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There is so much resistance to the idea of human cooperation, volunteerism, or altruism.

The insistence that greed is the only effective human motivator is a cultural plague.

What do you mean by "greed"?

My hypothesis is that that term doesn't mean what you think it means in a truly free market. Or more directly: it doesn't exist.

Any profit you are able to generate in a free market is the result of providing value to someone else. If I take two $5 resources and combine them, via some process of effort and invention of my own, into a good that I sell for $15, then the person who bought that good freely decided that whatever new property I imbued into the $10 raw goods was worth at least $5 to him. It improved his life at least "five dollar's worth". He would trade five dollars worth of his own claims on resources to me. He wants this thing _today_ more than five dollars worth of other competing things in the future.

More simply: Profits earned without aggression or State favoritism represent value added to society.

So I've made $5. As money, that represents a claim on resources. One that was legitimately passed to me from the prior holder. I may choose to turn that $5 in for consumable today (maybe I buy cabbage from a farmer), or to hold it and defer my consumption until later.

Where does "greed" factor in? Say I sell **A LOT** of $15 goods, and **MANY** people buy them, each of whom determines that my product improves their life. As the transactions are voluntary, my success can only mean I am on net adding value to society.

Is that greed? Is too much success, adding too much value to society, greed?

Is saving for too long - deferring my consumption - greed?

_WHAT_ is "greed"? Surely you don't mean "creating and or selling goods and services through a free market whereby those whose lives are improved by trading with you enrich you accordingly"? That's "acting in one's own interest" but one's own interest can only be improved by creating value for others. Where does "greed" hide in this definition?

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Discussion

vinney...axkl 1y ago

If anyone has thoughts/disagreements about this I'd like to discuss it more with someone. It's not gonna be her because she muted me yesterday.

nostr:nevent1qqs94c7lyle64hlute5xmxtcpejm7fzz5237sm33nmdy82phlyspzxqpr4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezucmvda6kgtnkd9hxuete9eu8j730qgsza748zkamgmw4he4hm2xhwqpxd5gkwju38wqh3twmtshx8kv8xvgrqsqqqqqpf7zrw2

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

I'll bite but I bet it won't hit the same as if she continued the discussion with you

You're basically relying on the assumption trickery doesn't exist to justify the idea greed doesn't exist, as far as I can tell?

I used to be a delivery driver. People paid for the food I delivered, including the cost to pay me as an employee delivering it, plus tipped me. Meanwhile, I was polluting the environment with an entire car just to move food around safely because other people with entire cars wouldn't let something like a motorcycle be safe. I trust the food I delivered was of decent quality by this shitty era's standards, but via pollution, my job was to kill my customers and everyone they love while relying on them not knowing I'm doing that so they not only pay me, but tip me as well. I didn't tell every customer "you really shouldn't tip me, I'm taking away your food in the long run, it's a tragedy that you couldn't cook for yourself." I don't expect delivery drivers to tell me that every time they deliver to me either. And I also tip them worthless dollars hoping it will help them survive. Doesn't mean I think they're good people or adding anything to society. They're random people who may or may not be good but are currently unable to find a way to survive without being part of the military industrial complex's petrodollar economy.

Dollars are worthless pieces of paper anyway, maybe in an economy based on something valuable it would be more likely for the economic exchanges to reflect value and people would be better at accurately assessing value instead of clinging to delusions.

I'm sure you're more open to learning than laeserin realizes. I think she sees you have disingenuous thoughts and she assumes you're always willing to argue disingenuously but I notice you might actually be trying to get out of the habit. If you respectfully keep suggesting you'd like to try talking to her my gut feeling is she's the type to try again

vinney...axkl 1y ago

I really enjoy this delivery driver anecdote!

I'm sorry to say, though, that I fail to see how it connects to what "greed" might mean...

I liked where you were going with the "trickery" angle. When I first read that, it made me think about how there's a spectrum of trickery that goes from "fair and expected in bargaining" (like hiding information. i.e. the highest price you'll pay) to "basically theft" (like passing off a forgery as legit).

So in the most extreme cases, trickery is theft. Where is the "greed" bit though? Is greed just the tendency to try and deceive people in order to get more out of them than they'd otherwise voluntarily trade if not for having been deceived by you?

I feel like colloquially, "greed" has tended to mean "wants to get a lot for himself and not share with others". Which is a pretty questionable definition in the context of a free market...

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

I think the concept of greed has religious roots where it's a struggle to recognize sufficiency and be satisfied by it. Baked into all humans, an urge to have more than whatever we have at a given time, which mixes with one other flaw, our ability to lie to ourselves, and the result is we can have a hard time appreciating what we have.

Of all the ideas from religion, this one's seemed the most well-established and proven in real world observation from my anecdotal experience. It seems as though if there is a conscious creator of the universe, they've balanced this to be challenging for us and imbued magical meaning into the challenge.

vinney...axkl 1y ago

Is it a flaw to desire more than we have at a given time? That sounds to me like "savings" in an effort to guard against future uncertainty.

I think you're right though that greed has religious roots. That hypothesis also dovetails with what I'm saying: If you properly trust in and have faith in your god, you wouldn't stack more than you need in the moment. Since god will act as insurance against uncertainty, you don't need to save overmuch.

The "greedy" are those with the least faith.

Well yea, count me among that lot, lol :D

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

You ever seen Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood? It posits that greed has an alternate form where instead of mixing with the ability to lie to oneself it mixes with the ability to be honest and true to oneself and it suddenly has the potential to be virtuous. It's lit 🔥

vinney...axkl 1y ago

Never heard of it! I'll try to check it out, but fair warning: I've bounced off of every anime I've ever come across. I just can't get into the medium

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

If it fails to introduce itself to you, try jumping ahead to when the Greed character is introduced, the writers put more thought and research into the topic than we ever will in our nostr thread

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

Oh shit, also important and I forgot to mention, don't confuse it with Fullmetal Alchemist without the Brotherhood part. Brotherhood was made after because the original adaptation was a huge disappointment to people

vinney...axkl 1y ago

> If you respectfully keep suggesting you'd like to try talking to her my gut feeling is she's the type to try again

At this point, it seems incumbent upon her to convince me that she's a worthy conversation partner.

Someone who engages for hours in discussions only to suddenly snap out of nowhere and mute me / call me an assshole. I was truly caught off guard. It was clear to me that we were pretty far apart and not understanding each other well yet, but I didn't realize it had come to that.

Talking with people who react that way is at best disappointing and at worst a waste of time that tends to have the side-effect of adding an unjustified "stink" to oneself in the eyes of onlookers. (I'm now "another one of those guys laeserin had to mute". cool.)

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

If she takes you off mute, it probably wouldn't be to keep insulting you. You low key know she's a worthy conversationalist 👀

vinney...axkl 1y ago

I'm actually not sure her and I are a good conversation match. My conclusion at this point is that we're so far apart on metaphysics, and her worldview is so colored by her metaphysics, that we can barely talk about anything.

I said as much here:

note1xmqaq50w8jv4h3fqs677nredajrxn573l0sd05prh0vhczt98z3saxytzn

https://primal.net/e/note1xmqaq50w8jv4h3fqs677nredajrxn573l0sd05prh0vhczt98z3saxytzn

🇵🇸 whoever loves Digit 1y ago

I heard all that but I believe the truth is you're both trying to get more rational.

vinney...axkl 1y ago

lol maybe.

according to my wife if I became even more insistent on **attempting** to be rational I'd be totally impossible to live with.