Some of us work for corps and see people trying to do their best to help people every day. It’s tempting to think there’s this hidden layer of control somewhere, where the evil people are. Maybe it’s there, I dunno. To me the evil people seem to be spread throughout.
It’s inherent in profit maximisation for management to pursue shrinkflation and other anti-consumer practices. Same for taking advantage of the nice people that work for them.
Yeah there’s a pull to, but that doesn’t mean the utility function maximizes at using people. Because there are other factors, like one’s reputation, and competition from other employers and suppliers, that shift the maximum back toward being good.
There’s no reason to think that our concept of “good” didn’t evolve, and isn’t actually the optimal strategy for accumulating success.
I do, however, also know the evil humanity is capable of when dehumanization can be achieved. I think that people can get caught up in less important things when they don’t see the people they effect. And the bigger an organization gets, the more layers there are between the top and the bottom, and the more
tempting it is at the top to do something anti-human, to sacrifice the people for some lesser goal like money or “fighting the good fight” or “breaking this record or whatever abstract thing the dehumanizer decides to sacrifice their people to pursuing.
I agree with you there’s all sorts of evil inside corporations. I just don’t think that necessarily comes from profit motive. I think it comes from their size and a culture within them that separates management enough that they can dehumanize people under their own authority.
People can be used up and manipulated and put through unhealthy scenarios that degrade them, in all sorts of organizations: corporations, armies, mobs, communes, churches, sports teams, everything. All those organizational structures can make machines that chew people up and spit them out, and they get more likely to as they get larger.
Some of us work for corps and see people trying to do their best to help people every day. It’s tempting to think there’s this hidden layer of control somewhere, where the evil people are. Maybe it’s there, I dunno. To me the evil people seem to be spread throughout.
It’s inherent in profit maximisation for management to pursue shrinkflation and other anti-consumer practices. Same for taking advantage of the nice people that work for them.
Yeah there’s a pull to, but that doesn’t mean the utility function maximizes at using people. Because there are other factors, like one’s reputation, and competition from other employers and suppliers, that shift the maximum back toward being good.
There’s no reason to think that our concept of “good” didn’t evolve, and isn’t actually the optimal strategy for accumulating success.
I do, however, also know the evil humanity is capable of when dehumanization can be achieved. I think that people can get caught up in less important things when they don’t see the people they effect. And the bigger an organization gets, the more layers there are between the top and the bottom, and the more tempting it is at the top to do something anti-human, to sacrifice the people for some lesser goal like money or “fighting the good fight” or “breaking this record or whatever abstract thing the dehumanizer decides to sacrifice their people to pursuing.
I agree with you there’s all sorts of evil inside corporations. I just don’t think that necessarily comes from profit motive. I think it comes from their size and a culture within them that separates management enough that they can dehumanize people under their own authority.
People can be used up and manipulated and put through unhealthy scenarios that degrade them, in all sorts of organizations: corporations, armies, mobs, communes, churches, sports teams, everything. All those organizational structures can make machines that chew people up and spit them out, and they get more likely to as they get larger.