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Turning things into competitions often has extremely negative externalities. The desire to be the richest, or have the biggest house, or the fastest car, or dri

by paggle 7y ago

Turning things into competitions often has extremely negative externalities. The desire to be the richest, or have the biggest house, or the fastest car, or drink the most alcohol, etc... destroys lives. And this kind of status scrambling is not exclusive to men.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. People seeking to do things better, faster and cheaper in order to make a buck (or even just for the bragging rights) in order to improve their own personal standard of living gives us electric lighting, oranges in February, the massive amount of infrastructure it takes to get this comment from my fingertips to your eyeballs and every other part of modern life you don't notice but would notice if it were missing. Yes there's externalities but at a societal scale we do a pretty decent job of playing whack-a-mole as they become critical.
- shkkmo 7y ago
  > Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. Yet you can say the exact same thing about cooperation. I would argue that cooperation is atleast as critical an ingredient here as competition. Indeed, the infrastructure that allows me to view the comment you posted depends on open standards, open source software and generally could not have existed without groups of people working together to accomplish goals. I would personally say that cooperation, freedom and passion are more important than competition, greed and ego in terms of enabling the accomplishments of our society. That is not to say that competition has no role to play, but it is part of a melange of human dynamics that are necessary. Specifically, competition works best between between groups of freely cooperating individuals, especially when those groups can periodically set aside that competition to cooperatively further the goals of their mutual passions and dreams.
  - Chris2048 7y ago
    > cooperation, freedom and passion are more important than competition, greed and ego These things aren't mutually exclusive. You can compete as a team and with the help of friends.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      Of course they aren't mutually exclusive. Did you read where I acknowledge that competition is an important and useful dynamic? I just think that competition is fundementally less important than cooperation.
      - Chris2048 7y ago
        You also said "competition works best between between groups of freely cooperating individuals", but why? What's wrong with competing alone? It's still coeperation on a societal scale, e.g competing as an individual in a competition is still co-operating with the competition itself.
        shkkmo 7y ago
        > What's wrong with competing alone? Nothing rong, per se, but there are limits to what individuals can do on their own. When you eliminate groups of cooperating individuals, there are much lower limits to what can be accomplished. Specifically when taking about the achievements of society, most enterprises require the efforts of cooperating groups. I feel like this is blatantly evident and doesn't require explanation. > It's still coeperation on a societal scale, e.g competing as an individual in a competition is still co-operating with the competition itself. I think you are mangling the definition of 'cooperation" here. It certainly is possible to compete and cooperate simultaneously (often by strictly limiting the scope of the competition and by sharing knowledge), but that doesn't mean that competing is cooperation. Even so, within that "societal scale" competition, the best results are achieved by groups that operate with either no or greatly limited internal competition.
        Chris2048 7y ago

by paggle 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. People seeking to do things better, faster and cheaper in order to make a buck (or even just for the bragging rights) in order to improve their own personal standard of living gives us electric lighting, oranges in February, the massive amount of infrastructure it takes to get this comment from my fingertips to your eyeballs and every other part of modern life you don't notice but would notice if it were missing. Yes there's externalities but at a societal scale we do a pretty decent job of playing whack-a-mole as they become critical.

shkkmo 7y ago
> Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. Yet you can say the exact same thing about cooperation. I would argue that cooperation is atleast as critical an ingredient here as competition. Indeed, the infrastructure that allows me to view the comment you posted depends on open standards, open source software and generally could not have existed without groups of people working together to accomplish goals. I would personally say that cooperation, freedom and passion are more important than competition, greed and ego in terms of enabling the accomplishments of our society. That is not to say that competition has no role to play, but it is part of a melange of human dynamics that are necessary. Specifically, competition works best between between groups of freely cooperating individuals, especially when those groups can periodically set aside that competition to cooperatively further the goals of their mutual passions and dreams.
- Chris2048 7y ago
  > cooperation, freedom and passion are more important than competition, greed and ego These things aren't mutually exclusive. You can compete as a team and with the help of friends.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    Of course they aren't mutually exclusive. Did you read where I acknowledge that competition is an important and useful dynamic? I just think that competition is fundementally less important than cooperation.
    - Chris2048 7y ago
      You also said "competition works best between between groups of freely cooperating individuals", but why? What's wrong with competing alone? It's still coeperation on a societal scale, e.g competing as an individual in a competition is still co-operating with the competition itself.
      - shkkmo 7y ago
        > What's wrong with competing alone? Nothing rong, per se, but there are limits to what individuals can do on their own. When you eliminate groups of cooperating individuals, there are much lower limits to what can be accomplished. Specifically when taking about the achievements of society, most enterprises require the efforts of cooperating groups. I feel like this is blatantly evident and doesn't require explanation. > It's still coeperation on a societal scale, e.g competing as an individual in a competition is still co-operating with the competition itself. I think you are mangling the definition of 'cooperation" here. It certainly is possible to compete and cooperate simultaneously (often by strictly limiting the scope of the competition and by sharing knowledge), but that doesn't mean that competing is cooperation. Even so, within that "societal scale" competition, the best results are achieved by groups that operate with either no or greatly limited internal competition.
        Chris2048 7y ago