6 ms·

Welcome to capitalism. If profit and self-preservation are at odds, profit wins.

robertlagrant 4y ago
I don't understand what you mean. Can you give an example of where someone has prioritised their own profit over their own survival?
- DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
  I could, but if you don't already see what I'm talking about, chances are you'll just tell me climate change isn't real anyway.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I think you may need to unlearn this conversation style before you can participate meaningfully. Vocalising your stereotypes and memorised emotional responses isn't worth much.
    - mrtranscendence 4y ago
      Pretending you don't understand what someone means when they talk about profit vs self-preservation in a conversation about environmental concerns is also a conversational style that is not particularly useful.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        No. It was a generalised statement attempting to predict how capitalism would react to this particular situation. I wondered what was behind that statement.
        mrtranscendence 4y ago
        You asked this IMO extremely silly question: > Can you give an example of where someone has prioritised their own profit over their own survival? Clearly they weren't saying, given the mugger's choice between "your money or your life!", capitalism would have you choose your money. This is about causing environmental destruction for the sake of profit, something that businesses have done and continue to do, endangering our long-term survival as a species. Saying that you don't know what the original poster meant is baffling.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I could, as you seem to have done, totally reworded the original quote to mean something that makes sense to me, but I was curious to hear if the author had anything in his/her mind. I'm pretty surprised at the responses. Here was the original quote, specifically not talking about the environmnet, but rather as a principle to apply to the environment, for reference: > If profit and self-preservation are at odds, profit wins.
    - DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
      Why would I bother writing an in-depth explanation of a simple and observable fact. Capitalism is a system that optimises for a single variable. It is self-evident how this means that any time another variable is inversely proportional to profit, it will minimise this variable. There is also many trivial examples of such cases: Preserving the environment costs money. Therefore, capitalism will do its job and optimise economies to maximise environment pollution. If you had any worthwhile counter-argument, you would have stated it by now, instead of pretending not to understand my point.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        Giving an example of what you mean is a very simple thing to do. You're saying capitalism will do badly with the environment, as it will always pick profit over survival. I'm asking for a previous example of this principle that you're stating will apply to the environment.
      - r3trohack3r 4y ago
        > Capitalism is a system that optimises for a single variable. It is self-evident how this means that any time another variable is inversely proportional to profit, it will minimise this variable. This isn't what I understand capitalism to be. As I understand it, capitalism is the free exchange of goods and services centered around personal property. There is no single variable. Individuals engage in trade freely, and each individual evaluates the value of that trade individually. Each individual uses their own set of values in evaluating the net value they get out of the trade. Under capitalism there is a near infinite set of variables as each market participant is carrying their own set of values into every trade.
        anotherman554 4y ago
        From the Investopedia article on Capitalism: "Another drawback of capitalism is that it often leads to a host of negative externalities, such as air and noise pollution. Negative externalities are costs paid for by society and not the producer of the externality. A factory dumping waste into a river or emitting smoke into the air is a problem shouldered by the communities that the factory is in, and not the business itself."
- badtension 4y ago
  It does not happen often on an individual scale. In capitalism the timescales of cause and effect are so distant that many people will not even see the consequences in the grand scheme of things. A simple example would be companies maximizing short term profits to their own demise. Like the online ad business, managers are happily ignoring the fact that bot armies are inflating their numbers. I'm really curious how Google is going to handle that in the future.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > In capitalism the timescales of cause and effect are so distant that many people will not even see the consequences in the grand scheme of things. Can you give a counterexample? Why are you talking about capitalism, and not, say, people?
- Aunche 4y ago
  This is standard anti-capitalist logic. Somebody is doing something bad. They're participating in the overwhelmingly dominant economic system of our time (capitalism). Therefore capitalism must be the root of the problem. It doesn't matter that non-capitalists have historically done similar things. Curiously, they never use the same logic when referring to positive effects of capitalism like a boom in life expectancy and reduction in poverty. That's simply an inevitable consequence of technology. It doesn't matter that the only reason people have the economic means to acquire such technology is due to capitalism.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
    > Curiously, they never use the same logic when referring to positive effects of capitalism like a boom in life expectancy and reduction in poverty. Bullshit. I am perfectly happy to give capitalism credit where it works well, and so do most people other than extreme leftists. Meanwhile, people defending capitalism seem to do this much more often: Capitalism does something good -> all hail capitalism, for it can do no wrong; something bad happens under capitalism? Literally anything else is to blame, specially communists.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    Capitalism is fine, modern consumerism is an abomination Even the people who came up with capitalist's principles would be absolutely outraged by what it became
Aunche 4y ago
The surplus wealth created by capitalism is the only reason why people have the luxury of giving a damn about the environment in the first place. Maoist China destroyed its forests to make charcoal for low quality iron and killed most of their birds in an attempt to slightly boost grain production. The Soviet Union drained the Aral Sea to grow cotton. The residents of Easter island completely destroyed their environment. They all cared about "short term profits" as much as any capitalist. They simply weren't as good as executing it.
- DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
  Congratulations. You just convinced me that totalitarian dictatorships are not a good alternative to capitalism. Oh wait, I already knew that lol.
  - Aunche 4y ago
    Glad we agree on something. The only use of overly broad and overly vague criticism of capitalism is for an aspiring dictator to motivate the proletariat to overthrow the status quo.

