Comment by nextos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nextos | Hacker News Reader

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> The last year has been a period in which I've gone from wanting to take part in society, work on big problems like climate change, sacrifice for the greater good, donate my time and money [...]

This might be the biggest problem human race has to solve. How to encourage and reward good behavior for the greater good. Economists would say it's a problem on how to price in externalities. It doesn't matter.

I see it everywhere. In academia, most big PIs I've met don't care about pushing knowledge frontiers. It's about their own careers, putting their names on as many manuscripts as possible and securing funding to hire more and more people.

In my neighbourhood teens are systematically breaching COVID restrictions with huge illegal parties, spreading disease and therefore causing fatalities. Since the odds of having severe COVID are low for them, they don't care.

The local power plant was scamming with their emissions in a VW-like way, by tampering CO2 meters in their chimneys.

I could go on and on.

How can we address these behaviors? Pg has said somewhere I can't find now that scaling big companies is still an unsolved problem, and that solutions are welcome. I think it's the same class of issue. Once you are big enough to require a layer of middle management, you won't be able to filter out the selfish ones.

This is something East-Germans are lamenting about when comparing East-Germany to West-Germany. Of course some of this self-serving behaviour exists everywhere, but as a society or even community you can put a focus on the "we" or on the "me". Our society happens to mostly stress the "me" part, which leads to the outcomes you describe.

The basis of capitalism is that under most circumstances, focusing on “me” also produces the best outcomes for “us”.

And a pure focus on “us” can lead to poorer outcomes as there is no immediate reward for the person doing the work.

The economist would say all you need is a proper set of incentives to ensure that what's best for the individual is best for the community. The AI-safety researcher would say that every set of incentives you find will have loopholes, and those will be exploited.

I'm not claiming capitalism doesn't work (at least for many definitions of capitalism, and work), but we should acknowledge its drawbacks, acknowledge strengths of other systems that otherwise failed, and hope to find a better model that has similar advantages with fewer of the drawbacks.

Oh I don’t disagree. Capitalism without regulation can result in poor outcomes for some markets. As you said, regulations can help but also create loopholes that are quickly exploited.

But I think it’s disingenuous to say that a system focused on “we” suddenly solves all the issues with capitalism (which is what the grandparent was trying to infer).

other systems don't just happen to fail. they were strangled by capitalism. given that, how do you really expect to find a better model with fewer drawbacks and put it in place?

I agree capitalism and incentives produce loopholes, but a lot of those can be closed pretty easily with good governance. For example, many of us are tech workers and paid with stock/options/equity. This is a great system to align incentives -- we're all in the same boat to win or lose.

..except when we're not. You often see in-group worker game the system by taking ever increasing cash comp ("i win either way") or special incentive bonuses for managers who ensure delivery. Meanwhile, VCs are on first-out preference shares. Worse, you often dont know this is happening so you continue to think the real game is cashing out your equity.

This is poor governance IMHO. And many workers end up sniffing it out. The ultimate capitalist system would have absolutely guaranteed comp by equity w/o special side incentives.

Wrong. Focusing on “us” ends in ruling class and endless poverty everywhere.

Alternatives to capitalism have been tried and it always fails.

Venezuela is the most recent example.

Venezuela is struggling because of a focus on the collective, not because of sactions, blockades, and coup attepts... none of that has any real effect.

A common point in Bitcoin submissions on HN is that a deflationary cryptocurrency would help with the inflationary currency (e.g. in Venezuela) and make it possible for the average person to build wealth.

I just looked up Venezuela's situation. Well, food prices are going up because diesel sanctions prevent farmers from running their tractors. That's definitively not a currency problem.

Alternatives to Monarchy have all been tried, and it always fails.

Focusing on freedom ends up in anarchy and chaos everywhere.

Freench revolution is the most recent exanple - just look at the amount of people beheaded!

Amusingly, without realising it, your post specifically hits on the reason I'm done with society.

It's individualism for me now. Me, my friends, the neighbours.

Everyone else, figure it out, I'm not your pawn.

Hence the American Revolution and subsequent Constitution: enough government to keep the basics together, otherwise do whatever you want. ...and occasional civil wars (small and large) reminding leaders to keep it that way.

>...and occasional civil wars (small and large) reminding leaders to keep it that way.

And yet, oddly enough, countries with regular civil unrest tend not to be bastions of civil liberty, but violent mafia-run hellholes.

Well I mean, economic systems that attempt to leverage human benevolence have all failed. Capitalism at its root leverages our base qualities (greed, fear, desire, etc.) to motivate members to be productive. It has been the most successful system thus far, despite its many, many faults.

These attempts haven't failed because they are intrinsically worse, but because they were systematically threatened and sabotaged by the greed-driven players.

Greed doesn't go away in a non capitalist system.

Don't understand why this is down voted, it's being one paycheck away from poverty that keep 70% of Americans from telling off their bosses

The post includes opposite thoughts, and such gets downvoted on HN.

It's funny how this goes. Capitalism is great because it promises individual freedom and giving everyone what they wants, while also holding 70% of Americans at economical gunpoint, justifying that with "well if everyone truly got what they want, nobody would produce and civilization would collapse".

Perhaps the capitalists should drop the talk about freedom and voluntary trade. Or we need a new word for "freedom" that doesn't classify structurally coerced choices as "free".

>Capitalism is great because it promises individual freedom and giving everyone what they wants, while also holding 70% of Americans at economical gunpoint

If government policies are set in a way that encourages this outcome then that's what you get. It doesn't have to be that way.

You don't need government policies that encourage this outcome - this outcome is the default. Money begets money, wealth accumulates where there is more wealth. You need active government policies to prevent/reverse that, but those are hard to maintain because wealth also buys power.

Wealth doesn't buy power directly. In a democracy most power comes from voters, so the only way to buy political power via wealth is to affect the voting process by spreading misinformation or manipulating the people. For example in USA the voters are made to believe that they can only vote for people who has spent their lived taking bribes from corporations. That of course isn't true, but as long as people believe it then it money is power.

In nations where people don't believe such blatant lies money doesn't turn into power nearly as easily. And look, poor people in those countries are actually much better cared for and live better lives than in USA! The bottom 90% are 90% of voters and therefore have all the power to make whatever policies they want. And once the 90% makes a lot of policies it is really hard to stop them from continuing doing that, you have to work really really hard to keep them away from power and to continue keeping them away.

Either they are structural outcomes of capitalism, or capitalism doesn't really matter, quality of governance does.

You responce sounds like you are trying to have it both ways

Having kids was a huge perspective shift towards doing my part & seeing the inherent value in other people. No silver bullet, of course, as plenty of people have kids yet act only for their own self interest.

But it is interesting to wonder if decreased birth rates could be both a symptom and cause of decreasing collectivism.

I am not sure where you're living but where I am birth rates are declining because people literally cannot guarantee they'll have money to feed their kids.

Not a very glorious or elaborate response, granted, but Occam's Razor must never be ignored.

"Decreasing collectivism" is only stemming from "every man for himself" because the economy is objectively getting worse and worse for most folks out there. It's a very logical outcome.

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