The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
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The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
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Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#2I see people interpret personal comfort as zero sum and it drives me nuts. Like somehow other people being safe and comfortable devalues ones own safety and comfort.
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#3I see people interpret personal comfort as zero sum and it drives me nuts. Like somehow other people being safe and comfortable devalues ones own safety and comfort.
I suspect it is because many humans derive self-worth from seeing other people who are worse off than they are. If you have that mindset, personal comfort really can be a zero-sum game, sadly...
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#4People are also dumb.
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#5This feels like a 'stop looking out for your own interests, it's OK because I said so'. H1bs are definitely zero sum.
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#6This will be controversial, but this is true everytime there is a pitchfork-inducing "the rich got richer in 20XX" thread. But it's not that the rich stole from the poor in order to become richer (though undoubtedly people will argue this).
If I stick a million dollars in an index fund and passively get richer, am I stealing from the poor? Wealth is not zero sum, yet we seem to treat it like it is (in order for poor people to become wealthy we need to take from the wealthy)
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#7I see people interpret personal comfort as zero sum and it drives me nuts. Like somehow other people being safe and comfortable devalues ones own safety and comfort.
I suspect it is because many humans derive self-worth from seeing other people who are worse off than they are. If you have that mindset, personal comfort really can be a zero-sum game, sadly...
What you just described is rivalry-based schadenfreude.
> Rivalry-Based Schadenfreude is individualistic and related to interpersonal competition. It arises from humans' desire to stand out from and out-perform their peers. Another person's misfortune elicits pleasure because the observer now feels better about their personal identity and self-worth, instead of their group identity.
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#8This will be controversial, but this is true everytime there is a pitchfork-inducing "the rich got richer in 20XX" thread. But it's not that the rich stole from the poor in order to become richer (though undoubtedly people will argue this). If I stick a million dollars in an index fund and passively get richer, am I stealing from the poor? Wealth is not zero sum, yet we seem to treat it like it is (in order for poor…
Not that I necessarily agree with them, but some people would say that your index fund is stealing from the poor in a sense, because corporate profits (distributed to you, the shareholder, as dividends) are derived from exploiting the working class, when they could be raising wages instead.
This is obviously not the entire story, because the economy certainly has grown historically and continues to grow, and that growth comes from somewhere. But it is plausible that some amount of wealth accumulation does come at the detriment of the poor.
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#9This will be controversial, but this is true everytime there is a pitchfork-inducing "the rich got richer in 20XX" thread. But it's not that the rich stole from the poor in order to become richer (though undoubtedly people will argue this). If I stick a million dollars in an index fund and passively get richer, am I stealing from the poor? Wealth is not zero sum, yet we seem to treat it like it is (in order for poor…
It's more that people are starting to recognize that we're more poor than a decade ago in terms of buying power AND unemployment is closer to 25% than some ludicrous politicized value.
When you shove apes deeper into the pits of the dominance hierarchies and feed them garbage, you're going to have resentment.
Along those lines, capital has been concentrating ever more into a smaller slice of the population while cutting the value of the humble pile of capital the average US citizen has. I don't believe in wealth as a zero sum game but I do believe in hyper-predator agents steering the system for more ill-begotten gains. Which becomes a zero sum game...
Re: The Zero-Sum Bias: When people think that everything is a competition
#10This will be controversial, but this is true everytime there is a pitchfork-inducing "the rich got richer in 20XX" thread. But it's not that the rich stole from the poor in order to become richer (though undoubtedly people will argue this). If I stick a million dollars in an index fund and passively get richer, am I stealing from the poor? Wealth is not zero sum, yet we seem to treat it like it is (in order for poor…
PG often tries to make this point.