Capitalist logix

You can see it all play out in a microcosm on reality shows like Survivor. People cooperate and compete. They cooperate TO compete. They cooperate when it benefits them the most, and betray each other when they think they’re most likely to get away with it. Some people are more trustworthy than others. Some are extremely likely to betray, but then they struggle to benefit from cooperation.

Groups of people engaged in a kind of eusocial super cooperation are very rare and tend to be fairly small. They also tend to act the most like a clique; being highly discriminatory against the outgroup.

My take on this is that the greatness in humanity comes from being a bunch of egoistic assholes capable of doing the right thing and help each other.

A selfless person doing something selfless is normal. A egoist doing something egoistic is normal. An egoist doing something altruistic is what raises us from pure instinct to humanity.

We hear that argument a lot, and though some people's charity may be motivated purely by egoism I don't think it applies to the majority at all. The argument assumes that if doing something makes you feel good, then that feeling must be the sole motivation for that action, which is dubious. And if we follow this logic to its natural conclusion, every action that does not make you feel bad is egoistic, and the concept becomes completely meaningless. Saving a child from falling down a cliff? Egoistic! Intervening when someone is treated unfairly? Egoistic! Giving up your chair for an elderly person on a crowded bus? Egoistic!

Let's take this last (admittedly small, everyday, non-dramatic) example. Sure, you could give up your seat purely because you want to look like a good person to others (although it's doubtful anyone would even notice). It's also possible to experience this feeling called empathy, to see an elderly person struggling to keep their balance while standing up and to want to alleviate that particular suffering. Everyone else is sitting down looking at their phones, so there's no community pressure to speak of. No one would call you out if you just pretended not to notice. And the discomfort from standing up on a really crowded bus on a bumpy road could easily outweigh that little buzz you get from doing good.

I'll go even further; it's even possible, in a scenario like this, to not even think about how it's going to make you feel or your self-image or whatever. You just want to help someone else because it's in your power to do so. If this isn't an example of not being egoistic, what would be? What would be the opposite of egoism? To act completely dispassionately?

And what about someone sacrificing their own life to save another? Striving to do good in the world does feel better, yes, but empathy is also a burden. Still, there are genuinely good people out there, that do good deeds and do not take any credit for it, even do it anonymously. And I can tell you from experience, not all of them walk around on clouds feeling like saints. Some of them even experience crippling guilt because they feel they do not do enough. How is that egoism?

People help other people because it makes them feel good. And people expect themselves to be noticed or praised or rewarded, even if they tell themselves and everyone else that they don’t.

People want their labor to be recognized. But you don't need to wield an Elon Musk level of deranged dictatorial financial clout in order to experience self-actualization for your efforts.

Pride in your work also comes with a degree of autonomy and creative freedom. A draconian profit driven privatized capitalist restaurant or clinic or school isn't going to care whether the staff feed or heal or educate anymore. All they care about is driving up profits. By contrast, a (good) chef cares that people like the food. They care about evolving their craft. They care about the experience they are producing, even when that may mean the dish doesn't make someone else money.

There's a balance to be struck between enterprises with scarce resources and people with a desire to feel accomplished in their craft.

But you can strike that balance with good administrative leadership. The reward for a day's work can be a beautiful place to live and a happy neighborhood, rather than a single incredibly rich guy hosting an award show for his pet favorites and using these token elites as an excuse to make the rest of his staff live in poverty.

I agree with you. If I have anything to give when I see someone in need, I give it to them. Not because I have some grand sense of purpose or anything. I do it because it makes me feel warm inside, it puts me in a better mood for the whole day knowing that someone else's life is now a little easier because of me. Does that change the fact that I've made someone's life a little easier?

I remember looking at charity jobs when I was graduating with my humanities degree before I got into tech. Revealingly, the alumi I was speaking to who worked in the sector said something like, "At it's core you need to remember that working for a charity is essentially a sales job."

Made me nope tf out of there lol.

"People help other people because it makes them feel good". I'd say the meaning is "people help others in need so they can feel good". Is there a problem with this? If someone in need of help receive that help, they will feel alleviated, while people giving help will feel good. I don't know, it sounds great to me. Even if the helping ones wouldn't feel a thing, like robots, it would be still great, in my book, because someone in need is being attended.

Now, if the helping ones feel bad for helping, and the others feel good, then I can see an issue. The only problem I could see is to be angry because there are people in need to start with.

Communal narcissism

Charity can also be used as a tax avoidance scheme and weaponized for political purposes; this is why the rich love it, through charity they are able to help themselves even further

We will feed you if you believe in our religion and work our fields, your true reward for your good works and piety will wait for you in heaven.

It's like your pension plan in the sky.

"One of the USSRs biggest mistakes was giving Ayn Rand an education"

"And when all those self made champions went away and created a new society, free of the old one, one of them asked 'does anyone of us know how to cook?'. And then they screamed in fear".

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Free? When was the last time you got free food? Free in the fully subsidized by the government kind of way. Unless you live on food stamps (in which case you're usually fucked in pretty much every other way) I can't think of another way how you'd get free food. I guess technically dumpster diving but I'm sure it's only a matter of time until it's made illegal (if it's not already illegal).

And if the food not free then more available food doesn't matter if the people can't afford it. We produce enough food to feed everyone and we still have people without food security.

You don't really believe that, do you?

People = problem

So, what's the middle ground in your opinion?

Having been the one who brought it up, (and since I got here first) I guess I will super duper reluctantly be the enforcer. I super don't want to y'all guys! But this is for the good of the collective!

Ok but socdem. And before you try to make a counter argument with [insert nordic country that is actually capitalist] just think about how they always call the ussr and china communist while they arent.

What are you trying to say?

Does it really matter what scheme the elites use to wring out all surplus value out of the population to repurpose for their own ends ?

Ok but socdem. And before you try to make a counter argument with [insert nordic country that is actually capitalist]

??? That is a novel take "let us split power with our oppressors, but Nordic countries don't do that"

they always call the ussr and china communist while they arent.

Yeah the USSR was and China is a transitionary socialist state lead by a communist party.

Get it together people.

Ok but socdem

Lol. Lmao, even.

And before you try to make a counter argument with [insert nordic country that is actually capitalist] just think about how they always call the ussr and china communist while they arent.

China is Socialist with Chinese Characteristics, and the USSR was Socialist. Both are/were Communist in ideology.

Maybe read up on the genocide of the native Americans

Maybe read up on American chattel slavery

Maybe read up on the Ludlow Massacre

Maybe read up on the Tulsa Race Massacre

Notice how all yours are perpetuated by differing countries. All mine are from America. Capitalism is poison, and you are its catalyst.