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> Vote for a party that will better the world, not the one that will serve your selfish desires Good luck finding one of those. More generally, it's like this

by bo1024 15y ago

> Vote for a party that will better the world, not the one that will serve your selfish desires Good luck finding one of those. More generally, it's like this. You can argue all day about "good" and "evil", but what people respond to are incentives. If you have a system in which businesses which do good and not evil are the businesses that thrive, then people will create businesses which do good. If your economic system rewards "evil" practices, that's what you're going to get. If you allow these "evil" companies to continue to re-design the system to reward patent trolling, snuffing out competitors with lawsuits, spying on Internet users, etc etc etc etc etc, then -- you will get a system in which the more that a company does these things, the more they thrive. If your political system allows companies that thrive to pay to bend the rules of the game in their favor, then they will not only continue to thrive but actively accelerate their success, to the detriment of the rest of the world.

tnicola 15y ago
> More generally, it's like this. You can argue all day about "good" and "evil", but what people respond to are incentives. 100% agree, but incentives and benevolence are not necessarily exclusive of each other. An acquaitance wrote a trillogy. She posted all three books on Amazon for a standard price of 4.99 per e-book. She worked hard on this trillogy and deemed that it was a fair price. She sold ~10 copies of each book a month and generated revenue of $150.00 a month. Then she made the first book free and dropped the price of second two books to $2.99 each (minimum Amazon will allow). The next month she sold 10,000 copies of second and third book generating a revenue of $60,000. Had she stuck to her guns that she should get paid a fair price for all three books, she would still be the starving artist indefinitely. Benevolence will not come from a political system or from the top down. I believe that it will come from the ground up. Because the revolution (much like the rebels) are not organized, but they will hopefully sway the trends for the better.
- bo1024 15y ago
  I agree to a point, but I'm not so sure about this. > Benevolence will not come from a political system or from the top down. Here, you seem to be implying that incentives and benevolence are exclusive. The political (and economic) system can be set up so that it rewards benevolence, or it can punish benevolence. To get more benevolence, I think we must also work on changing the rules to encourage it. (As well as voting with our wallets for benevolent companies/authors/etc.)
  - tnicola 15y ago
    > I think we must also work on changing the rules to encourage it. You hit the nail on the head here. What I meant by not come from the top down, I meant that it will come incrementally from the people who will reward it with their support. It cannot be ordered, it has to be desired, recognized and rewarded.

by bo1024 15y ago

tnicola 15y ago

> More generally, it's like this. You can argue all day about "good" and "evil", but what people respond to are incentives. 100% agree, but incentives and benevolence are not necessarily exclusive of each other. An acquaitance wrote a trillogy. She posted all three books on Amazon for a standard price of 4.99 per e-book. She worked hard on this trillogy and deemed that it was a fair price. She sold ~10 copies of each book a month and generated revenue of $150.00 a month. Then she made the first book free and dropped the price of second two books to $2.99 each (minimum Amazon will allow). The next month she sold 10,000 copies of second and third book generating a revenue of $60,000. Had she stuck to her guns that she should get paid a fair price for all three books, she would still be the starving artist indefinitely. Benevolence will not come from a political system or from the top down. I believe that it will come from the ground up. Because the revolution (much like the rebels) are not organized, but they will hopefully sway the trends for the better.

bo1024 15y ago
I agree to a point, but I'm not so sure about this. > Benevolence will not come from a political system or from the top down. Here, you seem to be implying that incentives and benevolence are exclusive. The political (and economic) system can be set up so that it rewards benevolence, or it can punish benevolence. To get more benevolence, I think we must also work on changing the rules to encourage it. (As well as voting with our wallets for benevolent companies/authors/etc.)
- tnicola 15y ago
  > I think we must also work on changing the rules to encourage it. You hit the nail on the head here. What I meant by not come from the top down, I meant that it will come incrementally from the people who will reward it with their support. It cannot be ordered, it has to be desired, recognized and rewarded.