In other words: a world in which people use their own judgment of character is a world in which people prosper or suffer according to how well their judgment corresponds to survival value. People who make this a “popularity contest” will lose hard.
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The basic idea of communism is "the workers do all the actual work, and they are being exploited by a tiny number of people who contribute nothing and just leech off them. But if the workers do all the work, they *have all the power.* Why do they tolerate exploitation?"
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"The workers are *strong*, not weak; if they are systematically exploited it must be because they are confused, lack confidence in their strength, or lack coordination mechanisms. Therefore, raising their awareness and confidence and helping coordinate will solve their problem."
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I'm not a communist. But my only real disagreement with *this* argument, thus far, is that I think people who do genuine professional, managerial, mercantile, or intellectual work are not parasites but contributors. The "workers" are literally everybody whose work is useful.
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It's easier to *disguise* zero-sum exploitation as positive-sum contribution if you're professional-class -- there's not much doubt that most janitors are really cleaning, while it's more ambiguous whether most bankers are really trading.
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Nobody can know infallibly whether somebody is doing positive-sum contribution or zero-sum exploitation. People will have different opinions. This is fine.
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Or, at any rate, we have to accept it because it's inevitable. People aren't clones or oracles. Everybody acting on their best judgment (informed by communication with others) is the best humans can possibly do.
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I don't necessarily believe that there is a well-defined group called "exploiters", responsible for most social ills, that the majority of people can recognize and can coordinate to keep out.
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What I believe is that if a significant fraction of people -- including many of the most productive and morally idealistic -- are deluded into thinking that they shouldn't or can't judge people's character & incentivize them accordingly, we're underperforming.
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Paul Graham's idea of a "good person" may be quite different from Justin Murphy's. But both of them would be wrong to suppress their impulses to associate with good people and disassociate with bad people.
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To be clear, I don’t mean “cancel everyone who has flaws and give no second chances.” Not at all. I mean *proportional* incentives; be more willing to help people the more helpful/constructive you think they are on net.
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And “just say no” to extortion. Don’t help people because they threaten to harm you otherwise.
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End of conversation
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