4 ms·

Psychology and human nature play a tremendous role in economics - something which folks seem to discount completely.

by adharmad 17y ago

maxharris 17y ago
That's the fad right now - but I doubt that this is much more than tweaking.
- fnid 17y ago
  this is why capitalism has failed. It has enabled the propagation of negative human traits. Traits we all agree are detrimental to our survival. Greed is not good. We all know it. It promotes overconsumption and hoarding of resources. We need a system that propagates benevolence and vision.
  - maxharris 17y ago
    But greed, when coupled with reason, is good! What is in your rational long-term self-interest is what is good for you. To want that, to be greedy for it - to desire it above all else - is what you should always strive to do. Please, pick apart the phrase "rational long-term self-interest" - and note that "long-term" means on the timescale of your lifetime. I disagree with your implicit Malthusian assumption that resources can be overconsumed/hoarded in a meaningful way. The universe is chock-full of atoms and energy, and the key to unlocking more is always just a little more technology (which we have a pretty good track record at doing!)
    - fnid 17y ago
      Those bankers on wall street destroyed the world economy and in doing so, secured way more than enough for themselves to satisfy an entire lifetime of living and several more generations to boot. Greed is not good. To quote MGMT, "Take only what you need from it."
      - maxharris 17y ago
        I said long-term rational-self interest. How were the bankers doing that? The bigger the fraud, the harder they fell. How is Bernie Madoff doing? Is former Merill-Lynch CEO Thain a fraud? Not exactly. But he didn't fight a principled battle against all regulations. What I'm saying is that it's much better to be like John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T (one of the few that didn't get into subprime as a matter of principle) than it is to be like anyone else. Allison is great, and he did great, and he's free of any and all guilt! Everyone (CEOs included) that fall short of that ideal pay a price (remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch, ever, in anything) proportional to their deviation from the moral ideal (set by Objectivism). You should not assume that Thain and other bankers are happy just because they have "a lot" of money. Nor should you assume that they have the skills to keep their money "in the family" for several generations. That implies a level of familiarity with their individual philosophies that you simply do not have! (And to be honest, I don't know either, apart from what you can tell about them from reading the paper.)
    - onreact-com 17y ago
      Self-interest is not greed. Greed is wanting more than you actually need. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=greed http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=greed
      - dgordon 17y ago
        Who defines "need," given that you don't mean "subsistence survival?"
        onreact-com 17y ago
        Sociology has defined "need" long ago. Check out the Maslov pyramid: http://bit.ly/17Tfik http://bit.ly/17Tfik
  - jerf 17y ago
    A system based on lack of greed is unstable. It gets gamed by the first greedy thing to come along. Greed is written into every life form on the planet, not just humans; what evidence do you have that there even can be a non-greedy life form? Proposing a "solution" to the worlds ills that can't possibly work in the real world is ultimately uninteresting. You are free to bemoan it, but you should be aware that your "utopia" works far less well than the system you bemoan.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      The sloth.

Psychology and human nature play a tremendous role in economics - something which folks seem to discount completely.

maxharris 17y ago

That's the fad right now - but I doubt that this is much more than tweaking.

fnid 17y ago
this is why capitalism has failed. It has enabled the propagation of negative human traits. Traits we all agree are detrimental to our survival. Greed is not good. We all know it. It promotes overconsumption and hoarding of resources. We need a system that propagates benevolence and vision.
- maxharris 17y ago
  But greed, when coupled with reason, is good! What is in your rational long-term self-interest is what is good for you. To want that, to be greedy for it - to desire it above all else - is what you should always strive to do. Please, pick apart the phrase "rational long-term self-interest" - and note that "long-term" means on the timescale of your lifetime. I disagree with your implicit Malthusian assumption that resources can be overconsumed/hoarded in a meaningful way. The universe is chock-full of atoms and energy, and the key to unlocking more is always just a little more technology (which we have a pretty good track record at doing!)
  - fnid 17y ago
    Those bankers on wall street destroyed the world economy and in doing so, secured way more than enough for themselves to satisfy an entire lifetime of living and several more generations to boot. Greed is not good. To quote MGMT, "Take only what you need from it."
    - maxharris 17y ago
      I said long-term rational-self interest. How were the bankers doing that? The bigger the fraud, the harder they fell. How is Bernie Madoff doing? Is former Merill-Lynch CEO Thain a fraud? Not exactly. But he didn't fight a principled battle against all regulations. What I'm saying is that it's much better to be like John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T (one of the few that didn't get into subprime as a matter of principle) than it is to be like anyone else. Allison is great, and he did great, and he's free of any and all guilt! Everyone (CEOs included) that fall short of that ideal pay a price (remember, there's no such thing as a free lunch, ever, in anything) proportional to their deviation from the moral ideal (set by Objectivism). You should not assume that Thain and other bankers are happy just because they have "a lot" of money. Nor should you assume that they have the skills to keep their money "in the family" for several generations. That implies a level of familiarity with their individual philosophies that you simply do not have! (And to be honest, I don't know either, apart from what you can tell about them from reading the paper.)
  - onreact-com 17y ago
    Self-interest is not greed. Greed is wanting more than you actually need. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=greed http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=greed
    - dgordon 17y ago
      Who defines "need," given that you don't mean "subsistence survival?"
      - onreact-com 17y ago
        Sociology has defined "need" long ago. Check out the Maslov pyramid: http://bit.ly/17Tfik http://bit.ly/17Tfik
- jerf 17y ago
  A system based on lack of greed is unstable. It gets gamed by the first greedy thing to come along. Greed is written into every life form on the planet, not just humans; what evidence do you have that there even can be a non-greedy life form? Proposing a "solution" to the worlds ills that can't possibly work in the real world is ultimately uninteresting. You are free to bemoan it, but you should be aware that your "utopia" works far less well than the system you bemoan.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    The sloth.