4 ms·

First off, you can have competition and cooperation. Take a look at any sports team. It's a highly competitive environment that's also highly cooperative. Yo

First off, you can have competition and cooperation. Take a look at any sports team. It's a highly competitive environment that's also highly cooperative. You can't win unless you play as a team. I don't believe the strongest players on whatever football team you follow are squashing or squandering anything. You can't get to good graduates schools, even in garbage dump of politics the social sciences have become, without being more clever, interesting, and intelligent than your peers. It's laughable that people who make it to the more prestigious institutions, because of slavishly hard work for most of their lives, then turn around and say that merit based systems are inherently flawed. Should the Columbia just accept students at random? Even if they did, it wouldn't matter. The irony, in a world that isn't competitive, no one would pay more attention to their paper than a paper from Crappy Backwater University on why peanut consumption makes people more sedentary. Their result isn't surprising. When you value and reward competition - you get more inequality. However, societies that don't favor competition often have completely rigged and sham economies. I'm racking my brain to think of one economy outside the US, UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc, that isn't based on competition that isn't a morass of local bribes to the dictator's cousin's uncle or whatever. In China, for example, "common prosperity" is the cudgel wielded against any perceived alternate power center. It has little to do with actual prosperity. What I think is right to criticize, is how do we deal with the impact of inequality. It's fine to have inequality as long as certain needs are met. Access to medical care, housing, food security, and education are all things that should be available to everyone. It's okay to have inequality and competition as long as we mitigate the emotional and physical impact of inequality. But the thing that will allow us to pay for that is a highly competitive and effective economy.

v-erne 4y ago
>> First off, you can have competition and cooperation. Take a look at any sports team. It's a highly competitive environment that's also highly cooperative. You can't win unless you play as a team. Sport is probably the worst possible analogy for any fair economic system. It promotes cooperation between people only as far as crushing your opponents team go. How exactly exactly promotes cooperation between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid within it's rules ? Who would want to live in a world where there is place only for one winner? >> I'm racking my brain to think of one economy outside the US, UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc, that isn't based on competition that isn't a morass of local bribes to the dictator's cousin's uncle or whatever. In China, for example, "common prosperity" is the cudgel wielded against any perceived alternate power center. It has little to do with actual prosperity. I believe that corruption and bribes are orthogonal to economic systems. Capitalism is full of corruption and especially corporations are full of kick back schemes (I have seen few personally that would make comrade Brezhnev blush). My personal standing is that corruption comes from people who have to much decision power and too greedy to play by the rules. Only proper build in control systems can restrict that.
- phoehne 4y ago
  >> Sport is probably the worst possible analogy for any fair economic system. It promotes cooperation between people only as far as crushing your opponents team go. How exactly exactly promotes cooperation between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid within it's rules ? Who would want to live in a world where there is place only for one winner? Remember when Zidane head-butted the Italian player and France lost the World Cup because Italy got a penalty shot? Because the referee called the foul. Because both teams agree to cooperate and respect the decision of the referee during play. If you didn't cooperate, no sporting even would be fun to watch. Soccer (football) would be about as much fun to watch as a brawl - which is what it would turn into. But both teams agree to guidelines on what makes a good football (soccer) game. Imagine a world without competition and you'll see a world that's dead inside. You'll see a world that drives Trabants and you have a 5 year waiting list for something like a Commodore 64. It's because Sony and Microsoft are competing for your gaming attention/dollars, or Intel and AMD are competing for your desktop, that I can have a nice graphical display on a computer that, inflation adjusted, cost me 1/5 the price I paid for my first computer in the 1980s.
  - v-erne 4y ago
    >> But both teams agree to guidelines on what makes a good football (soccer) game This seems like a very useless definition of cooperation from the perspective of the discussion that we are having. Sure, following same rules is some form of high level cooperation but You could equally easy switch sport to something more extreme - war would be good example I suppose - and try to convince me that if both sides are abiding by Geneva Convention while killing each other then this is an equally good analogy. >> Imagine a world without competition and you'll see a world that's dead inside. I have to bring one of my favorite quotes into discussion, sorry You forced my hand :) : "That's just like your opinion man". I understand where you are getting this sentiment (my family used to have Trabant and I remember "good" old socialistic people republic times from my childhood) but I do not believe for a second that this is either or situation. I think that there is place for better, more sophisticated economic systems, that combines rules from current systems. The problem is that ideology is standing it their way.
scarface74 4y ago
> laughable that people who make it to the more prestigious institutions, because of slavishly hard work for most of their lives, Or because of legacy preferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences Or because their parents paid off the right people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...
mordae 4y ago
> First off, you can have competition and cooperation. Given existence of an impartial referee, fair conditions and no metagame. Capitalism is not just competition, it is literally a fight for one's life. An unfair one, given corruption and marketing metagames. Even your sports example breaks down in seconds. The team won't get funded unless it brings attention to feed marketing companies that funnel money into the team. You can absolute metagame European football with financial injection (heated lawn to practice off-season, buying better players, trainer, doping and so on).

