They are a little bit, because collective action is very hard. If everyone chooses to participate and pay the cost of organizing it is worth the cost and a union will happen. But if a number of people choose not to then…
How does one become hardworking? I doubt it's completely up to genetics. People who grow up around hardworking people are more likely to see hard work and its rewards, and are therefore more likely to become hardworking…
It's the promise of a reward that makes people work better. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a share of the proceeds. Athletes push themselves hard for recognition and some monetary reward. A planned economy…
A transition away from competition could also be implemented by capping the standard of living to what it currently is in the richest countries and then waiting for others to catch up. After that production would slow…
This is how it will be until we figure out how to organize human life without competition. Too many of our systems are based on us competing against each other (markets, nation states), so we always have to maximize…
For capitalism to exist we must have a system in place to protect private property, e.g. a government. That government must be the most powerful entity to be able to protect property. The capitalist system is…
> Being wealthy and having to live among really wealthy people sounds better than being poor and living among equals. Why? Once you pass a level of wealth where basic needs like, food, housing and healthcare are met…
The issue is concentration of power. Wealth inequality is just one way destructive levels of power concentration can happen. We need low wealth inequality along with truly democratic government.
But the preferences might be changing not because people like the new way more, but because the economic system forces people to choose the most efficient way of doing things. Someone who plays games at home can do it…
Maybe they aren't and never will be capable enough to do this, but if there's even a 1% chance that they are, then it's very important to consider the consequences and take the necessary precautions before it's too late.
> In other words, the economic surplus did not go exclusively or primarily to the richest. That was in large part due of strong leftist movements and states that forced the capitalists to share the increasing wealth.…
> You may hate it but you don't matter. We all do it no matter what. I've seen you say "you don't matter" in many of your comments. Why do you think like this? Sure, we don't matter much most of the time, but this kind…
Bezos didn't create that wealth alone. He had help from thousands upon thousands of people. It's impossible to calculate how much of the value of Amazon was actually created by the work Bezos did, how much by other…
This will be the reality until we come up with a way to make good decisions using direct democracy, and make that decision-making process so fast and easy that it can be used for any kind of group decision.…
There's value in that only if assessments made by people using the prediction for something aren't better than crowd wisdom. I would guess that a large part of prediction market participants are simple gamblers whose…
There will be no point, and the stuff that normal people use will become more expensive as resources are more and more directed to megaprojects that the capital class is interested in. More modern equivalents of…
Why couldn't China be better? It can't get much worse than what the US is currently doing. It's getting dangerously close to 30s Germany levels of madness. China at least at the moment seems like a better run country,…
Yes. The bigger the gap becomes, the more the economy will be geared towards serving the needs of the wealthy instead of regular people. If a trillionaire wants a mansion on Pluto or an AI to serve him, a large…
Those meals would most likely help a lot of kids become healthy productive members of society. That money would be saved by the families of those kids and used in other parts of the economy. A lot of the cost would…
> The diversity of perspective and opinion I don't think this is what social media provides. With social media people are able to choose one perspective and seem to just immerse themselves in a bubble so that they only…
What they do there is not enough. All decisions should be made using some form of direct democracy, otherwise you leave an opening for power concentration again, which will lead to the same problems we're now facing. We…
Could be, if we can come up with efficient ways to govern using direct democracy that lead to better decisions than what we now have. I don't see much work being done to come up with such a system, though.
I wish it was just psychos with power that are causing these issues. It's worse than that I think. It's the competition based systems of human organization that will result in what you're describing. Even if people in…
> Europe faced a worse Russian threat during the Cold War without giving up national sovereignty. That's because Europe could rely on the power of the US back then. If the US was just a patchwork of small independent…
I don't think so, because it's not only the truly weak that get exploited and abused in an "every man for himself" system. It'll also destroy the lives of many who could become strong in an environment that protects…
They are a little bit, because collective action is very hard. If everyone chooses to participate and pay the cost of organizing it is worth the cost and a union will happen. But if a number of people choose not to then…
How does one become hardworking? I doubt it's completely up to genetics. People who grow up around hardworking people are more likely to see hard work and its rewards, and are therefore more likely to become hardworking…
It's the promise of a reward that makes people work better. I don't think it necessarily needs to be a share of the proceeds. Athletes push themselves hard for recognition and some monetary reward. A planned economy…
A transition away from competition could also be implemented by capping the standard of living to what it currently is in the richest countries and then waiting for others to catch up. After that production would slow…
This is how it will be until we figure out how to organize human life without competition. Too many of our systems are based on us competing against each other (markets, nation states), so we always have to maximize…
For capitalism to exist we must have a system in place to protect private property, e.g. a government. That government must be the most powerful entity to be able to protect property. The capitalist system is…
> Being wealthy and having to live among really wealthy people sounds better than being poor and living among equals. Why? Once you pass a level of wealth where basic needs like, food, housing and healthcare are met…
The issue is concentration of power. Wealth inequality is just one way destructive levels of power concentration can happen. We need low wealth inequality along with truly democratic government.
But the preferences might be changing not because people like the new way more, but because the economic system forces people to choose the most efficient way of doing things. Someone who plays games at home can do it…
Maybe they aren't and never will be capable enough to do this, but if there's even a 1% chance that they are, then it's very important to consider the consequences and take the necessary precautions before it's too late.
> In other words, the economic surplus did not go exclusively or primarily to the richest. That was in large part due of strong leftist movements and states that forced the capitalists to share the increasing wealth.…
> You may hate it but you don't matter. We all do it no matter what. I've seen you say "you don't matter" in many of your comments. Why do you think like this? Sure, we don't matter much most of the time, but this kind…
Bezos didn't create that wealth alone. He had help from thousands upon thousands of people. It's impossible to calculate how much of the value of Amazon was actually created by the work Bezos did, how much by other…
This will be the reality until we come up with a way to make good decisions using direct democracy, and make that decision-making process so fast and easy that it can be used for any kind of group decision.…
There's value in that only if assessments made by people using the prediction for something aren't better than crowd wisdom. I would guess that a large part of prediction market participants are simple gamblers whose…
There will be no point, and the stuff that normal people use will become more expensive as resources are more and more directed to megaprojects that the capital class is interested in. More modern equivalents of…
Why couldn't China be better? It can't get much worse than what the US is currently doing. It's getting dangerously close to 30s Germany levels of madness. China at least at the moment seems like a better run country,…
Yes. The bigger the gap becomes, the more the economy will be geared towards serving the needs of the wealthy instead of regular people. If a trillionaire wants a mansion on Pluto or an AI to serve him, a large…
Those meals would most likely help a lot of kids become healthy productive members of society. That money would be saved by the families of those kids and used in other parts of the economy. A lot of the cost would…
> The diversity of perspective and opinion I don't think this is what social media provides. With social media people are able to choose one perspective and seem to just immerse themselves in a bubble so that they only…
What they do there is not enough. All decisions should be made using some form of direct democracy, otherwise you leave an opening for power concentration again, which will lead to the same problems we're now facing. We…
Could be, if we can come up with efficient ways to govern using direct democracy that lead to better decisions than what we now have. I don't see much work being done to come up with such a system, though.
I wish it was just psychos with power that are causing these issues. It's worse than that I think. It's the competition based systems of human organization that will result in what you're describing. Even if people in…
> Europe faced a worse Russian threat during the Cold War without giving up national sovereignty. That's because Europe could rely on the power of the US back then. If the US was just a patchwork of small independent…
I don't think so, because it's not only the truly weak that get exploited and abused in an "every man for himself" system. It'll also destroy the lives of many who could become strong in an environment that protects…