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You can tell that broad alignment between people is natural just by looking at the effort that corporations and governments make to undermine it. Alignment bet

You can tell that broad alignment between people is natural just by looking at the effort that corporations and governments make to undermine it. Alignment between people is perhaps not a state of nature, but it really is a pretty normal consequence of a fairly small amount of education and of middle-class existence that is left to itself (i.e. without brain-washing and deliberately working to create out-groups). If you're eating enough and have a few brain cells to rub together, then you definitely want that for your neighbors too because it promotes stability.

zozbot234 6mo ago
> You can tell that broad alignment between people is natural It really isn't. The whole point of the market system is to collectively align people's actions towards a shared target of "Pareto-optimized total welfare". And even then the alignment is approximate and heavily constrained due to a combination of transaction costs (which also account for e.g. externalities) and information asymmetries. But transaction costs and information asymmetries apply to any system of alignment, including non-market ones. The market (augmented with some pre-determined legal assignment of property rights, potentially including quite complex bundles of rules and regulations) is still your best bet.
- dns_snek 6mo ago
  Broad alignment =/= Wealth maximization.
  - _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
    The market aligned us with children working in sweat shops after we outlawed it by convincing us it was OK if it was foreign kids and we got to share in pocketing the savings not just the evil factory owner.
    - dns_snek 6mo ago
      Yes I'm well aware. Of course that's not how things are advertised to people, and they absolutely hate it when this is pointed out to them. This tells me that deep down they don't actually agree with how the system operates.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6mo ago
  Please read David Graeber. What you describe is factually not how human society formed.
  - zozbot234 6mo ago
    AIUI David Graeber famously pointed out that people in small groups can form the equivalent of a "market" simply by exchanging favours ("I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine") in an informal gift economy, without any money-like token or external unit of account. That's quite in line with what I said.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 6mo ago
      You understanding is mistaken. Graeber's "everyday communism" is not a market, and his whole larger point is that contorting everything to the lens of markets is simply ahistorical and unempirical. I'd strongly suggest reading his books. They profoundly changed my understanding of how human institutions and society form.
      - zozbot234 6mo ago
        Unless it's some sort of complete post-scarcity, it has to be understandable in market terms. What happens if people try to free-ride on the whole "communist" system? If they get excluded from its benefits, that's equivalent to enforcing some bundle of property rights.
        jasonwatkinspdx 6mo ago
        > Unless it's some sort of complete post-scarcity, it has to be understandable in market terms. No, it does not, and that's Graeber's whole point. "Markets" are not some sort of physical law of the universe. A simple example of this is it's the norm in hunter gatherer societies to take care of people who never will make an equal contribution back in the transactional sense. Because the social ties in those societies are not simply transactions. If your model fails to accurately describe empirical reality, time to improve/expand the model.
JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> broad alignment between people is natural Uh, what? People have been killing each other over values misalignments since there have been people. We invented civilization in part to protect our farms and granaries from people who disagreed with us on whose grain was in said granaries.
- dns_snek 6mo ago
  Critical bit: > i.e. without brain-washing and deliberately working to create out-groups
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bicycle. The process of creating an in group naturally creates out groups. The “brainwashing” OP describes is just as natural as social alignment through an innate drive for conformity.
    - cwmoore 6mo ago
      Conformity I think follows the innate drive to coerce the nonconformant into compliance
      - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
        Sure. Push and pull. The point is that needs effort to work at larger scales. We don’t “naturally” organize into nations of three hundred million or a billion. To the extent we do, we also “naturally” go to war.
        cwmoore 6mo ago
        Again, I think the rewards of controlling others explains both, and not whatever handwavy natural/unnatural attributes might be identified.
    - pineaux 6mo ago

zozbot234 6mo ago

> You can tell that broad alignment between people is natural It really isn't. The whole point of the market system is to collectively align people's actions towards a shared target of "Pareto-optimized total welfare". And even then the alignment is approximate and heavily constrained due to a combination of transaction costs (which also account for e.g. externalities) and information asymmetries. But transaction costs and information asymmetries apply to any system of alignment, including non-market ones. The market (augmented with some pre-determined legal assignment of property rights, potentially including quite complex bundles of rules and regulations) is still your best bet.

dns_snek 6mo ago
Broad alignment =/= Wealth maximization.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo ago
  The market aligned us with children working in sweat shops after we outlawed it by convincing us it was OK if it was foreign kids and we got to share in pocketing the savings not just the evil factory owner.
  - dns_snek 6mo ago
    Yes I'm well aware. Of course that's not how things are advertised to people, and they absolutely hate it when this is pointed out to them. This tells me that deep down they don't actually agree with how the system operates.
jasonwatkinspdx 6mo ago
Please read David Graeber. What you describe is factually not how human society formed.
- zozbot234 6mo ago
  AIUI David Graeber famously pointed out that people in small groups can form the equivalent of a "market" simply by exchanging favours ("I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine") in an informal gift economy, without any money-like token or external unit of account. That's quite in line with what I said.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6mo ago
    You understanding is mistaken. Graeber's "everyday communism" is not a market, and his whole larger point is that contorting everything to the lens of markets is simply ahistorical and unempirical. I'd strongly suggest reading his books. They profoundly changed my understanding of how human institutions and society form.
    - zozbot234 6mo ago
      Unless it's some sort of complete post-scarcity, it has to be understandable in market terms. What happens if people try to free-ride on the whole "communist" system? If they get excluded from its benefits, that's equivalent to enforcing some bundle of property rights.
      - jasonwatkinspdx 6mo ago
        > Unless it's some sort of complete post-scarcity, it has to be understandable in market terms. No, it does not, and that's Graeber's whole point. "Markets" are not some sort of physical law of the universe. A simple example of this is it's the norm in hunter gatherer societies to take care of people who never will make an equal contribution back in the transactional sense. Because the social ties in those societies are not simply transactions. If your model fails to accurately describe empirical reality, time to improve/expand the model.

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago

> broad alignment between people is natural Uh, what? People have been killing each other over values misalignments since there have been people. We invented civilization in part to protect our farms and granaries from people who disagreed with us on whose grain was in said granaries.

dns_snek 6mo ago
Critical bit: > i.e. without brain-washing and deliberately working to create out-groups
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bicycle. The process of creating an in group naturally creates out groups. The “brainwashing” OP describes is just as natural as social alignment through an innate drive for conformity.
  - cwmoore 6mo ago
    Conformity I think follows the innate drive to coerce the nonconformant into compliance
    - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
      Sure. Push and pull. The point is that needs effort to work at larger scales. We don’t “naturally” organize into nations of three hundred million or a billion. To the extent we do, we also “naturally” go to war.
      - cwmoore 6mo ago
        Again, I think the rewards of controlling others explains both, and not whatever handwavy natural/unnatural attributes might be identified.
  - pineaux 6mo ago