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> The totally overlapping error here was assuming those things—making the world better, and making money—aren’t inherently in conflict They're not in conflict.

> The totally overlapping error here was assuming those things—making the world better, and making money—aren’t inherently in conflict They're not in conflict. Competition makes better products. Apple benefited from Microsoft's existence, and vice versa. There's a lot of great free software, but it comes from people who already earned enough to spend time on it.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. They often make the world worse. I don’t have a particular chip on my shoulder about Apple, or Microsoft, or free software. There are things I appreciate that all of them produce, and good in the world because of some of those efforts by each. But yes, making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to reconcile them acceptably for this endeavor, I even addressed that. Ugh I have half a mind to post a Wikipedia link, but it’s going to be really upsetting if I play a part in dialectics becoming another inscrutable topic on HN like monads.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  > Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. It depends who you ask. Someone is buying those products. We use money and public opinion to proxy for what we value. Without freedom to use those someone would need to dictate what's valuable.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    > If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight. But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money. I was acknowledging a tension between incentives. Please don’t make me elaborate about dialectics. No one will enjoy it.
    - ironmagma 5y ago
      Let's make this simpler: If money disappeared, a lot of people would die. I don't care how long you make the transition period; even if it's a change spread across 20 years, without a database of resources and how many belong to each person (which is what money is), you aren't going to be able to coordinate people well enough to feed billions of people each day. How would the deletion of the database serve anyone?
      - eyelidlessness 5y ago
        Let’s make this simpler still: > But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money.
        ironmagma 5y ago
        You claim that "making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict." My understanding of this sentence is that one cannot make money while making the world better. It follows then that it is bad to be making money, since it makes the world worse. If it is bad to be making money, it would be better to not be doing so. If money is not being made, this is the same as money being eliminated, as it ceases to serve its purpose. Please tell me where you disagree.
        eyelidlessness 5y ago

eyelidlessness 5y ago

Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. They often make the world worse. I don’t have a particular chip on my shoulder about Apple, or Microsoft, or free software. There are things I appreciate that all of them produce, and good in the world because of some of those efforts by each. But yes, making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to reconcile them acceptably for this endeavor, I even addressed that. Ugh I have half a mind to post a Wikipedia link, but it’s going to be really upsetting if I play a part in dialectics becoming another inscrutable topic on HN like monads.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
> Better products don’t necessarily make the world better. It depends who you ask. Someone is buying those products. We use money and public opinion to proxy for what we value. Without freedom to use those someone would need to dictate what's valuable.
ironmagma 5y ago
If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die (almost all of them). So, money allows the survival of people. If you are not a misanthropist, then, the world is better with money, since it allows people to live. Therefore, making money is simply something that must be done to allow the existence of human life. This is not in conflict of making the world better, it's in service of it.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  > If money disappeared overnight, a lot of people would die If asbestos disappeared overnight lot of people would die. I almost made this a list but it would detract from the point. Making something disappear overnight is almost always harmful in any systemic context. There are a lot of things I want to eradicate from existence, and I don’t think I could name one which I would want eradicated overnight. But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money. I was acknowledging a tension between incentives. Please don’t make me elaborate about dialectics. No one will enjoy it.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    Let's make this simpler: If money disappeared, a lot of people would die. I don't care how long you make the transition period; even if it's a change spread across 20 years, without a database of resources and how many belong to each person (which is what money is), you aren't going to be able to coordinate people well enough to feed billions of people each day. How would the deletion of the database serve anyone?
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      Let’s make this simpler still: > But I wasn’t even advocating for eliminating money.
      - ironmagma 5y ago
        You claim that "making the world better and making money are inherently in conflict." My understanding of this sentence is that one cannot make money while making the world better. It follows then that it is bad to be making money, since it makes the world worse. If it is bad to be making money, it would be better to not be doing so. If money is not being made, this is the same as money being eliminated, as it ceases to serve its purpose. Please tell me where you disagree.
        eyelidlessness 5y ago