 20th century obsession with eugenics is fascinating in a really, really, really unsettling sort of way. That said: I disagree that individual competition brings out the worst in people. It can certainly do that - but applied properly, it can also improve attention, creativity, and other indicators of task-based performance. Also, life/society as we currently understand it does contain aspects of competition, often in subtle ways. A person might decide between multiple potential mates; a prospective employee might negotiate their starting offer; a student might organize a club to help distinguish themselves from thousands of other graduates. Whenever I buy food or clothes or whatever, I need to buy it from someone (not being a diehard homesteader), so there are multiple vendors competing for my attention and custom. We might be able to do without some of this, but a lot of it is driven by limits on resources (material, population, etc.) (You might also be interested in the New Games Movement, one of the many weird outcroppings of hippie-era counterculture: they sought to build a corpus of games that highlighted cooperation over competition. The movement died a somewhat predictable death, but its games live on - if you've ever played any of the circle games popular with camps, youth groups, and teachers, you've probably played something that has its roots in the New Games Movement.) (Last diversion: game-theoretic dilemmas are also really interesting, since most of them revolve around cases in which individual optimal strategies lead to worse overall strategies. See also: bystander effect / volunteer dilemma, tragedy of the commons.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest

by jokoon 11y ago

rfrey 11y ago

"Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do." That's interesting, and seems a bit contrarian. If you felt like elaborating, I'd feel like listening.

jokoon 11y ago
Actually I meant that when you have men relating to each other in a social context.
andrewflnr 11y ago
I don't know if it's a general trend, but men potentially have more to lose in a contest in terms of self- and other-esteem. As a man, I tend to either avoid competitions I don't have a decent chance of winning, or if there's some other compelling reason to join, consciously decouple my pride from the outcome. Otherwise I take it too personally.

cLeEOGPw 11y ago

You are right and you are probably left leaning politically and are pro immigration, also you are probably not physically strong. The reason for your avoidance of competition is both environmentally affected and genetic. Your parents, maybe even grandparents, were probably raised in an environment where they didn't have to struggle too much at life. This kind of life changes genetic expression in a way that adapts to this environment. It causes rabbit like behaviour - breed as much as possible, don't care to much about offspring, don't care to much about quality of mate, consume food without much competition for it and react only to the current and immediate threat to your life. If threat avoided, don't plan ahead to prevent it. Physically the affected gene expression reduces the size of amygdala which causes individual to be unable to perceive threats. Also it causes the brain to constantly seek novelty and reduces dopamine reward for things that normally would motivate you to seek competition and success. So your avoidance of competition is likely inherited.

LynchDeez 11y ago
Such a bizarre group of baseless assumptions.
corndoge 11y ago
I'm genuinely confused as to the satirical nature of this comment. If you're being serious, can you please substantiate your claims with a links to relevant research?
jokoon 11y ago
Sounds like a newer version of eugenics with a bit of social darwinism in it. Actually I come from a family of people who either hide during the war (jewish/polish origins), or suffered from it. Maybe you'd also label it as "didn't have to struggle too much at life". Eitherway, I don't think society was built to reflect the state of nature and competition. If you think struggle is good, I think you have some skewed belief of "life" in general. I don't have such belief. Also comparing people and rabbits is really ridiculous. Even behavior psychologist and sociologists don't go that far.
- cLeEOGPw 11y ago
  Your response is not surprising. "Struggle" is not definitive marker of said expression. Specific protein is, which can be detected if you wanted it. Those with the adaptation, either it is liberal, like you, or conservative, like me, always seek to sustain that environment. Because changing genetic expression is a slow process and not preferred by the body. And your behavior, including this comment, is a result of changed in brain areas more than result of information you have received. So left vs right is a war between heritable different gene expression proteins on the most basic level. Different ideas and perceptions are only a byproduct of the effect these proteins cause. And there's nothing inherently wrong with this expression. I'm just acknowledging that we are fundamentally different on the cell level and nothing can make us agree. Doesn't mean my expression is better than yours. These are just different evolutionary adaptations in animals that humans are part of. I have example of rabbits because they have furthered your type of "lifestyle" to more discernable level. Also your eugenics argument is completely strawman, as is expected from you.

matwood 11y ago

But we are a society based on competition and winners and losers (loser in the sense you lost this particular competition) from birth on. Ignoring that is putting yourself at a disadvantage. I think it is important to have competition early and often in life because learning how to win and lose is an important life lesson. Getting lazy because of a win or quitting because of a loss will severely impact someone for their entire life.

