From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Mar 18 2002 - 07:10:13 MST
jeff davis wrote:
>
> Extropes,
>
> > Subject: Research Shows Just How Much People Hate A
> > Winner
> >
> > I recently received this chilling article
>
> <snip>
> >
> > The full paper is in PDf format at this link
> >
> >
> http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/Economics/oswald/paris.pdf
>
> OK. Assuming that the research isn't totally flaky,
> you know, like something performed by the Institute
> for the Confirmation of Human Venality,...
Well, you could look at it as a sort of objective confirmation that
there is a natural human disposition to be a jealous materialistic
confiscatory socialist bastard (at least in England).
Another way to look at it is that it does conform to one of my own
rules: Anybody who tries to fuck Mike over will wind up enjoying the
experience even less than me. This is one of those rules that helps push
for a polite society. We shouldn't be surprised that England, being
still one of the most polite societies around, would have such a
strongly similar reaction, given the acceptance of the assumption that
someone elses gain is always your loss under any circumstances.
If such a behavior is universal, then we need to look at social
mechanisms which help keep such in check. In this case, popularizing the
meme that we should be happy when others get richer, on the theory that
eventually it will be our turn to do so, or something to that effect.
Aha, well then, we need to practice capitalism.... ;)
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