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The Simple Solution to Traffic, aka Why Competition is Inferior to Cooperation


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2017 Sep 26, 11:48am   8,493 views  35 comments

by Dan8267   ➕follow (4)   💰tip   ignore  

Individual self-interest is bad for the individuals. People acting selfishly instead of wisely cooperating causes the selfish people to suffer as much as the unselfish ones, but the selfish ones won't change because the suffering they caused is felt by others and the suffering they feel is caused by yet others.

Any system in which each individual attempts to maximize his own prosperity regardless of everyone else's is a system where each individual's prosperity is minimized. Collaboration, not individualism, matters for prosperity. This is a mathematical law. You cannot cheat mathematical laws. You will lose. If you want prosperity, increase collaboration and cooperation. The religion of capitalism is just plain wrong. Greed is not good. Greed does not create prosperity, not even for the greedy.
www.youtube.com/embed/iHzzSao6ypE

Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems.

#economics
#politics
#scitech

Comments 1 - 35 of 35        Search these comments

1   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 26, 12:05pm  

"Humans will never drive this precisely"
Cars not stoping at intersections nobody crashing.

This guy has never been to Lima Peru. To add more excitement there's a traffic director in the middle of the intersection in a basket on a pole.
Directing the madness but I can't tell if nobody is listening or if she's really that good.
2   georgeliberte   2017 Sep 26, 12:12pm  

And then there is Viet Nam with seemingly no traffic laws and thus very slow speeds.
3   anonymous   2017 Sep 26, 12:56pm  

Competition + adaptability leads to cooperation.
4   Dan8267   2017 Sep 26, 4:31pm  

anonymous says
Competition + adaptability leads to cooperation.


Empirically false.
5   Strategist   2017 Sep 26, 4:37pm  

Dan8267 says
Individual self-interest is bad for the individuals. People acting selfishly instead of wisely cooperating causes the selfish people to suffer as much as the unselfish ones, but the selfish ones won't change because the suffering they caused is felt by others and the suffering they feel is caused by yet others.


People are born selfish. Blame evolution. How are you gonna change that?
6   anonymous   2017 Sep 26, 4:42pm  

Dan thinks he can go back in time and make Soviet Union work.

To the time machine Dan you go!
7   Dan8267   2017 Sep 26, 5:32pm  

Strategist says
People are born selfish. Blame evolution. How are you gonna change that?


Human nature does not need to change. Societal structures do. There's a reason that the age we live in is far more pleasant and less violent than the Stone Age. Human nature didn't change. The way we organize ourselves did.
8   Strategist   2017 Sep 26, 6:30pm  

Dan8267 says
Strategist says
People are born selfish. Blame evolution. How are you gonna change that?


Human nature does not need to change. Societal structures do. There's a reason that the age we live in is far more pleasant and less violent than the Stone Age. Human nature didn't change. The way we organize ourselves did.


Yes, and that's called laws.
The law says we must pay our taxes.
We must provide welfare to the needy.
We must guarantee education for all.
We must stop at a red light.
You must not hurt anyone else.
But we are still selfish beings. We still need incentives so that Apple may make a new product. So that a drug company may create cures for diseases. We still need incentives to go to work. All those incentives are mostly money, and that is why we need capitalism. That is also why communism failed.
9   Dan8267   2017 Sep 26, 10:23pm  

Until you acknowledge that capitalism and communism are not the only options and that those two options are basically identical, then this conversation is pointless. One cannot talk science with the religious. Capitalism is your religion.
10   Strategist   2017 Sep 26, 11:11pm  

Dan8267 says
Until you acknowledge that capitalism and communism are not the only options and that those two options are basically identical, then this conversation is pointless. One cannot talk science with the religious. Capitalism is your religion.


And communism is my devil. There are an infinite number of choices between the two, but you are still either in the capitalist camp, or the communist camp. And Dan, you are in the communist camp.
11   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 27, 6:37am  

Another example of syncronized drivers, I saw in Malaysia KL, as a pedestrian you have no right to be any blacktop pavement not on the streets, not on a car park.
You cross at your own peril cars are not obliged to be careful or they'll will pay the consequences. If you get flattened by a car in the street, it's on you and you alone. You will end up with "Idiot" on your headstone somewhere. Traffic moves everywhere I never saw grid lock once. Even on back streets. They do have many Catwalks everywhere. There are no shortage of Catwalks to safely cross the road from above.

