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How can you separate capital from human interest when the majority of people on earth spend the majority of their time in pursuit of it? Less people starve tod

How can you separate capital from human interest when the majority of people on earth spend the majority of their time in pursuit of it? Less people starve today than ever in the past, and that is because we have more capital, not because we are more charitable than back then. Charity is not any less corrupt, it is just more emotionally appealing because of the illusion of selflessness and a whole lot less effective. You say "your average businessperson is not very interested in making the world better if it plays against their personal ambitions." But I claim that it's not your average businessperson it's your average person with business people just being a subset of that. And that's not even getting into the problem of how does anybody really know how to make the world a better place. In my experience people with a "just doing my job" attitude make much better bosses than those who act like they have a higher purpose.

rachofsunshine 2y ago
I agree with you that this is not unique to businesspeople, although I suspect it's probably disproportionately represented there - both because business is attracted to people pursuing self-interest ruthlessly and because it often presents excellent conditions for tilting people towards self-interest even if not naturally inclined to it. But I would also make a distinction between what a business does and what businesspeople are. It's not hard to build incentive structures that turn good people towards bad ends. I tend to think, for example, that your average Boeing engineer probably wanted to do a good job and not have doors fall off their planes. But when you put multiple layers of abstraction in the way and have leaders looking through business metrics, it isn't hard for everyday crappiness to maneuver its way to the point where that isn't prioritized. Almost no one in the chain really thinks they're sacrificing safety, they think they're doing their job and improving efficiency by cutting redundant steps. > In my experience people with a "just doing my job" attitude make much better bosses than those who act like they have a higher purpose. Sure, because there's a difference between a performative "mission", a self-obsessed founder who makes their own success a story about the future of Earth, and someone who makes concretely difficult decisions when the chips are down. This is kind of what I mean by the corruptive effects of growth. Having a mission is a good thing, but most companies' "missions" are implicitly always secondary to their financial growth, or worse, a cynical ploy for employee engagement. When people write crappy press releases about how "this will enable us to serve more of our users" (read: expand our market), that's not a statement about how serving users is bad, it's just that for most businesses it's necessarily with an asterisk of "we want to serve our users* *as long as it pleases our investors".
nordstreem 2y ago
Do the majority spend their time in pursuit of money because they want to or because the rent is so damn high? Because it’s what we’re educated to do? I don’t mean academic education either. I mean Main Street social norms where there’s no longer being friends with neighbors. But they’ll mow your lawn for money if you’re ever too busy (had that exact conversation with a neighbor recently; we aren’t going to be friends/friendly but will serve you for $).

rachofsunshine 2y ago

I agree with you that this is not unique to businesspeople, although I suspect it's probably disproportionately represented there - both because business is attracted to people pursuing self-interest ruthlessly and because it often presents excellent conditions for tilting people towards self-interest even if not naturally inclined to it. But I would also make a distinction between what a business does and what businesspeople are. It's not hard to build incentive structures that turn good people towards bad ends. I tend to think, for example, that your average Boeing engineer probably wanted to do a good job and not have doors fall off their planes. But when you put multiple layers of abstraction in the way and have leaders looking through business metrics, it isn't hard for everyday crappiness to maneuver its way to the point where that isn't prioritized. Almost no one in the chain really thinks they're sacrificing safety, they think they're doing their job and improving efficiency by cutting redundant steps. > In my experience people with a "just doing my job" attitude make much better bosses than those who act like they have a higher purpose. Sure, because there's a difference between a performative "mission", a self-obsessed founder who makes their own success a story about the future of Earth, and someone who makes concretely difficult decisions when the chips are down. This is kind of what I mean by the corruptive effects of growth. Having a mission is a good thing, but most companies' "missions" are implicitly always secondary to their financial growth, or worse, a cynical ploy for employee engagement. When people write crappy press releases about how "this will enable us to serve more of our users" (read: expand our market), that's not a statement about how serving users is bad, it's just that for most businesses it's necessarily with an asterisk of "we want to serve our users* *as long as it pleases our investors".

nordstreem 2y ago

Do the majority spend their time in pursuit of money because they want to or because the rent is so damn high? Because it’s what we’re educated to do? I don’t mean academic education either. I mean Main Street social norms where there’s no longer being friends with neighbors. But they’ll mow your lawn for money if you’re ever too busy (had that exact conversation with a neighbor recently; we aren’t going to be friends/friendly but will serve you for $).