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Comment by pnt12 | Hacker News Reader

But does it result in better quality of life? Maybe competitiveness is not the best target to optimize for.

Broadly speaking, competitiveness is the source of quality of life improvements, through its effect of expanding capital and thereby raising productivity.

that's a cute hypothesis where's the proof

Well, you see, A = A, and from there the rest follows.

Your comment, for one. What device did you use to make it?

And they could afford to own that device readily while almost certainly believing in one of the more regulated nations in the world, right?

How are the citizens in the least regulated doing on that front?

Yea....

You are conflating lack of regulations with lawlessness. If literal anarchy was the alternative, then you'd have a point.

Anyways, the device in question would simply not have existed if there wasn't for competition. His comment is thus evidence of its content being false.

No. You're being either being willfully disingenuous or completely lacking knowledge of the variety in this world.

Plenty of nation that are not lawless but are effectively unregulated in the matters being discussed.

And they do not fit your supposition.

Really...

>>Plenty of nation that are not lawless but are effectively unregulated in the matters being discussed.

I think you have basic misunderstandings of economic concepts and the state of the world economy. Can you provide an example of poorly performing economies which "are not lawless but are effectively unregulated in the matters being discussed"?

In what world does competition increase quality of life? Competition results in more misery and less free time as people spend their time and energy trying to out compete one another.

The theory isn’t that completion makes things better for the competitors, it makes things better for the consumer they are competing over.

If economic productivity is proportional to quality of life, why aren't most people doing everything they possibly can to maximize their productivity. E.g., working 20 hour days, foregoing children in order to produce more, trading vacation days for more work...

I'd argue it's because economic productivity is not the only input into well-being and quality of life.

Lack of recreation and reproduction harms economic productivity in the long run. Everything valuable or good in life can ultimately be measured as contributing to productivity.

That assumes is a goal in its own sake. I’m making an argument that productivity is a means to an end, not an end itself. It’s similar to the alignment problem of AI.

Put differently, do you think a lower quality of life is a worthwhile tradeoff if it raises productivity? What about the inverse?

The goal should be to raise quality of life. The only way to do that is to raise productivity.

Then shouldn't countries with the least regulations have the highest QoL?

Then why does it seem to be the exact opposite?

Some laws, like those against theft and violence, increase competitiveness. The ideal state has such laws - that establish a free market based on voluntary interaction - and little else. And indeed, states that get closest to this ideal have the best economic growth rates and trends in QoL improvements.

Nice handwaving....

Competitiveness != Free Market

If fact, if you want competitiveness you need to prevent a fully free market.

No matter how many times this is explained, people still continue to make this incredibly simple and enormously consequential mistake.

If we're taking the reductionist view that economic output is the only important measure of society, then people need to understand that means maximizing competition not maximizing a free market.

>>If fact, if you want competitiveness you need to prevent a fully free market.

I've seen no indication of that.

> And indeed, states that get closest to this ideal have the best economic growth rates and trends in QoL improvements.

Isn't this just a cleverly worded tautology? It's like saying healthy people tend to live longer and happier lives. But is it actionable information? Not really.

How is that a tautology?

And Sealioning is in action, and thus so is Poe's law.

No reasonable person could believe you're acting in good faith, right?

Really...

I don't see any tautology in my statement so I asked for an elaboration, in good faith.

But your caustic response is anything but, so you've become the very thing you imagine me to be: a bad faith interlocutor.

Your action is definitional Sealioning from my perspective.

If you can't see it then take a step back and analyze the thread until you can see how others would perceive your reply as such.

Again, I don't see the tautology in my statement, and I know I'm asking for elaboration in good faith, so there's no way I could see it from your perspective.

If you can't see it from my perspective despite other readers clearly having been able (upvotes) then the problem is You, isn't it?

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