Getting a drivers license is a drawn out vetted process. If you are a timid hesitant driver that's considered just as dangerous as someone who can't stir the car right and crashes all the time. Every road moves like the autoban.
12   HEY YOU   2017 Sep 27, 8:32am  

Dan8267 says
Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems.

Have you not been warned about posting this crap on patnet?
13   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 8:40am  

Strategist says
There are an infinite number of choices between the two


If you were to plot those two economic systems in the space of all economies, they would be right next to each other and almost the entirety of the solution space would be outside the space between the two. Both systems
1. Are centralized. One calls the owners "capitalists" and the other calls them "party leaders".
2. Concentrate power into the hands of the few.
3. Reward power.
4. Do not reward productivity.
5. Are hierarchical.
6. Play zero-sum games.
7. Are incompatible with free markets.
8. Are centrally planned. Yes, capitalism is as centrally planned as communism because large corporations dominate entire industries every bit as much as party leaders do. The actors are just given different labels. They behave the same.
9. Promote the greed of those in control.
10. Are highly subject to corruption.

All of the above are bad things. There is no reason why an economy has to have any of the above properties.

The problem is that you are so brainwashed by cold war propaganda you are incapable of viewing economics as an engineering discipline rather than as a tribal identity. Economies are just machines. They are subject to the scientific method and the engineering practices as any other machine. If passion affects your outlook on economics, you are doing it wrong. Economics should affect your identity no more than the inner workings of your toaster.
14   zzyzzx   2017 Sep 27, 9:04am  

The Simple Solution to Traffic
15   HEY YOU   2017 Sep 27, 9:58am  

Kill all the other drivers?
Get off my road!
16   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 1:15pm  

Strategist says
All economies lean one way or the other.


Not at all true. There are an infinite number of possible economic systems vastly different from communism or capitalism. Only three nearly identical economic systems have ever been tried in the entire history of mankind. Those two shitty ones and feudalism, and they are all three basically the same damn system.

Capitalism is a Bronze Age technology that has long been obsolete. Do you really think there is no possibility of coming up with anything better in the 21st century? Are you that adverse to innovation? Have you learned nothing from the great progress of the 20th and 21st centuries?
17   Strategist   2017 Sep 27, 3:24pm  

Dan8267 says
Strategist says
All economies lean one way or the other.


Not at all true. There are an infinite number of possible economic systems vastly different from communism or capitalism. Only three nearly identical economic systems have ever been tried in the entire history of mankind. Those two shitty ones and feudalism, and they are all three basically the same damn system.

Capitalism is a Bronze Age technology that has long been obsolete. Do you really think there is no possibility of coming up with anything better in the 21st century? Are you that adverse to innovation? Have you learned nothing from the great progress of the 20th and 21st centuries?

I don't believe there is another system that can work. For success to take place, a system must serve human greed and selfishness, and we already have that. We can twist it around, fine tune it and call it something else, but it must lean towards capitalism to be a success. Where you draw the line can be argued, but nothing else.

Dan8267 says

I would call him by his name, Warren Buffet. Strategist would call Buffet a communist.

Warren Buffet is my numero uno hero. He is a fucking capitalist, just like me.
18   Tenpoundbass   2017 Sep 27, 4:53pm  

Companies will own the roads we ride on and the streets we live on, if driverless cars become a reality.
Only rich privileged people will actually have something that looks like they own a driverless car. They will be actual fleet cars licensed to the rich.
Pedestrians will not be allowed on the roan not on bike not on foot and not in your own car.

Resist and defeat communism and fight Liberal do gooder oppression.
19   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 5:24pm  

Strategist says
I don't believe there is another system that can work. For success to take place, a system must serve human greed and selfishness, and we already have that.


For an economic system to work, it must satisfy the needs and desires of human beings. It does not have to serve unchecked greed. It's not greedy to want to be prosperous. It's greedy to want to gain that prosperity at the expense of others. Greed is not necessary for economics to work. Nor is selfishness.

