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Now you're just not making any sense. If you define competition as being necessarily unconstrained, then any competition with rules is not competition. A foot r

by smhost 5y ago

Now you're just not making any sense. If you define competition as being necessarily unconstrained, then any competition with rules is not competition. A foot race where you have to stay within your lane isn't competitive. A football match where you're not allowed to maim your opponents is not competitive. Weight classes aren't competitive. I don't understand your reasoning. Your response to 2) is a non sequitur. If what you really care about is competition, then who cares if the outcome is dystopian? Are you denying that Amazon is interally competitive?

admissionsguy 5y ago
I don't get you either. My main points were: 1) introducing global governance in space research or in general will go against the primary driver of human motivation, competition. 2) doing it anyway ("United Earth") requires force and results in subpar outcomes You argued that there can exist large-scale organisations that are internally competitive, like the sports orgs or companies, and that competition can be constrained to its constructive forms. To which my reply has two parts. First, competition is necessarily unconstrained in the sense than an entity will do whatever it can to win (a football player won't maim an opponent because he is constrained by the larger entity, while a FIFA official won't bat an eye on thousands of stadium builders dying in order to advance his agenda, and Joe Biden will trigger nuclear war if he needs to). You cannot impose constraints on the largest-scale structures. Second, if you put groups of people into these large orgs, the results are bad. The sports governing bodies are notoriously corrupt. The UN is notoriously corrupt. All large companies eventually ossify and die.
- smhost 5y ago
  Can you answer whether you believe that a football player being constrained by rules against maiming his or her opponent is a constraint that "[goes] against the primary driver of human motivation, competition"?
  - admissionsguy 5y ago
    [I rewrote the post at the same time smhost replied to the previous version, apologies] I get an impression you are trying reduction ad absurdum in a way that might work to sway the audience, but just skims on the surface of actual argument. Obviously, you can still have lots of competition under constraints (though you cannot have constraints at the highest scale), but that I believe has no bearing on my argument.
    - smhost 5y ago
      I don't think I'm strawmanning at all. You just accepted that unconstrained competition leads to violence. All you're doing when you argue against the principle of having global constraints is privileging one type of violence against another. And you seem to accept as a matter of fact that "constraints can't be placed on the largest-scale structures". I don't share your confidence. The largest-scale structures are already self-constrained, because in order to reach a certain level of scale, it has to operate according to a certain self-imposed logic. Even at the individual level, what is discipline other than a form of self-domestication? I would even go so far as to flip your formula around and say that human motivations at every level of society can only come realized through a series of internal and external contraints.

by smhost 5y ago

admissionsguy 5y ago

I don't get you either. My main points were: 1) introducing global governance in space research or in general will go against the primary driver of human motivation, competition. 2) doing it anyway ("United Earth") requires force and results in subpar outcomes You argued that there can exist large-scale organisations that are internally competitive, like the sports orgs or companies, and that competition can be constrained to its constructive forms. To which my reply has two parts. First, competition is necessarily unconstrained in the sense than an entity will do whatever it can to win (a football player won't maim an opponent because he is constrained by the larger entity, while a FIFA official won't bat an eye on thousands of stadium builders dying in order to advance his agenda, and Joe Biden will trigger nuclear war if he needs to). You cannot impose constraints on the largest-scale structures. Second, if you put groups of people into these large orgs, the results are bad. The sports governing bodies are notoriously corrupt. The UN is notoriously corrupt. All large companies eventually ossify and die.

smhost 5y ago
Can you answer whether you believe that a football player being constrained by rules against maiming his or her opponent is a constraint that "[goes] against the primary driver of human motivation, competition"?
- admissionsguy 5y ago
  [I rewrote the post at the same time smhost replied to the previous version, apologies] I get an impression you are trying reduction ad absurdum in a way that might work to sway the audience, but just skims on the surface of actual argument. Obviously, you can still have lots of competition under constraints (though you cannot have constraints at the highest scale), but that I believe has no bearing on my argument.
  - smhost 5y ago
    I don't think I'm strawmanning at all. You just accepted that unconstrained competition leads to violence. All you're doing when you argue against the principle of having global constraints is privileging one type of violence against another. And you seem to accept as a matter of fact that "constraints can't be placed on the largest-scale structures". I don't share your confidence. The largest-scale structures are already self-constrained, because in order to reach a certain level of scale, it has to operate according to a certain self-imposed logic. Even at the individual level, what is discipline other than a form of self-domestication? I would even go so far as to flip your formula around and say that human motivations at every level of society can only come realized through a series of internal and external contraints.