v-erne 4y ago

>> First off, you can have competition and cooperation. Take a look at any sports team. It's a highly competitive environment that's also highly cooperative. You can't win unless you play as a team. Sport is probably the worst possible analogy for any fair economic system. It promotes cooperation between people only as far as crushing your opponents team go. How exactly exactly promotes cooperation between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid within it's rules ? Who would want to live in a world where there is place only for one winner? >> I'm racking my brain to think of one economy outside the US, UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc, that isn't based on competition that isn't a morass of local bribes to the dictator's cousin's uncle or whatever. In China, for example, "common prosperity" is the cudgel wielded against any perceived alternate power center. It has little to do with actual prosperity. I believe that corruption and bribes are orthogonal to economic systems. Capitalism is full of corruption and especially corporations are full of kick back schemes (I have seen few personally that would make comrade Brezhnev blush). My personal standing is that corruption comes from people who have to much decision power and too greedy to play by the rules. Only proper build in control systems can restrict that.

phoehne 4y ago
>> Sport is probably the worst possible analogy for any fair economic system. It promotes cooperation between people only as far as crushing your opponents team go. How exactly exactly promotes cooperation between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid within it's rules ? Who would want to live in a world where there is place only for one winner? Remember when Zidane head-butted the Italian player and France lost the World Cup because Italy got a penalty shot? Because the referee called the foul. Because both teams agree to cooperate and respect the decision of the referee during play. If you didn't cooperate, no sporting even would be fun to watch. Soccer (football) would be about as much fun to watch as a brawl - which is what it would turn into. But both teams agree to guidelines on what makes a good football (soccer) game. Imagine a world without competition and you'll see a world that's dead inside. You'll see a world that drives Trabants and you have a 5 year waiting list for something like a Commodore 64. It's because Sony and Microsoft are competing for your gaming attention/dollars, or Intel and AMD are competing for your desktop, that I can have a nice graphical display on a computer that, inflation adjusted, cost me 1/5 the price I paid for my first computer in the 1980s.
- v-erne 4y ago
  >> But both teams agree to guidelines on what makes a good football (soccer) game This seems like a very useless definition of cooperation from the perspective of the discussion that we are having. Sure, following same rules is some form of high level cooperation but You could equally easy switch sport to something more extreme - war would be good example I suppose - and try to convince me that if both sides are abiding by Geneva Convention while killing each other then this is an equally good analogy. >> Imagine a world without competition and you'll see a world that's dead inside. I have to bring one of my favorite quotes into discussion, sorry You forced my hand :) : "That's just like your opinion man". I understand where you are getting this sentiment (my family used to have Trabant and I remember "good" old socialistic people republic times from my childhood) but I do not believe for a second that this is either or situation. I think that there is place for better, more sophisticated economic systems, that combines rules from current systems. The problem is that ideology is standing it their way.

scarface74 4y ago

> laughable that people who make it to the more prestigious institutions, because of slavishly hard work for most of their lives, Or because of legacy preferences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences Or because their parents paid off the right people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...

mordae 4y ago

> First off, you can have competition and cooperation. Given existence of an impartial referee, fair conditions and no metagame. Capitalism is not just competition, it is literally a fight for one's life. An unfair one, given corruption and marketing metagames. Even your sports example breaks down in seconds. The team won't get funded unless it brings attention to feed marketing companies that funnel money into the team. You can absolute metagame European football with financial injection (heated lawn to practice off-season, buying better players, trainer, doping and so on).