The mere motivation for material good and comforts are sufficient. No zero sum games are needed. No hierarchies are needed. No separation of a ruling owner class and a slave producer class is needed. Rewarding control of wealth with more wealth is not needed and is only a bad mechanism. Rewarding productivity, which capitalism absolutely does not do, is the key to maximizing wealth creation.

Greed and enlightened self-interest are not the same thing. Productivity and selfishness are not the same thing.


Strategist says
it must lean towards capitalism to be a success.


Capitalism is one and only one thing, the separation of ownership from production giving the owners full control over the distribution of wealth created by the producers. This mechanism serves absolutely no purpose except to concentrate wealth into the hands of a small and arbitrary group of non-productive members of society.

This mechanism also contradicts, by its very definition, equal pay for equal work as the later means not letting the owners distribute wealth but rather automating that distribution with an algorithm based solely on production.
20   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 5:30pm  

Strategist says

Warren Buffet is my numero uno hero. He is a fucking capitalist, just like me.



If he's your hero, then listen to him.
21   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 5:41pm  

The problem with capitalism and its twin communism can be summed up in this graph.


Four fucking people have as much wealth as 130 million Americans. Only an idiot believes that these four people are as productive as 130 million of their fellow countrymen. That's a ridiculous, obscene belief.

In fact, none of the four people have produced anything other than a shitty BASIC compiler. Bill Gates got wealthy entirely off the wealth production of others. The Koch brothers cheated and steal their way to the top after inheriting great wealth from their father. Even Warren Buffet produced nothing. It got rich playing zero-sum games.

An economic system that rewards those people and those non-productive, often parasitic, activities while not rewarding actual productivity sure as fuck isn't the optimal solution.

Life today is good for one and only one reason, STEM. Everything that has improved the quality of life has come from STEM. And STEM is so damn good at making life better that it has managed to do so despite capitalism fucking everything up and making life worse. However, the advancements from STEM cannot indefinitely outpace the destruction from capitalism. Eventually the typical American cannot afford housing, health care, education, or anything necessary to even survive, nonetheless prosper.

Image how much better life would be if STEM made all these improvements under an economic system that itself also improved the quality of life instead of destroying it. Your personal material wealth would easily be one hundred times greater.

Sure, the top four Americans would have less than 1% of the wealth they currently have, but our society would have far more wealth as a whole, and every productive member of society would be enjoying that wealth.
22   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 5:45pm  

The outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

Stephen Hawkings

This is why our economy should be a modern variation of Georgism, not capitalism.
23   Strategist   2017 Sep 27, 5:45pm  

Dan8267 says
If he's your hero, then listen to him.


I totally agree with him. Which is why I have always demanded education to be free for all humans. Education is not an expense, it's an investment that benefits mankind.
Sadly, i'm not in the lucky one percent like him.
24   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 6:11pm  

Strategist says
All else above the line should be based on capitalism, because it's capitalism that creates wealth for society.


Capitalism does not create wealth. Productivity and cooperation creates wealth. Capitalism seizes control of the wealth created by productivity and channels it into the hands of a few.

However, at least you are very slowly approaching reason. Socialism is the correct solution for necessities and infrastructure. You neglected the latter. Roads, defense, fire fighting, police, courts, etc. cannot work as for-profit. Luxuries, which is essentially everything except necessities and infrastructure, are effectively served with free markets. However, to have free markets, you must ban, or at least severely limit, capitalism.

Most of our economy is luxuries, but capitalism has a choke-hold on a few necessities like housing, education, and health care and that chock-hold wrecks our economic output and impoverishes our nation.
25   Dan8267   2017 Sep 27, 6:12pm  

Also, remember that profit seeking can capitalism are entirely different things! Capitalism seeks profit by siphoning off profit from others. Good profit seeking comes from productivity, not zero-sum games.
26   anonymous   2017 Sep 27, 6:15pm  

anonymous says
Competition + adaptability leads to cooperation.


Empirically false.
Yeah? Specific examples:

— Companies hate competition: left to their own device they WILL divide the market, agree to not poach each others employees, and otherwise agree to anti-competitive behaviors. Strong rules are needed specifically to prevent this.
— Almost all companies collaborate with other companies to meet their competition. Large companies often both collaborate and compete with the same other company. Apple use some Samsung components, etc….

