4 ms·

Most people don't want people to take advantage of or bully people, regardless whether it's capitalists or unionists.

by wankle 4y ago

wwweston 4y ago
I used to think this too, since I tend to value interactions that range between autonomy and cooperation. Even where I like competition, it tends to exist within cooperative meta-boundaries. I assumed most people probably weren't too different from me, which is a very cooperative thing to assume. Over time I've come to realize that while of course there's some common nature to human beings, there's also a varying distribution of personality and outlook, including how agreeable / disagreeable people are as well as how assertive. And it turns out on parts of that distribution there are people who enjoy not finding situations that benefit them but winning benefit and status from others. I don't know whether that's "most" people. I'd guess not and that the distribution gets thinner the farther from the average disagreeableness and assertiveness you go. But it's enough people that I no longer discard adversarial values as a potential motive.
topaz0 4y ago
Most people -- even capitalists -- like to think they aren't taking advantage of people, but most capitalists are willing to overlook the ways that they are taking advantage of people, so the impulse doesn't do much good.
jdiff 4y ago
Most people will find another way to frame it. The training screenshots in the article are full of examples.
munificent 4y ago
Perhaps a better way to say the parent point is: It is an emergent property of capitalist systems that people who love market manipulation will outcompete those who don't and thus end up in positions of such power that they effectively determine the characteristics and behavior of the system. There are lots of people playing the capitalism game who don't want to cheat. But the system rewards cheaters who then use their power to produce the world we are all forced to live in.
- xp84 4y ago
  This is one of the most insightful explanations of our present capitalist "system" that I've read in a long time. Well put.
- wankle 4y ago
  It remains a world in which anyone can compete, regardless your dystopian, Hollywood writeresque style prose. It's a world I and most people prefer to one run by the mafia: https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unions#:~:text=Historically%2C%20organized%20criminal%20groups%20such,threats%20and%20acts%20of%20violence https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unio....
  - wwweston 4y ago
    If organized crime infiltrating particular institutions invalidates them by itself... then you're obligated to disdain or even eliminate large chunks of capitalism. Certainly casinos and night clubs. Lots of restaurants. Probably construction and real estate, definitely certain kinds of banking. Oh yeah -- law enforcement too. That's the thing about crime: it's pretty much everywhere people are. Churches have cooperated with it. But that association doesn't define what churches are, it doesn't define what law enforcement is, it doesn't define any of the other businesses. In any walk of life, in any kind of organization, there can be people who will organize force and influence for private benefit rather than cooperating for the ideals an institution was created for. Unions are subject to that too? Well no kidding. Also "dystopian, Hollywood writeresque prose" -- WTF? The comment you're replying to contains a credible model of how market systems become non-competitive. It's useful whether you like market systems or not (if you like them, you can use it to inform improvements). And what's comes out of creative media production is such a wide variety of content that the only thing that's certain is that you can't keep it all under one umbrella, much less one as tattered as the one you just unfolded. But even if we could imagine some representative-middle it sure wouldn't have a lot of dialogue in it resembling the comment you're responding to. The whole thing just smacks of name-calling driven by unreflective associations.

Most people don't want people to take advantage of or bully people, regardless whether it's capitalists or unionists.

by wankle 4y ago

Most people don't want people to take advantage of or bully people, regardless whether it's capitalists or unionists.

I used to think this too, since I tend to value interactions that range between autonomy and cooperation. Even where I like competition, it tends to exist within cooperative meta-boundaries. I assumed most people probably weren't too different from me, which is a very cooperative thing to assume. Over time I've come to realize that while of course there's some common nature to human beings, there's also a varying distribution of personality and outlook, including how agreeable / disagreeable people are as well as how assertive. And it turns out on parts of that distribution there are people who enjoy not finding situations that benefit them but winning benefit and status from others. I don't know whether that's "most" people. I'd guess not and that the distribution gets thinner the farther from the average disagreeableness and assertiveness you go. But it's enough people that I no longer discard adversarial values as a potential motive.

topaz0 4y ago

Most people -- even capitalists -- like to think they aren't taking advantage of people, but most capitalists are willing to overlook the ways that they are taking advantage of people, so the impulse doesn't do much good.

jdiff 4y ago

Most people will find another way to frame it. The training screenshots in the article are full of examples.

munificent 4y ago

Perhaps a better way to say the parent point is: It is an emergent property of capitalist systems that people who love market manipulation will outcompete those who don't and thus end up in positions of such power that they effectively determine the characteristics and behavior of the system. There are lots of people playing the capitalism game who don't want to cheat. But the system rewards cheaters who then use their power to produce the world we are all forced to live in.

xp84 4y ago
This is one of the most insightful explanations of our present capitalist "system" that I've read in a long time. Well put.
wankle 4y ago
It remains a world in which anyone can compete, regardless your dystopian, Hollywood writeresque style prose. It's a world I and most people prefer to one run by the mafia: https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unions#:~:text=Historically%2C%20organized%20criminal%20groups%20such,threats%20and%20acts%20of%20violence https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ocgs/infiltrated-labor-unio....
- wwweston 4y ago
  If organized crime infiltrating particular institutions invalidates them by itself... then you're obligated to disdain or even eliminate large chunks of capitalism. Certainly casinos and night clubs. Lots of restaurants. Probably construction and real estate, definitely certain kinds of banking. Oh yeah -- law enforcement too. That's the thing about crime: it's pretty much everywhere people are. Churches have cooperated with it. But that association doesn't define what churches are, it doesn't define what law enforcement is, it doesn't define any of the other businesses. In any walk of life, in any kind of organization, there can be people who will organize force and influence for private benefit rather than cooperating for the ideals an institution was created for. Unions are subject to that too? Well no kidding. Also "dystopian, Hollywood writeresque prose" -- WTF? The comment you're replying to contains a credible model of how market systems become non-competitive. It's useful whether you like market systems or not (if you like them, you can use it to inform improvements). And what's comes out of creative media production is such a wide variety of content that the only thing that's certain is that you can't keep it all under one umbrella, much less one as tattered as the one you just unfolded. But even if we could imagine some representative-middle it sure wouldn't have a lot of dialogue in it resembling the comment you're responding to. The whole thing just smacks of name-calling driven by unreflective associations.