@avlcharlie How is it a oxymoron. All capitalism is is any system which includes free market trade, that is, trade in which natural supply-demand pressures dominate the markets pricing.

Nothing about that implies greed or altruism, it only implies everyone is trying to maximize their own fitness function (get the most utility for their resources). Its about effiency not greed.

@freemo @avlcharlie well, unless people attempt to develop some level of sophistication, efficiency turns into greed, because thoughtless accumulation is the easiest thing to do. This is reinforced by a social environment where chronic accumulators are considered successful by chronically accumulating media.

@mapto

Bow ya figure that makes no sense. Accumulating resources in a vault untouched is the least effecient form, you literally have negative effiency as inflation devalues assets. A person would achieve effiency by investing thrir mo ey wisely and ensuring other people are using those resources to effectively increase the total resources in the market.

You are getting stuck in the fallacy that someone havibg authority (ownership) over those resources means that other people cant use it for their own gains as well which is entierly contrary to the reality. Those resources will be in others hands and used by them in some agreement to use them for mutual gain (investment in others).

@avlcharlie

@freemo @avlcharlie maximisers would invest for profitability and not for sustainability. Clearly this conversation is way too abstract and way too generalising, but rich people investing in cheap resources is a real problem in times of pressing change.

Optimising is by definition deprived of vision, ask effective altruists ;)

@mapto

Who said anything about sustainability. We said utility, that may or may not line up with sustainability. They will pick sustai able when it has the most utility.

Similarly thry dont buy cheap if cheap is less utility. Somethi g at half the price that breaks in 1/10th the time is a bad investment, so no thry dont just go with what is cheapest. Rich people dont invest in cheap resource they invest in what gets them the most utility, which is what prfitability is.

Optimising has vision, for the thing you are optimising for.

@avlcharlie

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@mapto

And of course the conversatio is abstract, it has to be,
You are making assertions about an abstraction (capitalism) that can not and does not exist in a concrete and pure form. So abstract conversation is the only one we can have.

@avlcharlie

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