— In times of war, you would think it is extremely rare for soldiers to collaborate with the enemy, but they often don’t shoot, intentionally miss, and sometime just plain collaborate with the enemy to meet harsh circumstances.
http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm http://www.cracked.com/article_20632_5-shocking-ways-enemies-worked-together-during-times-war.html http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/422689/Meeting-the-enemy-Tales-of-extraordinary-camaraderie-between-British-and-German-soldiers
— evolution of bacteria and viruses: Though you could say viruses and bacteria are the ultimate competitor to mankind and will try to kill you on a regular basis, evolution tends to make them less lethal and eventually tends to create a mutually beneficial relationship. Killing its host doesn’t help a virus.
27   anonymous   2017 Sep 27, 6:15pm  

Dan8267 says
Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems.

Forcing order top down, like an engineer does on a system doesn't work on society.
You have to create rules whereby individualism is ok, but cooperation will emerge.
28   Strategist   2017 Sep 27, 6:29pm  

Dan8267 says
Strategist says
All else above the line should be based on capitalism, because it's capitalism that creates wealth for society.


Capitalism does not create wealth. Productivity and cooperation creates wealth. Capitalism seizes control of the wealth created by productivity and channels it into the hands of a few.


My dear friend, China created a tremendous amount of wealth since the 1980's when they decided to adopt capitalism for their economy. It wasn't God that rained buckets of wealth on them.
Productivity is made workable by capitalism, because every business has an incentive to get a greater output with a lesser input.
29   Strategist   2017 Sep 27, 6:33pm  

anonymous says
Dan8267 says
Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems.

Forcing order top down, like an engineer does on a system doesn't work on society.
You have to create rules whereby individualism is ok, but cooperation will emerge.


And what use is "Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems." if no one has the incentive to apply it?
30   Ceffer   2017 Sep 27, 6:41pm  

Strategist says
And what use is "Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems." if no one has the incentive to apply it?


If they had all these attributes, they wouldn't be libbies to begin with.
31   Dan8267   2017 Sep 28, 1:19am  

Strategist says


And what use is "Math, logic, reasoning, science, technology, and rationality are the keys to solving all problems." if no one has the incentive to apply it?


There's always incentive to generate wealth when you get to keep the wealth you generate. Capitalism takes away this incentive by rigging the system.

Do pay attention.

Dan8267 says
Capitalism does not create wealth. Productivity and cooperation creates wealth. Capitalism seizes control of the wealth created by productivity and channels it into the hands of a few.


Dan8267 says
Also, remember that profit seeking can capitalism are entirely different things! Capitalism seeks profit by siphoning off profit from others. Good profit seeking comes from productivity, not zero-sum games.
32   anonymous   2017 Sep 28, 10:42am  

They key difference between communism and small gov anarchists is that the former want purely top-down organization, the latter purely bottom-up.
We need both.
Pure top-down has never worked, never will.
Pure bottom-up is for the monopolizers and the anarchists.
33   anonymous   2017 Sep 28, 11:20am  

Exhibit A for why Patnet sucks. The title is about traffic coordination and I see 50 comments and think "wow there must be a robust discussion about driverless cars, etc".

Instead, after two innocuous posts someone launches into a tangent and next thing you know it's 45+ comments on the merits of capitalism versus socialism with the usual suspects.

No offense but why can't any of the loudmouths just let it go and get back to the initial potentially interesting conversation? I'm going to guess that there are at least 1000 threads with the same pointless capitalism versus communism arguments lobbed by the same people. Can't any of you guys ever let anything go?
34   Dan8267   2017 Sep 28, 11:35am  

anonymous says
They key difference between communism and small gov anarchists is that the former want purely top-down organization, the latter purely bottom-up.


Your very statement assumes a hierarchical organization. Economic systems do not have to be hierarchical. Have you learned nothing from the existence of the Internet, Bitcoin, torrentz, and relational databases?
35   anonymous   2017 Sep 28, 8:36pm  

Dan8267 says
There's always incentive to generate wealth when you get to keep the wealth you generate. Capitalism takes away this incentive by rigging the system.

Capitalism reward the local organizers, so this doesn't have to be organized top-down. Everyone is free to be the organizers. So this is fair - normally.

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