4 ms·

> greed Is a greed/not greed scale really useful to discuss company behaviors ? I wanted to say I get what you mean, but even thinking about the company I roo

> greed Is a greed/not greed scale really useful to discuss company behaviors ? I wanted to say I get what you mean, but even thinking about the company I root for the most, I can't think of a point where they're not driven by their desire to make a lot more money. If your point is that there's good and bad ways to seek money, I'm not sure it's properly encompassed by "greed", which I interpret as the intensity of a desire, not its nature or validity. To you "greed" might mean something else, but is it properly conveyed ?

estimator7292 5mo ago
Approximately everybody would like more money. Greedy people put the desire for more money above the welfare of the business, themselves, and other. Greedy people literally put their desire for more personal wealth above the very lives of others. Greed/not greed is a very fair way of putting it. One can operate a business that requires profit without wanting to destroy everyone and everything that stands in the way of more money.
- pdpi 5mo ago
  I think there's one more factor that is crucially important — greedy people lack long-term vision, and care a lot more about money now than they do about potentially much more money in the future. I suppose it's kind of interesting that you could measure greed as an unusually high discount rate for the time value of money?
- parineum 5mo ago
  > Greedy people put the desire for more money above the welfare of the business In my experience, it's much simpler. People are greedy if they make things I want cost more.
- WhyNotHugo 5mo ago
  > Approximately everybody would like more money. For me (and many others), money is a means to an end. I don’t want money per se, I want housing and food and things that money can buy. But for a few, money is the goal. They want money for the sake of more money. They don’t need more. That’s greed.
kukkeliskuu 5mo ago
The Seven Deadly Sins provide an interesting perspective to human psychology even in modern times. Greed / avarice is defined as wanting more than you need.
- wiseowise 5mo ago
  Who decides how much you need?
  - kukkeliskuu 5mo ago
    Based on your nickname, you? I was recently using an inexpensive paper shredder. I had an urge to put in too many papers at one time, which jams the shredder. Taking into account the time needed to unjam the shredder, the end result is that it takes more time for me to process the papers if I give in to my urge than if I resist the urge and only put in just the right amount of papers. Then I can claim that the "shredder is of bad quality", instead of seeing how I contribute to the problem. As my aim was to shred papers efficiently, my "sin" (sin = to miss the mark, not to hit the aim) was greed, and the virtuous path is to successfully to resist the urge. The blessing I get from the virtuous path is the joy of the flow when I efficiently shred the papers. Yesterday, I was in a shop when I was hungry, and I felt the urge to buy a large chocolate bar. Being hungry, it would have been a constant struggle not to eat all of it if I had bought it. Eating a whole large chocolate bar does not make me feel so good. As my personal aim is to feel good, eating a whole large chocolate bar at one go is a sin in relation to that aim. I successfully resisted the urge to buy the large chocolate bar -- and did so by buying a small one. That way I did not "sin" too much towards my aim of feeling good, because small chocolate bar did not affect my well-being almost at all. On the surface, it might appear more virtuous to not buy any chocolate bar. However, I know myself from prior experience that if I had "successfully" resisted the natural urge at the shop, it might have caused me to later to be unable to later resist the urge to buy a large chocolate bar from a kiosk. So knowing myself to be the imperfect human being in these scenarios, buying a small chocolate bar at the shop was actually more aligned with my aim of feeling good than not buying it, because the end result was more aligned with my aim of feeling good. Modern psychology would probably say that this urge is in my superego. Maybe as a child, I learned that I don't usually get what I need, so when something is available, I feel the urge to take as much as I can -- i.e. greed is something that I will encounter in many things that I do, keeping me from hitting the mark. As this is very common way humans miss the mark and deeper in the psychology, it is a Deadly Sin. Some theological and psychological perspectives posit that the belief that this urge is a part of me -- i.e. I identify with the urge, I believe that "I am greedy" -- is actually part of the problem. So a better formulation would be instead of "WHO decides how much I need" to ask "WHAT IN ME decides how much I need". And then, what is a healthy and useful relationship towards those urges. And it may be different in different circumstances, hence resisting the urge to put in too many papers, but replacing the urge with a lesser one in case of chocolate bars. The point might not be to learn to "control" the urge -- we can learn from system theory that excessive control might cause a backlash -- in terms of some systems even literally. More healthy relationship is often to just observe -- and then learn how such urges affect my well-being -- i.e. to learn more about myself. Often the observation itself is enough to have an effect. We can take a corporate analogy (literally, corpus = body) and ask, what in organizations (again, organization has the same literal root as organism) cause them to be "greedy". In other words, what drives organizations to have an urge for excessive profits that they ignore the harms they cause to employees, society at large or even customers (i.e. enshittification). This urge appears very similar as the urge in humans. That question will lead to other interesting questions about politics, economics etc. For example, you can ask, what is the aim of such corporations, and whether that aim produces results aligned with the aims of societies at large, etc.
techno303 5mo ago
maybe long term vs. short term is the key idea. apple, for example, could rake in bountiful measures in the short term if they ventured away from their boutique-electronic-consumer-goods niche. in the long run it would hurt their bottom line to do so

estimator7292 5mo ago

Approximately everybody would like more money. Greedy people put the desire for more money above the welfare of the business, themselves, and other. Greedy people literally put their desire for more personal wealth above the very lives of others. Greed/not greed is a very fair way of putting it. One can operate a business that requires profit without wanting to destroy everyone and everything that stands in the way of more money.