I don't understand what you mean. Can you give an example of where someone has prioritised their own profit over their own survival?

DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
I could, but if you don't already see what I'm talking about, chances are you'll just tell me climate change isn't real anyway.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  I think you may need to unlearn this conversation style before you can participate meaningfully. Vocalising your stereotypes and memorised emotional responses isn't worth much.
  - mrtranscendence 4y ago
    Pretending you don't understand what someone means when they talk about profit vs self-preservation in a conversation about environmental concerns is also a conversational style that is not particularly useful.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      No. It was a generalised statement attempting to predict how capitalism would react to this particular situation. I wondered what was behind that statement.
      - mrtranscendence 4y ago
        You asked this IMO extremely silly question: > Can you give an example of where someone has prioritised their own profit over their own survival? Clearly they weren't saying, given the mugger's choice between "your money or your life!", capitalism would have you choose your money. This is about causing environmental destruction for the sake of profit, something that businesses have done and continue to do, endangering our long-term survival as a species. Saying that you don't know what the original poster meant is baffling.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I could, as you seem to have done, totally reworded the original quote to mean something that makes sense to me, but I was curious to hear if the author had anything in his/her mind. I'm pretty surprised at the responses. Here was the original quote, specifically not talking about the environmnet, but rather as a principle to apply to the environment, for reference: > If profit and self-preservation are at odds, profit wins.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
    Why would I bother writing an in-depth explanation of a simple and observable fact. Capitalism is a system that optimises for a single variable. It is self-evident how this means that any time another variable is inversely proportional to profit, it will minimise this variable. There is also many trivial examples of such cases: Preserving the environment costs money. Therefore, capitalism will do its job and optimise economies to maximise environment pollution. If you had any worthwhile counter-argument, you would have stated it by now, instead of pretending not to understand my point.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Giving an example of what you mean is a very simple thing to do. You're saying capitalism will do badly with the environment, as it will always pick profit over survival. I'm asking for a previous example of this principle that you're stating will apply to the environment.
    - r3trohack3r 4y ago
      > Capitalism is a system that optimises for a single variable. It is self-evident how this means that any time another variable is inversely proportional to profit, it will minimise this variable. This isn't what I understand capitalism to be. As I understand it, capitalism is the free exchange of goods and services centered around personal property. There is no single variable. Individuals engage in trade freely, and each individual evaluates the value of that trade individually. Each individual uses their own set of values in evaluating the net value they get out of the trade. Under capitalism there is a near infinite set of variables as each market participant is carrying their own set of values into every trade.
      - anotherman554 4y ago
        From the Investopedia article on Capitalism: "Another drawback of capitalism is that it often leads to a host of negative externalities, such as air and noise pollution. Negative externalities are costs paid for by society and not the producer of the externality. A factory dumping waste into a river or emitting smoke into the air is a problem shouldered by the communities that the factory is in, and not the business itself."
badtension 4y ago
It does not happen often on an individual scale. In capitalism the timescales of cause and effect are so distant that many people will not even see the consequences in the grand scheme of things. A simple example would be companies maximizing short term profits to their own demise. Like the online ad business, managers are happily ignoring the fact that bot armies are inflating their numbers. I'm really curious how Google is going to handle that in the future.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > In capitalism the timescales of cause and effect are so distant that many people will not even see the consequences in the grand scheme of things. Can you give a counterexample? Why are you talking about capitalism, and not, say, people?
Aunche 4y ago
This is standard anti-capitalist logic. Somebody is doing something bad. They're participating in the overwhelmingly dominant economic system of our time (capitalism). Therefore capitalism must be the root of the problem. It doesn't matter that non-capitalists have historically done similar things. Curiously, they never use the same logic when referring to positive effects of capitalism like a boom in life expectancy and reduction in poverty. That's simply an inevitable consequence of technology. It doesn't matter that the only reason people have the economic means to acquire such technology is due to capitalism.
- DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
  > Curiously, they never use the same logic when referring to positive effects of capitalism like a boom in life expectancy and reduction in poverty. Bullshit. I am perfectly happy to give capitalism credit where it works well, and so do most people other than extreme leftists. Meanwhile, people defending capitalism seem to do this much more often: Capitalism does something good -> all hail capitalism, for it can do no wrong; something bad happens under capitalism? Literally anything else is to blame, specially communists.
- lm28469 4y ago
  Capitalism is fine, modern consumerism is an abomination Even the people who came up with capitalist's principles would be absolutely outraged by what it became

Aunche 4y ago

The surplus wealth created by capitalism is the only reason why people have the luxury of giving a damn about the environment in the first place. Maoist China destroyed its forests to make charcoal for low quality iron and killed most of their birds in an attempt to slightly boost grain production. The Soviet Union drained the Aral Sea to grow cotton. The residents of Easter island completely destroyed their environment. They all cared about "short term profits" as much as any capitalist. They simply weren't as good as executing it.

DarkWiiPlayer 4y ago
Congratulations. You just convinced me that totalitarian dictatorships are not a good alternative to capitalism. Oh wait, I already knew that lol.
- Aunche 4y ago
  Glad we agree on something. The only use of overly broad and overly vague criticism of capitalism is for an aspiring dictator to motivate the proletariat to overthrow the status quo.