3 ms·

Isn't this statement trivially true for any sort of social system, where you can stand in social capital for Capital.

elmomle 5y ago
Capital has tended to trump social capital in the long term, particularly since sufficient capital can shape the public discourse.
- dnautics 5y ago
  Economic capital is interesting because 1) it's not a zero sum game. Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. These things are not necessarily true of other forms of social capital; you can definitely accrue political capital by killing people (or in a less dramatic sense, by being feared by people).
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. It's easy to misread that as something like everybody wins, but it's worth noting that such exchanges can still be extremely exploitative.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". In any case, acknowledging that exchanges can be "unfair" for some definition of "unfair", I did use the word "Most". Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty but I challenge you to find a social system that does.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Exploitativeness is not necessarily ill-defined. It's just that when you define it rigourously, it either never happens or happens too often for the definers' ideological persuasion. And by the way, your statement is also extremely ill-defined. If you say that most transactions are not zero-sum, you are presupposing some kind of value system, which you didn't specify, and the value system for which that is true are also very ill-defined. It's also true that a positive sum interaction could absolutely be exploitative. So the actual amount of exploitative interactions is strictly higher than the number of zero sum or negative sum interactions.
      - tablespoon 5y ago
        > Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". One could say something similar about "betterment" in your original statement. > Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty Obviously. > but I challenge you to find a social system that does. We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It irks me when "capitalism/free markets" is presented as some kind of "best possible economic system," or that it cannot be challenged unless the challenger is perfect. It's a set of trade offs (advocated by people with their own agendas), and I see little reason why different people shouldn't advocate different sets of trade-offs.
sudosysgen 5y ago
For social capital, the statement is tautological and has no meaning. Social capital is generally defined as the set of all interpersonal relationships and shared or individual ideas. This isn't a paperclip maximizer nor is it meaningful that groups of people are compelled to act in ways that follow what people in that group believe, do, and how they interact with each other; it's a tautology. I think that the fact that this applies to capital in general and to abstract SHA256 capability in particular is much more interesting. After all, a bitcoin ASIC is not an interpersonal relationship or a goal of anyone or any group of people.
- dnautics 5y ago
  If you don't think that maximization of social capital doesnt lead people to do dumb shit things allow me to introduce you to real stuff with escalating degrees of real consequence over millennia like TikTok, eating competitions, luxury yachts, most of Hollywood, Jeffrey Epstein, various wars over the course of milennia like Assad murdering his citizens in Syria to dumb wars in Europe for centuries, crusades, pol pot, e.g.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Yeah I just don't understand how any of those things are bizarre or non-obvious. People want to be entertained, have power over other people, have more resources, etc...

Capital has tended to trump social capital in the long term, particularly since sufficient capital can shape the public discourse.

dnautics 5y ago
Economic capital is interesting because 1) it's not a zero sum game. Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. These things are not necessarily true of other forms of social capital; you can definitely accrue political capital by killing people (or in a less dramatic sense, by being feared by people).
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Most exchanges of economic capital result in the betterment of both parties. 2) in order to get some, you usually provide a good or service to someone else. It's easy to misread that as something like everybody wins, but it's worth noting that such exchanges can still be extremely exploitative.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". In any case, acknowledging that exchanges can be "unfair" for some definition of "unfair", I did use the word "Most". Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty but I challenge you to find a social system that does.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Exploitativeness is not necessarily ill-defined. It's just that when you define it rigourously, it either never happens or happens too often for the definers' ideological persuasion. And by the way, your statement is also extremely ill-defined. If you say that most transactions are not zero-sum, you are presupposing some kind of value system, which you didn't specify, and the value system for which that is true are also very ill-defined. It's also true that a positive sum interaction could absolutely be exploitative. So the actual amount of exploitative interactions is strictly higher than the number of zero sum or negative sum interactions.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Exploitativeness is extremely ill-defined and often used to push an agenda that is not really aligned with the interest of the party "being exploited". One could say something similar about "betterment" in your original statement. > Capitalism/free markets do not guarantee that humans are not shitty Obviously. > but I challenge you to find a social system that does. We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It irks me when "capitalism/free markets" is presented as some kind of "best possible economic system," or that it cannot be challenged unless the challenger is perfect. It's a set of trade offs (advocated by people with their own agendas), and I see little reason why different people shouldn't advocate different sets of trade-offs.

sudosysgen 5y ago

For social capital, the statement is tautological and has no meaning. Social capital is generally defined as the set of all interpersonal relationships and shared or individual ideas. This isn't a paperclip maximizer nor is it meaningful that groups of people are compelled to act in ways that follow what people in that group believe, do, and how they interact with each other; it's a tautology. I think that the fact that this applies to capital in general and to abstract SHA256 capability in particular is much more interesting. After all, a bitcoin ASIC is not an interpersonal relationship or a goal of anyone or any group of people.

dnautics 5y ago
If you don't think that maximization of social capital doesnt lead people to do dumb shit things allow me to introduce you to real stuff with escalating degrees of real consequence over millennia like TikTok, eating competitions, luxury yachts, most of Hollywood, Jeffrey Epstein, various wars over the course of milennia like Assad murdering his citizens in Syria to dumb wars in Europe for centuries, crusades, pol pot, e.g.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Yeah I just don't understand how any of those things are bizarre or non-obvious. People want to be entertained, have power over other people, have more resources, etc...