tremon 11y ago
learning how to win and lose is an important life lesson The life lesson I got from it was that winning leads to social exclusion, from both peers and teachers. So yes, I learned to not (openly) compete any more.
jokoon 11y ago
I don't think society is (or should) based solely on competition. Society is also built on mutually beneficial cooperation. Most modern countries give money to the poor so that they can spend it, which benefits society as a whole. The idea of winners and losers comes from social darwinism, which is just another justification for people to keep wealth to themselves and not pay taxes "because it helps the weak". The reality is that we truly don't know what motivates people to work or to innovate. That's why equality (not egalitarianism) is important. > Getting lazy because of a win or quitting because of a loss will severely impact someone for their entire life. Well if you look into society, that happens all the time. And even when it doesn't happen, people still put social filters on each others because of that belief. It's becoming a club of people which believe in "strong motivation". > I think it is important to have competition early and often in life because learning how to win and lose is an important life lesson. What kind of life lesson is that ? On what sort philosophy does it stand on? That sounds like a motivational religion.

iopq 11y ago

> Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do. See: any competitive activity. Which gender generally dominates a competition?

jokoon 11y ago
Actually I meant that when you have men relating to each other in a social context.
pasquinelli 11y ago
well, dominating the competition can be the result of avoiding it.
- iopq 11y ago
  You don't dominate chess by avoiding playing chess, that's for sure.
  - jokoon 11y ago
    Life and society aren't always like chess.
  - qbrass 11y ago
    You do if you avoid playing IBM.
  - Natanael_L 11y ago
    "The only winning move is not to play." Recognize the quote?

spectrum1234 11y ago

Like or dislike, you would be the first to die in 99% of societies, human or otherwise. This may get downvoted but don't shoot the messenger. You can't "hate" something that just "is".

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> You can't "hate" something that just "is". You can, and you should. Civilization itself is based on the idea that what "just is" can be utterly fucked up and should be fixed.
pasquinelli 11y ago
seems the fact he's alive puts that into question.
barrkel 11y ago
You're way off base. It's people who challenge the current leaders that get beaten back the hardest. That is, it's people in second place who suffer, because they're a threat; people way back in the mass are invisible.
jokoon 11y ago
So does that mean I'm part of the 1%? Because I'm an unemployed man on welfare.
- sremani 11y ago
  His point was there should be a threshold level of competitiveness to survive in the world, and you based on your posts probably fall below that (made-up) threshold. I agree partially here. People who show greatest reluctance also sometimes compete crazy for the right kind of reward or circumstance. Humans or for that part, animals that are social, have a very interesting compete-cooperate dynamic. The compete part also is how we choose our leaders, in cooperate team/group.
- Camillo 11y ago
  Which is why you dislike competition.

atom-morgan 11y ago

> Overall, I sense that men avoid competition much more than women do. Seriously? The inherent drive in men to compete/take risks is why people advocate for "leveling the playing field" when it comes to pay, promotions, etc.

jokoon 11y ago
Actually I meant that when you have men relating to each other in a social context.

WalterSear 11y ago

That is, quite literally, what this experiment showed. Boys did well when it was a non-competitive 'game'. Girls didn't do so well when it was an inconsequential 'game'.

tremon 11y ago
Not entirely: boys did better in a non-competitive setting, but girls performed equally in both settings.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  >In classes given reading evaluations, boys made an average of 33.3 correct answers compared with 43.3 by the girls. But when the tests were framed as animal games, boys’ average scores were significantly higher: 44.7 compared with 38.3 for the girls. Girls performed worse in the non-competitive setting.
  - tremon 11y ago
    Ah, I stand corrected. I had understood the differences with the girls were insignificant, but it doesn't appear to be.

candu 11y ago

IMHO, a lot of the ideas about competition in society come from a deep (and sometimes purposeful) misunderstanding of natural selection. [1] is an decent taste of this line of inquiry, and America's early 20th century obsession with eugenics is fascinating in a really, really, really unsettling sort of way. That said: I disagree that individual competition brings out the worst in people. It can certainly do that - but applied properly, it can also improve attention, creativity, and other indicators of task-based performance. Also, life/society as we currently understand it does contain aspects of competition, often in subtle ways. A person might decide between multiple potential mates; a prospective employee might negotiate their starting offer; a student might organize a club to help distinguish themselves from thousands of other graduates. Whenever I buy food or clothes or whatever, I need to buy it from someone (not being a diehard homesteader), so there are multiple vendors competing for my attention and custom. We might be able to do without some of this, but a lot of it is driven by limits on resources (material, population, etc.) (You might also be interested in the New Games Movement, one of the many weird outcroppings of hippie-era counterculture: they sought to build a corpus of games that highlighted cooperation over competition. The movement died a somewhat predictable death, but its games live on - if you've ever played any of the circle games popular with camps, youth groups, and teachers, you've probably played something that has its roots in the New Games Movement.) (Last diversion: game-theoretic dilemmas are also really interesting, since most of them revolve around cases in which individual optimal strategies lead to worse overall strategies. See also: bystander effect / volunteer dilemma, tragedy of the commons.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest