5 ms·

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."

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."