Thread by @s_r_constantin

Sometimes I have a crazy intuition like “if people just categorically refused to work with anybody who seemed untrustworthy or “fake” or trying to take advantage, the world would be better.”

This is crazy because people need to work to survive and what if their only options are people who are trying to take advantage? I get that. It’s not a practical proposal.

But all the actual productive capacity of the economy is in people who are making positive-sum contributions. The “nation” of positive-sum builders and helpers is, by necessity, richer than the “nation” of zero-sum takers. In actual resources if not dollars.

Imagine if everyone went on a sort of “strike” all at once: don’t work with or for anyone you think is sleazy or unfair. Don’t do any job you think is pointless or immoral. Just actually listen to your personal judgment. Would everyone starve?

If people are even sort of okay at correctly recognizing who is a helpful, reasonable contributor and who is a sneak or bully or freeloader, then *no*, we wouldn’t starve, we’d be much better off!

If a vital industry to people’s survival were so full of assholes that it would fall apart under this “strike”, then it probably wasn’t very efficient to begin with, and some helpful competent person would organize a relief effort to fill immediate needs and grow from there.

If people in this “strike” ostracize the people who are vital to keeping them alive, they are going to have a bad time. If people ostracize those who are actually taking advantage of them, they’re going to do better than ever.

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.

There’s a weirdly compelling intuition to me that the only real problem with the world is people second-guessing their own best judgments. Disagreement isn’t a problem, conflicting interests aren’t a problem, ignorance isn’t a problem; those are all necessary conditions of life.

But when a person thinks “that guy seems like an asshole to me, but I’m not hearing anyone else say it, maybe I was dreaming”, that’s a real problem. That’s the world’s store of collective intelligence erasing information.

This idea rhymes with Paul Graham's "Be Good" paulgraham.com/good.html. "Companies often claim to be benevolent, but it was surprising to realize there were purely benevolent projects that had to be embodied as companies to work." Google started out as almost a nonprofit.

"Most of us have some amount of natural benevolence...the very best hackers tend to be idealistic. They're not desperate for a job. They can work wherever they want. So most want to work on things that will make the world better."

"You grow big by being nice, but you can stay big by being mean. You get away with it till the underlying conditions change, and then all your victims escape."

This also rhymes with Justin Murphy's idea that "communism" (which he thinks of in an unorthodox way" requires "accurate social valuation of individual characters". theotherlifenow.com/aristocracy-an…

Murphy notes that "intentional communities" fail because people don't reward helpfulness and competence, or punish freeloading and sociopathy. The kinds of people who join those communities aren't even *trying* to do that, because they don't believe character matters.

Murphy's proposal is strangely simple: "Each person in a community agrees to assign status (i.e. distribute their respect) to all the others according to the others' contributions to the community, however each person honestly evaluates the others' contributions."

You can start doing this *now*, immediately, wherever you are. Is someone doing something you think is a public service? Praise them or donate to them! Is someone doing something you think is harmful to your community or to humanity? Say so, and withdraw your help!

Unilaterally choose to, as best you can, make the incentives you send match the things you value. No human incentive system, including the market, can function if people don't *mostly* succeed in doing this.

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?"

"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."

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.

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.

Nobody can know infallibly whether somebody is doing positive-sum contribution or zero-sum exploitation. People will have different opinions. This is fine.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

And “just say no” to extortion. Don’t help people because they threaten to harm you otherwise.