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We are living in a global society that has been structured around the singular principle of individual enrichment, and have been for about 230 years, depending
by Lord-Jobo 3y ago
We are living in a global society that has been structured around the singular principle of individual enrichment, and have been for about 230 years, depending on where you live. The answer to almost all modern mysteries of human behavior will lie in that incentive structure one way or another.
Why do people steal of defraud? The potential individual enrichment is higher. Why engage in corrupt short-termerisms like accepting bribes? individual enrichment.
This is all the result of "greed is good" ^1 and its not sustainable.
1: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/greed-is-good-a-300-year-history-of-a-dangerous-idea/360265/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/greed-i...
- robertlagrant 3y agoIt's not "greed is good", it's "specialisation is an n-way mutual win".
- partitioned 3y agoWho is the winner in this case?
- riversflow 3y agoIs it good when people specialize in destructive things? There are people who specialize in human trafficing, different types of fraud, etc. Is that an n-way mutual losss?
- robertlagrant 3y agoNot exactly, I'd say. It is a mutual win for the people involved in the transactional aspect, but a tragedy for the victims. Having the ability to charge the prices you want for what you offer is a superb self-organising principle; it just isn't sufficient to describe everything we want. In this case: we should agree on certain common rules on what is off limits, but other than that we should get out of people's way so they can create value for each other.
- thereisnospork 3y agoPeople love to bemoan greed but it is by far the best economic optimization algorithm humanity has managed to come up with[1]. [0]An AGI-led command economy is certainly interesting though.