pdpi 5mo ago
I think there's one more factor that is crucially important — greedy people lack long-term vision, and care a lot more about money now than they do about potentially much more money in the future. I suppose it's kind of interesting that you could measure greed as an unusually high discount rate for the time value of money?
parineum 5mo ago
> Greedy people put the desire for more money above the welfare of the business In my experience, it's much simpler. People are greedy if they make things I want cost more.
WhyNotHugo 5mo ago
> Approximately everybody would like more money. For me (and many others), money is a means to an end. I don’t want money per se, I want housing and food and things that money can buy. But for a few, money is the goal. They want money for the sake of more money. They don’t need more. That’s greed.

kukkeliskuu 5mo ago

The Seven Deadly Sins provide an interesting perspective to human psychology even in modern times. Greed / avarice is defined as wanting more than you need.

wiseowise 5mo ago
Who decides how much you need?
- kukkeliskuu 5mo ago
  Based on your nickname, you? I was recently using an inexpensive paper shredder. I had an urge to put in too many papers at one time, which jams the shredder. Taking into account the time needed to unjam the shredder, the end result is that it takes more time for me to process the papers if I give in to my urge than if I resist the urge and only put in just the right amount of papers. Then I can claim that the "shredder is of bad quality", instead of seeing how I contribute to the problem. As my aim was to shred papers efficiently, my "sin" (sin = to miss the mark, not to hit the aim) was greed, and the virtuous path is to successfully to resist the urge. The blessing I get from the virtuous path is the joy of the flow when I efficiently shred the papers. Yesterday, I was in a shop when I was hungry, and I felt the urge to buy a large chocolate bar. Being hungry, it would have been a constant struggle not to eat all of it if I had bought it. Eating a whole large chocolate bar does not make me feel so good. As my personal aim is to feel good, eating a whole large chocolate bar at one go is a sin in relation to that aim. I successfully resisted the urge to buy the large chocolate bar -- and did so by buying a small one. That way I did not "sin" too much towards my aim of feeling good, because small chocolate bar did not affect my well-being almost at all. On the surface, it might appear more virtuous to not buy any chocolate bar. However, I know myself from prior experience that if I had "successfully" resisted the natural urge at the shop, it might have caused me to later to be unable to later resist the urge to buy a large chocolate bar from a kiosk. So knowing myself to be the imperfect human being in these scenarios, buying a small chocolate bar at the shop was actually more aligned with my aim of feeling good than not buying it, because the end result was more aligned with my aim of feeling good. Modern psychology would probably say that this urge is in my superego. Maybe as a child, I learned that I don't usually get what I need, so when something is available, I feel the urge to take as much as I can -- i.e. greed is something that I will encounter in many things that I do, keeping me from hitting the mark. As this is very common way humans miss the mark and deeper in the psychology, it is a Deadly Sin. Some theological and psychological perspectives posit that the belief that this urge is a part of me -- i.e. I identify with the urge, I believe that "I am greedy" -- is actually part of the problem. So a better formulation would be instead of "WHO decides how much I need" to ask "WHAT IN ME decides how much I need". And then, what is a healthy and useful relationship towards those urges. And it may be different in different circumstances, hence resisting the urge to put in too many papers, but replacing the urge with a lesser one in case of chocolate bars. The point might not be to learn to "control" the urge -- we can learn from system theory that excessive control might cause a backlash -- in terms of some systems even literally. More healthy relationship is often to just observe -- and then learn how such urges affect my well-being -- i.e. to learn more about myself. Often the observation itself is enough to have an effect. We can take a corporate analogy (literally, corpus = body) and ask, what in organizations (again, organization has the same literal root as organism) cause them to be "greedy". In other words, what drives organizations to have an urge for excessive profits that they ignore the harms they cause to employees, society at large or even customers (i.e. enshittification). This urge appears very similar as the urge in humans. That question will lead to other interesting questions about politics, economics etc. For example, you can ask, what is the aim of such corporations, and whether that aim produces results aligned with the aims of societies at large, etc.

techno303 5mo ago

maybe long term vs. short term is the key idea. apple, for example, could rake in bountiful measures in the short term if they ventured away from their boutique-electronic-consumer-goods niche. in the long run it would hurt their bottom line to do so