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I think this is a very serious problem. There are still ambitious people, but ambition is now ipso facto evil (whether in business, tech, science, finance, law)

by creer 2y ago

I think this is a very serious problem. There are still ambitious people, but ambition is now ipso facto evil (whether in business, tech, science, finance, law). That's the politically correct meme. Automatic. And hard to reverse as nieces and nephew have reported constant "save the planet" themes in school work. With "shrink the economy" being the only solution ever suggested. When whichever cause may be yours (climate, housing, faster cat photos) might actually benefit from ambition, scale, technology focused progress, better ways to even think about anything and everything.

wkat4242 2y ago
The problem is not growing the economy per se. The problem is the economy has always grown by making profit of externalising negative impacts. Be it environmental, humanistic. We have to learn to grow but to do it fair. Fair for the environment and for the people (meaning not having the profits end up with the 0.01% while the workers toil for minimum wage). Only then can we really grow as humanity. The problem is what we call "ambition" is just greed. And that keeps us in this circle of destruction.
- creer 2y ago
  This, horribly, may be a current Silicon Valley view. That's the problem. By contrast the example I gave elsewhere in this discussion is "France ages ago noticed a problematic reliance on fossil fuels and decided to actually solve that problem (for power and heating). That was a super ambitious program of building an entire, country-size industry capable of designing, building, fueling, running and reprocessing grid-scale nuclear reactors. It even worked. Growth WHILE solving problems. But yeah, in France as elsewhere, that effort was and is tied to political will and electoral moods. And so now it's in jeopardy." That was a giant program with participation of many private companies - not even one private one dominating costs or profits that I noticed. The newly created companies forming the project started for some, and ended up for others owned by France through many different channels: national research labs, national electric utility, development banks, government agencies, etc, etc. No doubt some private companies made excellent money from that project - but that is not its most prominent feature by far. It was an ambitious engineering and organizational effort. So yes "ambitious" is a good thing.
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  Ah, yes that mythical city on the hill "fairness" which is a clear and static standard and not at all a rapidly moving goalpost. Along with its equally mythical counterpart of "the people" whose viewpoints are not a convenient reflection of whatever position is most convenient to the speaker. That is truly the way to engage in the hardest of tasks already prone to failure, chasing fucking unicorns!

by creer 2y ago

wkat4242 2y ago

The problem is not growing the economy per se. The problem is the economy has always grown by making profit of externalising negative impacts. Be it environmental, humanistic. We have to learn to grow but to do it fair. Fair for the environment and for the people (meaning not having the profits end up with the 0.01% while the workers toil for minimum wage). Only then can we really grow as humanity. The problem is what we call "ambition" is just greed. And that keeps us in this circle of destruction.

creer 2y ago
This, horribly, may be a current Silicon Valley view. That's the problem. By contrast the example I gave elsewhere in this discussion is "France ages ago noticed a problematic reliance on fossil fuels and decided to actually solve that problem (for power and heating). That was a super ambitious program of building an entire, country-size industry capable of designing, building, fueling, running and reprocessing grid-scale nuclear reactors. It even worked. Growth WHILE solving problems. But yeah, in France as elsewhere, that effort was and is tied to political will and electoral moods. And so now it's in jeopardy." That was a giant program with participation of many private companies - not even one private one dominating costs or profits that I noticed. The newly created companies forming the project started for some, and ended up for others owned by France through many different channels: national research labs, national electric utility, development banks, government agencies, etc, etc. No doubt some private companies made excellent money from that project - but that is not its most prominent feature by far. It was an ambitious engineering and organizational effort. So yes "ambitious" is a good thing.
Nasrudith 2y ago
Ah, yes that mythical city on the hill "fairness" which is a clear and static standard and not at all a rapidly moving goalpost. Along with its equally mythical counterpart of "the people" whose viewpoints are not a convenient reflection of whatever position is most convenient to the speaker. That is truly the way to engage in the hardest of tasks already prone to failure, chasing fucking unicorns!