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Comment by littletimmy | Hacker News Reader

In political ponerology (study of evil in politics, coming from the works of Polish psychiatrist Andrzej Łobaczewski), a pathocracy is defined to be a government where a small minority of psychopaths through the machinations of the system gain vast amounts of power and use normal people to their benefit.

Homo-economicus is a psychopath. He values profit over people, uses people as resources, measures his own worth in money, harms the environment, has no deeper values, and so on. Insofar as our (capitalist) society rewards homo-economicus instead of shunning this miserable being, we are going to be ruled by a pathocracy.

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> Homo-economicus is a psychopath. He values profit over people, uses people as resources, measures his own worth in money, harms the environment, has no deeper values, and so on.

This is known as a "rational agent" in some circles, lol. Just shows to what extremes people self-justify their actions and ideologies.

Without empathy or remorse, a "rational agent" is a sociopath.

Empathy and remorse cause inefficiencies in the economy. A perfectly rational agent would have neither.

Therefore, he is a sociopath.

Those same circles usually advocate for well regulated capitalism. Monopolies need to be punished and externalities taxed.

Capitalism is an extension of evolution. They have both created great things through competition. They have even created altruism where it is mutually beneficial.

I don't think that running a chain of businesses makes you evil. Changing government policy to make it impossible for others to compete is evil though, since it ruins the game.

It's a shame that we have such an impact on the environment. It is a tragedy of the commons. If a person could be made to feel their environmental impact more strongly on a personal financial level maybe things would be better.

Right. It is also true that evolution is full of dead ends and failed experiments, and species going nowhere.

Be very careful when you allow a blind mechanism to rule your universe.

I don't think there is a stable alternative. Everything else is more exploitable.

See Europe for a stable alternative. Humane people, sane governments, sustainable development.

Sadly a lot of HN'ers will reply to that with 'yeah but Google and Apple weren't born in Europe'.

How is Europe an alternative to Capitalism or Evolution?

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